Demanding Money With Menaces - Life Under Labour

Is this another Stealth Tax or what? This morning I received the following from those nice people at the DVLA.

<Dear Mr Peter
Our records show that the photo on your driving licence will shortly reach its expiry date. You must, by law, get a new photo to update your photocard licence every ten years. If you don’t renew your photo, you will be breaking the law and may have to pay a fine of up to £1000…

The explanation? Faces change.

It’s surprising just how much your appearance can change over 10 years. If the photo on your licence is more than 10 years old it could be difficult to recognise you, losing all the benefits of the photocard driving licence.

However, the DVLA is at pains to point out that you don’t have to your photo signed by anyone! So let me see if I’ve got this right. I need a new photo because my appearance has changed significantly over the last ten years but no-one needs to verify that the photo I send in is actually a photo of me. But if my appearance has changed that much, how will they know that the new photo on my photocard driving licence bears any resemblance at all to me?

Moreover, amidst all this Orwellian claptrap, I have to pay a fee of £20 to send them a new photograph of me (or someone who might possibly look a little bit like me). What a nice little earner for the DVLA, proud to be an executive agency of the Department for Transport.

This is nothing other than a tax on ageing, and a stupid tax at that.

Careful How You Interpet This Swiss Referendum

It is easy for casual commentators and those with a particular axe to grind to misunderstand the reasons why the Swiss voted in a referendum over the week-end to prohibit the erection on minarets alongside mosques.

Most have interpreted the outcome of the vote as evidence of a widespread feeling among the Swiss against Islam the religion, and Muslims the people subscribing to that religion. If only it were that simple. The real reason behind this surprising vote has to be attributed to a combination of factors peculiar to the Swiss.

Firstly, the natural tendency of the Swiss to distrust the stranger. As a child living in Zurich, although my command of Zuri-Deutsch was very good, eventually a local child with whom I was playing would realise that there was something suspicious with my accent and I would be branded an “Auslander” – a foreigner. There is something very deep in the Swiss psyche that instinctively distrusts people who are not from round here. In this, the Swiss resemble those in Britain we refer to “Little Englanders”, those whose attitudes are characterised by a deep suspicion, even antagonism towards anyone or anything that is different or new to their experience.

Secondly, and this is true amongst most Germanic peoples not only the Swiss, is the concept of “Heimat”, a very difficult word to translate adequately into English. It represents the complex of affiliations that a person has to her/his home, home village, hometown, canton and country. It is more than simple patriotism, it is a crucial part of a person’s identity that grounds that person in their community.

Taking these two concepts together, we must add a third, religion, or more specifically, the reformation. During the reformation, Switzerland hosted and gave refuge to a plethora of varieties of protestantism, Calvin in Geneva, Zwingli in Zurich were just two examples. As a consequence a tension developed between Protestants and Catholics in general, and also between the different Protestant communities. Christian religion has always been important in Swiss life, but with a secular constitution and federal governance, religion stayed firmly a matter for the private individual.

Of late however, with the increasing influence of American-style Christian fundamentalism, and the increasing visibility of Islam, the extreme right and populist Swiss Peoples Party has exploited the latent fears of many Swiss, fears of the foreigner, fears that the connection with the home is being dissipated, and fears that creeping Islamisation is somehow loosening the ties Swiss have to a traditional, community-focused way of life.

To dismiss yesterday’s referendum as a vote against Muslims as Tariq Ramadan has in today’s Guardian is far too simplistic, it is the culmination of a whole load of historical baggage as well as a deep distrust of visible difference.

Voting: For or Against?

The Guardian’s website has a report that Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party and climate change denier is to be part if the European Parliament’s delegation to the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. This will no doubt be greeted with predictable outrage. However, the problem here lies neither with the European Parliament, nor even with Nick Griffin per se, but with those electors of the North West of England who voted for him in the recent European Parliamentary Elections.

Electoral systems in democracies cannot cope adequately with protest votes and care little about protest voters. Any electoral system simply counts the crosses, it is not interested in the motives, the deliberations or lack of them, that were gone through up to the moment of placing the cross on the ballot paper.

Equally, the protest voter rarely considers the possible longer-term consequences that their vote might engender. For most protest voters, it is enough to be “sending a message” to those currently in power, or to those who the tabloids tell us to regard as a bunch of crooks who fiddle their expenses.

We live in a careless democracy, a democracy corrupted by a ruthless press, an outdated electoral system and an unthinking electorate. That is why we have politicians of dubious quality in our regional/national assemblies/government, it is why we have third-rate representatives of the far right in the European Parliament, it is why we have shadowy businessmen and special interest lobbyists calling the shots in some of our mainstream parties. Above all, it is why, for many, the casting of a vote is increasingly a vote against something or somebody, rather than a vote for something or somebody.

We live in a climate of extreme political negativity, a climate created and perpetuated by an irresponsible press, unscrupulous politicians and party hacks (sorry, special advisors). The outstandingly popular TV programme The Thick of It is culpable in this respect, extremely plausible but ultimately vacuous. Modern politics has become a point scoring game, points are scored by delivering the most apposite sound bite or rebuff. Rather than seek to encourage voters to vote for our people and programmes, we seek to rubbish our opponents. It is rare for a modern politician to say, “vote for me and this is what I will do if I am elected”, rather s/he is more inclined to say, “don’t vote for her or him because s/he has some failing or other and therefore, by implication, I am the only rational choice.”

Universal suffrage was too hard won to be treated lightly, and it beholds us all to use our votes deliberately and positively rather than carelessly and negatively, and that is the message we need to get across to the electorate in general, and to new, young voters in particular.

Blair and the Cost of Bush's Friendship

Steve Richards in today’s Independent has an interesting take on why Tony Blair took Britain into the Iraq war. Whether or not Richards is right in his analysis remains to be proved. However, Richards does shed light on how political judgements can be influenced by an individual’s perception of past events, the actions of predecessors and the pernicious influence of media moguls.

Perhaps the most telling paragraph in Richards’ article is this one:

"The political calculation was therefore straightforward. As far as Blair was concerned, if he had opposed the war he would have destroyed the New Labour coalition and given up vital ground to the Conservatives. Rupert Murdoch's newspapers were a key factor in this respect. Murdoch was a passionate supporter of Bush's foreign policy. Blair knew Murdoch would have switched his newspapers' support to the Conservatives if he had sided with the loathed Chirac and Shroeder in opposition to the war. In its 2005 election endorsement for Labour The Sun backed Blair for a single reason – his support for Bush in Iraq."

If you believe, as I do, that the Conservative Party is totally in awe of the United States and seeks to establish ever closer links between the UK and the US, and at the same time wishes to decouple Britain from the European Union, the question that remains today is this - is there anyone in the higher echelons of the Labour Party who remains untainted by Blair’s blatant and calculated subservience to the US?

Alan Johnson’s refusal to prevent the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the US, the Asperger’s sufferer whose obsession with UFO’s resulted in him successfully hacking into US military computer systems, seems to suggest that the Labour Party is just as enthralled by the US as the Conservatives.

An Opportunity for Britain to Lead in Europe?

The new Franco-German love-in that has been evident since the summer is likely to be difficult to counter in the short term. Its development is a direct result of the failure of successive British governments, both Tory and Labour, to put Britain at the heart of Europe. Realistically we never expected the Tories to realise that the Europe issue was of vital importance to Britain’s future, but Labour have no excuse.

On Europe, both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have been abject failures. Their half-hearted commitment to the European ideal has been pathetic. Moreover, it has been plainly embarrassing to watch Gordon Brown pushing Blair for the role of President of the European Council. This was cronyism of the worst kind.

In the longer term, the other 25 member states will seek to resist the Franco-German dominance of the business of the European Union and a backlash will develop. This will create a clear opportunity for Britain to play a leading role in shaping the Union post-Lisbon. The tragedy is that whatever party forms the next government in Britain, it is quite unlikely that it will have the vision to recognise this opportunity or have the courage to grasp it. The new British government will be looking in the other direction, westward, forlornly trying to influence the USA through that marriage of convenience called the ‘special relationship’.

It really is ironic that the many Eurosceptics who bang on about the threat to Britain’s sovereignty implied by Britain’s membership of the European Union have failed to realise that Britain’s sovereignty has been America’s ever since the first Gulf War, and we are likely to get ample confirmation of this as the Iraq Inquiry proceeds.

Not The Way To Do It

The appointments of Herman van Rompuy as the first President of the European Council and Baroness Ashton as the Council’s High Representative are the outcome of a blatantly flawed process.

It is quite clear from that once the stitch up between the dominant blocs in European politics had been agreed whereby a candidate from the Right would get the President’s job and a candidate from the Left would get the High Representatives job, it remained only to slot appropriately bland personalities into the two posts. This method of selecting the persons to occupy such crucially important roles in the European Union cannot be allowed to be done in such a manner again. Horse-trading behind closed doors is not the way to the greater transparency implied by the Lisbon Treaty.

When these two posts come up again in 2012, a proper and open election by Members of the European Parliament must be organised with the formal nomination of candidates in advance and a properly organised election process using the Single Transferable Voting system. This would give us, the ordinary citizens of the European Union, the opportunity to let our MEPs know which of the candidates we would prefer to speak for us at the high tables of international diplomacy.

While I am not going to pre-judge the competence of either of these people in their new roles, I do find it astonishing that someone elevated to the House of Lords by Tony Blair, and therefore by implication one of “Tony’s Cronies” or one of “Blair’s Babes” (choose the expression with which you are least uncomfortable), should find herself this morning with one of Europe’s most senior political roles never having fought an election.

I wish Mr van Rompuy and Lady Ashton well in their new jobs, I also think that both of them have a great deal to prove in the coming months, not least their personal credibility as leaders on the world stage.

You Scratch My Back and I'll Sratch Yours

If anyone was in any doubt about why The Sun has recently trumpeted its support for the Conservative Party, the Conservatives’ Culture spokesman, Jeremy Hunt will be spelling it out today.

Hunt is likely to criticise the current law that seeks to prevent the creation of huge media monopolies whereby a single media group is able to own and control newspapers, radio stations and television channels in a defined geographical area. This law exists to ensure a balanced media and to prevent the total domination of all sources of news and opinion by a single large media conglomerate.

Democracy is best served by the existence of a number of diverse sources of news, feature, opinion etc. Indeed, in an ideal world, no single media group should be able to own more than one national daily newspaper and certainly not, national newspapers as well as radio stations and television channels.

It doesn’t take much to figure out in whose best interests the Conservatives are acting and what News International requires in exchange for the support of The Sun. Or perhaps I am being too cynical?

Wales and the Wider World

There is an interesting and provocative article in today’s Guardian. Hywel Williams calls for a revisionist approach to Welsh history that goes beyond the traditional stance that always seems to analyse the history of Wales in terms of the history of England.

"Wales is looked at from within, and always seems a victim of outside forces. Stuff happens all right, but the causes are always found in the country to its east. Survival against the odds is duly noted and admired with a degree of self-satisfaction. The Welsh – we are told – are still around because they believe in community."

My experience of returning to Wales after nearly thirty years of living in various parts of England echoes Williams’ sentiments. Since devolution Wales and the Welsh seem to have become much more introverted and self-absorbed, self-obsessed even. The post 1999 concentration of what is happening at Cardiff Bay has come at the expense of a broader and more balanced international perspective. Couple this with the language apartheid that has been steadily constructed over the past thirty years and the increasingly nationalist, and necessarily isolationist, agenda that is permeating Welsh domestic politics and you quickly get a picture of a nation divided, defensive and confused. Current health and transport policies as they affect residents of Mid Wales as prime examples of this muddled thinking in the Bay.

Williams points to the need for historians to broaden horizons and embrace a more global mindset:

"A wider renaissance in Welsh history is therefore surely possible, but only if more of its practitioners escape the tyranny of political trivia and start interpreting those profound economic and cultural shifts that disregard the national borders. Our recent and contemporary history should not be subjected to an anorak's obsession with byelection results, since politics became a minority hobby in the Wales of this period. The pattern of Welsh daily life was now conforming increasingly to global developments in trade and environmental awareness, in the new cult of the body beautiful, and in the fast decaying cult of Christianity."

I would argue that it is not just historians who need to do this, but all who live in Wales and would see Wales prosper both in Europe and beyond. Like many nations who are struggling to cope with the constantly shifting power relationships in the modern world, Wales has to face the question posed by Hywel Williams:

"How to assimilate without losing too much self-respect in the process?"

Clean Up Politics Now!

Nick Clegg is absolutely right to call for the cancellation of the Queen’s Speech and to press for government to concentrate on cleaning up politics prior to the imminent general election.

Writing in the Independent today, Nick Clegg argues that the government should forget about testing the Labour Party’s likely manifesto when there is almost no prospect of any of it becoming law in the remaining 70 sitting days of this administration and do what it can to clean up politics in Britain.

Britain’s political class and system is beginning to take on aspects of process that seems to me to be verging on the corrupt. Apart from MPs expenses, of which more than enough has been written in recent months, the pernicious influence of parts of the tabloid press and those who own it needs to be reigned in. As do the activities of shadowy lobby groups bankrolled by special interest groups acting in support of foreign residents and states.

However, the reform that is most urgent concerns the funding of political parties. Modern democracy should not and cannot continue to depend on the financial power of the Trade Union Movement, large multinational corporations, wealthy individuals domiciled abroad and dubious lobby groups representing vested interests who seek to promote their own agendas.

The time has come for capping donations to political parties by individuals, closing the loopholes in company law that allow non-domiciles to donate to British political parties and to cap campaign expenditure.

The Conservative Party seems likely to win the general election when it comes, and it will win, not because it has a programme for government that is better or more appealing than any of the other parties, but simply because it has vastly superior financial resources to put into its campaign.

The outcome of British elections should not be dependent the size of any party’s campaign chest.

Let Us Build A United Europe With Britain At Its Heart

So at long last all 27 member states of the European Union have ratified the Lisbon Treaty. Now we can get on with the important job of building the effectiveness of Europe as an economic and political entity, but first the EU has to build trust among its citizens, it also needs to prove that it can operate with fairness and integrity, and above all, it must take its people along with it on this exciting journey.

Make no mistake about it, British governments are going to have to work exceptionally hard to put Britain at the centre of Europe. Britain needs to think about what is in the common interest of all 27 nations and not simply what is good for Britain. Britain should start to concentrate less on what it can opt out of and concentrate more on what it can opt into. Schengen, for example, and of course, the Eurozone.

Euroscepticism in all its insidious forms has to answered robustly. For far too long, a profoundly Eurosceptic press in Britain has been allowed to get away with attacking and belittling the European ideal. This press is owned and directed by foreign nationals and British tax exiles who have a vested interest in keeping Britain on the periphery of Europe, weak and increasingly isolated. They are consumed by ‘little Englander’ nationalism, all too willing to forget the carnage wrought on European battlefields in the name of crude ideology and the arbitrary territorial and succession claims of ‘precious’ nation states.

Now is the time to put all that behind us and build for the future as part of a proud alliance of European countries capable of cutting the USA’s apron strings and standing up to a resurgent and increasingly nationalist Russia.

The question to be answered is: Have we got the politicians with the vision and the will to make Europe happen? In David Miliband we appear to have one with such qualities, but it is going to take more than a single visionary.