Layer 271 . . . Cabs for Hire, Prostitution, Parliamentarians, Sleaze, A People's Bank, and Child Protection

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Dispatches

Just when you think politics in this country can't get any worse, it gets worse. Politicians show themselves up to be even more incompetent, arrogant, selfish and greedy than most people can possibly imagine. Scumbags with no values, no soul, no spirit, and not much intelligence of any sort. Pretty much what people were thinking anyway, but to have it all exposed on camera in close up and in detail is a gruesome spectacle.

Apart from that, it was quite amusing watching the excellent Channel 4 'Dispatches' documentary last night on the way in which politicians of both the major parties vie with one another for jobs as 'consultants' (ie lobbyists) and 'advisory board' members (ie lobbyists) for whichever companies are prepared to give them £3 - 5,000 to influence serving politicians on their behalf. That's not £3 - 5,000 per year for a few days "work" on their behalf. That's £3 - 5,000 PER DAY.

One after another these people present themselves for a kind of job interview, during which they bend over backwards to sell themselves by lying and boasting about how much clout and influence they have in Parliament and Whitehall, how many 'contacts' they know, and even claim they can get the likes of Tony Blair to go along to little soirees for wealthy businessmen.

Since Blair himself has made over £20 million since leaving office it's not very hard to believe it either. Though it's not exactly clear what Blair would actually do for the said businessmen when he turns up. Perhaps it's enough for them that they can go home afterwards and say they've had a drink and a chat with Tony, or smoked a joint with him, or whatever.

The repulsive greaseball Stephen Byers MP, caught on a concealed video camera, called himself a 'cab for hire' - whereas he's actually a fucking Westminster rent boy who'll put out for anyone who'll offer him the going rate. Sucking the devil's cock comes so very naturally to people like Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon.

Prior to this programme I hadn't realised just how big a 'lump sum' politicians are given when they're either thrown out of parliament or they just jack it in in order to earn some really big bucks elsewhere. £50 - 70,000 seems to be the range for a few years (or a few days per year) on the green benches. (A few years back I hadn't even understood that these 'representatives' of ours even get big pensions as and when they retire from - or get kicked out of -  Parliament. Is being an MP really thought to be a public service? How can ego-tripping, sucking up to the party whips and behaving like lobby fodder be classified as public service, when it's the exact fucking opposite?)

I certainly hadn't realised how much some of these people still 'earn' in addition to their MPs' salaries when they give themselves days off and trot off to do 'consultancies' for big companies - like BT, in Hewitt's case.

There was even a female MP, Margaret Moran, on last night's programme who hasn't been seen in either Parliament or in her constituency for the past few months on account of being on 'sick leave', but turned up looking eager, perky and fit to do business at the offices of the bogus lobbying company who'd asked her along for 'a chat' about future employment. The sting worked perfectly. When the programme makers then phoned her secretary and asked for an appointment for a chat with this lady they were told she couldn't see anybody at all as she was on sick leave!

The fact that Byers, Hewitt and Hoon were, and are, architypical Blairites is quite wonderful. So is the fact that these three are selling themselves on the basis of being thick as thieves with their old mates Blair, Mandelson and Adonis, who have in the past, according to them, and will in the future, it is presumed, be willing to act in the interests of industrialists and financiers.

Jack Straw on the radio this morning was moved to say, "These people are clearly more interested in making money than in properly representing their constituents". Obviously! New Labour has instantly said they're 'taking the whip away' from all three of them. That'll teach them! Jack says it's on account of "bringing the Labour Party into disrepute". HEL-LO JACK! The Labour Party IS already in disrepute - thanks to the likes of you and Blair making Byers, Hewitt and Hoon part of your gang.

Polly Toybee says this in today's paper -

Lucre poisoned New Labour.

A budget for fairness and a living wage can uphold the party's true values – trashed by the greed of Blair and his acolytes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/23/uk-budget-labour-fairness-living-wage

The damage done is well beyond the here and now of this election.

Tony Blair and those followers cashing in on their years in office have vandalised their own history books.

Ministers as well as Labour toilers in the field are incandescent with anger.

If a fish rots from the head, Labour's contamination with money was smelled from those earliest days of being "intensely relaxed about the filthy rich". But Tony Blair's behaviour since 2007 defies the ravings of his worst enemies. No conspiracy theorist guessed he would take money for Iraqi oil from a South Korean company – to add to £1m from the Kuwaiti royal family, an estimated £20m from anyone anywhere, £4m for his book, plus properties fit for a Brunei prince.

That all this mammon is collected in the name of God is worthy of the faith-based business school of L Ron Hubbard: God can make you very rich indeed. Did Blair go to war in Iraq to get rich quick? Almost certainly not, but the cashflow from American adulation ever since will leave the slur on his tombstone. His friends and colleagues shake their heads in disbelief. They warn him, but he inhabits a stratosphere of hyper-wealth, where their words drowned in the purr of Gulfstreams.

Peter Mandelson, twice scorched for flying too near the rich, still holidayed with Tory tax exiles numbering George Osborne and unsuitable oligarchs among their friends. To Labour people the puzzle is, what they talk about, where's the fun? Why spend precious holidays playing court jester to Rothschilds with obnoxious views? Sun, sea and Petrus can't be enough. Enjoying such company suggests that Blair, Mandelson and others who cross the line are not serious about Labour politics, it's all a bit of a game, a job they do well. Only little people let politics get in the way of pleasure. Worldly and blase, this is politics as a pastime, not a way of life.

Perhaps it is no surprise that Blair's and Mandelson's followers lost their bearings, too. Byers will be anyone's cab for £5,000 a day, boasting of helping Tesco wreck a food-labelling scheme. Geoff Hoon gladly trades his contacts for "something that frankly makes money". Patricia Hewitt is only one of the health ministers and special advisers cashing in with private health companies. Alan Milburn, honorary president of Progress, is paid by a string of health companies as well as Pepsico. Never mind the rules, this is about understanding public service. When it's over, and the Prius and the red box are gone, it's over. There is no entitlement to that world of banqueting and dining with plutocrats which belongs to the job, not the person. Ministerial pensions are excellent, with no need to prostitute one's previous office for cash.

The sheer naivety and idiocy is as significant as the gargantuan greed.

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haward

23 Mar 2010, 8:10AM

Ministers are incandescent? Would they be the same ones about to flog off the Channel Tunnel Rail Link? The ones complicit in privatising the "services" of Ofsted? The ones who are insisting on PFI as the answer to all problems? The ones who want to flog off the Royal Mail to anyone at all?

The problem here is that the nexus between the Labour Party and the commercial world is so strong that many ministers are annoyed at the bad publicity; but they cannot understand that the cause is the uncontrolled entrance of commerce into the heart of government

LSEscientist

Labour is like one of those caterpillars taken over by parasitic wasp grubs (Blair, Mandelson, Byers etc). The grubs have eaten it from inside so it is now only a corpse while they fly off to better places.

JamesCameron

In the run-up to the 1997 election, Stephen Byers was portrayed as a towering figure of the future with a sure grasp of high politics. Yesterday he joined the long list of other rubbish we were meant to believe about New Labour. The journalistic sting that snared him was absolutely predictable to almost everyone but his dim self. It was a shoddy end to his political career and an apt memorial to disastrous era of smoke and mirrors ruled over by what turned out to be Berlusconi-Labour.

Milton

Thank you, Ms Toynbee, for pointing out what so many of us have been saying for so long now: "Labour" since 97 has become a gang of greedy, dishonest, promise-breaking, self-serving mediocrities of absolutely staggering hypocrisy and incompetence.

The best we can hope for is a wholesale eviction of the worst offenders and a hung parliament, so that the LibDems, as the only party which has sustained even a few scraps of credit, may have enough influence to ensure electoral reform.

JayReilly

The funny thing about all this is that when someone suggests Blair and co have simply sold the nation and its services to the highest bidder in an openly corrupt way they are accused of hysteria and "student politics" etc . . . reading too much Chomsky perhaps. Sadly its the reality. Politics, like everything else, has now been privatised. It doesnt serve the public interest - it serves the interests of its members, it is just another part of the business arena; putting a suitable spin on the pillaging of the nation, a grand PR exercise for budding millionaires.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/22/stephen-byers-not-influence-ministers-harriet-harman

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/23/stephen-byers-geoff-hoon-patricia-hewitt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/audio/2010/mar/23/labour-mps-accused-lobbying

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An excellent Steve Bell cartoon here, plus some good cifs:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2010/mar/23/stephen-byers-watchdog-lobbying-claims

FreemanMoxy

Byers is - like Hewitt and Hoon - a crook. They should all be in jail. If indeed they haven't broken any laws or "Parliamentary rules," then the laws/rules need to be changed.

It is outrageous that MPs are allowed to represent any interests other than those of their constituents. Ever. They've fat salaries, perks and gold-plated pensions. They can shove their consultancies and directorships up their arses and retire like the rest of us.

EastFinchleyite

I say, I say, I say;

What's the difference between Stephen Byers and Neil Hamilton?

No, I'm serious. I'd really like to know.

nomejodas
I say, I say, I say;

What's the difference between Stephen Byers and Neil Hamilton?

One is a deceitful, conniving, thieving TORY bastard, and the other is Neil Hamilton.

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The Guardian's editorial on this matter said this -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/22/stephen-byers-editorial

MPs' sleaze: Byers for sale

Mr Byers and his colleagues have only themselves to blame. They should not have been so greedy

He stands exposed today as both stupid and sleazy and, most important of all, as an embarrassment to the progressive politics that he still professes. Stupid because he ought to be sharp and experienced enough to have seen through the cash-for-influence sting that was mounted against him by the Sunday Times and Channel 4's programme Dispatches. Sleazy because he has no business – if that's the word – offering his services as a lobbyist at a daily rate that most people in his North Tyneside constituency do not come near earning in a month, while occupying a seat in parliament.

The things Mr Byers told his undercover interviewer are shameful. Has he learned nothing from the events of the past couple of years? If Mr Byers was not leaving parliament already, there would be a case for deselecting him. His only defence, a threadbare one, is that he did not actually do what he offered and that he realised within 24 hours that he was an idiot. But Mr Byers is not just an idiot. He is a disgraced political figure.

Mr Byers and his colleagues have only themselves to blame . . . They should not have been so greedy. They should not have been so disconnected from the values for which not just their party but the British people stand. Mr Byers let himself down, and that is his problem. But he also let the progressive cause down, and that's our problem too.

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Courtesy of Peter Preston's column yesterday, here are "the Seven Principles of Public Life, the bedrock that Lord Nolan first carved . . . selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/21/mps-scandal-cash-questions-public

Openness? Honesty? You had to laugh, watching the Dispatches programme, at the number of times the sleazeballs said to the interviewer, speaking of the lobbying they'd been doing, and were prepared to do in the future for £5,000 a day, things like, "This is for your ears only" . . . "This is highly confidential" . . . "This is completely off the record" . . .

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Here's a good article to follow up yesterday's thoughts about Obama's healthcare reforms:


Healthcare: victory for America's soul

A vicious fear offensive backed by establishment Republicans has failed: US healthcare will be reformed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/22/healthcare-reform-obama-victory-americans

Obama's victory speech here -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GALYnnAQFKA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/23/healthcare-barack-obama

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Working Class Hero

Last night's Channel 4 news had the good sense to speak with Michael Moore - author, activist and documentary film maker - about Obama and the American political scene.

Moore is a self-described liberal who has criticized globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, the Iraq War, U.S. President George W. Bush and the American health care system in his written and cinematic works. - Wikipedia

MM's dad worked on an assembly line in a General Motors factory. After dropping out of his local university Michael started writing for and editing local political magazines and newspapers.

As the son of a blue-collar father who'd spent his life campaigning on behalf of working class people against the dark side of capitalism I reckon Michael's still entitled to feel he speaks on behalf of the working classes, which is what he does very well indeed. In a very reasonable and eloquent way he demands reforms to the political system, reforms to the banking system and the regulation of Wall Street, and the adoption of a genuine national health service.

Now is the time for all of us to stand up and be counted. If there's anyone who doesn't want capitalism, banking and industry to be better regulated and made to work on behalf of we, the people, and not just the 10% of the population that owns all the serious money, then let them also stand up and be counted. Fence sitters should be forced to get down off the fucking fence.

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The Guardian printed this Jackie Ashley piece yesterday about setting up a People's Bank:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/21/post-offices-kickstart-labours-radical-agenda

Post offices can kickstart Labour's radical agenda

A People's Bank would herald a new version of back-to-basics – valuing the reality of people's lives, and their institutions

Labour now wants to put the future of post offices at, or near, the centre of its election manifesto. As the Guardian revealed on Friday, they would be linked together by a new People's Bank, giving them a key role in communities around Britain. Not only is it a great idea, but it ought to give a pointer to the future of centre-left politics that takes us beyond the grim argument about public spending cuts.

After the years of bubble, hubris and boom, this is a time for reassessment. Too much was thrown out too eagerly. Old centres were demolished. Privatisations were pushed by consultants and financiers who lined their own pockets and left us with private companies that haven't been astonishing success stories (British Airways and Network Rail spring to mind). Glib tear-it-up-and-start-again radicalism is at last out of fashion.

This takes us directly to the post offices. They are a fantastic national asset, which matter most to the people at the bottom of the pile, the ones Labour should be most concerned about. This is about bricks and mortar, real places and real people in real communities.

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Labour's response will cause more children to suffer

Madeleine Bunting's latest column deals with the way New Labour's been fucking up social services and child protection - thanks to "the audit culture - a familiar aspect of Labour's reform across all public services: improve accountability through micro-management of procedures, impose targets and performance indicators."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/22/khyra-babyp-labours-response

Guidelines have poured out of the departments responsible, probably prompting that haggard look evident on the face of directors of children's services. Last week there was another huge batch of new guidelines. At the same time, Sir Roger Singleton's first report as child protection adviser to parliament offered a quiet howl of anguish, pleading with government to stop generating guidelines and prescriptions.

Social services is perhaps where the audit culture has been most disastrous; in other services, such as the NHS, the absurdities of targets were exposed. But as Professor Harry Ferguson of Nottingham University points out, while the government and successive inquiries have focused on flows of information and how agencies – police, health, social workers – communicate, the crucial central issue is ignored: the complexity of emotional relationships.

What happens when a social worker sits in a room with a child and carer – as they did with Baby Peter – two days before his death and fails to notice anything amiss? What crucial skills does the social worker lack, or not use, to make difficult judgments? These are questions of personal development, experience, confidence: they do not fit neatly into public management tick boxes.

Training has been distorted so that more attention is given to "doing a section 48 inquiry than in understanding people and relationships. We met people who thought social work was filling in assessment forms. Welfare bureaucrats."

Lack of authority is also about the wider context in which social workers are operating: do they feel they have the backing to use their judgment? And the answer is obviously no: management culture distrusts them, wider public culture has turned them into figures of contempt.

Labour's other innovation, energetically and proudly pursued, was full of good intentions. Labelled progressive universalism, it was the Every Child Matters agenda in which children's services and education would be merged as part of joined-up government. It promised more investment in better services for all children: Sure Starts, children's centres – it was stuffed full of wonderful ideas.

But wise heads were immediately worried that the historically under-resourced social services would be lost in the educational agenda. The most vulnerable wouldn't get the targeted intensive help needed to prevent terrible tragedy. Some of these fears are already evident: 80% of local authority directors of children's services now come from an education background. Frontline social workers are left stranded, handling complex caseloads without a boss who understands their work.

The result is a social work profession in turmoil: there is a national recruitment and retention crisis – some local authorities have been struggling with vacancy rates of 30 to 40%. The reliance on agency staff is chronic, and the churn rate in many areas makes continuity of case supervision impossible.

Every child only matters if you put in the money and the people who can make that meaningful. Social workers have been given an impossible job; you have to be mad, desperate or heroic to want to be one. But it is abused children who will end up paying the steepest price.

Bastards.

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Here's Professor Costas Lapavitsas writing about the Eurozone crisis, which Larry Elliott wrote about last week. He was the lead author of the SOAS report.

The eurozone's largest economy is also to blame for the crisis, despite its moral posturing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/21/germany-a-euro-laggard
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Layer 112 More Balls, the Spirit of the East, Missing Heads, Gaza and Olympic Transformation.

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This blog should have been posted 24 hours ago.

More Balls and the NPQMP.

It’s very gratifying to see that the secretary of state has taken up my suggestion to create a national professional qualification for directors of children’s services - “Balls orders intensive training for children’s services directors in wake of Baby P tragedy”, was the Guardian headline. He’s also gone with Oxzen’s idea that people who take on this arduous and possibly ridiculous post must have experience in both education and social services.

Presumably they should have a track record of outstanding performance in both those professions. This will be interesting. But what a pity they didn’t see the need to train these people properly BEFORE forcing local authorities to restructure their hierarchies. And Balls is still blabbing on about ‘driving up standards’. Well - it sounds so macho doesn’t it, dearie? Such a pity the rest of us can’t find a way of driving up standards among politicians.

They could certainly benefit from some national professional qualification for members of parliament. They could all make a start on some in-service training by reading books like The Shock Doctrine and The New Learning Revolution.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/09/social-services-training

Religion

Talking of the Tao, I watched a prog on BBC2 last night - part of a series called Around the World in 80 Religions - which focused on Eastern religions. There was some stunning photography, some fabulous footage of mountains and temples and festivals, but I felt dismayed and appalled by the complete Christian idiot who’d got the presenting gig. What a total pillock. A waste of space. The ultimate ‘trendy’ vicar. A complete poser and ignoramus with regard to Taoism, Buddhism and Confucius. What a missed opportunity - if only the commentary and the commentator had matched the standards of the visuals.

School Leadership

The Guardian reported yesterday on £100,000 salaries failing to attract candidates for headship.

England and Wales face a chronic shortage of headteachers this year, despite state schools advertising £100,000 salaries for some posts. Schools are struggling to fill posts at a time when increasing numbers are expected to retire, according to the annual survey of headship vacancies by analysts Education Data Surveys (EDS).

John Howson, director of EDS, said, “"Teachers are put off by the bureaucracy and the workload. We are on a cliff edge with so many teachers retiring in the next few years."

What does this tell us about our bogus and bankrupt government policies?

This isn’t a new story, of course. The Guardian alone reported on this problem several times throughout 2008.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/09/headteacher-shortage

Economics and Finance

There was a curious column by the normally dependable Simon Jenkins in the Guardian yesterday, in which he concludes that the world economic crisis will just blow itself out and business (and consumerism) will get back to normal. He decries the idea that 2008 will mark the end of Thatcherism, or the beginning of the collapse of capitalism, or the dawn of socialism. “The present crisis will pass and the current punditry will be seen a silly and damaging exercise in talking down confidence.”

He could be right, of course, but I sincerely hope not. For the sake of all of us, but particularly the less well-off, and in the name of social justice, this must be a time when the insane ideas of the Chicago School of economics, and of the political right generally with regard to unfettered capitalism, are shown to be as bankrupt as . . . well, the banks.

The thing that’s offering some hope that this will be the case is that politics in both the US and Europe in 2009 will be driven by people who are of the political centre who seem to understand that unbridled capitalism is a busted flush. Hidden away at the bottom of page 29 of the Guardian yesterday was an article headed, “Sarkozy and Merkel tell US that Europe will lead way towards 'moral' capitalism”.

This is an incredibly important story, so why’s it got so little prominence?

The leaders of France and Germany today issued a stark warning to Washington and the global financial community that Europe would lead the way in restructuring the global financial system and ushering in a more "moral" form of capitalism.

Both leaders stressed the need for Europe to play a significant role at the summit of G20 nations in London in April, when the group of leading and emerging countries will hammer out ways of reinforcing the architecture of global regulation.

Sarkozy gave a characteristically frank verdict on the role of the US in future negotiations. "Let's be clear: in the 21st century it is no longer a single nation who can say what we must do, what we must think," he said, adding that Britain's place in the economic discussions was with her European allies "and not just with the US".

Speaking at a conference in Paris on the future of capitalism, the leaders of the EU's powerhouse member states agreed on the need to make long-term changes to the old financial order, which Sarkozy said had been "perverted" by an "amoral" form of unbridled finance capitalism. Hailing the "return of the state", the right-wing market liberal said he hoped a more responsible model of global finance would emerge from the wreckage of the current crisis.

Merkel, also a centre-right conservative, said she would "react very strongly" if attempts were made to block tighter regulation.

"Once everything is going better, the financial markets will tell us, you politicians don't need to get involved because everything is working again," she said. "I will stay firm, we must not repeat the mistakes of the past."

Calling for the creation of a new economic council to run along the lines of the UN Security Council, the chancellor said she was also in favour of a sustainable economy "world charter" which would set out new rules for long-term financial management.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/08/europe-financial-regulation

The Associated Press report says that Sarkozy and Merkel are calling for a new form of capitalism.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the system "cannot continue as it is" and called for better-regulated financial markets.

Measures will be taken at the G-20 meeting in London on April 2, Sarkozy promised, saying "we cannot accept the status quo."

Merkel said the International Monetary Fund has not managed to regulate global capitalism, and she called for the creation of an economy body at the United Nations, similar to the Security Council, to judge government policy.

Speaking at the conference, European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said "global rules" on government aid to companies would be "helpful."

"A closer network of competition systems is slowly emerging after decades of work," she said.
Sarkozy blamed financial speculators for encouraging a system fueled on debt. He called financial capitalism based on speculation "an immoral system" that has "perverted the logic of capitalism."

"It's a system where wealth goes to the wealthy, where work is devalued, where production is devalued, where entrepreneurial spirit is devalued," he said.

But no more: "In capitalism of the 21st century, there is room for the state," he said.
Tony Blair called for a new financial order based on "values other than the maximum short-term profit."

Which is interesting, since I don’t remember the bastard B-Liar saying any such thing when he was running the government. Talk about the wisdom of hindsight. Will Hutton said all of this in 1995, in The State We’re In, but NuLabour paid it not the least bit of attention.

The Financial Times’ report says,

President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday warned the US and the banking industry not to thwart European efforts to tighten financial regulations this year.
In a blunt message to Barack Obama, the incoming US president, the French and German leaders made clear that the European Union was determined to set the agenda for the G20 summit in London on April 2.

The summit of leading and emerging economies will discuss ways of strengthening the architecture of global financial regulation.

Ms Merkel told the conference that she would “react very strongly” if the financial community tried to block government efforts to tighten regulation. “We must not repeat the mistakes of the past,” she said.

The German chancellor wanted the capitalist system that emerged from the financial crisis to resemble Germany’s cherished social market economy.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d3eeba2c-dd76-11dd-930e-000077b07658.html

Considering that Merkel is described as a conservative, this says it all about how far to the Right NuLabour had dragged Britain.

Transforming East London

The Guardian had a wonderful centre-pages photograph yesterday showing an aerial view of the Olympic site in the vicinity of the main stadium - the whole place looking like a hive of activity. To the right of the photo you can see the high-level footpath/cyclepath that’s still open, and from which you can see clearly into the site. You can access this footpath from the River Lea, and I strongly recommend a visit to see the work in progress, regardless of what anyone may think about the Olympic movement and its ludicrous costs - this is a hugely important moment in the history of the East End.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/09/olympics-2012-workforce


Bombs, Bullets, Rockets and Shoes.

The United Nations has voted for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza (with only the USA abstaining), but the assault on the Palestinians continues, with no reduction in the shelling and bombing whatsoever. It’s Israel against the world, with only the USA abstaining.

15,000 people gathered in Hyde Park yesterday (Saturday) to protest against the Israeli bullying and butchery and shelling of schools. Demonstrators marched on the Israeli embassy, many of them carrying shoes for the purpose of throwing thereof. That Iraqi guy has really started something.

Naomi Klein is urging the rest of the world to treat Israel like the apartheid state it has become, and impose cultural isolation and economic sanctions. In the past I’d have said that it would be impossible to get the USA to go along with sanctions, so forget it - it can’t happen. But with Obama running the country - who knows? No doubt his people could at least say to the Israelis in private that if the rest of the world wants sanctions then he won’t try to scupper them, which means at least abstaining on the issue, which will require the USA to not engage in sanctions-busting. The Israelis would then find ways themselves to beat sanctions, but they surely won’t want to go on being the pariah of the entire planet forever, shunned and locked inside the fortress they’ve created.

A good friend pointed out to me today that it’s a fundamental law of nature and psychology that those who are bullied will later become bullies themselves. Quite.
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Layer 99 Coming Up Roses

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The British Comedy Awards 2008 was so dire I need to comment on how bad the whole thing was. The only good things about it were that awards went deservedly to Russell Brand, Harry Hill, the wonderful Geoffrey Perkins, and the Gavin & Stacey team.

The most interesting thing about the entire programme was the fact that the real greats of British comedy for the most part didn’t turn up for the event - including Brand, Hill and Ricky Gervais, who was clearly a very unpopular winner of his category with those who were at the awards. Were their jeers professional jealousy, or do they seriously not ‘get’ Ricky’s humour? Or is it now ‘cool’ to dislike and revile him?

Geoffrey Perkins’ daughter made a lovely, warm and touching acceptance speech for her deceased father’s award. Russell’s taped contribution from Hawaii was very funny.

And those were the highlights. The rest was “a fucking smug display of back-slapping wankery”, as Michael Legge puts it in his blog.

The worst part of it for me was the truly awful Angus Deayton, who, as I blogged on Saturday, was nasty, snide, bitchy, irritating, up his own arse and completely unfunny. I read somewhere that Ross was paid £100,000 for hosting this show. I’d hate to think Deayton got anywhere near that. He deserves nothing for his incompetent and badly-judged performance.

It wasn’t witty, it wasn’t clever, and it wasn’t in any way amusing. Brand and Ross have set the standard for this kind of thing, in that people may hate their narcissistic shtick but at least they (or their writers?) are capable of original wit. Deayton may think he’s ‘edgy’, and perhaps sees ‘edginess’ as a requirement in front of an audience of his edgy ‘peers‘, but run-of-the-mill sarcasm and snidery are not the same as edginess. You’d never see Brand stooping to that kind of thing, for instance, as much as he’s capable of putting the boot into those who truly deserve the boot, like George Bush, obviously.

More About Cars

I love bizarre coincidences. Barely 8 hours after posting comments about the dire Morris Marina yesterday there was a feature on Top Gear on the appalling cars produced by the Eastern Bloc countries, which featured a track race between one of them and our very own Morris Marina, as an example of the rubbish our own car industry was capable of producing.

Will Hutton published some interesting thoughts in yesterday’s Observer about the dire state of the American car industry and what needs to happen world-wide to re-think the kinds of vehicles that are needed in the 21st Century. He concludes,

“Detroit is at a crossroads. Car companies need to rethink their mission from scratch, for their own sake and the world's. The car was a symbol of the 20th century.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/07/car-future-general-motors-bailout

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Also in The Observer

1. Front Page spread: Mugabe Must Be Toppled Now - Archbishop of York

In an extraordinary and passionate outburst, the Archbishop of York is calling for President Robert Mugabe to be toppled from power and face trial for crimes against humanity. Dr John Sentamu, writing in The Observer, said the world must recognise that the time for talks was over and Mugabe should be forced out. 'The time has come for Robert Mugabe to answer for his crimes against humanity, against his countrymen and women and for justice to be done. The winds of change that once brought hope to Zimbabwe and its neighbours have become a hurricane of destruction, with the outbreak of cholera, destitution, starvation and systemic abuse of power by the state,' he says.

'As a country cries out for justice, we can no longer be inactive to their call. Robert Mugabe and his henchmen must now take their rightful place in The Hague and answer for their actions. The time to remove them from power has come.'

Excellent

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/06/zimbabwe-robert-mugabe-john-sentamu


2. Pope attacks tax havens for robbing poor. Hard-hitting Vatican report lays blame for the global financial crisis at door of 'offshore centres'.

It is a message sent from on high to the world's financial and political elite. The Roman Catholic Church is calling for the effective closure of secretive tax havens as a 'necessary first step' to restore the global economy to health.

In a policy paper from the Holy See, Pope Benedict pins the blame for the international financial crisis largely on 'offshore centres', many of which, such as the Channel Islands, are British dependencies.

Brilliant.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/07/pope-benedict-vatican-tax-havens-credit-crunch


3. Stay Calm - learning to stay calm while leading with emotion.

The New York Times supplement carries as essay by Kate Zernike in which she considers the importance of emotional intelligence in leaders like Barack Obama.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/weekinreview/30zernike.html?_r=1

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One of the things that really stands out in Zernike’s essay is the near-universal confusion between feelings and emotions. For example, she says,

“We want our doctors to be calm, but we want them to show emotion and empathy, as well.”

Actually, we don’t want them to show emotion. We want them to be professional and calmly objective, and empathetic. We want them to show they have feelings, but we do NOT want them to have and to show an emotional response to our problems. Personally I never want to see my doctor showing signs of anxiety or anger or resentment or disgust or any other emotion. Professionalism demands that strong personal reactions and emotions do not intrude into professional relationships.

Neither would I want to see President Obama showing uncontained emotions - certainly not panic or hatred or desire for revenge. We had enough of that with Bush and Cheney.

However, Zernike’s main point is well made - it is possible to become emotionally and spiritually intelligent and to learn how to behave calmly in a crisis. These qualities are not just something we either do or don’t inherit through our genes.

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The Rose Review

Which leads on to today’s news that Sir Jim Rose has published his interim report on the English & Welsh Primary school curriculum, and that it’s overwhelmingly intelligent and enlightened, particularly in its proposals to ensure that a major part of the curriculum centres on developing children’s capacity for social, emotional and spiritual intelligence. It also recommends getting rid of the disintegrated curriculum and organising the curriculum into cross-curricular themes or topics, along the lines of the Scottish ‘curriculum for excellence’. More about this tomorrow, no doubt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/08/primary-schools-history-curriculum-education

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/08/primary-subjects-theme

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/08/sats-under-review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/23/primaryschools.teaching

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Children at Risk

Jenni Russell has another excellent column in today’s Guardian - on the subject of social services departments failing to protect vulnerable children. She writes,

One in eight children - 1.5 million - are thought to be growing up in a situation where they may be at risk. Only about 25,000, though, are on the equivalent of the at-risk register.

Worst of all is the effect of government targets. Councils that assess a lot of children quickly score more highly. But there's a correlation between speed and the danger of superficiality. Councils also score worse in performance indicators if there is a rise in the number of children taken into care.

They lose points again if they keep children on the equivalent of the at-risk register for more than two years. All the pressure is to get children off the system and to downgrade their needs.

All of this, of course, in order to achieve government targets, and to placate Ofsted. The whole system is perverse and wicked.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/08/child-protection-social-care

It was reported today that Haringey’s director of children’s services has been dismissed from her post.

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The Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors

reports as follows:

The overwhelming majority of adults believe school exams do not reflect their true abilities or predict their future success, according to a new report published today. As many as 77 per cent feel that formal testing fails to measure their real intelligence, yet the exam results are used to scrutinise them through their academic careers and when applying for jobs.

The study, by the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA), found that for a majority of people (62 per cent) the feeling they most associated with taking an exam was 'butterflies in the stomach'. More extreme reactions to exam situations included headaches, insomnia and vomiting. Just three out of 10 people associated exams with 'a sense of pride', according to the study based on responses from 2,000 adults.

Pupils in England sit an average of 70 formal examinations. According to a recent report from Cambridge University, English primary school children are now subjected to more tests than their international counterparts. Yet, claims the CIEA, 60 per cent of teachers who responded to a separate online poll said they did not think exams were necessarily the best indicators of a pupil's ability and were not reflective of their future success in a job. Amid reports accusing schools of 'teaching to test', the CIEA said the survey pointed to the need for a more well-rounded form of assessment.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/07/schools-a-levels-gcses-education
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Layer 97 “We Have To Take Responsibility.”

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Under this headline the head of Ofsted, the chief inspector of children’s service, one Christine Gilbert, says to the Guardian’s Polly Curtis, "I think that if the grades that we gave last December gave a false assurance we have to take some responsibility for that. I'm absolutely not washing my hands of it."

Really? Obviously taking ‘some’ responsibility doesn’t include resignation, as far as Ms Gilbert is concerned. This woman is married to New Labour’s employment minister, Tony McNulty, and she’s clearly not about to make herself unemployed.

It’s not the New Labour way for anyone who’s sitting where the buck stops to actually resign, even when, like Ms Gilbert, they’ve been happily running an organization whose very modus operandi encourages schools and local authorities to spend millions of pounds and waste thousands of officer hours creating paper smokescreens of ‘data’ to cover up the fact that they’re doing a shit job and letting down hundreds of thousands of children who deserve to have a good life and a positive experience of school.

Under Ms Gilbert’s regime Ofsted inspections of schools, for instance, have been reduced to a wretched 2 days by 2-3 inspectors, who clearly only have time to seek out supporting evidence for the hypothesis they’ve already constructed after scrutinizing the data and the statements the school’s put together on its Self Evaluation Form.

The whole wretched Ofsted way of doing things seems to be coming under public scrutiny, at long last, and praise be to the Guardian for following through with this aspect of the Baby P story, which includes a lead article on the front page of today’s paper under the headline, “We failed over Haringey - Ofsted head”.

In the course of her Guardian interview Ms Gilbert "sets out the tactics managers at Haringey employed to present a data-perfect image of their work. They claimed they had assessed children promptly when files revealed that those assessments were in fact incomplete. The same files showed that such assessments of children were routinely and wrongly done with their parent or guardian in the room. It wasn't until inspectors began pulling children's files from the office shelves in the town hall that they realised the extent of the deceit."

Well, duh!

Thanks to the Baby P case Ofsted’s complacency and stupidity and its methods of inspection have finally come to light. Personally I don’t really give a damn whether or not this particular bureaucrat gets her comeuppance, but I care very much whether or not the system that’s been so dire and counterproductive in terms of children’s welfare and wellbeing is finally nailed and put to rights.

The Guardian again:

“The head of Ofsted has acknowledged that local councils whose child protection agencies have been rated "good" by the agency could in fact be systematically failing children because the assessment method used by inspectors was open to manipulation.”

“In her first major interview since the verdict on Baby P's death was returned, Christine Gilbert admitted to failings in Ofsted's oversight of Haringey council, acknowledging that officials in the local authority where Baby P died were able to "hide behind" false data last year to earn themselves a good rating from inspectors just weeks after his death.”

And who’s responsible for the local authority being able to hide behind false data? Ms Gilbert by any chance?

“Gilbert promised that Ofsted would overhaul inspections of child protection services in recognition that mistakes were made in the monitoring of Haringey council.”

Is this by any chance what’s called shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted? After the baby died.

"I think that the processes that we're proposing will be better than the processes that we had," said Ms Gilbert.

Well that’s good. Too late, but good. And not hard to achieve, either, because the processes Ofsted had, AND STILL HAS, thanks to Ms Gilbert failing to notice, are shit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/06/ofsted-baby-p-inspector-chief
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/06/ofsted-child-protection

This story has also been picked up by the Telegraph, which quotes from the Guardian interview under the headline,

Head of Ofsted Christine Gilbert admits failings over death of Baby P

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/baby-p/3569941/Head-of-Ofsted-Christine-Gilbert-admits-failings-over-death-of-Baby-P.html

And the BBC on its main homepage today:

Baby P authority 'misled Ofsted'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7769126.stm

6.15pm latest news:

The lead story on the Radio 4 main evening news was - Ofsted.
Incredibly Christine Gilbert is reported as having written to all local authorities asking them to 'check' whether they've given Ofsted bogus information! Imagine - "Please tell us whether you've been telling us porkies". What an unbelievable shambles.

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Ms Gilbert has been described as ‘steely’, ‘candid’, ‘calm', ‘collected', with “not a hair of her sharp blond bob out of place”. Blond, eh? I defy anyone to look at her photo on page 41 of today’s paper and not agree that she’s the spitting image of a blond Nessa from Gavin & Stacey. Tidy.

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And talking of Gav and Stace, I have say I’ve become a real fan of the programme. I love the cleverness of its two writers, James Corden (Smithy) and Ruth Jones (Nessa), in creating a series in which the lead parts are not those whose names appear in the title, but the two ‘supporting’ roles, the best friends of Gav and Stace.

Gav is just a boring nice guy, and Stace is simply a dimwit, but the overweight Smithy and big Nessa are just wonderful. It reminds me of the clever Mr Stoppard who outrageously based a play on Hamlet but created lead roles for what were supposed to be supporting bit-parts - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (are Dead).

The point being that ‘minor’ characters can be as cracked, outrageous and funny as the writer wants them to be, whilst the ‘main’ characters pursue their serious, boring and tragic lives.

This week's episode contained one of the funniest scenes ever in a sitcom, where the rest of the family (plus Smithy and Ness) are all sitting down to breakfast whilst Gav and Stace proceed to have avery noisy shag in the bedroom above the kitchen. Nobody says a word about what they can all very clearly hear, of course, but Stacey's mum jumps up, turns on some loud music and starts a very energetic exercise routine to distract then all from what they're hearing.

There's also a fabulous scene where Smithy is taking part in a strenuous semi-naked workout in the bedroom that Uncle Bryn (the wonderful Rob Brydon) has converted into a gym. Attracted by the homoerotic grunts and yells coming from the room ("Oh yes! Smithy - harder! harder! That's it!") Gavin is baffled and appalled by the whole business, especially Smithy being topless.

11.00pm Stop Press: Gavin and Stacey wins its category in the 2008 British Comedy awards.

[Angus Deayton, hosting the awards in the absence of Russell Brand, was nasty, snide, bitchy, irritating, up his own arse and completely unfunny.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_&_Stacey

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

Have a look at these sites for the essence of R & G Are Dead - Tom Stoppard at his witty best:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100519/quotes

NB White Cat - the references to life in a box.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rosencrantz_&_Guildenstern_Are_Dead

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Very good article by John Harris in the Guardian today, on Harriet Harman:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/06/harriet-harman-labour-deputy-interview

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I've just discovered the Robert Peston 'blog' on the BBC website. The man's a phenomenon. Today's blog alone has generated 259 responses at the time of writing. (5.25pm)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2008/12/how_much_will_taxpayers_financ.html
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