Thursday 30 August 2012
Oops!
I guess it is not often that an academic's research results in his university losing thousands of students, and possibly its financial viability, but that seems to have happened in my case.
From 1997 to 2002, Franck Duevell and I conducted a research project to investigate how migrant workers from abroad entered the UK without proper immigration status, how they stayed here, and how they decided whether or not to settle; we also studied how the authorities tried to control the inflow of such immigrants, and with what outcomes. Franck and I were both in principle in favour of free international movement of people and of workers (we were both immigrants ourselves), and we wanted to explore some of the contradictions of immigration policies and control practices. In the event, these were not difficult to discover.
One glaring loophole was the large number of people who entered the country as 'students' (mainly of English language), registered at 'colleges' (which in fact made their money by acting as visa brokers for such people), and then went on to get work in the underground economy almost straight away, never attending any classes (the 'colleges' did not put many on in any case). Although our research interviews with the control authorities showed they knew about these practices, nothing was done about them; nor did this change when we sent the report of our findings to the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett (a personal friend).
The research was conducted in London, and London Metropolitan University kindly allowed Franck to use a room at one of its buildings as a base. Later I was given a part-time post in the same department, and did some teaching there. My contract was not renewed, on the grounds of my age, after I reached 65.
Today's news is that London Met has had its licence to grant visas to overseas students revoked with immediate effect, because it could not satisfy the UK Borders Agency that it was checking whether such students could speak English or were attending classes. This means that around 2,000 students will be eligible for deportation, unless they can register elsewhere, and that London Met's finances will be radically damaged, since overseas students pay at the highest rates.
The decision by UKBA is part of a programme that has seen the closure of hundreds of the kinds of 'colleges' that our research identified, carried through by the coalition government, presumably basing itself on our research. London Met's generosity in allowing us to find a home there has been badly rewarded.
Critics of research such as ours often say that it could harm individual respondents who tell the secrets of evading the law, but I have always maintained that the real ethical dilemmas concern policy changes following publication of findings. In this case it took 10 years, and the consequences have been borne, to my astonishment, at least partly by our host university.
Sorry!!!
Tuesday 28 August 2012
Sex and Social Policy: The Republican Party, Ayn Rand and Family Values
The hearts of Barack Obama's staffers must have leapt for joy at Mitt Romney's choice for running mate of Paul Ryan, the Congressman from Wisconsin, and a self-confessed disciple of Ayn Rand. The Russian-born Rand was a science-fiction writer and free-market 'philosopher', who thought that the development of computers would allow the role of government to be abolished, as statistical input to these enabled the economy to be regulated without human intervention.
So far so orthodox Republican, but Rand took this to radical conclusions in her private life. She surrounded herself with adoring acolytes (including Allen Greenspan, the future chief of the US Federal Reserve, who did so much during his term of office to create the bubble and bust of 2008) and - tiring of her long-term partner - took one or more of these as lovers over a period of time. Indeed, the whole point of her advocacy of free markets was that they would create prosperity and the opportunity for individuals to live out their personal desires and fantasies, without the constraints of traditional morality or religious superstition.
In other words, her libertarian views would be anathema for mainstream Republicans, who tend to be as hot on family values as they are on market freedoms. They present an open goal for the Obama campaign, which can represent her as challenging every right-mindeed principle in her vision of the future of societies. Rand was to sexual morals and religion roughly what Joseph Stalin was to human rights.
What I really like about American politics is the way that extremists nearly always discredit themselves quite unconsciously every time they open their mouths. Ryan, inside his capsule of right-wing utopianism, fails to notice that his idol favoured free love as well as a free economy, and that her story will scandalise the core Republican vote when they know more about her.
Saturday 18 August 2012
Intellectuals and The Crisis
The French (Voltaire, Rousseau and more recently Foucault, Derrida and Lacan) and the Germans (Goethe, Weber, Luhmann, Offe) have always enabled the role of public intellectual, and made space for them in their newspapers and other media.
We Btitish are much more suspicious of intellectuals, and those who have been elevated to the role of public sages have tended to discredit it. Samuel Taylor Coleridge from Ottery St Mary (footloose junkie), John Ruskin (impotent cuckold) and Bertrand Russell (pacifist philanderer) are obvious examples of how the popular imagination was fed images of the intellectual by our cultural organs.
I must admit that I have always gone out of my way to avoid the identity of intellectual, or even academic. In my younger days I thought of myself as a social worker, a social activist and a sportsman, and even now I somewhat puritanically confine my writing activities to the hours between 2am and breakfast time, using the daylight hours for farming and socialising.
But the intellectual classes have hardly covered themselves with glory during this economic crisis. Where are the great alternatives to the discredited nostrums of those fatcat economists when we need them? I haven't read much out of the French or German academies to enlighten or invigorate me just lately.
About the only thinker to enhance his reputation has been Guy Standing, whose book The Precariat has been a global smash hit. And he is English. Just don't appoint him to any distinguished post in the Royal Society or the Privy Council. That would be tempting fate.
We Btitish are much more suspicious of intellectuals, and those who have been elevated to the role of public sages have tended to discredit it. Samuel Taylor Coleridge from Ottery St Mary (footloose junkie), John Ruskin (impotent cuckold) and Bertrand Russell (pacifist philanderer) are obvious examples of how the popular imagination was fed images of the intellectual by our cultural organs.
I must admit that I have always gone out of my way to avoid the identity of intellectual, or even academic. In my younger days I thought of myself as a social worker, a social activist and a sportsman, and even now I somewhat puritanically confine my writing activities to the hours between 2am and breakfast time, using the daylight hours for farming and socialising.
But the intellectual classes have hardly covered themselves with glory during this economic crisis. Where are the great alternatives to the discredited nostrums of those fatcat economists when we need them? I haven't read much out of the French or German academies to enlighten or invigorate me just lately.
About the only thinker to enhance his reputation has been Guy Standing, whose book The Precariat has been a global smash hit. And he is English. Just don't appoint him to any distinguished post in the Royal Society or the Privy Council. That would be tempting fate.
Friday 17 August 2012
Parkrun.
Tomorrow morning, Pauline and I will take part in our seventh event at Killerton, the local stately home. Parkrun is a national movement that holds 5 kilometre runs all over the country, mainly in National Trust property, at 9am each Saturday morning. They are not competitive, and plenty of parents take part with their children, but times are all recorded and sent by email the same day. Pauline started training with me 8 months ago, and now beats me by 3 or 4 minutes.
Parkrun inform me each time that I have been placed first in my five-year age group, and congratulate me fulsomely. I assume I am the only person round here in this cohort daft enough still to be running.
I started running 30 years ago, when my bowling arm began to atrophy. Mostly, as a rural dweller, training has been a lonely business, but also a welcome chance to empty my mind after a morning's writing. It is surprising how few days in a year it is raining too hard to permit a run (two or three at the most, until this summer, when the numbers multiplied several fold). Taking part in the occasional collective event is a pleasure, and we always meet friends.
The proudest moment of my career should have come when, at the age of 52, I was placed third man over 40 in a 5k side-race to the Oslo Marathon. I would have received a fine commemorative plate on a podium in front of several thousand spectators in the historic Bislett Stadium (where Steve Cram and Sebastian Coe set their world records), if only I had understood the calls in Norwegian for 'Bill Jordan, England', to take his place. Having no idea what was going on, or clue I had been placed at all, I just wondered why one podium place was not occupied; but the authorities very kindly opened up the stadium and gave me the plate before I caught the plane the following morning, and it stands resplendent on our windowsill.
Parkrun inform me each time that I have been placed first in my five-year age group, and congratulate me fulsomely. I assume I am the only person round here in this cohort daft enough still to be running.
I started running 30 years ago, when my bowling arm began to atrophy. Mostly, as a rural dweller, training has been a lonely business, but also a welcome chance to empty my mind after a morning's writing. It is surprising how few days in a year it is raining too hard to permit a run (two or three at the most, until this summer, when the numbers multiplied several fold). Taking part in the occasional collective event is a pleasure, and we always meet friends.
The proudest moment of my career should have come when, at the age of 52, I was placed third man over 40 in a 5k side-race to the Oslo Marathon. I would have received a fine commemorative plate on a podium in front of several thousand spectators in the historic Bislett Stadium (where Steve Cram and Sebastian Coe set their world records), if only I had understood the calls in Norwegian for 'Bill Jordan, England', to take his place. Having no idea what was going on, or clue I had been placed at all, I just wondered why one podium place was not occupied; but the authorities very kindly opened up the stadium and gave me the plate before I caught the plane the following morning, and it stands resplendent on our windowsill.
Thursday 16 August 2012
Citizenship Tests
Chris and Pauline have been living and working in the UK for more than 10 years, and they have decided to apply for British citizenship. The first step is to take the test which shows that they are familiar enough with British law, culture and institutions.
This is a subject close to my heart, since it was only 3 years ago that I became a British citizen, and then through administrative error. Before that, I was classified a 'British Subject', even though three of my four grandparents were born in the UK (Ireland still having been part of that unit in the 1880s). The only right of citizenship I held was to 'reside in the United Kingdom', my passport told the world, so of course my travel rights, among other things, should have been severely limited. I had a well-prepared speech, in German and that all-purpose Slavic tongue, Slovak, explaining away this anomaly. I only had to use each one once, without mishap, but it made my nomadic lifestyle in the 1990s a bit hazardous.
We decided to hold a 'How British Are You?' Quiz Night at their place yesterday evening, and our visitors this week, Nigel and Diane, took the test, sight unseen (as Chan Canasta used to say), while Chris and Pauline had read the booklet of information about the UK supplied to all applicants. We three Brits were pretty horrified at most of the subject matter that Damian, as quizzmaster, expected us to know about, and it seemed like a missed opportunity to familiarise applicants from countries which are not free and democratic with our political, legal and cultural distinctiveness.
Fair enough to be expected to know that Guy Fawkes did not attempt to blow up Parliament in 1066 or 1815, but is it really necessary to be aware that the proportion of minority ethnic population in Scotland is 10 per cent and not 9 per cent, or that more than 25,000 refugees from South-East Asia applied for asylum here since 1979, not fewer? The consequence of getting more than 25 per cent of these answers wrong is to be refused access to the next step in the application for citizenship, the payment of a fee of over £2,000 for a family with two children.
Nigel, Diane and I all managed scores of 60-70 per cent, so we would have failed. Chris and Pauline both got scores above 80 per cent, so they should be OK with the real thing.
This is a subject close to my heart, since it was only 3 years ago that I became a British citizen, and then through administrative error. Before that, I was classified a 'British Subject', even though three of my four grandparents were born in the UK (Ireland still having been part of that unit in the 1880s). The only right of citizenship I held was to 'reside in the United Kingdom', my passport told the world, so of course my travel rights, among other things, should have been severely limited. I had a well-prepared speech, in German and that all-purpose Slavic tongue, Slovak, explaining away this anomaly. I only had to use each one once, without mishap, but it made my nomadic lifestyle in the 1990s a bit hazardous.
We decided to hold a 'How British Are You?' Quiz Night at their place yesterday evening, and our visitors this week, Nigel and Diane, took the test, sight unseen (as Chan Canasta used to say), while Chris and Pauline had read the booklet of information about the UK supplied to all applicants. We three Brits were pretty horrified at most of the subject matter that Damian, as quizzmaster, expected us to know about, and it seemed like a missed opportunity to familiarise applicants from countries which are not free and democratic with our political, legal and cultural distinctiveness.
Fair enough to be expected to know that Guy Fawkes did not attempt to blow up Parliament in 1066 or 1815, but is it really necessary to be aware that the proportion of minority ethnic population in Scotland is 10 per cent and not 9 per cent, or that more than 25,000 refugees from South-East Asia applied for asylum here since 1979, not fewer? The consequence of getting more than 25 per cent of these answers wrong is to be refused access to the next step in the application for citizenship, the payment of a fee of over £2,000 for a family with two children.
Nigel, Diane and I all managed scores of 60-70 per cent, so we would have failed. Chris and Pauline both got scores above 80 per cent, so they should be OK with the real thing.
Tuesday 14 August 2012
John Locke on Blackberries
As a fruit farmer, selling his apples for cider, I am horrified by the idea of having to buy any fruit (except, of course, bananas). So the conspiracy of the seasons to ruin my plum crop might have caused me distress, if the hedges had not been full of blackberries this year. They supply our staple desert, in place of plums, for August.
After she arrived from Slovakia, Anna seemed confused by the fact that I furiously cut and chopped back brambles (or 'brambories', the Slovak term for potatoes, as she called them), but ate their fruit at every opportunity. Eventually she has become an inveterate brambory-hacker, and an assiduous blackberry-gatherer on her strolls in the company of Jean. Brambles are not found in Northern or Eastern Slovakia, but gathering traditions are strong in the culture; so Anna reported in amusement that Jean had chided her for greed at having picked every last berry from the hedges, and left none for anyone else.
But of course Jean's philosophical position perfectly reflected her membership of the English school of thought on the issue. Staying at the home of a friend at Talaton , just up the road from here, in the 1670s, John Locke considered the different logics attached to the production and consumption of blackberries and butter, and used his conclusions later to justify both the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the ownership of private property.
God gave Nature's Bounty, he argued, to all men in common; yet the invention of money, and its use by all the population, meant that farmers could enclose land and graze cattle, still leaving those lacking land or money enough and as good for themselves. So private property and markets passed for morally OK, and so should the revolution against King James II be if he resisted these things in the name of the Divine Rights of monarchs.
Locke failed to notice that butter is more nutritious than blackberries, or that butter producers could buy up so much land that blackberry gatherers had no access to God's free gifts. But by then Locke paid court to a replacement king from Holland, and didn't visit Talaton too often.
To my mind, Jean got it about right, and Anna's enthusiasm for the Full Monty on blackberries must be put down to her Slovak experience of unenclosed mountain environments, in addition to her pity for me over the failure of my crops.
The apples are fine.
After she arrived from Slovakia, Anna seemed confused by the fact that I furiously cut and chopped back brambles (or 'brambories', the Slovak term for potatoes, as she called them), but ate their fruit at every opportunity. Eventually she has become an inveterate brambory-hacker, and an assiduous blackberry-gatherer on her strolls in the company of Jean. Brambles are not found in Northern or Eastern Slovakia, but gathering traditions are strong in the culture; so Anna reported in amusement that Jean had chided her for greed at having picked every last berry from the hedges, and left none for anyone else.
But of course Jean's philosophical position perfectly reflected her membership of the English school of thought on the issue. Staying at the home of a friend at Talaton , just up the road from here, in the 1670s, John Locke considered the different logics attached to the production and consumption of blackberries and butter, and used his conclusions later to justify both the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the ownership of private property.
God gave Nature's Bounty, he argued, to all men in common; yet the invention of money, and its use by all the population, meant that farmers could enclose land and graze cattle, still leaving those lacking land or money enough and as good for themselves. So private property and markets passed for morally OK, and so should the revolution against King James II be if he resisted these things in the name of the Divine Rights of monarchs.
Locke failed to notice that butter is more nutritious than blackberries, or that butter producers could buy up so much land that blackberry gatherers had no access to God's free gifts. But by then Locke paid court to a replacement king from Holland, and didn't visit Talaton too often.
To my mind, Jean got it about right, and Anna's enthusiasm for the Full Monty on blackberries must be put down to her Slovak experience of unenclosed mountain environments, in addition to her pity for me over the failure of my crops.
The apples are fine.
Monday 13 August 2012
Jane
Since my mother died in April, I have received an enormous amount of help from my first wife and the mother of my four children, Jane. Through this, we have become friends again after 35 years. I still find her extremely attractive, but chastity is not a problem, since to lay a hand on her is much like touching a very fierce and muscular leopardess.
My mother remained fairly fit and incredibly mentally alert far into her 94th year, but the last two months of her life were dreadful. She had a fall, and although she escaped any real injury, her time in a district hospital caused a rapid and terminal deterioration in her condition. Mercifully, she died in a small local unit, in sight of her home.
I spent a lot of time visiting her and trying to advocate for better treatment, to no avail. By the time she died, I needed some recuperation, so I jumped at the offer from Jane to live in her house and sort out her belongings and the aftermath of her loss. As one of her executors, I thought I might have to pay many visits to my old home, which is an hour and a half's journey from my present one. In the event, I have been able to do all the probate stuff by letter and phone; Jane has handled all the rest, cleared up and disposed of the excess items, made friends and condoled with her neighbours, and generally made life very easy for me.
My parents divorced in South Africa in the mid-1950s. It had become fairly common there, but returning to the British Isles I found myself the only lad from a single parent household in my class, except for my close friend Barry Stevens, living at the home of his grandmother through his school years. I managed to remain in good contact by letters to my father, and the intellectual content of his correspondence stimulated my academic interests. My parents, still in love I am sure, never stopped exchanging letters.
Jane lived in the same street, and like me had just arrived from the Empire - her father, the nicest of men, had taken Holy Orders after retiring from the colonial police. I shocked everyone by marrying her when I had not yet graduated from Oxford.
It is really nice to be spending some time in her company again. Divorce is far more prevalent these days, and I hope that our handling of the consequences for our children has been a bit better than my parents'. Perhaps each generation can improve on the previous one in managing it. The couple can certainly go on helping each other, even if living together does not prove possible.
My mother remained fairly fit and incredibly mentally alert far into her 94th year, but the last two months of her life were dreadful. She had a fall, and although she escaped any real injury, her time in a district hospital caused a rapid and terminal deterioration in her condition. Mercifully, she died in a small local unit, in sight of her home.
I spent a lot of time visiting her and trying to advocate for better treatment, to no avail. By the time she died, I needed some recuperation, so I jumped at the offer from Jane to live in her house and sort out her belongings and the aftermath of her loss. As one of her executors, I thought I might have to pay many visits to my old home, which is an hour and a half's journey from my present one. In the event, I have been able to do all the probate stuff by letter and phone; Jane has handled all the rest, cleared up and disposed of the excess items, made friends and condoled with her neighbours, and generally made life very easy for me.
My parents divorced in South Africa in the mid-1950s. It had become fairly common there, but returning to the British Isles I found myself the only lad from a single parent household in my class, except for my close friend Barry Stevens, living at the home of his grandmother through his school years. I managed to remain in good contact by letters to my father, and the intellectual content of his correspondence stimulated my academic interests. My parents, still in love I am sure, never stopped exchanging letters.
Jane lived in the same street, and like me had just arrived from the Empire - her father, the nicest of men, had taken Holy Orders after retiring from the colonial police. I shocked everyone by marrying her when I had not yet graduated from Oxford.
It is really nice to be spending some time in her company again. Divorce is far more prevalent these days, and I hope that our handling of the consequences for our children has been a bit better than my parents'. Perhaps each generation can improve on the previous one in managing it. The couple can certainly go on helping each other, even if living together does not prove possible.
Sunday 12 August 2012
Tips for Coaches
The art of cricket coaching has been developed over a period of some 150 years. I had my share of it over 50 years ago in Cape Town. My coach was the Headmaster of the school, Peter van der Bijl, father of the affable 6 foot 6 inch Middlesex and South Africa fast bowler, Vincent.
Peter van der Bijl was also tall and upright, but he was an exceptionally dour opening batsman for Oxford University, Western Province and South Africa in the 1930s. In those days, if the outcome of a series of Test Matches was not decided until the final match, this was played without time limits, a bit like the final set of a grand slam tennis match. Peter was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing this experiment to an end.
In the timeless test of 1939 in Durban, he made an undefeated century of such excruciating slowness that the game was finally left unfinished so that the England party could catch the boat home. I have never been clear whether this was because all the spectators had melted away, or that the impending threat of world war caused the authorities to fear a U boat attack somewhere off the West African coast.
As a coach, he emphasised the disciplines and technical niceties of batsmanship. He managed to turn me into a passable imitiation of my contemporary, no doubt receiving similar instructiion from his mother and her legendary stick of rhubarb in Fitzwilliam, Yorkshire, the great Geoffrey Boycott. As soon as I got the chance, I became a bowler.
Running round the cricket field last week, I as very impressed to see a coach using all sorts of imaginative exercises and games to teach some very promising lads the finer points. They wore expressions of enjoyment, rather than the resignation of my tea-mates of former times.
But the old style art of coaching is not dead. On my run today, I circumnavigated a boys' match, and had to pass several times a slightly familiar-looking figure of a father constantly chuntering and sending critical instructions to the fielding side.
'What's Jonathan Trott's Dad doing here?', I asked a couple of other fathers, strategically positioned some distance away from him..
'No', they replied, poorly suppressing their laughter, 'That's Glen'.
'Well tell him he looks exactly like Jonathan Trott's Dad', I suggested, 'And I should know, I come from Rondebosch, in the Cape'.
I shall never know if he felt furious or flattered.
Peter van der Bijl was also tall and upright, but he was an exceptionally dour opening batsman for Oxford University, Western Province and South Africa in the 1930s. In those days, if the outcome of a series of Test Matches was not decided until the final match, this was played without time limits, a bit like the final set of a grand slam tennis match. Peter was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing this experiment to an end.
In the timeless test of 1939 in Durban, he made an undefeated century of such excruciating slowness that the game was finally left unfinished so that the England party could catch the boat home. I have never been clear whether this was because all the spectators had melted away, or that the impending threat of world war caused the authorities to fear a U boat attack somewhere off the West African coast.
As a coach, he emphasised the disciplines and technical niceties of batsmanship. He managed to turn me into a passable imitiation of my contemporary, no doubt receiving similar instructiion from his mother and her legendary stick of rhubarb in Fitzwilliam, Yorkshire, the great Geoffrey Boycott. As soon as I got the chance, I became a bowler.
Running round the cricket field last week, I as very impressed to see a coach using all sorts of imaginative exercises and games to teach some very promising lads the finer points. They wore expressions of enjoyment, rather than the resignation of my tea-mates of former times.
But the old style art of coaching is not dead. On my run today, I circumnavigated a boys' match, and had to pass several times a slightly familiar-looking figure of a father constantly chuntering and sending critical instructions to the fielding side.
'What's Jonathan Trott's Dad doing here?', I asked a couple of other fathers, strategically positioned some distance away from him..
'No', they replied, poorly suppressing their laughter, 'That's Glen'.
'Well tell him he looks exactly like Jonathan Trott's Dad', I suggested, 'And I should know, I come from Rondebosch, in the Cape'.
I shall never know if he felt furious or flattered.
Saturday 11 August 2012
Fulfilling His Destiny
Did you see the expressions on the faces of Mo Farah and his defeated rivals after that epic 5,000 metres race? Mo looked absolutely at peace with himself, a young man who had fulfilled his destiny, the historic 'double' of gold medals in both the 10,000 metres and this distance. The Ethiopian and Kenyan runners who came second and third had shock etched into their features; they just couldn't believe what he had done to them. I have never seen siver and bronze medal winners look so disappointed with their results.
I am old enough to have watched Zatopek, Kuts and Viren, the first three runners to achieve this feat in the modern era. Their victories were nothing like so impressive, because they dominated their rivals from the gun. Zatopek and Kuts led out, Viren lurked with a menace that left no-one in any doubt that he alone could burn off the rest with a blistering last lap. Mo's victory was always so much on a knife-edge that it was hard to believe it possible until he broke the tape. I can never remember any distance runner hold off persistent challenges from just behind him for the whole of the last lap.
Afterwards, like the world record-breaker David Rudesha, Mo was modest and self-effacing, giving the credit to others. I hate to say it, but they both made Usain Bolt look a bit cheap.
I am old enough to have watched Zatopek, Kuts and Viren, the first three runners to achieve this feat in the modern era. Their victories were nothing like so impressive, because they dominated their rivals from the gun. Zatopek and Kuts led out, Viren lurked with a menace that left no-one in any doubt that he alone could burn off the rest with a blistering last lap. Mo's victory was always so much on a knife-edge that it was hard to believe it possible until he broke the tape. I can never remember any distance runner hold off persistent challenges from just behind him for the whole of the last lap.
Afterwards, like the world record-breaker David Rudesha, Mo was modest and self-effacing, giving the credit to others. I hate to say it, but they both made Usain Bolt look a bit cheap.
On Being a Carer
Jean and I have been partners for 35 years. For half of these she has suffered from Alzheimer's Disease, and I have been at home caring for her for the past 7 of these. Plymouth University genrously let me work from home; Jean used to accompany me to classes and on lecture trips abroad, but it became too stressful for her. We have had Anna as a live-in carer for 15 months. (By the way, she has gone to the BMX Olympic biking contest in Leigh-on-Sea today.)
We first met when we taught together at Exeter University, where Jean was the Head of the programme. It was great working so closely together for 20 years, and we remain in touch with many of our former students. Some are visiting us this month.
Jean was always a beautiful woman, and she has put on not an ounce of weight; she is 79 years old now, but is often taken to be 10 or 20 years younger. She walks 20 miles a week, and even runs a bit, though she never did when she was younger. But she suffers some existential as well as orientation distress now, which is horrible for her.
I can never forgive the writer John Bailey for publishing his account of the decline into dementia of his wife, the great novelist, Iris Murdoch (later made into a film). A literary pygmy in comparison with his creative genius of a partner, I see Bailey's book as a kind of retaliaton for her deserved fame and his equally deserved lack of it. In my eyes, he demeaned her in an attempt to draw some attention to himself.
I owe a vast debt of love and gratitude to Jean, who always supported me (for a time financially as well as emotionally, when my children were younger), and who never sought her own advantage, though she was universally respected as a researcher in public services for children. It is both a pleasure and a privilege to be able to be with her for a few more years, perhaps longer.
Jean's mother cared for her father, her parents-in-law, her brother-in-law and her husband for over 40 years; Jean herself cared for her parents. As you sow, so shall you reap.
We first met when we taught together at Exeter University, where Jean was the Head of the programme. It was great working so closely together for 20 years, and we remain in touch with many of our former students. Some are visiting us this month.
Jean was always a beautiful woman, and she has put on not an ounce of weight; she is 79 years old now, but is often taken to be 10 or 20 years younger. She walks 20 miles a week, and even runs a bit, though she never did when she was younger. But she suffers some existential as well as orientation distress now, which is horrible for her.
I can never forgive the writer John Bailey for publishing his account of the decline into dementia of his wife, the great novelist, Iris Murdoch (later made into a film). A literary pygmy in comparison with his creative genius of a partner, I see Bailey's book as a kind of retaliaton for her deserved fame and his equally deserved lack of it. In my eyes, he demeaned her in an attempt to draw some attention to himself.
I owe a vast debt of love and gratitude to Jean, who always supported me (for a time financially as well as emotionally, when my children were younger), and who never sought her own advantage, though she was universally respected as a researcher in public services for children. It is both a pleasure and a privilege to be able to be with her for a few more years, perhaps longer.
Jean's mother cared for her father, her parents-in-law, her brother-in-law and her husband for over 40 years; Jean herself cared for her parents. As you sow, so shall you reap.
Friday 10 August 2012
The Big Society? Do It yourself
The three of us (see previous blog) are all sociable, but in the winter we sometimes feel a bit isolated from the wider world. At this time of year it all changes, with visits from family, friends and ex-students, seeking some Devon sunshine and relaxation. We are looking forward to a month of entertaining and sharing our home-grown produce (some of which has survived the monsoon rains and unseasonal frosts) and several glasses of wine.
We are a kind of micro-community with our friends and neighbours, Chris, Pauline and their daughter Tamsin (17) and son Damian (16). They live in the renovated barn which is a part of the complex of seventeenth century farm buildings here, and they keep animals and poultry (sheep, goats, geese, chickens and ducks) in the orchard where we grow fruit and vegetables (some of the browsing animals, especially the goats, have to be confined in electric prisons, because they would destroy the trees). It is just coming up to the season for picking up the apples and transporting them to the cider factory (in Chris's land rover and trailer). Anna and Jean are very effective apple-gatherers.
Anna and Jean also like singing, and this prompted the idea of a concert, in which they performed Slovak folk songs, accompanied by Tamsin and Damian on violins, as would be the tradition in Slovakia. It went very well, despite deteriorating into vulgarity when Pauline, her mother (who was visiting from South Africa) and myself ended the evening with renditions of well-known Afrikaans and Xosa anthems.
So enjoyable was this that we all decided to be more ambitious, and put on a series of summer concerts for our friends in the barn, which has one very large room that is ideal for the purpose. Tamsin and Damian both play piano, and Damian is an excellent classical guitarist also; we brought in Jamie (13), a harpist, and Kiko (11) who plays clarinet and piano. My role is roadie for Jamie, whose harp has to be transported each time she comes to rehearse or perform.
Last night was our first public concert, and several friends came. Rachel and Jonathan rode the 10 miles from Exeter on a tandem. The programme was much more ambitious, with pieces by Beethoven and Mozart as well as traditional folk music and Anna and Jean's Slovak songs. Everyone is looking forward to the next one in two weeks' time, when we hope for a larger audience.
It all reminds me of the success of the Olympic Games, where volunteer effort and the friendly and humorous welcome of the police and armed forces made visitors from abroad so welcome, and a real community spirit was created - despite the G4S fiasco and government's attempts to free ride on the goodwill that has been generated.
There is such a thing as the Big Society, just don't look to our current rulers to enable or promote it. They are too busy with cuts and privatisations.
We are a kind of micro-community with our friends and neighbours, Chris, Pauline and their daughter Tamsin (17) and son Damian (16). They live in the renovated barn which is a part of the complex of seventeenth century farm buildings here, and they keep animals and poultry (sheep, goats, geese, chickens and ducks) in the orchard where we grow fruit and vegetables (some of the browsing animals, especially the goats, have to be confined in electric prisons, because they would destroy the trees). It is just coming up to the season for picking up the apples and transporting them to the cider factory (in Chris's land rover and trailer). Anna and Jean are very effective apple-gatherers.
Anna and Jean also like singing, and this prompted the idea of a concert, in which they performed Slovak folk songs, accompanied by Tamsin and Damian on violins, as would be the tradition in Slovakia. It went very well, despite deteriorating into vulgarity when Pauline, her mother (who was visiting from South Africa) and myself ended the evening with renditions of well-known Afrikaans and Xosa anthems.
So enjoyable was this that we all decided to be more ambitious, and put on a series of summer concerts for our friends in the barn, which has one very large room that is ideal for the purpose. Tamsin and Damian both play piano, and Damian is an excellent classical guitarist also; we brought in Jamie (13), a harpist, and Kiko (11) who plays clarinet and piano. My role is roadie for Jamie, whose harp has to be transported each time she comes to rehearse or perform.
Last night was our first public concert, and several friends came. Rachel and Jonathan rode the 10 miles from Exeter on a tandem. The programme was much more ambitious, with pieces by Beethoven and Mozart as well as traditional folk music and Anna and Jean's Slovak songs. Everyone is looking forward to the next one in two weeks' time, when we hope for a larger audience.
It all reminds me of the success of the Olympic Games, where volunteer effort and the friendly and humorous welcome of the police and armed forces made visitors from abroad so welcome, and a real community spirit was created - despite the G4S fiasco and government's attempts to free ride on the goodwill that has been generated.
There is such a thing as the Big Society, just don't look to our current rulers to enable or promote it. They are too busy with cuts and privatisations.
Thursday 9 August 2012
Thanks Again, Mr Rossi
On Wednesday, we (myself, Jean, and Jean's carer, Anna, a retired volleyball player from Slovakia, who lost an eye as a child) went to Weymouth on the train to watch the Olympic sailing. We took with us the huge, heavy, leather-cased binoculars, made the year I was born, and bequeathed to me by the naval war hero, Harold Bunt.
It's a fair walk from the station to the Stone Pier, from where without a ticket one can get a good view of the sailing (yachtovat in Slovak); the pedestrian route goes past the clock tower, along the sea front, and right past the very spot where, on the forecourt of Rossi's Icecream Parlour, I set up as a Lightning artist, drawing people's portraits with a newly-invented felt-tipped pen, almost 50 years ago. I had never been back there since.
Mr Rossi had taken pity on a student with a pregnant wife who was down on his luck, so he allowed me to use this pad to accost passers-by, sit them on a stool, and execute a rapid likeness. I did 100 of these a day, and made a great deal of money, but he never asked me for a penny.
His grandson runs the business now, and smiled to hear my story. He said that his grandfather died several years ago, but still visited them quite frquently. When I asked him which kinds of occasions he attended, he replied that he came to all kinds, mainly to play practical jokes, such as locking people in the toilet. He had been a bit of a joker during his life. I asked if he would mind thanking his grandfather for the help he gave me back then, when he next turned up.
The weather became quite splendid as we reached the pier, and we had a better view than I expected. The atmosphere was great, and everyone was friendly and helpful.
I don't have the remotest grasp of sailing, so I had no idea what I was watching. Perhaps Anna is quicker to learn such things, or maybe, like Nelson, she has keener vision with her one eye and the aid of Harold's field-glasses. Anyway, she said that New Zealand were winning, Sweden were second, and we were third.
Rossi's Ice Cream Parlour was doing a roaring trade when we passed it on the way back.
It's a fair walk from the station to the Stone Pier, from where without a ticket one can get a good view of the sailing (yachtovat in Slovak); the pedestrian route goes past the clock tower, along the sea front, and right past the very spot where, on the forecourt of Rossi's Icecream Parlour, I set up as a Lightning artist, drawing people's portraits with a newly-invented felt-tipped pen, almost 50 years ago. I had never been back there since.
Mr Rossi had taken pity on a student with a pregnant wife who was down on his luck, so he allowed me to use this pad to accost passers-by, sit them on a stool, and execute a rapid likeness. I did 100 of these a day, and made a great deal of money, but he never asked me for a penny.
His grandson runs the business now, and smiled to hear my story. He said that his grandfather died several years ago, but still visited them quite frquently. When I asked him which kinds of occasions he attended, he replied that he came to all kinds, mainly to play practical jokes, such as locking people in the toilet. He had been a bit of a joker during his life. I asked if he would mind thanking his grandfather for the help he gave me back then, when he next turned up.
The weather became quite splendid as we reached the pier, and we had a better view than I expected. The atmosphere was great, and everyone was friendly and helpful.
I don't have the remotest grasp of sailing, so I had no idea what I was watching. Perhaps Anna is quicker to learn such things, or maybe, like Nelson, she has keener vision with her one eye and the aid of Harold's field-glasses. Anyway, she said that New Zealand were winning, Sweden were second, and we were third.
Rossi's Ice Cream Parlour was doing a roaring trade when we passed it on the way back.
Tuesday 7 August 2012
What's Good about the Olympics (and Globalisation)
It has been a euphoric few days for followers of British sport, and the media have been full of celebration. The effects on national morale, dented by the recession, have been very positive, and the whole population has joined in making the Olympics a huge success.
But for me the most exciting thing has been to see athletes from very small, poor countries, with few facilities, winning medals in events that they could not even have entered 20 years ago. For instance, Kirali James's win in the 400 metres race yesterday evening was the first medal of any kind gained by his island nation, Grenada. The runner placed second was from the Dominican Republic.
John Inverdale pointed out that all the runners in that race, traditionally dominated by the USA, Germany and Britain, were either from small Caribbean countries, or from one family in Belgium (the Borlee twins, Kevin and Jonathan). In the wide world of sport, it sometimes come down to the very local and particular.
Similarly, the 400 metres hurdles was won by a 34-year-old guy from the Dominican Republic (again), beating three American superstars and the British world champion and team captain, David Greene. It was a triumph for someone not tipped for a medal.
Globalisation has destroyed the economies of many small nations, and eroded the cultures of more. But it has also given a few individuals from the most obscure communities (even in Belgium) the chance to show that talent is not confined to the rich world.
But for me the most exciting thing has been to see athletes from very small, poor countries, with few facilities, winning medals in events that they could not even have entered 20 years ago. For instance, Kirali James's win in the 400 metres race yesterday evening was the first medal of any kind gained by his island nation, Grenada. The runner placed second was from the Dominican Republic.
John Inverdale pointed out that all the runners in that race, traditionally dominated by the USA, Germany and Britain, were either from small Caribbean countries, or from one family in Belgium (the Borlee twins, Kevin and Jonathan). In the wide world of sport, it sometimes come down to the very local and particular.
Similarly, the 400 metres hurdles was won by a 34-year-old guy from the Dominican Republic (again), beating three American superstars and the British world champion and team captain, David Greene. It was a triumph for someone not tipped for a medal.
Globalisation has destroyed the economies of many small nations, and eroded the cultures of more. But it has also given a few individuals from the most obscure communities (even in Belgium) the chance to show that talent is not confined to the rich world.
Friday 27 July 2012
Olympic Capital
The first few minutes of the London Olympics' opening ceremony were a magnificent, awe-inspiring tableau of the power of both human co-operation and capitalist economic relations. Both in the scenes of Britain's industrialisation portrayed, and in the show iself, they demonstrated the creative destruction that could be achieved through this particular way of harnessing human ingenuity and money with political authority.
Were the herders, shepherdesses and ploughmen in the opening rural idyll contented with their lot, or were they village idiots? Did the factory-builders and railroad constructors who destroyed their countryside rescue them from their idiocy or take away their souls? Did the governments that then sent them to their deaths in two world wars defend the liberties of Europe and the future for democracy, or did they sacrifice them for the globalisation that would eventually smash those factories into dust, and leave them desperately seeking some new sense of identity and purpose in a post-industrial desert?
The show itself was staged in a glittering new stadium, part of a superb complex of buildings, public art and gardens, equidistant from the most multi-ethnic and most impoverished borough in London and the shining towers that are home to Barclays, HSBC and the rest. As the news media broadcast hourly bulletins of the latest billion pound scams by the financial sector of the City, bringing ruin and shame across the globe, those same institutions have helped to fund a development which will leave a legacy of renewal and hope for the eastern half of London.
In some ways the sport will be an anti-climax after that display. It will show that we humans can run faster and hurl further than our ancestors, and that we can harness the discipline to work in small groups to cross water or scale heights. Capitalism has not destroyed these capacities for our species, though it has refined them in the bodies of a tiny athletic elite, and consigned the rest of us to roles of passive spectators, chewing excess food in front of TV screens.
We will be inspired, for sure, but what opportunities will capitalism give us after the Games are over, either as individuals or collectively, to express that inspiration in projects for the common good? It leaves us free to do so, but it does not point the way. We must find that for ourselves.
Were the herders, shepherdesses and ploughmen in the opening rural idyll contented with their lot, or were they village idiots? Did the factory-builders and railroad constructors who destroyed their countryside rescue them from their idiocy or take away their souls? Did the governments that then sent them to their deaths in two world wars defend the liberties of Europe and the future for democracy, or did they sacrifice them for the globalisation that would eventually smash those factories into dust, and leave them desperately seeking some new sense of identity and purpose in a post-industrial desert?
The show itself was staged in a glittering new stadium, part of a superb complex of buildings, public art and gardens, equidistant from the most multi-ethnic and most impoverished borough in London and the shining towers that are home to Barclays, HSBC and the rest. As the news media broadcast hourly bulletins of the latest billion pound scams by the financial sector of the City, bringing ruin and shame across the globe, those same institutions have helped to fund a development which will leave a legacy of renewal and hope for the eastern half of London.
In some ways the sport will be an anti-climax after that display. It will show that we humans can run faster and hurl further than our ancestors, and that we can harness the discipline to work in small groups to cross water or scale heights. Capitalism has not destroyed these capacities for our species, though it has refined them in the bodies of a tiny athletic elite, and consigned the rest of us to roles of passive spectators, chewing excess food in front of TV screens.
We will be inspired, for sure, but what opportunities will capitalism give us after the Games are over, either as individuals or collectively, to express that inspiration in projects for the common good? It leaves us free to do so, but it does not point the way. We must find that for ourselves.
Tuesday 24 July 2012
Sport, Society and G4S
The impending Olympics and the scandal over G4S's failure to supply contract security staff present a snapshot of our society. On the one hand, we can organise a vast collective celebration of human physical prowess for the whole world; on the other, the outsourcing of our concerns about the threat to our political order to an enormous private company has made us something of a laughing stock.
Both sides of this paradox can be traced to our stone-age heritage. We survived and prospered as a species, despite our relatively puny physique and our massive need of protein for our large brains, because we were capable of conceiving and executing fairly complex forms of collective action, such as persistence hunting in groups. Here the skills of a few members complemented the ingenuity of those who planned the operations, and the patience of those who made up the numbers.
But such predatory collective forays, which also could involve conflicts with other such groups, always ended with feasts and celebratory chanting, dancing and drinking round a fire. We have been shaped by evolution, both as individuals and as groups, for these activities; yet modern society seldom supplies us with opportunities - except brifly in our teenage years - to behave as gangs of hunters, or tribes of alcohol-fuelled ravers. And, of course, the Olympic Games - for their few participants.
Instead, the majority of us are trapped in lives of quiet, conformist, domestic desperation, and many suffer terribly from the afflictions of anxiety, depression or back pain. We turn to therapists rather than witch doctors for remedies, and we would never accept a prescription of night pursuit of wild beasts or mass ritual feasting for our ills. Only one third of us take any exercise at all, a recent report in The Lancet revealed, and this is fatal for as many of as as smoking and obesity are.
Our individual worries are mirrored in our governments' concerns about the threat of terrorism by those who reject consumerism and secularism as the bases for societies. These covert forces from a bygone age of superstitious violence must be deterred by shows of strength (warships in the Thames, fighter jets overhead), and monitored by guards on the ground, especially at the Olympic venues.
Unfortunately, we cannot mobilise our citizens to defend their democratic and enlightened way of life, to take collective action against these foes. They are too busy sitting at home watching the Olympics on TV, and taking tranquilisers. Our police and army could have done it, but this would have been expensive, looked bad in the public accounts, and sinned against the prevailing orthodoxy of contractual outsourcing. So we brought in G4S to quell our fears; the rest is history.
Both sides of this paradox can be traced to our stone-age heritage. We survived and prospered as a species, despite our relatively puny physique and our massive need of protein for our large brains, because we were capable of conceiving and executing fairly complex forms of collective action, such as persistence hunting in groups. Here the skills of a few members complemented the ingenuity of those who planned the operations, and the patience of those who made up the numbers.
But such predatory collective forays, which also could involve conflicts with other such groups, always ended with feasts and celebratory chanting, dancing and drinking round a fire. We have been shaped by evolution, both as individuals and as groups, for these activities; yet modern society seldom supplies us with opportunities - except brifly in our teenage years - to behave as gangs of hunters, or tribes of alcohol-fuelled ravers. And, of course, the Olympic Games - for their few participants.
Instead, the majority of us are trapped in lives of quiet, conformist, domestic desperation, and many suffer terribly from the afflictions of anxiety, depression or back pain. We turn to therapists rather than witch doctors for remedies, and we would never accept a prescription of night pursuit of wild beasts or mass ritual feasting for our ills. Only one third of us take any exercise at all, a recent report in The Lancet revealed, and this is fatal for as many of as as smoking and obesity are.
Our individual worries are mirrored in our governments' concerns about the threat of terrorism by those who reject consumerism and secularism as the bases for societies. These covert forces from a bygone age of superstitious violence must be deterred by shows of strength (warships in the Thames, fighter jets overhead), and monitored by guards on the ground, especially at the Olympic venues.
Unfortunately, we cannot mobilise our citizens to defend their democratic and enlightened way of life, to take collective action against these foes. They are too busy sitting at home watching the Olympics on TV, and taking tranquilisers. Our police and army could have done it, but this would have been expensive, looked bad in the public accounts, and sinned against the prevailing orthodoxy of contractual outsourcing. So we brought in G4S to quell our fears; the rest is history.
Cold Calling and the Arts of Resistance
Maybe I don't read the right journals, but I have never seen a guide to getting rid of unwanted cold callers on the phone. As I am frugal and seldom exposed to hard selling techniques, I therefore have to rely on strategies derived from a previous age.
In the 1980s, when unemployment was even higher than it is now, young people sometimes came to the door to ask if I would 'sponsor' them by buying a fire extinguisher or other durable commodity. My reaction was to invite them to sit down while I explained Adam Smith's distinction between the functioning of a market economy and that of the social order.
On Adam's account, markets can benefit all who take part in their processes of exchange of money for goods and services, without any one having any sense of responsibility or obligation towards each other. Societies, on the other hand, need moral standards, communicated through cultures and practices, to achieve fairness between their members.
The idea of 'sponsoring', if it belongs anywhere, is appropriate for the moral or social sphere. If markets and capitalism functioned to the benefit of all, as Adam claimed, then I should want to buy the fire extinguisher for its utility, not to save the salesperson from destitution.
I found that this always caused the rapid retreat of the commercial apprentice, and that none of his or her colleagues called in the immediate aftermath of the encounter. Whether this was because the unfortunate explained Smith's theory to the others, and convinced them of its validity, I do not know.
None of this seems to apply to the case of telephone cold calls. Perhaps I am paranoid, and too much of a technophobe to know how to check this out, but I have always imagined that many of these would allow the caller, in possession of some sophisticated device, to gain access to various bank accounts and pensions of mine if I spoke for more than a few moments. I would hardly get beyond the preliminaries of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments before these were completely stripped out.
So I am reduced to the very crude resort of saying, 'I am a police officer, and I only speak to criminals when I am on duty'. It seems to work.
In the 1980s, when unemployment was even higher than it is now, young people sometimes came to the door to ask if I would 'sponsor' them by buying a fire extinguisher or other durable commodity. My reaction was to invite them to sit down while I explained Adam Smith's distinction between the functioning of a market economy and that of the social order.
On Adam's account, markets can benefit all who take part in their processes of exchange of money for goods and services, without any one having any sense of responsibility or obligation towards each other. Societies, on the other hand, need moral standards, communicated through cultures and practices, to achieve fairness between their members.
The idea of 'sponsoring', if it belongs anywhere, is appropriate for the moral or social sphere. If markets and capitalism functioned to the benefit of all, as Adam claimed, then I should want to buy the fire extinguisher for its utility, not to save the salesperson from destitution.
I found that this always caused the rapid retreat of the commercial apprentice, and that none of his or her colleagues called in the immediate aftermath of the encounter. Whether this was because the unfortunate explained Smith's theory to the others, and convinced them of its validity, I do not know.
None of this seems to apply to the case of telephone cold calls. Perhaps I am paranoid, and too much of a technophobe to know how to check this out, but I have always imagined that many of these would allow the caller, in possession of some sophisticated device, to gain access to various bank accounts and pensions of mine if I spoke for more than a few moments. I would hardly get beyond the preliminaries of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments before these were completely stripped out.
So I am reduced to the very crude resort of saying, 'I am a police officer, and I only speak to criminals when I am on duty'. It seems to work.
Saturday 7 July 2012
Fixing Interest Rates? Of course
Shock horror! The Barclays scandal reveals that the banks fiddle and lie to fix interest rates. Some government ministers and the Bank of England may even have been in on the scam. And we are supposed to be surprised by all this.
Banks, including the Bank of England, create money out of thin air, and make their profits from doing so.
This has been most obvious during the Quantitative Easing programme. The government and the Bank were worried that people were paying down their debts, and the banks weren't lending to businesses, so there was less money circulating. Solution: print some more. Commercial banks do the same thing when they make a loan, or give a customer credit.
The whole credit bubble that brought the banks down happened because they were rash about lending, and we were rash about borrowing. QE means that, to pay for the bail-out of the banks and their customers, people who have savings have to see them inflated away. Money is not a commodity; bank staff don't make it like factory workers make laptops or lingerie. It is a means of exchange, and its 'price' (the rate of interest on a loan or credit card debt) is whatever the banks can get away with charging for something that they have costlessly created. But because the financial sector is so significant a part of our economy, the Bank of England and the government want us to believe that the quantity of money and the interest rate are sacred numbers that emerge from international competition between London, New York and Tokyo, Frankfurt and Paris, through global money markets. We are supposed to swallow the idea that our bankers and politicians never tip each other the wink, or meet to set rates, but always accept the will of these markets as Holy Writ.
So this agonising about the Barclays scandal is mostly obfuscation and hypocrisy. We are supposed to believe that bankers deserve to have been bailed out, because they earned their salaries and bonuses by the brilliance of their dealings against the brute facts of international competition, in a risky and unstable environment. In this way, we will not notice that we are being ripped off - though not as badly as the Irish, Greeks, Portuguese and Spanish are, still paying for bail-outs that didn't even save their brilliant banks. Bob Diamond and his mates have let the side down by allowing the public to glimpse that all this is a fiction. Interest rates will always be set by bankers and others in concert, because the rest of us can't influence them in the way we can other prices, by voting with our feet. More's the pity.
This has been most obvious during the Quantitative Easing programme. The government and the Bank were worried that people were paying down their debts, and the banks weren't lending to businesses, so there was less money circulating. Solution: print some more. Commercial banks do the same thing when they make a loan, or give a customer credit.
The whole credit bubble that brought the banks down happened because they were rash about lending, and we were rash about borrowing. QE means that, to pay for the bail-out of the banks and their customers, people who have savings have to see them inflated away. Money is not a commodity; bank staff don't make it like factory workers make laptops or lingerie. It is a means of exchange, and its 'price' (the rate of interest on a loan or credit card debt) is whatever the banks can get away with charging for something that they have costlessly created. But because the financial sector is so significant a part of our economy, the Bank of England and the government want us to believe that the quantity of money and the interest rate are sacred numbers that emerge from international competition between London, New York and Tokyo, Frankfurt and Paris, through global money markets. We are supposed to swallow the idea that our bankers and politicians never tip each other the wink, or meet to set rates, but always accept the will of these markets as Holy Writ.
So this agonising about the Barclays scandal is mostly obfuscation and hypocrisy. We are supposed to believe that bankers deserve to have been bailed out, because they earned their salaries and bonuses by the brilliance of their dealings against the brute facts of international competition, in a risky and unstable environment. In this way, we will not notice that we are being ripped off - though not as badly as the Irish, Greeks, Portuguese and Spanish are, still paying for bail-outs that didn't even save their brilliant banks. Bob Diamond and his mates have let the side down by allowing the public to glimpse that all this is a fiction. Interest rates will always be set by bankers and others in concert, because the rest of us can't influence them in the way we can other prices, by voting with our feet. More's the pity.
Monday 2 July 2012
Social Justice according to Dude and Big Boy
We are witnessing the final collapse of the fantasy on which New Labour built its social policies. With the revelations about Barclays staff lying to fix the LIBOR rate, and that they and other banks mis-sold insurance against interest rate rises to small and medium-sized businesses, the idea that equality and justice could be built on the greed of City financiers has been decisively blown away.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, an avid student of the latest economic orthodoxy, praised the City for its outstanding contribution to prosperity, jobs and tax revenues. He believed that the declining employment levels and earnings of ordinary workers could be bolstered in a fragmented labour market on the back of this success. As the majority of working families with children had their wages subsidised by tax credits, and those claimung benefits were herded into low-paid part-time work under threat of losing eligibility to claim, Tony Blair was arguing for this new marriage of efficiency and equity. Growing inequality was not an issue, he maintained, as long as the least advantaged citizens could be nudged above the poverty line. Our international comparative advantage lay in financial services, and we should consolidate this, for the sake of our whole population.
Even before the scandal broke, the crash had exposed this as a daydream. In the boom years, our banks owned 10 per cent of global financial assets, and made 10 per cent of global profits. Today they own the same proportion, and earn 5 per cent of profits worldwide. Contrast this with Chinese banks, which now earn 30 per cent of global profits. So much for the UK as the world's financial hub, and China as a mere assembly line for its manufactured products.
The Tories never fully swallowed this fantasy or idealised the City, perhaps partly because it was some of their school friends who were inventing these fiddles. But they too favoured light regulation. Now they have to find ways to clean up the cesspit. And they are no closer to finding an alternative direction for the economy. More even than New Labour, they rely on compelling benefits claimants to accept work which makes them no better off. And they are compromised by their close relationship with A4e as the chief instrument of the Work Programme. It placed only 30 per cent of its clientele in jobs lasting more than 3 months last year, and is being investigated for systematic fraud and malpractice. At least Ed Miliband is indicating a renunciation of New Labour's City links, and has given Jon Cruddas a leading role in policy development. That is much-needed good news.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, an avid student of the latest economic orthodoxy, praised the City for its outstanding contribution to prosperity, jobs and tax revenues. He believed that the declining employment levels and earnings of ordinary workers could be bolstered in a fragmented labour market on the back of this success. As the majority of working families with children had their wages subsidised by tax credits, and those claimung benefits were herded into low-paid part-time work under threat of losing eligibility to claim, Tony Blair was arguing for this new marriage of efficiency and equity. Growing inequality was not an issue, he maintained, as long as the least advantaged citizens could be nudged above the poverty line. Our international comparative advantage lay in financial services, and we should consolidate this, for the sake of our whole population.
Even before the scandal broke, the crash had exposed this as a daydream. In the boom years, our banks owned 10 per cent of global financial assets, and made 10 per cent of global profits. Today they own the same proportion, and earn 5 per cent of profits worldwide. Contrast this with Chinese banks, which now earn 30 per cent of global profits. So much for the UK as the world's financial hub, and China as a mere assembly line for its manufactured products.
The Tories never fully swallowed this fantasy or idealised the City, perhaps partly because it was some of their school friends who were inventing these fiddles. But they too favoured light regulation. Now they have to find ways to clean up the cesspit. And they are no closer to finding an alternative direction for the economy. More even than New Labour, they rely on compelling benefits claimants to accept work which makes them no better off. And they are compromised by their close relationship with A4e as the chief instrument of the Work Programme. It placed only 30 per cent of its clientele in jobs lasting more than 3 months last year, and is being investigated for systematic fraud and malpractice. At least Ed Miliband is indicating a renunciation of New Labour's City links, and has given Jon Cruddas a leading role in policy development. That is much-needed good news.
Thursday 12 April 2012
The Charity Trap
It's a long time since I posted a blog - because of a combination of being busy writing a book and papers for conferences, and serious illness in the family.
Meanwhile, the crisis in capitalism has spawned many ironies and paradoxes. The latest is this week's row over the coalition government's cap on tax relief for philanthropists' donations to charities. This limit - of £50,000 or a quarter of total income - was explained as a means of clamping down on tax avoidance by some of the super-rich, who used the allowance to reduce their tax contribution to percentages well below those of lower-income citizens, or in some cases to zero.
Now charities and the rich themselves are up in arms, and putting pressure on the Treasury to change its mind. They argue that the measure will undermine the basis for the Big Society to which the government claims to be committed. Very large donations are the lifeblood of many good causes, in culture and the arts as well as the social services, they claim.
So just as we need the plutocracy of the City of London and huge rewards for Directors and executives in the financial sector, our rentier economy needs massive tax incentives for charitable giving, it appears. The austerity programme demands that the super-rich help to pay down the fiscal deficit (that their greed caused through the banking crash), but if the government sends them larger tax bills they will either move their wealth abroad, or stop donating to Big Society volutary services, or both. Oh dear!
This trap has always existed in the USA. In Europe and the UK, welfare states broke out of it by creating public services for which all paid, and from which all could benefit. By reducing reliance on charitable giving by the wealthiest, governments freed themselves to make incomes more equal through progressive taxation, as well as providing for the needs of the whole population, without the stigma of do-gooding services for the poor.
But globalisation has allowed big money and big corporations to break free of welfare states. Now the rich and their companies hold the threat that they will decamp to tax havens or low-tax regimes. When governments - even right-wing ones like the coalition - threaten to block their tax-avoidance schemes, and expose the bogus nature of some of their philanthropy, they cry foul.
The only way to spring the charity trap is to stand firm behind the principle of state responsibility for building a morally justifiable collective infrastructure. Charity, however well-intentioned, can never be a substitute for social justice.
Meanwhile, the crisis in capitalism has spawned many ironies and paradoxes. The latest is this week's row over the coalition government's cap on tax relief for philanthropists' donations to charities. This limit - of £50,000 or a quarter of total income - was explained as a means of clamping down on tax avoidance by some of the super-rich, who used the allowance to reduce their tax contribution to percentages well below those of lower-income citizens, or in some cases to zero.
Now charities and the rich themselves are up in arms, and putting pressure on the Treasury to change its mind. They argue that the measure will undermine the basis for the Big Society to which the government claims to be committed. Very large donations are the lifeblood of many good causes, in culture and the arts as well as the social services, they claim.
So just as we need the plutocracy of the City of London and huge rewards for Directors and executives in the financial sector, our rentier economy needs massive tax incentives for charitable giving, it appears. The austerity programme demands that the super-rich help to pay down the fiscal deficit (that their greed caused through the banking crash), but if the government sends them larger tax bills they will either move their wealth abroad, or stop donating to Big Society volutary services, or both. Oh dear!
This trap has always existed in the USA. In Europe and the UK, welfare states broke out of it by creating public services for which all paid, and from which all could benefit. By reducing reliance on charitable giving by the wealthiest, governments freed themselves to make incomes more equal through progressive taxation, as well as providing for the needs of the whole population, without the stigma of do-gooding services for the poor.
But globalisation has allowed big money and big corporations to break free of welfare states. Now the rich and their companies hold the threat that they will decamp to tax havens or low-tax regimes. When governments - even right-wing ones like the coalition - threaten to block their tax-avoidance schemes, and expose the bogus nature of some of their philanthropy, they cry foul.
The only way to spring the charity trap is to stand firm behind the principle of state responsibility for building a morally justifiable collective infrastructure. Charity, however well-intentioned, can never be a substitute for social justice.
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