'Unaffordable' pensions and Dunkirk fetishism...

So, public sector workers are likened to Nazi Germany in 1940. Nice to see that the "Daily Mail" maintaining its usual perspective and attention to reality. Of course, it's not the case that Gove and the Tories are picking a fight with teachers; no, it's rather that the striking workers are THE ENEMY WITHIN. With the right-wing media, it is always Dunkirk, always the 'Spirit of Dunkirk' that is invoked to keep people in their place - in abeyance to the forces of conservatism, this time represented by the government. It is presumptuous in the extreme to use the memory of Dunkirk in such a way to quell dissent, and to imply that all involved in Dunkirk would have been against decent pensions for teachers.



The point is: the Tories and their media cheerleaders are as wrong on this issue as there are on so many others. Evan Davis exposes Franny Maude's distinctive interpretation of the National Audit Office's data. The Independent presents empirical evidence to cut the decetiful 'golden plated' myths to shreds:

Then there was Michael Gove's ludicrous call for parents to act as strike-breakers by stepping into the classroom to teach. Forgetting 'formalities' such as CRB checks and indeed whether the parents have any relevant training or knowledge. Presumably a working grasp of the philosophy of a Peter Hitchens or Toby Young is enough! Even the Cameron favoured pressure-group 'Mumsnet' disagreed with this, although one poll found 37% public support for the idea - neatly correlating with current levels of Tory support.

A trade unionist speaker at Thursday's strike rally at Grey's Monument in Newcastle upon Tyne made the excellent point that public sector pension provision is placed into stark relief by the tax-breaks given to private pension funds for the wealthy.

Fellow ex-Trinity Haller, Daniel Elton, makes the point that public sympathy is rather finely balanced and not conclusive either way, although Labour's leader has taken the absurd step of alienating an important section of his vote - as lamented by Alex Niven.

The most detailed arguments for the strike were given by Nigel Stanley of the TUC at False Economy; for instance this: 'So even before anything done by the coalition government or recommended in the Hutton Report, public sector pensions had been both reformed and made sustainable. This is not union assertion, but the hard-headed view of the National Audit Office.

On top of these negotiated changes, the coalition has made a further attack on the value of public service pensions by replacing the Retail Prices Index that has always been used to uprate pensions with the lower Consumer Prices Index. This will further reduce the value of public service pensions by 15 per cent – so we have a cut of 25p in the pound if you combine this with the negotiated changes.'

The right-wing media won't even engage in logical, defensible arguments to defend their position, they will insult and smear working citizens. I was personally proud to have gone on strike on the 30th, in order to oppose compulsory working until 68 to receive a state pension, plus significantly higher contributions. All within a context of zero job security, caused by government cuts which are an ideological decision. I could make the broader economic arguments about the wisdom of Osborne going down the Irish route, of course... A few people being mildly inconvenienced for a day is nothing next to significant redundancies being imposed on people who have not caused this crisis - or indeed when compared with the wider social impact of cuts on charities / vulnerable people / the majority in society who use public services.

These videos provide a taster of the issues at stake in Further Education Colleges, often forgotten in the media with its focus on schools and universities - though The Guardian give some focus here.

Adventures Behind Enemy Lines... Part 1

This was fair comment, delivered with a conviction that the Leader of the Opposition could do with mustering. I decided to follow the discussion on that bastion of the Right, the Daily Telegraph, and the Guardian on the left-hand side.

The Guardian had a predictable amount of knee-jerk atheist attacks on Williams, which did not address the content of what he said. I assume some of these were right-wing 'trolls' trying to sway general Guardian-reader opinion against the Archbishop's comments - trying to play upon the readership's general skepticism towards religion.

The Torygraph had several comments to the same sort of effect, but putting across more of an emphasis on Williams's supposed socialism or - most absurdly - his status as a Marxist guerilla about to destroy the nation. This sort of hysterical inexactitude was the type of thing I had not really encountered for years; perhaps going back to my days as intermittent contributions to a UK political 'news-group'. The right-of-centre people I have encountered in person have largely been polite and I am able to have a reasonable discussion with them.

There were a few somewhat rational comments, critical of Williams, but the DT commenting crowd seems to be comprised of would-be retired Majors or bitter, infantile 'libertarians', pushing Hayek's The Road to Serfdom as their holy text. If one is after an insight into what it is to be incoherently angry and misanthropic, you could do worse than check out the Daily Telegraph's comment-threads.

Upon reading, I was so exasperated that I decided I would have a go at posting - under the moniker 'ordnancesurly', taken from a song of mine. Clearly any attempt to 'get through' to these people will be 99% wasted effort, but I thought... why not have a go at reasoning with them and see what emerges? Try and plant a few seeds of doubt.

There were multiple articles assailing Williams, but I alighted on two in particular; firstly one from Benedict Brogan, he of the John Majorish accountant's accountant-style Tory visage. Deputy editor of the paper, no less.

There were a reasonable number of sane, agreeable commentators:

But then there were the absurdly sanctimonious Thatcher fans, talking about toxicity without reference to the Iron Lady as the defining influence on modern Blighty:

Needless to say, there was no response to my last points.

I was baffled by the odd religious 'vision' of jeongu, which they were not willing to clarify for me:

Dynamic phrases such as 'the frocked coward' are routine on these boards. People without any sense of balance or even awareness of how even-handed Williams has been in his comments:

I was able to probe the perennial post-Thatcher Tory tensions: between loving the free-market and hating immigration, the EU and immigrants:

I note the maniacal conspiracy theorist, PP, who provides no link to evidence backing up his fraud claim or the electoral statistics that would prove it made the difference:

Such absurd hyperbole from Edward Green, that made me link to this famous old clip of Jimmy from The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin - oh, and yes: I got told to read Hayek, after suggesting that the bellicose nutter might read a true 'conservative' like Edmund Burke... 

'Rabid emotionalism' seems about right to me. Their 'realism' is a fantasy:

They conflate individuals' debt with government debt; the old 'we've maxed out the nation's credit card!' stupidity, again not fully understanding Rowan Williams's longer-term position and consistency:

 

The above bit on the role of the church was actually my first entrance into the debate, highlighting what I would have thought were obvious points.

The other article that was graced by an ordnancesurly intervention was a shoddy piece of work from Cristina Odorne, bizarrely - on this evidence - a former deputy-editor of The New Statesman. An admitted Tory voter in 2010, Odorne is also a Catholic, and one would at least expect a temperate view to be taken with the head of the Church of England. However, she attempted to score points in precisely the manner she was accusing Williams of doing. This is truly the sort of journalistic trifle that could have been thrown together without even having read RW's words, and makes Brogan's comments seem a model of sanity in comparison. It is a stock response that one can imagine she had filed away ready for the next time Williams came into the news. When it turns out that his comments are not slavishly approving of the Tory policies of the Coalition, then it is fair game for the attack dogs to be unleashed!

Attack dogs who do not fail to trot out this sort of tired nonsense, which has been thoroughly discredited post-economic crisis, if it was not before:

It was good to have had some support in the debate, as from norto here. While I suspect he/she (though, he really... when have women been known as avid frequenters of DT comments-threads?!) may be a bit of a Blue Labourite, good points were made. 

This article did receive far more critical comments, attacking the style of writing and half-baked arguments, but there was still a nauseating level of support - as one would expect:

I made a few more contributions to that thread, but I think that is an appropriate note to end on. I doubt I will be logging onto the DT's site on a regular basis - it would frankly be a waste of time. Much better to argue with open-minded people elsewhere, and try and steer the discussion on the Guardian CIF threads in the right direction. There are articles to write, there is music to make and listen to; there are interesting films and television programmes to watch. There are indeed people to meet in the outside world and communicate with online. It would be a dead end to spend time trying to destabilise a stultefying discourse. Only the occasional intervention on certain issues. Maybe my next intervention will be with that vile organ, the Mail - so rightly attacked by the Speaker of the House of Commons last week. One that has a far greater readership and influence than the Torygraph.

On the surface a good move, but let's be wary... every silver lining has its cloud

It will be interesting to see the reaction from the tabloid and right-wing press, but it seems that Ken Clarke plans to make good on the coalition's desire to be less authoritarian, at least in terms of the previous 17 years' concerted drive to lock more people up in chokey. It says so much about New Labour's failures that it has taken a Tory 'grandee' to try and introduce sanity into the debate on prisons. New Labour were basically enacting Daily Mail justice when in power, rather than thinking about what genuinely works, in terms of rehabilitation, punishment and re-offending rates. The Daily Telegraph records many angry, even rabid Tories, decrying Clarke as a wet liberal. Then there is the Tory MP Philip Davies, who has spoke out against Clarke's plans - claiming that they will amount to 'sending few criminals to prison'. Michael Howard - the first of the latter-day hardliners at the Home Office - is not convinced, incredibly enough!

Some people wilfully ignore relevant arguments: prison can actually lead to further crimes, recidivism, drug addictions, malign influence and ideas from other prisoners. Different remedies, aimed at rehabilitation but maintaining some form of retribution, must be considered - that do not involve imprisoning. Obviously one has to be uncertain of the ideas somewhat floated by that pinstriped crusader for localism and 'liberty' Dan Hannan:

There might be asymmetries in consequence: an intrinsic quality of localism. The Sheriff of Kent might decide that shoplifters should serve custodial sentences, while the Sheriff of Surrey favoured alternative penalties. One of two things would then happen. Either Kentish crooks (and crooks of Kent) would flood across the county border in such numbers that the people of Surrey elected a tougher sheriff. Or the people of Kent would get sick of funding the requisite number of prison places. At which point, their sheriff might decide on more imaginative solutions. He might, for example, decree that shoplifters should stand outside Bluewater with a placard saying “Shoplifter”. I don’t know what people would choose: that’s the essence of localism. But I do know one thing: best practice would quickly spread, as people found cheapest and most effective ways to cut crime. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100045488/prison-could-work-but-it-isnt-working-now/

The typically American* idea of elected 'sherrifs' is taken from this report:

http://directdemocracyuk.typepad.com/Localist/send%20for%20the%20sheriff.pdf
It is unusual logic where the Tories may ignore public will where they disagree with it (say, regarding the scale of the cuts they plan), yet go full steam ahead with elected sheriffs, potentially allowing things to happen which would run counter to the ECHR which they have promised to back! In addition, the idea of religion or business-run solutions merely makes me think of Pete Walker's private prison in House of Whipcord! You never know, this sort of thing could occur in a society without any sort of regulation. I would argue we should try and make the state more akin to an organisation like the BBC, give all a more active stake in it but realise that it simply must have an important role - safety blanket and educating influence. Other areas can contribute, but will do better if there is a positive lead from the state. Would the excellent work of many of the regional ITV companies have emerged in the 1960-90 period without the standards being set by the BBC?

David Cameron of course would not be sympathetic to the values of David Attenborough (or even Sir Kenneth Clarke) being a one-time consultant for the abysmal Carlton TV post-Broadcasting Act in the 1990s.

Keeping individuals in prison is a massive cost for the state, and is not helping the individuals imprisoned or society, when one consider that many who go in for fairly minor offences can actually come out of prison and re-enter society as institutionalised criminals, who frankly don't mind going back in after re-offending. However, turning people over to businesses, the church and politicising the law by having 'elected sheriffs' does not seem to me to be any sort of answer. We will have to see whether this becomes government policy, as Hannan infers it will.

Does DH and the Tories' professed localism go so far as to restrict more Tescos in favour of local shops? As with so many ideas 'authored' (nay rehashed from Belloc/GKC) by Philip Blond, it is opportunism in search of liberty. 'Direct Democracy UK''s idea of judges approved by parliament strikes me as profoundly authoritarian and they also go on to say that all international treaties would need yearly approval in parliament. A judiciary independent from political interference is surely the true liberal option; you could require judges to prove competency in interpreting the law, certainly. But to have MPs appointing them seems a potentially dangerous step into very murky waters...

* Hannan is a staunch euro-sceptic, who claims to love Europe.