Layer 514 . . . Atheist Temples, Religions, de Botton, Spiritual Intelligence, Question Time, BBC Balance, Bankers' Bonuses, Muddling Along, Mitt Romney and Radical Alternatives

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Here's an interesting headline:

Alain de Botton's atheist temple is a nice idea, but a defunct one


De Botton's atheist temple call does not need to be realised – our existing places of worship can be appreciated by all

And there we have a depressing strapline that sits beneath it. John Gray just doesn't get it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/02/alain-de-botton-atheist-temple-defunct

Establishing atheist places of worship isn't exactly a new idea. As de Botton himself notes, an ambitious programme of atheist church-building was part of the Religion of Humanity, invented by the 19th-century French thinker Auguste Comte.

When he proposes building a temple for unbelievers, de Botton is reinventing a wheel that never really turned. The fad for atheist temples lasted for perhaps 60 years, while places of worship dedicated to something bigger than humanity have been around for many millennia. There is a nice irony here. For all his loony notions, Comte was more intelligent than most of the atheists who came after him. He saw clearly that religion is an enduring human need that cannot be denied. 

Even if Comte's church was ephemeral, he was right in predicting that religion would not die out. The world is awash with formless religiosity, much of it flowing through non-traditional channels. 

Comte wanted his new religion to be based on science, so the temples of humanity pointed only as far as science could reach. That is why his new church failed. The very idea of a science-based religion is an absurdity. The value of religion is that it points beyond anything that can be known by the methods of science, showing us that a mystery would remain even if everything could be finally explained. The heart of religion isn't belief, but something more like what Keats described as negative capability: "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".

Rather than trying to invent another religion surrogate, open-minded atheists should appreciate the genuine religions that exist already. London is full of sites – churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship – that are evocative of something beyond the human world. Better spend the money that is being raised for the new temple on religious buildings that are in disrepair than waste it on a monument to a defunct version of unbelief.

What a load of cobblers. Where to begin with this?

" Religion is an enduring human need that cannot be denied."

I, for one, have no need of religion - so that deals with that stupid idea. So do billions of others have no need for religion. There are massively more people who have no need for religion than those that do. Many of those who apparently need a religion are simply following their family or community traditions rather than experiencing genuine need. Many of those that do are needy individuals who are simply praying for some sort of mystical help and 'divine intervention' to deal with their problems. Many of those that do somehow believe that God is an actual divine being with whom they can have conversations. This may be some kind of need, but it's not a healthy or realistic way of dealing with problems. People like Tony Blair and George W believe they have conversations with God, but that doesn't prove God exists. These people have been known to be wrong on other serious matters.

Whilst it's true that many strong and healthy people engage with religion in order to engage with something positive and to experience awe and wonder, this does NOT mean that there's 'an enduring human need for religion'. Many people cease to attend 'places of worship' out of a sense of disgust with the way that religious establishments have colonised and perverted the original enlightened words of the founders of those religions.

"The value of religion is that it points beyond anything that can be known by the methods of science."

Religion does indeed 'point beyond anything that can be known by the methods of science', but that doesn't mean that religion itself has any true value. Comfort eating and cigarette smoking have some sort of value for those that seem to benefit from these activities, but that doesn't mean they have true value. Arguably down the centuries various religions have been equally destructive for those who have engaged with them, both in terms of physical harm but also in terms of replacing or blocking more enlightened approaches to engagement with the metaphysical and the spiritual.

"Rather than trying to invent another religion surrogate, open-minded atheists should appreciate the genuine religions that exist already."

De Botton is clearly NOT ' trying to invent another religion surrogate'. A temple for atheists would be a place where people could gather to reflect on the divine and the sublime without any of the religious trappings - no priests, no icons, no 'faith', no 'worship', no rituals, no doctrine, no imagery, no God.

Now it's true that we don't need special buildings in order to commune with the spiritual and the sublime, and to experience awe and wonder. We have nature, which is perhaps the best place to be if we want to switch off rational thought, as such, and let our metaphysical intelligence engage with the incredible mysteries of life, and to give silent appreciation for life.

However, in cold climates and in cities it's sometimes difficult to find special places that facilitate meditation and inner wordless reflection. Whilst it's true that atheists might choose to go inside buildings which belong to various religions in order to meditate and reflect, many of us choose not to. Even in Japan I'd prefer to seek spiritual experience in a garden than inside a mainstream Buddhist temple. (Though I'm very 'at home' inside a Zen temple, whose minimalism shows no signs of religiosity whatsoever.)

So de Botton is right and Gray is wrong. We do need atheist temples that provide beautiful, harmonious, comfortable indoor spaces that are akin to halls of meditation - where people can experience awe and wonder as they take a break from everyday life, switch off their intellects, and allow their metaphysical intelligence to operate in a place of silence that's dedicated to the expression of gratitude for the wonders of life itself.

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Question Time

I'm really giving up on Question Time. This week was worse than ever. A bunch of right wing gimps, including a careerist New Labour toss-pot of the worst order. This programme is now largely pointless.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/default.stm

Even Phil Redmond, ostensibly a liberal, seems unable to offer a radical perspective on current affairs. The man's a millionaire, but in theory that shouldn't prevent him offering a radical critique. Somehow, though, it does. (He also managed to choose a bunch of rubbish for his desert island discs!) A waste of space.

And I don't even want to talk about the Taxpayers' Alliance. Idiots United.

Does the BBC really call these panels 'balanced' in these times of worldwide clamour for change?
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Ed Miliband to call Commons vote on bonuses

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/02/ed-miliband-commons-vote-bonuses

Ed Miliband will broaden his attack on the coalition's divided Britain by calling a Commons vote next week to urge an end to the bonus culture.
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Mitt Romney wins backing of Donald Trump ahead of Nevada caucuses

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/02/mitt-romney-wins-donald-trump-backing

Oh joy.

America had 45 million people living in poverty, but Romney makes it clear that he's not interested in them. He'll take good care of the middle classes, he says. According to Romney anyone, like Obama, who talks about 'fairness' is just talking 'the politics of envy'.

Is America really going to elect this man as their president?
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The mood in Britain is to muddle along

This may be an era of economic turmoil, but people have little appetite for a radical alternative

by Martin Kettle

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/01/mood-in-britain-muddle-along

Martin Kettle's another shifty right-wing New Labour type. And I speak as someone who does indeed have a considerable appetite 'a radical alternative'. He's a rubbish writer who always defends the status quo. Annoying bastard.

The reason most people appear not to have an appetite for a radical alternative is because they're not being offered one. None of our mainstream politicians have the charisma, the coherence or the vision to put in front of people that will persuade them that a radical alternative is both possible and desirable. Very few of our mainstream media organisations would offer a platform for their views even if such people existed.

In these situations, throughout history, we find crazy, reactionary, repressive and repellent individuals coming to the fore to offer fascistic 'solutions' to national political problems - Franco, Mussolini, Hitler, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, etc. George W Bush and Tony Blair are fringe members of this group - as witnessed by their crazy support for unregulated capitalism and financial systems, 'trickle down' economics, 'globalisation', repression of civil liberties, overt and covert support for kidnapping and detention without trial, ditto for the use of torture of suspects, assassinations, illegal wars and invasions, worldwide coercion of foreign governments, and so forth. All of this is on the record. Naomi Klein has provided the world with an excellent summary - 'The Shock Doctrine'.

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This Week on BBC1 is another waste of space. Andrew Neil is a twat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/9692460.stm

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Layer 239 . . . Political Porn, Souls Laid Bare, and All That Jazz

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This weekend has been a high water mark for desperate over-stressed middle-aged male politicians flashing their naked emotions in front of TV cameras.

It was hard to tear one's eyes away from a gasping Alastair Campbell welling up with barely suppressed emotions to the point of choked silence for what seems like almost a minute in the company of Andrew Marr and viewers on live TV this morning.*

To make it more like a proper porn show we should have had viewers phoning in their own questions in an attempt to get Ally C to expose even more of his private "bits". If he has problems with the mild questions and comments of a pretty non-threatening Marrtian then imagine how much more we would get from him coming into contact (even virtual contact) with proper panting punters who long to see what's really concealed beneath the sharp suit and the professional scowl.

Marr's questioning, of course, was not about Ally's new 'novel', the promotion of which was the reason for allowing Marr this opportunity to undress him a little. No - it was about Iraq, Ally's appearance in front of Chilcott and Co, and Blair's continuing denial that he deliberately lied to and misled Parliament.

We should nail this question right now. Ally sees, quite rightly, that Blair is not a LIAR. To be a liar you have to know that what you're saying is untrue.

What psychopathic liars do is convince themselves that the stuff that comes out of their mouths is true, or at least not factually incorrect, as far as they care to see. Not that they care to delve too deeply into what they actually want to believe, and what they want their listeners or victims to believe.

An example of this would be Hitler actually believing that the Jews were responsible for all of Germany's ills. And also believing that the Final Solution was the correct one. ("I did what I thought was right.")

(Incidentally, I wonder what level of collateral damage Blair would have considered acceptable in Iraq. 100,000 killed, injured and made homeless? One million? 2 million? 6 million?)

Did Ally also believe in WMD and the 45 minutes? Does he still? This is hardly the point. He simply believes that his pal Tony believed it. And Tony was not, therefore, a liar.

Does Ally then see, especially with hindsight, that Tone is/was a psychopath?**

Again, it's beside the point. Nobody's asking him that question, and no-one's likely to. And there's no way he'd answer it honestly if they did.

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I once had the ill-fortune to sit and listen to Blair whilst he made a speech. It's the dead eyes that give it away. Dead in the sense of not being able to connect in any proper empathetic sense with other people. Dead as in unable to really look and observe properly. His eyes function only in the service of his own ego and his own ambitions.

It's a bit like the Terminator - a robot who knows he's a robot, whose relentless existence is only for the purpose of carrying out its mission, which is twofold: to survive and prosper, and to defeat its enemies.

There's nothing wrong with its logic circuits - they're probably better, faster and stronger than any actual human - by far. What it lacks, of course, is a beating, emotional heart, a genuine concern for others, and a spirit capable of feeling either transcendental joy and bliss, or genuine sadness and melancholy.

Joy is presumably what Ally feels when Burnley FC occasionally win a match. (Why else carry on going to their matches?) And as of today, let no-one say that he has no feelings or emotions; or call him Mr Angry or Mr Terminator. The more subtle and sincere feelings may be unusually well hidden, on the whole, but they're in there somewhere.

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As indeed they are in Gordon Brown, who appears to have broken down and cried on camera whilst recording a programme this week.

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*
See the relevant part of the interview on video, and read more about it, and about Gordo, here -

Alastair Campbell in emotional defence of Blair on Iraq

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8502730.stm

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**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath

Psychopathy is a personality disorder whose hallmark is a lack of empathy. Researcher Robert Hare, whose Hare Psychopathy Checklist is widely used, describes psychopaths as "intraspecies predators who use charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexual intercourse and violence to control others and to satisfy their own needs. Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse".

Psychopaths are glib and superficially charming, and many psychopaths are excellent mimics of normal human emotion; some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including corporate environments. There is neither a cure nor any effective treatment for psychopathy; there are no medications or other techniques which can instill empathy, and psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy only become more adept at manipulating others. The consensus among researchers is that psychopathy stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth. It is estimated that one percent of the general population are psychopaths.

The prototypical psychopath has deficits or deviances in several areas: interpersonal relationships, emotion, and self-control. Psychopaths gain satisfaction through antisocial behavior, and do not experience shame, guilt, or remorse for their actions.

[Remember Tone was given the opportunity by Chilcott to express some regrets - and totally flunked it. Whoops!]

Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.

Psychopaths also lack empathy towards others in general, resulting in tactlessness, insensitivity, and contemptuousness. All of this belies their tendency to make a good, likable first impression. Psychopaths have a superficial charm about them, enabled by a willingness to say anything without concern for accuracy or truth. Shallow affect also describes the psychopath's tendency for genuine emotion to be short lived and egocentric with an overall cold demeanor. They do not . . .  deeply recognize the risk of being caught, disbelieved or injured as a result of their behaviour.

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Also important to have on record Clare Short's efforts to put the record straight last week

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8501087.stm

Clare was on Question Time last week, alongside George Galloway, Charlie ('Lord') Falconer, Melanie Phillips, and the makeweight, Teresa May.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/8500549.stm

This Question Time, from Coventry, was one of the best ever. Short and Galloway, especially now they're unconstrained by party allegiances, are genuine loose cannons, not afraid to speak truth to power. See it here -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qn443#segments

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The Virtual Revolution

Another episode of this excellent series on TV last night.

How 20 Years of the Web has Reshaped our Lives

Good talking heads - Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Al Gore, Stephen Fry, etc.

Discover more about The Virtual Revolution with our exclusive 3D Documentary Explorer. Mixing video from the series, with the web pages that tell the story of The Virtual Revolution, this is a radical new way to experience a documentary.

See all 4 programmes coming up in the next 7 days (including repeats).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/

http://alekskrotoski.com/

Al Gore said, "The web is capable of supporting a rising political consciousness. It will have a more profound effect on civilisation than the invention of the printing press."

Others said,

* The web tends to lead naturally to openness
* It's impossible for any one government to either police or control the web
* The web allows China's masses to give shape and direction to their spontaneous energy
* The web is "Against the Machine"
* Paypal is one of the means by which barriers between people can be broken down
*The web enables you to contact the kind of people you have something in common with, and people you can learn from.

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Biddles @ Biddles

One of the essentials for a really good live music venue is that it's situated within easy walking distance of home so that you can stroll there after consuming a couple of whiskies, a pint, and a glass of wine with dinner, and still roll home afterwards after drinking more wine, preferably after paying no more than a reasonable £3.20 for a decent glass of house red.

On top of that, if you can get a seat right next to the band, with a clear view of how the keyboard player is playing his Hammond XK3 - which drawbars he's using, etc - then you might find yourself in jazz heaven.

Of course it depends on the quality of the band. The Biddle Brothers Band playing at the bar of the same name were excellent last night. Not perfect, but very good indeed. Well done Biddles for bringing them back, and for continuing to run such a funky venue, late license and all . . .

http://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2008/11/29/claptons-community-pubs/

Biddle Brothers
88 Lower Clapton Road E5 0QR

Nestled in a crevice of Lower Clapton Road, the Biddle Brothers pub belies its almost Zen-like external anonymity by its gloriously rich interior, seducing the weary traveller with a warm promise of cold drinks and deep, comfy couches.

Surrounded by paintings from local artists, Biddle Bothers isn’t cheap but it is a beautifully kept and friendly local bar with a thriving community of loyal regulars.

Owned and run by Paco the Dog, the one-time builders’ merchant features a full programme of regular live acoustic and open mic nights, making good use of the obligatory piano-in-the-corner and its pretty good aural acoustics in the tiny hub of a back room.

Think nothing of sitting down, putting your feet up, play with Paco and passing an enjoyable evening forgetting about your worries.

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In a way it reminds me of nights at the Mercer's Arms back in the day, sipping pints whilst listening to great bands like the original Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, up close and personal. That was also the beginning of my love for blues and jazz played on the Hammond B3 with a Lesley cabinet amp - standing just feet away from guys like Wynder K Frog as they worked the keyboard, creating amazing soul-gripping sounds from keys and drawbars. Keith Emerson - when he was still with The Nice. 'America'!

Oh yes! - and Brian Auger (with Julia Driscoll) - Season of the Witch. Unforgettable.

Here's an interesting little musical history -

http://deanocity3.piczo.com/coventrysgigconcertguide1960-85?cr=5&linkvar=000044


There's only one mention of the Mercer's Arms though. Strange.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillfields

Rod Stewart used to sing with Brian Auger's 'Steampacket', along with Julie Driscoll and Long John Baldry: they once played the Hotel Leofric jazz club in Broadgate.

"The Jeff Beck Group snapped him up as lead singer for three years until 1969. Some Coventrians still debate whether Stewart performed with the band when they played the Mercer's Arms, near the old Highfield Road stadium, during this period."

I can clear this up. The confusion stems from the fact that the Beck group didn't actually play there. Auger & Driscoll did, and Rod the Mod definitely wasn't with them.

http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/coventry-evening-telegraph-england/mi_7969/is_2006_Nov_7/cov-rod-40-years-entertainment/ai_n34409181/
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Jazz

Johnny Dankworth RIP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/07/sir-john-dankworth-obituary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dankworth

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7180882/Sir-John-Dankworth.html

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Desert Island Discs

Gok Wan this week. The wonderful Gok. I hadn't realised what an amazing life story he has, and that he's a lad from the Midlands.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qg0r2/Desert_Island_Discs_Gok_Wan/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gok_Wan

He has good taste in music too - Tracey Chapman, Lou Reed, Brian Ferry . . . In fact two songs by the wonderful Ms Chapman.

"It definitely wasn't because I was talented", said Gok, very amusingly, when pondering why he'd been given a place at a school of speech and drama.

And he was another male who this weekend cracked up with emotion - whilst remembering and reflecting on what it felt like to look fat, and to feel ugly.
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Layer 219 Bonuses, Private Enterprise, Wall Street, 1989, Alternative Economics and Tough Love

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Listening to Question Time and the question of squillions of pounds being handed over to MoD civil servants by way of 'bonuses'. Can this really be true? How? It makes you wonder whether the poor bloody troops are getting bonuses. I think not. For the number of kills? Shots fired? Overtime? Night shifts? Danger money?

Can this government get any worse? When did civil servants become part of the bonus culture? It's outrageous.
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Why is Will Self trying to look like a psychotic Freddie Mercury lookalike?
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Seamas Milne had a very good 'big picture' column in the Guardian:

The real lesson of 1989 is that nothing is ever settled

The fall of the wall brought freedoms, but also war and crisis. Now that is creating the basis for a new alternative

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/11/lessons-of-1989-new-alternative

From the point of view of western self-esteem, 1989 is a year to die for: a tale of the triumph of individual freedom and the defeat of an ideological competitor, all captured live on television in the ritual destruction of a reviled enemy symbol in the heart of Europe. So the blanket coverage of the anniversary of the fall of the wall, and the parade of platitude-mouthing politicians in Berlin to mark the implosion of European communism it symbolised, was only to be expected.

What has been more striking, though, has been the lack of ideological confidence and enthusiasm that would have been expected only a few years ago. In the rest of what was eastern Europe, there have been barely any high-profile celebrations of the wider collapse of the old regimes. Given the eruption of wars, global insecurity and now economic crisis that have marked the 20 years since the end of the cold war, the larger narrative of peace, capitalist prosperity and the end of history peddled in the wake of 1989 just seems ridiculous.

But the question in 1989 wasn't whether the old system had to change; it was how it would change. The political force that had turned the Soviet Union into a superpower, industrialised half of Europe and sent the first human being into space had exhausted itself. There were, however, alternative routes out of its crisis. What the protesters in first Gdansk and then Leipzig were mostly demanding was not capitalism, of course, but a different kind of socialism. Even given a restoration of capitalism, there were softer landings that could have been negotiated by Mikhail Gorbachev and guaranteed by the United States and its allies.

Instead, 1989 unleashed across the region and then the former Soviet Union free-market shock therapy, mass robbery as privatisation, vast increases in inequality, and poverty and joblessness for tens of millions. Reunification in Germany in fact meant annexation, the takeover and closure of most of its industry, a political purge of more than a million teachers and other white-collar workers, a loss of women's rights, closure of free nurseries and mass unemployment – still double western Germany's rate after 20 years.

And east Germany has done far better than the rest. Elsewhere in eastern Europe, the crisis created under western tutelage and nomenklatura capitalism was comparable to the Great Depression in the US, and national income took more than a decade to recover. In Russia itself, post-communist catastroika produced the greatest economic collapse in peacetime in modern history. Mortality rates rose steeply across the region in the 1990s – in Russia, the market experiment produced more orphans in the 1990s than the country's 20m wartime deaths, while Gorbachev's democratisation went into reverse.

Now, after a decade of profoundly unequal economic recovery, eastern Europe has once again been plunged into deep crisis by the west's own meltdown, with ethnic violence spreading and public sector workers facing wage cuts of up to 40%.

The German Democratic Republic was home to the Stasi, shortages and the wall, but it was also a country of full employment, social equality, cheap housing, transport and culture, one of the best childcare systems in the world, and greater freedom in the workplace than most employees enjoy in today's Germany.

Along with the humiliation of the takeover, that's why Der Spiegel this year found that 57% of eastern Germans believed the GDR had "more good sides than bad sides", and even younger people rejected the idea that the state had been a dictatorship. Just as only one in five Hungarians believes that the country has changed for the better since 1989, only 11% of Bulgarians think ordinary people have benefited from the changes and most Russians and Ukrainians regret the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

By destroying its main ideological competitor, 1989 opened the door to a deregulated model of capitalism that has wreaked social and economic havoc across the world for two decades. That, in turn, led to the economic crisis of 2009, which has so palpably discredited the neoliberal model. It also created the conditions for the wave of progressive change in Latin America that has challenged the post-89 social order and raised the possibility of a new form of socialism for the 21st century.

Only 11% of those questioned in a BBC poll across 27 countries this week said they think free-market capitalism is working well, nearly a quarter believe it is fatally flawed and most want more public ownership and intervention in the economy.

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Almost missed this excellent letter from Helena Kennedy in the Observer:

The big issue: EU presidency. Tony Blair is the last leader Europe needs

The presidency of Europe will be highly symbolic and Tony Blair is a wholly inappropriate person to hold the role ("Is Tony Blair the right man to be president of Europe?", Observer Debate, Comment). He misled our country – to secure support for a decision he had already made to join George Bush in the Iraq war. In doing so, he showed total disrespect for international law, the United Nations and the views of his European partners; he destabilised the world and was naively cavalier as to the cost in human lives.

Domestically, he was disrespectful of the rule of law and civil liberties, hollowed out the Labour party and deepened the divide between rich and poor. He cravenly bowed to the demands of Rupert Murdoch, the neoconservatives in America, the extreme pro-Israeli lobby and his friends in the City. He showed poor judgment in his choice of associates. His freeloading was shameful. Indeed, his lifestyle epitomises the worst values of a materialistic age. He does not have the qualities of a leader, but would be an excellent television presenter.

Helena Kennedy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2009/nov/01/the-big-issue-tony-blair

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Will Hutton

These money-grubbing companies make the public sector look good

The simple equation that the private sector is good and the public sector bad has blighted our lives for decades

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/01/will-hutton-nimrod-afghanistan-raf

This is, I know, a question that defines me as a maverick; everyone knows that the public sector is a slough of inefficiency while the private sector is the home of innovation, enterprise and customer service. All I can say is: not in my recent experience.

Yet public service reformers remain animated by a desire to follow private sector examples. One fashionable wheeze is that local authority services are to be organised like low-cost airlines.

The best in the private sector can, of course, be exemplary – but to be great there has to be a culture that says the firm is more than merely an engine to deliver goods and services as cheaply as possible. Sure, cost effectiveness counts. But great firms – just like great parts of the public sector – are animated by a sense of purpose.

What has been wrong with too much of the public sector is not the fact of being owned by the state, or bureaucracy. It is a loss of a sense of purpose. Too many dumb, clunky targets; too much preoccupation with narrow cost saving and too little concern with greater purpose – from which poor leadership and management derive, and of which the MoD is an exemplar. To look to the private sector for quick-fix solutions, just because it is private, is to draw the wrong conclusion.

What the best in the private sector shows is the result of rigorous implementation of purpose. If Virgin.net felt passionately that it wanted to be a great server provider, I doubt it would collapse so much. Equally, what went wrong in the City was a complete loss of purpose, so the only point of banking became to make bonuses. If Charles Haddon-Cave wrote a report on either, I'm sure he would find the same lackadaisical approach he found in the Nimrod saga – if only with much less deadly results. The private sector never offered the magic bullet that New Labour or Thatcherites imagined. Efficiency and innovation are tough to deliver – and too much of Britain has failed in that mission.

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Making Wall Street pay

Wall Street's irresponsible bankers caused this economic crisis. It's only fair that they pay to clean up their mess

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/09/us-wall-street-financial-transactions-tax

While we may need additional revenue at some point, it makes far more sense to impose a financial transactions tax, which would primarily hit the Wall Street banks that gave us this disaster, than to tax the consumption of ordinary working families. We can raise large amounts of money by taxing the speculation of the Wall Street high-flyers while barely affecting the sort of financial dealings that most of us do in our daily lives.

Since the financial sector is the source of the country's current economic and budget problems it also makes sense to have this sector bear the brunt of any new taxes that may be needed. The economic collapse caused by Wall Street's irrational exuberance has led to a huge increase in the country debt burden. It seems only fair that Wall Street bear the brunt of the clean-up costs. A financial transactions tax is the way to make sure that this happens.

In short, we have to tell the deficit hawk crew, many of whom earned their fortune on Wall Street, to slow down. The country does face serious budget problems, even if they may not be as bad as this crew claims. However, if we need taxes to address a budget shortfall, then Wall Street is the place to start. After we have put in place a tax on Wall Street speculation, if we still need additional money, we can talk about a tax that will primarily affect the middle class.

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Paul Moore, the bank whistleblower whose revelations forced the resignation of a senior Government adviser, has called for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to go for his part in creating the financial crisis.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4629670/Gordon-Brown-must-go-says-HBOS-whistleblower-Paul-Moore.html

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The iconoclastic wisdom of David Nutt

This is not the first time Professor Nutt has challenged dearly held beliefs – as many sufferers of depression will gladly testify

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/03/david-nutt-depression-drugs

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How tough love breeds smart children

Report says that parents who use mixture of discipline and warmth are most likely to produce well-rounded individuals

by Anushka Asthana

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/08/tough-love-smart-children

Children brought up by parents practising "tough love" are more likely to become rounded personalities with well-developed characters than those who face either authoritarian or laissez-faire approaches, research reveals today.

The study, by the thinktank Demos, tracked the lives of 9,000 families and found that 13% used a "tough love" approach, combining warmth and discipline. It did not matter whether the parents were rich or poor – those that adopted the approach brought up children who were more likely to be empathetic, more able to control their emotions and bounce back from disappointment, and more capable of concentrating and completing tasks.

The research found that it was the style of parenting, rather than income or social background, that developed the strength of character.

It claimed that such "character capabilities" had become increasingly important in life. Skills such as empathy, self-regulation and application were 33 times more important in determining income for those who turned 30 in 2000 than for those 12 years older, it said.

Richard Reeves, director of Demos, argued that "tough love" was successful because it built up a child's self-esteem but also taught them to be restrained and respectful.

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Layer 209 . . . Diversity, Equality, Social Justice, the BNP and Anti Racism

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So the leader of the BNP finally made his appearance on the BBC's Question Time last night and thereby brought about television's political event of the year. He came across as what he undoubtedly is – a not very bright, sweaty, shifty, smarmy, evasive, appalling toad of a human being, full of nasty and half-witted ideas and ambitions. It was interesting the way he claimed he was now hated by the real Nazis in this country because he's now holding back from any overtly racist speeches and provocations, and now confines himself to trying to be the man who stands up for the white working classes whose welfare and wellbeing have been ignored by the 'multiculturalism' of the mainstream parties.

Gary Younge wrote a superb column in yesterday's Guardian on this issue:

When you watch the BNP on TV, just remember: Jack Straw started all this
To set New Labour against Griffin is simply putting the cause against the symptom

Three years ago this month Jack Straw argued his case for urging Muslim women who attend his MP's surgery to remove their niqab. He said that he wanted to start a debate. In this, at least, he was successful.

The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy said "the veil is an invitation to rape"; the Daily Mail columnist Allison Pearson said women who wear "nose bags on their faces ... have no place on British streets"; the then shadow home secretary David Davis argued that Muslims were encouraging voluntary apartheid.

And so Muslim women passed, in the public imagination, from being actually among the group most likely to be racially attacked to ostensibly being a primary cause of social strife . . .

There is little doubt that once the BNP is on Question Time, Jack Straw – or indeed anyone in the New Labour hierarchy – is in no position to take the fight to it. The same is true for most of the rest of the British political establishment that will be represented on the panel – they have either actively colluded or passively acquiesced in the political trajectory of the past decade.

But it is no accident that this happened on New Labour's watch and no small irony that Jack Straw should set himself up as Griffin's opponent.

Economically, its neoliberal policies have resulted in growing insecurity, rising unemployment, child poverty and inequality that have alienated the poor and made the middle class feel vulnerable. Politically, its lies over the war, stewardship of the expenses scandal and internal bickering have produced widespread cynicism with our political culture.

Meanwhile New Labour's race-baiting rhetoric gave the state's imprimatur to the notion that Britain's racial problems were not caused by racism but the existence of non-white, non-Christian and non-British people. This provided little material solace but plenty of vulnerable scapegoats.

Having inflated racism's political currency, New Labour vacated the electoral market so that others with a more ostentatious style might more freely spend it. Once they had made these ideas respectable it was only a matter of time before a party reached a position where it too would earn sufficient respectability to appear on prime time.

New Labour marginalised the white working class, assuming they had nowhere else to go, only to find some of them rush into the arms of the far right.

New Labour extinguished all hope of class solidarity and singularly failed to provide principled anti-racist alternatives, leaving a significant section of the white working class to seek cheap refuge in racism and xenophobia. In their identity they see not the potential for resistance against corruption and injustice, but only a grievance. They don't trust government and don't see any alternatives. The coming election simply provides the choice between two parties that share the intent to slash public spending, after the gift of billions to bankers.

Under such circumstances setting Straw – and the rest of the political class – against Griffin is simply putting the cause against the symptom without any suggestion of an antidote.

This has been New Labour's problem all along. While they have long recognised that racism is a problem, it never seemed to occur to them that anti-racism might be the solution.

The BNP's victories are a product of our politics. Its defeat, when it comes, will necessarily be a product of a change in our politics. But since New Labour's politics enabled the BNP, it is in no position to disable it. The BNP is a bottom feeder. But the system is rotting from the head down.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/21/jack-straw-bnp-griffin-hain
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The most interesting contributions made to the programme last night came from the Conservative party representative, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action. How clever of Cameron to have given this post to this particular individual, who even retains a trace of a Yorkshire accent. And I mean clever in a good way.

http://www.sayeedawarsi.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayeeda_Warsi,_Baroness_Warsi

She was the only one who seemed alert to the fact that, as Gary Younge so rightly says, the white working classes have plenty to be angry about after 12 years of New Labour. Namely, “growing insecurity, rising unemployment, child poverty and inequality that have alienated the poor and made the middle class feel vulnerable”. Add to that list inadequate, expensive, unafforable and scarce housing, too many inadequate schools that alienate and frustrate their children, a minimum wage that's not only too low but is also seen as a maximum by far too many employers, inadequate State pensions, fewer and less well funded job pension schemes, the threat of a higher retirement age, repressive trade union representation, billions blown on becoming a surveillance society, billions blown on illegal wars and support for the the Bush regime, etc, etc. All of this alongside the well-off and wealthy sections of society becoming even more wealthy as a result of this government's business-friendly and laissez-faire policies, allowing the property bubble to inflate, and so on.

So the Baroness is right – there are plenty of legitimate grievances to address in order to deal with the anger of the working classes in general, and the lower middle classes as well – not just the white sections of those who are less well-off and downright impoverished.

These working class people are hardly likely to turn to the Conservatives, or even the Lib Dems to address their problems and express their anger. So who do they turn to?
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Deborah Orr also had an excellent piece in the Guardian [G2] yesterday:

Diversity and equality are not the same thing

Racism, homophobia and sexism are on the wane, but Britain is more unequal than ever

The progressive agenda may have faltered in many respects over recent decades. But in challenging the evils of racism, homophobia and sexism, fantastic success has been achieved. Mainstream British attitudes, in the last 30 years, have been transformed. David Cameron, consummate public relations man that he is, recognises that a Conservative party that seems too male, too white, too straight, has an image problem.

Except that diehard critics of the Conservatives – people who would never vote for them – tend to dislike Cameron's party because it is seen as representing the interests of the privileged, whatever their race, gender or sexual orientation may be. Identity politics may have set out to promote equality. But the Conservative leadership has embraced not equality, but diversity.

This is social progress, of course. But it is not the progress that the left once envisaged. On the contrary, in the same time as the argument for diversity has made such strides, the increased equality that was assumed to be part of its goal, has not materialised at all. Instead, inequality in Britain is now much greater than it was prior to the success of its various "equality" campaigns.

Increased inequality is rightly understood as a consequence of the enthusiastic adoption of neoliberal economic policies, by both of the governments of the mainstream parties. But less honestly acknowledged is the fact that diversity is entirely compatible with neoliberalism. The growth stimulated by the promotion of skilled female employment, the economic advantages of immigration, the consuming power of the "pink pound" – these are the aspects of "liberation" that have been most amorously embraced by the political mainstream, in part because they chime so fortuitously with neoliberal economic goals.

Does this matter? Is it important to understand that diversity and equality are different things, and that they are sometimes even at odds with each other? After all, the rooting out of discrimination achieves social justice, whether in the name of diversity or equality.

It matters very much indeed, because the strange fruit of the confusion can be seen on Question Time tonight, personified by the leader of the British National party, Nick Griffin, who deliberately utilises the general increase in inequality to advance his anti-diversity, racist agenda. And even the very people who abhor his crude and frightening racism most find it hard to rebut his central thesis – that the white working class in Britain has had a raw deal over the last 30 years.

Rebuttal indeed is pointless. The important thing to remember is that the black working class, the female working class, the gay working class, the disabled working class and the elderly working class, have had a similarly difficult time, under Labour and under the Conservatives. Certainly all of those other groups have been lavished with attention under Labour in the form of legislation that protects their minority rights in the name of diversity, in a way that the white working class has not. But the real reason why the BNP is able to make capital out of racist assertions is because immigrants are the only group that has been overtly utilised as a tool to promote economic inequality. That's the link.

Since the Empire Windrush arrived in 1948 – the year Griffin promotes as the point when Britain's prelapsarian idyll ended – immigrant labour has been deliberately used to keep unskilled wages low. While the promotion of diversity has successfully staved off some of the most socially catastrophic consequences of such a divisive economic strategy, it has also ushered in a wrong-headed belief that immigrants are the actual cause of inequality, rather than merely part of the means of creating that highly competitive, fear-of-failure motivated, neoliberal economy that is such a splendid motor of empty "growth".

Many commentators have pointed out that under the strictures of "political correctness" the only group that can any longer be unabashedly despised is the white working class. A number of well-meaning critics suggested that with the character Vicky Pollard, the creators of Little Britain were doing just that. Some surprise was expressed when rightwinger Ferdinand Mount took up this general thesis, in his book Mind The Gap: Class In Britain Now.

But there is nothing in this to be surprised about. The application of the mores of identity politics cannot help the white working class. Even if the idea that the white working class is a special-interest cultural group that needs to be "respected" were successfully promulgated, this would advance only "diversity", and legitimise extreme economic inequality as an inescapable fact of life such as skin-colour, gender or sexual orientation.

This is exactly why the Daily Telegraph, before Karen Matthews was exposed as the kidnapper of her daughter Shannon, was at  pains t to portray Dewsbury as a vibrant community chock-full of Blitz-spirited decency, rather than an economically abandoned hellhole teeming with poverty-induced depression, mental illness, substance abuse, ignorance and desperation. It's just a sophisticated and identity-politics-informed reworking of that old saw: "The poor will always be with us."

Sure, some people will always be less rich than others. But less of a gulf between rich and poor should be a social goal because it makes us all happier, as a plethora of statistics have been marshalled to illustrate in Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's important new book, The Spirit Level.

Yet who in the political mainstream is advancing this argument? Even Barack Obama, the world's most potent embodiment of the advance of diversity, has trouble setting out, let alone winning, the equality argument.

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