Suicidal Political Leaders

It tells us a lot about the failing political institutions that despite the different ideologies of the Conservative and Labour parties, they are both currently in turmoil for exactly the same reason; a cynical, hypocritical – and serial - manipulation of democratic principles that went terribly wrong.

In the case of the Conservative party, David Cameron did not add the referendum to the party election manifesto so as to give the country a vote, but simply as a political trick to outflank UKIP and a group of eurosceptic Conservatives. His cynicism continued with the pretence that his negotiations with the EU had resolved the issues that had concerned the country (you could even see Cameron smile with knowing embarrassment when a member of the public likened him to Neville Chamberlain waving his paper claiming ‘peace in our time’). But it reached farcical levels with Project Fear and the proposed budget response to any Brexit by George Osborne – which became a subject of ridicule within hours as Conservative MPs announced they would never vote such measures through.

But it all backfired. Such was the hyperbole of Project Fear and the decision of Cameron to make this the centre of his campaign – rather than concentrate on the details of his renegotiations (thus confirming to many that even he did not believe they amounted to anything) - that his credibility was destroyed and so his words fell on deaf ears.

Cameron’s cynicism destroyed his career and might still destroy the Conservative party, although Theresa May (a Remainer promising to respect the Brexit vote) might still save the day.

However, one doubts that the Labour party can survive its own serial cynicism and manipulation - driven not by one man and one issue, but by a whole cabal of posturing egotists.

The first act of cynicism was when people such as Frank Field and Margaret Beckett nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the 2015 leadership contest (without whose votes he would not have made the candidate list) not because they wanted him to win, but on the basis they thought he was bound to lose. Driven by egotism, they thought it was a wonderful opportunity show what open-hearted people they were. The same careless attitude to democratic principles led to opening the vote to anyone who cared to pay the nominal fee to do so. These two acts of manipulation combined to produce a leader who was immediately rejected by the MPs he was supposed to lead.

And now in 2016, Harriet Harman, Angela Eagle and so many others now want to throw out the democratically elected leader in a way that ensures that the members of the Labour party have no say in the matter.

This will also backfire, but in this case the party cannot survive. If Corbyn is excluded from the coming challenge vote, his supporters will simply take over many local constituency party structures and any future national cohesive party structure will be impossible. If Corbyn stands and wins, many of the MPs who have opposed him will be de-selected for the next general election and an unelectable group of extreme leftists will take their place.

The insoluble problem is that the new influx of ‘members’ and the majority of sitting MPs have completely different and irreconcilable programmes. Worse still, neither group seems to know or care what the millions of Labour voters actually think, which will inevitably be in many cases become “a curse on both your houses”.

So two parties under threat and one almost certainly doomed just because our clever political representatives turned out neither to be so clever nor so representative as they pretend. In each case the damage was self-inflicted; the result of internal arrogance and self-regard rather than any external cause.

But will political elite learn the lesson of these disasters. Few expect it.

Your money or the kid gets it

If someone came into your home and threatened to harm your family, unless you gave them money, you would consider this a despicable crime deserving of exemplary punishment.
So what is the difference about a group of doctors threatening strike action, which according to the BMA, will lead to 'inevitable disruption', ie cancelled and delayed appointments which will cause pain, suffering and anxiety to many vulnerable people, and in some cases might even lead to their death. And not forgetting that such disruption is not merely a regrettable consequence of their action, it is what they are deliberately seeking to achieve.
But, of course, there is no moral equivalence here, as the doctors are far more to be reviled than the intruder. A doctor has sworn an oath to protect and care for the weak and vulnerable and he/she holds a responsibility to fulfill that promise which goes beyond personal interest.
And before you brush such responsibilities aside, just imagine for a moment that you arrive at A+E during a strike with a child or parent in distress. How do you think you would cope with their/your pain and anguish and the realisation that their/ your suffering must be prolonged and endured simply because the people who should be there to help them had chosen not to turn up.
It does not matter whether the doctors are being badly treated in the new contract discussions or not. It is not the justice of their case which is at issue, but the dreadful means by which the doctors have decided to pursue their case. Let them write to the press, parade in the street, sponsor political movements or candidates to oppose the government and have recourse to all the other tools available in a free society. Nobody would begrudge them their right to do such things, but I for one will despise those who use the weak and vulnerable as hostages for financial gain and be ever more convinced that the term 'public services' no longer has the connotations it once did.

Rape Guidance - A Danger to Women

For most of us, the notional equality of women and men has been long established.

On reflection, I note that my political representatives, professional advisers, university lecturers have frequently been women, and their gender passed unnoticed. 

On further reflection, I note that no electrician, plumber, decorator or rubbish collector calling at my house has ever been a woman – and so far I’ve heard no protests about inequality on that front. Why not?

Nonetheless, at a time when society has moved on from the Victorian, patriarchal image of women as silly little creatures, dependent on the intelligence and wisdom of men, why would anyone wish to resurrect it in the context of sexual relationships?

Such attitudes not only undermine the role of women, they increase the danger that they may come to harm – and that those who harm them will escape punishment.

The central error is exactly that of years gone by - the assignment of different roles and responsibilities to different genders. The scenario of the weak and vulnerable female needing to be protected from the brutality of the dominant male may be a theme celebrated in historical  literature but it is distorting and unhelpful perspective for regulating our day to day lives in the modern era.

We now understand that relationships between the sexes are complicated and varied but that their chance of success is always enhanced by the sense of a shared responsibility.

The idea of gender equality is particularly important in the context of the issue of rape. In practical terms, one does far more to protect a woman by reminding her of her responsibility to herself – the need to avoid becoming drunk/drugged and incapable - rather than abandoning herself to the whim of others (men or women).

To those who object that a woman has a right to behave as she likes, the obvious reply is that she has indeed such a right, but rights are always to be exercised with commonsense. She has, for example, the right to keep a note of her pin number together with her credit card. This lack of care would not excuse the thief who used it to take money from her account, but her bank would refuse to reimburse her and the law would support its decision.

The same one-sided caricature of sexual relationships is also an obstacle to conviction rates in matters which come to court. Jurors familiar with the real world just do not accept the terms in which certain cases are presented to them. It is not a question of ‘dark alley myths’, merely that when a woman decides the following day that she had not consented to sex the previous night, jurors ask themselves how has she found herself in this position, and why is it the man who must be held solely responsible?

The claim in recent headlines that men must now prove consent to sex hardly holds water, as the duty on the prosecution to prove the accused guilty, and no ministerial diktat can change that. Nevertheless, such statements do not augur well for male/female relations and relationships. It can only be a matter of time before chemists start to supply written contracts with condoms so that men can be fully protected in sexual relations with women.

But, even then, would the woman’s signature be enough or would pressure groups demand that a responsible family member (male, of course) countersign to confirm her informed consent had been freely given? And perhaps have an obligatory 6 day cooling off period.

Privatisation and the NHS

It is rarely mentioned that the pharmaceutical products used in the NHS are supplied (and most were created) by private enterprise. Nor that the same can be said for the technology used to diagnose and treat its patients - and for the ambulances, the IT systems etc etc. 

Indeed, it is hard to think of any element which is completely dependent on the public sector, apart from the people who work there. 

And they are not (as they are so often portrayed) members of some religious order altruistically devoting their lives to the benefit of others. They are employees - in just the same way as those working for Tesco, save that their employer is the state.

So when we remember that the NHS is, and always been, closely bound up with private commercial interests, why is the word 'privatisation' tabou for certain people?

One often hears the simplistic argument that profit means money being taken from the NHS, but a moments thought reminds one that such profit is greatly exceeded by other economies and improvements. Were this not to be the case, private interest would have been banished years ago and certainly would not be being proposed in times of austerity, not even by what its opponents would characterise as a wicked, blood sucking Conservative coalition.

Compare that other central need of citizens - food. It is clear to anyone that the  arrival of supermarkets have made a wider range of products available to a wider range of people and at a lower price than any state organisation could ever have managed. If there are those who cannot afford to shop at Aldi or Lidl, it is not because their prices are inflated but because of other social issues - which are generally matters of wider government responsibility .

The supermarket sector also illustrates how capitalism performs the magic trick of benefiting the consumer while taking a profit. External competition demands constant attention to innovation and improvement, and woe betide even giant corporations like Tesco, should they forget this. Contrast this with the public sector monopolies focused entirely on internal dynamics, which seem so often to favour the immobility of the status quo.

If the paramount aim of the NHS is to provide the best possible treatment for the largest number of people, the debate should be fixed solely on how best this can be achieved, and the extent to which provision is public or private determined by this criterion alone.

Unfortunately, there remain too many ideologues, too many cynical politicians and too many who work in the system ready to sacrifice the interest of others to that their own. 

This is the very antithesis of what we expect from the NHS and those who run it.

Broken Dreams

The 1960s are heralded as being the start of a social revolution. It was the moment that the 'Establishment' lost control of the social debate. As the soixante-huitards proclaimed in Paris, "It is forbidden to forbid". If questions of race, gender, class etc may have gone back centuries, this was the decade which gave impetus to the transformation of the way in which such issues are considered today.

It was, of course, the willingness to challenge orthodoxies, to question the right of the self-proclaimed religious and secular moral guardians that had made the difference.

For those of us who witnessed this period of history first hand, it is depressing to see that the revolution has now come full circle. We have returned to a time when the 'Establishment seeks to impose its moral certainties, and which considers itself justified in doing so because its members are both intellectually and morally more enlightened than others. As the sans-culottes would have said, 'Plus ça change...'.

It is a new sanctimonious left wing orthodoxy which reveals its prejudice in its vocabulary. "I am a democrat, you are populist, he is a fascist". 

And it matters not that in so many cases it is evident that the 'Establishment' got things so terribly wrong - the invasion of Iraq, the bid to join the euro, the refusal to manage immigration, the promotion of diesel engines,etc etc.

There is perhaps, however, still hope that a new revolution may be underway - and one driven by similar dynamics to those in the sixties. Back then it was the access to a more independent media, which enabled the alternative society to thrive. Rock music, provocative plays, films and magazines may often have contributed little of lasting artistic value, but they created a new intellectual freedom. 

Today, the internet with its blogs, websites and access to international media takes this to another dimension. It is this which guarantees the long term failure not just of the printed media but of the hegemony of institutions such as the BBC.

Vive la nouvelle révolution!