As a film buff, I was one of many people who loved "The Dark Knight", the second of the new Batman films.
Like many people, one of the things that most stood out from the film, apart from the excellent action and story, was the character "The Joker", and his distinctive portrayal by the late Heath Ledger.
I must admit that I found the characterisation of "The Joker" extremely fascinating, from a psychological and ethical point of view. This character was clearly very intelligent, witty and oddly charming; and at the same time utterly devoid of morality, killing, maiming and terrorising people whenever deemed necessary for his wider purpose.
His "purpose", the story shows us, was clear and methodical: to begin with, he fleeces the Mafia of their own money by robbing one of their banks, then offers his services to them to conversely make them subservient to them. Then, while ostensibly being on the side of the Mafia, he declares war on other rivals, the police, justice system and even the mayor, through a spate of assassinations and chaotic terror tactics (such as blowing up a hospital). Then, when the Mafia's money is recovered, he makes a point of destroying it.
The real "purpose" of "The Joker", seems to be to destroy the moral and economic fabric of society: to cause chaos and turn the moral universe on its head. "The Joker" is shown to have no social pretensions whatsoever: he makes a point of wearing unremarkable clothing, wears his distinctive "war paint" simply to make a point.
What makes the character of "The Joker" so intellectually riveting is that he so completely embodies moral collapse and an clear intent of upending of all human norms.
Which brings me to Stalin.
I recently read "Young Stalin", a brilliant biography and psychological portrait of Stalin's life from birth till the Bolshevik revolution. In an odd kind of way, Stalin's life is also perversely fascinating: who developed into an almost real-life "Joker" like in "The Dark Knight", part Mafia-don, part-revolutionary.
Stalin was born in Georgia, in 1879, in dirt-poor poverty, to an alcoholic father and devoted mother. His adolescence was spent in petty crime and casual violence, till he eventually went to a seminary to train to be a priest. It was there, around the age of eighteen or so, that he learned about Communism.
He became a devoted Communist; but what was more important was that he had the necessary skills that a Tsarist-era Communist revolutionary needed to prosper: cunning, ruthlessness, being in the right place at the right time, and the right connections within the "party" circles. He worked his way up by carrying out work for "the party" - inciting revolt, eliminating or discrediting rivals, robberies, smuggling and so on.
By 1905, when civil order broke down across the Russian empire, Josef Djugashvili ("Stalin" was a name he didn't give himself until some years later) was starting to become a major nuisance for the authorities, that year behind the greatest robbery ever carried out in the world at the time (which also kept the Bolsheviks well-financed for quite some time). For the next seven years, Stalin, on behalf of the Bolsheviks, caused chaos across the Caucasus, becoming their most important "weapon of mass destruction" in the region. Living in Baku, Azerbaijan for some time with his wife (though she died not long after they moved there), he flitted in and out Baku for several years, around Georgia and later up to St Petersburg and Moscow.
During that time, he was acting like some kind of shadowy underworld kingpin for the Bolshevik cause: evading detection and arrest by the Tsarist authorities, Macavity-like in being elsewhere when his dastardly deeds were carried out on the party's behalf. He would be moving from one safe-house to another, seeming to enjoy the thrill of the game with the authorities, putting on his exotic Georgian charm to captivate and bed yet another young woman.
Eventually, his and other Bolshevik's luck ran out, and he was exiled to Siberia for five years in 1912, but even here his time was not wasted: when not captivating a teenage daughter in this remote, sub-zero Siberian village (bearing in mind he was now well into his thirties), he was mastering the art of hunting alone, seeming to enjoy this raw aspect of life.
This time in exile in Siberia demonstrates another psychological aspect of Stalin that should not be under-estimated: like "The Joker", Stalin was someone who disdained social snobbery; he wore plain clothes his entire life, preferred simple living, often sleeping on a couch rather than a bed, and took pleasure from the harsher aspects of life. Although he could be charming, intellectual and witty when the mood suited him, he despised social graces. In that sense, his embrace of Bolshevism was as much a personal war he was declaring against a world he somehow hated: the world of luxury and empty morals.
This goes some way to explaining how a man who displayed so many characteristics of a psychopath, with his violent and crime-laden adolescence, went from being a trainee priest, to a committed Bolshevik, then used his ideology as an excuse for a shadowy reign of terror that he declared on the Tsarist authorities.
Released from exile just as the Tsar's government was collapsing in spring 1917, by now "Stalin" was a major figure in the Bolshevik Party. Apart from his years of service to the Bolsheviks as their Caucasian underworld kingpin, his humble and rough-necked background contrasted to the majority of the other senior party members, who were usually either from the diaspora, or aristocratic or middle-class backgrounds, many of them Jewish. In other words, by the time Lenin came to power in the Bolshevik revolution later that year, Stalin was the Bolshevik's "man on the street", a man who knew how to get things done.
Although the Bolsheviks were ruled by a clique of well-to-do rebels, they also knew that to maintain power, they had be ruthless in their operation. Lenin knew this very well; and thus Stalin became the man he most trusted in the Civil War that followed. Then, through deftly manipulating his allegiances from one clique of ministers to another, then back again upon Lenin's death, he was able to discredit his rivals and put himself in a position to succeed Lenin as ruler of the Bolshevik state.
The Soviet Union, ruled by a party that came to power through years of amoral criminality, assassination and terror, was now ruled by the man who made much of that criminality, assassination and terror possible: Josef Stalin: the "man of steel".
The question is: what happens when a modern twentieth-century state, the largest in the world, in fact, is ruled by a psychopath?
You may also ask yourself this: what would have happened to Gotham City if "The Joker" had won?
The answer can be found in my following article, here
Friday, June 29, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
A market without regulations is like a legal system without laws
The free market liberals, of both the Tea Party-types in the USA, and the Conservative ideologues in the UK, love the idea of markets ruling everything.
They see markets as being the best way of dealing with goods and services. They see government as getting in the way of the private sector, who should be best to be left alone (where the phrase "laissez-faire" comes from).
Their rationale is very simple: markets are the best way of dealing with goods and services because markets are "self-regulating": in other words, prices are controlled by demand (i.e. customers) and supply (i.e. how much of something there is). so a high supply product (like bread) would be cheap, whereas a low supply product (like caviar) would be expensive. Also, there is naturally more demand for bread than caviar.
The same logic works for salaries: commonplace jobs with a large pool of labour offer lower wages than those with a high skills requirement and this have a far small potential employee pool.
Enough of the economics primer. What happens when you put this into practise?
There are plenty of real-life examples of how this unregulated "free-market" works in real life. In the main, though, it doesn't. Here's why.
Look at the property market in the UK. There are those properties that people can mortgage or rent. This all depends on supply and demand. According to the theory, if customers alter their behaviour (by wanting more of a product), a supplier should naturally react to customer desire: that's how the market works, by suppliers naturally reacting to customers' demand. Does this happen in the UK property market? No.
The housing stock in the UK has remained far below consumer demand for years, decades. It didn't help when the last Conservative government, under Thatcher, sold off thousands of council houses to the private market, without building any sufficient replacement government housing. But that's a separate matter. The question is WHY does the private sector (the market), fail to react to consumers' demands for a large increase in the housing stock? The answer is because of one of the fundamental flaws in the principle of the "free market": short-termism.
The private sector is often terrible at strategic, long-term thinking and looking at wider economic concerns. As businesses are driven by profit, they find it difficult to set aside money for "investments" which take a long time to set up, can be risky, and the financial benefits cannot be seen until some time in the future. Simply, the incentive for businesses to think long-term is too small. As a result, industries that have been privatised see a gradual decline in things like infrastructure and trying to look ahead to future trends.
This is why housing and construction in the UK has shrunk significantly, especially since the onset of the recession: businesses see too much risk and too little potential gain. Even though it's obvious that consumers need more housing, the "free market" is too fearful of risking money on long-term projects. The same thinking is true of the banking sector where it comes to giving out loans to help small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. Even though it can be rationally explained that any risk would be worth it considering the potential wider gain to the economy for encouraging business and wealth generation, banks, like the "free market" in general, are weighed-down by short termism.
George Osborne, the Conservative government's supposed economic heavyweight, has set his reputation on believing that the private sector will create the recovery. But everything tells us the opposite.
Continuing with the housing market, the rise in the cost of rents can be easily explained. Banks are reluctant to give out mortgages, forcing customers onto the rental market. As a result, although the cost of mortgages overall has gone down slightly, the cost of rent has rocketed. This may well result, for the first time in decades, with many younger people being unable to buy a mortgage and stuck in a high rent property. Again, because the private sector is unable plan strategically, this has meant the rental housing stock has remained static while demand has increased. So here is where the market doesn't work: landlords simply see an opportunity to make more money, and with the customer held hostage by the limited number of rental properties (and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future), everyday people are getting shafted. And will continue to do so for years if things stay as they are.
If the private sector is meant to be so risk-averse, why was there a construction boom in Spain? Because they saw no risk. There was a housing boom in the UK too, but not a construction boom on the same scale. What the housing booms in Spain and the UK had in common was the over-valued inflation of prices; but the reasons behind were slightly different.
In the UK, the boom was fuelled by mortgage lenders losing their previous aversion to risk and giving mortgages to people who were not financially reliable. They forgot one of the basic rules of the market: not to invest in high-risk ventures.
In Spain, the boom was fuelled by construction firms losing their previous understanding of the demand for housing, and creating a huge over-supply. They forgot another basic rule of the market: that as supply increases, price goes down (and will, eventually).
The property market is just one example that quickly comes to my mind. Another one is education.
The introduction of competition was meant to improve secondary educational standards. But how are those educational "standards" measured? By exam results, because that's the easiest way for the "free market" to measure education. The government therefore supported this method when competition was introduced into secondary education.
The result? Schools have turned into exam-preparation centres, concentrating on the exam results the students get at the end of their education, rather than actually how useful or effective that "education" will be in the real world. Students know a great deal about how to pass exams, but not a lot about how to transfer their education into real-world skills useful to the economy.
Another side-effect of this "results" obsession is that schools focus on encouraging subjects that are easier for students to excel in, in order to improve the schools ranking (and thus attract further revenue). This is a further reason why you have students leaving school with qualifications that may well be of little use. The "free market" has the opposite effect of that intended, because everything becomes a race to reach the lowest common denominator: to maximise results in order to minimise risk.
One last point is the government's introduction of a free market even in examination boards: schools can choose which "testing centre" they think is the best. That was the theory, anyway. The reality has been the opposite: schools, in order to maximise results and minimise risk, have often chosen the exam board that offers the "easiest" set of exams, to give students the best chance of getting a good result, therefore boosting the school's published results.
So what happens when the "free market" is let loose? You usually get a maximisation of profit at the minimisation of risk. If the government wants the private sector to act in a rational, strategic, open-minded way, then they need to read basic economics again.
To trust that the "free market" is the best way of dealing with economy, is to hand over running your economy to people with the mental age of five-year-olds. Unregulated markets, by definition, are, as a general rule, incapable of thinking long-term or strategically. Yes, the market has an important role to play, but it can only be a sane instrument if it is regulated by government.
The "free market", by definition, is an example of anarchy, because no-one is in control of it; it "controls" itself. It's like having a legal system without anybody to enforce the laws. The "free market" is a system based on blind optimism.
Any government that supports the "free market" is also blind.
They see markets as being the best way of dealing with goods and services. They see government as getting in the way of the private sector, who should be best to be left alone (where the phrase "laissez-faire" comes from).
Their rationale is very simple: markets are the best way of dealing with goods and services because markets are "self-regulating": in other words, prices are controlled by demand (i.e. customers) and supply (i.e. how much of something there is). so a high supply product (like bread) would be cheap, whereas a low supply product (like caviar) would be expensive. Also, there is naturally more demand for bread than caviar.
The same logic works for salaries: commonplace jobs with a large pool of labour offer lower wages than those with a high skills requirement and this have a far small potential employee pool.
Enough of the economics primer. What happens when you put this into practise?
There are plenty of real-life examples of how this unregulated "free-market" works in real life. In the main, though, it doesn't. Here's why.
Look at the property market in the UK. There are those properties that people can mortgage or rent. This all depends on supply and demand. According to the theory, if customers alter their behaviour (by wanting more of a product), a supplier should naturally react to customer desire: that's how the market works, by suppliers naturally reacting to customers' demand. Does this happen in the UK property market? No.
The housing stock in the UK has remained far below consumer demand for years, decades. It didn't help when the last Conservative government, under Thatcher, sold off thousands of council houses to the private market, without building any sufficient replacement government housing. But that's a separate matter. The question is WHY does the private sector (the market), fail to react to consumers' demands for a large increase in the housing stock? The answer is because of one of the fundamental flaws in the principle of the "free market": short-termism.
The private sector is often terrible at strategic, long-term thinking and looking at wider economic concerns. As businesses are driven by profit, they find it difficult to set aside money for "investments" which take a long time to set up, can be risky, and the financial benefits cannot be seen until some time in the future. Simply, the incentive for businesses to think long-term is too small. As a result, industries that have been privatised see a gradual decline in things like infrastructure and trying to look ahead to future trends.
This is why housing and construction in the UK has shrunk significantly, especially since the onset of the recession: businesses see too much risk and too little potential gain. Even though it's obvious that consumers need more housing, the "free market" is too fearful of risking money on long-term projects. The same thinking is true of the banking sector where it comes to giving out loans to help small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. Even though it can be rationally explained that any risk would be worth it considering the potential wider gain to the economy for encouraging business and wealth generation, banks, like the "free market" in general, are weighed-down by short termism.
George Osborne, the Conservative government's supposed economic heavyweight, has set his reputation on believing that the private sector will create the recovery. But everything tells us the opposite.
Continuing with the housing market, the rise in the cost of rents can be easily explained. Banks are reluctant to give out mortgages, forcing customers onto the rental market. As a result, although the cost of mortgages overall has gone down slightly, the cost of rent has rocketed. This may well result, for the first time in decades, with many younger people being unable to buy a mortgage and stuck in a high rent property. Again, because the private sector is unable plan strategically, this has meant the rental housing stock has remained static while demand has increased. So here is where the market doesn't work: landlords simply see an opportunity to make more money, and with the customer held hostage by the limited number of rental properties (and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future), everyday people are getting shafted. And will continue to do so for years if things stay as they are.
If the private sector is meant to be so risk-averse, why was there a construction boom in Spain? Because they saw no risk. There was a housing boom in the UK too, but not a construction boom on the same scale. What the housing booms in Spain and the UK had in common was the over-valued inflation of prices; but the reasons behind were slightly different.
In the UK, the boom was fuelled by mortgage lenders losing their previous aversion to risk and giving mortgages to people who were not financially reliable. They forgot one of the basic rules of the market: not to invest in high-risk ventures.
In Spain, the boom was fuelled by construction firms losing their previous understanding of the demand for housing, and creating a huge over-supply. They forgot another basic rule of the market: that as supply increases, price goes down (and will, eventually).
The property market is just one example that quickly comes to my mind. Another one is education.
The introduction of competition was meant to improve secondary educational standards. But how are those educational "standards" measured? By exam results, because that's the easiest way for the "free market" to measure education. The government therefore supported this method when competition was introduced into secondary education.
The result? Schools have turned into exam-preparation centres, concentrating on the exam results the students get at the end of their education, rather than actually how useful or effective that "education" will be in the real world. Students know a great deal about how to pass exams, but not a lot about how to transfer their education into real-world skills useful to the economy.
Another side-effect of this "results" obsession is that schools focus on encouraging subjects that are easier for students to excel in, in order to improve the schools ranking (and thus attract further revenue). This is a further reason why you have students leaving school with qualifications that may well be of little use. The "free market" has the opposite effect of that intended, because everything becomes a race to reach the lowest common denominator: to maximise results in order to minimise risk.
One last point is the government's introduction of a free market even in examination boards: schools can choose which "testing centre" they think is the best. That was the theory, anyway. The reality has been the opposite: schools, in order to maximise results and minimise risk, have often chosen the exam board that offers the "easiest" set of exams, to give students the best chance of getting a good result, therefore boosting the school's published results.
So what happens when the "free market" is let loose? You usually get a maximisation of profit at the minimisation of risk. If the government wants the private sector to act in a rational, strategic, open-minded way, then they need to read basic economics again.
To trust that the "free market" is the best way of dealing with economy, is to hand over running your economy to people with the mental age of five-year-olds. Unregulated markets, by definition, are, as a general rule, incapable of thinking long-term or strategically. Yes, the market has an important role to play, but it can only be a sane instrument if it is regulated by government.
The "free market", by definition, is an example of anarchy, because no-one is in control of it; it "controls" itself. It's like having a legal system without anybody to enforce the laws. The "free market" is a system based on blind optimism.
Any government that supports the "free market" is also blind.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The Diamond Jubilee puts British psyche under the microscope
I should say "English psyche" and not "British psyche", because most of the people who call the Diamond Jubilee a great example of "British" culture and tradition are, in fact, English.
To be more precise, the people who are most endeared to the monarchy are those who live on the "right" side of the North-South divide; the line roughly drawn between the source of the Severn and The Wash. And when I say "right" side, I of course mean the side including London.
This is the reality of the Diamond Jubilee: as reported in "The Guardian" here http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/05/bbc-jubilee-propagandising-failed-scotland of the almost 10,000 street parties in England and Wales, there were only 60 in Scotland. Of those, 20 were organised by The Orange Order, itself a right-wing unionist clique. I also wonder how many were held in Wales, and how many were held north of the north-south divide.
The point I'm making is this: the monarchy and the traditions of "Britain" are mostly celebrated by people who live within two hours drive of London. It's telling that the people who are most likely to call themselves "British" are the English. What does this tell us?
The UK, its dependencies and the Commonwealth are, looking at it from a neutral point of view, the leftovers of Empire: an Empire that was begun by the English.
It's worth comparing the UK to other contemporary "post-Imperial" states. France got rid of its monarchy in 1789, but continued to have a republican empire until the 1960s, like the UK. France has plenty of pomp and circumstance in its culture, but it has few obvious "imperial leftovers". For a start, it's one country, not four like the UK, which helps to define its identity much more clearly. Defining "Britishness" is difficult for the average Briton; a Scot or a Welsh person has a much easier task describing their own culture, leaving the average English person to fall back on out-of-date concepts that are more Imperial than English.
Compared to France, Spain has more "post-Imperial" similarities to the UK. Although it lost its empire quite a while ago (South and Central America in the early 19th century, and Cuba and the Philippines at the end of the 19th century), its Imperial legacy lives on in the many millions that speak its language, as does the Anglo-Saxon legacy. It still retains its monarchy, like ours (though it also flirted with republicanism for a while); and Spain is constitutionally like the UK in its fragmented make-up. Spain's devolved regions, Catalunya, the Basque Country, and Galicia, in some ways correspond the the UK's Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales respectively, in that they have a distinct sense of identity (and language) separate from the core.
There are other, smaller, European "post-imperial" states (the Netherlands being another similar example), but these two offer the most relevant comparisons.
Getting back to the Diamond Jubilee itself, it's also telling to look at how the different celebrations were organised.
The river pageant, designed to replicate the pageants that happened on the Thames hundreds of years ago, was not only a damp squib; it looked shoddy at times, and reeked of amateurish organisation. It was impressive in only its mediocrity. It was a testament to the scale at which Britain's one-time might has been reduced: for example, having just a single aircraft carrier that doesn't even have any aircraft. I heard that when the pageant was shown in France, for example, the French cameras only showed close-up shots of the boats, so as not to embarrass the fact that the scale of the pageant was so under-whelming. Although there were meant to be thousands of boats, they seemed organised in a haphazard way, with large gaps between segments of the pageant.
And as for the official coverage of Britain's state-sponsored TV channel, the less said the better. It was even more embarrassing to watch the amateurish presentation offered by the BBC.
Then there was the Concert outside Buckingham Palace. This was organised better, but the choice of performers and presenters was also quite indicative of the second-rate quality that Britain too often displays to the world.
As a spectacle overall, the Jubilee revealed a more telling truth: that, more than ever, Britain is a world power in the twilight of her age. Like former empires that have fallen on hard times, shedding their colonies and their prestige along the way as their economies have declined, they have little more than their name to trade on.
Like Rome at the end of its empire, when it was populated as much as by immigrants as by natives, this empire is a shadow of its former self, its population living in denial. Like Byzantium at the end of its long years of empire, surrounded by enemies and indifference, shorn of its territories till there is just a bare rump state left, all that is postponing the final collapse is the goodwill and charity of its contemporaries.
Many English people have become complacent: they assume that Scots do not have the courage to break away by themselves. Perhaps this is true, but it is also true that Scots will only stay in the Union so that they can get what they want out of it: military protection, as long as Scots can conduct their own affairs unmolested from the old Imperial capital, London - what is called "devo-max". That will leave England with its surly neighbour Wales, and England itself is a heterogeneous cocktail of racial backgrounds, with some cities in having a majority non-white population.
This may all have a whiff of fatalism about it, but that is not my intention - I am just describing what the reality is without passing judgement. I feel no pity. All nations have their rise and fall: Greece is going through a traumatic period of its national history, but it has been through worse.
Britain has had a long and enviable history; an unlikely location for a world empire. Its legacy has been enormous, but witnessing its slow fading out of the limelight, with the inevitable demonstrations of that fading, as we have seen with the Diamond Jubilee, is oddly poetic.
Some say that the Queen embodies all that is true about British culture. It seems truer to say that she embodies everything that was true when she became monarch, sixty years ago; when the British Empire still existed, and those "values" seemed so clear. So to look at the Queen is to see a living embodiment of how Britain has changed since she came to power, and what Britain has lost.
From what I can see, what Britain has lost most of all is its identity, never to return.
To be more precise, the people who are most endeared to the monarchy are those who live on the "right" side of the North-South divide; the line roughly drawn between the source of the Severn and The Wash. And when I say "right" side, I of course mean the side including London.
This is the reality of the Diamond Jubilee: as reported in "The Guardian" here http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/05/bbc-jubilee-propagandising-failed-scotland of the almost 10,000 street parties in England and Wales, there were only 60 in Scotland. Of those, 20 were organised by The Orange Order, itself a right-wing unionist clique. I also wonder how many were held in Wales, and how many were held north of the north-south divide.
The point I'm making is this: the monarchy and the traditions of "Britain" are mostly celebrated by people who live within two hours drive of London. It's telling that the people who are most likely to call themselves "British" are the English. What does this tell us?
The UK, its dependencies and the Commonwealth are, looking at it from a neutral point of view, the leftovers of Empire: an Empire that was begun by the English.
It's worth comparing the UK to other contemporary "post-Imperial" states. France got rid of its monarchy in 1789, but continued to have a republican empire until the 1960s, like the UK. France has plenty of pomp and circumstance in its culture, but it has few obvious "imperial leftovers". For a start, it's one country, not four like the UK, which helps to define its identity much more clearly. Defining "Britishness" is difficult for the average Briton; a Scot or a Welsh person has a much easier task describing their own culture, leaving the average English person to fall back on out-of-date concepts that are more Imperial than English.
Compared to France, Spain has more "post-Imperial" similarities to the UK. Although it lost its empire quite a while ago (South and Central America in the early 19th century, and Cuba and the Philippines at the end of the 19th century), its Imperial legacy lives on in the many millions that speak its language, as does the Anglo-Saxon legacy. It still retains its monarchy, like ours (though it also flirted with republicanism for a while); and Spain is constitutionally like the UK in its fragmented make-up. Spain's devolved regions, Catalunya, the Basque Country, and Galicia, in some ways correspond the the UK's Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales respectively, in that they have a distinct sense of identity (and language) separate from the core.
There are other, smaller, European "post-imperial" states (the Netherlands being another similar example), but these two offer the most relevant comparisons.
Getting back to the Diamond Jubilee itself, it's also telling to look at how the different celebrations were organised.
The river pageant, designed to replicate the pageants that happened on the Thames hundreds of years ago, was not only a damp squib; it looked shoddy at times, and reeked of amateurish organisation. It was impressive in only its mediocrity. It was a testament to the scale at which Britain's one-time might has been reduced: for example, having just a single aircraft carrier that doesn't even have any aircraft. I heard that when the pageant was shown in France, for example, the French cameras only showed close-up shots of the boats, so as not to embarrass the fact that the scale of the pageant was so under-whelming. Although there were meant to be thousands of boats, they seemed organised in a haphazard way, with large gaps between segments of the pageant.
And as for the official coverage of Britain's state-sponsored TV channel, the less said the better. It was even more embarrassing to watch the amateurish presentation offered by the BBC.
Then there was the Concert outside Buckingham Palace. This was organised better, but the choice of performers and presenters was also quite indicative of the second-rate quality that Britain too often displays to the world.
As a spectacle overall, the Jubilee revealed a more telling truth: that, more than ever, Britain is a world power in the twilight of her age. Like former empires that have fallen on hard times, shedding their colonies and their prestige along the way as their economies have declined, they have little more than their name to trade on.
Like Rome at the end of its empire, when it was populated as much as by immigrants as by natives, this empire is a shadow of its former self, its population living in denial. Like Byzantium at the end of its long years of empire, surrounded by enemies and indifference, shorn of its territories till there is just a bare rump state left, all that is postponing the final collapse is the goodwill and charity of its contemporaries.
Many English people have become complacent: they assume that Scots do not have the courage to break away by themselves. Perhaps this is true, but it is also true that Scots will only stay in the Union so that they can get what they want out of it: military protection, as long as Scots can conduct their own affairs unmolested from the old Imperial capital, London - what is called "devo-max". That will leave England with its surly neighbour Wales, and England itself is a heterogeneous cocktail of racial backgrounds, with some cities in having a majority non-white population.
This may all have a whiff of fatalism about it, but that is not my intention - I am just describing what the reality is without passing judgement. I feel no pity. All nations have their rise and fall: Greece is going through a traumatic period of its national history, but it has been through worse.
Britain has had a long and enviable history; an unlikely location for a world empire. Its legacy has been enormous, but witnessing its slow fading out of the limelight, with the inevitable demonstrations of that fading, as we have seen with the Diamond Jubilee, is oddly poetic.
Some say that the Queen embodies all that is true about British culture. It seems truer to say that she embodies everything that was true when she became monarch, sixty years ago; when the British Empire still existed, and those "values" seemed so clear. So to look at the Queen is to see a living embodiment of how Britain has changed since she came to power, and what Britain has lost.
From what I can see, what Britain has lost most of all is its identity, never to return.
Monday, June 4, 2012
A culture of connections and glass ceilings drags Britain's integrity into the gutter
"Corruption" is something that British people tend to think of something that affects the Third World. When people think of corruption, they think of bribery, brown envelopes, nepotism, a closed and unresponsive elite, massive government waste and grossly dysfunctional government.
But they need look no further than our own shores; for the political and media circles that turn the cogs of British power is full of it.
To be fair, a lot of "corruption" nowadays, compared to thirty or forty years ago, has evolved and been modified to fit into the times. Direct bribery, such as it is, is at a much smaller degree than it was thirty years ago.
The Metropolitan Police, the largest and most dysfunctional police force in the UK, have made large steps forward; yet, there are still a number of openly corrupt police officers who have taken bribes from media figures, as we have seen (ironically) from the media.
Bribery is a left-over symptom of the wider issue that pervades the two institutions that have the most influence on British society, politics and media.
The wider issue is this: the culture of connections and exclusivity, in particular that culture which pervades the right-wing media and politics.
The long inquiry into media and politics that has been the Leveson inquiry has opened-up this particular can of worms for all and sundry. Although the average person on the street does not pay much attention to it, the constant drip-drip of revelations in the press about the reliance that many politicians have on the media (in particular the Murdoch media group), and the influence that the Murdoch media group has long sought and abused, leaves little to doubt. The average person on the street will (rightly) think that the whole thing stinks of sleaze, of an exclusive portion of society that pulls the levers of power and that the average person has no chance of controlling.
This is the definition of corruption, albeit just one segment of it. The media is corrupt in that it is an industry that only people who are from well-off backgrounds have a fair chance of gaining entry to. If you want to be a journalist, and have no contacts within the industry already, the only way to get your foot in the door after university is through being an intern. But these are virtually unpaid positions, so anyone who is unable to fund such a position without their own funds, or (more likely) their parents', has little chance of being able to afford such an indulgence. So by definition, you need to be from a wealthy background to stand a chance.
An example of this can even be seen at the quality of TV personalities and organisers at the BBC, as the massive criticism of the BBC's TV coverage of the Diamond Jubilee river pageant shows. The common criticism is that you had presenters who didn't know what to talk about (discussing banal and pointless issues without being remotely informative), and a poorly-thought-out programme for the spectacle. This is a direct result of the closed world that media represents; incompetence follows corruption, as night follows day.
(I should also say that the same goes for the arts: anyone interested in working in fashion/design/arts and so on, would likely find a similar scenario, unless they were lucky. This is what usually happens in London, where these industries, as well as media, are centred)
Then there is politics. As I wrote on my previous article, we can learn a lot about the nature of politics from the quality (or lack of) in government personalities. Jeremy Hunt is perhaps the best example of this kind of corruption of connections and exclusivity. I described him as one of the government's "donkeys" in my previous article, but it's also indicative to look at how he, and the likes of David Cameron and Gideon/George Osborne, got where they did.
They did not get there through "merit": Jeremy Hunt worked as a manager of a design company for three years, and his staff thought he was a clone of Harry Enfield's character, Tim Nice-But-Dim. The fact that he had no opinion on most subjects, showed no talent at most things whatsoever, but that his parents were both solidly Conservative, made him an ideal candidate for Conservative MP. And so he became one.
This tells you all you need to know about the Conservative Party. Of course, Labour and the LibDems may suffer from some form of exclusivity, but it seems that the Conservatives are the most guilty of this form of corruption.
When you have a system in place that excludes anyone who is one not "one of us", this is the definition of corruption. This system runs like a virus through segments of politics and media in Britain today. This system, by definition, breeds only incompetence upon arrogance, and is why corruption is the plague of Third World governments.
It is ironic, then, that other nations considers Britain's parliament and media to be the envy of the world. What is there to envy? Their exclusivity? Better to look somewhere else.
But they need look no further than our own shores; for the political and media circles that turn the cogs of British power is full of it.
To be fair, a lot of "corruption" nowadays, compared to thirty or forty years ago, has evolved and been modified to fit into the times. Direct bribery, such as it is, is at a much smaller degree than it was thirty years ago.
The Metropolitan Police, the largest and most dysfunctional police force in the UK, have made large steps forward; yet, there are still a number of openly corrupt police officers who have taken bribes from media figures, as we have seen (ironically) from the media.
Bribery is a left-over symptom of the wider issue that pervades the two institutions that have the most influence on British society, politics and media.
The wider issue is this: the culture of connections and exclusivity, in particular that culture which pervades the right-wing media and politics.
The long inquiry into media and politics that has been the Leveson inquiry has opened-up this particular can of worms for all and sundry. Although the average person on the street does not pay much attention to it, the constant drip-drip of revelations in the press about the reliance that many politicians have on the media (in particular the Murdoch media group), and the influence that the Murdoch media group has long sought and abused, leaves little to doubt. The average person on the street will (rightly) think that the whole thing stinks of sleaze, of an exclusive portion of society that pulls the levers of power and that the average person has no chance of controlling.
This is the definition of corruption, albeit just one segment of it. The media is corrupt in that it is an industry that only people who are from well-off backgrounds have a fair chance of gaining entry to. If you want to be a journalist, and have no contacts within the industry already, the only way to get your foot in the door after university is through being an intern. But these are virtually unpaid positions, so anyone who is unable to fund such a position without their own funds, or (more likely) their parents', has little chance of being able to afford such an indulgence. So by definition, you need to be from a wealthy background to stand a chance.
An example of this can even be seen at the quality of TV personalities and organisers at the BBC, as the massive criticism of the BBC's TV coverage of the Diamond Jubilee river pageant shows. The common criticism is that you had presenters who didn't know what to talk about (discussing banal and pointless issues without being remotely informative), and a poorly-thought-out programme for the spectacle. This is a direct result of the closed world that media represents; incompetence follows corruption, as night follows day.
(I should also say that the same goes for the arts: anyone interested in working in fashion/design/arts and so on, would likely find a similar scenario, unless they were lucky. This is what usually happens in London, where these industries, as well as media, are centred)
Then there is politics. As I wrote on my previous article, we can learn a lot about the nature of politics from the quality (or lack of) in government personalities. Jeremy Hunt is perhaps the best example of this kind of corruption of connections and exclusivity. I described him as one of the government's "donkeys" in my previous article, but it's also indicative to look at how he, and the likes of David Cameron and Gideon/George Osborne, got where they did.
They did not get there through "merit": Jeremy Hunt worked as a manager of a design company for three years, and his staff thought he was a clone of Harry Enfield's character, Tim Nice-But-Dim. The fact that he had no opinion on most subjects, showed no talent at most things whatsoever, but that his parents were both solidly Conservative, made him an ideal candidate for Conservative MP. And so he became one.
This tells you all you need to know about the Conservative Party. Of course, Labour and the LibDems may suffer from some form of exclusivity, but it seems that the Conservatives are the most guilty of this form of corruption.
When you have a system in place that excludes anyone who is one not "one of us", this is the definition of corruption. This system runs like a virus through segments of politics and media in Britain today. This system, by definition, breeds only incompetence upon arrogance, and is why corruption is the plague of Third World governments.
It is ironic, then, that other nations considers Britain's parliament and media to be the envy of the world. What is there to envy? Their exclusivity? Better to look somewhere else.
Friday, June 1, 2012
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.
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.
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