Image © UCL Conservative Society

The former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, famously called the NHS “the closest thing the English have to a religion.” This oft-quoted truism is once again doing the rounds as the furore over the Health and Social Care Bill boils on despite continuous opposition from almost everyone in the profession and large swathes of the public. Ed Miliband even had a good soundbite in PMQs when, citing supposed (and since refuted) opposition to the reforms from the Tory Reform Group, he hit Cameron with the line that ‘Even the Tories don’t trust the Tories on the NHS.’ Lawson’s judgement remains an apt assessment of how important the NHS is to the British people and the corresponding distrust of creeping privatization into this most popular institution of the welfare state. For an example of this instinctive distrust of marketisation of the NHS, last week’s Question Time saw the American business woman, Julie Meyer, jeered by the audience when she suggested that we should turn it into a ‘trillion pound British healthcare industry.’ Perhaps this response was unsurprising given how America somehow squanders away 16.2% of its GDP on healthcare (as opposed to 9.3% for the UK) and yet leaves around 50 million people, or approximately 16% of its population, without healthcare. However, I want to focus on the bad politics surrounding this bill. I lack sufficient expertise and willpower to dissect or examine the 367 page bill itself.

Firstly, this bill was not democratically mandated. The much cited Coalition agreement set out that the government would ‘stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care.’ Further to this, the Tory 2010 manifesto stated that ‘more than three years ago, David Cameron spelled out his priorities in three letters – NHS. Since then, we have consistently fought to protect the values the NHS stands for and have campaigned to defend the NHS from Labour’s cuts and reorganisations.’ Occasionally there has been an attempt by the government to claim it is not top-down but bottom-up change. However, one Tory MP argued that ‘stripping out primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities is as top down as it comes.’ Even if certain clauses in manifestos gave hints of coming organizational changes, no radical transformation was openly offered up at the last election by either the Tories or the Lib Dems. Instead, the government is open to accusations of dishonesty and hypocrisy given the record of both the Tories and Lib Dems in critiquing overly zealous top down New Labour reforms of the NHS.

Secondly, the reforms seem to needlessly invite political blame for future problems. The NHS faces considerable funding squeezes even without the reforms. Historically, the NHS’s budget has grown at 4% annually whereas the present government is trying to keep its rate closer to 1%. This will inevitably lead to problems. The coalition could have let the NHS continue in its present form and reverted to default setting of blaming all the problems on the lack of money and Labour’s reckless spending over their 13 years in government, as they have on the economy or in every other area of policy. Polls seem to suggest that this strategy has been working elsewhere. Instead of such an approach, this bill provides Labour with a causal explanation for future NHS difficulties that cannot be blamed on Gordon Brown alone. If waiting lists are up, services dysfunctional and satisfaction down with the NHS by 2015, Labour can no longer be held up as solely responsible, an excuse which is getting fairly tired as it is. It is inviting a backlash at the ballot box on an issue Cameron had aimed to neutralize in his Tory detoxification project.

Lastly, the political message of the bill seems to be built upon two contradictory narratives. Firstly, the government has continued the stance taken by every government since Thatcher, blaming the public service workers for not working for the best interests of the service user, i.e. the patients and the public. This has been evident in Cameron’s attempts to portray NHS doctors of the BMA as being like any other trade union or his recent attacks on nurses. This approach alone would have left the debate over the reforms be a by now familiar political pitched battle. As Peter Hoskin put it on The Spectator, it would have resulted in ‘on one side, the ‘trusted’ health professionals blaming government policy for any failures; on the other, the government blaming ‘producer interests’ for the same.’ However, the government also took the line that more power should be given to the professionals who run the service. Presumably, this was an attempt to differentiate from the New Labour reforms of targets and central co-ordination. This second element seems to contradict the first. Lansley stated in 2010 that he wished to transfer power away from bureaucrats and for the NHS to be ‘led by patients and professionals, not by politicians.’

Presumably, as the power should be with the professionals and, as they are shouting for the bill to be scrapped, they are right? Lansley cannot both claim that professionals should run the NHS and now ignore their widespread opposition to his NHS reforms.

There are undoubtedly many excellent reasons against the current NHS reforms but the bill’s problems are as much political as they are structural. The NHS was important to detoxifying the Tory brand but now Cameron seems to have let Lansley set back that process. It has drawn criticism from Conservative Home, one of the representative blogs of the centre right, and in one recent poll 65% of people polled believed the bill should be withdrawn. Without this bill, the NHS’s problems could have been blamed on Labour’s profligacy in government. However, in coming years Labour will be able to pin NHS problems to the coalition bill and its revolutionary structural changes. The NHS bill is a considerable political gamble on the already financially stretched English ‘religion.’

Image © Murdo Macleod

As a political anorak and resident of Edinburgh I dutifully plodded out to St Andrew’s House yesterday afternoon to stand in the cold and catch a glimpse of my Prime Minister greeting my First Minister. Though unaccredited, I was able to wander freely into the press pit and take my post amongst the telescopic lenses and cameras of Scotland’s media. Indeed, security was remarkably lax. Despite NUJ members having been informed that they would have to register their presence in some fashion, this was not enforced. The police presence was remarkable by its scarcity and, though a pair of suited men with prominent earpieces were to be seen presumably discussing security arrangements with a man conspicuously without a tie, the tone of the event was intensely relaxed.

Then, minutes before Mr Cameron was scheduled to arrive, the calm was pierced by a meagre gaggle of protesters who, by their garb and enthusiastic chanting of slogans from the 80s, I suspect represented the best and brightest of Edinburgh’s youth wing of the Socialist Workers Party. They were led by four ageing soldiers of the war against the Tories and the remaining three dozen or so represented their ideological progeny. The quiet afternoon air solidified into a greatest hits of three decade old resentment and anger as faint noises of traffic and the grumblings of bored and cold photographers was replaced by young voices raised in cries of “Tory scum” and “when you say cutback we say fight back.”

A dozen or so police officers appeared and took up station at the doors of the building as the protesters sat on the steps of the building with the intention of obstructing the arrival of the Prime Minister. Between them they brandished three signs, two reading “Coalition Against Cuts” and one “I’m so angry I made this sign.” The protesters – they were too few to be collectively referred to as a protest – were asked to move but there was no reaction from the police when they refused. From the press pit the gathered photographers and cameramen looked bemused while producers muttered that the new arrivals had better not ruin their shots.

Some cameras were discharged in the direction of the sit-in – or rather sit-on – and the concise congregation awoke with sporadic calls for Cameron’s head, once more. The stage was set for an underwhelming conflagration of police, protesters and Prime and First Ministers until the pool photographer was spotted leaving the building and the less than revelatory realisation dawned that Mr Cameron had long since entered via a side-door. This anti-climactic conclusion was met with cries of “Scotland 1, Tories nil” by the demonstrators. The media had been frustrated in its desire to visually capture the meeting of statesmen but the voice of the people had triumphed.

What, then, is to be taken from this encounter that prevented an encounter from occurring publicly? What lessons can we learn from the example of these brave rebels? They did emphatically inform all present that “this is what democracy looks like” so there must be something of value to be gleaned.

I can only speak for myself but I was merely amused and embarrassed. The chanted slogans were so sporadic that they took on a distinctly comical tone. At multiple points in the diminutive demonstration I found myself snorting with laughter. These young socialists and their ageing minders clearly perceived themselves to be brave crusaders against the injustice of austerity. Their pride in themselves and their stand – or rather sit – was palpable but the disparity between what they saw themselves to be and what I witnessed was vast. It seems to me rather dismal that these presumably relatively bright individuals, when faced with a meeting of two leaders meeting to discuss massive constitutional change, could only respond with the cry “Tory scum.” This was not a thoughtful protest. It did not widen or contribute to the debate on independence nor did it contribute meaningfully to the subject of austerity with which it hijacked the afternoon.

Though they chanted they did not seem truly angry. Though they refused to vacate the steps – and indeed chanted “we shall not be moved” when absolutely nobody attempted to move them – they did not seem truly defiant. Despite their apparent anguish, they looked happy. They looked content. The bonds of friendship and shared outrage shone and, had I not found their activities so distasteful, I would have desired to be part of their clearly pleasurable shared experience. Like gleeful children who had found a new and disruptive way to gain attention they sat. Their supervising adults looked like parents watching their children walk for the first time. One was left with the distinct impression that the only thing that could have made them happier was aggression from the police that would have vindicated the simplistic world-view that they espoused.

Whether by their own behaviour or by complacency in my observation, they embodied all that is risible and deserving of disregard in political protest. The ridiculous spectacle was made whole by their most esoteric exclamation: “We paid for you hats! We paid for your hats! What a waste of council tax, we paid for your hats!” This was directed at the police that encircled them. This drew my attention to the attending officers. They at least lent an air of authenticity to the affair. They stood imposingly in their uniforms, some with tight black scarves raised over their mouths against the cold. They succeeded in personifying an intimidating and resolute state even as the protesters failed to convincingly constitute its opposite. Of course, it was a cold day and those officers that did obscure parts of their faces could be forgiven for seeking warmth.

In my inspection of the surrounding tools of our repressive state my eye was drawn to the glasses worn by one of the female officers. There were a handful of police adorned with totems of their ocular limitations but these stood out. Whilst the rest were sober and functional these glasses brandished their pedigree. The words “red or dead” careened down each arm in effervescent pink, cursive lettering. I immediately empathised more with this uniformed public servant with garish taste in eye-wear than I did with any member of the protest, which, moments later, kindly reminded all present that “It’ll be your [the police’s] jobs next.” This contradiction that was so excitedly touted by the demonstrators gave me my reason. Life is complex and when described simplistically appears to be full of contradictions. Here stood a group of people facing budget and wage cuts, job losses, and increased pension contributions standing – at least as far as their opponents could discern – with their oppressors against the minute masses. The protesters proved to be unable to distinguish between the individuals, the institutions, and the ideologies with which they disagreed. To them all three were bound together in some inversion of their beloved solidarity.

These individuals so clumsily exercising their democratic rights were immature. Though some appeared young enough for this to be expected; others were not. A handful were significantly older than the police that blocked their way. As children we are faced with monsters on a daily basis. They reside in the stories we are told and then lurk under our beds, in our cupboards, and in dark corners. But despite these shadowy beings we are – for the most part, in this country at least – spared monstrous experiences. As our understanding of the world grows we find it to be a more monstrous place than a childhood in quiet and peaceful suburbs prepares us for. This is the stage of maturity that these protesters appeared to have become locked. They showed no sign of realisation that whilst the world was indeed a more monstrous place than it appeared to many of us as children, the monsters are far fewer. Pain, strife, and injustice do not require evil men to propagate them. They don’t require monsters; simple and comforting narratives do.

I do not accuse the Left more broadly of being trapped in this intellectual adolescence I believe there was a hidden lesson amongst yesterday’s embarrassment. The final chant that I will reproduce went along the lines of: “Scotland, Greece and Spain, the problem is the same.” I suspect that it had a different rhythm for that really was the key and only strength on show from these dissenters but I have successfully remembered the meaning. And I agree with it, though, I suspect, not with its intended meaning. Across Europe, the Left is galvanised at a grass-roots level in a way it hasn’t been since the invasion of Iraq and yet it is in political retreat across the continent. François Hollande is the only major leader of the Left on the rise and his proposed solutions amount to nothing more than tearing up the limited reform that President Sarkozy has succeeded in foisting on France. His source of funding for this expansion of the state? Protectionism and a unilateral assault on high finance. It is not hard for a French socialist to kick against the pricks. Elsewhere the solutions offered by the Left are even poorer. The poorest and most vulnerable in society are under assault and it would appear that it is the Left’s intention to fight. Strike! Occupy! Resist! What that means beyond self-righteous protests remains unclear.

Image © Niklas Sjöblom

Would it be easier to create a sustainable global economy if the world more closely resembled the demographics and geography of Iceland – a volcanic island with a manageably small population and a unique abundance of renewable energy? This was among the many questions raised during a panel discussion at Tipping Point Film Fund’s UK premier of Future of Hope, often referred to as the Iceland documentary.

Since the Nordic country experienced the systemic failure of its entire banking sector in 2008, a number of Iceland’s senior banking executives have been arrested, sacked or sued. Grass roots organisations, including the Ministry of Ideas that was featured in the film, have since hosted a National Assembly of unprecedented scale. The government-backed Assembly was designed to focus specifically on the nation’s next steps; to agree on a set of collective values and to establish a clear vision for how to rebuild their economy from the ashes of the old. While the film did not focus on the Assembly itself, progressives would not be surprised by its outcome: participants emphasised the importance of robust public services, establishing an environmentally responsible and sustainable economy, and ensuring equality and transparency in the country’s future renaissance.

There are some important parallels between the Icelandic response to financial collapse and what concerned citizens and activists attempted to do in 2011 – from the Arab spring to the multitude of public occupations in towns and cities around the world. After the collapse of their financial sector, Icelanders took the opportunity to reflect on what went wrong. Given the various interconnected crises that humanity faces at this crucial juncture in history, it would be prudent for us all to do the same. Moreover, we need to identify the root causes of these crises and create a public dialogue to ensure that these causative factors are widely recognised and understood. Like the Icelanders, we also need to agree on the core values that should guide the reform process, and communicate a practical vision of how these values can create a more sustainable and equitable world.

Identifying the crises we face

Of the many crises facing humankind, none is more pressing than the reality of poverty and deprivation, a crisis that humanity has routinely failed to address since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first adopted in 1948. Despite decades of ‘development’ pledges and donor aid, three billion people still live on less than $2.50 a day, two and a half billion do not have access to clean water and sanitation, and almost a billion people are classified as hungry. According to the World Health Organisation, around 40,000 people a day die from a lack of nutritious food, clean water and rudimentary medical care – over 14 million people every year.

Another fundamental concern is how a deregulated and globalised economy has locked large swathes of humanity into unsustainable patterns of overproduction and overconsumption. This irresponsible economic model is the real cause of our environmental problems, which include the rapid depletion of the world’s natural resources and surging carbon emissions that governments seem unable – or unwilling – to contain. We are also confronted by an ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the excessive influence of corporate power, on-going financial instability and economic uncertainty.

A commentator in Future of Hope identified one of the root causes of their financial collapse as the domination of aggressively masculine business practices sanctioned by their government. These, he went on to explain, would still be considered successful strategies if they hadn’t ultimately precipitated the country’s collapse. The same blinkered approach to commerce applies across the world. The inherent flaws in the ‘business as usual’ model remain largely unacknowledged despite the grave financial and environmental crises it has exacerbated, and policymakers continue to blindly pursue their intimate relationship with the corporate sector.

The values that have driven this aggressive and ideological approach to business and politics are not difficult to identify: self-interest, excessive competition and greed. These values are embodied in the ‘neoliberal policies’ of deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation that facilitate wealth accumulation through the pursuit of profit and endless GDP growth. We have constructed a world where national institutions and systems of global governance are very much guided by these policies. And everything from world trade, global finance, climate change mitigation, and even international development is influenced by this ideological approach to politics and policymaking.

Much more needs to be done to stimulate a popular debate about the impact of neoliberal policies on our everyday lives. Just as challenging is establishing a common vision for what a sustainable and equitable future world should look like and how to make it a reality. A key theme of the Iceland film was that of ‘sustainable sufficiency’ – the need to produce and consume only what we really need. Localising economies and rethinking patterns of international trade, production and consumption can go a long way to achieving this. But this is not enough. As Icelanders interviewed in the film appreciated, we can only succeed in creating a more sustainable world if we replace the outdated vales that underpin our failed policies of the past with ones that more accurately reflect what it means to be human.

Rethinking human values: Sharing and cooperation

Self-interest, competition and wealth accumulation have had their day and reaped havoc in the process. It stands to reason that their ill-effects can be counterbalanced when the principles of sharing and cooperation occupy the hearts and minds of future policymakers. These are values we are all familiar with – we practice them in our homes and communities and teach them to our children. Placing international cooperation and sharing at the heart of policymaking has the potential to transform our economies, our societies and our relationship with the natural world.

The redistribution of financial resources is the logical first step in making this fundamental shift in economic, social and environmental policy.  If implemented as a program on an international scale, redistribution can rapidly end deprivation and prevent needless deaths. More equitably sharing the world’s financial resources will not address the structural causes of our global malaise, but it is the most practical way to ensure people everywhere have access to basic food, water and medicine in the immediate future. Financial redistribution can also fund climate adaption and mitigation programs in developing countries, and can even help plug the hole in public finances when nations are forced to implement measures of economic austerity.

The world is awash with money, and there are many options available to governments for harnessing it for redistributive purposes. For example, hundreds of billions of dollars can be raised by closing tax havens, preventing tax evasion, implementing financial transaction taxes and a tax on carbon. Vast sums can be raised by reducing military budgets, redirecting fossil fuel subsidies and ending the most perverse subsidies provided to large-scale industrial farming corporations in rich countries. It is also possible to tap into the IMF’s massive gold reserves and to harness the Fund’s Special Drawing Right’s facility. The list goes on.

Redistribution also presents a starting point for broader reforms to the global economy. Central to these in an era of dwindling natural resources and escalating emissions is the sustainable management of the global commons. Applying the principle of sharing to the way natural resources are managed requires us to recognise that they are limited in quantity and that they must be distributed and consumed more equitably across the world. By conserving and regulating our use of the world’s resources through this understanding, economic sharing can help nations to move away from patterns of overconsumption and excessive carbon emissions.

Building world public opinion

Future of Hope conveys the message that humanity’s entrepreneurial spirit can ultimately overcome adversity and rebuild life for the better. This hope and vision will be sorely needed in the coming years as campaigners continue to highlight injustice and demand that governments enact reforms that are commensurate with the basic needs of the majority of the world.

The crises we face and the movements campaigning for change are an increasingly global phenomenon. The process of reform, therefore, must also take place on an international scale. A worldwide public debate about these issues is something that until recently might have seemed an unlikely possibility. But with so many options for global collaboration now available – all turbocharged by social media platforms and the extended reach of the ‘networked individual’ – it is entirely conceivable that world public opinion will eventually take its rightful place as the real superpower in world affairs.

As the burgeoning array of movements for social and economic justice continue to connect across national borders, it is clear that our collective progress depends on the growth in our sense of global unity and an appreciation of humanity’s interdependence. Within this new paradigm of collective responsibility and vision, it seems only natural for nations to shift away from upholding the values of self-interest, competition and greed, and to focus instead on sharing the world’s financial and natural resources more equitably and sustainably.

Future of Hope is a documentary film following individuals that strive to change the world of consumerism, a system of credit and debt that the Icelandic economy was built upon for the past 10 years or more. You can visit the website here: http://www.futureofhope.co.uk

Rajesh Makwana is the director of Share The World’s Resources and he can be contacted at rajesh [at] stwr.org

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. When reproducing this item, please attribute Share The World’s Resources as the source and include a link to its unique URL. For more information, please see our Copyright Policy.

Image © World Economic Forum

It’s the 10th of December 2011. In freezing temperatures of -5C, a projected 50,000 people turned out for a four hour protest on the streets of Moscow to rally against what they perceived to be the illegitimate election of Vladamir Putin.

It’s the 24th of December 2011, and a further 80,000 gathered, a resurgent wave of disdain and disillusion with their own democratic process. One protester was quoted saying “if these crooks and thieves continue to try and cheat us, to try and lie and steal from us, we will take back what’s rightfully ours”. This is hauntingly familiar rhetoric from within a nation that has lost all faith in its civic services. Such a statement reinforces that notion that complexity is defined and legitimised by an evolutionary metaphor: the present must be more complex than the past. Russia has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, been naturally compelled to see the present as complex, and yearn for what used to be. After all the cake and watermelon of a successful, hard fought and just revolution, disappointment inevitably follows – ask Egypt.

The all encompassing term so often used by academics and scholars used to describe Russia’s post-1991 state of affairs, “Post-Communism”, implies a world defined by what it used to be but no longer is – a notion that is definitive of Russia today, but that is changing. The academically urgent need for corroborating explorations on the consequences of abjection, alongside the trials and tribulations that emerge within the process a sociological, national, cultural and psychological metamorphosis, and the consequential symbiosis between religious faith and political absolutism must all be put on ice. There are people at the door Mr. Putin, and they want a genuine election.

We have witnessed over the past two decades the emergence of an utterly broken Mafia State, riddled with criminality and corruption whose operations are habitually remote and irresolute. The Russian people’s consensus on civic institutions is staunchly negative and reflective of a broken and illegitimate democracy. Belief in the legitimacy of civic institutions as an expression of the people’s democratic will is standing at incredibly low figures: 49% for the Army, 22% for the President, 18% for the Courts and most damningly, faith in Parliament and Political Parties in Russia both stand below 13%. What cultural statement does this make for Post-Communist Russia? A society that will put 49% of its trust in the military, but less than 20% of its trust towards its President, its judicial system or its democratic form of governance can simply not strive towards achieving Post-Materialist goals of encouraging a diverse culture, a good quality of life, regard for the environment, minority rights, individual autonomy and self-expression with a crippled faith in civic institutions. Such a metamorphosis from Communism to Post-Communism has led to lower voter turnouts, a resurgence of nationalism and authoritarianism (also visible in Croatia, Slovakia and Ukraine), social and cultural intolerance and a disdain and yet an acceptance of top-down, non-participatory decision making structures.

When discussing the protests in Moscow, we must choose the word “metamorphosis” rather than “revolution” or “transformation” to describe what we are witnessing as the process of metamorphosis implies and ramifies the fact that Russia, and Post-Communism as a whole, is still very much still in a process of emerging from the rubble and attempting to reach a destination. The destination of which it is headed however, is unclear – although we have our clues.

Post-Communism has undoubtedly been the final propagator of a globalised, integrated world, but it is irresponsible now, with tens of thousands of people protesting, calling for a genuine democracy their country to talk of Post-Communism as a concept that only considers the past. No, we must now consider it a term that reflects the future. Post-Communism must connote the way things were, they way they are, and a clear direction and a fixed destination towards a democratic goal. That goal is, figuratively, a final step towards the West.

Image © Metropolitan Police

I recently saw an interesting advert on the television: it was for the internet dating service, ‘uniformdating.com‘. The advert asks for people to join the site ‘if you work in uniform’ (a bit strange to differentiate this group for romantic purposes, isn’t it?) or, even more sinister, ‘if you just fancy those who do’. I have no problem with the idea of internet dating, and if people in a uniformed occupation (or with a strange attraction to this diverse group) wish to use the service, then good luck to them. But, to most people, doesn’t this seem just a bit… well, weird?

My theory is that the main aim of the owners of this site, the NSI group, is not to encourage people to join this particular site. Through their ‘Really Fab Dating’ software, NSI have an interest in the fortunes of many different site within the internet dating industry. Through spending lots of money on TV adverts for uniformdating.com, the company probably hopes to help the industry as a whole. This is how: 1) There is still a stigma about internet dating; some people think it’s ‘a bit weird’. 2) These people will see uniformdating.com as ‘very weird’. 3) Suddenly, in comparison, mainstream dating sites such as match.com (from comparing the fonts, I assume NSI have something to do with that one too) seem far more normal. Thus, through creating an intentionally off-beat site, the internet dating industry will improve its image, and grow.

What impact could this insight have upon politics? Well, my theory is that the existence of far right political parties, such as UKIP and the BNP, makes the Conservative party appear very moderate, centrist, and cuddly. Voters may see David Cameron passing legislation to make life more difficult for disabled children, but they can always note that Nigel Farrage would have them caned, and Nick Griffin would deport a reasonable proportion of them. Even within the Conservatives, David Cameron is made to look centrist. When Ann Widdecombe proposes that homosexuals should be ‘cured’, and 81 Tory MPs want a referendum on the EU, the public count their lucky stars that well-known gay-rights activist David Cameron takes a sensible attitude towards Europe.*

Since British communism never really made inroads into the public consciousness, and has now all but collapsed, there is no conspicuous political opposition to the left of the Labour party. Perhaps if the Socialist Workers’ Party received as much media coverage as the BNP, Ed Miliband would be more capable of taking a more left-wing line than he does – he would always look more moderate than someone else. And what about the far left of the Labour party itself? Well, thirteen years of government has been shown to be the best way to turn revolutionaries into centrists.

With the absence of his own uniformdating.com outrider, Miliband can always be criticised as being the ‘loony left’, whereas Cameron can never be the ‘loony right’; Nick Griffin is.

You may experience some technical difficulties in accessing Left Central in the coming hours and days. Please bear with us and don’t be alarmed.

Regards,

Seamus Peter Johnstone Macleod

Editor

Left Central

Image © Byzantine K

As hard as it may be to envisage, it is possible that some of you may have missed my appearance on BBC Radio Four’s Broadcasting House programme over the weekend. Thanks to the wonders of BBC iPlayer you can catch up here[1]. Typically, I forgot half of what I wanted to say and failed, in the small time allotted to the very broad topic of the Daily Mail’s impact on society, to produce a wholly satisfactory, coherent argument. Nevertheless, it was an interesting debate, but one I feel needs fleshing out further. But first, let us look at what was revealed during the 8 minute ding-dong.

My sparring partner throughout the debate was the Mail’s very own Bel Mooney. Immediately, Bel was forced to concede that she regularly receives criticism for daring to write for the infamous paper. She even acknowledged that the Mail “gets things wrong and often prints things I don’t agree with”. However, she failed to maintain sanity. She went on to describe the Mail as a “paper of absolute genius” and, when I dared to raise an example of the paper’s contradictory views on feminism, she declared: “Can we be more serious than that?” Coming from a Daily Mail defender, surely that must be the irony of all ironies.

Aside from the point I raised with regards to the double standard over feminism[2], I also managed to fit in a quote from a BNP activist (“The rhetoric of the Express and the Mail could come from one of our own newsletters[3]”), stated that my parents merely buy the Mail for its supposedly superior crossword, challenged the paper’s definition of what it means to be British (something that went ignored by both host and opponent) and asserted that Mr Dacre’s new corrections box on page two is simply not enough to convince me that the paper’s standards will significantly rise.

Regrettably, I was unable to draw upon all of my disturbing examples of Daily Mail indecency and duplicity. For instance, I did not get the opportunity to challenge Bel over a story published in the paper that ran with the headline: ‘English speaking pupils are a minority in inner-city London primary schools[4]’. This headline was a blatant lie. As is revealed within the story, pupils who speak English as their first language are a minority in a handful of schools, but the headline says something different altogether. Similarly, how about a piece published in 2010 that declared that Mohammed was Britain’s most popular name among newborn baby boys[5]. Once again, a complete fabrication.

Of course, Bel gleefully brought up the subject of Stephen Lawrence; repeating the commonly heard claim that the Mail led the field and helped gain justice for the Lawrence family. I wonder what the Lawrence family would have made of this ‘Rise of the Black Squirrel’[6] cartoon published this month. For that matter, what would they think of the BNP claiming that the Mail provides perfect propaganda for their election campaigns? The Stephen Lawrence case is merely being used by the Mail and its supporters as an unconvincing veil to hide all the prejudiced nonsense being spewed out on a daily basis.

Not once did Bel offer a satisfactory defence of (or justification for) the Mail’s unabashed anti-Islamic/anti-immigration/anti-foreigners stance. Instead, she laughably asserted that the Mail speaks up for the “silent majority” of Britons who see immigration as a “serious problem”. Unfortunately, I was unable to probe further as host Paddy O’Connell moved the conversation away from such murky waters. I would have loved to have asked Bel for hers views on Mail columnists such as Richard Littlejohn, Peter Hitchens, Melanie Phillips and Kelvin Mackenzie. How does one go about defending the sickening, warmongering, racist, bigoted, warped rants of such imbeciles?

Would she agree, for instance, with the following statement: Daily Mail columnists fuel xenophobic, bigoted attitudes by peddling their own false, ignorant opinions? Now there is an answer I would love to hear. Especially when the evidence weighs heavily in my favour. Between the aforementioned writers, they have mocked disabled protesters[7], accused Afghan migrants of jumping ahead of British soldiers in housing lists[8], banged the drum for war (the latest victim being Iran), have suggested that anti-depressants cause violent outbursts[9] and, during the recent Scottish independence discussions, accused the Scots of “pocketing [a] whacking subsidy[10]” from England. Classy!

Now, that is not to say there is no place for newspapers that sit somewhere between broadsheet and red-top; ground currently dominated by the Mail. However, it is imperative that said newspapers do not sink to the low depths of the tabloid media. The Mail is currently guilty of such behaviour. No amount of readership or website traffic justifies such repulsive conduct. But before the Daily Mail can begin to improve, individuals like Bel must at first accept that there is a problem. As Oscar Wilde once stated: “Everything popular is wrong”. It is fair to say that this statement appears accurate, especially when looked at in relation to today’s British media elite.

A problem, at least it seems to me, is that as soon as you get yourself involved in other people’s business you have a responsibility towards them. Once you’ve intervened and influenced things, all of a sudden everything that happens in your responsibility and you have an obligation to see things through to the end, whatever that end might be.

This problem is highlighted by the Taliban’s declaration that they will retake the country when NATO leaves. They’re probably right, unfortunately. Once NATO leaves, the current government (if it can even be called that, it behaves like a nepotistic crime syndicate) will collapse, with most of its members defecting to the Taliban, and the psychopathic, sexually repressed lunatics in charge of the insurgency will roll into Kabul, triumphant in their victory. More than ten years of foreign occupation will have not made one bit of difference to what will ultimately happen in Afghanistan, except perhaps that our governments will be poorer and those in Afghanistan who did not take the side of the occupation will be angrier. Women will undoubtedly suffer at the hands of their rulers, and much of the relative progress that has been made in the country since the invasion will be undone.

We already have a model of how Afghanistan deals with a prolonged military occupation – the invasion in the 1980′s by the Soviet Union. They too were attempting to instil their preferred model of government in the country but could not sustain their military presence faced with a growing Islamist insurgency and impending bankruptcy and economic recession. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan in rubble, with the Taliban strengthened by their apparent victory. Whatever good came of the Soviet presence, secularisation of society, education for women, and an improved infrastructure was vastly outweighed by the damage the occupation inflicted on Afghan society.

In 2010, Time Magazine published a shocking front page. Stating “What happens if we leave Afghanistan”, it depicted an 18-year old girl who had been sentenced to have her nose and ears cut off by a Taliban commander for “fleeing abusive in-laws”. It was followed by a story about the plight of Afghan women, and how their lives had improved since the overthrow of the Taliban.

This manipulative headline is moronic and offensive for several reasons, but it helps to make the only necessary point we need to take into account when discussing the occupation. First of all the picture and the cover are misleading. The horrific crime which has scarred this young woman obviously took place while the occupation was happening, so it more seeks to demonstrate how incapable we are of protecting Afghan women from the Taliban. But more importantly, it highlights the real problem with humanitarian intervention in the first place – why should the citizens of a nation be forced into taking on the responsibilities of another because our governments tell us to? It’s not as though we went into Afghanistan with benign intentions – we went in to get Osama Bin Laden. And now our political and military leaders, particularly in the United States, are masking their incompetence in defeating the Taliban and orchestrating a withdrawal by waving horrifying pictures in our faces and telling us it’s our fault if women can’t go to school.

I feel a great amount of sadness when I am presented with the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, and I would argue a failure of the left has been the failure to recognise the influence and power of NGO’s and international organisations that make distinct and concerted efforts to help people in these situations, without the need to be backed by a military. The idea that an occupation of a country can be humanitarian is a deadly mistake, and we have to stop seeing our occupation of Afghanistan through that lens. It must be recognised that we are only digging our own graves and that, should we leave, the government that ultimately comes to power will not be sympathetic to the West or to ideas of freedom and democracy.

Whilst an immediate withdrawal would almost certainly lead to turmoil in the country, it is the best bad option at this point. Afghanistan represents the last frontier; the failed military venture which finally ends the warped dream neoconservative dream of “humanitarian” war and the idea that, if we just kill enough of them, democracy will triumph.

Image © The Freedom Association

Since the 2010 general election, there has been much doom written by left-wing commentators about the British electorate leaning further and further towards the right. Ed Miliband’s ever-scathing critic, Dan Hodges, stated that ‘the electorate is shifting to the Right, not to the Left’ and argued that Labour must consequently move there too. There is an element of truth in the assessment that on issues such as Europe, immigration and the economy, the political right is currently more popular. However, there has not been a clear shift of support from Labour to the Tories since the election. Labour has increased its support since 2010, both in terms of membership and according to polls surveying voting intentions. There has though been a different shift to the political right occurring: the transfer of support from the Conservatives to UKIP, a development that could be of vital importance come 2015. Labour can benefit from this fracture amongst England’s political right much in the same way that the SDP/Liberal/Labour divides in the 1980s aided three successive Thatcher governments. Defection of votes from the Tories to UKIP helped Labour squeeze past in marginal seats in 2010. This effect seems only likely to increase as right-wing dissatisfaction deepens with this government.

The problem for Cameron is that many right-wing voters and politicians see his coalition government as weak on issues of core importance. In his memoirs discussing his years in parliament, ‘A Walk-On Part’, former Labour MP Chris Mullin noted on the day of the 1997 election result that ‘victory is not when our side get the red dispatch boxes and the official cars, but when something changes for the better.’ This line of criticism, that there is no point being in power if you fail to get the right policies enacted, can be seen in every negative left-wing account of New Labour. Increasingly, it seems that Thatcherite backbenchers and voters are having this same thought about the present government. Their aims are not being met, dissatisfaction is rumbling ever louder and UKIP’s policies are looking more attractive.

The anger is not about ephemeral issues but ones of vital importance. The anger has been evident amongst the rebellious 2010 intake of Tory backbenchers who, in the words of Conservative Home, are a political ‘generation that cut its political teeth under Margaret Thatcher’. The perceived policy failures are in areas which Thatcher herself prioritised. She called for reduced state spending, rallied against the EU and warned against the UK being ‘swamped’ by immigrants. To many Tory MPs and right-wing commentators, the government continues to spend too much despite the cuts. They believe that the UK remains strangled, both economically and politically, by the EU. Although Cameron’s veto last December had eurosceptics delighted with his leadership, this week’s developments have demonstrated that veto’s non-existence and highlighted the widening chasm between the Tory leadership and the eurosceptic political right. Tory MEP Danniel Hannan complained ‘so now we know: no repatriation, no renegotiation, business as usual. December’s ‘veto’ turns out to be nothing of the kind; at best, it is a partial opt-out.’ Even if the veto had been meaningful, Cameron believes Britain should remain in the EU and supports eurozone fiscal union. Further to the EU problems for Cameron, immigration hit a new peak last year despite a promised reduction to ‘tens of thousands’. EU immigration accounts for almost half of all coming to the UK. As we cannot restrict EU immigration as part of the EU, those opposed to immigration would surely prefer UKIP to the Tories. The coalition government Tory party is not matching the expectations of the eurosceptic, Thatcherite right on these central issues.

The consequence has been that UKIP’s electoral support has been growing considerably. One YouGov poll put their support at 7%, a number familiar to the Lib Dems. This could benefit Labour immensely. If this level of support for UKIP remains in 2015, it could divide the right wing vote in essential, marginal English constituencies. Indeed, Peter Oborne argued that ‘it goes without saying that a Tory leader can never win an election so long as the broader Conservative movement is so painfully split.’ In response to the UKIP challenge, Cameron could shift to the right. However, this seems unlikely. Cameron’s leadership was centred on ‘decontaminating’ the Tory brand. Lord Ashcroft’s research found that this process remains incomplete and was an electoral hindrance in 2010 against winning floating voters. Given the restrictions of a coalition government, it seems unlikely that Cameron could satisfy the discontented eurosceptics. Consequently, the Tories risk haemorrhaging support to UKIP. This development will certainly not win Labour the 2015 election, but it will give Miliband a boost. With eurosceptic papers raging that the present crisis of the euro represents a “’once-in-a-generation’ opportunity to claw back powers from Brussels”, the divides within the Conservative party over the EU in particular are being stretched to breaking point. If there were a major Tory loss of Eurosceptic support, the rise of UKIP could help Labour back into government in 2015.