Layer 515 . . . Spiritual Thoughts, The Future of Conservatism, Dumbogeddon, Right-Wing Stupidity, Left-Wing Timidity, and Schoolification

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Recent thoughts of the Dalai Lama

When we are angry we are blind to reality. Anger may bring us a temporary burst of energy, but that energy is blind and it blocks the part of our brain that distinguishes right from wrong. To deal with our problems, we need to be practical and realistic. If we are to be realistic, we need to use our human intelligence properly, which means we need a calm mind.

The very purpose of spirituality is self-discipline. Rather than criticizing others, we should evaluate and criticize ourselves. Ask yourself, what am I doing about my anger, my attachment, my pride, my jealousy? These are the things we should check in our day to day lives.

It is important that when pursing our own self-interest we should be “wise selfish” and not “foolish selfish”. Being foolish selfish means pursuing our own interests in a narrow, shortsighted way. Being wise selfish means taking a broader view and recognizing that our own long-term individual interest lies in the welfare of everyone. Being wise selfish means being compassionate.

There is a saying in Tibetan that “at the door of the miserable rich man sleeps the contented beggar.” The point of this saying is not that poverty is a virtue, but that happiness does not come from wealth, but from setting limits to one’s desires, and living within those limits with satisfaction.

Generosity is the most natural outward expression of an inner attitude of compassion and loving-kindness. When one desires to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being, then generosity - in action, word, and thought - is this desire put into practice. It is important to recognize the "generosity" here refers not just to giving in a material sense, but to generosity of the heart.

The creation of a more peaceful and happier society has to begin from the level of the individual, and from there it can expand to one's family, to one's neighborhood, to one's community and so on.

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The Future of Conservatism was yesterday's subject on Start The Week (Radio 4).

Hmmmm.

Peter Hitchens has never been a writer I'd bother to read, but at least he represents 'traditional' or 'one nation' conservatism - the party of Harold MacMillan or even Edward Heath, the kind of 'caring' conservatism that existed before Thatcher came along with her neo-conservative revolution, and made the Tory brand nasty and toxic: a party for the City, pro-greed, pro-selfish individual advancement, pro-privatisation, no such thing as society, etc.

Hitchens pointed out that traditional Conservatism was supposed to be a party guided by Christian values. Today's conservatism is "completely uninterested in matters of morals and culture", and neither is it interested in "preserving the particularlity of Britain", hence it allowed industry to collapse, and allowed what's left of it to be sold off to the highest bidder - i.e. asset-stripper. He made it clear that in his view Thatcher and Reagan were walking disaster areas. Which is telling it like it is.

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George Monbiot also tells it like it is:

The right's stupidity spreads, enabled by a too-polite left

Conservativism may be the refuge of the dim. But the room for rightwing ideas is made by those too timid to properly object

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/06/right-stupidity-spreads-enabled-polite-left

Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today's progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they no longer possess a vocabulary.

Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact.

It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others – particularly "different" others – requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.

The new study looks embarrassingly robust. Importantly, it shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low intelligence are drawn. Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to "rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasise the maintenance of the status quo".

This is not to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. There are some very clever people in government, advising politicians, running thinktanks and writing for newspapers, who have acquired power and influence by promoting rightwing ideologies.

But what we now see among their parties – however intelligent their guiding spirits may be – is the abandonment of any pretence of high-minded conservatism. On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that there is no pool so shallow that several million people won't drown in it. Whether they are promoting the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the US, that man-made climate change is an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy, or that the deficit results from the greed of the poor, they now appeal to the basest, stupidest impulses, and find that it does them no harm in the polls.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to what two former Republican ideologues, David Frum and Mike Lofgren, have been saying. Frum warns that "conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics". The result is a "shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology" which has "ominous real-world consequences for American society".

Lofgren complains that "the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital centre today". The Republican party, with its "prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science" is appealing to what he calls the "low-information voter", or the "misinformation voter". While most office holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base".

But when I survey this wreckage I wonder who the real idiots are. Confronted with mass discontent, the once-progressive major parties, as Thomas Frank laments in his latest book Pity the Billionaire, triangulate and accommodate, hesitate and prevaricate, muzzled by what he calls "terminal niceness". They fail to produce a coherent analysis of what has gone wrong and why, or to make an uncluttered case for social justice, redistribution and regulation. The conceptual stupidities of conservatism are matched by the strategic stupidities of liberalism.

Yes, conservatism thrives on low intelligence and poor information. But the liberals in politics on both sides of the Atlantic continue to back off, yielding to the supremacy of the stupid. It's turkeys all the way down.

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Dumbogeddon

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/05/daily-mail-calls-rightwingers-stupid

by Charlie Brooker

The Mail's report went on to detail the results of a study carried out by a group of Canadian academics, which appears to show some correlation between low childhood intelligence and rightwing politics. It also claimed that stupid people hold rightwing views in order to feel "safe". Other items they hold in order to feel safe include clubs, rocks and dustbin lids. But those are easy to let go of. Political beliefs get stuck to your hands. And the only way to remove them is to hold your brain under the hot tap and scrub vigorously for several decades.

As you might expect, many Mail Online readers didn't take kindly to a report that strived to paint them as simplistic, terrified dimwits. Many leapt from the tyres they were swinging in to furrow their brows and howl in anger. Others, tragically, began tapping rudimentary responses into the comments box. Which is where the tragi-fun really began.

"Sounds like a BBC study, type of thing they would waste the Licence fee on, load of Cods wallop," claimed Terry from Leicester, thereby managing to ignore the findings while simultaneously attacking public service broadcasting for something it hadn't done. For his next trick, Terry will learn to whistle and shit at the same time.

Not all the respondents were stupid. Some were merely deluded. Someone calling themselves "Hillside" from Sydney claimed: "I have an IQ over 200, have six degrees and diplomas and am 'right-wing', as are others I know at this higher level of intelligence." His IQ score is particularly impressive considering the maximum possible score on Mensa's preferred IQ test is 161.

On and on the comments went, turning a rather stark write-up of a daft-sounding study into a sublime piece of live online performance art. A chimps' tea party of the damned. The Mail has long been a master at trolling lefties; now it's mischievously turned on its own readers, and the results could only be funnier if the website came with free plastic lawn furniture for them to lob at the screen. You couldn't make it up.

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Education & Zeitgeist Corner


Sue Palmer (Toxic Childhood) spoke well on the Today programme this morning on "schoolification" - "The mechanical target-driven model of education."

For more thoughts on education versus schooling, click this blog:

And take a look at this editorial:

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Good article in Guardian Education today by Michael Rosen:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/feb/06/michael-rosen-gove-curriculum-schools

Dear Mr Gove: Michael Rosen's letter from a curious parent

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Layer 510 . . . Revolutions, Start The Week, the Force of Ideas and the Power of Truth

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The following sentences are from a blog by Oguejiofo Annu which Oxzen quoted last January (Layer 426) -

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2011/01/layer-426-tunisia-martyrs-markets.html

On January 14, President Ben Ali [of Tunisia] fled the country amid escalating violence and opposition . . .

The entire Africa and middle east is taken by surprise. Strong men and presidents are quietly sweating it out and considering their counter strategy. The commentators say this fire has the potential of blazing outside the borders of Tunisia as it moves like a forest firestorm to burn down the oppressive power structures of Africa and Middle East.

Rasta Livewire will keep you posted as this fire blazes on . . .

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Little did we dare to believe that the downfall of the tyrants in Egypt and Libya would be witnessed before the year was out.

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Revolution

The whole of this morning's Start The Week on Radio 4 was on the subject of revolution.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks revolution. Wael Ghonim explains how social networks played a vital role in the Arab Spring. His Facebook page,'We Are All Khaled Said', which featured the death of a young Egyptian, inspired a new generation to fight oppression. Mary King, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies looks back to earlier struggles in eastern Europe, and the journalist Paul Mason explores how far the worldwide economic crisis and growing inequality lie behind the new revolutions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b90br

WAEL GHONIM
The call for a mass protest on January 25th last year - the start of Egypt's revolution - began from the Facebook page, Kullena Khaled Said. It was a page created to highlight the fate of a young man beaten to death by the police in Alexandria. But as events changed across the Arab world, it became a focus for hundreds of thousands of protestors demanding an end to Mubarak's rule. Its creator was Wael Ghonim, a Google executive, who used his knowledge of technology and the love of his country to inspire a generation of young Egyptians to demand change.

Revolution 2.0 is published by Fourth Estate.

PAUL MASON
From Tahrir Square in Cairo, to the streets of Athens, to the avenues of Madrid, to Westminster and St Paul's, 2011 saw an uprising against regimes and systems of government almost unprecedented in world history. Journalist Paul Mason visited many of the places where revolutions were 'kicking off' and spoke to many of the new generation of revolutionaries. So who are these people and how significant was the world economic crisis in triggering such widespread social and political unrest?
Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions is published by Verso.

MARY KING
In 1989 revolution spread throughout Eastern Europe, toppling the dictatorial regimes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Out of all of these countries only Romania overthrew its old regime through violent action. A lifelong advocate of peaceful protest movements and a civil rights activist with Martin Luther King, Mary King argues that armed struggle is ultimately less successful. She looks at the parallels between the recent Arab Spring and the Autumn of Nations two decades ago.

Quotes from the broadcast:

Technology has empowered people.

Media has been decentralised.

We're seeing processes of disorientation as the dominant neo-liberal economics model (globalisation) falls apart.

The degree of 'preparedness' of the people is the key to successful peaceful revolution.

The revolution in the USA is more about culture and behaviour - 'people power' - driven by the anger and the condition of the American poor and the poverty-stricken masses. (Paul Mason)

Governments are having to learn to listen, and can no longer ignore the will of the people.

Activists around the world have read the autobiography of Gandhi and have learnt the methods of non-violent struggle - from South Africa to Georgia; from the Ukraine to the Phillipines.

The revolution in Egypt was directly inspired by the Tunisian revolution. People saw what was possible! (Through direct non-violent action.)

Discontent has been driven by the breakdown of the neo-liberal economic model. (Paul Mason)

[The technology of] communication is phenomenally important for mass non-violent movements. (Mary King)

The majority of people are fed up with a world run by rich people FOR rich people.

The protests we're seeing are a reaction to the bankrupting of states.

People in some countries are finding it hard to survive due to food economics - caused by commodity price inflation and asset price inflation.

Many slum dwellers can't even afford bread and sugar.

Young people are the detonators.

Sustained long-term mass action needs established self-sustainable groups (students, unions, churches and mosques) and the use of general strikes. (Mary King)

The American civil rights movement learnt how to be effective from Gandhi.

The force of ideas will eventually prevail.

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In his autobiography (Page 47) Gandhi wrote about the power of truth amd morality :

"One thing took deep root in me - that morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of all morality. Truth became my sole objective."

Also speaking truth to power . . .

In case you missed it, take a look at this previous blog about Paul Mason's book:

Layer 504 . . . Kicking Off Everywhere, Global Unrest and a Viral Revolution

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Layer 423 . . . Britain's Banks, Fear and Loathing, Excess, Failure, Greed, Justice, Peston, Sandel, Hobsbawm, Citizenship, Spiritual Values, Ethical Questions, and How To Change The World

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The film Battle in Seattle was shown again on TV last week. An excellent, but enraging piece of work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmQzw-O8eRY

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

The film depicts the historic protest in 1999, as thousands of activists arrive in Seattle, Washington in masses to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999. The World Trade Organization is considered by protesters to contribute to widening the socioeconomic gap between the rich and the poor while it claims to be fixing it and increasing world hunger, disease and death.  - Wikipedia

 


I'm now watching a documentary on BBC2 about bankers and banking.

Britain's Banks: Too Big to Save?

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xwsl5

It's more than two years since the giant banks were bailed out with billions of pounds of tax-payers' money, yet little has been done to reform or regulate these vast institutions. The BBC's business editor Robert Peston looks at how the international regulators, a little-known and secretive committee that sits in the Swiss city of Basel, have consistently failed to curb the excesses of the giant banks and how new proposals fall short of the root-and-branch reform promised after the crash.

With the fate of Ireland, brought to its knees by the excesses of its banking industry, fresh in our minds, Peston asks whether Britain would be in any position to bail out our huge banks should there be another crisis. Are the banks, once thought to be too big to fail, now actually too big to save?

This programme is well-conceived, well edited, and well presented. Respect to Peston.

I'm hearing about greed, deception, huge profits, ludicrous levels of risk, corruption, foolish politicians, crazy levels of credit, property booms and bubbles, aggressive takeovers, casino capitalism, cut-throat competition, immoral bonuses and salaries, fraudulent practices, complex financial 'products' (that no-one can really understand or explain), ruthless heads of banks, insane pressure on individuals to engage in reckless investing and trading, and so on.

None of this will be news to anyone who's been paying proper attention over the past two years or so. But that doesn't make this sort of documentary any less infuriating. Pure hate and fury - for the disgusting bankers, the complacent and compliant politicians, the lazy bureaucrats and the so-called regulators - all of them university educated and apparently pillars of our society. So much for so-called higher education. So much for cleverness, wisdom and enlightenment. This is their world. This is the way they have made it, and the way they want to keep it.

Even the governor of the Bank of England now says that we have the worst possible banking system. So does our government plan to do anything about it? Does the Labour party have any proposals for radical change?

The banks are too big, too complicated, too interconnected, and too powerful, says Peston. They're also too big to save if they fuck up. The first one that goes down now will take the rest of us down with them.

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Layer 167 deserves another read, especially for the comments by boonery and guardianreeda.

 http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2009/06/layer-167-browns-preservation-market.html

The other reason for revisiting that piece is for the notes on Professor Michael Sandel on New Citizenship, spiritual values and ethical questions.

Prof Sandel was on Start The Week this week,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/stw

Start the Week focuses on justice, fairness and ethical dilemmas. Leading Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm argues that Marx remains as relevant today as in the last century. The American academic Michael Sandel looks at the philosophy that underpins notions of justice.

Prof Sandel spoke about justice, utility, rights, freedom and virtue. Fundamental questions about the good life and the meaning of virtue.

[In the 1960s we had heated debates about visions of competing philosphies.  Ha!  We were naive enough to imagine that truth and justice would prevail, when all that really mattered, as ever, was the reality of power, which always trumps justice and truth! ]

Sandel spoke about the Tories' Big  Society   -  does it really address questions about the common good and the good life?

Fundamental questions always raise the deepest passions - questions of virtue and the good life. Questions about freedom, rights, etc.

Eric Hobsbawm talked about criticisms of Bentham's Utilitarianism and Kantianism.
Also about the Importance of community and solidarity.
Large modern societies make decisions on common values very difficult.
Social contract? Morally engaged debate? Choices about what motivates us individually?
Public v private good. Civic visions.

Do our citizens seriously engage in debate about the big issues?
The fucking Labour party even closed down any serious debate about policies within its own ranks of engaged citizens!!!

Eric Hobsbawm's new book is called How to Change the World.He points out that Social Democracy is just as much the child of Marx as revolutionary socialism.
How to change 'human nature'?
How to run economic policy and practice?
1848 Communist Manifesto.
Marx is always 'rediscovered' after the occurrence of the capitalist crises that he predicted.
The historical inevitability of the rise and fall of capitalist and bourgeois societies.
First globalised capitalism, then a transition period, then post-capitalism.

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It seems to me that China - since it is a society with a tradition of deep intelligence and civic engagement, had its revolution in 1949 and has since progressed to post-capitalism because it has managed and controlled capitalism for the benefit of the country as a whole, ever since the revolution.

Arguably, the Soviet Union collapsed because the USSR wasn't a country as such, and therefore Russia was always seen as illigitimate, imperialist, and non-democratic.

Aside from Tibet, there has never been any question in China about Chinese nationalism and the legitimacy of China's version of democracy. Neither is there an great appetite in China for bourgeois democracy. Ideas about social justice, equality and a good life for all citizens are still predominant. We can contrast this with the situation in the USA where ideas about so-called freedom for individuals, extreme individuality, individual enrichment, the American Dream, rags to riches, the right to bear arms, low taxation, etc, are predominant.
Europe and South America are still battlegrounds for competing philosophies of both left and right. As are India, Australia, Africa, Canada, etc.

http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9781408702871

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Someone on a science programme this week pointed out that ever since the Big Bang the general state of the universe is for things to get ever cooler and colder. There have been, and there will continue to be, fluctuations in the climate of this planet, but in due course the sun will cool, the planets will cool, and the solar system will cease to be.

Whilst the Big Bang of deregulation in the City initially caused intense heat and expansion, can there be any doubt that the long term trend will be for contraction and the collapse of the financial system?

Thankfully, human affairs are not governed by the laws of physics, and we can control how our system operates - if we have the political will. However, left to their own devices, who can doubt that the bankers and the other City fat cats will continue to cause the system to overheat and then implode?


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Eric Hobsbawm: a conversation about Marx, student riots, the new Left, and the Milibands

As he publishes his latest book, 93-year-old historian Eric Hobsbawm talks communism and coalition with one of Britain's newer breed, Tristram Hunt, now a Labour MP

The global crisis of capitalism, which has wreaked havoc on the world economy since 2007, has transformed the terms of debate.

Suddenly, Marx's critique of the instability of capitalism has enjoyed a resurgence. "He's back," screamed the Times in the autumn of 2008 as stock markets plunged, banks were summarily nationalised and President Sarkozy of France was photographed leafing through Das Kapital (the surging sales of which pushed it up the German bestseller lists). Even Pope Benedict XVI was moved to praise Marx's "great analytical skill". Marx, the great ogre of the 20th century, had been resuscitated across campuses, branch meetings and editorial offices.

So there seemed no better moment for Eric to bring together his most celebrated essays on Marx into a single volume, together with new material on Marxism in light of the crash. For Hobsbawm, the continual duty to engage with Marx and his multiple legacies (including, in this book, some fine new chapters on the meaning of Gramsci) remains compelling.

And after one hour of talking Marx, materialism and the continued struggle for human dignity in the face of free-market squalls, you leave Hobsbawm's Hampstead terrace – near the paths where Karl and Friedrich used to stroll – with the sense you have had a blistering tutorial with one of the great minds of the 20th century. And someone determined to keep a critical eye on the 21st.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/16/eric-hobsbawm-tristram-hunt-marx

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Layer 359 . . . Enlightenment, Freedom, Philosophy, Neuroscience, Modern Conservativism, Progressive Politics, Fairness, Leadership and the Tao

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Start The Week - Radio 4 - Andrew Marr

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006r9xr

Sheila Stephenson - "Enlightenment"

"Playwright Shelagh Stephenson also explores family tensions in her new play, about what happens when a missing child returns home."

We think we have freedom and control of our lives - but the world is a connected place and our lives are shaped, if not determined, by "events", and by other people.

Is it possible to reach "an enlightenment of acceptance"?

Jonathan Franzen - "hailed as a 'Great American Novelist' for his latest book, Freedom. Amidst the backdrop of the war on terror, environmental disaster and class war, Franzen chronicles the lives, choices and compromises of one family."

These are certainly big themes - class war, the war on terror and the environment. As is 'freedom'. Thank goodness there's at least one major novelist who's willing and able to deal with the major issues of our day. Economic crisis, gun ownership, overpopulation, overcrowded streets and roads . . . Huge moral challenges . . . confronting the basic weakness - the punyness - of individuals.

We need a 'sustaining narrative' of our times? [People need to know what point is there in being alive!]

"Philosophy is under attack as advances in neuroscience question many of its assumptions, and yet Barry Smith argues that the science of the mind needs philosophers now more than ever, to make sense of its new discoveries."

Our starting point is our own experience - it's assumed to be the one thing we can rely on. Apparently. Neuroscience is now able to show that the world is a construct brought into being by a combination of different parts of the brain. Lose one part, and the world appears very different. Taste is not a simple thing, for example - it depends to a large extent on sight and touch and even memories of past tastes.

As for our sense of self . . .

We have suites of opinion-making systems. [Logic, empathy, intuition, sensory perception and instinct all interconnect and interact and shape our feelings and emotions, our opinions and perceptions.]

[Which is why we need to educate ALL of our intelligences, and train them to work together.]

"Robert Douglas-Fairhurst celebrates the great Victorian journalist Henry Mayhew and his captivating portraits of life on the streets of London."

Mayhew was an Establishment man, but also an outsider. (A Boris?) Very good at describing the sights, sounds and smells of the streets, which in the 19th C were full of many more different types of people - different trades, ways of speaking, ways of dressing. Did he become a pompous moraliser? (Like Boris?) A cartoonist and caricaturist? "The undiscovered country of the poor." This is what Polly Toynbee wrote about when she went 'underground', lived in a council flat and took jobs on the minimum wage. The poor are always with us?

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Progressive Politics?

And so to the Tory Party conference. Not literally - obviously. But I'm drawn to it like a political moth to a flame; or like a cyberfly to a pile of poo.

Only this year it doesn't smell quite so crappy - so far. Then again, it's still only Tuesday morning.

Take David Cameron. On the Andrew Marr TV programme on Sunday he again managed to look and sound like a human being - a feat too difficult for the likes of Michael Howard, Iain Duncan Smith, William Hague and John Major -  quite a range: from prince of darkness to chartered accountant.

He appeared reasonable and rational, and spoke about taking decisions in the national interest. Maybe his predecessors said similar things, but with Cameron there appears to be a real human being talking and not just a scheming, shifty, lying, cheating politician. I still say that his painful experiences of parenthood, sickness and bereavement have given him a proper grounding in what disability, emotional intelligence and compassion really mean.

His two main themes at the moment appear to be the provision of a "good State pension system" and the creation of a "refreshingly radical" benefits system [put forward by IDS] that actually encourages work by not penalising people when they take jobs and come off benefits.

"This is NOT the Conservative party of old!"

Well – even Cameron is now using the F word - fairness!

He's also saying the NHS budget will continue to grow IN REAL TERMS.

On yesterday's Today programme George Osborne, also sounding sane and reasonable,  was also talking about the intention to adopt Iain Duncan Smith's proposals and create a single benefits system that's fit for purpose, that doesn't penalise people who take on jobs (though they WILL HAVE TO take jobs that are offered) and will actually cost the State MORE in the short run.

Osborne also says they have decided to stop paying family allowances to people who are on higher rate taxes.

Bloody hell. Why didn't New Labour take on these issues?

It's not really possible to like Osborne and Cameron, because they are, after all, Tory toffs. But credit where it's due - they speak calmly, courteously, clearly and reasonably. They may be misguided, but they seem sincere in what they believe, and whilst their economic policies may well plunge the country into an even deeper industrial and financial crisis, they are, after all, doing what Tories traditionally do, but with a touch of liberalism and speaking the language of 'fairness'.

Would a re-elected New Labour be doing any better? Probably not. And we'd still have to listen to the same old tedious, pompous and ridiculous voices of the same old Brownites and Blairites  . . . spinning, blathering, patronising, droning . . . on and on. I never, ever, want to hear the voices of Mandelson, Brown, Straw, Adonis, let alone Blears, Prescott, Hewitt, Burnham, Jowell and co EVER again.

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Fair's Fair and Instinctual Intelligence

Anyone who's spent time around kids knows that they're experts on fairness. They're born with a precise understanding of what's fair and what isn't. They will tell YOU whether something is fair or not, and will get very upset if you're too stupid to recognise unfairness.

Kids have much to learn about fairness as they grow up, but haven't we all? We clearly have unfairness meters built into our brains. Unfortunately they're not all calibrated precisely the same, which means that fairness is something we constantly argue about. We develop a better awareness of real fairness as we learn about the different aspects of privilege, disadvantage, inequality, level playing fields, and so on.

Is it fair that the banks are still handing out several billions in 'bonuses' to those within their ranks? Is it fair that so many families still live in what are virtually slums? Is it fair that house prices and rents are so high? Is it fair that public sector workers will now be deliberately made redundant by the coalition, instead of becoming 'redeployed', as it were, if and when jobs become available in the private sector?

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Leadership
Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley, PPE Oxford, no doubt means well and probably has a heart of gold. She's Labour through and through. She's married to the very likeable Andrew Marr. And she writes hopeless, out of touch, middle of the road rubbish.

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

Her latest piece - "A sharply defined Miliband can pierce a fuzzy coalition" - is itself a piece of hopeless, fuzzy tosh.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/03/cameron-miliband-leader-labour-coalition?

The strapline says - "Cameron's laid-back regime lacks the clarity of real leadership. The new man in opposition has to fashion a different path"

Bearing in mind that Jackie was a supporter of both Blair and Brown it's not at all clear she has a clue about effective leadership, or that she's in any position to advise Cameron on his leadership shortcomings, or that she's ever had any leadership experience of anything ever in her life.

She says -

Cameron's style of leadership is a response to Gordon Brown's iron fist. The new prime minister has been laid back almost to the horizontal. True, he has had some huge upheavals in his personal life over the summer, but even before that colleagues were complaining that he took so much time off, and delegated too airily. His admission that he has seven hours of sleep a night will amaze former colleagues of Brown, who got used to being woken at all hours of the day and night by him. If Brown's failing was to imprint a single "true path" and punish all deviationists, perhaps Cameron's will turn out to be the absence of central control.

Central control, see? Dopey Jackie is of the old school that still thinks political parties should be Stalinist and managerial, rather than democratic and collegiate. Here's Cameron making the point that the coalition is a true collective, and has restored government by cabinet, through democratic discussion and proper collective responsibility, and there's Jackie advising him to become the great clunking fist of central control.

What else does she say? What pearls of wisdom does she have to offer young Ed?

"He needs to reach out to bruised and resentful colleagues. He must show he understands business and "gets" middle England. But above all, he needs self-confident personal definition – the clarity of real leadership. For that's just what this cosy, self-congratulatory, fuzzy coalition seems to lack."

"Understands business"? "Gets middle England"? What is this patronising shit?

"Needs to reach out to bruised and resentful colleagues"? No he doesn't. He needs to tell them to fuck off with their bruises and their resentment, and count themselves lucky not to have the shit kicked out of them after all the New Labour bollocks they've been dealing in and making a career from.

"Self confident personal definition"? Like a high-tech 1080p TV maybe?

Oh yes - "REAL leadership". As opposed to imaginary leadership, or unreal leadership or leadership that's just a mirage.

I'd like to send Jackie copies of some books that might help her to understand that what Cameron is doing is perhaps extremely wise, thoughtful and progressive. Here's three for starters:

1. The New Leaders    by Daniel Goleman

2. The Tao of Leadership    by John Heider

3. The Tao of Management    by Bob Messing
For Jackie's benefit, and for Ed Miliband's benefit, I'm going to quote from these books in the next couple of blogs. I'll just leave her with this one thought for today:

Seventeen

The very highest is barely known by men.
Then comes that which they know and love.
Then that which is feared.
Then that which is despised.

He who does not trust enough will not be trusted.

When actions are performed
Without unnecessary speech,
People say, "We did it!"

Tao Te Ching

It's worth checking out the CiF comments on Jackie's piece. There are plenty of people who do, in fact, "get it".
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Layer 251 . . . On The Radio

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Sir Clive Woodward is an interesting guy. He's a knight of the realm. He managed the England rugby team that won the rugby world cup in 2003. He's the British Olympic Association's Director of Elite Performance. He's seen by some people as some kind of management guru. I've been to one of his management seminars. Yesterday he was the guest on Desert Island Discs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qs4zs/Desert_Island_Discs_Sir_Clive_Woodward/

So there he was, this affable, results-driven, targets-oriented guy, a great believer in the need for highly professional and aspirational management styles, he seems reasonably honest and plausible - talking about his burning desire to become a winner, the best, etc . . . albeit it in a somewhat dry and fairly humourless sort of way . . . clearly a guy who takes himself very seriously and expects others to do the same . . . obviously a lover of sport, and by his own admission NO great intellectual or philosopher, just a great believer in hard work and effort . . .

He then confirms what I'm already thinking about him with his choice of music.

Absolute unrelenting middle of the road pap and cack - most of it in all likelihood manufactured by people using Casio keyboards and rhythm backing tracks, with heavy emphasis on sentimentality, smaltz and lurve (he really loves his wife) . . .

After the 2003 World Cup, England came third in the 2004 Six Nations (behind Grand Slam winners France and Triple Crown winners Ireland). His last tour as England coach came shortly afterwards, with an ill-fated tour of New Zealand and Australia. England were beaten by New Zealand in two tests, without scoring a single try, going down 36-3 in the first and 36-12 in the second. The team then went to Australia, where they were beaten 51-15.

In February 2004 he was appointed Head Coach for the awful 2005 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand. The Lions lost the test series 3-0. Woodward's management was criticised by many commentators and players, for his initial squad selection, his coaching methods, his handling of the players and the media, his selections on tour, and for not allowing the test team any time to play together before the test series began.
- Wikipedia

 - Oops!

Kirsty read out in her introduction that "he took the England team to world cup glory". Are we sure it wasn't the team that took him to glory? Let's not forget the outstanding individuals that were available to the England team at that time.*

Given what's said in the Wikipedia entry just quoted, isn't there a case for saying the team achieved what it did in spite of Woody? And if the team had lost in the quarter or semi final, or even the final, as it easily might have, would Woody still have been considered for a knighthood?

So what's the piece of 'music' he treasures and values above all else? Oh dear. Something tragic. Something utterly crap by  . . . Take That!

This is surely a guy who only ever listens to music when he "listens" to whatever his wife plays in the car - Take That, Phil Collins, Ronan Keating, Robert Palmer, The Jam.

This is pure Wife Music. OK - I know it's not the choice of ALL women. A lot of women go for similar stuff but sung by women. A lot of women like good music too. But I don't know of a single guy who owns any of that stuff, or would admit to liking it. Let alone thinking it's the best and most outstanding music ever created. I can't imagine even Paul Weller seriously thinks "Going Underground" is a "great track".

Born in '56 Woody obviously missed out on the sixties, and it couldn't have helped his case being sent away to boarding school at the age of 13. He's over-anxious to point out how independent and autonomous that experience made him. But is he really?

Two bizarre tracks he chose because somebody had obviously suggested playing them to his team(s) before the start of matches - maccho male music -  Eminem — Lose Yourself and Chicane — Saltwater. He obviously likes songs with a "message". Functional music. Music you can use as a manager, or music to help cheer yourself up, or music that lets your loved ones know how much you love them, or music that helps you remember those 'special' times in your life. Utilitarian stuff. Woody's heavy on messages.

Strangely, he said he likes Bob Dylan. Presumably he reckons this gives him some sort of musical cred. You could choose any 8 Dylan tracks and they'd be better than the rest of Woody's selections.

There seems to be a sort of common denominator to most of the people who become famous - celebrities, high flying professionals, knights of the realm, etc. They're the sort of people who are so busy working and networking and being self-obsessed they don't ever really listen to music. The sort of people who don't LOVE music. Let alone need it. They seem to be the kind of people who put on "background music" at home or in the car.

They may be wonderful human beings, talented and creative and brilliant in their own way, maybe, but there's little evidence that many of them have gone on journeys of musical exploration or need music like others need air and water. Most of these people's basic needs appear to centre on the need for fame, success, worldly achievement and status.

Woody's office slogan is . . .  "Better Never Stops". This is a guy who says he'd set himself ('stretching' and 'challenging'?) targets even on his desert island. This is a guy who'd take a book on how to play better golf to his desert island. This is a guy whose luxury on the island would be a golf club and a golf ball. This is a guy who's a complete loser, still striving to be a winner.

He'd be a lot better off if he gave up his relentless striving after success, fame and glory, and applied himself to the successful exploration of his inner being, the discovery of Zen enlightenment and satori, and through doing so make himself a lot more useful to those he aims to lead, coax, coach and manage.

After all - what difference does it really make whether "Team GB” comes 4th or 24th in the Olympic league table? I'm delighted the young lady from Britain won her gold medal in the current Winter Olympics in Canada, because she has a lot of talent and a lot of nerve and skill. But it's her own delight in her individual achievement that counts, not any supposed national pride or glory.

..........................................................

Also heard on the radio today -

1. Start The Week

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qts53/Start_the_Week_22_02_2010/

Andrew Marr looks at how society is shaped by science and war. Caroline Alexander explores what we can learn about the nature of conflict from reading The Iliad, while the journalist Andy Beckett asks about the role of the Chilcot Inquiry. Professor Robert Winston discovers that not all scientific endeavour is a positive development, and Raymond Tallis explains that it all comes down to the fact that we can point.

.................................

The Chilcott Enquiry into the Iraq war is revealing how the political process was subverted by Blair and his chums, and how the (supine) cabinet and senior civil service and diplomatic service advisers were marginalised.

Britain is, and has been for hundreds of years, a (strikingly) militaristic society, whose leaders and ruling classes (and even many of the 'lower orders') are obsessive about the country's military and imperial past.

Andy Beckett reckons that he'd 'forgotten' about the effect of the war on individuals and families until he sat next to the sister of Anna Hassan at the enquiry. [So much for empathy]

...................................

Books and writing [and presumably blogs] are often seen as subversive by a nation's ruling classes. Words used effectively can be very powerful. [Hence book burners and those who want education to be purely about preparing the masses for the world of work.]

People such as politicians and scientists should listen carefully to the voices of their critics and commentators, and show more openness and humility.

[The Oxbridge culture and elite education has the opposite effect - it perpetuates the myth that those who by hook or by crook are academically successful have a right to ignore the voices of the masses and the also-rans.]

Original thought and individual achievement is a myth - feedback and peer review is essential for checking, challenging, identifying and remedying weaknesses. [Almost all worthwhile achievement is collaborative]

Arrogance and hubris and the law of unintended consequences may yet lead the world into nuclear conflagration and holocaust.

The invention of agriculture and settlements initially produced 'stunted people with bad teeth who lived shorter lives'.

We never, or rarely, recognise the downside of inventions.

Humanity [- or unrefined and ignorant and arrogant and over-intellectual humanity] is the virus that's ruining the planet. [Dumb-ass humanity lacking in emotional and spiritual intelligence. Humanity that's full of ego and aggression and destructive power.]

...................................

A book about the gesture of pointing!

Awareness of yourself as a subject.

[This had extra significance for me having spent part of yesterday reacting to and speaking with a two year old who was communicating with me by pointing at a variety of objects.]

When we point at something we're acting on the assumption that there is such a thing as empathy. We have an awareness of our own awareness, and that there is another subject [person] who has a separate and individual awareness of objects and other people.

Humans are neither pure 'mind' nor pure 'animal'.

Storytelling is a kind of pointing and a kind of sharing.

Human beings create a public sphere that consists of a complex fabric of shared perceptions and assumptions. Each of us is different, but through pointing and sharing, etc we can identify points of commonality and agreement.

[This is zeitgeisty stuff. This weekend's episode of 'Virtual Revolution' on BBC2 was focused on collective intelligence, networks of people and ideas, and creating more empathy through the free sharing of information. More openness and communication creates more understanding of other people's ideas. In our increasingly complex world people have a need to share and communicate more - to make their voices and perceptions heard - not only for their individual sakes but for the sake of creating better societies and communities.]

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

...............................................

2. History of the World in 100 Objects

The Oxus Chariot

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/explorerflash/#/object_sbCfsq5kSFaknMhxuK9zow

You can zoom into this object here -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/sbCfsq5kSFaknMhxuK9zow

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

Ancient Persia invented and defined statecraft and empire. [Not China?]

It was a militaristic state where might was considered right.

Cyrus was the first Persian emperor. The empire stretched from Turkey and Egypt to Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was the first great empire. But not like the Roman empire, which ruled every province from the centre.

The Persian empire consisted of a collection of individual kingdoms, with the emperor as a kind of king of kings. It was a confederation and a collaboration of semi-autonomous states. Thus it was a multi-cultural and multi-faith empire.

"No race is more ready to adopt foreign ways than the Persians."

There was a network of straight and fast imperial roads, which were travelled by messengers and by satraps.

Heroditus wrote, "There is nothing in the world that travels faster than these Persian couriers."

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

The word satrap is often used in modern literature to refer to world leaders or governors who are heavily influenced by larger world superpowers or hegemonies and act as their surrogates.

The first large scale use of satrapies, or provinces, originates from the conception of the first Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great, beginning at around 530 BC. However, Provincial organization originated during the Median era from at least 648 BC.
- Wikipedia

Cyrus was seen as a hero and benefactor throughout the empire since he freed slaves and set out to be a protector of those within the empire.

It was in effect an empire of the mind, and states of mind, and a culture at ease with complexity.

It's no wonder that Iranians are proud of their history and heritage.

................................................................

3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qsw2f/Womans_Hour_22_02_2010/

Irene Khan was the first woman and the first Asian to become secretary general of Amnesty International, and has since won a clutch of awards for her work as a human rights advocate. Irene explains why she thinks it's vital for the world's poorest women that we start to see poverty not as simply an economic problem but as a human rights crisis in itself.

The causes of conflict [within states?] tend to be social and economic, and arise out of insecurity, discrimination, exclusion and feelings of powerlessness.

Throughout the world women tend to be the poorest and the most exploited. Also the most exposed to sexual violence and terror, who feel that their voices just don't count. Change can only come about through joining together, organising, and exposing the realities of daily life. [Obama's campaign was similar.]

The lack of urgency in tackling poverty and exploitation comes from the fact that women have no power - they have no independent resources and they are unable to make decisions.

[You can say the same about poor men and about the working classes in general. What hope do they have against the might of the state, the corporations and the combined numbers of those who approve of and try to become like the ruling classes? How can there possibly be any hope of urgent change? This is what Obama is now discovering. Thanks to the provisions within the constitution and the combined weight of both houses of Congress there's not a lot that even a president can do to bring about urgent change, without direct action by the masses. And we're still waiting to see whether the street demonstrations in Greece are going to translate and transmute into a general strike etc. ]

..........................................................

I'm reminded of the quotes in the first Layers of both 2008 and 2009 -

There is a war between the rich and poor,
A war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
And the ones who say that there isn't.

There is a war between the left and right,
A war between the black and white,
A war between the odd and the even.
.............................................

The poor get poor
The rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Leonard Cohen


http://www.leonardcohen.com/
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Layer 240 . . . Superbowl, The Who, Gil Scott-Heron, Joseph Stiglitz, Bankers, Finance, Fairness, Values, the Flood Tablet, and Nick Clegg

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Having somehow slept through most of the first half of last night's Superbowl, currently an annual ritual, I woke up right on the stroke of half time, just in time for the entertainment. Last year it was the incredible Bruce and the E Street Band blasting out the best mini-concert ever. Tonight it was the turn of The Who.

Performing on a circular stage, in the centre of the pitch (naturally) they did well. It was quite a spectacle. Radiating out from the stage was what turned out to be a huge circular “screen” - actually a series of radiating spokes of light strips, computer controlled, on which appeared various patterns and shapes synched to the music. It's difficult to describe, but the technology is very impressive (presumably very expensive) and must have been amazing for those within the stadium. Take a look, and have a listen -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PEM4uFcaF0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La5uLfOVKaw&feature=related

I don't currently know who was playing the bass for The Who but if you listen on a good sound system (or headphones) you can tell it was impressive – almost up to John Entwhistle standards. But I still miss The Ox. It's not quite the same seeing just the two old guys, Townshend and  Daltry, taking their bows at the end, arms around one another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oUb5iRZzpU&feature=related   -  acoustic Who

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDL8hhR2vKY  -  Springsteen and the band 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uxJNSks2xo&feature=related


In case anyone's interested, the underdogs won – the New Orleans Saints.

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Poetry and Politics

Yesterday's Observer Review had three whole pages on Gil Scott-Heron, including its cover and pages 4-5. A man ahead of his time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/07/gil-scott-heron-comeback-interview

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/24/scott-heron-new-here


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

Born in Chicago in 1949 Gil earned a writing scholarship to a New York university.

The “great pioneer of socially conscious soul and rap” has a new album out, called 'I'm New Here'.

Weirdly, and to his great credit, the guy who published Obama's two books in this country, Jamie Byng, has also republished Gil Scott-Heron's two books – 'The Vulture' and 'The Nigger Factory'. (See Layer 238)

“I was just taken aback by the voice, the words, the poetry . . . I had been raised on rock but this was just breathtaking. The seasoned voice, the wryness of the delivery, the level of irony and satire in the lyrics – the whole thing just blew me away. Discovering those songs was an epiphanic moment for me.”

Those songs include Winter In America, Lady Day & John Coltrane, Home Is Where The Hatred Is, Pieces Of A Man, The Bottle, Whitey On The Moon and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

“As a teenager, his writing skills earned him a scholarship to the Fieldston School in New York and, from there, he went on to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, chosen, he later said, because it was where his hero, Langston Hughes, had studied. It was there he met Brian Jackson, his musical collaborator on many of the great songs that would follow.

Together throughout the 1970s, Scott-Heron and Jackson made music that reflected the turbulence, uncertainty and increasing pessimism of the times, merging the soul and jazz traditions and drawing on an oral poetry tradition that reached back to the blues and forward to hip-hop. The music sounded by turns angry, defiant and regretful while Scott-Heron's lyrics possessed a satirical edge that set them apart from the militant soul of contemporaries such as Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield.

"I still can't think of too many performers who have the intellectual range in their songwriting that takes in satire and social commentary apart from the early Bob Dylan and maybe the young Randy Newman," says Jamie Byng. "But there's also a great empathy there. Gil writes about the state of the world, but also about community, family, and the plight of the individual. And, he has never compromised. That's maybe a big part of the reason why his music never really crossed over. What he was saying was too raw, too truthful."

In more ways than one, then, Gil Scott Heron was, and remains, the great outsider, exalted by his devoted faithful, overlooked by the mainstream. His influence, though, is pervasive, though few and far between are the rappers that can make their lyrical gift, or its delivery, seem so effortless. "I work hard at it," he says, "just like I worked hard at getting my masters degree. It's not just something I sit down and do. You have to learn and keep learning."

"He sees himself as a live performer and a story teller," the album's producer Richard Russell told me last week. "Even in the studio, he brings this extraordinary energy with him, this natural, god-given ability to perform, to tell it like it is. The words just seem to flow though him.

He's a genuine artist in a way that most performers aren't anymore. He has no conception of time, no regard for money. He seems utterly free from the normal everyday burdens people carry.”

He's playing the RFH on 20th April.

…....................................................................

More On Emotions

Newsnight tonight had a feature on blubbing politicians (see previous Layer). It was pretty incoherent, and though I quite like the female presenter, her comments and questions left you wishing for Paxo to be on the case. He's a hard act to work alongside.

Also on the programme was writer and psychologist Susie Orbach, whose work I've always liked and respected, but even she had nothing new or interesting to say about the emotional cracking up we saw or heard about this weekend – Campbell and Brown.

There was some rubbish spoken about whether post-Diana we expect our leaders to 'show some emotion', and a slight suggestion that they can blub to order, as part of their repertoire, which is plainly ridiculous. Sure – Blair can put on a 'sincere' and 'emotional' performance when he thinks fit, but there's a world of difference between his bullshit and what we saw in Campbell's case, where the man had clearly just lost it under less than fierce questioning.

Like The Terminator, though, he'll be back.

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Start The Week

Radio 4 this morning gave us a good dose of the great Joseph Stiglitz, who was virtually the only economist to predict our great financial crisis. It's his birthday tomorrow.

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

His books include Globalization and Its Discontents, Principles of Macroeconomics, Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development, The Three Trillion Dollar War,   Whither Socialism ?
 and 2010, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.

He said we now need a totally different model of capitalism, and a totally different attitude to regulation of banking and finance. Most recent economic growth was due only to the property bubble. Even he didn't imagine the extent of the bankers' arrogance and stupidity when they were gambling insanely with billions in order to make their huge bonuses.

But it's not just their mismanagement of risk he takes issue with. He points out that they clearly don't give a stuff about the morality of taking advantage of the poor and ignorant, or even the rich and ignorant.

He says we still haven't seen enough 'Keynesian' spending on infrastructure, technology and education. More needs to be spent in order to stay out of recession. (NB Cameron and Osborne.)

Incredible amounts of money are being wasted on the military – on weapons that don't work, to fight enemies that don't exist.

He also spoke about the insane level of salaries and bonuses in the financial 'services' sector – how the lure of big money is so great as to be irresistible, with the result that many bright and capable and creative people who could be of benefit to society are drawn into being hired hands in the scummy banking casinos in places like London and New York. They don't have the strength of character to resist the temptations and just do the right thing.

There was also a brief discussion about the 'John Lewis' model of employee-owned businesses and cooperatives.

…...........................................

On the same programme Peter Brook spoke about the role of the theatre (and by implication the creative arts) in enabling us to see through the lies and bullshit into the true nature of our society, and see through to truth and reality.

Interestingly he also mentioned that Blair actually believes every word he says, so can he be called a liar? Obama is very different, so we can still have genuine hope, and not just pursue false hopes.

In terms of developing a culture of non-violence and tolerance – these have to be passionate affirmations of strong belief, and not just 'passive' attitudes.

A passionate criticism of bankers is needed as an affirmation of higher values.

…......................................

The Flood Tablet

Today's object in the History Through 100 Objects series was the so-called Flood Tablet – a clay writing tablet found in Northern Iraq, dating from 700BC approx.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth#Tablet_eleven_.28XI.29.2C_the_flood_tablet

The message of this ancient story is that we should abandon wealth, spurn property, seek our own survival, help others, and then we will in turn be rewarded. [Very similar to the Buddhist story of Siddharta?]

God brings 'the flood' because the world is full of violence. [Maybe this is what climate change is all about!]

This story marks the changeover from polytheism to monotheism. Belief in a single, rational, creative, spiritual entity.

…..............................................

Radio Clegg

Nick Clegg was also on the radio, talking about many things, including his disgust at the MPs who were 'flippers' and deliberately made stacks of cash out of lying about their 'main residence' and getting wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. He pointed out that there were NO Lib Dem MPs caught up in this, and that Brown and Cameron have taken NO action against their flippers, even though it's quite clear that their capital gains have been property development at OUR expense.

It seems Clegg is keen to reduce the size of classes to 15 at KS1. Seems like a good idea to me – especially in areas where there are high levels of E2L and SEN. Interesting that very few others have paid any attention to this. I've even heard of headteachers who have increased the size of KS1 classes back to 30 on taking over a school – presumably in order to invest more resources in chasing SATs scores at KS2.

Clegg spoke convincingly about what he called shocking levels of inequality in this country, especially in inner cities in places like Sheffield. We should all care about having a fairer society, and working for a fairer country. [See other blogs on The Spirit Level].

He spoke passionately about the need for fairer taxes, and for the rich to pay more in taxes. Also – no-one should pay any tax on the first £10,000 they earn. For Clegg, fairer taxes are the most important policy issue.

Not much to disagree with there. Well to the left of NuLabour, I'd say.
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