The news is alive with the build up to Tony Blair's resignation today, though of course he will remain prime minister for another couple of months or so. Like many people in the UK I am looking forward to him going. I think the fact that the condemnation of him stretches across the political spectrum from the far right to Old Labour reinforces what I posted recently. Blair has not really been a Labour prime minister he has been a Blairite prime minister, that mix of Christian Democrat approaches with his desires, however tempered, to adopt a more authoritarian approach to things. Whilst I would not want a prime minister who was uncertain about themselves and what they stood for (this was John Major's problem by 1997) Blair has gone too far in the opposite direction, he has had total arrogance in everything he believed and more than that found it difficult to accept that anyone who thought differently from him had legitimate views. He was lucky in 1997 that he was really the only option for those who wanted to dismiss the Conservatives from office and that included many Conservative supporters, but never has he really engaged with more than a small circle of supporters. There has been a small Blairite circle who have shared his vision, but have been alien not only to the UK as a whole, but also the Labour Party itself, it simply acted as a machine to get this clique, this junta, to the pinnacle.
Blair learned most of his political approach from Margaret Thatcher, hence reference to 'presidential politics', the kind of Gaullist approach, eschewing Cabinet government, simply having bilateral talks between premier and another minister on an issue. Blair would have done better to have learned from Clement Attlee (Labour Prime Minister 1945-51) who went to efforts to balance his Cabinet in terms of their backgrounds, even which parts of the country they came from and to let those with ability exercise it, rather than hold them back because they did not agree precisely with what he thought. Yes, the prime minister should be charismatic, but should ensure that he does not plunge his colleagues into the shade.
Possibly the best way to characterise Blair's behaviour in the British political system is like one of the rulers of the Italian city states of the Renaissance, say for example, the De Medicis. He has had a clique to which he has been very loyal: Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett, Ruth Kelly, Tessa Jowell, Alan Milburn no matter what they did, no matter how bad it was in political terms, they were always forgiven and more than that, lifted back up to high office. Those with talent and yet outside the group, such as Mo Mowlam and Robin Cook were marginalised. Blair had his vizier, his henchman, the equivalent of the wizard he consulted to achieve the black arts so granting that person power over him to - Alastair Campbell his communications officer as with all black magicians, suspected and feared by others at the court. In addition, Blair has followed the precept 'keep your friends close, but your enemies closer', hence Gordon Brown being the longest serving Chancellor of the Exchequer in British history (the UK equivalent of the Minister of Finance).
Blair's departure today (assuming he does not make himself leader for life instead) will also mean the end of these Renaissance politics at the heart of the UK system, and (hopefully) the end of the term of office of the Blairite Party. The curious thing about the Blair regime is that it had such immense power, so much popularity at the start, such a large majority in parliament and yet so much of its efforts from the start seem to have gone into preparing Blair's legacy almost from the first day. He has been the pharoah who has diverted his strong army into building his pyramid rather than pushing back the enemies at the border. These enemies for the UK remain poverty, ill health among the population, a deteriorating environment, increasing racial tension, a lack of engagement with opportunities in Europe, the increasing difficulty of housing and the expense of living in the UK. He could have done so much but rather he prefers to strut on the world stage, causing misery for hundreds of thousands and further dividing the UK population.
There are some good things that the last 10 years have brought. The one I would point to is the minimum wage which was long overdue. British people remain underpaid and overworked, but I knew people whose weekly income doubled the moment the minimum wage came in, people who were on the bottom of society and victims of its capriciousness. So many companies whined that it would drive them out of business. This has proven to be untrue and it is obscene to run a business that depends on paying people so little, especially when the salaries of those who run businesses are so many more times larger than those of their workers. Prove to me that a managing director does 20, 30, 100 times more work than his employees.
Tax credits have also been a good step, helping those people hovering on the fringes of benefit and employment, especially for families as children make up half of all the people in poverty. However, tax credits have been handled and administered so badly. Had no-one learned from the fiasco that was the Child Support Agency? Millions of people have had tax credits overpaid, underpaid, clawed back. You cannot behave like that especially with people for whom £40 per week is a huge difference between whether they eat, pay their rent, heat their homes, can get the bus to work, etc.
The Freedom of Information Act was another overdue step, but one again that has been weakened in the execution. The Data Protection Act, actually supposed to protect us from the 'Big Brother' surveillance culture, is actually used by the Big Brothers, the authorities to bar us from information which we need. FoI is a good policy and yet latterly as the government pushes for expensive identity cards which will carry data we have no knowledge of and wants to bring biometric data and other information together in one huge database, you feel that their heart was not really in giving us access to what is held about us. We lag behind countries such as Sweden and even the USA in what we can find out. Rather the Blair government has preferred to move towards the surveillance approach of every aspect of our lives so common in totalitarian regimes.
It would be nice if someone could remind me of some of the positive things that the Blair regime has done for this country, because I cannot think of any at present. I accept that few others could do much better, but few others could do much worse, and why should I be compelled to accept a leader because he is the least worst option as Blair has long been portrayed to the ranks of the Labour Party. I do not even have to mention the word 'Iraq'. The thing that makes the Blair years so bitter is that you feel he has grabbed you by the back of the head and rubbed your nose in what he has produced saying 'you ungrateful moron, look how good I have been to you, look, look harder; now: love me, worship me'.
The one thing I now dread in the post-Blair rule period is that he will linger on strutting around London with his coterie, undermining anything his successor does, hoping as I imagine he will, that there will be a crisis and he will be called back to save the country, as the King Arthur or the Sir Francis Drake re-awakened from their slumber. Peron and De Gaulle, those two egoists that Blair so resembles, did have this opportunity and I just pray that Blair never gets such a chance. Berlusconi, please offer Blair a nice quiet villa where he can sit in retirement out of our way, somewhere in Tuscany, not Elba!
Thursday, 10 May 2007
Britain - The Land That Time Forgot
This post follows on from the one earlier today about imperial measurements. The title 'The Land That Time Forgot' is from a 1970s film set at the time of the First World War when a German submarine along with some Americans it has picked up arrives at an undiscovered island where dinosaurs and cavemen are still in existence. A similar story is the book 'Dinotopia' which came out in the 1990s but has a happier outlook. Anyway, I am taking it as the theme for my discussion British people's obsession with the past and inability to really embrace what is going on in the world today.
Many countries are founded on perceptions of the past. France in the post-Second World War era based its legitimacy on stories of the Resistance, in a different way West Germany based its on the sense of Year Zero, that the slate had been wiped clean at the end of the war. Israel derives its legitimacy from reactions to the Holocaust; the current state in China from The Long March and the Revolution plus elements of longer Chinese history stretching back into the periods of the emperors and Confucius. Though the states in these countries have been based on a view of the past and it can be controversial when this view is challenged, none of them live in the past as much as British society. I love history, I have a house full of history books and I read a lot about different historical periods in different parts of the world. However, I do not need that history in order to have a sense of pride in what I do and in what the UK is doing. For many people in the UK however, the situation is different.
Whilst surfing the internet I noticed that a university in Berlin does courses on British Studies and in this they have a talk on soon about Britain and Germany in sport 1966-2006. The England world cup win of 1966. (and note, a lot of what is put forward as 'British' history is actually English history, I heard a man complaining recently about Adam Smith appearing on the new £20 note as Adam Smith was Scottish and this man felt the £20 note was 'English money' though it is legal tender in Scotland [though they also have their own notes] and the pound and pence are the only currency in Wales). The chant that Britons often throw at Germans is 'two world wars, one world cup' as a source of pride. Given that the latest of these victories was now 41 years ago and the earliest was 89 years ago, it hardly says much about pride in modern Britain. I accept that 21% of the population of the UK is over 60 and only 20% are under 16, but the majority of the population of the UK was not alive in 1966, so are the people who constantly hark back to that victory saying nothing of value has been achieved in the UK in their lifetimes?
British television is filled with historical drama. I accept it is the case in other countries too, but my argument is that they do not define themselves by portrayals of life among the wealthy classes as shown in dramatisations of the Jane Austen novels which are so popular in the UK; the Sherlock Holmes series keep on being repeated too. Films still set in the Second World War continue to be made and even those made in the USA often feature British actors, such as 'Band of Brothers', 'Pearl Harbor', etc. Television constantly repeats 'Dad's Army' a comedy series about the Home Guard of the Second World War. It ran from 1968-77, so longer than the war itself. Other series such as 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' set amongst a concert troop in India and Burma in the Second World War ran 1972-85, even longer, then ''Allo, 'Allo' a series about the French resistance in the Second World War which ran 1982-91 and had a follow-on episode in 2007. Now I accept that there might be black humour to be had, but these among many other series produced during those times have remained enduringly popular and many of their catch phrases have entered British language. I accept we are moving away from this, but these things have another life in DVDs and on cable television.
Thus, the culture of many people is shaped by eras in which they did not live themselves. Of course there is always a nostalgia for a Golden Age that never actually existed, in the USA it tends to be the Eisenhower era of the 1950s and in both the UK and USA there is now nostalgia for the 1970s with people forgetting the terrorist activity, the inflation, the wars, the nuclear threat and in the UK the strikes and power cuts. John Major, UK prime minister 1991-7 tapped into this successfully when he referred to a fuzzy kind of 1950s Britain with district nurses cycling home and warm beer in pubs. The sense that if these things were recaptured the plagues of the modern day such as crime and drugs would be dismissed. Of course Britian had those things but they too were in the context of unpleasant things that are now forgotten: continuing rationing (legally the Second World War did not end in the UK until 1955, 10 years after the actual fighting stopped and the last rationing remained until 1956), few items for consumption, Britain being shamed by the world for its imperialistic pretentions, the sliding of competitiveness of British industry, the increasing division of British society and the rise of race riots.
I have no problem with people looking back and in particular, actually learning from history, what my problem is, that does this have to be the only place you can glean some sense of pride in your country. Britain is struggling for an identity and one which is not racist or nationalistic and all it can draw on to give it pride seem to be out-of-date events. This is why the British cling so tightly to medieval hang-ons such as the monarchy, the House of Lords, imperial measures, scraps of empire, though none of these things benefit 99% of the UK population. Being able to rely on these dated things seems to take the pressure off actually seeking to have something to be proud of now. Why can we not strut around saying 'we've got the best health service/education system/transport network/tolerant society/combating of poverty/curing of diseases in the world' now, any one of those I would be more than happy to chant with pride. Let's get out of the past and make the UK a country to be proud of, legitimately, in 2007.
Many countries are founded on perceptions of the past. France in the post-Second World War era based its legitimacy on stories of the Resistance, in a different way West Germany based its on the sense of Year Zero, that the slate had been wiped clean at the end of the war. Israel derives its legitimacy from reactions to the Holocaust; the current state in China from The Long March and the Revolution plus elements of longer Chinese history stretching back into the periods of the emperors and Confucius. Though the states in these countries have been based on a view of the past and it can be controversial when this view is challenged, none of them live in the past as much as British society. I love history, I have a house full of history books and I read a lot about different historical periods in different parts of the world. However, I do not need that history in order to have a sense of pride in what I do and in what the UK is doing. For many people in the UK however, the situation is different.
Whilst surfing the internet I noticed that a university in Berlin does courses on British Studies and in this they have a talk on soon about Britain and Germany in sport 1966-2006. The England world cup win of 1966. (and note, a lot of what is put forward as 'British' history is actually English history, I heard a man complaining recently about Adam Smith appearing on the new £20 note as Adam Smith was Scottish and this man felt the £20 note was 'English money' though it is legal tender in Scotland [though they also have their own notes] and the pound and pence are the only currency in Wales). The chant that Britons often throw at Germans is 'two world wars, one world cup' as a source of pride. Given that the latest of these victories was now 41 years ago and the earliest was 89 years ago, it hardly says much about pride in modern Britain. I accept that 21% of the population of the UK is over 60 and only 20% are under 16, but the majority of the population of the UK was not alive in 1966, so are the people who constantly hark back to that victory saying nothing of value has been achieved in the UK in their lifetimes?
British television is filled with historical drama. I accept it is the case in other countries too, but my argument is that they do not define themselves by portrayals of life among the wealthy classes as shown in dramatisations of the Jane Austen novels which are so popular in the UK; the Sherlock Holmes series keep on being repeated too. Films still set in the Second World War continue to be made and even those made in the USA often feature British actors, such as 'Band of Brothers', 'Pearl Harbor', etc. Television constantly repeats 'Dad's Army' a comedy series about the Home Guard of the Second World War. It ran from 1968-77, so longer than the war itself. Other series such as 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' set amongst a concert troop in India and Burma in the Second World War ran 1972-85, even longer, then ''Allo, 'Allo' a series about the French resistance in the Second World War which ran 1982-91 and had a follow-on episode in 2007. Now I accept that there might be black humour to be had, but these among many other series produced during those times have remained enduringly popular and many of their catch phrases have entered British language. I accept we are moving away from this, but these things have another life in DVDs and on cable television.
Thus, the culture of many people is shaped by eras in which they did not live themselves. Of course there is always a nostalgia for a Golden Age that never actually existed, in the USA it tends to be the Eisenhower era of the 1950s and in both the UK and USA there is now nostalgia for the 1970s with people forgetting the terrorist activity, the inflation, the wars, the nuclear threat and in the UK the strikes and power cuts. John Major, UK prime minister 1991-7 tapped into this successfully when he referred to a fuzzy kind of 1950s Britain with district nurses cycling home and warm beer in pubs. The sense that if these things were recaptured the plagues of the modern day such as crime and drugs would be dismissed. Of course Britian had those things but they too were in the context of unpleasant things that are now forgotten: continuing rationing (legally the Second World War did not end in the UK until 1955, 10 years after the actual fighting stopped and the last rationing remained until 1956), few items for consumption, Britain being shamed by the world for its imperialistic pretentions, the sliding of competitiveness of British industry, the increasing division of British society and the rise of race riots.
I have no problem with people looking back and in particular, actually learning from history, what my problem is, that does this have to be the only place you can glean some sense of pride in your country. Britain is struggling for an identity and one which is not racist or nationalistic and all it can draw on to give it pride seem to be out-of-date events. This is why the British cling so tightly to medieval hang-ons such as the monarchy, the House of Lords, imperial measures, scraps of empire, though none of these things benefit 99% of the UK population. Being able to rely on these dated things seems to take the pressure off actually seeking to have something to be proud of now. Why can we not strut around saying 'we've got the best health service/education system/transport network/tolerant society/combating of poverty/curing of diseases in the world' now, any one of those I would be more than happy to chant with pride. Let's get out of the past and make the UK a country to be proud of, legitimately, in 2007.
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
Weighing Up Imperial Attitudes
This post is not about neo-colonialism. It is about the British obsession with the imperial measurement system, this is still in use in part in the USA (though not in the same form as it is in the UK, we use stones where they use pounds and our gallons are a different size), but has not been used in most of the world since the early 19th century. It covers measures such as inches, feet and miles in length; acres in field sizes; pints and gallons in liquids; onces, pounds, stones, hundredweight and tons (as opposed to tonnes) in weight and so on.
The key problem is that each measurement relates to the other differently even when measuring the same thing. For example there are 12 inches in 1 foot; but 12 feet make 1 yard and 1760 yards (or 8 furlongs) make 1 mile. 2 pints (larger than the US ones) make a quart and 4 quarts makes a gallon; 16 onces make 1 pound, 14 onces makes 1 stone and 8 stones make 1 hundredweight and 20 hundredweight make 1 ton (which is slightly heavier than 1 tonne). Unsurprisingly this makes calculations very difficult and error creeps in. As a result, since the 1970s every child going to school has been taught the metric system and fortunately all things in shops now are shown in these measurements. However, street signs, pints of beer, etc. all use the medieval, imperial system, much to the confusion of visitors. Aside from Liberia, Burma (aka Myanamar) and the USA (though they now permit metric road signs and most products have metric as well as imperial labelling) every other country in the world uses metric.
Despite almost 40 years of teaching children about the metric system (and I believe all schools now do this, though I know in the 1980s some private schools still taught the imperial system) yet again in the media there has been calls to stop 'Europe' (by which people in the UK means the European Commission of the EU) from imposing metric measures on market stalls. The EU has given in and this is portrayed as a 'victory' for the British. It is only a victory for those who perversely want to keep us stuck with difficult, archaic methods of doing things. One reason why traders fear the change is that using imperial measures makes it harder for British people to compare costs with other countries. In the UK food (cars, rent, etc.) is very expensive but having to go through into metric conversion, calculate in the Euro, etc. makes easy comparison hard.
It is argued that the imperial system is a distinct part of being British. Well, it shows how stuck in our ways the British are, which is certainly a characteristic. More embarrassingly (and I will return to this obsession with history in the future) it suggests that they only thing the UK has to be proud about is all in the past; that there is nothing in 2007 Britain that we can point to and say 'we did that; we're proud of it'. So, ironically, all of those who bang on about keeping imperial measures are not really patriots. This attitude has long persisted. It took until 1971 for the UK to move to decimal coinage, before then there had be 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in 1 pound, so 1 pound consisted of 240 pence. The only countries not having decimal coinage are Mauretania and Madagascar, hardly economic giants of the world, and even they worked on multiples of 5 rather than 12 and 20. The British obsession with holding on to old things meant that even the sixpence (actually worth 2.5 pence under the new system) was not withdrawn until 1980.
Imperial measures are difficult, confusing and are not something to be proud of. The British obsession with them does not help the UK economy at all. It might make us distinct, but not for something positive, rather for something which is peculiar and eccentric. These things are fine as tourist attractions but tens of millions of people have to work with these things on a daily basis in order to live their lives. Anyone 40 years old or younger has been trained in metric, so stop old fashioned attitudes and a mistaken sense of what is worth being proud about, hold back the UK any longer.
The key problem is that each measurement relates to the other differently even when measuring the same thing. For example there are 12 inches in 1 foot; but 12 feet make 1 yard and 1760 yards (or 8 furlongs) make 1 mile. 2 pints (larger than the US ones) make a quart and 4 quarts makes a gallon; 16 onces make 1 pound, 14 onces makes 1 stone and 8 stones make 1 hundredweight and 20 hundredweight make 1 ton (which is slightly heavier than 1 tonne). Unsurprisingly this makes calculations very difficult and error creeps in. As a result, since the 1970s every child going to school has been taught the metric system and fortunately all things in shops now are shown in these measurements. However, street signs, pints of beer, etc. all use the medieval, imperial system, much to the confusion of visitors. Aside from Liberia, Burma (aka Myanamar) and the USA (though they now permit metric road signs and most products have metric as well as imperial labelling) every other country in the world uses metric.
Despite almost 40 years of teaching children about the metric system (and I believe all schools now do this, though I know in the 1980s some private schools still taught the imperial system) yet again in the media there has been calls to stop 'Europe' (by which people in the UK means the European Commission of the EU) from imposing metric measures on market stalls. The EU has given in and this is portrayed as a 'victory' for the British. It is only a victory for those who perversely want to keep us stuck with difficult, archaic methods of doing things. One reason why traders fear the change is that using imperial measures makes it harder for British people to compare costs with other countries. In the UK food (cars, rent, etc.) is very expensive but having to go through into metric conversion, calculate in the Euro, etc. makes easy comparison hard.
It is argued that the imperial system is a distinct part of being British. Well, it shows how stuck in our ways the British are, which is certainly a characteristic. More embarrassingly (and I will return to this obsession with history in the future) it suggests that they only thing the UK has to be proud about is all in the past; that there is nothing in 2007 Britain that we can point to and say 'we did that; we're proud of it'. So, ironically, all of those who bang on about keeping imperial measures are not really patriots. This attitude has long persisted. It took until 1971 for the UK to move to decimal coinage, before then there had be 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in 1 pound, so 1 pound consisted of 240 pence. The only countries not having decimal coinage are Mauretania and Madagascar, hardly economic giants of the world, and even they worked on multiples of 5 rather than 12 and 20. The British obsession with holding on to old things meant that even the sixpence (actually worth 2.5 pence under the new system) was not withdrawn until 1980.
Imperial measures are difficult, confusing and are not something to be proud of. The British obsession with them does not help the UK economy at all. It might make us distinct, but not for something positive, rather for something which is peculiar and eccentric. These things are fine as tourist attractions but tens of millions of people have to work with these things on a daily basis in order to live their lives. Anyone 40 years old or younger has been trained in metric, so stop old fashioned attitudes and a mistaken sense of what is worth being proud about, hold back the UK any longer.
This isn't the Age of the Train 2
Since posting about the difficulties and cost of travelling by train in the UK, South West Trains (which despite the name, runs services in South-East and Southern England too) has raised its fare prices by 20%, after an earlier rise of 4% (still above UK inflation) and a 20% rise on its car parking fees. Even off-peak, it now costs £42 (€61; US$84) to travel from Southampton to London a distance of about 75 miles (120 Km), though there is also Megatrain which does tickets for £1, so I suppose you could argue that competition helps, though Megatrain has only a single carriage and piggybacks on another train service.
When thinking about the title, it reminded me of one issue which fortunately has been rectified and that is the age of the rolling stock. In the 1990s there was a crash on the buffers at Waterloo station in London and it was found that the carriage damaged had been built in 1938. Now at least most companies are buying newer carriages, though anyone who has travelled on trains in France or Germany knows that the UK has a long way to go to match the quality of their rolling stock.
With all the worry about the 'carbon footprint' and government steps at encouraging people to use public transport it seems mad that the rail companies, who are making very healthy profits in the millions, are driving people to their cars by providing only a very expensive and complex service to use.
When thinking about the title, it reminded me of one issue which fortunately has been rectified and that is the age of the rolling stock. In the 1990s there was a crash on the buffers at Waterloo station in London and it was found that the carriage damaged had been built in 1938. Now at least most companies are buying newer carriages, though anyone who has travelled on trains in France or Germany knows that the UK has a long way to go to match the quality of their rolling stock.
With all the worry about the 'carbon footprint' and government steps at encouraging people to use public transport it seems mad that the rail companies, who are making very healthy profits in the millions, are driving people to their cars by providing only a very expensive and complex service to use.
Monday, 7 May 2007
UK Utility Companies - cash vampires of Britain
This post in some ways picks up from my earlier one 'This is the Age of the Train' which looked at the major problems anyone trying to use trains in the UK faces. I read an article yesterday about screw-ups on the computer system which mean if you have bought a card to give you discounts, say for travel in a region, you actually end up paying more!
Well, leaving trains aside for the moment, I am going to turn to utility companies. By this I mean electricity, gas, water, sewerage, telephone, broadband, cable and satellite television providers. Throughout the 1980s in line with the policy of privatisation all of these services which had been state or local monopolies were either privatised in themselves, e.g. British Telecom the state telephone provider became BT, the private company or their services were taken over by a combination of such companies and others that had been set up as private companies, for example, where I live with have Southern Electric (who also now supply gas) which was once a state-run regional electricity provider and Utility Warehouse which was established as a private company. The idea was that moving away from state monopolies would introduce competition into the system and this would reduce prices to consumers and mean that those providing the best service would win out. How wrong the theorists proved to be. Rather than any decent company taking over services we seem to have gathered together the most arrogant and avaricious people on the planet to provide us with our essentials.
If I had been writing this post 1-2 years ago I would have been even more indignant as in those years gas and electricity prices were rising two or three times per year, often at above 10%, so triple the level of inflation, and actually pushing that inflation higher because utility bills form such a part of people's monthly expenditure. All the companies, good and bad, have been making profits of millions of pounds and finally are bowing to pressure and lowering the prices, but as yet they still have a long way to go to their previous levels. In 2002 23,000 UK households had their utilities cut off. It was estimated that 1.4 million could not afford to put money in prepayment meters for their electricity and gas; 1 million homes had had their telephones disconnected and 4.7 million households were in debt to water companies (these are households not individual, so, say a family of 4 is affected in each case we could be looking at almost 20 million individuals affected because they or their parents cannot pary). Obviously a lot people appearing in these figures are the same people, but these are old figures and with prices rising since then, I imagine close to 1 in 10 of the households (many of these will be single elderly people, but many others will be families). These items are not luxury items, they are essentials for health and wellbeing. You can argue that telephone is not essential, but what happens if you are an elderly person who slips up, how do you get help? How do apply for a job when you have no number for employers to call you back on?
I am comfortably off, I have a job that pays £8000 more per year than the national average, and yet I find it tough to pay my utility bills. There are issues that are not simply about the cost, but about the whole behaviour of utility companies. The first is paying in advance. Now on my gas, electricity, water and sewerage (and for some reason in my town we have separate water and sewerage companies and whilst elsewhere my sewage removal charges have been 10% of my water bill, in this town, for some reason they are 108%) I am assessed for my likely usage and have to pay in advance. For gas I am now paying for the next three months gas that I have not even used yet and in fact given that summer is coming and we run to very ecological/economical rules in my house I doubt we will use that much. So 3 months' worth of money for supplies I am unlikely to use until the Winter, is now sitting in the gas company's bank account gathering interest. The same happens with the telephone company for 1 month in advance (I am not going to name the names of the companies as the principle applies to all of them, if someone can tell me a UK company that does not behave like this, I am happy to name them. Bascially if you live in the UK you will find your utility providers all do this, the details may vary, it might be 1 month or 3 months in advance, but the behaviour is the same).
The additional problem with all this, is that not only do they hold your money for things they have not provided you yet, they always over-assess how much you are going to use. When I lived alone I was always assessed as if I was a family. In one month the water company in Milton Keynes sent me three different paying in books with different amounts as they could not make up their mind about me. This means when I leave a town I each company has to pay me back a lot of money, e.g. £100 (€145; US$ 200) from the phone company, £134 from the gas company, when I left Milton Keynes and of course they are in no hurry to do this. What do the companies do with the money? Invest in other ventures, hotels are apparently popular investments for water companies at a time when leakages in the UK are at 25% on average compared to 14% in France and 10% in the Netherlands. You cannot stop leakages but the UK water companies are lax in tackling them and would prefer to put bans on water usage. We should be economical in our usage of water for the sake of the planet, but how can I be economical if a quarter of the water I am paying for in advance has gone before it reaches my house?
The final element which makes the utility companies such a burden on British people is their lack of customer service. Again, there have been some changes. The big uproar has been about moving telephone call centres to places like India. Much of the charges set against these have simply been on racist grounds, but that misses the entire point. It does not matter where a call centre is located if the person on the other end of the telephone cannot help you; it could be in a building in the same street as your house and still not do the job. I will just outline some of the problems. First you have contracts which tie you in for months or years. You have no choice over these, you have to take what is offered. I move house on average every 16 months, and typically I am still paying for utilities at the old house for 1-3 months after I have left it (and by then there are other occupants also paying for the services); for this cable television (compulsory in Milton Keynes, where, as a new town television aerials were banned) is the worst. Telephone companies especially ones providing mobile (a.k.a cell phones in the USA, handies in Germany) 'phones are also bad.
The next thing is if you have something wrong with your service. The new companies just supply the commodity and are not responsible for how it gets to your house; e.g. BT actually oversees all telephone cables in the UK; Transco oversees all gas pipes no matter what company actually provides your telephone or gas. So often if the fault is technical the provider cannot help. The company who provides the link, the pipe or whatever will often charge to check if it is something they are responsible for or not; BT charge £160 (€233; US$320) to do this.
Aside from all that, whenever you call a utility company as with all interaction on the telephone these days you have to wait and wait (if your employer lets you call during the day) and press a combination of buttons and then keep repeating your story to different people. Do not believe what you are told. The people in call centres do their best but are poorly trained and have to navigate a maze of rules that are often confusing to everyone. Moving to a new house, we booked two weeks in advance to have our telephone connected, but arriving there it had not been and it was not for a further six weeks, so eight weeks in total. The previous occupants had left without telling any utility company; their telephone had been paid for by their employers and in the end we had to contact those employers and tell them to stop paying for it (the occupants had gone to the USA) before we could have our phone connected. Now, this problem had been apparent to the phone company immediately and on all of the times we had phoned, we had been given conflicting advice each time ranging from 'you have no phone line running to the house', 'the phone line does not belong to us', 'you can be connected in 28 days' to 'you can be connected this afternoon'. The work to be done was lodged each time and encountered an error but no-one contacted us to tell us what was happening. Of course in all this time we were paying for a service we did not have. This is one small example, do not get me started on the gas and electricity for which two separate companies tried to bill us for our usage.
The household I live in is robust and patient and has jobs that allow you to take time out to sit on the phone for a couple of hours; many people in the UK are not so lucky as us. We are all faced by very slow service, an arrogance that we should know precisely what to do (do not ask me to explain any of the bills, they are bewildering and I spent 9 years at university), and if we do what they ask they are not obliged to provide us with a service; even one we are paying for in advance.
The UK government wanted Britain to be the leading country for broadband coverage and in the early 2000s it seemed that that was possible. Now, however, it is clear that the UK is lagging behind countries such as South Korea, not only in the percentage of the country covered but in the speed of the service provided. Why is this? It is not that there is no demand for broadband, it grows daily, it is because the companies are more concerned every last pound out of consumers and tying them into such difficult contracts that they cannot upgrade or transfer. Privatisation was supposed to promote competition and thus efficiency, instead the UK has large cartels working to the lowest common denominator. Not only is their utter greed and absolute arrogance holding Britain back from developing to meet competition, it is also haunting the lives of the bulk of the UK population and in millions of homes denying them basic supplies.
Well, leaving trains aside for the moment, I am going to turn to utility companies. By this I mean electricity, gas, water, sewerage, telephone, broadband, cable and satellite television providers. Throughout the 1980s in line with the policy of privatisation all of these services which had been state or local monopolies were either privatised in themselves, e.g. British Telecom the state telephone provider became BT, the private company or their services were taken over by a combination of such companies and others that had been set up as private companies, for example, where I live with have Southern Electric (who also now supply gas) which was once a state-run regional electricity provider and Utility Warehouse which was established as a private company. The idea was that moving away from state monopolies would introduce competition into the system and this would reduce prices to consumers and mean that those providing the best service would win out. How wrong the theorists proved to be. Rather than any decent company taking over services we seem to have gathered together the most arrogant and avaricious people on the planet to provide us with our essentials.
If I had been writing this post 1-2 years ago I would have been even more indignant as in those years gas and electricity prices were rising two or three times per year, often at above 10%, so triple the level of inflation, and actually pushing that inflation higher because utility bills form such a part of people's monthly expenditure. All the companies, good and bad, have been making profits of millions of pounds and finally are bowing to pressure and lowering the prices, but as yet they still have a long way to go to their previous levels. In 2002 23,000 UK households had their utilities cut off. It was estimated that 1.4 million could not afford to put money in prepayment meters for their electricity and gas; 1 million homes had had their telephones disconnected and 4.7 million households were in debt to water companies (these are households not individual, so, say a family of 4 is affected in each case we could be looking at almost 20 million individuals affected because they or their parents cannot pary). Obviously a lot people appearing in these figures are the same people, but these are old figures and with prices rising since then, I imagine close to 1 in 10 of the households (many of these will be single elderly people, but many others will be families). These items are not luxury items, they are essentials for health and wellbeing. You can argue that telephone is not essential, but what happens if you are an elderly person who slips up, how do you get help? How do apply for a job when you have no number for employers to call you back on?
I am comfortably off, I have a job that pays £8000 more per year than the national average, and yet I find it tough to pay my utility bills. There are issues that are not simply about the cost, but about the whole behaviour of utility companies. The first is paying in advance. Now on my gas, electricity, water and sewerage (and for some reason in my town we have separate water and sewerage companies and whilst elsewhere my sewage removal charges have been 10% of my water bill, in this town, for some reason they are 108%) I am assessed for my likely usage and have to pay in advance. For gas I am now paying for the next three months gas that I have not even used yet and in fact given that summer is coming and we run to very ecological/economical rules in my house I doubt we will use that much. So 3 months' worth of money for supplies I am unlikely to use until the Winter, is now sitting in the gas company's bank account gathering interest. The same happens with the telephone company for 1 month in advance (I am not going to name the names of the companies as the principle applies to all of them, if someone can tell me a UK company that does not behave like this, I am happy to name them. Bascially if you live in the UK you will find your utility providers all do this, the details may vary, it might be 1 month or 3 months in advance, but the behaviour is the same).
The additional problem with all this, is that not only do they hold your money for things they have not provided you yet, they always over-assess how much you are going to use. When I lived alone I was always assessed as if I was a family. In one month the water company in Milton Keynes sent me three different paying in books with different amounts as they could not make up their mind about me. This means when I leave a town I each company has to pay me back a lot of money, e.g. £100 (€145; US$ 200) from the phone company, £134 from the gas company, when I left Milton Keynes and of course they are in no hurry to do this. What do the companies do with the money? Invest in other ventures, hotels are apparently popular investments for water companies at a time when leakages in the UK are at 25% on average compared to 14% in France and 10% in the Netherlands. You cannot stop leakages but the UK water companies are lax in tackling them and would prefer to put bans on water usage. We should be economical in our usage of water for the sake of the planet, but how can I be economical if a quarter of the water I am paying for in advance has gone before it reaches my house?
The final element which makes the utility companies such a burden on British people is their lack of customer service. Again, there have been some changes. The big uproar has been about moving telephone call centres to places like India. Much of the charges set against these have simply been on racist grounds, but that misses the entire point. It does not matter where a call centre is located if the person on the other end of the telephone cannot help you; it could be in a building in the same street as your house and still not do the job. I will just outline some of the problems. First you have contracts which tie you in for months or years. You have no choice over these, you have to take what is offered. I move house on average every 16 months, and typically I am still paying for utilities at the old house for 1-3 months after I have left it (and by then there are other occupants also paying for the services); for this cable television (compulsory in Milton Keynes, where, as a new town television aerials were banned) is the worst. Telephone companies especially ones providing mobile (a.k.a cell phones in the USA, handies in Germany) 'phones are also bad.
The next thing is if you have something wrong with your service. The new companies just supply the commodity and are not responsible for how it gets to your house; e.g. BT actually oversees all telephone cables in the UK; Transco oversees all gas pipes no matter what company actually provides your telephone or gas. So often if the fault is technical the provider cannot help. The company who provides the link, the pipe or whatever will often charge to check if it is something they are responsible for or not; BT charge £160 (€233; US$320) to do this.
Aside from all that, whenever you call a utility company as with all interaction on the telephone these days you have to wait and wait (if your employer lets you call during the day) and press a combination of buttons and then keep repeating your story to different people. Do not believe what you are told. The people in call centres do their best but are poorly trained and have to navigate a maze of rules that are often confusing to everyone. Moving to a new house, we booked two weeks in advance to have our telephone connected, but arriving there it had not been and it was not for a further six weeks, so eight weeks in total. The previous occupants had left without telling any utility company; their telephone had been paid for by their employers and in the end we had to contact those employers and tell them to stop paying for it (the occupants had gone to the USA) before we could have our phone connected. Now, this problem had been apparent to the phone company immediately and on all of the times we had phoned, we had been given conflicting advice each time ranging from 'you have no phone line running to the house', 'the phone line does not belong to us', 'you can be connected in 28 days' to 'you can be connected this afternoon'. The work to be done was lodged each time and encountered an error but no-one contacted us to tell us what was happening. Of course in all this time we were paying for a service we did not have. This is one small example, do not get me started on the gas and electricity for which two separate companies tried to bill us for our usage.
The household I live in is robust and patient and has jobs that allow you to take time out to sit on the phone for a couple of hours; many people in the UK are not so lucky as us. We are all faced by very slow service, an arrogance that we should know precisely what to do (do not ask me to explain any of the bills, they are bewildering and I spent 9 years at university), and if we do what they ask they are not obliged to provide us with a service; even one we are paying for in advance.
The UK government wanted Britain to be the leading country for broadband coverage and in the early 2000s it seemed that that was possible. Now, however, it is clear that the UK is lagging behind countries such as South Korea, not only in the percentage of the country covered but in the speed of the service provided. Why is this? It is not that there is no demand for broadband, it grows daily, it is because the companies are more concerned every last pound out of consumers and tying them into such difficult contracts that they cannot upgrade or transfer. Privatisation was supposed to promote competition and thus efficiency, instead the UK has large cartels working to the lowest common denominator. Not only is their utter greed and absolute arrogance holding Britain back from developing to meet competition, it is also haunting the lives of the bulk of the UK population and in millions of homes denying them basic supplies.
Sunday, 6 May 2007
Gothic culture - it's for you
I promised something on Gothic culture in the UK today. My name at the top may have betrayed my interest in this side of things. Most people know that Gothic culture as manifested by your local Goth (now quite a rarity in the UK, but strong in Germany and in various parts of the USA) was a distortion of early medieval German culture, primarily reflected through the Gothic Revival of the early 19th century. It exploded into popular culture in the 1980s running alongside other ostentatious strands like New Romantics, but proving to be much more enduring. I think that is, that aside from the music anyone getting into Goth could explore a load of poetry and literature stretching back almost 200 years. Even Hollywood has got on board, going back to 'The Crow' you only have to see all the 'Blade' movies, 'Underworld' movies, 'The Matrix' triology, and now even 'Batman' and 'Spiderman' are getting Gothic flavourings. Old songs by The Cure get used in advertisements. So you have recent and vintage culture to draw from. There are now many sub-genres ranging through Corporate Goth, Fairy Goth and Skater Goth and even on the fringes fetish-lovers had taken on many of the Gothic elements, black and shiny appealing to both camps.
So, though Goths may not be as numerous as they once were their culture is bleeding into the mainstream. Why this resilience and popularity when other fads of the 1980s have been consigned to humorous documentaries? Well, everyone looks good in black, not matter what your build or size you can find good Gothic clothes. You can be manic as a Goth and flail around on the dance floor or sit quietly in the corner. You can simply put on black trousers/skirt and a black shirt or you can invest something a bit more interesting. Long leather coats, knee-length boots, long metal rings and for the women everything from spectacular dresses to miniskirts to zipped trousers from pointed shoes to clompy boots, all appear on the Goth clothing menu; velvet, leather, silk, brocade, vinyl, lace, all the richest, most exciting fabrics are there. It is not all black either, purple, rich reds, emerald green. So you might stick out when you wander down to the shopping centre on a Saturday, but who wants to blend in, be yet another in pale jeans and a fleece? In addition, though you will astound and sometimes scare others you will never go anywhere uncommented upon and the best bit, you feel strong. My partner describes it as her 'armour' when in her Goth clothes she feels she can face the world. In age when different cultures have disappeared and everyone looks like a chav or a raver, seeing another Goth is a great sensation, you feel the instant affinity, part of a disparate tribe (though these days heavily inter-connected by the internet) and you can feel both outside of society but part of a richer society all at once.
Gothic culture goes well beyond the clothing. People say it is all about depression and suicide and hanging around in graveyards. However, such people have not talked with Goths. The bulk of the population hide their unhappiness beneath consumerism and false happiness usually sustained by buying things. Goths look more to the way we feel. We accept that there is dark and light in everyone's life and you can only see how bright the light is if you can also tell how dark the shadows are. It gives depth to your perceptions and you have not seen people so deeply happy as Goths in their community having a good night. Goths explore all the senses in how they engage with life, we live our lives more richly than non-Goths do. Neglecting one side of the human psyche and human experiences gives you a flat, distorted view of the world. If you want to know what it is truly to be a human, a mortal, then become a Goth.
People say Goths are ungodly, though in fact there are Goths who are Christian and in Japan where the culture is strong, Buddhist and Shintoist too. The Gothic Revival was embedded in a Christian Britain. There are dark elements, references to vampires and demons, but do not confuse Goths with those who delve in black magic, remember vampires are dismissed by a crucifix and the Goth gentleman rides to rescue the lady in distress, not to sacrifice her. Gothic culture is a culture it is not a religion. It is about exploring all that is in the human world but for the benefit of people not for any detriment.
A fascinating programme was shown (suitably) late on ITV1 (mainstream British commercial television channel) a few years ago; 'Why do Goths make such good lovers?'. It asked the question, why do you always see Goths in pairs and sought the explanation. A couple of years later I read there was a website advising non-Goth women how to find a Goth man to be their boyfriend; I have never tracked it down, but there are reasons why people might seek such advice. Basically Goths make good lovers because they are sensitive to feelings, they really like to explore their senses and they enjoy the extravagant. The parallels between what Goths like and what is seen as a 'romantic' setting are very close, think about it: lots of candles, dark roses, large iron beds, a roaring fire, silk sheets, dark wine, sumptious foods, a windswept night, the closeness of people, sitting reading poetry, talking about the future and so on. As the programme argued women often yearn for a man who is sensitive to their emotions and to their needs; they often like to dress extravagantly and to be made a fuss of; to have a man who takes care over his grooming and appearance; who can address them intellectually as well as physically and yet when the time comes can be sensual in his sexuality. As people speaking on the programme stated, often what Goths wear day-to-day is what others keep for the bedroom such as corsets, boots, lace, leather, etc. and in some cases reveal tattoos and piercings which are the kinds of things others keep discrete, so in one go they are both reserved but also up front about sexual appeal, a tantalising mix. Goth men are loyal and tend not to sleep around; they are generally seeking the one who can be their soul mate for eternity and will tell you so in poetry. So if you are a man or a woman who welcomes these aspects (and many people do) consider embracing the Goth and becoming part of this rich community, you can be sure there will be a like-minded partner out there.
Why is Goth still around, quarter of a century after it burst forth? Well, you tend not to grow out of it and Goths of the early 1980s are still Goths. In contrast to other 'youth' cultures (though in fact it now covers many age brackets), Goths tend to be the quiet intellectuals sitting at the back. As an article in 'The Guardian' newspaper ('I've Seen the Future - and it's Goth, 21st March 2006) showed Goths usually end up in very good jobs as doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. and a lot end up in computing. They can compose sensible, moving words, they are computer literate (as so much of Goth society is knitted together by the internet and so much Goth clothing and products are bought online), they read widely and have an interest in art, literature and architecture. So, it is not for the chav population and it is a culture which you can stick with for life. At almost 40 I have no embarrassment about remaining Goth and there is always a new generation coming on, though unfortunately in fewer numbers than before.
So, if you feel at a loss in this modern world, I suggest you join the Gothic culture. Do a quick search online and you will find a whole virtual community. Get in touch with the richness of the whole scope of your feelings, revel in the extravagance of Gothic clothing and even decor; find yourself a partner for life who will explore all that it means to be alive.
So, though Goths may not be as numerous as they once were their culture is bleeding into the mainstream. Why this resilience and popularity when other fads of the 1980s have been consigned to humorous documentaries? Well, everyone looks good in black, not matter what your build or size you can find good Gothic clothes. You can be manic as a Goth and flail around on the dance floor or sit quietly in the corner. You can simply put on black trousers/skirt and a black shirt or you can invest something a bit more interesting. Long leather coats, knee-length boots, long metal rings and for the women everything from spectacular dresses to miniskirts to zipped trousers from pointed shoes to clompy boots, all appear on the Goth clothing menu; velvet, leather, silk, brocade, vinyl, lace, all the richest, most exciting fabrics are there. It is not all black either, purple, rich reds, emerald green. So you might stick out when you wander down to the shopping centre on a Saturday, but who wants to blend in, be yet another in pale jeans and a fleece? In addition, though you will astound and sometimes scare others you will never go anywhere uncommented upon and the best bit, you feel strong. My partner describes it as her 'armour' when in her Goth clothes she feels she can face the world. In age when different cultures have disappeared and everyone looks like a chav or a raver, seeing another Goth is a great sensation, you feel the instant affinity, part of a disparate tribe (though these days heavily inter-connected by the internet) and you can feel both outside of society but part of a richer society all at once.
Gothic culture goes well beyond the clothing. People say it is all about depression and suicide and hanging around in graveyards. However, such people have not talked with Goths. The bulk of the population hide their unhappiness beneath consumerism and false happiness usually sustained by buying things. Goths look more to the way we feel. We accept that there is dark and light in everyone's life and you can only see how bright the light is if you can also tell how dark the shadows are. It gives depth to your perceptions and you have not seen people so deeply happy as Goths in their community having a good night. Goths explore all the senses in how they engage with life, we live our lives more richly than non-Goths do. Neglecting one side of the human psyche and human experiences gives you a flat, distorted view of the world. If you want to know what it is truly to be a human, a mortal, then become a Goth.
People say Goths are ungodly, though in fact there are Goths who are Christian and in Japan where the culture is strong, Buddhist and Shintoist too. The Gothic Revival was embedded in a Christian Britain. There are dark elements, references to vampires and demons, but do not confuse Goths with those who delve in black magic, remember vampires are dismissed by a crucifix and the Goth gentleman rides to rescue the lady in distress, not to sacrifice her. Gothic culture is a culture it is not a religion. It is about exploring all that is in the human world but for the benefit of people not for any detriment.
A fascinating programme was shown (suitably) late on ITV1 (mainstream British commercial television channel) a few years ago; 'Why do Goths make such good lovers?'. It asked the question, why do you always see Goths in pairs and sought the explanation. A couple of years later I read there was a website advising non-Goth women how to find a Goth man to be their boyfriend; I have never tracked it down, but there are reasons why people might seek such advice. Basically Goths make good lovers because they are sensitive to feelings, they really like to explore their senses and they enjoy the extravagant. The parallels between what Goths like and what is seen as a 'romantic' setting are very close, think about it: lots of candles, dark roses, large iron beds, a roaring fire, silk sheets, dark wine, sumptious foods, a windswept night, the closeness of people, sitting reading poetry, talking about the future and so on. As the programme argued women often yearn for a man who is sensitive to their emotions and to their needs; they often like to dress extravagantly and to be made a fuss of; to have a man who takes care over his grooming and appearance; who can address them intellectually as well as physically and yet when the time comes can be sensual in his sexuality. As people speaking on the programme stated, often what Goths wear day-to-day is what others keep for the bedroom such as corsets, boots, lace, leather, etc. and in some cases reveal tattoos and piercings which are the kinds of things others keep discrete, so in one go they are both reserved but also up front about sexual appeal, a tantalising mix. Goth men are loyal and tend not to sleep around; they are generally seeking the one who can be their soul mate for eternity and will tell you so in poetry. So if you are a man or a woman who welcomes these aspects (and many people do) consider embracing the Goth and becoming part of this rich community, you can be sure there will be a like-minded partner out there.
Why is Goth still around, quarter of a century after it burst forth? Well, you tend not to grow out of it and Goths of the early 1980s are still Goths. In contrast to other 'youth' cultures (though in fact it now covers many age brackets), Goths tend to be the quiet intellectuals sitting at the back. As an article in 'The Guardian' newspaper ('I've Seen the Future - and it's Goth, 21st March 2006) showed Goths usually end up in very good jobs as doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. and a lot end up in computing. They can compose sensible, moving words, they are computer literate (as so much of Goth society is knitted together by the internet and so much Goth clothing and products are bought online), they read widely and have an interest in art, literature and architecture. So, it is not for the chav population and it is a culture which you can stick with for life. At almost 40 I have no embarrassment about remaining Goth and there is always a new generation coming on, though unfortunately in fewer numbers than before.
So, if you feel at a loss in this modern world, I suggest you join the Gothic culture. Do a quick search online and you will find a whole virtual community. Get in touch with the richness of the whole scope of your feelings, revel in the extravagance of Gothic clothing and even decor; find yourself a partner for life who will explore all that it means to be alive.
UK local elections - narrow crack in the window of change
Yesterday I scrolled through the blogs that exist beside mine and was pleasantly surprised that within a handful of clicks I had seen blogs in most of the world's major languages (including textspeak used on SMS and blogs, it seems). So, I am very conscious, that even though no-one is coming to my page it is hanging very much in a global context. Hence, I feel I have to apologise for its parochial nature. I suppose though, we are the parts that you can make a sum of, so if you are interested in picking up the fragments in English about the state of society and politics and one man's wellbeing, in the UK which has 1/70th of the world's population then read on.
Yesterday, 5th May 2007, was a day for local elections in the UK. Not every seat on every council is elected each three year period, so you only get a patchy voting picture across the country. However, these elections are usually taken to be a vote of confidence or no confidence on the party in power. Though Labour lost 460 seats across the country, and the Conservatives have the largest number since 1978, that kind of thing is typical for a party coming to the end of its third term in office. There were the 'national' elections for Wales and Scotland too and for the first time, the SNP (the Scottish party wanting independence for Scotland from the UK) became the largest party with 47 seats to 46 Labour seats in the Scottish Parliament. They may form a coalition or be a minority government or in theory a Labour-Liberal Democrat (the Liberal Democrats got 16 seats, the Conservatives 17) coalition could rule. The UN said many years ago it would give Scotland a seat in the general assembly if a pro-independence party won more than 50% of the vote in Scotland and that day might not be far off. The rise from having less than 10 MPs in London in the 1970s has been swift(ish) and strong, partly helped by New Labour becoming a Christian Democrat party leaving the SNP on its left and many of the most radical left-wing politicians, agitators, etc. in the UK have always come from Scotland and public housing has always been more common, so Labour has left the SNP a lot of popular ground there to seize.
The Liberal Democrats did the worst really through gaining very little and losing quite a bit. As the smaller of the major UK-wide parties they have always been strong locally and people who would not vote for them for government would often support them for their town council, not now it seems. Such people have gone to the Conservatives who seem to have shed their Thatcherite clothes and the blandness of the 'small, quite man' era of John Major, William Hague and Ian Duncan-Smith and David Cameron looks terribly like Tony Blair did 10-12 years ago and he has been clever in portraying himself as being green too. I hate the Conservatives for what they did to the UK in the 1980s and 1990s and making my life and that of millions filled with fear and uncertainty. Many millions clearly disagreed with my view of the period or have forgotten it. Whilst I do not see the Conservatives winning the next general election, expected in 2009, the one in 2013/4 might be theirs.
Back to the Liberal Democrats. The inter-relation of national and local politics is always hard to disentangle, but it seems that public image is playing as big a part as ever and after losing their previous leader Charles Kennedy due to alcoholism, his successor Sir Menzies Campbell seems too aged and staid to catch the interest of the electorate, though ironically, voting among the under-25s is at an all-time low, so he must be near to the age of the majority of the people who actually vote, but clearly they prefer someone who looks like their son-in-law rather than the leader of the residents' association. It is interesting what phases we go through, in the early 1990s there was a fad for leaders who looked like bank managers, John Major as prime minister, had actually been one, and John Smith leader of the Labour party at the time resembled one. Now the fad is for men who look like young lawyers, Tony Blair was one and David Cameron looks like one; even Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP could be said to fall into that category.
Locally I have had a run in with the Liberal Democrats after they sent round patronising leaflets telling me my hedge should be cut back and the refuse bin lids must be closed (where they think we should keep all the rubbish that we cannot fit into the bin each week, I do not know) and the Conservatives and Labour have similarly treated us no better. An Independent had posters out but strangely did not appear on the ballot paper. Torn between this choice of very similar candidates all trying to treat me like a child, I spoilt my paper. It hurts me to do that because I know how long people fought for the vote and how few people in the world have a vote at all, but I could not offer to support to any of the arrogant incompetents laying before me. In my town, the Conservatives took every seat from the Liberal Democrats on offer this year, so clearly I was not the only one upset by their publicity. I used to prefer it when I lived in London and you had about 20 different parties to choose from and had to roll up the ballot paper. I do not like anarchy, but neither do I like stagnant politics with parties all offering the same and sneering at me because I have no other choice. At least this election seems to have opened up the field by a chink and Scotland will be interesting to watch.
One thing that did hearten me is the minimal progress of the BNP (British National Party) the main fascist party in the UK. They gained 10 seats but lost 8 seats across the whole country. That is 10 seats too many, but at least their progress is slow. They certainly cause trouble wherever they make progress and it is for the peace of the country that it is good that they remain marginalised. Fortunately, it seems that all of those who spout racist statements unapologetically (usually started with 'I'm not a racist, but these immigrants/asylum seekers/etc....') cannot be bothered to vote. Turn out was 30-40% depending on the area of the country which suggests about 2 out of 3 voters do not care who runs their council, though you can guarantee they will moan when the town moves to fortnightly waste collections (as many are doing) or increases parking fees or closes a school.
Yesterday, 5th May 2007, was a day for local elections in the UK. Not every seat on every council is elected each three year period, so you only get a patchy voting picture across the country. However, these elections are usually taken to be a vote of confidence or no confidence on the party in power. Though Labour lost 460 seats across the country, and the Conservatives have the largest number since 1978, that kind of thing is typical for a party coming to the end of its third term in office. There were the 'national' elections for Wales and Scotland too and for the first time, the SNP (the Scottish party wanting independence for Scotland from the UK) became the largest party with 47 seats to 46 Labour seats in the Scottish Parliament. They may form a coalition or be a minority government or in theory a Labour-Liberal Democrat (the Liberal Democrats got 16 seats, the Conservatives 17) coalition could rule. The UN said many years ago it would give Scotland a seat in the general assembly if a pro-independence party won more than 50% of the vote in Scotland and that day might not be far off. The rise from having less than 10 MPs in London in the 1970s has been swift(ish) and strong, partly helped by New Labour becoming a Christian Democrat party leaving the SNP on its left and many of the most radical left-wing politicians, agitators, etc. in the UK have always come from Scotland and public housing has always been more common, so Labour has left the SNP a lot of popular ground there to seize.
The Liberal Democrats did the worst really through gaining very little and losing quite a bit. As the smaller of the major UK-wide parties they have always been strong locally and people who would not vote for them for government would often support them for their town council, not now it seems. Such people have gone to the Conservatives who seem to have shed their Thatcherite clothes and the blandness of the 'small, quite man' era of John Major, William Hague and Ian Duncan-Smith and David Cameron looks terribly like Tony Blair did 10-12 years ago and he has been clever in portraying himself as being green too. I hate the Conservatives for what they did to the UK in the 1980s and 1990s and making my life and that of millions filled with fear and uncertainty. Many millions clearly disagreed with my view of the period or have forgotten it. Whilst I do not see the Conservatives winning the next general election, expected in 2009, the one in 2013/4 might be theirs.
Back to the Liberal Democrats. The inter-relation of national and local politics is always hard to disentangle, but it seems that public image is playing as big a part as ever and after losing their previous leader Charles Kennedy due to alcoholism, his successor Sir Menzies Campbell seems too aged and staid to catch the interest of the electorate, though ironically, voting among the under-25s is at an all-time low, so he must be near to the age of the majority of the people who actually vote, but clearly they prefer someone who looks like their son-in-law rather than the leader of the residents' association. It is interesting what phases we go through, in the early 1990s there was a fad for leaders who looked like bank managers, John Major as prime minister, had actually been one, and John Smith leader of the Labour party at the time resembled one. Now the fad is for men who look like young lawyers, Tony Blair was one and David Cameron looks like one; even Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP could be said to fall into that category.
Locally I have had a run in with the Liberal Democrats after they sent round patronising leaflets telling me my hedge should be cut back and the refuse bin lids must be closed (where they think we should keep all the rubbish that we cannot fit into the bin each week, I do not know) and the Conservatives and Labour have similarly treated us no better. An Independent had posters out but strangely did not appear on the ballot paper. Torn between this choice of very similar candidates all trying to treat me like a child, I spoilt my paper. It hurts me to do that because I know how long people fought for the vote and how few people in the world have a vote at all, but I could not offer to support to any of the arrogant incompetents laying before me. In my town, the Conservatives took every seat from the Liberal Democrats on offer this year, so clearly I was not the only one upset by their publicity. I used to prefer it when I lived in London and you had about 20 different parties to choose from and had to roll up the ballot paper. I do not like anarchy, but neither do I like stagnant politics with parties all offering the same and sneering at me because I have no other choice. At least this election seems to have opened up the field by a chink and Scotland will be interesting to watch.
One thing that did hearten me is the minimal progress of the BNP (British National Party) the main fascist party in the UK. They gained 10 seats but lost 8 seats across the whole country. That is 10 seats too many, but at least their progress is slow. They certainly cause trouble wherever they make progress and it is for the peace of the country that it is good that they remain marginalised. Fortunately, it seems that all of those who spout racist statements unapologetically (usually started with 'I'm not a racist, but these immigrants/asylum seekers/etc....') cannot be bothered to vote. Turn out was 30-40% depending on the area of the country which suggests about 2 out of 3 voters do not care who runs their council, though you can guarantee they will moan when the town moves to fortnightly waste collections (as many are doing) or increases parking fees or closes a school.
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