Look both Ways

Strikes Part II.

When writing an article, a journalist should be clear what the piece is about. Yesterday's Evening Standard wanted to portray the public sector strike as highly damaging to hard-pressed families but equally say the strike had little effect. So pretty serious and at the same time not at all serious.

No.10, now crossing the line into unjustifiably overt political statements, deemed the closure of 6,000 schools as having "minimal impact".

The Conservatives and their Liberal Conservative colleagues had their message of austerity strengthened by an alliance of propagandists led by the Sun, the Mail and the Times. Through those papers, Francis Maude appealed for volunteers to help out in the spirit of "Dunkirk" implying the strikers were at least unpatriotic if not actually "the enemy within."

Clearly there is a war of ideology going on here and, judging by the slightly too hysterical messages from the Govt and media, they are feeling under pressure. Cameron's big line about pensions system being close to bust is not matched by the figures from the Govt's own report. The cost of public pensions is already falling a percentage of GDP and will fall 25% by 2050. The main reason is there has already been a huge overhaul of public sector pensions carried out by Labour in 2007.

The Sun did not need to deal with such trivia when it could focus its efforts on ludicrous character assassination. The portrayal of mild-mannered Christine Blower, head of the teacher's union, as a Scargillite was like a parody of news media. They alleged she is a "hate-filled extremist" driven by her "twisted politics." The Mail gave their estimates for those "on strike" but substituted the phrase "on the picket line" instead, implying they were all hardened, loony-left activists warming their hands over burning oil drums.

All those papers were disappointed there was no violence although some scuffling outside No.10 was somewhat enlarged by the Mail into something quite threatening and seditious. They reported all police leave was cancelled to deal with these nutters but the truth was thousands of police civilian staff were on strike so officers were needed as cover.

I wandered through the crowds in Westminster on Thursday, spotting just one anarchist type who looked very disheartened by the jolliness of the beard and sandles brigade, marching politely through the streets.

Cameron has tried the big bluff which seems to be failing. He has tried to show teachers and public servants as a group distinct from the hard-pressed taxpayer. Firstly, they are taxpayers too but second, the plight of the teachers is not something going on in the distance. Parents know their children's teachers and mostly recognise they have been treated poorly. Cameron's problem is he preceives people to be as remote from each other's day-to-day problems as he has always been from the wider world.

Mainstream Militants

It is worth reminding ourselves, employees do have a right to strike. According to several Coalition Ministers there seems to be some doubt. Or if workers do exert their right, there may be changes in law to prevent them doing so in future.

Putting to one side the fundamental rights of an employee, strikes are at a record low so there is hardly a compelling case at present. But this week will see the first big public sector disputes. Michael Gove told Andrew Marr in a thoroughly didactic manner, the teachers who were determined to strike amounted to a "militancy" who must be stopped by "public demand". His plan for an army of mums (without CRB checks) to take over is as pitiful as it is unworkable (no mention of dads).

In any event, the public seemed to be in support, as they recognise the teachers are not making a greedy pay claim but are simply trying to protect pensions based on low-pay. It does not help the Government that discussions over MPs' pensions changes, easily the most generous, are being held in secret.

The NHS consulted this year on pension options and asked staff to commit to different plans. Then Danny 'Beaker' Alexander ripped the whole package up when he pushed up retirement to 66 leaving many employees having made the wrong decision based on the wrong information.

In the 1980s, there were elements of 'Militant' as part of the far-left wing of the Labour party who relished drawing battle lines with Tories. The world is wholly different now and for Gove and his peers to paint teachers and civil servants as extremists treats them with more contempt and can only increase resolve among the strikers.

Incidentally the geeky type circled in the picture is one Michael Gove manning a NUJ picket line in the 80s. What was he thinking?

If you Think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance

The Central Office for Information or COI had performed a vital role since 1946 in creating important public messages as diverse as drink-driving, AIDS and smoking. The bottom line of their balance sheet over the years has been thousands of lives saved and countless families' prospects improved and strengthened.

They were effectively the Government's advertising agency. To the new coalition, advertising and marketing is deemed a luxury and so with a crassness which rivals the dumping of the highly successful National Film Council, they have just abolished the COI.

The decision was taken by Francis 'Crocodile' Maude who deems such work "unnecessary". Andrew Lansley said the same prior to an outbreak of bird flu and felt compelled, against his political instincts, to reverse his decision when presented with the simplest of cost/benefit analysis.

Not so Maude. He commissioned a report from senior civil servant Mark Tee who recommended reform, restructuring, and re-naming. Maude abolished instead.

The decision prompted a nostalgic look at old campaigns starring Jimmy Saville, Charley the Cat and Alvin Stardust. But little backlash at the idiocy of it all.

The Govt is all about savings and has centralised Departments' HR and finance functions to save many millions. The disbanding of COI is the reverse and functions will be devolved to individual Departments so losing all economies of scale, together with strategic advantages and a huge skill base.

There is no information on timing or terms for the civil servants affected just a terse press release which fails to acknowledge any of the successes of COI which have been considerable.

COI was like an 'invisible' Department because it did its job so well. The public don't realise what an impact it made on their lives, But for many it saved them.

Backbencher Overboard

When David Cameron became PM, he supported a new politics where backbenchers would be able to regain some of their authority as well as autonomy and so enhance the integrity of the House.

Yesterday, Mark Pritchard MP (Con) spoke on a motion to ban animals from circuses and found he had, for reasons hard to discern, incurred the wrath of No 10 for arguing against the Govt's line on licensing. Politically speaking, circuses are the smallest of issues imaginable but Pritchard's determination inspired HQ to engage the kind of control freakery which only Gordon Brown would have thought was merited.

The whips were on to him offering him a (non) job, probably a PPS to a junior in DEFRA. When that failed, No 10 rang to put the frighteners on him. The strategy rather backfired when Pritchard blurted out these conversations during the debate so signalling his own political death.

How dismal to commit career suicide on such a tiny point. There are just 39 animals in circuses in England and no doubt they would all enjoy a better life elsewhere from the big top.

The only more pitiful member was Andrew Rosindell who chose to defend the indefensible and support the 19th Century practice of caging wild animals then parading them around a ring.

His arguments were novel and desperate. He suggested the animals were actually better off, didn't know any different, were always treated kindly. He said MPs should forget emotions and just deal with facts and then presented none. He would not give way to Pritchard even though it was his own debate.

The tirade of scorn which rang around Rosindell's ears was deafening. He will fight another day whereas Pritchard's had his wake last night.

Ordinary People

Here is Philip Davies MP for Shipley. Looks an affable sort of chap. He's keen to make a mark and his latest suggestion for the disabled to 'opt out' of the minumum wage has certainly done the trick.
It is no more than logical to say the disabled or women or young black males may be able to get employment easier, if they sell their labour for less than the statutory minimum. Or even give it away for free. But Davies, probably willfuly, misses the entire point. The minimum wage was instituted here, in the U.S. and many other countries because there was a consensus on what was an acceptable living wage and where employees could be protected against discriminatory and exploitative employers.
The principle of the strong protecting the weak does not resonate too well with this Government despite the Lib-Dems' influence, such as it is.
Ed Milliband achieved a rare, resounding victory over Dave at PMQs by exposing his ignorance about the removal of benefits from about 7,000 people recovering from cancer. He must have won well because Quentin Letts of the Mail called it a "score-draw". Another Government may have agreed to iron out this wrinkle in IDS's great Benefit Reform Bill. But later that day No.10 insisted they would "press ahead" - political arrogance trumping humanity.
And to what end exactly? Are these stern measures necessary to stem the rising tide of workshy cancer patients?
Phil Davies can live with being despised in fact it qualifies him for a promising Ministerial career.

Born the Day Before Yesterday

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP may have been one of the most fortunate beneficiaries of the national swing against Gordon Brown at the last election. He defeated a good incumbent in Dan Norris despite being the most footling of upper crust Tories.
He receives an ovation of ironic cheers from the Labour benches every time he speaks in the Commons. He represents precisely the kind of Tory Cameron wishes the public to forget: remote, privileged, snobbish. He famously took his nanny and his bently round Fife for his first campaign election. Jacob RM may have gone to Eton but he gives the impression he was too posh even for that place. Certainly posher than the Queen.
Last Friday, rather than listening to his North Somerset constituents about their problems, JRM decided to spend his time making a string of fatuous remarks in a Commons debate about roadside drug testing. Here the world of scientific expertise came up against his inordinately superior instincts based on a wafer thin set of irrelevant anecdotes.
He sought to ridicule the very idea of testing someone for drugs. He began quoting from Colerige's Kubla Khan and proceeded to argue coffee itself was an hallucinogen. Someone really should have found the appropriate Parliamentary language to say, "Oh shut up you fool."
But on his ploughed his lone furow of irrelevance. It may be easier to simply list his absurd remarks such as how more people were addicted to illegal drugs than alcohol and how gin and tonic can be prescribed by a doctor, but I fear the article would be inordinately long.
Mogg actually doubted whether these devices would even work as designed and implied those middle class scientist chappies would benefit the fruits of his classical education. Those boffins had, up to point he rose to speak, probably never considered putting safeguards in place to prevent samples from becoming contaminated.
He managed to insert his archetypal expressions of 'whizzo' and 'bingo' a la Berty Wooster as he suggested testing everyone on leaving a "dance club".
I can't really discern the point of Mogg, save as a reminder of how fogeyish the Tories are beneath the PR. "You shouldn't judge people by their class and where they went to school, " they cry back. They used to say that about people wo had been to comprehensives. Mogg is far from a victim of circumstance. And far from the ghastly world of ordinary worries at all.

Storm in a Thimble

The Miliband family must, in lighter moments, be laughing their socks off at the ludicrous coverage in the Mail and Telegraph over the last few days.

The 'exclusives' are far from revealing; David was disappointed at not winning the leadership, we learn; Ed looked up to his brother for years, apparently. It just paints a picture of what we already know just written in painfully dramatic prose. None of the quotes I have read are attributable; some are not even quotes. Friends of, insiders say, a confidante reports are the familiar tools of lazy sensationalist journalism. It's not even that; it's what I would call hackcraft.

The Telegraph tied to elevate this invented fraternal tension ("treachery!") to the level of a Brown/Blair feud by releasing leaked papers from Ed Balls' Government days at DoE (Tory Ministers beware in a few years time). These dismal revelations have been poured over already in books by Andrew Rawnsley as well as diaries by Campbell, Mandelson and Blair himself. It focuses on events in 2005 - so long ago David Blunkett was still Home Sec.

The Mail on Sunday article was as Lord Falconer put it "pretty thin gruel" even exposing the shame that Ed, at University, did not take drink and drugs. Today's Mail has extended this invention as far it can go (shurely?) by claiming David is planning something of a coup against his brother. Putting to one side the strict constitutional Party rules which forbid it, David has left the shadow Cabinet and has no power base. There is also the absence of any suggestion he would want to as well as any MP or peer even considering it as a realistic prospect.

The inspiration behind this string of transparent stories would appear to be the publication of a book and unsuprisingly the authors thought to embellish rather than dish out the boring truth. In a difficult few weeks for the PM the newspaper editors have simply embellished the embellishments.