Thatcher's homophobia: the forgotten legacy

Caught between rising homophobic violence and tackling discrimination, Thatcher made it very clear where she stood.

In the wake of former PM Margaret Thatcher's death, a military-scale process of sanctification has been shoved down the British public's gullet.

Watch the way Newsnight covered her legacy on the day she popped her clogs, or how Ken Clarke and her biographer Charles Moore were slobbering all over her name for most of the last episode of BBC Question Time, and you'll start believing that figures such as Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale were actually a pair of hoodlums compared to the Iron Lady.

And yet, in the flurry of hagiographies and tributes to this "extraordinary woman", her long list of heinous political acts seems to have been ENTIRELY forgotten. In particular, the way her rampant homophobia became integral to British law.

Which, you will understand, hardly sits at ease with the relentless campaign to portray her as Holy. The papers may tell you that she was stubborn or, at a push, that "some people saw her as fairly divisive", but that Thatcher was behind Britain’s first new anti-gay law since 1885 is so utterly embarrassing that they just won't mention it.

And before your average Tory pops up to tell you that no, she actually stood for LGBT rights, just like they're unashamedly passing as "fighting apartheid" the fact that she and her party dubbed Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" for the whole of her political career, here's a number of things that Maggie did to further institutionalise homophobia in Britain.

Like human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell writes, "At the Conservative party conference in 1987 Mrs Thatcher mocked people who defended the right to be gay, insinuating that there was no such right. During her rule, arrests and convictions for consenting same-sex behaviour rocketed, as did queer bashing violence and murders. This backlash coincided with her successive “family values” and “Victorian values” campaigns, which urged a return to traditional morality and family life".  

And, in fact, this is what she publicly said:

"Too often, our children don’t get the education they need—the education they deserve…
Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay…
All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life—yes, cheated".

Which is how, aided by a hysterical tabloid campaign about "the loonie left" and "gay lobbies" along with talks of AIDS as "the gay plague" and the barefaced lie that "GAY PORN BOOKS [were being] READ IN SCHOOLS", in 1988 the Thatcher government steamrollered in the homophobic Section 28.

The Act, which remained part of the statute book until Labour scrapped it in 2003, was as controversial and ambiguous as it was soaked in hate and deep prejudice.

In one fell swoop, Section 28 crucially advocated censorship - preventing local authorities and schools from discussing ("promoting", the hideous wording was) homosexuality or engaging in anti-bullying activities, sneered at "pretended family relationships", and added insult to injury by linking homosexuality to "the spread of disease".

It is almost impossible to believe that such an ignorant piece of legislation was part of the British legislative framework and that half the Tory party was still defending it tooth and nail as recently as 2003.

Nevertheless, caught between rising homophobic violence and intolerance, and the calls in favour of tackling discrimination and promoting acceptance, Thatcher made it very clear where she stood.

No coincidence that, shortly after Section 28 became law, the offices of a gay newspaper, Capital Gay, were burnt down and lesbian and gay helplines reported a threefold increase in "queer bashing".

Which is why, when the current hysteria over Maggie's beatification subsides a little, hopefully the world will manage to remember how such a detestably homophobic piece of legislation was entirely in line with Thatcher and her character. Now hopefully buried forever.

The abolition of election campaigning

Why the government's NHS proposals have pushed bullshit politics to untenable levels.

The run-up to the general election. Those dreaded weeks when the country is bombarded with oily messages, grinning politicians hugging babies, kids, huskies, or anything immediately at hand.

Those useless televisual feasts where leaders nod to borderline-whiplash levels, the smarmy "I know what you mean" can be heard over and over, and Nick Clegg calls everyone by name without the slightest grasp that he may be 'overdoing it' a bit.

The quazillions spent on multicoloured placards, posters and assorted ads. The junk flowing through the letterbox, the tedious door-knocking, the bingeing on promises and proclaims.

Wouldn't it be a wonderful idea if all of the above was done away with?

There is now irrefutable evidence that election campaigns are not only useless and a waste of money, but also outright deceitful.

We had plenty of that when Labour was in power and we're having more of the same (except at a faster rate and even more barefaced) now.

For all the industrial amounts of political gobbing off we heard last year, there was no mention from either the Tories of the Liberal Democrats that tuition fees were going to be hiked up; that VAT was going to be increased; that the NHS was going to end up mangled and "reorganised" from the top down; that sick and disabled people were going to suffer cuts of up to a third in their incomes; that child benefits would be touched; that the Education Maintenance Allowance for disadvantaged students was going to be scrapped at a stroke; that more measures were going to come in to make it easier to sack workers...and the list could go on for hours.

And make no mistake. For all the bullshit they will try to feed you, this has nothing to do with "compromise". It is crucial we understand that neither of the Coalition partners promised or even suggested any of the above. It is not as if the Tories or the LibDems are reluctantly taking on board what the other partner had advocated all along.

Far from it. Both Tories and Lib-Dems fervently denied they would have anything to do with each and every one of those policies and, in some of those cases, they actually campaigned against (i.e. VAT rise, tuition fees, etc).

The recent bill on the NHS is just taking the piss.

So here's the proposal.

Do away with election campaigning. Scrap it, ditch it, just knock it on the head. Give all that money to charity. On polling day people will cast their vote on the basis of what they've seen in practice over the lifetime of that parliament and after plenty of evidence of how MPs' decisions actually affected their lives.

That should be more then enough to make up their mind. Bullshit politics has now reached tipping point.

About bleedin time

"Andy Coulson quits as David Cameron spin doctor".

Shameless David Laws

Where the word "hypocrisy" pokes its ugly rear.

Today's Guardian treats its readers with the squalid spectacle of a Coalition supporter, David Laws, championing the mass cuts that have just been unleashed on the country.

And while there's nothing new in hearing a government cheerleader reciting the usual script, what makes it particularly grating is the fact only last May millionaire David Laws was caught red-handed claiming £40,000 to pay rent to his boyfriend.

Sure, Mr Laws was not the first MP who fiddled the system and defrauded the taxpayer. But he was certainly one of the most outspoken "hard-liners" when it came to pontificating on "the pay and perks of hundreds of thousands of public sector workers", which is where the word "hypocrisy" pokes its ugly rear into the equation.

So for him to smugly lecture ordinary people on why their nosediving standards of living (squeezed incomes, higher bills, higher VAT, mass redundancies and huge cuts to public services - from care workers to the police and from the NHS to food inspectors) are actually a good thing, that's just taking the piss.

This ruthless (as well as electorally suicidal) lack of empathy highlights the importance of not having a political elite stuffed, literally, with millionaires who are clueless when it comes to the price of bus fares or gas bills and the way they impact on ordinary people.

PS. Since we're at it. Laws writes that:

"in April the first Lib Dem-inspired increase in the personal income tax allowance will boost the incomes of basic rate taxpayers, and take hundreds of thousands of low earners out of income tax altogether".

This is a piece of LibFibbery that we're hearing time and again. What they rarely tell you however is that:

a) It won't be until 2015 that the increase will actually begin to cover the full £10K threshold. That's if it goes ahead (there are already reports of grumbles amongst Tory ranks);

b) The forthcoming £1K increase will be cancelled out by the VAT hike and galloping prices.

The toxic effects of job insecurity

From lower productivity rates to family dysfunction and from poor customer service to depression and lack of motivation. What lies behind David Cameron's calls for "less red tape".

David Cameron's recent plans to make it easier to sack staff in the first two years of their employment have sparked an intense debate over the nature of Britain's labour market.

After the "fluffy years", it was only a matter of time before the crook-eyed default Tory approach to the world of paid employment would resurface.

The problem for Cameron and the bosses' organisations, however, is that - unlike the Thatcher years - there's very little left in terms of workers' protection for the government to wade in with the axe.

Extreme job insecurity in the UK is already a growing reality.

According to the OECD, Britain is in the top three along with the US and Canada (and well under the OECD average) in the strictness of employment protection index (1985-2008), which measures "the procedures and costs involved in dismissing individuals or groups of workers and the procedures involved in hiring workers on fixed-term or temporary work agency contracts".

Given the companies' free access to casual staff on "zero hours contract", or the free use of "temps" (which, by law, can be hired repeatedly on fixed-term contracts for up to four years before any tie comes into place), the lax regulation on probationary period for regular staff, as well as some of the lowest levels of statutory redundancy pay in the Western world, the notion that Britain's employment regulations may be at the core of the current dole rates is simply comedy material.

If we carry on this way, soon the only crusade left for the British Chamber of Commerce and the Tories to embark upon under the guise of "cutting red tape" will be against the right for workers to empty their bladder or take a crap at work.

However, what the last few days also highlighted is the almost total abdication on the part of the left and Labour in the fight against the galloping job insecurity and its noxious effects.

This line from the normally commendable Stumbling and Mumbling blog bothered me to the extreme. While sceptical of David Cameron's proposals, author Chris Dillow also wrote:

"There’s good evidence that [employment protection] reduces workers’ effort and increases absenteeism. This suggests that - at the margin - Cameron’s proposals might increase labour productivity".

Now, the reason why the above quote bothered me so much is that it shows how toxic and widespread certain myths are that even well-informed and well-read people can buy into them without questioning.

In brief, the Daily Mailesque-fable that a permanent job or certain guarantees at work will automatically turn you into a slacker. They ain't gonna sack me, so why bother, basically.

And how can you dispute that if even the usually meticulous and pro-left Chris Dillow can cite "good evidence" on the matter?

Except that said "good evidence" points to three pieces of research from Portugal and Italy which are solely and exclusively focused on specific (and already obsolete) legislation passed in those two countries in the 1980s and 1990s. Those laws were extremely protective - overly protective in fact - in a way not remotely comparable to anything Britain ever experienced, not even at its unionised peak.

It's like saying "there's good evidence that January is not a cold month and in fact look at this link to prove it". Except that it points to average January temperatures from the Canary Islands and Dubai.

The fact is, instead, that there's literally a mammoth body of research out there warning of the toxic long-term effects of job insecurity (click here for a summary).

Over the years detailed studies took place around the world, from the US and Canada to Australia, Sweden, Korea, Germany and more. The findings leave room to no doubt: there is a clear correlation between excessive levels of job insecurity and a variety of negative outcomes.

The initial advantages of "increased flexibility and lower costs" for the employers are undisputed. But little is ever said about the long-term effects that "casualisation may have on important aspects of national economic performance such as skill formation" and, most importantly, the ticking time-bomb that is widespread casualisation as weighed against "long-term financial planning".

But the strongest and most consistent evidence is the one seen across firms, industries, and countries linking job insecurity with "negative employee attitudes, behavio[u]rs, and health" and with the fact - as noted by several researchers - that "job insecurity is more stressful than job loss itself".

Amongst the negative effects, a "powerful negative influence on motivation", "reduced effort" and "poor safety compliance by employees". Low levels of job satisfaction are also associated with negative employee attitudes, lower customer performance and effectiveness with customers as well as with -in turn- a detrimental effect on group morale.

And that's without taking into account what "the longer term negative effects on workers' depression levels", or "the systemic [relation] between job insecurity and marital and family dysfunction" or, even, the proven effects that "parents' job insecurity has on children's school performance as measured by grades" .

The fact that "job insecurity reduces job satisfaction is attributable to the uncertainty of not knowing how to predict or control job threats".

And that's because, while insecurity in the short-term may spur a worker to perform better if the goal is a latter stage of more protection and various perks, an ongoing perception of "precariousness" will start having an adverse effect, as the worker will feel increasingly uncertain that their persistence can be sufficient enough for them to retain their job.

For a worker with little to lose, the lack of ties will offer no incentives to stop them from slacking off or "looking elsewhere" altogether.

Tory proposals on sacking people are both useless and criminal

Mass sackings: welcome to The Great Conservative Economic Strategy.

Another fine display of 21st century British politics took place yesterday when David Cameron dropped the bombshell on the millions of unwitting voters that it should be made much easier to sack workers in this country ("Firms get power to sack the slackers", Telegraph).

Now, of course, the Tories don't have a mandate for that. They never mentioned any of their "employment reforms" at any stage of the election campaign. They didn't because they knew that voters would punish them for that. And in fact, at this point, if you're an ordinary worker and you still think voting Tories will do you or the country any good, then you may as well chop your own bollocks off. The outcome will not be dissimilar.

It's astonishing that, in the face of the biggest crisis in sixty years, The Great Conservative Economic Strategy amounts to the sacking of half a million public workers, even easier sacking procedures for everybody else and -of course- higher costs of living.

The Tories' proposal is based on the contempt they have for ordinary workers. If you are an employee, you are - by default - a burden, an irritant, a disposable pain in the arse. Whatever the issue, financial or otherwise, you're the first one who should bear the brunt. No matter how much this may undermine morale or loyalty to the company. No matter how insecure it makes you feel. You're not a person. You're just a cheap pawn.

David Cameron's proposed new "Employment Charter" starts from a fallacy the size of the Millennium Dome: the ridiculously simplistic illusion that if you decrease protection at work, employment levels will rise automatically.

This is so all over the place that it's difficult to know where to start. But let's just say that the post-1997 implementation of the minimum wage and new maternity rules in Britain were followed by the lowest dole rates in thirty years. Look, instead, at the swirl of anti-Union laws and other measures brought in by Thatcher. It did nothing to even slow down the sustained high unemployment rates that kept looming large over the 1980s and 1990s.

Or consider Italy and Spain, where the last ten years saw most extreme forms of casualisation and disposable employment steamrolled in. Their unemployment levels are still looking extremely sorry, in fact worse even than before.

The second fallacy is that the Conservatives are making it sound as if the current British labour market was stifling and inflexible, while it is already one of the most boss-friendly in the EU as it's cheaper and easier to get rid of staff in Britain than it is in most of its counterparts.

Currently, bosses already enjoy the possibility of hiring as many agency or casual workers as they please. These come with no tie whatsoever. They are literally disposable.

If, however, the same boss saw fit to recruit "properly", there is a probationary period of up to 6 months in which he/she can sack said employee on a whim - literally - no notice, no motive, no compensation. Nowt.

After that, the boss will still have up to 12 months in which he/she can still fire him without any possible fear of being done for unfair dismissal or forking out a penny in statutory redundancy pay.

At this point, you will already concede that if a manager hasn't clocked who the slacker is without successfully rectifying the situation, it is he or she who should be sacked and not the worker.

And it's not over yet. While unfair dismissal claims can be brought after a year, you have to work a total of 24 months in order to be entitled to the lowest possible allowance of statutory redundancy, which - please note - is by far the cheapest in Western Europe.

However, egged on by the British Chamber of Commerce, David Cameron thinks that all of the above amounts to "too much red tape" and that the period that allows staff to submit unfair dismissal claims should be increased from one to two years.

But the icing on the cake is the Coalition's proposal to levy a charge on workers who decide to still fight their corner. This may be vintage Tory philosophy, but in this case it just borders on the criminal - as it crucially links access to justice not to whether you're in the right or not, but to whether you can afford it.

And, needless to say, it also ignores the fee that plaintiffs already pay their lawyer, or their union in the form of fees, if it is they who provide legal counsel.

Incidentally, unions rarely decide to pursue claims that they themselves think will lack weight. The amount of pre-screening that is done prior to deciding whether to gamble on a worker's claim is immense. And that's without even including the conciliation and arbitration stage.

And even so, official figures say that, in the first quarter of last year, just 11% of cases taken to an industrial tribunal were successful - and a puny 5% for constructive dismissal. Amazingly, this is the system that bosses complain is "weighed against them" and is "affecting employment levels".

The Conservatives are mistaking increased turnovers with higher employment rates. Their new proposals will do absolutely nothing to get people back to work.

All they will achieve is a system where it's easier to sack unfairly and without scrutiny and a workplace where it will be even more difficult, often impossible, for an honest worker to fight bullying and victimisation or to seek protection against unscrupulous employers.

The hysterical reaction to Jack Straw's words

The left's own version of tabloid hysteria?

It says something when you have to think 150 times before writing a blog post because you fear your words may be misinterpreted and land you into trouble.

By now, you will be probably aware of the stir caused by Jack Straw's words in the wake of the recent conviction of a gang of nine men for the vile grooming and raping of 26 teenage girls.

In particular, the former Home Secretary was criticised for saying that there is a "specific problem which involves Pakistani heritage men... who target vulnerable young white girls" and that "[W]e need to get the Pakistani community to think much more clearly about why this is going on and to be more open about the problems that are leading to a number of Pakistani heritage men thinking it is OK to target white girls in this way".

The Labour MP for Blackburn added that: "These young men are in a western society, in any event, they act like any other young men, they're fizzing and popping with testosterone, they want some outlet for that, but Pakistani heritage girls are off-limits and they are expected to marry a Pakistani girl from Pakistan, typically. So they then seek other avenues and they see these young women, white girls who are vulnerable, some of them in care... who they think are easy meat".

Now, I'm hardly Straw's biggest fan, but I find some of the reactions to his comments verging on the manic, and it's a shame as they all come from some of my most favourite bloggers: from accusations of "Nazi racial profiling" and "smearing ALL pakistani men" on Liberal Conspiracy to the baffling "Jack Straw's sex fantasy about dark men and white girls" by Madam Miaow, "Jack Straw's scaremongering" on Pickled Politics and "generating double standards" by Chris Dillow on Stumbling and Mumbling.

So here's some thoughts on the issue:

1. Hysteria

Bear in mind that Straw was particularly careful to also say that "Pakistanis, let's be clear, are not the only people who commit sexual offences", adding that "overwhelmingly the sex offenders' wings of prisons are full of white sex offenders".

He shouldn't have bothered. He got likened to a Nazi before you could even utter the word.

This is the disturbing aspect. No matter the disclaimers, the specifications and the carefully weighed words. The same people who, on the left, rightly criticise the tabloid press for whipping up hysteria and frothing at the mouth, are guilty of the same knee-jerkism and are quite happy to throw cries of "RACIST!" and "NAZI!" and "DEHUMANISING PAKISTANI MALES!" at the drop of a hat.

2. Religion and culture, not race or nationality

Jack Straw made one mistake. He was too restrictive with his reference to the word "Pakistani". Religion here matters way more than a specific national heritage.

And, in fact, the chief executive of charity Barnardo's implied it when he said that "[his] staff would say there is an over-representation of people from ethnic minority groups among perpetrators - Afghans, people from Arabic nations, Pakistanis. But it's not just one nation".

Race and the colour of the skin has got absolutely nothing to do with it. Sure, there will always be some racist dunce trying to exploit the issue to make up for their lack of brain cells.

But it would be criminal if we let them deflect the core problem (and that's where too many people on the left go postal the moment you even mention it): the culture of misogyny that is rife amongst certain Muslim communities.

It is a deeply-ingrained culture of misogyny, and nothing else, that still allows the scandal of an estimated 17,000 women a year who are victims of honour crimes, including murder. It is a deeply-ingraned culture of misogyny that makes it possible, according to government figures, for 300 school children a year to disappear for the sake of forced marriages. It is misogyny and its ideology of oppression that makes it possible "to force young girls – some so young that they are still in push chairs", in the words of Yasmin Alibhai Brown – "[to be] covered up in hijabs". And that's just in the UK.

But who will speak out for them if simply raising the issue will land you accusations of "tarring all Muslim men with the same brush" and "the Ku Klux Klan [too] lynched black men in the Deep South"?

Like Johann Hari wrote two years ago, "[I]nsulating a religion from criticism – surrounding it with an electric fence called "respect" – keeps it stunted at its most infantile and fundamentalist stage. The smart, questioning and instinctively moral Muslims – the majority – learn to be silent, or are shunned (at best). What would Christianity be like today if George Eliot, Mark Twain and Bertrand Russell had all been pulped? Take the most revolting rural Alabama church, and metastasise it."

3. Red herrings and whataboutery

I find it deeply counterproductive when bloggers like Chris Dillow, someone I've always admired and respected, feel the need to write: "You wouldn’t ask the “white community” to look into itself if a white guy commits a sex crime, so why ask the “Pakistani community” to do so if a Pakistani does so".

I don't know why Dillow decides to drag "colour" into the debate, so let's just focus on his actual statement. Now, since no comparison is possible between "white" and "Pakistani" (white being a "race" encompassing anybody from Moldova to Iceland and "Pakistani" being a nationality), let's stick to the words "English community" or "British community" to see if they are ever "asked to look into themselves" in the face of problems or specific crimes.

The answer is yes. Older readers may recall the humongous debates and soul-searching that took place at the height of football hooliganism across the 1980s and 1990s.

There were literally thousands of political statements, opinion columns and sociological analyses written to dissect what was being dubbed "the English disease" and the term is still used to these days whenever UK football supporters behave like troglodites (see this and this, for instance).

Of course you do get some people shouting that "it's not just the English!" and "what about the football violence that also takes place in Holland, Italy and Turkey?", but most people understand that exercises in whataboutery and hyperbole will do little good.

Or take the tons of analyses written on the "British drinking too much", or what the government dubbed "the distinctive characteristic of the British drinking culture", its violence and aggression.

So, yeah, "the English" or "the British" have been asked to do some soul searching when it comes to certain problems. And rightly so. Bring it on. If there is a specific problem that is prevalent within your own society or community, what good does it do if you just drown it out with cries that "it's not just us!" and "AAAAARRRGH!". If you really cared about your own "community", why would you make "it also happens elsewhere" and "talk to the hand" the core of your argument?

As a person of Italian heritage, if there's one thing I find most grating is Italy's persistent shying away from an honest analysis of the Mafia on the grounds that it "hurts Italy's image" and "it doesn't do Italy any favours" and "not all Italians are in the Mafia".

And you don't need a degree in sociology and criminology to conclude that the biggest beneficiaries of sweeping cultural problems under the carpet are the perpetrators of said problems.

4. The actual issue

Dillow is right to produce the hard figures about sexual offences (for instance the fact that in Lancashire "4.163 per 10,000 white Brits were arrested for a sex crime, compared to 0.44 Pakistanis"). Once again, Straw said it himself that "overwhelmingly the sex offenders' wings of prisons are full of white sex offenders".

However, Straw also referred to the specific issue of gangs grooming teenage girls for sex. And, in that case, out of 17 cases since 1997, 50 out of the 56 men convicted were Pakistani Muslims.

It was Manzoor Moghul, chairman of the Muslim Forum who said that "Offenders are under the misapprehension white girls are easy prey. The way they dress, their culture, makes them easy pickings". And it was Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim youth organisation, who said to the BBC that "[t]here are some Muslims who think that as long as these sex gangs aren't targeting their own sisters and daughters the issue doesn't affect them" (see here).

Not regarding girls from different religious or ethnic groups with the same respect granted to their own sisters or mothers is a vile practice. It is not racist to say so.

Top Tories and LibDems against VAT rise

Leading figures from within the government explain why increasing VAT is wrong.

David Cameron:
"You could try, as you say, to put it on VAT, sales tax, but again if you look at the effect of sales tax, it’s very regressive, it hits the poorest the hardest. It does, I absolutely promise you." (April 2010)

Conservative Home:
"Higher VAT is an unacceptable tax on the poor. [It] costs the poorest twice as much" (December 2009)

Nick Clegg:
"Liberal Democrats have costed, in full, our proposals for tax cuts. We can tell you, penny for penny, pound for pound, who pays for them. We will not have to raise VAT to deliver our promises. The Conservatives will. Let me repeat that: Our plans do not require a rise in VAT. The Tory plans do. Their tax promises on marriage and jobs may sound appealing. But they come with a secret VAT bombshell close behind." (April 2010)

Vince Cable:
"A big, sudden jump in VAT would stall any early recovery and hit shops hard. Also, some companies have learnt how to dodge VAT". (September 2009)

The Coalition Isn't Working

Remember the famous Saatchi & Saatchi poster campaign from 1979? Growing dole queues, strikes, riots, more riots and uncollected rubbish. If it was re-written today, it would look exactly like this:

The relentless rise of transport fares

Why the periodical calls of "spend and save the economy" are grating and snobbish in the extreme.

Over the Christmas period, you may have overheard various pontificators telling the populace to spend, spend, spend in order to "save the economy".

With what money though, they never say. Look at the figures.

According to the Office for National Statistics, salaries in Britain went up in 2010 by 2.3%, less than the current rate of inflation which now stands at 3.2%.

That looks positively tame when you consider the inflation-busting rises ordinary people are having to deal with whichever direction they look.

Transport fares, for instance. As of yesterday, they went up across the whole country. In Birmingham, adult bus fares increased by 5.55%, daysavers rose by 8.3% (they now stand at £3.60) and the precious evening savers were done away with altogether (see here for full details).

Of course, like each and every single time fares go up, transport companies justify the policy by playing the usual old record of "rising business costs", "massive reinvestment" and "new vehicles".

Yet, an external observer may be excused if he or she expects those buses to be powered by Ferrari, paved with gold, and sporting a crew of smiling hostesses dispensing free drinks to cheer you up on your ride to work. Because since 2005 tickets on the former Travel West Midlands and current National Express West Midlands have gone up by a mental 80%. That is eighty-per-cent, from £1 five years ago to the current £1.80.

Top executives aside, hands up anybody if your wages have gone up by anything remotely like that. The most recent minimum wage increase, for instance, was a meagre 2.19%.

So, when Chancellor George Osborne returns from his "luxury break" at Prince Charles’s favourite ski resort, can any journalist with a pair please ask him what advice he's got for the millions of low wage workers facing galloping costs eating further into their wages?

Cable TV

Rupert Murdoch couldn't have pulled off a better one even if he'd tried.

Much has been said and written about the Daily Telegraph sting job on Vince Cable and his surprising revelations on the coalition's internal conflicts and various issues including his "war on Mr Murdoch".

We also learnt that Cable has been stripped of his responsibilities for overseeing media and broadcasting companies, that he will no longer rule on the controversial Rupert Murdoch bid to take full control of BSkyB, and that his replacement is going to be Conservative Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Jeremy Hunt, a man whose views on Murdoch and his media empire appear to be very favourable to say the least.

Coincidence, the announcement was met with BSkyB's shares leaping like a frog on crack. You can guess who is the only person benefiting from all this.

Stay placid

Forget the tabloids. Here's the cavalry of "maverick" newspaper columnists coming to the rescue of government and corporate tax avoiders to brand protesters as the real enemy from within.

It is was only two years ago that Britain's newspapers were - almost in unison - kicking and screaming histerically at the super-rich and their corrupt Westminster mates "whose excesses dragged the country to the edge of bankruptcy".

Comments such as "never again are we going to be taken for a ride", "lessons-need-learning", and "why should the little people clean up the mess left by the powerful" were the order of the day in every newspaper.

And so it happens that, within less than 24 months, it's no longer the fault of the casino bankers, the corporate tax dodgers and their lapdog politicians.

In fact, they're not even the real powers that be. They're the defenseless victims, the "grown-ups", those actually in need of constant rescuing from the threat of "self-righteous" and "red-faced" "intoxicated anarchists" with "pumped-up rage" that "will achieve nothing" but inconveniencing "ordinary shoppers".

Seriously. Forget the tabloids. You read Britain's newspapers these days and it's as if the actual culprits behind the world's ills were students, anti-tax avoidance protesters and, of course, evil Julian Assange and his supporters.

Look at the amount of columnists who, for all their maverick posturing, toss-arguing, straw clutching and verbal meandering, always - invariably - end up as guardian dogs of the status quo.

What follows is a quick selection of "quality" newspaper articles from the last ten days.

The morning of the tuition fees vote in the Commons, the Independent's Steve Richards didn't feel the need to analyse, dissect or criticise the government's new tuition fees politicy. He didn't even say if he agreed or not. No. His energies were all spared for the protests which "have a whiff of urgent glamour", and "will have made no practical difference whatsoever". Basically, years of broadsheets lecturing on "generation apathy" and look who's apathetic now.

That still wasn't quite as lame as Howard Jacobson who, a couple of days later, boasted in the same paper: "I am temperamentally averse to demonstrations [...]. Any more than five human beings believing the same thing and congregating to say so are bound to be on a course that will lead to trouble. We are safe only when we act individually".

Or Toby Young in the Telegraph. "The student protesters are morally indistinguishable from the merchant bankers", he spouted. Are they really? Except that you'd be hard pressed if you could spot a single article where the same Mr Young uttered a word against the bankers. He'd rather go for the soft target, would he not, whether it's students on tuition fees or the spontaneous movement whose only request is that the superrich too don't get preferential treatment when it comes to tax in the age of "we're-all-in-this-together".

Because what they're doing is, "they're hurting ordinary shoppers [...], the poorest and most vulnerable", says Young. Who then follows with the predictable dollop of whataboutery: "why don’t [the protesters] patrol the streets of their home towns giving food and blankets to the homeless [instead]?".

Then there's Christina Patterson back at the Independent, as we already discussed on Saturday. Her particular targets, the celebrity supporters of Wikileaks and their "delicious sense of self-righteousness". Says she.

Nothing, however, as the supreme pontificating coming from Mary Ann Sieghart who, after three or four paragraphs of logical swirls, eventually brands all demonstrators as "anarchists". Whether Wikileaks, the students or the anti-tax avoidance protesters, they're all "intoxicated by a spirit of anarchy" - cue "a bunch of students in balaclavas [...] who go round smashing windows" - but no, she's not tarring them all with the same brush.

All that intellectual energy and all that newspaper ink to simply say: young people, we liked you more when you just watched Big Brother or the X-Factor. Now keep your head down again and stay supine.

Also on the subject: "Stay stupid".

Feeling their pain

The parallels between the plight of today's LibDem activists and that of many Labour supporters during the Blair years.

Contribution by Councillor Bob Piper*

Ed Miliband’s appeal for those Liberal Democrats dismayed by the coalition with the Conservatives may attract some waverers, but I doubt it will lead to the complete demise of the Lib Dems that some people are predicting.

Personally I have a sympathy with those on the radical wing of the Lib Dems who feel betrayed by Clegg, Alexander and co. They will have spent years listening to their leaders in opposition decrying “the two main parties” and promising nirvana if only they were in power. Ok, most will surely have accepted that getting power in their own right was not achievable in the short term, but they hung on to the belief that they could hold the balance of power in a coalition. And so it came to pass. But I doubt many Lib Dem members thought that entering a coalition would result in their MPs accepting a complete u-turn on issues like tuition fees. Accepting a review of Trident is one thing, they may even have accepted that the Tories and Labour, whichever they joined up with, would combine to ensure Trident was renewed. But to see their leaders vociferously arguing for a measure which they had spent over 10 years decrying… that was not what they were expecting.

The reason I have some sympathy is that some of us in the Labour Party have been there and bought the t-shirt. We spent the best part of two decades on platforms condemning the Thatcherite market-led NHS reforms, the privatisation of public services, the anti-trade union laws, the Private Finance Initiative etc. Then we suddenly discovered that these things were not going to be reversed, but worse, they were actually at the heart of Blair’s New Labour party. I remember only a few months in to the Labour Government of 1997, when the euphoria was still pumping through Labour veins, moving a resolution at UNISON’s Affiliated Political Fund conference calling for a halt to PFI schemes. The resolution was passed but was opposed by two leading lights of the union, Dave Anderson and Ann Picking (both destined to become Labour MPs) which made me uneasy at the time. And also opposed by Keith Vaz who, without a hint of shame or irony, told the conference that previously we had quite rightly opposed ‘Tory PFI’ …this was different… it was ‘New Labour PFI’!!!

And this was years before Blair’s wars and infatuation with Bush, or plans for 90-day internment, or ID cards and all of the other authoritarian post-9/11 measures. You know, those things that Ed Miliband confessed were errors or misjudgments during his leadership bid.

So, if there are Lib Dems out there thinking of packing it all up, my message to you is don’t despair. Clegg may be just a blip, a small hiccup in the long history of your party. Stick to your principles and one day you may be secretly stifling a smug grin as speaker after speaker stands up to denounce Clegg and his ilk and all of their crypto-Tory machinations.

In closing though, comrades, I have no wish to form a coalition with you. We should both want to trample the Tories in to the dirt and ensure a permanent democratic socialist/social democrat political future for Britain. A strong Liberal Democrat opposition to what you perceive as the excesses of a Labour Government should be the short term aim, not the shabby little compromise you now find yourselves locked in to.

Of course, for those who really don’t have the stomach to endure five years of the current horror show… I’m told our membership is still open to applications.

*This article was originally posted at Councillor Bob Piper.

Happy nation

Warning: look away if you can't take any doom'n'gloom

Here's the list of Christmas gift delivered to your doorstep by Santa Cameron. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday:

- official unemployment up to 2.5 million people (first rise since the spring);

- the number of people who have to switch to part-time work because they could not find a full-time job keeps going up, now standing at 1.16 million, "the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992";

- there were 158,000 redundancies in the three months to October 2010, up 15,000 on the quarter. The figures are set to soar, as around 100,000 redundancy letters are expected to be sent to local authority staff within the next month.

- inflation is up to 3.3% (or 4.7% RPI), particularly due to a record hike on food and non-alcoholic drinks. And with the VAT to rise in January (more about its impact here), that's bound to get worse, especially when coupled with the news that earnings have gone up by 2.2 per cent (though if you personally know anyone who can say they've had a pay rise in the last 12 months, do drop us a line).

PS: On a positive note, this blog salutes one good thing the LibDems have achieved while in power: the end of detention of children in immigration centres - one of the most appalling policies that Labour implemented while in power. Credit when due.

LibDems take advice from US Republicans!

Bush's senior policy adviser now cited as the LibDem's new oracle. Seriously.

It really says something when the Liberal Democrats' official organ is proudly sporting the words of a US Republican "urging Barack Obama to be more like Nick Clegg".

For the record, the remains of the LibDems are boastfully quoting Michael Gerson, former senior policy advisor to President George W Bush between 2000 and 2006 - that is, someone sitting right at the core of the lethal (literally) neo-con Chain of Command during both the Iraq mess and the build-up to the biggest financial crash since 1929.

Of course, if pressed, Nick Clegg and his dwindling rank of faithfuls would probably tell you that, no, it's Barack Obama that's turned conservative and that, yes, the Bushite Republicans have magically become "progressive" (one of Clegg's favourite words). Just like the previously-evil Tories have blossomed overnight into Clegg's "progressive" wet dream.

And then the LibDems would probably add that, even though George W Bush's tax cuts for upper-income, capital-owning households were the trigger for America's worst record on income inequality since the 1920s, the Republicans were still good at stimulating social mobility.

And yeah, mobility, George W Bush certainly managed.

In the sense that it was thanks to his atrocious inititatives such as the Ownership Society that millions of low-wage Americans moved to homes that they couldn't afford and from which they were soon kicked out. They moved alright.

Not quite social, but still mobility.

Cliches of 2010 #5

"Students should engage in the democratic vote instead of protesting".

But that's what they did!

The majority of students voted LibDem at the last general election. According to a YouGov poll published in May (see here), a stunning 45 per cent of the student vote went to the Liberals, making Nick Clegg and Vince Cable's party the firm favourite in campuses up and down the country.

And that's why students and perspective students are fuming. They think all democratic doors have been slammed in their faces. When Tony Blair u-turned on tuition fees in 2003-04, students turned out in droves to support the only mainstream party that still actively campaigned to scrap university fees.

Now that the LibDems too humiliated millions who cast their vote in good faith, it's hardly surprising that many no longer see any point in the democratic process. Cue the repeated protests. Cue the anger.

And they get even angrier when they hear patronising sermons that Thursday's vote in the Commons is true democracy in action. That's the will of the majority and "put up or shut up".

However, what is democratic in passing bills thanks to the same MPs who - only months before - asked for a mandate to do the exact opposite once in office, I'll leave it to you to work out. I can't get my head round it.

PREVIOUS CLICHES:
#4 "Society benefits from extreme wealth at the top".
#3 "There are jobs out there if you really want one".
#2 "The Royal Family brings in tourism revenue".
#1 "Iain Duncan Smith is a kind and honourable man".

Reflections on yesterday's riots

All violence is wrong, right?

1) The attack on Prince Charles and Camilla's car.

I understand it's a massive media story and I don't think anyone can remember within living memory an instance of a British royal coming under some form of attack. But excuse me if I spare my outrage for the stories of totally innocent demonstrators being battered by the police (click here for a collection of stories about what the police did yesterday). Why should an egg on Prince Charles' car matter more than an innocent 20 year old bleeding on the brain?

2) The media focus.
Obviously it's daft to expect the same tabloids who for weeks defended the indefensible in the wake of Ian Tomlinson's murder to manage even a sprinkling of objectivity when reporting yesterday's events.
But it's amazing that while the Sun shouts "How dare these thugs insult the country" and the Daily Mail makes it top news that Camilla was prodded in the ribs (though the headline says "HIT", of course), hardly a mention is made that 43 students were taken to hospital (some extremely serious) and that thousands of people were kettled for 6+ hours before any violence started.

3) Kettling.
Which begs the question. What possible good can come from kettling for more than 6 hours thousands of peaceful demonstrators in freezing temperatures - and that's before any violence had kicked off? How can anyone in their right mind think that this is not going to pour petrol on the flames?
Remember that kettling means being penned within a confined square, literally squeezed against hundreds of other people without any access to food, water or toilets and not knowing when the police is going to grant mercy.

4) Violence is wrong.
And that's all violence, both policemen battering students already lying on the pavement and excitable demonstrators vandalising public property and damaging the students' cause. Thanks to them, yesterday's vote in the Commons is now totally overshadowed.

"We didn't win the election outright"...

Clegg's party are heading for electoral annihilation. So next time they may as well promise heaven on earth: there'll be no danger of a u-turn.

"We didn't win the election outright and there are compromises in a coalition", is the message the LibDems are spamming radio and television with in defence of their tuition fees volteface.

The remains of the LibDems may think voters are stupid but, come the next election, they can expect another thing coming. People don't like to be treated like idiots, less so by smug jumped-up politicians.

Quite simply, Mr Clegg didn't sign those infamous "we-will-scrap-tuition-fees" pledges a few months ago under the caveat that it could only happen if his party won an outright majority.

And that's because - had he done so - people would have laughed at him. Even my neighbour's dog knew that his party was never going to win the May 6 vote, let alone an outright majority.

However, not to worry, Clegg.

Next time go the whole hog. Feel free to promise £10K gifts to all voters, twice as many holidays for all, free Tesco Finest meals, and Leo Messi to play for the local team whichever constituency you happen to be making a speech that moment.

Sign pledges that your government will pay rent or mortgage in every single home in the country and, since you're at it, free nightclub vouchers for all students forever.

Then, the day after the election, you won't have to justify a thing.

No danger of coalition compromises: your party will have been absolutely wiped out of parliament. And it'll be a joy to behold.

Research says tuition fees scheme unfeasible

If the Coalition were so convinced their new tuition fees package was so fair, why are they rushing to introduce last minute sweeteners?

In an interview published yesterday by the Independent on Sunday, Deputy PM Nick Clegg reiterated the fable that the government's plan to hike tuition fees up to £9000 are "brave and bold and [a] socially progressive thing to do".

But if it was so socially progressive - which the LibDems claimed from the off - why is the Coalition feeling the urge to announce a last minute £150m scholarship fund to cover first year's tuition fees for less well-off students?

Either way Clegg didn't explain how poorer students will manage to make it to their A-levels, let alone university, given that the Coalition is proudly scrapping the EMA (Education Maintenace Allowance) for all students aged 16 to 19.

It's also interesting how the Tories' latest recruit keeps drawing specific examples of how much better off certain students will be with the new higher education scheme, while also steering well clear of explaining that in 60-65% of the cases students will be worse off - as recently highlighted by a number of studies.

The strongest indictment of the Coalition's ineptitude, however, comes from the fiscal side of things.

After both the Higher Education Policy Institute and the Institute for Fiscal Studies raised objections to the feasibility of the Coalition's proposals, a new study by consultancy firm London Economics adds that on top of impacting "adversely on social mobility and participation", the government's plans "will have to be covered by huge increases in borrowing to fund much larger student loans".

The report reiterates the point we made last Saturday: the Coalition's plans will not save the taxpayer a single penny. Quite the opposite. The Government will have "to borrow £10.7 billion to fund student loans in 2015/16 compared to the £4.1 billion it borrowed in 2010/11. If the Government’s plans are voted through, they will add a whopping £13 billion to public sector net debt by 2015/16".

"The plans are really a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul", was the comment of Pam Tatlow, Chief Executive of university think tank Million+.

The risks of a system replicating a miniature-style financial crash within a few years' time are obvious. Researchers explain how huge chunks of future graduates will never repay the full whack, many entering the 30-year write-off period with tens of thousands of pounds still outstanding.

In the summer of 2009, it had already been noted that "out of 1.4million graduates who started university in 1998 or later, 49 per cent were earning too little to pay back their student loans".

As regards tuition fees, 43 per cent of the most recent crop of graduates had not reached the current repayment threshold of £15,000, leading to the "doubling in five years" of outstanding student debt.

With the Coalition's new regime of trebled tuition fees and a higher threshold, the implosion of the whole further education system doesn't look unlikely.

Smiths, I still love you

Twenty-three years after their demise, Morrissey and Johnny Marr join forces to lash out at the Tory government.

The news that both Johnny Marr and Morrissey expressed their dislike of the Coalition government has added some extra warmth to my day.

It may make little difference, but it's good to know that some "rockstars" or famous people are not 100% cocooned in their own comfortable bubble, haven't totally given up on using their brain cells and are still aware of the crap that goes on in the real world.

Johnny Marr kicked off the proceedings the other day when he rebuked David Cameron's professed admiration for The Smiths. In a twitter message, the guitarist quipped: "David Cameron, stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don't. I forbid you to like it."

And as the wider media picked up on his remark, another one came this morning :"Nick Clegg, hand over your iPod".

Most unexpected, Marr's former bandmate Morrissey called a truce on their long-standing feud in order to publicly back his words.

"I would like to, if I may, offer support to Johnny Marr who has spoken out to the media this week against David Cameron", said the singer in a written statement at true-to-you.net, articulating his concerns at David Cameron's love for hunting and his pledge to stage a Parliamentary vote on repealing the foxhunting ban next year.

"I must report that David Cameron hunts and shoots and kills stags – apparently for pleasure", added Morrissey. "It was not for such people that either Meat is Murder or The Queen is Dead were recorded; in fact, they were made as a reaction against such violence".

I guess The Smiths were always my favourite band for a reason.