Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
Dominic Sandbrook rewrites history
As I've mentioned many times before, the standard New Labour/Thatcherite rewrite of history divides the post-war period in two periods: 1945-79, years of creeping socialism and decline, culminating in Britain's designation as 'The Sick Man of Europe' and 1979- the present day, the years of 'recovery', during which Britian was transformed into a 'modern' dynamic 'market' economy.
In the same way that neo-cons see the need to hype up the 'crimes' of even the 'softest' of post-war European communist regimes, such as Kadar's Hungary of the 1970s and 80s, neo-liberals constantly try to trash the P.T. (pre-Thatcher) years and paint a very different picture from that experienced by people living in Britain at the time.
Here's Dominic Sandbrook writing in the London Evening Standard:
"When he (Harold Wilson) retired in 1976, Britain was a dingy, miserable place"
Really Dominic? How then do you explain that 1976 was recently designated Britain's happiest post-war year by a respected economics think-tank which ranked years according to a number of quality of life variables?
(My own take on the state of Britain in 1976 can be read here)
Sandbrook continues with this classic line:
"Of course Blair cannot take all the credit (for Britain's 'transformation').....Without Thatcher's controversial reforms, Britain might look a lot more like France today. "
In other words Britain might look like a country with a world class, affordable and publicly owned public transport system, and one which still maintains a manufacturing base. A country that has avoided Britain's huge disparities in wealth and which is so appallingly run that hundreds of thousands of British people have second homes there, if they haven't emigrated there already. Oh, what a tragedy it would be, Mr Sandbrook, if Britain did indeed "look a lot more like France"!
In the same way that neo-cons see the need to hype up the 'crimes' of even the 'softest' of post-war European communist regimes, such as Kadar's Hungary of the 1970s and 80s, neo-liberals constantly try to trash the P.T. (pre-Thatcher) years and paint a very different picture from that experienced by people living in Britain at the time.
Here's Dominic Sandbrook writing in the London Evening Standard:
"When he (Harold Wilson) retired in 1976, Britain was a dingy, miserable place"
Really Dominic? How then do you explain that 1976 was recently designated Britain's happiest post-war year by a respected economics think-tank which ranked years according to a number of quality of life variables?
(My own take on the state of Britain in 1976 can be read here)
Sandbrook continues with this classic line:
"Of course Blair cannot take all the credit (for Britain's 'transformation').....Without Thatcher's controversial reforms, Britain might look a lot more like France today. "
In other words Britain might look like a country with a world class, affordable and publicly owned public transport system, and one which still maintains a manufacturing base. A country that has avoided Britain's huge disparities in wealth and which is so appallingly run that hundreds of thousands of British people have second homes there, if they haven't emigrated there already. Oh, what a tragedy it would be, Mr Sandbrook, if Britain did indeed "look a lot more like France"!
New Labour's class warfare
This piece of mine appears in today's The First Post.
The commentator Peter Hitchens once described the abolition of capital punishment as the most snobbish piece of legislation ever passed by parliament.
But it has a new rival: the government's draconian ban on smoking in public places, which comes into force in England this Sunday.
The middle classes, by and large, gave up smoking a long time ago and the restaurants they frequent are already smoke-free. But for the millions of working-class smokers, the ban will have a devastating effect.
Sunday's ban will not only lead to widespread pub closures - it will threaten the existence of two long-standing working-class institutions: the bingo hall and the working men's club.
Mecca, one of the largest operators of bingo halls, estimates half of its patrons are smokers; in Scotland, more than 20 bingo halls have closed as a result of last year’s smoking ban.
Working men's clubs will be similarly affected: Mick McGlasham, an official with the Club and Institute Union (CIU), which runs 228 clubs, predicts the ban will be "the last straw" which forces clubs to close.
Don't expect the government to be overly concerned. Unlike Old Labour, New Labour draws its inspiration not from the sociable atmosphere of working-men's clubs and bingo halls, but from an altogether more sanitised and less congenial environment: the 1990s America of focus groups and smoking bans.
Mick McGlasham says he feels "very bitter" that a Labour government has ended the right of working men to enjoy a smoke with their pint in their own private club. But this is no ordinary Labour government.
The middle-class New Labourites want us to believe that they are acting out of concern for public health. But it's hard to escape the conclusion that the real reason outgoing Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and co despise smoking is that it is so 'Old' Labour. **********************************************************************************
The First Post has also got a terrific series of photographs of Britain in the days when smoking was a guilt-free pleasure enjoyed by the vast majority of the public.
Click here to have a look at the free, tolerant country we once were.
UPDATE: If, like me, you feel that the government's smoking ban is wrong, then here's an online petition. As I write, there is a last minute legal challenge to the ban: let's hope it is successful.
The commentator Peter Hitchens once described the abolition of capital punishment as the most snobbish piece of legislation ever passed by parliament.
But it has a new rival: the government's draconian ban on smoking in public places, which comes into force in England this Sunday.
The middle classes, by and large, gave up smoking a long time ago and the restaurants they frequent are already smoke-free. But for the millions of working-class smokers, the ban will have a devastating effect.
Sunday's ban will not only lead to widespread pub closures - it will threaten the existence of two long-standing working-class institutions: the bingo hall and the working men's club.
Mecca, one of the largest operators of bingo halls, estimates half of its patrons are smokers; in Scotland, more than 20 bingo halls have closed as a result of last year’s smoking ban.
Working men's clubs will be similarly affected: Mick McGlasham, an official with the Club and Institute Union (CIU), which runs 228 clubs, predicts the ban will be "the last straw" which forces clubs to close.
Don't expect the government to be overly concerned. Unlike Old Labour, New Labour draws its inspiration not from the sociable atmosphere of working-men's clubs and bingo halls, but from an altogether more sanitised and less congenial environment: the 1990s America of focus groups and smoking bans.
Mick McGlasham says he feels "very bitter" that a Labour government has ended the right of working men to enjoy a smoke with their pint in their own private club. But this is no ordinary Labour government.
The middle-class New Labourites want us to believe that they are acting out of concern for public health. But it's hard to escape the conclusion that the real reason outgoing Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and co despise smoking is that it is so 'Old' Labour. **********************************************************************************
The First Post has also got a terrific series of photographs of Britain in the days when smoking was a guilt-free pleasure enjoyed by the vast majority of the public.
Click here to have a look at the free, tolerant country we once were.
UPDATE: If, like me, you feel that the government's smoking ban is wrong, then here's an online petition. As I write, there is a last minute legal challenge to the ban: let's hope it is successful.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
A Cabinet of all the talents
Gordon Brown has announced his new cabinet 'of all the talents':
Foreign Secretary: Tony Benn
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Professor James K. Galbraith
Education Minister: Peter Wilby
Minister of State, Foreign Office: Dr John Laughland
Home Secretary: Peter Hitchens
Defence Secretary: John McDonnell MP
Trade and Industry: Bob Wareing MP
Health: Alice Mahon
Transport: Bob Crow
Energy: Ian Johnson
International Development: Felicity Arbuthnot
Attorney General: Mark Littman QC
Smoker's rights: Ken Clarke MP
If only............
Foreign Secretary: Tony Benn
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Professor James K. Galbraith
Education Minister: Peter Wilby
Minister of State, Foreign Office: Dr John Laughland
Home Secretary: Peter Hitchens
Defence Secretary: John McDonnell MP
Trade and Industry: Bob Wareing MP
Health: Alice Mahon
Transport: Bob Crow
Energy: Ian Johnson
International Development: Felicity Arbuthnot
Attorney General: Mark Littman QC
Smoker's rights: Ken Clarke MP
If only............
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Most Inappropriate Appointments in History....
Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair (how nice it is to be able to write that), is to be a Middle East Peace envoy. Yup, that's right- the British Prime Minister responsible for more death and destruction in the Middle East than any other in history is to travel around the region aiding the cause of 'peace'.
Can anyone think of a more inappropriate appointment?
Joseph Stalin appointed director of Liberty? Adolf Hitler being offered the chairmanship of The Commission for Racial Equality?
Sven-Goran Eriksson being put in charge of any football team?
Come on, let's be having you!
Can anyone think of a more inappropriate appointment?
Joseph Stalin appointed director of Liberty? Adolf Hitler being offered the chairmanship of The Commission for Racial Equality?
Sven-Goran Eriksson being put in charge of any football team?
Come on, let's be having you!
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Liberal England: Going Up in Smoke
This piece of mine appears on the Guardian's Comment is Free website.
The death of liberal England has been predicted many times over the past decade. But on Sunday, England, for long regarded (rightly) as one of the freest countries in the world, will finally mark the end of its long history as a liberal country as the government's draconian smoking ban comes into force.
There is no liberal case whatsoever for the ban; if you support it you may be many things, but please, don't have the audacity to call yourself a liberal. The argument for restricting smoking in public on account of the possible health risks caused by passive smoking is an argument for having separate smoking areas in pubs, cafes and restaurants and not for a blanket ban, which will encompass even private clubs where members have assented to a pro-smoking policy.
The government could easily have opted for a compromise measure as some European countries have done, or left it up to the owners of pubs and cafes to decide their own smoking policy. But no: true to New Labour's bossy, illiberal instincts, the ban had to be total. To enforce the ban, local councils will rely on legions of plain-clothes snoopers, ready to shop fellow citizens for the heinous crime of smoking in public. Blair inherited a country, which, for all its faults, could still be called a free one, he has left it with its own equivalent of the Staasi.
Whatever your views on smoking (and no one denies that the habit, like the officially approved New Labour ones of drinking, over-working and starting illegal wars carries a health risk), ask yourself this simple question. Do you really want to live in a country where lighting a cigarette, cigar or pipe in a pub or cafe, as English men and women have done for decades- is deemed a criminal offence? Smoking may, to many people, be annoying, silly and smelly- but criminal?
Don't kid yourself that Sunday's ban will be the end of the matter: the anti-smoking zealots won't rest until smoking is banned everywhere, even in the privacy of our own homes. Last week, Sir Liam Donaldson, the government's chief medical officer, pledged that there would be a further crackdown on smoking after the ban comes into force. "The first of July is not when action stops; it's a launch pad from which we can make further massive strides. I hope people will be behind some of the slightly controversial measures," he said. The pressure group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) meanwhile advocates a "smoke-free world," that's free of tobacco smoke - not little things like the smoke from cars, HGVs and factories, you understand.
Comparisons to Nazi Germany are often tedious, but in this instance it speaks volumes that the first country to introduce bans on smoking in public was the Third Reich.
Isn't it sad that 60 years after playing a decisive role in the defeat of the Nazis and their loathsome, intolerant ideology, Britain, in its illiberal attitude towards smoking and smokers, is now aping them?
The death of liberal England has been predicted many times over the past decade. But on Sunday, England, for long regarded (rightly) as one of the freest countries in the world, will finally mark the end of its long history as a liberal country as the government's draconian smoking ban comes into force.
There is no liberal case whatsoever for the ban; if you support it you may be many things, but please, don't have the audacity to call yourself a liberal. The argument for restricting smoking in public on account of the possible health risks caused by passive smoking is an argument for having separate smoking areas in pubs, cafes and restaurants and not for a blanket ban, which will encompass even private clubs where members have assented to a pro-smoking policy.
The government could easily have opted for a compromise measure as some European countries have done, or left it up to the owners of pubs and cafes to decide their own smoking policy. But no: true to New Labour's bossy, illiberal instincts, the ban had to be total. To enforce the ban, local councils will rely on legions of plain-clothes snoopers, ready to shop fellow citizens for the heinous crime of smoking in public. Blair inherited a country, which, for all its faults, could still be called a free one, he has left it with its own equivalent of the Staasi.
Whatever your views on smoking (and no one denies that the habit, like the officially approved New Labour ones of drinking, over-working and starting illegal wars carries a health risk), ask yourself this simple question. Do you really want to live in a country where lighting a cigarette, cigar or pipe in a pub or cafe, as English men and women have done for decades- is deemed a criminal offence? Smoking may, to many people, be annoying, silly and smelly- but criminal?
Don't kid yourself that Sunday's ban will be the end of the matter: the anti-smoking zealots won't rest until smoking is banned everywhere, even in the privacy of our own homes. Last week, Sir Liam Donaldson, the government's chief medical officer, pledged that there would be a further crackdown on smoking after the ban comes into force. "The first of July is not when action stops; it's a launch pad from which we can make further massive strides. I hope people will be behind some of the slightly controversial measures," he said. The pressure group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) meanwhile advocates a "smoke-free world," that's free of tobacco smoke - not little things like the smoke from cars, HGVs and factories, you understand.
Comparisons to Nazi Germany are often tedious, but in this instance it speaks volumes that the first country to introduce bans on smoking in public was the Third Reich.
Isn't it sad that 60 years after playing a decisive role in the defeat of the Nazis and their loathsome, intolerant ideology, Britain, in its illiberal attitude towards smoking and smokers, is now aping them?
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Gordon Brown: Political Extremist
"For all those who still had any illusions about Gordon Brown's accession to the Labour Party throne being a move back to Labour's mainstream, tonight's intervention by Brown into the EU summit should certainly clear matters up.
The Brown spin doctors are briefing that Brown demeaningly ordered Blair back to the summit negotiating table to hold the line on a key issue.
What was this critical issue which so alarmed Brown?
Was it concern over the EU attempting to prevent a Labour government intervening in the economy to protect jobs or protect public services or extend trade union rights?
No, true to his neo liberal philosophy, the reason Brown demanded Blair go back into the negotiating room and dig his heals in was because he was fearful that the French were undemining the free market. He was angry that Sarkozy of all people was seeking to "dilute" the operation of free competition in the EU market."
The words of John McDonnell, the man who should have become the new Labour leader, on Gordon Brown, the man who will be.
In the nominally 'left of centre' Brown we will have a Labour leader and Prime Minister far more committed to neo-liberalism than the 'right-wing' leaders of France and Germany. Nikolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel believe that for the common good, there needs to be restrictions on the operation of 'market forces'. Gordon Brown doesn't. Doesn't it tell you just how far out on a limb we are in Britain, when a Labour Prime Minister, yes a Labour Prime Minister, is more of a cheerleader for undiluted capitalism than Sarkozy and Merkel?
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