JARED COHEN is an interesting young man.
When Condoleezza Rice, then US secretary of state, appointed him to the state department, he was just 24, the youngest ever member of the policy planning staff.
He was fresh out of Oxford University, where he’d taken a masters degree in international relations. He already had one published book under his belt – on the 1994 Rwandan genocide – and had another well under way.
This second book, Children of Jihad, was subtitled “A Young American’s Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East”. It was those travels and his thoughts about them that made him so important to Rice.
Almost more remarkable, when the presidency changed hands and Hillary Clinton took over Rice’s old office, she chose to keep Cohen on. Not too many people work as senior policy advisers to both Republican and Democrat administrations – let alone while still in their 20s.
It is surely Clinton’s loss, and maybe America’s, that after four and a half years in Washington’s corridors of power Cohen has now chosen to go work for Google instead.
It’s no surprise Google should want him, though. Because his real area of expertise is not just Middle-East relations, but the internet.
In particular its power to reach out to people, to bring them together, to change lives. In that, he has not only knowledge but zeal.
It was he who took a party of Silicon Valley bigwigs, including some Google engineers and the founder of Twitter, to a meeting with the president and vice-president of Iraq in Baghdad.
It was he who called Facebook “one of the most organic tools for democracy promotion”.
He who believed American technology could be a powerful diplomatic tool around the world.
At a video-linked press conference during that Baghdad trip, he told reporters in Washington: “The platforms that all of these guys here are pushing out from the tech industry are riddled with American values of critical thinking, free flow of information, freedom of choice, freedom of assembly.”
No wonder both GW Bush and Barack Obama thought this flag-waving geek was one of the good guys.
When you consider the huge role the internet played in Obama’s election, the close tie-up between the net and democracy looks pretty clear.
But hang on. What was that about “critical thinking” and “free flow of information”?
Obama might have espoused those values when he was in opposition, but now he’s president it’s a different matter.
He’s incensed about the free flow of information from Wikileaks, which this week posted just the first few hundred of a promised 250,000 formerly secret diplomatic messages.
A White House statement described the release as “reckless and dangerous” and added: “We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.”
Among other things, Wikileaks got up Obama’s nose by revealing that he considers David Cameron “a lightweight”. (You were right about one thing, anyway, Mr President.)
Meanwhile, Clinton described Wikileaks’ latest disclosures as an “attack on the US and the international community”.
So net freedom’s a good thing, then, when it’s spreading “American values” among the youth of Iraq. Or when Twitter is helping dissidents organise protest rallies in Iran.
But when it’s American secrets being revealed, that’s another matter, apparently.
Freedom of information is an essential component of democracy. Until you’re in power.
Jared Cohen’s no fool. Maybe his decision to quit government work is about more than money.
****
SO Prince Andrew is rude, indiscreet, foul-mouthed, jingoistic and not exactly left-of-centre politically. Glad we had Wikileaks to reveal that to us.
In an era that until now has not been a great one for investigative journalism, Wikileaks promises to become a goldmine resource for the world’s press – and a right pain in the posterior for its politicians. Which can only be a good thing.
Trouble is, there’s far too much material coming out for anyone to make sense of it all. Which leaves the traditional media to filter it – not always good news.
What, among this week’s deluge of diplomatic memos, have we heard most about?
Not the Americans’ real opinion of Vladimir Putin’s Russia (“a deeply corrupt state dominated by its security forces”).
Not US diplomats’ description of Afghan president Hamid Karzai as “an extremely weak man who does not listen to facts”.
Not the inside stories about Guantanamo Bay, Al-Qaeda or Pakistani uranium.
Not even the suggestion that Iran has acquired “sophisticated missiles” from North Korea with which it is capable of hitting western Europe.
By common, almost unanimous, consent the news editors of this little island think what will interest us most is the Duke of York’s ability to open his mouth and insert his foot.
The sad thing is, they’re probably right.
Which just shows how pathetically we remain in thrall to the soap opera of the dysfunctional family we call royal.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
The class of 2010 – yours for just £29,310 a year
“COMMONER? I bet she’s not half as common as the bird my son’s marrying.”
That overheard comment is the funniest I’ve met yet on a certain up-coming event. And it could almost go down as the definitive comment on this curious year.
2010, the year of class. The year the toffs took over the country again.
The state-funded grammar school, and more than that the comprehensive school, were supposed to end class in this country.
It doesn’t seem so long since the question, “Is the British class system dead?” seemed one worth considering. Maybe not one to ponder long or hard, but at least a question worth giving a little thought.
Forty years ago, when one grammar-school boy (Ted Heath) displaced another (Harold Wilson) as prime minister, we might have assumed that by 2010 the class system would be history.
Yet here we are, with the poshest (and richest) PM since Alec Douglas-Home in 1963-64 and an only slightly less posh (and possibly richer) deputy.
And about to "celebrate" what has preposterously been dubbed the “people’s wedding”.
Which people are marrying? Not your people or my people, that’s for sure.
This week’s announcement of the date and venue did sadly end the hope that the commoner bride would get a proper commoner’s wedding. A 15-minute ceremony at Slough Register Office followed by a bit of a do at the rugby club.
It would probably have been a good do, too, since the bride’s parents run a party planning business.
More fun, I dare say, than a televised national event squandering millions of the cash “the people” don’t have.
And it would surely have been more within Carole and Michael Middleton’s budget.
Not that they will be expected to foot the bill for the abbey extravaganza. That, indirectly, will be up to you and me.
And not that they are exactly hard up. The national paper that told this week [this column appeared in the Evening Star on Friday, November 26] of their “modest, middle-class background” has a generous definition of “modest”.
I do know some fairly modest families who stretch themselves financially to put their children into private education. I have never understood why they bother, especially as we are lucky enough to have some excellent comprehensives round here.
But I don’t think anyone I know spends £29,310 a year on school fees.
That’s the current base price – before things like uniform, books, music lessons and pocket-money are considered – of sending a child to Marlborough College.
Party Pieces must do a brisk trade.
But if class is your thing, Marlborough is obviously the place to send your daughters (Carole and Michael sent two).
Apart from Kate and Pippa Middleton, other former pupils include:
• Samantha Cameron, prime minister’s wife
• Frances Osborne, chancellor’s wife
• Sally Bercow, wife of the House of Commons speaker
• Antonia Robinson, royal wedding-dress designer
• Emily Sheffield, sister of Samantha Cameron and deputy editor of posh mag Vogue
• oh, and someone called Princess Eugenie.
Not bad for a school that didn’t even let girls in until 1968. It obviously instils a self-confidence in its pupils that can stand up to the attentions of a prince or an ambitious Etonian.
The Middletons may not have old aristocracy in their family tree. But they do have money.
Which may not buy love or happiness – but it can buy you a posh schooling and posh friends.
It can buy power. And that, ultimately, is what “class” is all about.
****
THERE was much to applaud in the White Paper for education unveiled by Michael Gove this week.
Compulsory foreign-language teaching up to age 16. About time. Our inability to speak other languages has always been shameful, and has been getting steadily worse.
Anonymity for teachers being investigated for “inappropriate behaviour” – about time too. One malicious false accusation should not be allowed to wreck a person’s reputation and career.
How good it will be to have “experts” brought in to review the curriculum depends on who the experts are. Teachers, I suppose, don’t count as experts themselves…
School league tables will be “shaken up”. OK, but scrapping them altogether would have been better.
Targets introduced for primary schools. Oh dear. As if the whole of education wasn’t already overrun with tick-boxes.
Former troops offered sponsorship to train as teachers. You what? I’m all in favour of teachers having some experience of life outside the classroom, but why military experience in particular?
The effect on class discipline might, I suppose, be interesting.
Anything good in the coalition’s policy, though, was overshadowed by the revelation, on the same day, of Ofsted’s overall conclusion about our schools.
And that is that the so-called academies – those quasi-independent schools the government is putting all its weight behind – aren’t better on average than other state schools.
They’re worse.
That overheard comment is the funniest I’ve met yet on a certain up-coming event. And it could almost go down as the definitive comment on this curious year.
2010, the year of class. The year the toffs took over the country again.
The state-funded grammar school, and more than that the comprehensive school, were supposed to end class in this country.
It doesn’t seem so long since the question, “Is the British class system dead?” seemed one worth considering. Maybe not one to ponder long or hard, but at least a question worth giving a little thought.
Forty years ago, when one grammar-school boy (Ted Heath) displaced another (Harold Wilson) as prime minister, we might have assumed that by 2010 the class system would be history.
Yet here we are, with the poshest (and richest) PM since Alec Douglas-Home in 1963-64 and an only slightly less posh (and possibly richer) deputy.
And about to "celebrate" what has preposterously been dubbed the “people’s wedding”.
Which people are marrying? Not your people or my people, that’s for sure.
This week’s announcement of the date and venue did sadly end the hope that the commoner bride would get a proper commoner’s wedding. A 15-minute ceremony at Slough Register Office followed by a bit of a do at the rugby club.
It would probably have been a good do, too, since the bride’s parents run a party planning business.
More fun, I dare say, than a televised national event squandering millions of the cash “the people” don’t have.
And it would surely have been more within Carole and Michael Middleton’s budget.
Not that they will be expected to foot the bill for the abbey extravaganza. That, indirectly, will be up to you and me.
And not that they are exactly hard up. The national paper that told this week [this column appeared in the Evening Star on Friday, November 26] of their “modest, middle-class background” has a generous definition of “modest”.
I do know some fairly modest families who stretch themselves financially to put their children into private education. I have never understood why they bother, especially as we are lucky enough to have some excellent comprehensives round here.
But I don’t think anyone I know spends £29,310 a year on school fees.
That’s the current base price – before things like uniform, books, music lessons and pocket-money are considered – of sending a child to Marlborough College.
Party Pieces must do a brisk trade.
But if class is your thing, Marlborough is obviously the place to send your daughters (Carole and Michael sent two).
Apart from Kate and Pippa Middleton, other former pupils include:
• Samantha Cameron, prime minister’s wife
• Frances Osborne, chancellor’s wife
• Sally Bercow, wife of the House of Commons speaker
• Antonia Robinson, royal wedding-dress designer
• Emily Sheffield, sister of Samantha Cameron and deputy editor of posh mag Vogue
• oh, and someone called Princess Eugenie.
Not bad for a school that didn’t even let girls in until 1968. It obviously instils a self-confidence in its pupils that can stand up to the attentions of a prince or an ambitious Etonian.
The Middletons may not have old aristocracy in their family tree. But they do have money.
Which may not buy love or happiness – but it can buy you a posh schooling and posh friends.
It can buy power. And that, ultimately, is what “class” is all about.
****
THERE was much to applaud in the White Paper for education unveiled by Michael Gove this week.
Compulsory foreign-language teaching up to age 16. About time. Our inability to speak other languages has always been shameful, and has been getting steadily worse.
Anonymity for teachers being investigated for “inappropriate behaviour” – about time too. One malicious false accusation should not be allowed to wreck a person’s reputation and career.
How good it will be to have “experts” brought in to review the curriculum depends on who the experts are. Teachers, I suppose, don’t count as experts themselves…
School league tables will be “shaken up”. OK, but scrapping them altogether would have been better.
Targets introduced for primary schools. Oh dear. As if the whole of education wasn’t already overrun with tick-boxes.
Former troops offered sponsorship to train as teachers. You what? I’m all in favour of teachers having some experience of life outside the classroom, but why military experience in particular?
The effect on class discipline might, I suppose, be interesting.
Anything good in the coalition’s policy, though, was overshadowed by the revelation, on the same day, of Ofsted’s overall conclusion about our schools.
And that is that the so-called academies – those quasi-independent schools the government is putting all its weight behind – aren’t better on average than other state schools.
They’re worse.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Why BT musn't get away with their new town plans
BT wants to build 2,000 homes, a health centre, a hotel, a park, a community centre, shops, a café, a pub and two new schools on their land at Martlesham Heath. In other words, a town.
The campaign group No Adastral New Town has done a good job of raising local awareness. I hope they are equally successful when it comes to persuading Suffolk Coastal planners and councillors, and the inevitable public inquiry, not to let BT’s dream become our nightmare.
BT’s purpose, of course, is simply to make money. NANT’s purpose is to prevent them spoiling a bit of still-rural Suffolk for those of us who already live here.
I certainly don’t want the extra bustle, and the extra traffic, that would be caused by having a new town dumped in my back yard.
But my objection isn’t mere nimbyism. And it’s not just about keeping Suffolk special – though of course that’s part of it.
I object in principle to the whole policy of concreting over the countryside.
Of obliterating fields, woods and farmland with yet more soulless new buildings and pollutant roads.
Under the headline “We are murdering our countryside”, the outstanding journalist Trevor Philpott wrote: “After the war we thought our planners would save our countryside. But the bulldozers move over the farmland as relentlessly as ever. The new ‘estates’ spread, like a rash, over the meadows…”
If that was true in July 1954, when that Picture Post article appeared, how much truer is it now after 56 years more pillage?
In 1954 there was at least an excuse.
There was a need still for new homes to replace old ones flattened by Hitler’s bombs.
There was still a need, too, for people to be moved out of decaying Victorian slums and into better housing. Post-war council housing, on the whole, did a pretty good job of that.
But somewhere along the way politicians (and, of course, builders) got addicted to the idea that it is always necessary to keep building more and more houses.
According to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, about 21 square miles of English countryside is lost every year to concrete and asphalt.
Since 1954 England’s population has risen by 19 per cent. The loss of land to development has been much greater than that.
Those who want to cash in talk, as they always will, about the “need” for new homes. But what need?
A few questions need to be answered urgently while we still have enough farmland to feed ourselves.
Why must be build new homes when in every town and city so many perfectly serviceable older ones stand empty?
Why must we build new towns instead of making the old ones liveable again?
And – most relevant of all to Suffolk – why do we go on letting wealthy folk from other parts buy up our best houses as “second homes” when there are local people needing first homes?
In 1940, the year of the Blitz, architect Ralph Tubbs designed an exhibition, Living In Cities, to consider what post-war Britain should look like.
In a fascinating accompanying brochure, he wrote: “The advocates of garden cities do not face up to the problems of introducing fresh air and sunshine, trees and open space into the decayed towns of today.
“Dissatisfied with the existing chaos of cities, they start new centres, which are neither town nor country, but little patches of suburbia. They leave the existing cities to rot.”
Tubbs wanted cities to live, not rot. He wanted the countryside to live too.
He was a visionary (who incidentally despised the kind of sham architecture that Prince Charles now champions). It’s a tragedy his vision continues to be ignored.
****
GEORGE W BUSH says “waterboarding” wasn’t torture. So it’s OK, then, to keep pushing people to the very edge of drowning.
It was legal, says GW, “because a lawyer said it was legal”.
But then, when you’re president of the United States you can probably find a lawyer to tell you anything you want to hear. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what someone under torture will tell you.
Not the truth. Not anything useful. Just exactly what they think you want to hear.
Which is why torture – legal or not, humane or not – is fundamentally useless.
And that is one reason I disbelieve GW’s claim that waterboarding saved British lives by preventing attacks on London.
The other reason I disbelieve it is GW’s own record with the truth.
As I have pointed out over the years to a variety of small children, if you keep telling lies people eventually stop believing what you say.
There’s a story Bush should read, about a boy and a wolf.
But does it matter now if he’s still telling porkies?
He’s yesterday’s man. Finished. No point in knocking him down again, surely?
The point isn’t about Bush himself. He’s no longer important.
What is important is to nail the lie. To stop him infecting future generations with the pernicious idea that torture can ever be justified.
The campaign group No Adastral New Town has done a good job of raising local awareness. I hope they are equally successful when it comes to persuading Suffolk Coastal planners and councillors, and the inevitable public inquiry, not to let BT’s dream become our nightmare.
BT’s purpose, of course, is simply to make money. NANT’s purpose is to prevent them spoiling a bit of still-rural Suffolk for those of us who already live here.
I certainly don’t want the extra bustle, and the extra traffic, that would be caused by having a new town dumped in my back yard.
But my objection isn’t mere nimbyism. And it’s not just about keeping Suffolk special – though of course that’s part of it.
I object in principle to the whole policy of concreting over the countryside.
Of obliterating fields, woods and farmland with yet more soulless new buildings and pollutant roads.
Under the headline “We are murdering our countryside”, the outstanding journalist Trevor Philpott wrote: “After the war we thought our planners would save our countryside. But the bulldozers move over the farmland as relentlessly as ever. The new ‘estates’ spread, like a rash, over the meadows…”
If that was true in July 1954, when that Picture Post article appeared, how much truer is it now after 56 years more pillage?
In 1954 there was at least an excuse.
There was a need still for new homes to replace old ones flattened by Hitler’s bombs.
There was still a need, too, for people to be moved out of decaying Victorian slums and into better housing. Post-war council housing, on the whole, did a pretty good job of that.
But somewhere along the way politicians (and, of course, builders) got addicted to the idea that it is always necessary to keep building more and more houses.
According to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, about 21 square miles of English countryside is lost every year to concrete and asphalt.
Since 1954 England’s population has risen by 19 per cent. The loss of land to development has been much greater than that.
Those who want to cash in talk, as they always will, about the “need” for new homes. But what need?
A few questions need to be answered urgently while we still have enough farmland to feed ourselves.
Why must be build new homes when in every town and city so many perfectly serviceable older ones stand empty?
Why must we build new towns instead of making the old ones liveable again?
And – most relevant of all to Suffolk – why do we go on letting wealthy folk from other parts buy up our best houses as “second homes” when there are local people needing first homes?
In 1940, the year of the Blitz, architect Ralph Tubbs designed an exhibition, Living In Cities, to consider what post-war Britain should look like.
In a fascinating accompanying brochure, he wrote: “The advocates of garden cities do not face up to the problems of introducing fresh air and sunshine, trees and open space into the decayed towns of today.
“Dissatisfied with the existing chaos of cities, they start new centres, which are neither town nor country, but little patches of suburbia. They leave the existing cities to rot.”
Tubbs wanted cities to live, not rot. He wanted the countryside to live too.
He was a visionary (who incidentally despised the kind of sham architecture that Prince Charles now champions). It’s a tragedy his vision continues to be ignored.
****
GEORGE W BUSH says “waterboarding” wasn’t torture. So it’s OK, then, to keep pushing people to the very edge of drowning.
It was legal, says GW, “because a lawyer said it was legal”.
But then, when you’re president of the United States you can probably find a lawyer to tell you anything you want to hear. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what someone under torture will tell you.
Not the truth. Not anything useful. Just exactly what they think you want to hear.
Which is why torture – legal or not, humane or not – is fundamentally useless.
And that is one reason I disbelieve GW’s claim that waterboarding saved British lives by preventing attacks on London.
The other reason I disbelieve it is GW’s own record with the truth.
As I have pointed out over the years to a variety of small children, if you keep telling lies people eventually stop believing what you say.
There’s a story Bush should read, about a boy and a wolf.
But does it matter now if he’s still telling porkies?
He’s yesterday’s man. Finished. No point in knocking him down again, surely?
The point isn’t about Bush himself. He’s no longer important.
What is important is to nail the lie. To stop him infecting future generations with the pernicious idea that torture can ever be justified.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Day Labour abandoned its aims for the big Tory lie
ONE day someone will get round to writing a history of the modern Labour Party that isn’t just re-hashing the tedious details of Blair-Brown infighting. When they do, the date Tuesday, October 4, 1994 will loom large in it.
That was the day Tony Blair gave his first speech as leader to the party conference.
Most of it, frankly, was waffle, though it received the predictable massive ovation.
He even claimed, incredible though it seems looking back, to be a socialist. Though he did insist that “his” socialism “is not the socialism of Marx or state control”.
(Neither is mine, Tony, but unlike yours it’s distinguishable from messianic Toryism.)
The nugget of meaning – I’m tempted to call it the gobbet of phlegm – came four minutes from the end.
That’s when he said: “It is time we had a clear, up-to-date statement of the objects and objectives of our party.”
Which was the first real inkling he gave that he was set on abandoning the perfectly clear objectives which had defined the party since 1918.
Until Blair ditched it, the party’s aim was laid out in Clause Four of its constitution: “To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”
That is socialism. That is what Labour, under Blair, gave up. A coherent ideology. Any ideology.
As it happens, the ideology of those now in power (Clegg as well as Cameron) could be summed up as the opposite of poor abandoned Clause Four:
• To DENY the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry;
• To PREVENT its equitable distribution;
• To ERADICATE any remaining vestiges of common ownership;
• To GIVE UP popular administration and control of anything.
It’s a nightmare. But it does have the virtue of consistent thinking behind it.
At its heart is the idea that private ownership is in every way superior to public ownership. A view quite understandable from those (like Cameron, Clegg and most of their pals) who own quite a lot.
Not so good in practice for all the rest of us. The workers by hand or by brain.
A fortnight ago I reported with incredulity the view of Gordon Brown that “only the private sector is efficient”.
This brought a robust response from one of this column’s more intelligent readers.
For fairly obvious reasons he wishes to remain anonymous. I can tell you only that he is Ipswich-based, works for a prominent local company, and that I agree with every word he says:
“As someone who has worked in the private sector for his entire adult life, I can assure you that the constant assertion of private sector efficiency is a complete myth.
“The idea that people or businesses fail if they are inefficient is complete hogwash. Every single company I have worked for, or contracted into, has been massively inefficient and wasteful.
“Incompetence is routinely rewarded and any suspicion of innovation or creativity stifled at birth.
“Most private companies are extremely risk-averse. Even supposedly high-tech companies (the area in which I earn my bread and butter) tend to be held back by managers who would rather be assured some new technique or technology is ‘proven’ before they consider an investment.
“The difference is that the vast profits to be made from the minority of ideas and products that succeed mask the hideous waste that’s going on behind the gloss and headlines.
“When you consider the level of service that much of the public sector continue to deliver, despite shrinking investment, it baffles me that politicians continue to get away with this lie.”
We’ll end up in the Browne stuff
THE headlines so far have mostly been about the high cost of education hanging over future students. And that is certainly bad enough.
But there are worse things lurking in the detail of Lord Browne’s review of university funding.
I predict trouble ahead if the government tries to implement it – as it surely will, because it fits Tory thinking so well.
At heart, Browne aims to end the notion of higher education as a public service and reduce it to the level of the free market.
Universities will cease to get government support and rely instead purely on fees.
Which courses are available will depend ultimately on “consumer choice”. In other words, on the unrealistic expectations and desires of 18-year-olds.
Not that I have anything against 18-year-olds. But anyone in need of education needs better guidance than comes from a profit-driven market.
And that’s before you even consider society’s need for scientists, engineers, doctors and the rest.
That was the day Tony Blair gave his first speech as leader to the party conference.
Most of it, frankly, was waffle, though it received the predictable massive ovation.
He even claimed, incredible though it seems looking back, to be a socialist. Though he did insist that “his” socialism “is not the socialism of Marx or state control”.
(Neither is mine, Tony, but unlike yours it’s distinguishable from messianic Toryism.)
The nugget of meaning – I’m tempted to call it the gobbet of phlegm – came four minutes from the end.
That’s when he said: “It is time we had a clear, up-to-date statement of the objects and objectives of our party.”
Which was the first real inkling he gave that he was set on abandoning the perfectly clear objectives which had defined the party since 1918.
Until Blair ditched it, the party’s aim was laid out in Clause Four of its constitution: “To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”
That is socialism. That is what Labour, under Blair, gave up. A coherent ideology. Any ideology.
As it happens, the ideology of those now in power (Clegg as well as Cameron) could be summed up as the opposite of poor abandoned Clause Four:
• To DENY the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry;
• To PREVENT its equitable distribution;
• To ERADICATE any remaining vestiges of common ownership;
• To GIVE UP popular administration and control of anything.
It’s a nightmare. But it does have the virtue of consistent thinking behind it.
At its heart is the idea that private ownership is in every way superior to public ownership. A view quite understandable from those (like Cameron, Clegg and most of their pals) who own quite a lot.
Not so good in practice for all the rest of us. The workers by hand or by brain.
A fortnight ago I reported with incredulity the view of Gordon Brown that “only the private sector is efficient”.
This brought a robust response from one of this column’s more intelligent readers.
For fairly obvious reasons he wishes to remain anonymous. I can tell you only that he is Ipswich-based, works for a prominent local company, and that I agree with every word he says:
“As someone who has worked in the private sector for his entire adult life, I can assure you that the constant assertion of private sector efficiency is a complete myth.
“The idea that people or businesses fail if they are inefficient is complete hogwash. Every single company I have worked for, or contracted into, has been massively inefficient and wasteful.
“Incompetence is routinely rewarded and any suspicion of innovation or creativity stifled at birth.
“Most private companies are extremely risk-averse. Even supposedly high-tech companies (the area in which I earn my bread and butter) tend to be held back by managers who would rather be assured some new technique or technology is ‘proven’ before they consider an investment.
“The difference is that the vast profits to be made from the minority of ideas and products that succeed mask the hideous waste that’s going on behind the gloss and headlines.
“When you consider the level of service that much of the public sector continue to deliver, despite shrinking investment, it baffles me that politicians continue to get away with this lie.”
We’ll end up in the Browne stuff
THE headlines so far have mostly been about the high cost of education hanging over future students. And that is certainly bad enough.
But there are worse things lurking in the detail of Lord Browne’s review of university funding.
I predict trouble ahead if the government tries to implement it – as it surely will, because it fits Tory thinking so well.
At heart, Browne aims to end the notion of higher education as a public service and reduce it to the level of the free market.
Universities will cease to get government support and rely instead purely on fees.
Which courses are available will depend ultimately on “consumer choice”. In other words, on the unrealistic expectations and desires of 18-year-olds.
Not that I have anything against 18-year-olds. But anyone in need of education needs better guidance than comes from a profit-driven market.
And that’s before you even consider society’s need for scientists, engineers, doctors and the rest.
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Gambler Osborne has fun at our expense
FOR months, ever since the coalition grabbed the reins of power, they’ve been building us up for this. I’ve never known a government spending review get so much pre-publicity.
It’s been a protracted softening-up campaign. Make us fear the worst, I thought, so they could look like good guys when it turned out not quite so bad after all.
But half a million lost jobs in public service is bad enough. More than bad enough.
A 25 per cent cut in public spending isn’t good housekeeping. It’s vandalism on a huge scale.
The theory is that the private sector will make up for it and more.
How is that, exactly?
Because lots of little Tories (or big ones) will gleefully grab the broken-off bits of public business and run them, not as a genuine service but for profit?
That’s long been a Tory dream, and everyone else’s nightmare. Or so I imagined.
It turns out to have been Nick Clegg’s dream all along too. Turns out he’s just as much a product of the grab-it-all-now Thatcher decade as his chum Cammers.
The sad irony is that even Gordon Brown, who ought to know better, was infected with the same virus.
According to Professor Allyson Pollock in her book NHS plc, Brown told her in 2002: “The public sector is bad at management, and … only the private sector is efficient and can manage services well.”
Is that why he had to bail out the banks? Because they’d been so well managed?
Is that why Network Rail had to be taken back into government ownership? Because private enterprise had been running it so efficiently?
“Public bad, private good” was the Big Lie of Thatcherism and it seems we’re all still suffering the after-effects. And now we have to suffer some more.
Which is not all the coalition’s fault. It was partly Brown who got us into this mess.
Firstly by allowing the bankers to run wild. Then by getting the rest of us to bail them out.
The idea that giving more power – not less – to self-interested private business is the way out is an insanity that threatens to dash us all much harder against the rocks.
For all the talk about having no choice, the government is actually taking one hell of a gamble.
By wielding a crashing great axe through public spending they risk devastating a lot of private businesses too.
Particularly the small ones, whose customers’ spending power will shrink as they lose jobs or benefits.
Whether the short-term pain will lead to any long-term gain is uncertain at best. I don’t know. And George Osborne certainly doesn’t know either.
Of course, it’s not his life he’s gambling with. It’s ours.
If it all goes horribly wrong it won’t leave rich kids Osborne, Cameron or Clegg jobless or penniless. More’s the pity.
They might be a little less cavalier about smashing things if they thought they might get hurt themselves in the wreckage.
****
THE LibDems like to talk green. Along with the mythical “fairness” Nick Clegg keeps banging on about, it’s their primary contribution to the coalition.
And it ought to be a hugely important contribution.
A little tough, then, on energy secretary Chris Huhne to have to announce the scrapping of plans for a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary that could have provided five per cent of Britain’s total energy needs entirely sustainably.
Especially as at the same time he announced eight sites – including Sizewell – where new nuclear plants could be built.
Huhne has in the past, for extremely good reasons, been opposed to nuclear power and in favour of genuinely renewable energy. Such as tidal power.
But it’s not all bad. For a start the list of nuclear sites is actually a retreat from the 11 previously named by Labour.
Secondly, without public subsidy it’s highly unlikely the new plants will actually be built.
And as for the Severn barrage, there were good reasons – aside from the £30billion cost – for setting it aside.
Environmental campaigners were always divided on the plan. And it would seem to make sense to try out the technology first by putting it to work somewhere else on a smaller scale.
If it were to prove itself across the Orwell, Deben and Blackwater estuaries, say, it would give us a clearer picture of how it might work in the Severn.
In fact, there’s a lot to be said for thinking small when it comes to power-generation.
The tidemill at Woodbridge was once cutting-edge technology. And there’s no good reason why it shouldn’t be applied again, with the benefit of improved techniques and materials, on tidal rivers throughout the land.
****
BEFORE the chancellor stood up, bookies were offering odds on how long he would speak for, how often he’d drink water while doing so, and how many times he’d use the word “cut”.
Apart from the opportunity that gave Osborne to make a bit on the side, doesn’t that tell you a lot about our society?
All trivia and gambling.
It’s been a protracted softening-up campaign. Make us fear the worst, I thought, so they could look like good guys when it turned out not quite so bad after all.
But half a million lost jobs in public service is bad enough. More than bad enough.
A 25 per cent cut in public spending isn’t good housekeeping. It’s vandalism on a huge scale.
The theory is that the private sector will make up for it and more.
How is that, exactly?
Because lots of little Tories (or big ones) will gleefully grab the broken-off bits of public business and run them, not as a genuine service but for profit?
That’s long been a Tory dream, and everyone else’s nightmare. Or so I imagined.
It turns out to have been Nick Clegg’s dream all along too. Turns out he’s just as much a product of the grab-it-all-now Thatcher decade as his chum Cammers.
The sad irony is that even Gordon Brown, who ought to know better, was infected with the same virus.
According to Professor Allyson Pollock in her book NHS plc, Brown told her in 2002: “The public sector is bad at management, and … only the private sector is efficient and can manage services well.”
Is that why he had to bail out the banks? Because they’d been so well managed?
Is that why Network Rail had to be taken back into government ownership? Because private enterprise had been running it so efficiently?
“Public bad, private good” was the Big Lie of Thatcherism and it seems we’re all still suffering the after-effects. And now we have to suffer some more.
Which is not all the coalition’s fault. It was partly Brown who got us into this mess.
Firstly by allowing the bankers to run wild. Then by getting the rest of us to bail them out.
The idea that giving more power – not less – to self-interested private business is the way out is an insanity that threatens to dash us all much harder against the rocks.
For all the talk about having no choice, the government is actually taking one hell of a gamble.
By wielding a crashing great axe through public spending they risk devastating a lot of private businesses too.
Particularly the small ones, whose customers’ spending power will shrink as they lose jobs or benefits.
Whether the short-term pain will lead to any long-term gain is uncertain at best. I don’t know. And George Osborne certainly doesn’t know either.
Of course, it’s not his life he’s gambling with. It’s ours.
If it all goes horribly wrong it won’t leave rich kids Osborne, Cameron or Clegg jobless or penniless. More’s the pity.
They might be a little less cavalier about smashing things if they thought they might get hurt themselves in the wreckage.
****
THE LibDems like to talk green. Along with the mythical “fairness” Nick Clegg keeps banging on about, it’s their primary contribution to the coalition.
And it ought to be a hugely important contribution.
A little tough, then, on energy secretary Chris Huhne to have to announce the scrapping of plans for a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary that could have provided five per cent of Britain’s total energy needs entirely sustainably.
Especially as at the same time he announced eight sites – including Sizewell – where new nuclear plants could be built.
Huhne has in the past, for extremely good reasons, been opposed to nuclear power and in favour of genuinely renewable energy. Such as tidal power.
But it’s not all bad. For a start the list of nuclear sites is actually a retreat from the 11 previously named by Labour.
Secondly, without public subsidy it’s highly unlikely the new plants will actually be built.
And as for the Severn barrage, there were good reasons – aside from the £30billion cost – for setting it aside.
Environmental campaigners were always divided on the plan. And it would seem to make sense to try out the technology first by putting it to work somewhere else on a smaller scale.
If it were to prove itself across the Orwell, Deben and Blackwater estuaries, say, it would give us a clearer picture of how it might work in the Severn.
In fact, there’s a lot to be said for thinking small when it comes to power-generation.
The tidemill at Woodbridge was once cutting-edge technology. And there’s no good reason why it shouldn’t be applied again, with the benefit of improved techniques and materials, on tidal rivers throughout the land.
****
BEFORE the chancellor stood up, bookies were offering odds on how long he would speak for, how often he’d drink water while doing so, and how many times he’d use the word “cut”.
Apart from the opportunity that gave Osborne to make a bit on the side, doesn’t that tell you a lot about our society?
All trivia and gambling.
Monday, 18 October 2010
The joy of fungi
THERE’S something magical about fungi. Not just the ones known as magic mushrooms, but all of them.
And I don’t just mean the edible ones – though they can be truly special.
I’m not sure why we Brits are so shy of them. Maybe, as I’ve seen suggested, it goes back to a rupture in our national cooking habits at the time of the First World War.
Whatever the reason, we seem to have a phobia about wild food. Especially about mushrooms.
Hop across the Channel to France and you’ll find a variety of odd-looking specimens on market stalls.
Visit eastern Europe and you’ll see families trooping off into the woods with buckets to collect their favourites.
Here, meanwhile, there’s only one species commonly to be found on sale, unless you seek out an Oriental or Polish grocery.
And though pleasant enough, the common field mushroom – to many people the only type that gets called “mushroom” at all – is neither the tastiest nor the most nutritious out there.
Of course, you have to be careful. But knowing what you’re doing isn’t that hard if you care enough to get the right books, and err on the side of caution.
And I do mean caution. I don’t want any sick or dying readers on my conscience, thank you very much.
Many guides recommend learning how to recognise the few really deadly species so you can avoid them. Others suggest getting to know four or five of the commoner and nicer edible ones and sticking to those.
Both are sound advice.
There are pitfalls, of course.
A couple of years ago author Nicholas Evans, of Horse Whisperer fame, went gathering mushrooms in Scotland with his wife.
He thought she knew a tasty chanterelle when she saw one. She thought he did.
Result, one basket full of cortinarius speciosissimus, alias deadly webcap. Which, frankly, doesn’t look a lot like chanterelle at all. They should have known better.
Further result, both Evanses, his brother and sister-in-law are on daily dialysis while awaiting kidney transplants. They are lucky to be alive – and especially lucky that their children refused the feast.
Their experience may have added to the popular distrust of mushrooms gathered from anywhere but the supermarket shelf.
But the real lesson is about the value of knowing – really knowing – what you’re doing.
Which I reckon applies to just about anything in life that’s worth doing at all.
And it would be a shame if the amazing bounty of this autumn were to be wasted.
I wrote three weeks ago about the proliferation of fungi, especially parasol mushrooms.
Well, it certainly hasn’t diminished since then. In fact, the best season of my life for wild mushrooms just goes on getting better.
You must have noticed. Go for a walk anywhere that isn’t concreted over and the things are everywhere.
Most, frankly, I can’t identify – or not with the necessary confidence. I still find their sudden and rampant appearance magical.
But there plenty I can put a name to. And a few I’m happy to put on my plate.
CAN YOU SPOT THE KILLER?
The three wild mushrooms pictured here were all photographed by me in Suffolk this week, all within a shortish walk of my home.
One my mother and I enjoyed on toast. One would have killed us if we’d tried. And the other… well, the other’s perhaps the most fascinating of all.
You might recognise the parasol (picture A). Large, unmistakable, delicious. And fabulously common this year.
(At least round here. A former Evening Star colleague now living in Yorkshire tells me there are none to be found up there. He has, though, enjoyed large quantities of ceps, the most unmistakable of all edible mushrooms, while I’ve found only a couple of poor specimens here.)
You might not immediately identify the killer. It’s the little off-white fellow, picture B.
The name death cap tells you everything really. Along with the destroying angel (similar to the parasol, but white and without the scales), it’s said to be responsible for more than 90 per cent of all fatal fungus poisonings.
My father taught me to avoid anything with white gills. That would certainly save you from a fatal error with death cap or destroying angel – but would also deny you the pleasure of the parasol.
The most picturesque fungus of all (picture C) is the fly agaric, or amanita muscaria. The classic toadstool, much beloved of elves, pixies and children’s illustrators.
Though once listed as deadly, it is not known for certain to have been responsible for a single death.
It is famous for hallucinogenic highs, though I wouldn’t try it. Partly because the effective dose is highly unpredictable. And partly because the risk of a “bad trip”, possibly with long-lasting flashbacks, is simply not worth it.
It was, apparently, used by tribes in Siberia, and perhaps elsewhere, as an “entheogenic” drug – one that creates a religious trance.
The latest advice is that it is edible, so long as you boil it first to get rid of the toxins (and make sure you throw away the water).
Personally, I wouldn’t try that either. Maybe just because of the look of it.
And I don’t just mean the edible ones – though they can be truly special.
I’m not sure why we Brits are so shy of them. Maybe, as I’ve seen suggested, it goes back to a rupture in our national cooking habits at the time of the First World War.
Whatever the reason, we seem to have a phobia about wild food. Especially about mushrooms.
Hop across the Channel to France and you’ll find a variety of odd-looking specimens on market stalls.
Visit eastern Europe and you’ll see families trooping off into the woods with buckets to collect their favourites.
Here, meanwhile, there’s only one species commonly to be found on sale, unless you seek out an Oriental or Polish grocery.
And though pleasant enough, the common field mushroom – to many people the only type that gets called “mushroom” at all – is neither the tastiest nor the most nutritious out there.
Of course, you have to be careful. But knowing what you’re doing isn’t that hard if you care enough to get the right books, and err on the side of caution.
And I do mean caution. I don’t want any sick or dying readers on my conscience, thank you very much.
Many guides recommend learning how to recognise the few really deadly species so you can avoid them. Others suggest getting to know four or five of the commoner and nicer edible ones and sticking to those.
Both are sound advice.
There are pitfalls, of course.
A couple of years ago author Nicholas Evans, of Horse Whisperer fame, went gathering mushrooms in Scotland with his wife.
He thought she knew a tasty chanterelle when she saw one. She thought he did.
Result, one basket full of cortinarius speciosissimus, alias deadly webcap. Which, frankly, doesn’t look a lot like chanterelle at all. They should have known better.
Further result, both Evanses, his brother and sister-in-law are on daily dialysis while awaiting kidney transplants. They are lucky to be alive – and especially lucky that their children refused the feast.
Their experience may have added to the popular distrust of mushrooms gathered from anywhere but the supermarket shelf.
But the real lesson is about the value of knowing – really knowing – what you’re doing.
Which I reckon applies to just about anything in life that’s worth doing at all.
And it would be a shame if the amazing bounty of this autumn were to be wasted.
I wrote three weeks ago about the proliferation of fungi, especially parasol mushrooms.
Well, it certainly hasn’t diminished since then. In fact, the best season of my life for wild mushrooms just goes on getting better.
You must have noticed. Go for a walk anywhere that isn’t concreted over and the things are everywhere.
Most, frankly, I can’t identify – or not with the necessary confidence. I still find their sudden and rampant appearance magical.
But there plenty I can put a name to. And a few I’m happy to put on my plate.
CAN YOU SPOT THE KILLER?The three wild mushrooms pictured here were all photographed by me in Suffolk this week, all within a shortish walk of my home.
One my mother and I enjoyed on toast. One would have killed us if we’d tried. And the other… well, the other’s perhaps the most fascinating of all.
You might recognise the parasol (picture A). Large, unmistakable, delicious. And fabulously common this year.
(At least round here. A former Evening Star colleague now living in Yorkshire tells me there are none to be found up there. He has, though, enjoyed large quantities of ceps, the most unmistakable of all edible mushrooms, while I’ve found only a couple of poor specimens here.)
You might not immediately identify the killer. It’s the little off-white fellow, picture B.
The name death cap tells you everything really. Along with the destroying angel (similar to the parasol, but white and without the scales), it’s said to be responsible for more than 90 per cent of all fatal fungus poisonings.
My father taught me to avoid anything with white gills. That would certainly save you from a fatal error with death cap or destroying angel – but would also deny you the pleasure of the parasol.
The most picturesque fungus of all (picture C) is the fly agaric, or amanita muscaria. The classic toadstool, much beloved of elves, pixies and children’s illustrators.
Though once listed as deadly, it is not known for certain to have been responsible for a single death.
It is famous for hallucinogenic highs, though I wouldn’t try it. Partly because the effective dose is highly unpredictable. And partly because the risk of a “bad trip”, possibly with long-lasting flashbacks, is simply not worth it.
It was, apparently, used by tribes in Siberia, and perhaps elsewhere, as an “entheogenic” drug – one that creates a religious trance.
The latest advice is that it is edible, so long as you boil it first to get rid of the toxins (and make sure you throw away the water).
Personally, I wouldn’t try that either. Maybe just because of the look of it.
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Red George enjoys a joke with brother Vince
GEORGE OSBORNE made a joke. Quite a good joke, in fact.
It came towards the end of a rousing, but otherwise laughless speech to the Tory conference in Birmingham.
“Vince Cable and I will do this together,” he said.
“People said we wouldn’t get on. That we’d trade cruel nicknames. That we would knife each other in the back. That we’d try to end each others’ careers.
“Who do they think we are? Brothers?”
Osborne isn’t a natural stand-up. The gag, I’m sure, was not his own.
For all I know, though, he may have written most of the speech himself. And apart from a lot of weary and mostly unfair attacks on past Labour governments, it was a surprisingly good speech.
Surprising, most of all, in that I found myself agreeing with much of it.
“Britain,” said the chancellor, “has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.”
That may be stating the bleeding obvious, but it has a refreshing ring of truth and honesty about it. Coming from a Tory.
He spoke of bringing common sense to health and safety.
About time someone did. Though much depends, I suppose, on what he means by “common sense”.
Then he picked out what he considers his and Cable’s achievements so far: “Council tax frozen. Income tax thresholds raised for millions. And 800,000 people lifted out of tax altogether, with more to come.”
The right-wing goon was starting to sound almost socialist.
And he said another thing I couldn’t disagree with.
“If we don’t improve our education,” he said – “for everyone, our country will become more unequal, more unfair, less prosperous.”
Spot-on, George.
Trouble is, what you and your cronies consider “improvement” looks to the rest of us a whole lot like a wrecking-ball.
When medical students face a personal debt of £100,000 before they even start practising, something must be wrong somewhere.
And I have grave misgivings about Iain Duncan Smith being put in charge of what he promises will be the biggest reform of the welfare system since 1946, when most of it was established.
There’s no doubt reform is overdue in a system that has grown ferociously tangled and complex. But if there are to be £194billion of savings, there are bound to be a lot of losers – especially among those who can least afford to lose.
Mind you, the dismay in the Tory press about cuts to child benefit has been richly amusing. (Quote from ‘a Whitehall source’: “We will be looking at what qualifies as a child.”)
Yes, the plan is unfair. And yes, it will hit working single mums. Those who earn more than £40,000.
As Osborne put it: “It’s very difficult to justify taxing people on low incomes to pay for the child benefit of those earning so much more than them.”
Right again, George. Frankly, that sounds a bit like socialism too.
Then there’s been the row within the government itself over a 20 per cent cut in the defence budget.
Actually, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing – either the cut or the row.
The bad thing is the “promise” to America to retain our phenomenally expensive, outdated and almost wholly pointless nuclear “deterrent”. The finger on the button of which, incidentally, is American, not British.
If we’re going to go on pouring billions into defence it seems a bit wonky to keep the big gun while depriving the ground forces of resources.
It seems strange too to see the party that always bigged up on law and order threatening police forces with budget cuts of up to 25pc.
The Met are proposing to meet it by getting new recruits to serve two years as “specials”.
In other words, to work unpaid for two years before going on the pay-roll.
Which sounds like a dangerous precedent for us all.
But then, as the Tories never tire of reminding us, we are in a time of austerity.
As Osborne also said: “You don’t get to choose the times in which you live – but you do get to choose how you live in them.”
Another platitude, but another that’s perhaps worth repeating and pondering.
I didn’t choose – and the majority of the British people didn’t choose – to live through this time under a Tory government.
And each time they speak of cuts, I keep remembering the business manager I overheard a year or two back.
The man responsible for making others redundant who grinned and said: “You can’t let a good crisis go to waste.”
The economic trouble we – and the rest of the developed capitalist world – are in is just the opportunity the Tories have been waiting for.
The opportunity to take an axe to the state and its dependents.
While, incidentally, allowing their old pals the bankers, who made the mess, to go on drawing billions in “bonuses”.
In what was meant as a final stab at Labour, Osborne spoke of “the national interest or the vested interests”.
He added: “I know which side we’re on.”
So do I, George. And it’s not the one you pretend it is.
It came towards the end of a rousing, but otherwise laughless speech to the Tory conference in Birmingham.
“Vince Cable and I will do this together,” he said.
“People said we wouldn’t get on. That we’d trade cruel nicknames. That we would knife each other in the back. That we’d try to end each others’ careers.
“Who do they think we are? Brothers?”
Osborne isn’t a natural stand-up. The gag, I’m sure, was not his own.
For all I know, though, he may have written most of the speech himself. And apart from a lot of weary and mostly unfair attacks on past Labour governments, it was a surprisingly good speech.
Surprising, most of all, in that I found myself agreeing with much of it.
“Britain,” said the chancellor, “has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.”
That may be stating the bleeding obvious, but it has a refreshing ring of truth and honesty about it. Coming from a Tory.
He spoke of bringing common sense to health and safety.
About time someone did. Though much depends, I suppose, on what he means by “common sense”.
Then he picked out what he considers his and Cable’s achievements so far: “Council tax frozen. Income tax thresholds raised for millions. And 800,000 people lifted out of tax altogether, with more to come.”
The right-wing goon was starting to sound almost socialist.
And he said another thing I couldn’t disagree with.
“If we don’t improve our education,” he said – “for everyone, our country will become more unequal, more unfair, less prosperous.”
Spot-on, George.
Trouble is, what you and your cronies consider “improvement” looks to the rest of us a whole lot like a wrecking-ball.
When medical students face a personal debt of £100,000 before they even start practising, something must be wrong somewhere.
And I have grave misgivings about Iain Duncan Smith being put in charge of what he promises will be the biggest reform of the welfare system since 1946, when most of it was established.
There’s no doubt reform is overdue in a system that has grown ferociously tangled and complex. But if there are to be £194billion of savings, there are bound to be a lot of losers – especially among those who can least afford to lose.
Mind you, the dismay in the Tory press about cuts to child benefit has been richly amusing. (Quote from ‘a Whitehall source’: “We will be looking at what qualifies as a child.”)
Yes, the plan is unfair. And yes, it will hit working single mums. Those who earn more than £40,000.
As Osborne put it: “It’s very difficult to justify taxing people on low incomes to pay for the child benefit of those earning so much more than them.”
Right again, George. Frankly, that sounds a bit like socialism too.
Then there’s been the row within the government itself over a 20 per cent cut in the defence budget.
Actually, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing – either the cut or the row.
The bad thing is the “promise” to America to retain our phenomenally expensive, outdated and almost wholly pointless nuclear “deterrent”. The finger on the button of which, incidentally, is American, not British.
If we’re going to go on pouring billions into defence it seems a bit wonky to keep the big gun while depriving the ground forces of resources.
It seems strange too to see the party that always bigged up on law and order threatening police forces with budget cuts of up to 25pc.
The Met are proposing to meet it by getting new recruits to serve two years as “specials”.
In other words, to work unpaid for two years before going on the pay-roll.
Which sounds like a dangerous precedent for us all.
But then, as the Tories never tire of reminding us, we are in a time of austerity.
As Osborne also said: “You don’t get to choose the times in which you live – but you do get to choose how you live in them.”
Another platitude, but another that’s perhaps worth repeating and pondering.
I didn’t choose – and the majority of the British people didn’t choose – to live through this time under a Tory government.
And each time they speak of cuts, I keep remembering the business manager I overheard a year or two back.
The man responsible for making others redundant who grinned and said: “You can’t let a good crisis go to waste.”
The economic trouble we – and the rest of the developed capitalist world – are in is just the opportunity the Tories have been waiting for.
The opportunity to take an axe to the state and its dependents.
While, incidentally, allowing their old pals the bankers, who made the mess, to go on drawing billions in “bonuses”.
In what was meant as a final stab at Labour, Osborne spoke of “the national interest or the vested interests”.
He added: “I know which side we’re on.”
So do I, George. And it’s not the one you pretend it is.
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