end of the party

There is an unedifying contest going on at the moment in political Britain - namely which of the ex-New Labour Government Ministers can say the most damning thing about the government of which they were (generally an ignominious) part. In the last few weeks it has been the contenders for the vacant position of Labour leader who have been most vocal in this reinvention and distancing - but, with the serialisation of Peter (Lord) Mandelson's memoirs, we have descended to the pure malicious gossiping we have to expect of this man (sic)
Some of the web comments about the new labour tribe are very pertinent -

The problem encountered by these individuals was 'youth'. Most politicians in the past, with the odd exception, were older, had worked outside politics, been in business or fought in wars. 'Looks' and 'sound bites ' were not as important as they are today. Remember Mandlesons crazed 'I am not a quitter!!' speech? Adolescent. Blair, Brown and Cambell ( he had been writing porn a few years before) all young, with youthful egos , coming into power through a tired government and a media now obsessed with looks, sound bites and gossip. 

Men between the age of twenty and forty actually believe they know best, but they have to prove it to everyone around them, so when they actually have power, paparazzi, chauffeur driven cars and TV cameras hanging on every word, self-importance and personal glory are just too tempting. They, in this little petty environment , are in their minds , the 'story', not events around them. How else would they find time for their memoirs? 

Watching Gove, Clegg and those of a similar age now in power reveals how they have already changed from those humble interviews before the election. Clegg and his Scottish assassin are acting more like Tories than Cameron. Youth and power are a potent heady mix ,but petty mindedness and a search for personal glory are its fruit.

No honour amongst thieves. The political class have lost all legitimacy to rule, they are the worst of characters not fit to rule their own households. Democracy is a giant failure, the God that failed. The political class, make wars on false pretences, they grow rich at home while they send the brave to the front line. Cowards. The French Revolution, Humanist, Democratic extended the power of the State, and handed over power to the Bankers (fiat currency and Fractional Reserve Banking), gave birth to total war, forced conscription made giant armies of millions, and yet the dumbed down people still talk as if party politics matters and left wing and right wing, both do not represent the power elite running and owning the banks.

I'm obviously in masochistic mood as I await for the delivery of the 700 page book written by a journalist Andrew Rawnsley which records (at least from an observer point of view) the nastiness which was the last days of Labour

body checks

More body checks yesterday - but this time, my own body! I've never had the tests older people now take for cancer so decided it was about time to check for prostate and colon. Despite having the results of a comprehensive health check in Germany at Christmas, I was missing some important indices and therefore checked in yesterday for a CT. Left alone under the circulating machine, I felt like a mix of Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times and Jane Fonda in Barbarella!
As you look at the Xray pictures, you realise what an incredible thing the human body is - and also begin to appreciate mortality. Significant that, as I was waiting in the cool basement corridor for my turn, I was finishing John Updike's last collection of short stories - My Father's Tears and other stories. By last I do mean the last he wrote before his death - indeed he wrote them in full consciousness that the time of his own demise was not far away and focussing on characters having flashbacks about their early life. I've never been a great fan of Updike's chronicling of the various changes American small-town and middle-class males have experienced since the 1960s - although have admired the erudition of his essays and his knowledge of painting. I was, therefore, quite stunned with the poetic imagery and power of these short stories. William Trevor (Irish) is my favourite for this art form - with Carol Shields (Canada) close behind) and I am enjoying the collection of Dorothy Parker's short stories I bought recently.
In the afternoon visited the Carterusti bookshop and was amazed to come across an (American) hardback edition of Rory Stewart's book on his one year stint as Deputy Governor of one of Iraq's southern provinces during the current occupation. I had read about this unusual guy - a 30 odd year (upper class) Scot who is now Tory MP for Cumbria in the very north of England but who has been a Professor at JFK School of Government in Harvard; and walked from Turkey to Afghanistan - and reckoned the handsome book (the US is so good with their productions of hardbacks!) was not only a rare (and frank) insight into the reality of trying to manage the aftermath of that disastrous invasion but could be a useful insight into the mind of such an individual. The book is called The Prince of the marshes - and other occupational hazards of a year in Iraq.

romanian drivers

Having driven around Europe April-June - through nine countries - (and experienced the habits of caucasian and central asian drivers) I think I am entitled to make some generalisations about driving habits. The combination in Hungary of their strung-out villages and speed limits make driving there very frustrating. People are just too slow and cautious. Across the border - in Romania - you meet the opposite extreme - aggressiveness on a scale I have never encountered and feel is growing. I try to make sense of it culturally - Romania has reinvented itself in a more radical way than its neighbours and its younger generation has made superficial, American worship of money and conspicuous consumption its trademark in a way you don't notice in the rest of central Europe or Balkans. The testosterone level of the Romanian male seems pretty high - and finds strong expression in their cars. They will tailgate you; flash as they approach; dart in and out of lanes; and drive on the opposite side of the road around blind mountain corners. The last trick is becoming even more frequent.
The policy advisers and think-tankers who write so eloquently about nudge and steer in their attempts to ensure policy tools can more relevantly affect social behavious should come to Romania and help create an effective framework to change these driving habits.

good speech

An interesting post from Colin Talbot's blog - key sections of a speech he delivered in Beijing at a Conference on PAR,

intellectual repairs

The cloud has just now lifted from the tops of Piatra Crauilui mountain range at the back of the house - where it seems to have been ensconced for the past few weeks. Perhaps a sign of a break in the weather – although the thick grey cloud cover still hovers ominously over the peaks.
This morning was spent in Zarnesti – the best access to the peaks apparently – although I was there to have the car serviced after its 10,000 kms tour. The Bosch garage there is an excellent one – and, according to young Catalin, the owner’s son, attracts a wide custom. Mechanic Nicolae – who hails from Bran (where apparently people are called Scots!) and has a house in Rasnov - certainly identified some important issue s in my stalwart 14 year old Cielo – broken light bulbs, dangerous mix of brake fluid, poorly performing sparking plugs (which the Americans call glowplugs??) and a leak in the small radiator the car apparently has for the Freon I need for the air-conditioner. I’m a bit optimistic perhaps about the need for the latter – but do want to go next week to Bulgaria where the weather is currently more normal.
While I’m waiting, I read more of Basic Instincts – human nature and the new economics (2010) by Peter Lunn which is a great overview of what behavioural economics is bringing to the subject I suddenly decided in 1962 to make the focus (with political science) of my university studies. Up until then I was heading for an Honours Degree in French and German - but then deserted this to pursue the bright promise which the social sciences then offered. “Bliss was it in that dawn ....”!.
But I had so much difficulty with the theory of the firm and knew within my heart what a lot of nonsense the marginal approach to decision-making was. But it has taken another 35 years to expose the nakedness of the Emperor. It is this discredited model of economics which is the basis of the New Public Management which has done so much damage to the public sector in the past 20 years. It will be interesting to see who first unravels that intellectually and puts a new template in place! My website "key papers"have a couple of papers which do the first part.

new approaches to government

The richness of the web is sometimes too much. This morning I wanted to write something about complexity, social interventions and policy tools – on the basis of Matthew Taylor’s blog today (you can get the website in links on the right hand side). He had been reading a couple of draft pamphlets which will appear shortly on the Royal Society of Arts website about different approaches to government interventions.

 Between the 1970s and 1990s I had the opportunity to experiment with different approaches to policy-making – at both the local and regional levels. The Tavistock Institute invited me to join a project in the 1970s which was beginning to think about the network approach to policy-making. And I felt that one of the best things I ever did was to bring together and support over a 2 year period something we called a network of urban change agents officials, councillors from both Districts and the Region, academics and NGO reps who were invited to attend on the basis of their commitment to deal with the conditions of social injustice.

Since then I have read various key authors such as Mary Douglas, Margeret Wheatley, James Scott and Paul Ormerod who recognise the limitations of crude managerialism. In a way the argument goes back to the writings of such 20th century anarchists as Ivan Illich and Paulo Freiere.

Taylor says simply that Traditional policy interventions – particularly in relation to social problems – have these characteristics:
• They are large scale and expensive.
• They aim for relatively marginal improvement in outcomes e.g. a few percent lower unemployment or higher pupil attainment.
• They seek to minimise risk through systems of regulation, audit, and accountability.
But these design features do not fit the characteristics of social networks interventions, which are:
• They will usually fail.
• Occasionally small interventions will have major impact through contagion effects.
• Sometimes interventions will have an impact very different to those planned (sometimes good, sometimes not).
An emphasis on social networks changes not just the focus and design of public policy, but the whole way we think about success and failure.

From this blog, I was led on to the various papers on this theme on the RSA website and suddenly found myself on the Scribd. Site – which allows me not only to download a whole variety of material but also to upload my own papers! Needeless to say I spent half an hour exploring, inserting a profile and uploading a paper - Searching for the Holy Grail in which I try to set out what I feel I have learned from my 40 years' experience of trying to help different government systems operate more in the public interest. All very interesting - but basically it diverted me from the writing which is the only way to make sense of the stuff founf on the internet!

Let me, at any rate, share a couple of the papers I came across on subjects close to my heart - one a book which had just appeared on Reforming the worst government in the world -
The other is a useful paper on the Azerbaijan government system -

Neo-liberalism hardens

Tuesday I quoted from a 2009 pamphlet about the continuing strength of neo-liberalism in British ruling circles and suggested that the authors needed to do a bit more work on how this insidious virus might be defeated. Coincidentally one of the authors – Gerry Hassan – has returned to the theme. He reveals the details of a very interesting recent conference which brought business leaders together with key members of the Cabinet to look at priorities for government. Its summary of recommendations has been given to the Cabinet and makes for fascinating reading. The tenor of the discussions is rather frightening – with the target very much being those on low incomes and, as Hassan says, no signs of humility about the role of the private sector in creating the crisis which confronts the world! His article also puts the scale of the British public spending cuts in perspective - several times greater than the radical cuts of the Swedes and canadians some years back (which are apprently serving as models)For the meat of the argument see -
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/gerry-hassan/coming-british-revolution
Apart from Hassan’s piece, the conference seems to have gone unnoticed So all credit to him for giving it the profile it warrants – but I’m still waiting for some more coherent prescriptions from him about an alternative path. Another article on The Open Democracy site offers, however, a useful framework for such a discussion. It suggests that the critiques of neo-liberalism can perhaps be divided into 4 schools - left communitarianism, left republicanism, centre republicanism and right communitarianism. For the details see -
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/stuart-white/where-does-coalition-stand-on-new-ideological-map
The article drew my attention to another 2009 pamphlet one of whose authors is now an adviser to the Lib-Dem Deputy Prime Minister and which is apparently now required reading amongst British civil servants.
http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/theliberalrepublic
A quick skim leaves me deeply dissatisfied – it’s more a clever undergraduate essay than a serious political pamphlet and gives me the feeling that we are now seeing a new generation of think-tankers take over in England who will inflict the same clever nonsense on the dumb politicians which people such as Geoff Mulgan and Peri 6 did 15 years or so ago. That’s a bit too simplistic - I enjoyed their writing – but it did lead, for example, to the rather arrogant strategy papers of the UK Cabinet Unit after 1997 (when Mulgan was the Head) which carried the assumption that the world was a new place with no lessons to be learned from the past – and certainly nothing good about it. Although China and Britain are very similar in their neo-liberalism, they are poles apart on the issue of tradition and novelty and how new policies are to be justified. In China you have to fight for the new – in Britain “new” is elevated to a religious value. After “New Labour”, quickly came “New politics”. What next? “New man”?
Having said that, I do need to get up to speed with these new people. I have just ordered the book by one of the more intriguing of the new breed – Phillip Blond – whose Red Tory has brought praise from even Jon Cruddas the Labour MP considered to be the leader of the left in parliament. A review of the book gives an indiaction of the challenge it represents!
http://www.opendemocracy.net/michael-merrick/red-tory-liberalism-and-loss-of-liberty

Hay, rain, Windows and democracy

A mixed bag of goodies this morning.
I did indeed do some scything yesterday morning – before the rains came yet again. And this morning also dawns wet – very unusual weather for here.
Now a moan about Microsoft and PC producers. I never expected to pay 600 euros tor a laptop boasting it had the latest Windows 7 – only to discover that it gave me Word only for 2 months (and requiring a special downloading) and that I am then expected to pay for it. By all means make us pay for the frills (as they do on cut-price flying) – but Word is so basic that it must surely be illegal to offer a PC which boasts it has Windows when it lacks Word?

The short visit I made recently to China (and the preparatory reading I did for it) opened up some interesting perspectives for me. I have never been a simplistic human rights advocate – but was appalled to read of the scale and nature of the continuing repression of those, for example, who dared to try to defend citizens against the injustices perpetrated by rapacious municipalities. However the Chinese authorities at various levels do try to take account of public opinion in various ways (they have to since they live in fear of losing their monoploy of power)– I and am a realist about how little power citizens of western democracies actually have to change things. I was brought up on the Schumpeterian diction about democracy only being a method choosing between competing elites – and that is certainly the case in American and Britain.
Last week an iconoclastic lecture was delivered in the august British Academy of Sciences by James Fishkin, director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, which related to this issue.
I excerpt the key sections below in italics. For the full article (and paper) go here Professor Fishkin claimed that we’ve known that liberal democracy doesn’t work since 1957, when Anthony Downs published his ‘rational ignorance’ theorem. Put simply, Downs proved that there’s no point in voters taking the considerable trouble to study the issues in sufficient depth to vote intelligently as their individual vote has a negligible effect on the outcome of the election. Or, as Russell Hardin memorably put it: ‘Having the liberty to cast my vote is roughly as valuable as having the liberty to cast a vote on whether the sun will shine tomorrow.’ Even after Schumpeter’s demonstration that voting is just a way of alternating elites, we still hang on to the illusion that liberal democracy is democratic. Fishkin and his colleague Bruce Ackerman are delightfully rude about our tendency to ‘vote for the politicians with the biggest smile or the biggest handout’, and are equally scornful of computer sampling models which enable politicians to ‘learn precisely which combinations of myth and greed might work to generate the support from key voting groups.’
Fishkin’s solution to the problem of rational ignorance is random selection by lot to create temporary deliberative assemblies to debate the issue(s) on hand and vote on the outcome. Like most people working in the field (including Anthony Barnett and the present author) Fishkin thought he had invented this system (known technically as ‘sortition’) only to discover that the Athenians beat him to it 2,400 years ago The Stanford sortition experiments have demonstrated that, given balanced advocacy and careful moderation, ordinary people will take the time to study and deliberate the issues before making an informed decision (via a secret ballot). Fishkin is opposed to the pressure to consensus that afflicts the Habermasian model of deliberative democracy and also claims that his institutional design overcomes the polarising tendencies of group deliberation recently outlined by Cass Sunstein.
Step forward China - Fishkin was contacted in 2004 by the party leadership in Zegou township, Wenling City (about 300 km south of Shanghai) who had a problem prioritising infrastructure projects – they had identified thirty potential projects but only had funding for ten. Although party leaders had their own preferences they commissioned Fishkin to introduce a randomly-selected deliberative assembly (235 members), who deliberated for a day over the various projects and voted on the outcome. Although the winning priorities on the deliberative poll were very different from those of the local leadership, the results were duly implemented. Coincidentally, I then came across a very useful booklet which has just been published exposing the way big business has intensified its penetration of EU policy-making.