To have and have not: the geography of power

The hilariously imbecilic comments by Lord Howell on appropriate locations for shale gas 'fracking' have helped to reinforce the stereotype of out-of-touch Tories as home counties types with an ignorant and clichéd view of places beyond the southeast. You do suspect that what he really meant was fracking is OK, so long as it happens a long way from where I (and lots of other important people like me) live and work.

In this, he's probably not all that different to some of the protesters in Sussex taking direct action against Quadrilla's exploratory drillings. As ever, the protesters are made up from a hotchpotch of groups and individuals including bigger organisations like Friends of the Earth.

I'm perfectly happy with the idea of people protesting on the basis of a moral objection to fracking per se, probably because I agree with them. The worst thing that could happen environmentally is for us to find a cheap and plentiful source of oil and gas, allowing us to continue on our merry way to climate change hell in a gas guzzling handcart.

The problem is that many of the protesters are not coming from any kind of moral position on this, even though they may mobilise environmental concerns to aid their cause. Many of them, like Lord Howell, don't care whether fracking takes place or not, so long as it doesn't take place near them. They may even applaud the provision of cheaper fuel.

That is the essence of nimbyism - it's not just 'not in my back yard', it includes notions of 'I don't care if it's in your back yard'. At root it's an inherently anti-communitarian and anti-collectivist impulse.

Earlier in the week Geoffrey Wheatcroft tried to make a positive argument for nimbyism in the Guardian: that everyone fighting hard to protect their own local environment is the only real defence against the encroachment of modern ugliness and despoiling which is the flip side of economic growth.

It's a superficially attractive argument particularly to those on the right because it incorporates the idea that local activity based on self interest (enlightened or otherwise) has primacy. It conveniently ignores the realities of power politics: that the negative aspects of economic development tend to be heaped (sometimes literally) on the poorest because they are least able to fight their corner, lacking the social and financial means to do so.

As an argument espoused by a national media journalist living in the prosperous enclave of Bath, this appears to me to be a self-serving and rather complacent line to take. So, there is a recognisable geography of power. The most powerful tend to live in nicer (i.e. more aesthetically pleasing) areas.

This closely aligns to the geographies of wealth and social class, but has a distinctly north / south flavour because the concentration of important social connections (i.e. connections to those in national politics and the media) is primarily concentrated in the greater south-east.

The result of the wealthy and well connected being geographically concentrated in more aesthetically attractive areas makes it easier for them to make a case against economic development, when such proposals emerge. They are fighting from the high ground, whereas the poor have no such tactical advantage.

The logical conclusion of this arrangement of power, geography and aesthetics is that even those small pockets of greenery in poorer areas to be sacrificed for development, whilst the wealthy are able to prevent even those economic developments that might benefit the country as a whole.

From those that have much, nothing will be asked. From those that have little, everything will be taken.

I think I’ve just found the Conservatives’ strapline for the next election.

Man make fire

The other day I bought a lighter.  Not just any lighter, but a Turboflame lighter (Turbo2).  It's like a cross between a miniature blow torch and a light sabre.  It is fantastic.  I can't begin to say what a great thing it is.

I've never smoked, but it's always useful to have a lighter around for barbeques, candles and such.  We usually have cheap disposable ones, although I do have zippo tucked away somewhere.

As with so many things, it's not so much about what it does, but how it does it, and its aesthetics as an object.  A nicely painted cast alumumum body with a satisfyingly robust flip-top lid is a good start.  The shape is vaguely remeniscent of a very small light sabre.  But click the little button and you get two (yes two!) little jets of blue flame and a most satisfying hiss. The last time I saw anything that impressive it was the afterburners of a pair of RB199s on the back of Tornado jet fighter taking off.

As with so many objects of desire, it has a nice size and weight, fitting neatly into the palm of a hand and heavy enought to feel substantial.  At 9 pounds sterling, it's not too expensive either - a Zippo will set you back twice as much at least, and whereas most other lighters will get blown out by any amount of breeze, with the Turboflame this is next to impossible.

I don't know whether my enthusiasm for the Turboflame indicates some kind of incipient mid-life crisis, or a developing addiction to
'boys toys'.

I prefer to think it's just the emergence of some primative instict - that finding satisfaction in the ability to make fire or build shelter is a connection to our ancesters.  Just one step on the road to connecting with our inner Ray Mears.

NHSmail barometer

According to the government, the 'transition' of the NHS from its old, inefficient, un-modernised state, to its new svelt, efficient, modernised state was accomplished on 1 April this year.  At least all of the key tasks of 'lifting and shifting' staff from closing organisations to opening organisations had been done and major change to IT systems had taken place.

I should know, I've read the closure report of the Informatics Transition Programme without falling asleep.

But what's this that a colleague has posted to my email account today?  It appears to be a catalogue of failure for local organisations to properly reconfigure NHSmail to reflect the new organisational structure.

The main points are:

• On 30 June, about 116,000 NHSmail accounts had not been transferred to new organisations (a third of those affected)
• 21,000 generic mailboxes had not been moved
• 76 closed organisations (i.e. those abolished on 31 March) were still creating new NHSmail accounts
• Local administrators had not been assigned to cover pharmacies, opticians and dentists in 7 out of 25 areas

Now there is a limit to the conclusions you can draw from this kind of information, but it does seem that, behind the scenes, it's taking very much longer than anticipated to set up the new, supposedly improved NHS.

The document was provided as background with a request to NHS England to provide assistance and pressure on local organisations to get their act together.  Precious hope there, given that NHS England is still struggling to set itself up, appoint people to key posts and develop its operating arrangements.

It's going to take 3-5 years for this round of changes to shake out and bed in.  And that's only if Andy Burnham doesn't set the whole sorry mess in motion again in 2015.

Plastic politics, plastic politicians

Yesterday I was rather piqued by an article by the BBC journalist Brian Wheeler on NHS privatisation.  The concept of the article was good in that it tried to ask a question too often mired in thoughtless and polarised debate.  Unfortunately it was compromised by only having one view from either side of the argument and very little analysis.

What really stood out though was that both individuals interviewed are part of what is becoming recognisable as a wider political class - a group that is largely white, largely male, largely privately and Oxbridge educated, largely metropolitan and largely unconnected with mainstream England.  Certainly those parts that lie outside the M25.

Part of the disillusionment with current politics is rooted in the sense that 'all politicians are the same' because in so ways they are.  Cameron and Milliband are both forty-something white men with little experience outside of the greater Westminster political  establishment.  Which includes a growing range of think tanks in addition to the party research departments that act as the sole incubators of supposed political talent.

Brian Wheeler's two interviewees are the next generation of this in the making.  Thomas Cawston, BA in history and politics from Exeter, MA in south Asian history from Oxford followed by 'research' (I use the term loosely) at Reform.  Oliver Huitson, more unusually with an OU degree (PPE) and postgrad from Birkbeck (politics and government) followed by some work experience in telesales, communications financial services, topped off with writing for OpenDemocracy and editing a pro-nationalised NHS website funded by the Wainwright Trust. All with a thoroughly metropolitan flavour.

Now I've never been one to dismiss academic study and think tank 'research' as 'fancy book learning' that has no value beside a degree from the University of Life.  But it is noticeable that the colonisation of the political classes by people with such narrow range of backgrounds and experience is having a profound effect on political discourse and debate.

The positions taken in Wheeler's debate is a good example. The pitch on both sides tend to be technocratic, theoretical and idealised.  Unleavened with any sense of real-world messiness and compromise.

Cawston's citing of examples from Europe of more mixed healthcare economies ignores the historical and cultural context of the NHS.  His assertion that competition can drive real improvement in care is not supported by hard evidence.  The example he cites is still in progress and whether it really delivers better care will only become clear some time in the future.

This kind of stuff is fine for scoring points in university political society debates, but this is the real world and real people we're talking about now.  The evidence we have from the compulsory competitive tendering of hospital cleaning services back in the late 80s points in the other direction: quality plummeted and ultimately this lead to MRSA and ridiculous spectacle of Gordon Brown ordering the 'deep clean' of hospitals. 

Two decades on from the purchaser provider split and we are still trying to get the results we want from market-based systems, whilst he overhead costs of maintaining that market in terms of contracting, legal bills and regulation proliferate.

It doesn't help that the person trying to make this argument looks about twelve (he's actually about 27).

Huitson makes a better fist of putting together a convincing argument (although I'll confess it fits with my own view), but it still has that desiccated feel of a final year essay rather than a real life issue affecting real people.  Ultimately, both arguments leave a lingering feeling of inauthenticity.

The net affect is to reinforce the perception that politicians are all dishonest and make politics feel remote and un-engaging to the majority of people.  This is the real reason that people feel no connection with national politics and the people that supposedly represent them in parliament.  If political parties really want to forge a better connections with the population at large, they should start by recruiting from a much wider pool of talent both socially and geographically and try to reintroduce some authenticity into the body politic.

Tunnel visions

Some years ago I got a taxi up to Leeds-Bradford airport and I fell into conversation with the driver, a friendly, chatty chap.  He also happened to be a Muslim and he couldn't understand why people would want to drink alcohol when it made them behave so badly and feel so ill the day after.

I tried to explain that it's possible to drink alcohol for pleasure rather than just to get drunk - that the actual drink itself could taste pleasant and you could drink enough to reach a state of relaxation without actually getting utterly legless.  He seemed doubtful. I didn't blame him.

I expect that if you don't drink yourself but spend most Friday and Saturday nights ferrying people around Leeds in varying states of inebriation, you might have a similar reaction.  If you have to put up with drunken people being rude and abusive on a regular basis or witness the kind of pointless violence that often goes together with night time drinking in towns and cities, you might take a dim view of alcohol and the kind of culture and society that embraces this kind of behaviour as normal.

My taxi driver seemed bewildered by this kind of behaviour, but you can see that other people from that community might react differently.  With irritation or disgust for example, or condemnation, or they might develop a sense of superiority from what they see as a debased indigenous culture.

Racial and cultural stereotyping has a long and inglorious history, but is still pervasive, even in supposedly enlightened circles.

I was slightly irked by an article some time ago in New Statesman by Alice O'Keefe, relating the experience of being undercharged for a duvet in John Lewis and the travails of a relatively financial constrained 'middle class' person when faced with the moral dilemma of whether to be honest and take it back or not.

The upshot of the article is that 'middle class' morality wins out and she dutifully goes back to the checkout, but the article finishes with the line 'Us middle class types are mugs, right?'

No is the obvious response, you just have standards you were brought up with that mean if you don't go back, you'll feel like you've let yourself down and that your parents would be very disapproving.  But the problem I have is the assumption that these kind of standards are the preserve of the middle classes.  That a working class person, say, wouldn't be such a 'mug' and would just take it as a piece of luck.

Obviously, you can't extrapolate from individual cases, but pretty much everyone I can think of in my immediate family (largely blue collar or very lower middle class) would have done exactly the same, and I can't imagine we are complete outliers.  In fact, it would never have occured to my parents that there was a moral dilemma here at all - you would just go back, no question.

Ultimately, we are all highly influenced by our experiences and surroundings and this feeds into our view of the world.  But we need to be alert to the distortions that this inevitably gives rise to. To take some examples:

I regularly see coarse, drunken white people behaving badly - ergo my culture is morally superior to theirs

My only experience of working class people is watching Shameless and Eastenders - ergo all working class behave like that

I'm surrounded by people from ethnic minorities who treat me with contempt, ergo immigration is a bad thing

I work with lots of professional / hard working people from overseas, ergo immigration is a good thing with great benefits to society

All of these are pieces of a jigsaw, none completely right and none completely wrong.  What we forget at our peril is that these kinds of views (including our own), and the experiences that give rise to them are the products of constrained experience - either geographically or socially or both.  The challenge to them is to introduce a broader perspective from wider experience, so some kind of context can be achieved.

Breaching the redoubt

The Labour Party and the Unite union are in the middle of a damaging spat over the selection of candidates in the Falkirk by-election.  It's the sort of thing that plays right into the hands of the Tories and could, if not contained, cost Labour the next election.

The accusation is that Unite used tied to stack the candidate list with its 'placemen', and Dan Hodges was on the Today Programme this morning making the point that it's known Unite policy to do this.  In his opinion, Unite are out of control.

Assuming the accusations of rigging are true, I'm not for a minute condoning Unite's approach which has all the hallmarks of nefarious union behaviour from the 1970s and before: dirty tricks, rigged elections, manipulation of strike votes and the rest.  These are the behaviours of the bad old days that brought the world, and Maggie crashing down on union heads.

But setting aside the methods, there is an underlying problem here that is failing to be addressed and its one that runs to the heart of the current disillusionment with politics and politicians: the lack of diversity in the political establishment and, in particular, the lack of routes for people outside of the mainstream of Oxbridge and think tanks or local government, to get into national politics. 

Now this problem is pervasive and not restricted to any particular political party, although I suspect it applies rather less to those on the fringes such as the Greens and UKIP, and maybe that is another reason for their relative success.

But this is also related to the issue of unpaid internships acting as a mechanism for a wealthy, connected elite to ensure their children have a fast track route into lucrative and powerful careers.  It's all part of a landscape where the odds are stacked hugely in favour of a privileged few.

You can see that in this context of gross unfairness and disenfranchisement, it doesn't take much for someone with less than a cast-iron sense of morality and honesty to justify a few dirty tricks to push forward their agenda; the ends of breaching the bourgeoisie political  redoubt justify the means.

The real value of unpaid internships

The Guardian journalist Hugh Muir was giving Tony Blair a hard time yesterday because his charity has advertised unpaid internships.  He cites public indignation at the 'exploitation of the young by those who can afford to pay them' accusing Blair's charity of '..seeking help on the cheap'.

I think he's missed the point.

The superficial iniquity of getting workers for free is dwarfed by social engineering aspect of internships: the jobs, certainly those in high profile areas (usually in central London) where useful contacts and connections can be made are only open to the children of the already wealthy and well connected.

Sure, it's theoretically possible for someone from a poorer background to borrow the money or save up, but back in the real world this is highly unlikely, and they would probably be filtered out in the recruitment process in favour of more 'appropriate' candidates - i.e. the children of the wealthy and well connected. 

At heart, the internship world is about patronage and preferment, about favours for potential allies and about the preservation of entrenched privilege amongst the elite.

It may even be to Tony Blair's credit that these posts are even being advertised and not stitched up for the select few without even the semblance of process.  I doubt that James Caan's daughters had to go through a rigorous, impartial selection process to get their internships with the firms he's involved with.

The only silver lining is that pretty most jobs used to be allocated on this basis.  At least we have the semblance of a fair system covering most recruitment activities.  It may not stop unfair practices, but it sends a very strong societal message that it is unacceptable, and that at least, is the way to start changing attitudes.

The best thing the government could do to promote mobility is to ensure internships are covered by these standard employment practices, but that's hardly likely is it?

UKIP and political invertebrates

As we now know, last Thursdays elections (2/5/13) were a major success for the UK Independence Party, and Nigel Farage has been on TV and radio capitalising on it ever since.  As well he might.

Although his party's success has been written off as no more than a protest vote and he's been slurred and insulted by David Cameron and Ken Clark, amongst others, he's entitled to make as much hay as he can right now.

Now I confess, I can't stand Farage, and I disagree with his political views almost entirely, but there are a couple of things about him that I think are really interesting.
Firstly, he has a level of authenticity that most other politicians lack.  He believes what he says, has thought through his views and can articulate them with a reasonable level of clarity and consistency.

That puts him head and shoulders above most of the government front bench and most of the opposition who are usually parroting the party line using that that particular type of polished phraseology that I like to think of as ‘political vernacular’ that robs them of any semblance of conviction.

In the sense that he's a conviction politician, with a very clear view of what he wants and where he's going, he is far more the heir to Margaret Thatcher than either Blair or Cameron, quite apart from his core beliefs in small state, laissez-faire capitalism.
A second thing is that what he says obviously resonates with a big enough section of society, and these have traditionally been issues that mainstream politicians from across the political spectrum have shied away from addressing.  It's good that they can no longer do that.

So the left has not wanted to go anywhere near immigration and the social change that largely working class communities have been experiencing for decades that is the result.  Even though the Labour party is starting to have to grapple with this, you can feel the discomfort of senior labour figures like John Cruddas when forced to engage with these issues – it’s very much through gritted teeth.

I think that’s largely because of a disjunction between what we can still consider the working classes and lower middle classes, and the left wing political elite: a disjunction that Orwell noted in The Road to Wigan Pier where the urban, metropolitan, ‘enlightened’ elite find the natural conservatism of many real working class people disconcerting, not to say grating.  Gordon Brown’s now legendary dismissal of Gillian Duffy as ‘just a sort of bigoted woman’ is this relationship in vignette form.

The second big issue that Farage raises that the political mainstream would rather he didn’t is obviously Europe.  Politicians of all political stripes may now need to address the issue of why we should or should not be in Europe a bit more honestly, although you can already see them trying to interpret UKIP’s success in a way that lets them off the hook.

Up to now the majority of politicians of both left and right have been content to either ignore Europe, treat it as a necessary evil or be actively hostile, but in all cases, the preferred approach has been ‘don’t mention the war’ because it’s so potentially divisive.

Now my view is that for all its flaws, Europe is the only show in town, and aside from economic benefits of being part of that market, we are much stronger as part of a cooperative block than we are on our own. And looking at governance historically, it's clear that the direction of travel is for some decisions to be made at a higher geographic scale and that when this happens, everyone benefits. 

Particularly in a world bestrode by giant transnational corporations and scarred by what amounts to financial racketeering driven by a super rich elite, such multinational political entities offer the only realistic mechanism to challenge their power.  So in that sense, I think Farage’s anti-European view amounts to breaking the laager.

However, the biggest problem I have with UKIP is that I believe their views are fundamentally nostalgic and rooted in a misinterpretation of post war history.  Essentially, they are harking back to something like the 1950s when we were still a 'great' independent power and commanded respect and fear in the world.  The point of connection between Farage and Thatcher is the Falklands because that demonstrated, to some people at least, that we were still a great sea-faring nation with a fist class navy and the ability to project power around the world in defence of our interests.
Once again, this view marks the fault line between working and lower middle class people and the left wing elite, because I would guess that the majority of the former supported Thatcher’s approach to the Falklands, whilst the majority of the latter were at least sceptical.

For myself, I support Henry Leech’s analysis directed to Thatcher: ‘if we don’t do it, if we pussyfoot…..we’ll be living in a different country whose word will count for little.’  Swift, decisive military action was utterly critical to our global credibility.
The big problem is that in spite of the headlines and the famous victory, the Falklands really illustrated how far British military capacity and capability had fallen: it was a Heath Robinson, string and willpower affair that we won by the skin of our teeth.  We probably wouldn’t have without significant (largely unaccredited) assistance from the French and the graceless acquiescence of the US. 
This is skimmed over all too readily by those that want to recruit the mythology for their own purposes, and that includes Cameron’s ‘Thatcher saved Britain’ narrative along with all those who believe we can exist as a powerful independent state politically outside of Europe.  Any experiment with doing this will illustrate just what a mirage this view is as both our credibility and economic leverage would drain away overnight.
All of this points up the fact that it well overdue for advocates of Britain being part of Europe to up and make a case for it, instead of just hoping the debate would go away.  The problem is that to do that, they need to be much more honest about our diminished position in the world than they would like to be.  It means ditching the pretence that we’re still a significant player globally by ourselves; that we ‘punch above our weight’ internationally. It means accepting a lowering of our supposed status and prestige internationally.

This is something that politicians of all sides really do not want to contemplate, partly because it means facing up to these harsh realities and fielding the criticism of being ‘defeatist’, and partly because they fear it will go down like a lead balloon with the public.

Judging by the growing appeal of UKIP, they’re might be right on the latter, but that does not excuse continuing political spinelessness in the face of thier challenge.

Anyone for Cranberries?

I've just read the latest Intellect report on NHS IT - NHS Information Evolution - all 16 pages of it.  It's not quite as off the mark and wrong-headed as I'd feared when I read the headlines in E-Health Insider.  All that nonsense about learning from Lastminute.com.

But it's not great either.  The biggest problem is that it's breathtakingly superficial in its analysis and happy to make recommendations with little in the way of justification.  It's not that the ideas it puts forward are bad, they just lack logical foundations and hence coherence.

As far as I can see, the author plugs the gaps where some serious analysis and discussion ought to be with filler based on the premise 'everyone else is doing it, so why can't we?'. 

It's a good question, but a document underpinned by genuine intellect would have sought to answer it before trying to formulate recommendations rooted in that analysis.

I've never bought into the view of people like the Guardian's 'Patient From Hell' blogger Dick Vinegar that the failure of the NHS to espouse the latest technology is down to an unholy alliance of conservative doctors and bureaucrats, all too satisfied with the status quo.  That's just the simplistic narrative of journalism where some bogeyman must be to blame.

After all, the vast majority of the people busily not jumping on the new media bandwagon in their working lives are well on board at home. 

No, it must be something more far reaching to constrain progress so extensively and consistently. It must be something inherent in the way the business works, or doesn't work: in the fundamental way that things are organised and arranged.

The Intellect report fails to take the lid off any of that, presumably because the authors don't have enough knowledge or experience of the byzantine political and managerial landscape that constitute the NHS business, and which forms the essential backdrop of any serious attempt to formulate IT policy and strategy.

Obviously, that lack of knowledge didn't stop Richard Grainger, Christine Connelly or Katie Davis.  Oh, then again, perhaps that's exactly what it did.

Coats on their backs

The shabby exterior of Holbeck Working Men's Club isn't the backdrop many people would choose for their lives.  Less so the strip of rubble-strewn waste ground between the WMC and Holbeck Moor Road. Bounded by soil embankments, presumably to stop the Gypsies and travellers making it their home and overlooked by ranks of drab grey flats and mean grey houses, it looks grim on a good day.  It seems to exist in a microclimate of grainy monochrome.

I noticed them on my way back to the car during the last spell of arctic weather. Picking their way through the frozen mud, bricks, bottles, poly bags and god knows what else in the wintery afternoon light.  It was about minus 4 and I was glad to be getting out of the cold and into my car on the Moor Road.

Mum or granny - who could be sure?  But a 'grown up' and in charge, with three small children somewhere between the ages of four and seven I would guess, but roughly in the same ballpark as my own.  Maybe it was that, combined with the unrelenting bleakness of the setting that drew my attention to them as they straggled across the wasteland.  You might call it 'lunar' but I think that would be insulting the moon.

They looked poor, but that wasn't what caught my attention and after all, some of that might have been the setting.

No, what really struck me was how well wrapped up the children were: all with warm padded coats done up, hoods up, hats and gloves on, Thomas the Tank Engine or whatever rucksacks on.  These may have been poor kids straggling across some dismal waste ground between the M621 and an abandoned-looking WMC, but they were looked after; cared for; cherished, at least in terms of their immediate physical needs.  And they were together.  A tight little unit - some of the kids holding hands, pulling the smaller ones along.

Now none of this should be at all surprising, after all, the poor have never had the monopoly on neglecting their children.  And I have absolutely no idea of what their family circumstances might be, or their backgrounds or home life.  So I'm aware that any attempt to derive inferences from what these people looked like is extrapolating well beyond the data.

But that's not the point.  What struck me was the impossibility of locating these people on the current government's map of the deserving and undeserving poor.  Were they 'strivers' or parasites?  Were they what David Cameron means when in plumy tones he says 'haad warking fam-liz' or would they be one of the supposed 120,000 ‘troubled’ families that require a tougher approach to stop them drifting through a lifetime of state-funded idleness and petty criminality?

Damned if I know, because for all that the children were obviously cared for, it's quite possible that those coats and hats and bags were paid for out of benefit money or tax credits, or even from the proceeds of petty crime.  Equally, somebody might have scrimped and saved or traipsed around endless charity shops to provide them. 

The arbitrary distinctions of a government seeking to justify an unparalleled reduction in the money available to the poor seemed a long way away and somewhat divorced from the gritty immediacy of the scene.

Somewhere, far away, important decisions on ‘welfare’ and the like would be made by wealthy, expensively suited and booted, well-educated people in warm, brightly lit offices.  People confident in their own abilities; self-assured and articulate and whose memories of childhood, family and school would be a world away from Moor Road.  Nevertheless, their decisions might fall like a hammer blow on this little band, struggling across the freezing waste ground in front of the ragged façade of Holbeck Working Men’s Club.

These thoughts were little more than a gloomy embryo developing in the back of my mind as I got in my car and drove slowly away.  But the one thing that stuck there in my mind’s eye was their utter vulnerability.