Is David Cameron a psychopath? No, just a product of the times.

An article by Andrew Rawnsley looks at David Cameron's well-established lack of political convictions, which mirrors some of the points I've mentioned in my earlier articles about Cameron's personality.

In some ways, Cameron's lack of serious conviction is typical of the "professional politician", and is nothing new, let alone limited to Cameron himself, or the Conservatives as a party. It is well-known that Cameron got his inspiration from Blair.

Looking further back, "one nation" Conservatives agreed with Labour on the "post-war consensus", most recently Edward Heath. It was Thatcher who brought her own sense of ideological revolution to break apart the unwritten "consensus" that had existed since the end of the Second World War. 

Across the pond, Richard Nixon best embodied the principle of ideological nihilism that can send a man into power, and kept him in re-elected power with an overwhelming majority. "Nixon" Republicanism was a product of Nixon's own personality: to do what was necessary (regardless of the law) to stay in power, and shamelessly steal ideas from across the political spectrum. In other words, he was a ruthless populist and Machiavellian schemer.

Cameron's was once asked why he wanted to be Prime Minister, and his telling reply was "because I think I'd be good at it". As Rawnsley points out in his article, Cameron has always wriggled out of defining "Cameronism"; because there is no such thing. The evidence suggests that all Cameron has a serious conviction about is his own self-confidence, and his own self-advancement.

Pimp my ride

The trip to Sri Lanka for the Commonwealth summit is typical of Cameron's often spontaneous judgments, deciding on actions impulsively or for superficial reasons. With his government's popularity flagging, and Milliband's personal ratings recently improving, it's entirely plausible that Cameron saw Sri Lanka and the plight of the Tamils as a useful distraction from political trouble at home. Foreign trips abroad therefore act as PR stunts for the former "PR man" PM; using the misfortune of some poor foreigners to create a foreign policy "stance" on some issue abroad. While Cameron is hardly the first statesman to do this, Cameron seems to take this tactic to new levels of regularity, hopping around the world like a headless chicken.

The loss of the vote on Syria was the nadir of Cameron's attempt at statesman-like politicking. In brief, his behaviour over that week of the vote brought out all his negatives: his cynical approach to politics, attempting to give the superficial look of "democracy"; his arrogance, in assuming that the vote was in the bag without bothering to do the legwork first; his reckless spontaneity, in promising Britain's support to Obama in advance of any consultation with parliament; and his generally appalling lack of judgement.

The same lack of judgement and recklessness was shown in his previous foray with Europe two years ago, where he earned short-term popular support at home, while wrecking Britain's standing and long-term future in the EU. Again, cynical politicking for cheap populism at home, recklessly putting the country's future in uncertainty. And his plan to "kill the Ukip fox" was so badly-judged, it only served to backfire spectacularly.

This pattern is repeated again and again at home. Cameron uses foreign PR stunts to give a crutch to his otherwise appalling track record as a national statesman.

Ironically, the only real foreign "success" he has had is in acting as a pimp to Britain's assets: offering foreign companies a free ride in Britain in energy markets at the expense of the taxpayer, and so on. The only ideas he has for Britain's role in the world is as a "whore" for everyone else. The only thing Cameron seems to think Britain's future can offer is its own indignity.

How not to run a government

Cameron's manner of running government is a further lesson in his many personality flaws. After failing to win a majority, his prompt decision to form a Coalition with the LibDems might have appeared like a master-stroke to some, but was more a product of his own opportunistic and cynical personality.
With Cameron clearly having no firm views (or real ideas) of his own, and more than any other recent British premier, pursuing the role simply for its own end, being master of a Coalition was the perfect solution. It meant he could stand between the more ideologically right-wing Tories and the more left-wing LibDems as a moderate, stately figurehead.

There are the continual allegations of Cameron's "lies" by those who feel betrayed by his broken promises. His government has presided over U-turn after U-turn, with some newspapers even keeping count. Cameron's position as the moderate leader of a coalition gives him the ready excuse for this, but the fact that his government have backtracked on an almost unprecedented number of policy commitments show less that Cameron is populist, but rather he doesn't take commitments seriously.
This is what has so angered those the the traditional right of the party, and accounts to an extent for the rise of UKIP: no-one believes he is a "true" Tory, and that even the talk of "austerity" (more on that later) can be thought of as simply one of convenience.

Austerity is a conveniently-substantial piece of right-wing Conservative policy (and ideology) that gives Cameron's government a purpose, and makes him look "conservative" to his own supporters.

It is plausible therefore that Cameron allows austerity to happen simply because it will put his name in the history books for changing the face of Britain: it doesn't matter what he's changed, only that he's changed something, and that his name will be forever attached to it. "Austerity" may well simply be Cameron's effort at achieving political immortality, and an utterly amoral act of narcissism.

In other words, Cameron the "hug a hoodie" moderate, who at one time promised to hold to Labour's spending plans and urged people to "Vote Blue, Go Green", by the summer of 2010 had become a right-wing ideological revolutionary. What had changed? In reality, the only thing had changed was that Cameron's superficial interest in social justice (or most of his ideas) had been revealed as nothing more than that - superficial. This is what happens when your leader is a former PR man.

In the end, though, this meant that as a Prime Minister, he presides rather than rules. This has had the contradictory effect of having government policies that, at times, appear logical absurdities.
While Cameron allows the LibDems the occasional symbolic announcement of government "policy", more commonly Cameron has allowed the more "revolutionary" Tory ministers in the Departments of Education, Health, and Social Policy, to use Britain as a virtual living laboratory for ideological experimentation.

Most recently, he declared that Britain should strive for "permanent austerity" - or, if you like "perma-sterity", another buzz-word that could catch on. Cameron's interest in "ideas" seems as superficial as everything else about him. He delegated running ministries to the ministers. Why? Either because he didn't care about what actually happened in them, or that he thought it would make him look "stand-offish" and not wanting to get in the way of the intricacies of government. But this is the crux: a Prime Minister has to know, and ultimately be responsible for, what goes on in his government. If he doesn't know, or doesn't care, then is abrogating his duties as the premier of the country. Either that, or he is allowing clearly incompetent people like Iain Duncan Smith to run essential parts of government policy simply as a distraction from his own failings as a leader.

If he truly cared about the appalling effects his government's social and economic policies are having on the British people, he would do something about it. But fundamentally he either lacks the intelligence, attention span or the empathy to truly understand the effect of his ministers' actions, coming up with mealy-mouthed soundbites to excuse for the social destruction of the lower two-thirds of society.
But this again fits in with Cameron's personality: he takes few things very seriously.

A gang of misfits

This includes such lapses in judgement as the longstanding connection Cameron had with Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, possibly one of the most obviously (and casually) corrupt relationships seen in Downing Street for years. While Labour is also historically implicated in the imbroglio with the Murdoch Press, Cameron's relationship is even seedier and shows ever worse judgement.

His judgement also extends into rewarding loyalty at the expense of competence (or even intelligence), supporting a ministerial circle of flawed and dangerous personalities.
Jeremy Hunt, whose calamitous appearance at the Leveson Inquiry, focusing on his relations with Murdoch Press, led to a later promotion to Health Secretary. Nationally, doctors groaned at the appointment.
Iain Duncan Smith, widely considered to be lacking in competence and sufficient intelligence for the role, is tasked with completely reworking Social Policy, outsourcing to companies like Serco, and effectively destroying the humane fabric of the postwar "welfare state".
George Osborne, the Chancellor, is the most hated politician in the country, and few economists take his ideas seriously. An even more cynical political manipulator than Cameron, his newest idea "Help To Buy", is considered a ticking time-bomb of artificial credit that was created simply to give the superficial impression of wealth to gullible voters in time for the next election. After rubbishing Labour for creating one bust, Osborne is happy to create another one, during far worse economic times. Osborne's policies are designed to only improve the lot of London and the South-east of England, with the rest of the country becoming an economically-depressed "neo-colony".
Michael Gove, perhaps the most dangerous personality to have ever held sway in the Education Ministry, is intent on a reworking of how Education is ran in England (the other parts of the UK already having devolved power in this area); Gove's plan is almost Bolshevik in its ruthless application.
Chris Grayling and Theresa May, Justice Minister and Home Secretary respectively, are in the process of privatising large parts of the Justice System, to the benefit of the likes of Serco and others.

And when not taking things seriously, Cameron is, on the contrary, taking some things far too seriously: losing his temper in parliament in a manner unlike any PM in living memory (even Gordon Brown), impetuously making snide remarks to make cheap political points, demeaning the role of Prime Minister at the dispatch box in a way that compares very poorly to his apparent idol, Margaret Thatcher. His sudden flashes of emotion are symptomatic, like his other attributes, of a more worrying personality disorder, though not surprising in the selfish pursuit of power.

All in all, the "positives" to Cameron's personality are as superficial as everything else. Yes, he is charming, easy to get along with, and knows how to exude reassuring self-confidence and the appearance of competence. But this image is as much as facade as everything else.

Like Boris Johnson, another person in the Conservative Party who is of questionable empathy and depth, Cameron is the product of the social environment that made him. It is an elite that is incapable of understanding the majority of the population, and only try to relate to them when it is convenient to do so. Once every five years.

The rich are in a "class war" with the poor for the sake of "austerity". They declare that the state must be smaller. To the rich the "state" should be smaller because the rich don't need or use it. 
Only the poor do; and they don't matter.

Cait Reilly versus IDS: why "Workfare" doesn't work

"Workfare" is a system encouraged by Ian Duncan Smith to help the unemployed gain work experience, in order to gain skills that will give them a better chance of getting a job, and at no extra cost to the government or the employer. That's the official explanation, in any case.
IDS believes that it is justifiable that unemployed people work for their benefits as it will help them maintain a more pro-active mindset, as well as keeping them familiar with the working environment.

Internships are a popular form of casual employment in various industries in London, particularly in media, law, fashion and the arts, where employers offer work as an opportunity to a longer-term career prospect of paid employment. The employer typically pays for travel costs.

Indentured Slavery was a system popular in the Southern states of the USA in the 19th century that helped Africans gain long-term work experience in the cotton industry. The initial travel expenses were paid up-front by the employer, and the employer paid the daily expenses for the duration of the African's work experience.

Spot the difference? It's just a matter of presentation and perspective.

The case of Cait Reilly has provoked reactions from opposite ends, as she has succeeded in highlighting the moral bankruptcy at the heart of IDS's approach to generating employment.

Regardless of your opinion of the "Workfare" scheme in general, the first question should be if it is actually effective at helping the unemployed find work. The statistics published so far have shown that people who have taken part in the scheme have been less likely to get a job afterwards than those who didn't. Somehow, the scheme is not just ineffective at it's supposed primary purpose - it is actually detrimental to it.

How this is possible, or is this just some kind of statistical anomaly? Right now, that seems unclear, and it is just possible that the statistics are just a freakish one-off. So on that point right now, it seems fair to reserve judgement. The kindest thing to say about the effectiveness of "Workfare", is that it is not yet proven its worth.

However, what does seem fair to judge is the economic sense, as well as the social destruction, being done to the country by the concept of the "Workfare" scheme. Some commentators, even supposedly from the left, have defended the scheme as supporting work experience, and criticised out-of-work graduates for feeling they are too good to work in a place like "Poundland", as IDS himself implied.
This misses the point, though the point they raise does deserve an answer, which I'll get to later. The real problem with this scheme is not that the work itself is considered lowly. The real problem is that the government are giving the private sector free temporary workers that they would otherwise have to give real jobs to.

I wrote an article some months back explaining how the economics of fascism created an economy where the public sector is there to support the inefficiencies of favoured interests in the private sector, at the expense of employees' (especially unions') rights. In other words, government ministers think it is their job to economically support large private companies from failure, but not individual taxpayers. In an economically-fascist state, the government are a cash-cow for the moneyed private sector industries.
The "Workfare" scheme perpetuates this kind of logic. Tendering-out government services to private companies is another economically-fascist policy, when this policy costs the government far more money than it would if they did it themselves. The government's financially eye-watering use of G4S in the Olympics (rather than just using the police or army to begin with) is a prime example. But the whole point here is that the Conservatives are either so blind in their certainty (or so reckless) that they fail to see the economic lunacy of such practices. Labour's use of PFI was another example of government being a "private sector cash-cow", paying for the costs in the event of failure, but letting the private sector take the profits. The economics of fascism are completely counter-productive to the government's financial health, because they always result in the government being taken for a ride by private sector interests; there the private sector has the best of both worlds (all the profits and no costs), and the government the worst of all worlds, paying for the private sector's failings and having no control over its own expenditure.
As a result, the economics of fascism always lead in inefficiency and incompetence in the private sector as well as the government, and to unsustainable government debt. It seems that fascists generally despise government because they think it doesn't work, so have devised an economic system that makes government fail by leeching the government's money to the private sector elite. In this way, fascism is literally a vampire towards the health of good government. Which is the situation we have now in the UK.

"Workfare" is in effect another form of government tendering to the private sector, where employers have the best of both worlds (employees at no cost to themselves, and can be easily replaced), and the government has the worst (it still pays out state benefits to the "Workfare" participant, but receives no taxes as the person is not on a taxable salary). This is why such a scheme makes no economic sense at all: it costs the government everything, and costs the private sector nothing.
This then has a detrimental knock-on effect to the job market overall. Every job for free that is taken up by the "Workfare" scheme is a potential opening for a real paid job, one that gives someone a salary and boosts government tax receipts (and whose salary feeds back into the economy generally). So the the government are also shooting themselves in the foot a second time. The scheme is therefore creating poverty and dependency in the long-term by potentially creating an entire sub-class of government-subsidized workers on the beck and call of whichever employer feels like getting something for nothing. There are already an increasing number of part-time and temporary staff at the lower end of the job market: this scheme is likely to make that situation even worse.

The final criticism is creating the precedent of unemployed people having to work to earn their government benefit, which in any case sounds like an ironic joke. This seems even slightly sadistic. If an unemployed person wishes to gain work experience, there are plenty of charities or volunteering jobs around, especially since government recently withdrew funding from many charitable organisations, and are crying out for help. This was the point that Cait Reilly made: she already had a voluntary job in the sector she was educated in.
Even so, why do the unemployed need to be forced to work for the benefits that they are entitled to through the taxes they have paid into the system? Since when has it become fashionable to assume that unemployed people don't have jobs because it's their fault, and therefore should be forced to work for practically nothing? This just feeds into the easy (lazy) thinking that being unemployed means you are bone-idle. Not only that, it implies that the government and IDS in particular somehow equate £60 a week with an employee's salary. It is not: JSA is a basic sum of money to pay for the bare essentials, nothing more. It may be true that there are some who are in work and who do not earn a great deal more than JSA per week, but that is the fault of the employer and the wider economy, not the fault of the unemployed. If wages are low compared to the cost of living, do something to raise the wages or lower the cost of living; do not punish those who don't even have a job in the first place.

Lastly, there is the point IDS mentioned about unemployed graduates feeling they are "too good" for menial jobs like in "Poundland". Whatever his views, the fact that there are not the relevant jobs in the sector they trained in, or that they gained a degree in a non-vocational subject, is due to a combination of government and private sector shortsightedness and poor strategic planning. Wanting half of young people to have a degree is a noble government aim, but pointless unless you expect to have thousands of highly-educated shelf-stackers. A similar criticism can be levelled at the private sector heavyweights who always demanded a degree (even regardless of the discipline) in order to get the most basic white-collar job.
There is more to education than university: vocational training has proven to be far more useful in the long-term to a young person's career; and proper advice about the true state of affairs in the workplace would be of far better use to a young person, so they can make an informed decision about if they should take the time to get a degree in the first place, or just make an earlier start on the career ladder.

But one thing is clear: "Workfare" doesn't work, in any real sense of the word.

The Conservatives' "Five Year Plan"

It's not often that you get to compare Conservatives to Communists, but the thing that David Cameron's Conservative government shares with Bolshevism is its love of the "Five Year Plan".
But theirs is no ordinary plan.

This theme of a "Five Year Plan" first became clear when the former key strategist, Steve Hilton, said that "Everything must have changed by 2015".
This coincides with my thoughts on my previous article "Boris Johnson for PM? I sense a cunning plan..." here, when I said that the key point about the "neo-liberal revolution" taking place at Number 10 was that by the time of the next election, the changes made by the government were meant to be practically irreversible, so it wouldn't matter who won the next election.

This is worth thinking about for a moment, because it explains some of the reckless thinking that the government has towards its own popularity. The key point is this: the Conservative government is privately indifferent to what happens after 2015 regarding who is in power, because if they succeed in their plan, by that point it won't matter who is in power. All that matters to them is that their agenda is completed by 2015, as explained here. The government is therefore behaving psychologically like a group of ideological "suicide terrorists" - making sure that they carry out their plan by 2015, come what may. Whatever happens after that is not important.

This fatalistic thinking strangely reminds me of another of my previous articles "From Gotham City to Gorky Park..." here, where I talked about the psychology of the Batman character "Bane" being similar to Lenin - both ideological warriors determined to carry out their plan, regardless of the consequences. "Bane" was determined to destroy Gotham City, even at the cost of his own life. The Conservatives in government in the UK seem to have developed a similar do-or-die mentality, a radicalism that is indifferent to democracy and the popular will.
The Conservatives' contempt for democracy is therefore plain to see - chillingly calculated, they are determined to revolutionise the UK as we know it, regardless of what the electorate might think of them. Indeed, they are so focussed on their goal that all that matters to them is completion of their goal, to ensure that nothing can unmake the "revolution" once it has been completed.

This anti-democratic radicalism, and their indifference to their own popularity, should be worrying at the very least. It is chilling to think that the Conservatives were voted into power only by a minority of the electorate, but were so determined to implement their revolution, their "Five Year Plan", that nothing else mattered - not respect for democracy, not respect for the the UK's future, not even their own popularity; nothing.

It is difficult to think of a contemporary political comparison to a government being run in this way. When put into this perspective of the "Five Year Plan", George Osborne's lack of concern at his own appallingly-construed Budget makes more sense. The same can said of Cameron's determination to ignore Osborne's incompetence, and vow to keep him in position till 2015. The same logic explains Cameron's lack of concern about the tit-for-tat with the LibDems over breaking of clauses in the Coalition Agreement, and the determination for the Coalition to endure until (or close to) 2015. When they know that they really have only five years to complete their goals, it makes them blind to criticism, and gives their radicalism an even greater sense of ruthless urgency.
This is because the wider plan is economic, social, and philosophical: other matters are trivial by comparison. The Coalition exists principally for their agreement over how to run the economy and redesign the social fabric of the UK, on which the LibDems are largely in agreement with the Conservatives over. As long as the core tenets of their Five-Year-Plan are adhered to and implemented, it doesn't matter what happens to them after 2015, because their "neo-liberal revolution" would have been achieved, regardless of whoever is power afterwards.

When they are not really that bothered about their own electoral prospects, what does that tell us about their attitude to government as an institution? Apart from the radicalism I mentioned that permeates their logic, the Conservatives by definition are not a "party of government" but a party against government. Echoing Ronald Reagan's mantra that "government isn't the solution to the problem; government is the problem", the Conservative plan is to replace public sector services by large-scale private sector companies wherever practically possible. These private sector behemoths (like G4S, Serco, and so on) then act as parasites on the public purse: feeding off government, government protecting the behemoths' financial solvency at all costs, while the behemoths get to keep any profits - allowing them to have their cake and eat it. This is the economics of fascism, as I've explained elsewhere.
The Conservatives are not that bothered about who governs after 2015 because they are not that interested in "government", only what they can help the private sector (and by extension, themselves) to get out of it. As the party of big business, their plan is to ensure that big business has the handle over the government of the UK, so that after 2015, the "government" has as little real power as possible. So, therefore, why would the Conservatives be bothered about being in charge of an effectively powerless institution, when the private sector oligarchy will be ones really in charge?
Besides, it would give the Conservatives the first call on all those plum jobs in the private sector "providers" that they had helped create...

This is the Conservative plan for 2015: the complete reshaping of the UK as we know it, so that by this point it is a paragon of "neo-liberal" virtue, a paradise for the financial sector and the corporate oligarchy, linked through patronage by the Conservatives themselves. Who cares who's in power after 2015, when the quiet  revolution that sustains those at the private sector hierarchy will have already been completed?

With the "neo-liberal revolution" achieved after completion of the Conservatives' "Five-Year Plan", democracy is irrelevant.

A short history of Globalisation; neo-liberalism and Orwellian Doublespeak

I wrote last month about how London and New York represent the "twin cities" of globalisation - the two Anglophone metropolises of the world.

Globalisation is an Anglophone invention, brought about by the efforts of the former British Empire and its counterpart, the USA. It really began in the 19th century, with the British Empire's control over the Indian subcontinent, and expansion into large parts of Africa. By the start of the First World War, the British Empire and the USA were Anglophone rivals for the world's mercantile resources, so the USA was its natural successor after the rapid decline of the British Empire after the end of the Second World War, thirty years later. The USA filled the gap vacated by the British Empire's decline, dominating the world's commercial interests as no other power before.

Both the British Empire and the USA, as world powers, saw the world with a mercantile mentality: unconstrained by borders, nationality or culture. This was what gave the British an advantage over their imperial rivals back in the 19th century, and was the same thinking that led to globalisation today.
Britain's control of India was perhaps the first large-scale example of what we would called "globalisation"/"neo-liberalism" - the control of a nation's resources for commercial, private sector, interests - the "East India Company", that ran much of the subcontinent as a British imperial fief, but also ran as a private company. The "Hudson Bay Company" in  British Canada worked along similar principles.

This precedent set by the "East India Company" was continued across the Atlantic when, late in the 19th century, the kingdom of Hawaii was seized by American businessmen in a coup, when they became unhappy with the commercial policies of Hawaii's queen - it shortly afterwards became a part of the USA.
Barely ten years later, into the early 20th century, the USA continued this spirit of private enterprise when American commercial interests went so far as to encourage the creation of a new state in Central America to build a canal: Panama's independence from Columbia was bankrolled by the American government with the understanding that newly-independent Panama would grant them a slice of land to build the Panama Canal on. This land then remained US territory until the end of the 20th century.
Through the rest of the 20th century, the march of what we now call "globalisation" continued in these Anglophone parts of the world, with the USA leading the way, when Britain's light was fading. Staying in Central America, Guatemala remained a virtual fief of the "United Fruit Company" - a left-wing government was ruthlessly put down by the CIA in the early '50s. The same story was true in Iran in 1953 when a left-wing government was kicked out and the Shah replaced by the CIA due to strong British and US private oil interests. The Suez Crisis later in that decade was also a story of commercial power, but in this case the USA lost patience with the British attempts to maintain power above their station, and so lost much of its commercial links to the Middle East, to be replaced by the USA.

What we see here is a common strategy that would be familiar with any multinational CEO today: ruthless expansion into new markets, stout defence of its commercial interests, and the elimination of risk from other rivals. To an extent, every past world power has followed this strategy, but (with the notable and important exception of the Republic of Venice) no other has been as been able to grant so much power to the commercial (private) sector, and thus benefit from the ruthless and unprejudiced mind of business for the sake of greater imperial power.
It was the Venetian Republic that successfully used this model to dominate trade in the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages, the British Empire that first saw the true benefits to this system and applied it on a world scale, and the USA that improved upon and refined it again.
In the 21st century, we now see that this system has been refined even further: where the private sector makes the public sector subservient to it, and the whole world is a open marketplace. This is also called "globalisation".

I said in an earlier post here that globalisation is equivalent to the economics of fascism applied on a world scale. Also called "neo-liberalism", this system that was first indulged by the British Empire and refined by the USA, allowed the private sector to grow beyond national boundaries; encroaching into markets in the Developing World, and thus increase its consumer base (from new markets) as well as lower its overheads (using cheap foreign labour): a win-win situation for the private sector.
Globalisation is therefore the economic end-goal of fascism: as both systems call for the indulgence of private sector big business by the public sector, allowing these corporate oligarchs to maximise their profits and minimise their losses, while advocating a system that breeds Social Darwinism. The most efficient way to do this is by allowing a free market that is global; reducing employee rights and wages to the minimum possible; the obliteration of "union" representation; giving multinational corporations advantageous tax benefits representative to their scale; ensuring that the oligarchs have an in-built advantage over smaller rivals; indulgence of politicians; ensuring the state covers for any private losses; and so on.

This system of globalisation is also supported at its most cunningly disingenuous manner through a masterly piece of Orwellian Doublespeak.
For the private sector, whose natural aim is the amoral maximisation of profit and the minimalisation of costs, feeds the world a mantra that capitalism in this current form is that most expedient to a free, democratic society. But the reality tells us the opposite.
It depends what you mean by "free". The corporate oligarchy's perception of our "freedom" is freedom from government "interference": there is no safety net, no "rights", nothing should be taken for granted - everything is up to you. No-one is going to help you, least of all the private sector. In this vision, we are all slaves to the corporate oligarchy. To them, we are all commodities, sources of income - nothing more. This is "fascism" to you and me, albeit a smarter version of what existed in Europe during the Second World War.
And their idea of "democracy" bears little relation to the common-held view on the street. They are happy for you to vote whichever party you want, as long as those parties all agree to maintain the status quo: hence the system of political patronage. You are more-or-less free to say whatever you like, as long as you don't dare change anything. And if you do, then the law and the police are already on their side. This is more commonly called "authoritarianism", albeit with the indulgence of pointless chit-chat.
In that sense, globalisation is the next (final?) step on the evolutionary scale of economic fascism, where the corporate oligarchy no longer needs to use state violence to achieve its ends: much smarter and more subtle now, it simply achieves them feeding the clever language of freedom and democracy to the people, while delivering economic slavery and autocracy.

In his novel "Nineteen Eighty-four", George Orwell's dystopia was ruled by a regime that used three mantras of "Doublespeak" to keep the population fooled from their nightmarish reality. One of them was "Freedom is Slavery".
What the corporate oligarchs want us all to believe is that slavery is freedom.      

Boris Johnson for PM? I sense a cunning plan...

I wrote the other day about the disbelief of Boris Johnson being a seriously-considered future candidate for PM.
My disbelief came from the attraction that people saw in him - or more accurately, the "suspension of disbelief" that seemed to explain his popularity with the general public. However, just because it seems unbelievable doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

I read a Telegraph article that spun a different perspective onto Boris and his path to power here, and it clearly dispels the myth that Boris is a nincompoop. In my hastiness, I forgot one (perhaps the most important) thing: that Boris is an accomplished actor. His gradual rise to power has been through his consistent stance of going against the grain, acting as though the rules don't apply.
In that sense, he may remind some Tories of a latter-day Churchill - a maverick who cannot be pinned down, whose charms are as infectious as they are inexplicable and contradictory.
And his appearance as a buffoon is part of his public persona, that hides an intellect well-versed in the art of rhetoric, wordplay, and the power of clever oratory. He may not appear to be smart, but smartness can come in many guises - even as a blonde-haired buffoon, playing on his oafish charms.

No, Boris is no fool - he merely plays the fool very well. I compared him to "Dubya" the other day, but now I realise I was being unfair. I said that Boris made Cameron looked smart, which is true, strictly speaking - he makes Cameron seem smarter than him, while in reality, it is Boris who holds the best cards in the deck, and lets Cameron be the sponge for all the government's bad news stories. It is Cameron who has been out-smarted by the "blonde bombshell", cornered, and made to look ineffective.

There is a sense that all the pieces are being carefully put in place, events set in motion. Cameron has been the willing dupe for what has gone wrong with the economy and the government's failings in general. Banks and big business realise that Cameron has failed in repairing the economy because he was shackled to the LibDems, and too slow to restore faith in business. Osborne is discredited, and yet Cameron refuses to replace him for the entire term of parliament. Business has lost respect for Cameron, and the banking sector thinks that Cameron has no real idea what he's doing.
Meanwhile, Cameron's party is slowly losing its respect for him, too, as the Tories (never the most loyal of people) look for alternatives. Cameron has been weak with his own rebellious backbenchers, seeming even weaker than when John Major was in power, consistently conceding ground, and emboldening further the rebellious "bright young things" of the 2010 intake. Now, with House of Lords' reform dead in the water, the Lib Dems are looking more irate than ever, and Cameron is stuck between a rock and a hard place.The Coalition seems less and less likely to survive till 2015.
And where would that then leave Cameron? If the Lib Dems pull out and agree to allow the Tories to continue as a minority government at some point in the next couple of years, then the Conservative backbenchers would be even more emboldened to force a leadership contest before the 2015 election. If Boris can therefore manage to concoct a passage into parliament before then, the backbenchers may well think he has the charisma and "name recognition" that would give them the edge to, at least, limit the damage that Cameron has done thus far. And the polls appear to support that logic.

Boris is going from strength to strength, so this path is not as unlikely as it sounds. Going back to Churchill, his path to power was also a fluke at the time: in May 1940 he was in the right place at the right time, and as a maverick his appeal was difficult for "career politicians" to understand, or counter for that matter. In that way, Boris shares some of these characteristics.
Boris is also a strong defender of the financial sector, and from what he has said would therefore have the support of the men in The City. Having the "common touch", his charisma crosses class boundaries like no-one else in his party. It is no surprise also that the "Murdoch press" are supporting him where they can: with Cameron damaged goods through links revealed to the Leveson Inquiry, they would look for a new "poster boy" to defend their interests. Boris therefore suits their needs well.

The "cunning plan" is then to have Boris as PM, as he would support the aims of the financial sector, be an affable defender of the "free press", as well as making the right populist noises about promoting growth for small businesses (if not really doing anything about it). The cuts would continue, as would the various public sector "reforms", albeit explained by a man whose maverick charms would render the left-wing speechless and tongue-tied. Ken Livingstone tried to dismiss Boris as a lightweight and not a serious politician: yet these blows deflected off Boris' affable persona. There's no reason to think that, as PM, Boris would not be able to repeat the same conjuring trick.
For those who support the "neo-liberal experiment", the "blonde bombshell" would then be the one who stood the best chance against the "forces of darkness" of the left-wing, discrediting them with his unique turn-of-phrase and maverick methodology, ensuring that their economic fascism would continue for the foreseeable future, until a point when their transformation of the UK would be beyond reversal.

A strange irony indeed, if economic fascism reached its logical conclusion in the UK under the tenure of the "blonde bombshell".

Welcome to the (anarcho-fascist) revolution

I am quoting a small segment from wikipedia.org, describing an economic situation where the economy is designed on "the basis of private property and of private initiative, but it is subordinated to the tasks of the state. As part of the relations between workers and employers (the system is) guided by the principles of social Darwinism: the strongest support, rooting out the weakest. In economic practice, this means, on the one hand, protecting the interests of successful businessmen, on the other - the destruction of trade unions and other organizations of the working class".

Ignore some of the more emotive language, and examine the situation described in simple economics: sound like anything familiar in the UK?

It should, because the above situation is more-or-less comparable to the ideological position of the Conservative-led government. By definition, they believe that the private sector to be morally superior to the public sector; that the private sector is considered (by definition) more efficient and more cost-effective in providing services; that the public sector, by comparison, is inefficient and its workers of questionable loyalty, liable to be an arm of the unions; big business is to be indulged as much as possible, the barriers to business torn down in favour of businesses' wishes and against excessive employees' rights. And yet, in spite of the government's indulgence and favour towards business, it still feels the need to control some core design: a strong justice system; a strong policy of border control, while at the same time, encouraging business to out-source beyond the country itself. 
In other words, an illogical contradiction is in place: encouraging the free market, while supporting the the "cartelisation" of the market; against immigration, but in favour of foreign out-sourcing; against the inefficiency and innate incompetence of the public sector, but indifferent to the private sector's identical incompetence; the government wants to out-source services to the private sector, but still be in control of who gets the services; for the free market, but also against the free market.

The Conservative-led government may be considered as disciples of Ayn Rand's economic and ideological vision of a pure form of free market capitalism, but this would be a misnomer. The Conservatives in government are not pure free market capitalists, because they believe that the government should still be in core control of some aspects of the decision-making process - which companies get to run which services. A pure free market would see virtually no government as such at all; as Ayn Rand designed, "government" would only control the justice system and the military: the private sector would provide everything else. 

But the Conservatives have no wish to vote themselves out of existence. The Conservatives plan is more long-term, a slice-by-slice destruction of the British welfare state. As the David Cameron's former-key policy advisor, Steve Hilton, said, by the end of a full term, "everything needs to have changed". This is what the Conservative plan is: a virtual revolution under the noses of the electorate, much of what is being done never part of the Conservatives election manifesto.
Education, health and welfare to be redesigned out of recognition from what existed before, with much of the services handed out to large corporations, and what left pared down to the bare minimum to prevent public revolt. The justice system's public sector services to be similarly handed out to large private firms like the now-infamous G4S: police services, the prisons, and so on. 
This is all happening right now. The continual demonisation of the unions, and the continued quasi-religious zeal in the adherence to non-intervention in the free market, means that the government is indifferent and also feels blameless as the unregulated property market slowly destroys the livelihoods of families across the country; as rising property prices (especially in the uncontrolled rental market) mean that many people on what were once considered "average" salaries find themselves as the new "working poor", spending their salary on rising rents, rising bills, rising fuel, and rising high street prices, with nothing left over at the end of the month.
And all the while, the government claims to be fighting for the interests of the "aspirational classes" (whoever they are!), while at the same time doing almost nothing to help anyone earning less double the average national salary. 

The fact that the Conservatives still claim to represent the "ordinary hard-working, honest families" of Britain is typical of the arrogance of their self-belief. What evidence is there that they have done anything at all to improve the lot of the average person, the average family? None whatsoever. The evidence only points to the opposite. 
The "big con" is that the Conservatives, even after the financial crisis, banking scandals, the various corrupt and morally vacuous (or just mindless) judgements made by members of the government, still believe that they are the party best suited to governing the country, and somehow manage to twist the truth to make enough of the "aspirational" classes believe them, as well as the guaranteed votes of the indifferent and amoral rich. 

The Conservative government is in the middle of carrying out a quiet ideological revolution: you can call it an "anarcho-capitalist" revolution if you like - where the government creates a system of blissful anarchy for big business and the rich, and a system of helpless anarchy for everyone else. But that would be missing some important points, mentioned in the quote at the beginning.
The system described in the quote, which seems to similar to the mindset of the Conservative-led government, is the economic system, not of "anarcho-capitalism", but of fascism.
While the racism and prejudice has been carefully air-brushed out of existence by the likes of David Cameron and his "Chipping Norton set" of cosmopolitan Conservative friends, there still remains the economic ideology, which is unchanged, if slightly cleaned up.

This is the real truth: that while the Tories may have given the appearance of cleaning up their act from the days of being the "Nasty Party", choosing a charming but intellectually vacuous leader in David Cameron, behind the scenes the ideology of "Economic Fascism" remains.
With Cameron content to allow his ministers free rein to forcibly put their revolutionary ideas into practice on the living laboratory of the UK, fear is in the air, with ministers revelling in the psychological terror and "creative chaos" they are creating. And all the while, Cameron acts as the vacuous front-man to this amoral revolution, repeating his mantra:
"There Is No Alternative!".

Like the Soviet Union, but without the Socialism

Under the noses of its people, the Conservative government is carrying-out an ideological war on British society. In its scale, its righteous certainty, and callous lack of empathy, it ranks as one of the biggest hidden attempts at social engineering on a national scale seen in the Western world for decades.
The evidence is plain to see; you just have to look carefully at the headlines.

Since coming to power, under the charming and harmless-looking nose of David Cameron, the Prime Minister has given his ministers free rein to take their ideological battles to the departments they run, and further out to the nation.

The most notorious of these is the Education minister, Michael Gove. Just today the news leaked out of his plan to scrap GCSEs and return the secondary education system back to the O-levels/CSEs of thirty years ago. He claims that the current exams do not adequately provide the skills and standards necessary for today's situation. Well, it may well be said that the education system is not perfect; certainly it could be improved. But what he recommends is a system that formalises Social Darwinism.
For a start, it is misleading and disingenuous to compare education systems retrospectively, thirty years apart: the methods are different, and the old system was replaced because business people saw it as inadequate for  real life conditions. How would going back the previous discredited system be better? Not only that, but any return to "O" levels would mean they no longer correlate to the following A-levels - unless Gove recommends (and secretly plans on) changing the FE system as well. People who are adults now (who look the old "O" levels) say GCSEs are much easier than in their day: but logically any exam reviewed by a 40-year-old that is designed for a 16-year-old is going to be easier. It's easy to mock teenagers when you're an adult.

But those are small points compared to the main one: that this is another example (I'll mention others later) of how the Conservatives, with Gove as one of its most vociferous proponents, are content to "raise standards" by creating a system whereby those who are unlucky enough to fail these "rigorous" exams will be effectively cast out from social mobility - in other words ensuring that there will be a permanent and significant underclass, cut off from the more well-off and socially capable rest. But he hasn't though much about this.
There are already the student fees in place (some of the highest in the Western world), also meant to "raise standards", but also guaranteeing that there will continue to be an entire generation of graduates with tens of thousands of pounds in debt with little hope of getting a well-paid job, due to the swelling ranks of highly-educated unemployable young people. They will have to resort to the growing trend of unpaid "internships", unpaid "work experience", or if they're lucky, part-time work. This is the future that Mr Gove is helping to create: a generation of graduate slave labour.

Then there is the Chief Inspector of School, Michael Wilshaw, who seems to operate as Mr Gove's ideological witchfinder-general: psychologically terrorising the schools system by constantly undermining the way schools' performance is measured. For him, no longer is it acceptable to be a "satisfactory" school two years running - to him, this represents failure. He also threatened to impose on-the-spot inspections, but with that idea leaving some school heads and teachers literally living in fear every day they come to work, this idea has been quietly shelved. Teachers are supposed to be amongst our most valued people in society, but under the catch-all excuse of "raising standards", it is being used as a weapon of terror on the educational system: terrorising teachers and students alike, and leaving many of the teachers either on the edge of a nervous breakdown, quitting, and many prospective teachers discouraged to even think about it. Perhaps Mr Gove wants this to happen as well.
The Department of Education, therefore, is ran like a latter-day branch of the KGB; declaring war on education for the sake of education.

Then there's the Health minister, who is pushing through the biggest form of privatisation in the health sector yet seen. This is on the back of continual criticisms from the sector itself, and a radical dismembering of the NHS - the government institution most cherished by the British public. It is almost as though the government is taking a perverse form of pleasure of taking to pieces that which the people most respect about government. As the Conservatives are so ideologically-obsessed with the idea that government by definition cannot do things as well as the private sector, they are determined to even destroy the one thing that government still does well (and is most respected by the public), given the alternative. By purposely undermining government as an institution, it also as though the government deliberately is courting controversy and sees unpopularity as a badge of honour. This lack of empathy and twisted logic reeks of "Bolshevik"-style ideological psychopathy, turned on its head.

There is also the issue of welfare, pensions and investment.

Welfare has seen the sledgehammer of "reform" and cuts. The disabled, families and the "working poor" are all suffering due to the government's zeal for cutting back on the state's provision to the neediest in society. One of the most disturbing developments partly due to the cuts has been that some councils have been forced to relocate some families to other (less developed) parts of the country for financial reasons: in other words, forced deportations to "the regions", or effectively economic exile.

The government has also declared an unofficial war on public servants' pensions. Its main tactic, so it appears, is through the government's intransigence to provoke the various public servants unions into going on strike in order to discredit them in the court of public opinion. So once again, we see the government playing a reckless game of brinkmanship to test the resolve of the public sector as a whole. We already saw earlier this year this same tactic back-fire spectacularly with the tanker drivers' dispute, when the government caused a national panic even though there was no declared strike. But even then, the government blamed the (non-striking) tanker drivers.

The government's resistance to promoting growth in the economy through government investment also ensures that a growing trend in employment has become entrenched: a growing and significant number of long-term unemployed (to add to the many unemployable graduates and school-leavers); and a growing and significant number of part-time jobs to replace full-time employment. It used to be true that the Soviet Union had zero unemployment: this was because many people had "non-jobs" like opening doors. The government's lack of interest in unemployment is turning the UK into a variation on the USSR's state of affairs: the UK will become a country of part-time workers.

Furthermore, there is also the Ministry of Defence, whose role in the cuts is to oversee the down-sizing of the military by twenty per cent. This is not often in the news, so some may see this as a side-issue, but for the thousands of soldiers to lose their jobs and regiments due to be disbanded, it is a shocking state of affairs: all the more so as it comes from the same Conservative Party what was meant to be the vanguard of the military's interests. Ironic, then, that the one that wields the knife is the military's bosom buddy. As it happens, I am currently reading the biography of Stalin (which partially inspired me to write this article): he who ordered the execution of many of the military leaders who had been his staunchest allies in the Bolshevik's rise to power. The similarly-ruthless psychology of the Conservative Party hierarchy is not lost on me.

Last, but far from least, is Theresa May, the Home Secretary, who is keen on cuts and "reform" to the police. Like the military, the police are supposed to be a cause close to the heart of the Conservative Party; but also like the military, those closest to the Party are those most likely to feel the knife. The police are in open revolt over the massive cuts proposed, but the Home Secretary is unyielding in her desire to see through the "reforms". By law, police cannot strike - though perhaps, like with other public sector workers, the Conservatives would secretly wish that they could, just so that they could provoke them. All the better to discredit the enemies of "reform". The Home Secretary also wished to force on the police, in the same way that the Chief Inspector of Schools is ideologically supportive of the government, a reform-friendly bureaucrat. The police wouldn't stand for this further insult, however.

One further very recent change to immigration, at the suggestion of the Home Secretary, puts the UK almost in a league of its own compared to other Western democracies. British citizens married to non-EU citizens (which includes those Brits married to Americans, Canadians, Australians, Kiwis, South Africans, as well as all other non-English speaking countries in the world) may only live in the UK with their spouses if they earn more than £18,000 - increasing to above £22,000 if they have a child, increasing with the number of children they have. The average salary in the UK is around £27,000, give or take. If you earn minimum wage, your salary is more like £12,000. The figure of £18,000 is beyond what the majority of women, and people under thirty, typically earn in the UK. Around forty per cent of the UK working population earn less than £18,000 overall.
So that puts this immigration rule into perspective: the British government has now effectively offered some of its own citizens an awful choice. For those Brits married to non-EU foreigners and not on a "high" salary, they must either live in the UK apart from their spouse, or permanently live in exile. The Soviet Union created thousands of political exiles; the government now is creating thousands of financial exiles, simply because the government doesn't approve of who they marry.
So now the Conservative government has even declared war on the "wrong" type of love.

Donkeys, wolves and headless chickens, supported by lambs: the personalities of the Coalition

I've almost lost track of the number of negative stories and negative characteristics that can be used to describe the personalities that make up the UK government, but I'll try and do the best I can.

From what I can tell, the two people who seem to have the most integrity (compared to the rest), interestingly also happen to be the "elder statesmen" representing their respective parties in government: the LibDem Business Secretary, Vince Cable, and the Conservative Justice Minister, Ken Clarke. Since holding their respective positions, they have carried out their duties more-or-less ably, and honestly, as far as I can tell.

As for the rest, their personalities can be roughly divided into a few categories: ineptitude ("the donkeys"), psychological weakness ("the headless chickens"), chilling ruthlessness ("the wolves"), and mind-boggling levels of masochism ("the lambs"). The first three apply to the various personalities of Conservative ministers; the last, to the personalities of LibDem ministers.

Some of the Conservative ministers seem to vacillate between being inept one moment, and weak the next: into this category, we can probably place the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. In other words, their way of dealing with decisions is either to make a decision without properly thinking it through ("analytical thinking" not being their strong point), and then when their decision is shown to be wrong, they either cave-in (after a period of showing mule-like stubbornness to change their opinion, despite their obvious mistake), or stick their head in sand like ostriches and hope the problem will go away.

Then there are people like Thesera May and Jeremy Hunt, the Home and Culture Secretary respectively. These are ministers who, like donkeys, clearly don't know what they are doing, and often seem like rabbits frozen in the headlights whenever a problem appears. Then when a problem does happen, they plead ignorance or blame someone else. This explains why Mrs May has little idea about how to deal with immigration and border control, and why Mr Hunt is utterly clueless about what represents improper conduct by a minister. When put in front of a lawyer in the Leveson inquiry, Mr Hunt appears genuinely surprised at the how his behaviour is seen as dishonest and prejudiced. This simply tells us how little he understands about the responsibilities of his position; the same goes for the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, and the Conservative co-chair, Baroness Warsi.

There are people like the Education and Health ministers, who have the chilling characteristics of wolves; Mr Gove, the Education minister, most of all. These two ministers are the ones responsible for carrying out controversial, wide-scale reforms in the institutions they represent. These two characters have complete conviction and determination in their role, in the face of massive protest from the hundreds of thousands of public servants they are supposed to represent. They have little sympathy for the plight and chaos they are causing their industries; in fact, they seem to even welcome it, chaos being a sign that what they are doing must be right. In their mind, as no omelette can be made without breaking a few eggs, they discredit and dismiss discontent like a pair of Soviet Commissars, there to implement the dead hand of government reform, sweeping away the anachronistic regime of their predecessors. They show disturbing characteristics of psychopathy, Mr Gove most of all.

Supporting this disastrous and unparalleled combination of personalities, are the LibDems in government. It has to be remembered that it is the LibDems that allow these personalities mentioned the right to govern; and it is these above personalities that have repeatedly done what they could to discredit and damage their LibDem partners in government. Because the Conservatives know that the LibDems would be politically destroyed if they abruptly pull out of the Coalition and call a fresh election, it seems the Conservatives have few limits to how they can demean the LibDems in government in the meantime. Forced to accept Conservative policies that most LibDems abhor, while at the same time metaphorically being kicked in the teeth by their Coalition "partners", the LibDems have become lambs; too weak to stand up against their weekly humiliation in government because they are too terrified of the alternative of facing the electorate. Their credibility shot to pieces, the LibDems can only cling to their abusive relationship to their Conservative masters, in the vain hope that their loyalty and patience will be somehow rewarded later.

So this is what is called the UK government: in the worst economic crisis and prolonged slump that British people have seen for a century, the electorate is rewarded with perhaps the worst set of government personalities known in living memory.

This whole shambles of government personalities saps the morale of the public in general, feeding the impression that politics in Britain is utterly disreputable, full of people who are so clueless they have no idea about how to behave with integrity; people who are so ruthless and blind that they have no idea how to behave with humanity; and people who are psychologically so weak they have no idea how to defend their own decency.
Gordon Brown's government suffered from this reputation for much of the time; however, the personalities in the Coalition have managed to sink to even further depths, surpassing the Brown administration's often calamitous failings with its own unique meld of governmental incompetence and inhumanity.

It is no wonder that public confidence and trust in politicians is at a low point, and fringe parties see an upswing. With the abysmal quality of those who run the current government, it is hardly surprising.

Unemployment is no longer a lifestyle choice: it is economic necessity

Inflation can be a misleading thing. Officially, inflation in the UK is fairly low compared to other nations, at 2.5%. But that tells barely half the story.

Real wages have barely increased over the last few years. Meanwhile, food prices and fuel prices have increased sharply, to the extent that some are having to seriously ration their car use; those that, due to their word commitments, do not have the luxury of that choice, are squeezed even further. Haulage companies, for example, have seen their costs increase by double digits year on year, with those increased costs passed onto the retailers, and then onto us, the customers. That is just one example; a microcosm of the overall hidden inflation that is squeezing the average family to the bone. Then there are the increased costs of utilities, creating massive rises in monthly bills for the average family.

 Many young families cannot get mortgages from risk-paralysed banks unwilling to lend; the result of that has been a surge in demand for rental accommodation in recent years, resulting in significant rises to rents around the country, and a further eating away of the hard-earned wages of everyday families.

Apart from the miserly wage increases, there are then government policy changes, such as the changes to working family tax credits, that make thousands of families worse off. These things all add up to a situation where some families are literally better-off week-on-week by being on benefits.

The overall rate of unemployment is apparently coming down; but there are two significant caveats to that point, it be true or not.
It may well be that the overall rate is coming down. But much of that decrease is taken up by a significant increase in people accepting part-time employment. The East of England, where I live at the moment, it the centre of this story. In other words, an increasing section of working people cannot find real jobs; only part-time jobs. In the mid-1970s there was the three-day-week for a while; for many people now, a three-day-a-week career has become the new reality. How these people make ends meet on a part-time salary, I don't know. Many, for obvious reasons, would rather stay on benefits than accept a part-time job that cannot economically support them.
Which leads me to the second point: that while overall unemployment may be coming down, long-term unemployment keeps on going up. For these people, the longer they stay unemployed, the less employable they can become. In other words, even when the economy does eventually improve for real, there is still likely to remain a significantly higher rate of long-term unemployment than we have experienced before. It seems the "good old days" of high employment may well be a thing of the past.
And if costs keep on increasing (and there is no reason to expect that they wouldn't), and if the government remains determined to cut the size of the state (and, consequently, the economy) for the foreseeable future, then the government will continue to have a massive welfare bill on its hands, undoing all the efforts that they have made to reduce the government's deficit.

The situation has come to this: the government's obsession with cost-cutting has eroded the economy so much that economic logic has been turned on its head. Conservatives wanting to reduce the size of the state will be responsible for the largest increase in state welfare benefits for their unemployed population ever seen in British history. The UK, with its millions of part-time "three-day-a-week", may reduce a significant portion of the population to virtual financial slavery. Meanwhile those of the population unemployed and unemployable will make the UK a permanent "welfare state" not seen since the days of the Soviet Union.

Quite an achievement for a Conservative government...

Who'd be a teacher in the UK? And who'd want to be a teenager?

In the latest batch of education "reforms", the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has declared a revamp to the inspection system, as described here by the BBC.

In brief, Wilshaw intends to remove from any inspection teams the previous requirement to give notice to any school or college for inspection; he also wants to re-assess the grading system for schools so that any school that is consistently graded as "satisfactory" (compared to the opposing extremes of "outstanding" or "deplorable").

Wilshaw says that "we have tolerated mediocrity for far too long" in our education system. His inference is clear; that our education system is broken, and that poor teaching is to blame. On the first point he may well be right; on the second, he is completely wrong.

Now, I'm not saying that all teachers are perfect, or that we should not strive for better standards, but the "Chief Inspector" (read "Chief Persecutor") of Schools is doing what all politicians do: treating education as a political football.

Education is a stressful profession to get into in the the UK. The financial rewards are modest, in spite of the government's encouragements and incentives for people to train as teachers. Due to previous "reforms", many schools "compete" for students (and therefore government revenue); this is meant to help improve standards. Teachers are regularly assessed in their techniques to check that they are giving the best quality teaching. Teachers are meant to act as motivators for students who are also being assessed themselves more and more.

(The schools system, to paraphrase Sir Ken Robinson, has become a factory: teachers no longer really "teach"; they show students how to best pass exams, which he talked about here. I'll talk more about the "industrialisation of education" later.)

Teachers nowadays are given more and more responsibilities than ever before, yet with less and less real power: a textbook recipe for disaster. Due to "safeguarding" issues, they are given the task of looking after the social care of their pupils; meanwhile, to those youths who are anti-social or worse, they can do little in class except follow bureaucratic "procedures". No wonder, then, that some school classrooms in the more deprived and socially-dysfunctional parts of the country resemble war-zones. And all this while teachers are meant to be doing what they can to "raise standards" in those very same war-zone classrooms.

So the Chief Inspector's recommendations, to introduce "on-the-spot" inspections, will send panic through the corridors of our high schools. Teachers already are stressed about the current regime of constant pressure to raise the game while using less cash and with more and more extra responsibilities. Anyone saying that teaching and studying is easier than it was before, simply has not been in a modern UK high school.

And the idea that schools can no longer rely on "mediocrity" to avoid criticism is to simply be ignorant of reality, let alone logic. Anyone understanding how averages work in mathematics or in anything that can be measured, will know that "being average" is by definition the norm. Expecting all schools to be "outstanding" simply means that your method of measurement is skewed, and therefore unreliable. Not all teachers can be "outstanding"; this is because they are human beings, not robots. Neither are students, and it would be absurd to expect otherwise.

Education in the UK in the 21st century is, to use the former Home Secretary John Reid's quote to describe his ministry, "not fit for purpose". I talked before about the "industrialisation of education". This problem began with Labour's seemingly admirable aim to have half our young population in university. This instinctively meant that A-levels and GCSEs gained even more credence (read "status") so that young people were expected to have a degree in order to get a good step up onto the career ladder. Hence the problem we now have at our "industrialised" schools that Sir Ken Robinson talked about. It's all about passing exams and getting the best grades for the students; a conveyor belt approach to getting young people into university.

And for what? It's only now that the country is in a recession that we see the lack of vision and myopic thinking that has led to an entire generation of educated, unemployable young people.

The point is this: the degrees that young people are doing are in many cases, effectively useless. Employers have been guilty of putting too much focus on having a 21-year-old candidate with a degree, rather than a 21-year-old with five years of relevant or useful work experience; employers value a piece of paper over the actual experience of being in the work environment. What is the point of an academic university system that bears little relation to the kind of skills and knowledge that our young people actually need in today's working environment? This is the precise reason why many of them cannot find a job; the UK doesn't need 20,000 Sociologists; it doesn't need 20,000 historians - it needs young people with skills that will keep the UK competitive in the world. And our education system is not built for that as it stands.

Our education system is completely out-of-date. Apart from the skills issues I've mentioned, there should be a comprehensive look at our "industrial" education system. We need an organic education system. This means looking at completely restructuring our approach to people and education. The "traditional" subjects (maths, literature, science etc.) are no longer enough; nor are they the best way to find a young person's talents.

Finding a child's talent means using a holistic approach, using a wide variety of methods of teaching in in order to pry out young people's talents. As things stand, a child is pigeon-holed up to the age of eighteen, and therefore is limited in knowing what educational choices best suit them. It's a miracle that so many people at the age of eighteen have a clear idea of what career would best suit them: the primary and secondary system gives so little scope for a young person's self-analysis of their talents; as things stand, our education system is nowhere near vocational enough.

Teachers in the UK are undervalued; students in the UK are being taught the wrong things. Both are the fault of the knee-jerk logic and short-sighted thinking of the government towards education.

And it is teachers and students who are suffering in the real world.

The Benefit Cap and Britain's "Benefit Cheats"

The UK government, and David Cameron in particular, have hit on an idea that would help reduce welfare and also be popular with the public. The idea to cap welfare benefits per family at no more than the national average income (around £25,000) seems suddenly to make great common sense to the government and a lot of people.

Except that the House of Lords loathe the idea and have blocked it. And suddenly government are asking what right they upper house have to block the democratically-elected parliament from carrying-out its programme.

Now might be a good time to step back and look at the underlying issues behind the "cap", why it would even be necessary for a family to need £25,000 in government subsidies, and why there is an outcry over "benefit cheats".

First things first: how are an unemployed family able to be given a government subsidy worth the average national income of a working person?
The simple answer is because that sum of money applies mostly to large unemployed families in the London area: more than half of that "subsidy" goes on rent; much of the rest on bills; leaving a pretty modest amount if you have two parents and five children. Don't forget, that's seven people living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. If they lived in, say, Middlesbrough, where rent is a fraction the price in London, then naturally they would get a lower subsidy.

The government, in its enthusiam to grab a headline (no change there, then), forgets to mention that the benefits a family receive are means-tested; it depends on the cost of living of the place in the UK you live. So the idea of a national "cap" is not only wrong-headed, it's also absurd. It means that unemployed familes with several children that live in London (who anyway would face a tiny number of flats big enough to house them), would be forced to move out of London entirely. In other words, forced clearances of large families from the capital.

But that's only the tip of the iceberg. What the issue of the "benefit cap" really highlights is the shocking cost of living in the UK, especially in London. That's the real scandal.

Yes, the real scandal is that due to the insanely high cost of rent in places like London and the South East, in order to prevent masses large unemployed familes from having to live on the street, the government has to fork out a subsidy worth a working person's average national income. That's no fault of the unemployed family; that's the fault of the shameless and unregulated landlords, who the government completely fail to control.

That in itself is an appalling indictment of the state of the insanely-inflated property market in the UK, in London in particular. Let's remind ourselves that the price of rent nationally is still going up; utility bills are going up; and the cost of everyday living is still going up. Meanwhile, wages remain stagnant. The result: people in the UK are getting deeper and deeper into real and virtual poverty.
In this kind of economy, many young people find it impossible to save money to buy a house. Meanwhile, almost zero interest rates give no incentive to save what little money they have in any case. Banks are reluctant to risk giving people with no savings a loan to make any possible investments. And year on year, costs keep going up while wages remain flat, meaning that annually the average person may well be five per cent (or more) poorer than the previous year. This is a slow-motion downward spiral to poverty on a national scale.

Well, thank god we have a welfare state. But the outcry against "benefit cheats" is also largely missing the point. Let's use a hypothetical example.
A worker who lives in the south-east has a job that makes £20,000. After deductions for tax and national insurance, that takes away upto 15% of his income at least. Then there's the rent, which hacks off another 40% of his income (if he's lucky) . Then there are bills, which takes off another 10%, leaving him with only 35% of his salary left. Oh, and if he has a car, there's insurance, road tax and fuel (say another 10% of his annual salary at least). So, in reality, what he has to survive on per year (for food and enterainment) may, in theory be around £5,000 per year. Divide that into fifty-two, and you have under £100 per week - to pay for everything else.

However, if you are unemployed, you qualify for JSA (around £70 per week), and the council helps to pay for your rent. This is obvious; unless the government expects people to become homeless soon after becoming unemployed. There are other things, like being able to qualify for free college education in many cases, in order to give an incentive for you to re-train and have a chance of getting a better job. All well and good, as you would hope for in a civilised country.

So this poses the problem: that many people who earn less than the average national salary would feel justified in being envious of the unemployed, who have much less to "worry about" - such as paying the rent and bills. Clearly there are many cases of people defrauding the government out of welfare, but it's not the majority by any means; and in any case, it's difficult to imagine the situation being done in a different way that would not destroy the moral fabric of our "civilised" society.
No, the main reason for this insane state of affairs is the scandalous (and to my mind, economically inexplicable) cost of rent and housing in the UK, as well as the added factors of increasing cost of living. The latter, I understand, is partly down to global factors somewhat out of the government's hands, but the price of property is something that the government could easily regulate, if it ever had the guts. Or at least find the core causes of the problem, and deal with it.

In the UK, then, the insane cost of property is one of the real factors that explain the call for the "benefit cap" and the envy that working people feel towards the unemployed.

So far, few people have made this link known to the government, sadly.