Thursday 10 December 2015

Political scheming

A short post this time - just to flag up a very good article from Owen Jones in The Guardian about the  various ways that the Tories have successfully manipulated the truth in various issues over recent years.

My favourite quote from the article is below:

"Illusions are what the Tories excel at. They back Labour’s spending – down to the last penny – when in opposition, then in government claim that it was financial extravagance that plunged the country into economic chaos. The crash may have originated in Britain’s financial hub, a sector whose lavish donations keep the Conservatives financially afloat, but Cameron and Osborne skilfully transformed a crisis of the market into a crisis caused by state spending. A failing of laissez-faire economics was spun into a historic opportunity to scale back the state."

For me, this is the key fact about the last few years of Conservative (including the coalition) government, and I find it almost unbelievable that the media and the general public in the UK have swallowed whole the Tories' narrative about austerity and why the cuts were needed, when it is so obviously a none-too-subtle smokescreen to enable them to push through the ideological cuts and further dismantling of the state that they had so yearned to complete after Thatcherism.

We need to make more noise about this false narrative, as everyone has been mislead, and the country is suffering for it.

Thursday 16 July 2015

Where's the fight?

The General Election result in May 2015 was a shock for anyone of a vaguely progressive bent.  It was more than just a shock though – it brought about a sense of profound dread as to what this group of Conservatives would do to our country and society once they had disentangled themselves from the shackles of a coalition government.

This Government (and the powerful array of mainstream media that support them) appears driven by a fervent ideological desire to bring about a market society – to treat every aspect of human life as a function of economics – under the assumption that every person is naturally just interested in furthering their own needs, and that anything that gets in the way of this should be attacked or dismantled.

The current breed of Tories at the top of this government also want to use this opportunity to aggressively pursue a range of other traditionalist conservative prejudices – from the promotion of fox hunting through to the destruction of the BBC.

As I write this, proposals are being discussed to dismantle some of our most cherished and respected institutions – including the NHS, education system, welfare state and BBC

The scale of these attacks is unprecedented since the war.  They attempt to do things that even Thatcher at her most bullish thought were a bit much.

And once these things are gone, we’re unlikely to get them back.  It took two world wars for some of the countries of Europe (including Britain) to realise that there was such a thing as society, that life for everyone would be better if we looked after each other and to make the investment in creating institutions that would achieve this, like the welfare state.   So, without another epoch-defining event, we are unlikely to get to that point of ‘a society fit for people’ again – so this truly is a battle of life and death for some of these institutions.

Needless to say, what’s happening under this current Government makes me dismayed and angry. But what annoys (and mystifies) me most about these developments is the terrifying lack of dissenting voices or, heaven forbid, action in response to them. 

Is it because everyone is happy with what’s happening here?  Surely not.  Is the lack of action due to ignorance of what’s being done in our name (on a paper thin mandate based on a tiny majority)?  Is it because the dominant voices of the mainstream media and the state make it difficult for any dissenting voices to cut through to the public to challenge their views?  Or have we been battered into submission by the steady barrage of attacks on progressive society that took place during the 5 years of the coalition?

It is of course a mixture of these things, plus another potent overarching influence – the fact that, over several decades, we have already slipped into a society where the emphasis is on pursuing our own individual needs (and lambasting any groups, institutions and individuals that could compromise them in any way), rather than seeing ourselves as part of a mutually supportive group, in which an important aspect of living a good life is to contribute towards the common good.

Perhaps we simply aren’t shocked about this stuff anymore as we’ve stopped questioning or resisting the overall narrative that’s being offered to us.

But we must resist it – and this may be our final chance before the things that we hold dear vanish before our eyes.   So, who’s prepared to fight for them – and for each other?

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Where next for progressive politics?


I've just caught up with a very interesting post by Neal Lawson on OpenDemocracy today. 

The article asks how the Labour Party should  move forward in the light of it's devastating defeat in the 2015 General Election - not simply as a votewinning machine but as a true political force that can deliver a progressive, fair future within the transformed political and cultural landscape of Britain in 2015.

The article provides a useful, credible analysis of the situation and of the best way forward for the party and progressive politics in general.   It also supported my own overall sense that politics has changed and that it makes no sense for progressives (the term 'the left' is redundant now) to build themselves around a party any more.  Rather, it needs to work the other way round - we need a political entity (a party) to represent the vision of a diverse progressive movement (from online platforms such as 38 Degrees to members of the well-being movement). 

And this representative 'big tent' role could be the best future for the Labour Party.

Read the article here.

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Change is hard


Change can be difficult to achieve.  Change on a global scale can be very difficult to achieve - perhaps even impossible.  And, despite what we may want to think as campaigners, we may not be in control of all the levers that need to be pulled to achieve the change we want - in fact, we may have no influence over some of them at all.

I think these are important realities for campaigners to face up to - particularly those battling certain global issues, like climate change - as they could help them to set more realistic expectations, communicate better and prioritise their activities better.  
Click on this link to see how this applies to the prospects for change on the issue of climate change and energy consumption - as developed in 'The Story of Energy' for Life Squared.