You're talking about niceness and decency Frances. Politeness is the veneer. Even where somebody is being pleasant or helpful or even when dealing with somebody though they themselves do not feel well, this is still decency and niceness.

Holding doors open, please and thank you, are decency. Politeness fades with habituation and over-use, decency and niceness and genuineness do not.

Politeness is a mask. Many bad and nasty things happen under the guise of politeness. I think the Nazis could be very polite.

Sane - there is a role for politeness.

If I am discussing the treatment of people with mental illness under the legal or welfare systems and I come acros a hang 'em and 'flog 'em supporter who has a whole gang of friends who think like he does I won't manage much more than icy politeness. If I discuss the same subject with a bleeding heart libeal like me I will probably move on to bonding and camaraderie. But I can rehearse the same arguments in both discussions and that is what is important.

Sane - people come in very different kinds. I think human tribes evolved with a range of characteristics so that people could play different roles in the tribe and come forward and rise to different occasions.

For example a lot of people have extravert personalities and enjoy being part of a group. They like to pick up social norms and conform find these comforting. A minority like to swim on their own and challenge norms.

I often think that this is the problem with most debate on social issues. People just don't get one another.

If I want to have a meaningful conversation with someone in the hang 'em and flog 'em gang who is convinced that he and all his friends are on the right track - then icy politeness is all I will be able to manage. I could have the same conversation with a bleeding heart liberal and I would probably move on to bonding and forming a gang.

But I would rehearse the same arguments in both discussions and other people reading what I say could read the arguments in either discussion.

There is a role for politeness. If I disagree with someone I want to argue the topic with them - not make personal attacks on them.

Frances, you do not drown anybody in your drenching and pointed tweeness. You are quite to the point. You do not, I suspect, have any tweeness - drenching, pointed or otherwise.

Sometimes this site descends into a circle-jerk.

Actually, i think that what actually you like are niceness and common decency. Politeness is a veneer that wears thin, warmth and compassion are something different altogether. Politeness is an aspect of english hypocrisy disease and of english myopia bordering on deceit (self and otherwise).

I like polite. Polite is politic is practical and is constructive.

I am incredibly impressed with the article in the Guardian today by Nick Clegg about the sheer humanitarian disaster going on in Gaza. Politics can be theoretical, and circular and sometimes we need to wake up and say NO my instincts as a human being tell me this is beyond bearable.

The Labour government can quote all the ideology it likes - pressurising sick people with terminal illness is cruel. You can't let your politics detach you from your humanity like that.

So for the moment I am supporting the progressive alliance and only supporting people who still factor humanity in to their politics. If you can't use your humane instincts as a reality check logic may lead you any where and you are not fit or safe to govern. That seems to apply to the NewLabour leadership and the backing vocals.

The FUTURE is bright: "Compass has not the backbone either to challenge this individual in case they offend the champion of the Copenhagen disaster"
*******************************************************
I am happy to concede that I am ignorant on this, but how exactly is Ed Balls the "champion of the Copenhagen disaster" ?

Tony Blair is now receiving payback from all those individuals that he has aided during his time at the helm of the British Government. Knighthoods, etc. It would not be surprising if his Golden handshake (rich fortunes) were found within the heart of the Academy system. You don't have to be a brain surgeon to work out where. Can anybody find out who???

The Labour Party continue to laugh behind the back of the people they pretend to support. Mandelson is no different

Tony Blair like Ed Balls are as bankrupt of a conscience and intellect as the bankers and finances are of integrity.

Would it be fair to say that the Labour Party need to get rid of Balls. Not only does he hide behide his tiny state like performance but also he has no backbone to face individuals who challenge his decisions and has run out of ideas. His education policy has failed (we will throw more money at it). Compass has not the backbone either to challenge this individual in case they offend the champion of the Copenhagen disaster.

I am not sure I really understand the purpose of the debate below. Paul made some clear points and that should have been it. Anyway, despite my non participation in the debate, I just want to say I understand perfectly what Jon T wants to achieve, I support it fully, and I cant imagine how anyone could possibly know in advance that it will be a waste of time. Anyway, if that is what Roger believes, that's OK with me. I can live without his participation.

You continue being polite whilst Blue Labour continues to piss all over you. Politeness is english bollocks. Politeness is to the face, when the arm stabs you in the back. Tony Blair was perhaps one of the most outwardly polite people going.

If somebody shoves the sad entrails of Blue Labour at you, they deserve a good slappin'.

David Leigh and Ian Griffiths guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 December

Tony Blair, in effect, has the benefits of running a British company without the drawbacks of unwelcome publicity.

A little-known loophole in UK company law is being used by Tony Blair to keep his finances secret, the Guardian can disclose.

Blair would normally have to publish company accounts detailing the millions flowing into his various commercial ventures since he stepped down from office in 2007.

But he has set up a complicated artificial structure which avoids the normal rule. In effect, he is getting the benefits of running a British company without the drawbacks of unwelcome publicity.

His main vehicle is a so-called limited partnership, christened Windrush Ventures No 3 LP.

Thanks to a gap in the Whitehall regulations, this entity is not required to publish any accounts. Such partnerships must normally disclose figures, or face criminal penalties.

Blair sidestepped the rules by inserting a second partnership as one of the notional partners, in a way the regulations do not cover.

This second partnership, Windrush Ventures No 2 LLP, is a so-called limited liability partnership, a type of entity only invented in 2000, which the rules have not been updated to mention.

The LLP in turn controls Blair's operating company, called Windrush Ventures Ltd, which runs his Mayfair office in Grosvenor Square.

The perfectly legal structures Blair has set up to achieve secrecy are so complicated that they have previously baffled analysts.

They involve 12 different entities, six in the Windrush structure and another half-dozen in a more recent parallel structure called Firerush.

Blair's spokesman told us: "This has been done on the basis of legal and accountancy advice throughout." He called the structures "simply an administrative vehicle established in order to allow Mr Blair's office sensibly to administer his different projects".

'Whoever is going to the Red Pepper site, please take Sane with you. '

I think you've missed the point if you think that people are being asked
to move 'to the Red Pepper site' - however you try to use this phrase to respond to unrelated posts that you find offensive.

Really nice to see the debate again brought to levels of Sane's intellegence.
Whoever is going to the Red Pepper site, please take Sane with you.

Sane

Why ?

S. I see that I merely got a 'tap'!!

Still hope that you can conserve your undoubted talent for more positive
matters as well, like my suggestion on the other thread.

Roger, I agree with your point about the NHS Trusts and Co-operation. The entirely bogus link was made by Labour neo-liberals to get them over an immediate problem and to help legitimise a specifically Tory policy. In fact, ‘new labour’ has never had any commitment of substance to Co-operatives; merely to appropriating the name, what it means to some Labour members and voters and co-operative history with its strong links with the labour movement.

Words are vitally important. As important as the meaning and interests, (even if not immediately obvious,) to which they are attached. In this contest the material attachment that matters is not really Co-operatives and Mutualism at all. Rather it is Not for Profit Companies. This is the model to which ‘new labour’ is committed.

The NPC is what Housing Associations have been turned into. It is what the most developed NHS Trusts are to become. The NPC model is being used to ‘deliver’ as many of the ‘services’ and functions as possible which were once the responsibility of the state and local Gvt. With the dominant consensus firmly to the Right; the middle ground similarly repositioned supporters of it like Will Hutton and Steve Richards emerge as purveyors of the new ‘commonsense’ approach to politics and society which appears to have none of the baggage associated with their associates in the political parties.

Thus the underlying assumptions of the Richards piece. Thus his enthusiasm of the liberal bourgeoisie for the current NPC model of railways ownership and his commitment to the kind of localist approach which will be developed in the service of the banks in particular and capital accumulation generally in response to the economic crisis, however the next Gvt is configured. It is not about extending social ownership and democratic control. It is probably about the market driven marketing confection that is ‘involvement’ and its close cousin, ‘accountability.’ It is most certainly about the new corporatist model of both neutralising challenges to the market and expanding the role of the market with a new stratum of allies, the Stakeholders, playing an important part in the myriad of NPCs and through them wider society.

All an NPC does is not distribute part of its surpluses as profit. It does not preclude private sector earnings for its own executive elite. Since the intention is to keep public subsidy to a minimum, NPCs are under acute pressure to accumulate higher surpluses; to keep labour ‘efficient’ and earnings down. In this way, NPCs from the NHS to the privatised sports centre or social services Dept become a Swiss cheese of private sector provision in themselves; and important actors in their own as yet underdeveloped sectors of the market.

When Labour neo-liberals like T Jowell and others talk of ‘Mutualism,’ this is what they mean. They mean ‘new Mutualism:’ the NPC model inherent in new Corporatism and not the social, economic and political mutualism of social democracy.

Roger-Dodging:
"http:
//www.
labourlist.org/mutualism-next-stage-new-labour-tessa-jowell-interview"

Good heavens, Roge, you've won me. Just what I needed to convince me.. another Blue Labour Blow-Hard spouting their ill-considered and shallow nonsense at me.

let's make fekkin Tesco mutual.. E-On, British Airways, Virgin, Barclays Bank, etc, etc

All these middle class, middle-aged arses who feel their own progressive efforts failing and so decide for all of us to suddenly change the game.

Get with this you waste of space no hopers - Blair already tried changing the game... it helped not one squit.

The problems in the NHS, such as they are, as also for the rest of the public sector, are to do with trying to force a commercial reality, that does not belong to them, onto them. The NHS has suffered PFI, management consultants, Big Pharma, ludicrous IT programs, weak-kneed contract settlements with doctors, weak public side contracting with the commercial sector.. yet, your bogus mutualism pretends like none of this happened.

We already have Foundation Trusts which are supposed to link staff, patients and the local community in the running of hospitals. But we never reached that bright sunny horizon, either, did we?

Still the under-resourced in common sense try to push the idea that the public service model has failed. I think they just like the erections they get from having their "clever, little nonsense" published.

Is Roger (East Sussex) a prick?

Does that waste of space moron really think that Blue Labour's plans for mutualism are about improving the lives and experiences of the many?

Posho arses are already mutualized in all their fekking charities they run. This is not the problem.

Try fekking mutualisin' Tottenham or Toxteth. At some point, the greater power of the state has to be about protecting the weakest. Kensington should not be allowed to forget Toxteth.

What an absolute penis, Roger (East Sussex), you are.

Now, Jon, that was the outright abuse you thought you were getting.

Dugsie,

'I get that you and Frances were being 'satirical' but forgive me for not seeing the joke in your initial response which was completely irrelevant.

Tesco are not and have never been a mutual organisation and whatever weird perversion of the mutual concept Jowell actually has in mind for the NHS I doubt that clubcards and petrol discounts feature in it.'

Roger

I never suggested that Tesco have ever been a mutual organisation. That's the point. Nor was I attempting to make a joke.

Tessa Jowell also gave a long interview on mutualism to labourlist:

http:
//www.
labourlist.org/mutualism-next-stage-new-labour-tessa-jowell-interview

While I am inclined to dismiss anything that emanates from Jowell on principle this does look rather more substantial than I expected.

The involvement of Will Hutton is also probably a positive.

Steve Richards: The politics of ownership could define the next decade

The government realises that the issue cannot be busked forever

The Independent Thursday, 17 December 2009

Tax! Spend! Tax and Spend! Don't Tax and Spend! These are the exhortations that dominate pre-election debates. They are wholly artificial and have little connection with how a newly elected government will proceed to tax and spend. Yet the theme overwhelms all others. Expect charts galore over the next few months showing a cut here, or a rise there, depending on which party is elected.

While every dot and comma is analysed in relation to "tax and spend" another more important theme is virtually ignored before elections and afterwards. Since the late 1980s policies relating to ownership have hardly featured in public debates between parties or within them.

This is odd given how much more than "tax and spend" they shape people's lives and come to define governments, albeit retrospectively. Thatcherism came to be about ownership much more than anything else, with the sale of council homes and the privatisations. The 1945 Labour government is remembered above all by its hyper activity in the opposite direction, most vividly symbolised by the creation of the NHS.

New Labour did not give much thought to ownership because it did not dare to do so, fearing internal rows in which the role of the state might be discussed. The Blair/Brown duopoly preferred silence to any discussion in which the word "state" might be uttered. Shelves creak with speeches delivered by the two of them from the mid-1990s about tax and spend, relations with the City, constitutional reform, crime and Europe. There is nothing on ownership.

As a result the Government had no compass, no sense of where it was going or where it wanted to go, when dealing with the most fundamental issue in politics. The evasion was calamitous in ways that are still greatly underestimated. Brown gave the go-ahead for the catastrophic public private partnership for the London Underground, a costly arrangement that collapsed as many warned it would.

Blair declared at his first cabinet meeting in 1997 that the Government would not change the privatised structure of the railways. A few train disasters later he was taken aback at a meeting with Railtrack when the company's executives told him they were accountable to shareholders and not the Government and would not do what he asked of them.

Confusion turned to nightmarish chaos during Labour's second term after Brown had announced tax rises to pay for the NHS. Blair made "choice" his great mantra and sought to bring in the private sector, partly as a form of competition for the NHS. Some of the subsequent deals cost the taxpayer a fortune without bringing about much improvement. Brown opposed some of them on grounds of practicality and efficiency. Blair argued a range of providers would lead to more efficiency.

They were busking it. The issue of ownership had been locked away and unexamined. The lack of clarity and resolution of awkward internal questions led to paralysis.

Belatedly the Government is beginning to stir, recognising that the politics of ownership cannot be busked forever. This week the Cabinet Office minister, Tessa Jowell, made an important speech in which she raised the possibility of co-operatives and so-called mutuals providing a model for ownership, more John Lewis and less EasyJet, more based on users and employees having a say in the running of organisations and benefiting from the rewards that arise from them.

A report from the independent Innovation Unit for the Cabinet Office points to the urgency of the situation by arguing that public services have become almost as "demutualised" as the banks that lost a fortune in the credit crisis, with both users and staff detached from decisions about how a service is delivered.

The report points out the possible benefits of a co-operative approach to ownership based on research here and in other countries. The benefits include much greater staff satisfaction and less turnover, users moving on from becoming passive "disappointed customers" to active involvement in bringing about improvements, greater innovation and higher productivity. The authors cite models from health co-operatives in Japan to social care in Sweden.

In her speech Jowell sees immediate benefits in areas such as social care, Sure Start and housing. In some of the bigger more contentious policy areas there will soon be 200 co-operative trust schools and there is some evidence of greater patient involvement already in the NHS foundation trusts.

The context of Labour's more active interest as it prepares its election manifesto is both economic and political. The credit crunch has reinforced a sense of powerlessness amongst voters and highlighted the terrible consequences of demutualising building societies in the private sector. Bleak economic prospects also mean that there will be less cash to invest in public services. New ways are needed to get the best out of them.

The politics are more interesting. David Cameron's most senior adviser, Steve Hilton, has also shown an enthusiasm for co-operatives and is known to challenge the idea that they are a left-of-centre concept. The so-called "red Tory", Philip Blond, is quoted twice in the Innovation Unit's report, in which he extols the virtues of co-operatives. Not for the first time Cameron has alerted Labour to an agenda it should have more fully occupied years ago.

The internal politics are also significant. It is difficult to overestimate the intensity of the divide in Labour over ownership as previously identified in the final Blair years. The debate was simplistic, arid and yet tore the Government apart: public versus private, markets versus state. The new focus brings together previously conflicting ideas on the rights of users to choose and the need for services to function as part of a community.

Michael Stephenson, the General Secretary of the Co-operative party is dismissive of the Conservatives' attempts at emulation, pointing out that Cameron made a speech two years ago setting up the Conservatives' co-operative movement and it still does not contain a single member. Cameron got a headline and seems to have moved on. Stephenson stresses that co-operatives are essentially collective whereas the Tories' instinct is to focus on the individual.

I asked him how Michael Gove's vision, where parents will be allowed to set up their own schools in ways that have attracted parts of the centre left, compared with the co-operative alternative. Stephenson argues that Gove's model takes a few schools out of the system entirely. The co-operative alternative means that parents, staff and the local community are directly involved. The schools will also be part of a wider co-operative organisation too and not functioning in self-interested isolation. He wants the model to go further and apply to the BBC and rail companies, where passive viewers and travellers fume impotently at the moment.

There are inevitable problems. The bigger the scale, the more complicated and multi-layered the structures become. Wider involvement is not guaranteed. In some parts of the country it is impossible to get mothers or fathers to attend a parents' evening at a school. New levels of ownership cannot be an alternative to decent levels of investment as some on the right will hope. The Government's embryonic embrace might be killed off by the scepticism of some unions that still pull too many strings in the Labour party.

But ownership, this time in the form of much wider user and employee involvement, is back as a defining theme. I predict it will play as big a part in shaping the next decade as privatisation did in the 1980s.

Dugsie,

I get that you and Frances were being 'satirical' but forgive me for not seeing the joke in your initial response which was completely irrelevant.

Tesco are not and have never been a mutual organisation and whatever weird perversion of the mutual concept Jowell actually has in mind for the NHS I doubt that clubcards and petrol discounts feature in it.

So if there is a joke there I am afraid I still can't see it.

And BTW I may live in Sussex amongst graveyards full of your ancestors but that doesn't mean I can afford to shop in Waitrose - for VFM reasons I use Lidl (yep we have both a Lidl and a Waitrose) - gritty enough for you?

Paul - this is precisely the sort of discussion we should be having.

You are right to be suspicious of New Labour's new found enthusiasm for mutualism and I was also struck by how New Labour the so-called Co-Operative Party's parliamentary group (not that it really deserves such a designation).

However in practical terms it does provide us with a wider political opening to argue for real as opposed to cosmetic social ownership and workers control.

It could also make a very real difference to the lives of the hundreds of thousands who work and bank with Northern Rock and RBS if we could transform these into mutuals rather than sell them off to the highest bidder.

On the NHS I don't think anyone ever took seriously the notion that foundation trusts were cooperatives and I've never actually seen that language used in the NHS itself.

Roger, we who live so very far from Sussex cannot afford the luxury of shopping in Waitrose, never mind sneering at them. Let me tell you something about the Co-op. My nearest grocery was Somerfields. Not brilliant, but good enough and for me easily accessible. The staff helpful and friendly. To judge by the low turnover of staff, there was a degree of job security. The new Co-op Group purchased some Somerfields branches. For the first time ever, I had the chance of shopping where for political and ethical reasons, I have wanted to for years. Alas the Co-op sold the site to Lidl. The range of groceries is so narrow, you really would have to see it to believe it. A friend who works for Northern Foods has explained the economics of Lidl and its purchasing policies;- which I won’t go into for now. There is fewer staff, mostly on part-time contracts. Only two of the former Somerfields staff work for Lidl.

Whereas, I could have done the great bulk of my grocery and related shopping in Somerfields; could have done the same at the Co-op, the same is not possible at Lidl. That is not only inconvenient, but it has robbed me of a degree of physical independence and autonomy.

Special pleading to a point perhaps. But I mention all of this also to illustrate my personal commitment to Mutualism. As you say, Mutualism is a key progressive idea. Since you mention Owen, it may be of interests that a new town, (Owenstown,) is planned for Lanarkshire. Not without controversy, the town is to be run on Mutual and Co-operative principles.

It is at least arguable that Mutualism was a founding strand in what became social democracy. To that extent it is of the Left; is indeed progressive. But the Right have always realised that Mutualism need not be social democratic and can be of use to them. Leeds once had one of the biggest and widest ranging Co-operative societies in Great Britain. In the 1930s the Tories, (urged on by their shop-keeper support,) became a major force in the Society and remained de-facto stronger than the Co-operative Party for most the next 70 years until the LCS expired as a shadow of its former self.

Labour neo-liberals, ‘new labour,’ if that is more congenial a designation, realised that Mutualism need not be progressive and could actually be used to undermine social democracy and to assist the expansion of the market into the public sector. ‘new labour’ take the Humpty Dumpty inspired view that something is Mutual because they say that it is. For example Hospital Trusts were simply declared to be Co-operative bodies by the Gvt. The first the Co-operative Party NEC knew of the purported Co-operative status this continuation of was Tory policy, was as a radio news item.

Small wonder that the Co-operative Party espouses what it calls ‘new mutualism.’ Small wonder as well, that Labour and Co-op MPs are almost wholly ‘new Labour,’ and that some of them are very influential. One such is of course Ed Balls, up the political backside of whom Neal Lawson lodged for years.

Roger

You have a highly developed talent for misinterpreting what people are saying.

I don't need to 'imagine' Sussex. I come from not very far away myself. I have family there. The cemeteries are full of my ancesters. I know it well. I have also lived in quite a few other places, so I am able to make comparisons.

I support mutualism. I am a long-standing member of the Co-operative Movement. Frances and I were being satirical, even if you didn't get it.

What Jon has proposed is something very different from this forum. Why haven't you understood that ?

Dugsie,

Why do you assume that I live in somewhere 'not gritty' - do you really imagine Sussex is entirely populated by Tory stockbrokers sipping Pimms on well-manicured lawns?

My problem is with automatic knee-jerk negativism masquerading as humour.

Somebody who (however bizarrely it may seem) is a significant political figure comes out with an argument for extending mutualism.

Even in the rather etiolated market-friendly form of John Lewis, the Co-Op or a Building Society mutualism can make a real difference to the lives of ordinary workers and consumers.

More importantly it raises fundamental issues about ownership and control of businesses that have been largely buried by the managerialist and market consensus for thirty years.

Now we can speculate about why Jowell and Progress have jumped on this particular bandwagon right now but nevertheless it does represent a significant opening for debate.

But your kneejerk response is to make a completely irrelevant comment about Tesco clubcards (do you really think Tesco is a mutual?) and then justify it as a joke.

This is precisely why on the other thread I am arguing that forums like this are not meaningful political activity but a substitute for it.

In fact I've wasted two and a half hours on this one today and can't see how anyone has benefited from it - so that is it from me...

It really depends on how you read it Roger. Its about neoliberalism, corporatism and the politics of New Labour. Frances and I have worked with carers, of which I am one myself, and claimants for some years.It's not about dissing mutualism.

If you lived in a more gritty place you might have a more gritty sense of humour. It's you who are being superior.

Comments threads like this one really do make me wonder why Compass wastes its money on having open forums at all.

Mutualism is a key progressive idea that has been around since Owen and Proudhon, that has produced real though limited benefits for generations of workers and consumers and that deserves serious discussion.

Instead all we get are superior sneers about club cards and Waitrose.

John Lewis was mentioned (department store to the MPs) so it will be Waitrose not Tesco unless of course it is two tier.

The NHS is going to become like that well known mutual organisation Tesco. Everybody will get a club card and be awarded ponts, which they can then use to buy their petrol a little cheaper. It is all part of the corporate bureaucratic process, in which capitalism incorporates socialism, thereby avoiding disputes and general unpleasantness.

Apparently the NHS is going to be like John Lewis.

Have you all seen this ? You wouldn't want to miss it. Would you ?


In the latest in Progress' autumn lecture series, Tessa Jowell delivered a major speech on the role of mutualism as a model for public services - a full copy of her speech is available on the Progress website.

Also on ProgressOnline today, from the December issue of the magazine the Progress editorial argues that 'giving public sector staff and users a greater stake in the running of their services could form a central plank of Labour's manifesto'

Meanwhile on The Progressive, Jessica Asato argues that Labour are at last developing its dividing lines on public service reform and Jacob Lister provides an event report from Ms Jowell's speech.

"Gordon Brown today told Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister, that he was "completely opposed" to the warrant issued by a British court for her arrest for war crimes and pledged to work to change the law that allowed it."

Well, if it's a 'pledge' by Brown then it's worth next to nothing by past experience. Don't hold your breath Tzipi!

And anyway, if she is innocent of all charges and has a clear conscience then what is the problem in standing up in court and presenting your case? Unless of course you think that you might lose.....

British Government pro-Israeli stance is tantamount to British occupation of the West Bank and subjugation of Gaza. It is shaming.

Is it international law the British Government would seek to change in order to stop these "embarrassing" actions made against foreign despots?

Shame on Brown and on Miliband. How craven, how ignorant, how pointless, how low. Maybe they're afraid of losing East Finchley.

Gordon Brown reassures Israel over Tzipi Livni arrest warrant
Prime minister 'completely opposed' to arrest warrant issued by British court over former Israeli minister's role in Gaza war

Ian Black, Middle East editor guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 December 2009

Gordon Brown today told Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister, that he was "completely opposed" to the warrant issued by a British court for her arrest for war crimes and pledged to work to change the law that allowed it.

Brown's comments, quoted in a statement issued by Livni's office, followed a diplomatic row over the warrant issued in relation to her role in the war in Gaza earlier this year.

The prime minister's remarks, made in a telephone conversation with Livni and reported on Israeli news websites, followed a statement by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, that the government was "looking urgently" at ways to change the UK legal system. Miliband reportedly rang his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, to apologise for the episode.

One day, power won't be able to protect its own and tidy up after itself.

Do you see Media Lens ?


MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

December 16, 2009

MEDIA ALERT: CHILCOT INQUIRY - THE ESTABLISHMENT GOES TO WORK - PART 1

42 The Calls? Or something else in the "posh area"?

aah delicicious. But I had in mind the hotel in city square… I still can’t remember what it is called.

Lee, you mention Vince Cable. He of course is the one publically reputable person any political party would bring to a coalition. And of course from the Tory no less than the ‘new labour’ perspective, he has the advantage of NOT being of the Left.

OK Paul...I will buy you dinner in Manchester if Brown is still Labour leader on Dec 1 2013.

I wonder whether Cameron is going to announce a "cabinet of all the talents" and what impact it will have. Mandelson has already said he will join a Tory administration although not as a cabinet minister (a bit rich, wouldnt you think). I wonder how many other Blairites will jump. His biggest catch would, of course, be Vince Cable, but I dont think Cameron has a snowball's chance of that.

42 The Calls? Or something else in the "posh area"?

Lee, I must say that the prospect of visiting Skye makes the idea of seeing Brown in place beyond 2013 positively appealing. Leeds does not really have a ‘grand’ hotel any more. The one, which once was grand, has gone to seed. – So much so that I cannot even remember its name.

I do seriously think he will go not later than the end of 2013.

I couldn't think of doing anthing better at Christmas than listen to individuals who actually believe they have the right ideas for a modern Britain. As many of those attending I would assume are atheists they use the Christmas feel good factor to seek and ratify approval of policies that are neither popular with the people or the majority in the Labour Party.

The state and nothing but the state.

You really need to seriously consider getting a life.

frances
on 15 December 2009, 8:31:47 PM
'convene a meeting of the in-group (Madelson, Johnson, Miliband, Harman, Burnham, Straw, Darling'

Lee - that was quite plausible until you named them. If that is the in-group what have we come to
****************************************************************
Frances: that is my best judgment. Who else would constitute the in-group ? David will trump Ed. Balls would be left out of the first round for obvious reasons. Mandie would let others in if they agreed to support the "send Brown home" decision. I cant think of anyone of any consequence that I have left out.

So, yes, I am afraid that that is what we have come to.

'convene a meeting of the in-group (Madelson, Johnson, Miliband, Harman, Burnham, Straw, Darling'

Lee - that was quite plausible until you named them. If that is the in-group what have we come to?

I agree Mandelson is powerful but the backing vocals are a joke. And Miliband is plural.

Brown has Copenhagen to fix this week, then in January Brown is hosting 68 world leaders to read the riot act to Khazi, he's just saved the world banking system - the gulf between his super powers and reality is now so wide he can't stop pedalling. March election called in February where he promises the debts will never come home to roost and people decide they might aswell take a punt because we are damned any way and the Tories are selling too much reality. It's like an addict on his final binge. And the cronies and the nation staggering along on the bender because no one wants to face sobering up.


Judging by the Compass comment above on the latest poll it's going to be - election-coming-are-you-loyally-supporting-Labour time again. Compass seem to be telling us that Brown has done enough for us to come on board. I'm holding out for respect and common sense for very sick people. It won't even cost anything. But it's a deal breaker for me.

I just love it! The debate, but just the thought of Brown and Nu labour having another mandate to wreck the country is too much to bear. I still say that labour will be thrashed at the election, they are despised up and don the country for giving us the worst of all worlds. The Right still refer to them as socialists while the Left of course know all to well the colours of neo-liberalism. So they please nobody, heaven only knows why the unions continue to bail them out when they have been let down time and again. Let alone the legacy of plain stupidity such as the insistence of pursuing the PPP to revamp the London transport network. Been down the Northren Line lately anybody? It is not pretty and we had to bail out these shysters to the tune of many billions (not millions) and it is still in a mess!

(Please note, I have turned on my spelling chequer on my pea sea).

Frances and Paul: You seem to belive that Brown has the power to decide. I believe that without Mandelson's permission, Brown has no power to stay. Mandelson can, at a snap of a finger, convene a meeting of the in-group (Madelson, Johnson, Miliband, Harman, Burnham, Straw,Darling....the meeting will be held first without Cooper and Balls who will be told the outcome and offered appropriate inducements), and if they decide Brown has to go, all Mandelson will have to do is to whisper in Brown's ear that if he goes without a struggle, they will allow him to claim it was his decision and give him a respectable exit (but no promises about how they will use Brown later to cover Newlabour's collective bum). Brown will be off like a shot.

Paul - you seem to be saying the opposite of what I am saying but in a way they are the same thing.

Brown is deeply driven. I don't believe he is driven by money or fame - I think he thinks he invented the economic theory behind NewLabour and thinks it lives or dies with him. So he has to survive so his child survives. Which is why he will not quit.

The scenario you paint is believable and appalling. If Brown is defeated and humiliated then NewLabour may go with him. But if the electorate give him another term then they are saying - we like this - it's here forever. Just keep the magic fairy dust coming.

They may just do that. This election will be fought with storm clouds thickening. The electorate don't want to believe how bad it will be. They may just vote for a delusion under NewLabour that debts won't come home to roost. Thye may just be looking for illusion at this election and NewLabour are certainly the party to give them that.

Paul: will mean that he will go at the end of 2013
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Paul, here in front of witnesses, I promise to buy you dinner at Leeds equivalent of the Savoy, if Brown is still head of the Labour Party by December 1st 2013. In return, you will buy me dinner at the Highlands equivalent of the Savoy (Three Chimneys in Glendale, Isle of Skye) if Brown has left the leadership of the Labour Party by December 1 2010.

I agree with Frances that Brown is not going to go before the election. But this staying put has little or nothing to do with his personal dignity. Indeed, to view his staying or going in such terms almost falls into the ‘new labour’ psycho-cant which characterised the approach Compass took to analysing Brown’s political position some while ago.

That said, I would seriously doubt that he would serve a full Parliament, assuming Labour forms a majority Gvt next year. He will be 59 in February. His family is young. He has interests outside of Parliament. The Right have tried to replace him twice, possibly three times since he became PM. If he is able to form a Gvt next May, I would bet that his loyalty to the Labour Right will mean that he will go at the end of 2013, having ensured that the leadership passes relatively smoothly to anyone of the ungrateful neo-liberal wretches who want to see the back of him.

I have no time for Brown. But he has always suffered from the ambition and propaganda of his friends and allies and some others close to the political and media elite. Intermittently over the last 4/5 years the myth that John Major represented a break with Thatcherism and that this won him the 1992 has hardened into an arthritic orthodoxy. It has been used for years to suggest that Brown should do the same thing in relation to Blair; and then against him to bemoan the fact that no such break occurred.

Major of course was not a break with Thatcherism: but he was not the deeply unpopular Thatcher. Brown was never going to significantly change the neo-liberal direction of his Gvt, anymore than the arch privatiser and champion of an expansion of the PFI/PP, Major did. The ‘new labour’ coalition will hope that if Brown wins and then departs in 2013, their own ‘John Major,’ can win them the 2014/2015 general election.

Thank you, Frances, for the correction. There is always a possibility of Mandelson deciding to return Brown to the manse before the election