Unexpected Intern in The Bagging Area
Arguments in Favour of Workfare, Explored
As you are probably aware a storm has been raging over “workfare” programmes. I have had numerous conversations on the subject recently and have found that the same, apparently reasonable, superficially appealing arguments are being put forward, in their defence.
Iain Duncan Smith wrote an article for the Daily Mail yesterday [no link provided - I would rather direct you to donkey porn], in which he suggested that “the battle lines have been drawn” on this issue. He suggests that on one side of this “war” are “those prepared to do everything they can to give a chance to young people”, which includes the government and august charitable institutions like TESCO. On the other side “armed with an unjustified sense of superiority and sporting an intellectual sneer, we find a commentating elite which seems determined to belittle and downgrade any opportunity for young people”.
I thought you might find it useful to have a summary of the arguments in favour of such schemes, together with a short explanation of why they are – how do I put this delicately? – codswallop.
We must end the “something for nothing” culture
Many folks do not seem to understand these schemes. They appear to believe that, for instance TESCO, will pay a participants Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) for a number of weeks while they work for them. This line was sadly repeated by Andrew Neil on today’s Daily Politics. This is incorrect. As can be easily gleaned by the literature on this, it is the state which continues to pay:
“Participants will remain on benefit throughout the period of the sector-based work academy and Jobcentre Plus will pay any travel and childcare costs whilst they are on the work experience placement. There is no direct cost to an employer for sector-based work academies as the costs are covered by government funding.“
It is a mystery that traditional right-wing commentators like the Tax-Payers Alliance and the Mail object to funding an individual’s benefits, but appear quite happy to cross-subsidise a huge conglomerate with global revenues of $100bn in 2010. To my mind, it is simply the latest symptom of the same malaise which means ordinary people and small businesses are fined or dragged to court for filing their tax return a couple of days late, while giants like Vodafone can simply refuse to pay their tax bill and negotiate £6bn discounts.
Such programmes do not end the “something for nothing” culture. They elevate it to the corporate level. They allow TESCO to get something for nothing on a grand scale.
Work experience improves employability
As IDS pointed out, this is a great way to get training, add a line to your CV and get people in the habit of getting out of bed in the morning. This sounds very sensible in abstract, but what happens if one were to assess it against real cases? This is the actual job being offered by TESCO:
The concept that one needs six weeks training in order to stack shelves is patently ludicrous. The idea that, whatever training is required, should not be paid for by the employer, equally so. And the less said about the impenetrably stupid notion that six weeks of night-shifts would get me in the habit of getting up in the morning, the better.
I am in the happy enough position to have only had to rely on benefits once in my life, for a short period. During that period, looking for work in my chosen field was a full-time, nine to five job. Six weeks of night-shifts in TESCO would be about as useful as a hole in the head.
Every professional knows that crafting a career and structuring a CV can benefit from the right experience, but can also be damaged by the wrong experience. It is interesting to examine the case of Cait Reilly who is trying to get a job working for a museum, but was told to give up a work placement she had already organise at a museum in order to stack shelves in Poundland. Can anyone who can tell me how this improves her employability?
TESCO have explained that of the 1,400 people who have been made to serve them (because to use the verb “employ” would require some consideration on the part of TESCO), 300 got a job with the company. Now, this means one of three things: Either
(1) TESCO were genuinely trying to fill 1,400 positions, but they were only capable of training roughly one in five people to stack shelves in SIX WEEKS. Or
(2) There were only 300 positions in the first place (probably due to natural turnover, which I imagine is quite high), but TESCO decided they might as well conduct six-week interviews on our buck. Or
(3) There were 1,400 genuine vacancies in the relevant stores, but why the hell would they fill them with paid employees, when they can have a rolling six-weekly army of 1,400 free ones?
I am reminded of the words of Gerrit Smith:
“We must continue to judge slavery by what it is, and not by what you tell us it will, or may be.“
It is a good way to tackle benefit fraud
We all have a mental image of what “dole-scum” looks like. We see it daily on the Jeremy Kyle show. We are force-fed it by the Mail and the Sun, like aspirin, every hour on the hour. It is easy to invoke that image and think “Yeah! Let the bastards stack shelves.” It is comfortable to invoke that image and sleep soundly.
But here is an alternative: Tens of thousands of servicemen and women are being laid off by the Ministry of Defence; 33,000 from the RAF alone. Some were told by email while still on tour. The first lot of those sackings was last June. Some will be coming up to the six-month mark now – the “compulsory” bracket of these work schemes.
Is it equally comfortable to invoke the image of an RAF pilot, who six months ago risked life and limb, forced to stack shelves for no pay? Will you sleep just as soundly?
And it is precisely the majority of such people that will be forced into these schemes. You know why? Because they are honest. The tiny minority which we see on Jeremy Kyle, are supremely adept at cheating or circumventing the system. They have been doing it for years and most of them will find a way to do it now.
If the genuine desire is to tackle benefit fraud, then tackle benefit fraud. Nobody is arguing we should revoke every driving license to stop the few that drive drunk. On the other hand, if the purpose is to benefit big corporations, depress wages and “magic” thousands of people off the unemployment total, this is the scheme with which to do it.
Blame the Government not TESCO
There may be some limited traction to the argument that, if the government puts in place a scheme, companies are at liberty to take advantage. There would be more traction, if we hadn’t spent the last month listening to speech after stomach-churning speech about Moral Capitalism from the cabinet.
TESCO, and organisations like it, did not get in trouble for acting illegally on this issue. They got in trouble for displaying scruples that would raise eyebrows in the court of Caligula. And rightly so. The cold, hard fact is that there are two signatories to this Faustian pact. I blame both. In exactly the same way that I blame those who use perfectly legal means to avoid fairly due tax.
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But the IDS argument that truly incenses me, that really puts the “noxious” back in “obnoxious”, is the idea that objecting to this scheme is somehow elitism; intellectual snobbery. That it devalues the work of men and women who do stack shelves for a living. It is barely worth pointing out – through gritted teeth – that nobody has said anything against people who do such jobs for a living. But it must be FOR A LIVING.
I realise, of course, I am probably being unfair to Iain Duncan Smith. After all, he probably didn’t write the article. He probably paid his wife Betsy a couple of thou of public money to do it. [insert intellectual sneer] Now that is “something for nothing”.
Thou Shalt Not Demonstrate
I was interested to see the following announcement in today’s London Evening Standard:
It caught my eye, buried even though it was in the Jobs section. What byelaws, specific to Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square, could our dear Mayor be drafting in such a hurry? So, I had a look. You can find the full text of the byelaws here.
I found that, buried among various rules making it a criminal offence to feed birds or fly kites (yes, you read that right), it contained some astonishing and highly undemocratic rules effectively stifling peaceful protest. No doubt Boris Johnson is thinking of the upcoming Olympics and what an embarrassment it would be to have poor people protesting near tourists. The byelaws make it an offence, inter alia, to
- erect or keep erected any tent or similar structure
- display any sign
- make or give any speech or public address
and astonishingly even
- fail to comply with a reasonable direction given by an authorised person to leave the square.
It is my belief that this is an outrageous and unprecedented attack on our freedom as citizens. The notice explains that any objection to the confirmation of the Byelaws may be made by letter addressed to Carl Schnackenberg, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London SW1Y 5DH, or by email to: Carl.Schnackenberg@Culture.gsi.gov.uk.
I have written. Will you spare five minutes to make your sentiments known?
If The Cap Fits
Usually one has to tune into the Jeremy Kyle Show to hear as plentiful a flow of populist, self-righteous, ill-thought diarrhoea as that which emanated from the Government yesterday. Indignation was the mot-de-jour for assorted ministers, wheeled out to express their incredulity at the latest defeat in the Lords. What could be unfair about a massively generous cap of £26k on benefits, they asked. How dare a bunch of unelected Bishops vote against such a popular measure?
Well, they didn’t.
Two hundred and fifty-two peers (hailed for the last thirteen years as “experts” by Tories, every time they defeated the Labour government) voted for an amendment which would take Child Benefit out of that cap. Only five were Bishops, not that this matters. They argued that to impose the same arbitrary cap on any family, regardless of size might result in unfairness to children. What argument could there be against that? Plenty.
The exclusion of Child Benefit rendered the measures “pointless” said Iain Duncan Smith, as it “would effectively raise the cap to £50,000″ for some households. That is a big jump! Removing the Child Benefit from the cap would add £24k to it?
The current rate of Child Benefit is £20.30 per week for the first child and £13.50 per week for each subsequent child. This would mean that in order for the cap to go from £26k to £50k we would need to be talking about a family with 33.7 children. That’s not a household; that is a small rural community.
A different objection, as articulated by Lord Freud, is about “the real cost” of the amendment; which is that “it takes the pressure off” these families. A sentiment echoed by the Prime Minister speaking to ASDA employees yesterday and the Deputy Prime Minister this morning celebrating the creation of a thousand McDonalds jobs.
“We have to make work pay” said Cameron. Naturally, this will be achieved by reducing benefits. Not by ensuring that the ASDAs and McDonalds of this world pay a living wage, so that the public sector does not have to subsidise them by continuing to pay their workers benefits. That would be anti-business. It is precisely this fervour to “make work pay” which ensured that Tories fought the minimum wage provisions tooth and nail, while in opposition.
So, the philosophy behind this initiative is that it will motivate people to get off their backsides and find a job. The logic being that the reason nearly three million unemployed people cannot be shoehorned into half a million vacancies is a lack of motivation on their part. Cue joke involving benefit scroungers in a Mini. Wipe away tear of laughter.
We are asked to ignore those bleating Bishops who say people will be made homeless as a result of the measures. The problem, Iain Duncan Smith explains, is the definition of homelessness. Try to explain this concept to a man sleeping in a doorway. He will probably agree to any definition in exchange for a cup of tea.
People have to make lifestyle adjustments, said reasonable Grant Shapps on Sky News. If you lose your job, you cannot expect to continue to live in the same house as you did when you were working. A noble sentiment, but let’s assess it against the rate at which unemployment is growing: tens of thousands each month; 120,000 added to the total at the last monthly count. These are not scroungers – they are people like you and me being made redundant.
So, I wonder (as a former dabbler in economics) whether all these brilliant free-market-thinking ministers have given any consideration to what might happen to affordable housing rental levels, if the government forcibly adds 120,000 to the demand-side each month. Without any significant projects to add to the supply side. You see, this is the bit that your average person may not realise instantly. It is the ASDA and McDonalds employee that will end up paying much more in rent.
Why should anyone on benefits be taking home more than someone working on £35k a year, Cameron asked. But demagogy, as opposed to politics, is all about timing and venue. It is not a coincidence that the PM and DPM defend their destructive plan outside ASDA and McDonalds. They do so, because they understand that the value of money is relative. They wouldn’t make that announcement at the annual CBI dinner, where £35k is the bar-tab of a rather excellent night.
The value of money is relative. £35k was what Cameron wanted to pay his personal photographer out of the public purse. £35k is less than half the £72k which Iain Duncan Smith claimed on staff costs, including employing his wife Betsy as a diary secretary. £35k is one twentieth of the £700k overclaimed by MPs during the expenses scandal. £35k is one fortieth of the £1.5m bonus the RBS chief is set to receive this year and on which Cameron claims it would be wrong to intervene.
“And you’re entirely comfortable with the position your party has taken, whereby you can be quite specific about pounds and pence when it comes to people on benefits, but you refuse to be specific when it comes to Bankers’ bonuses” asked Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. “Well, they are two different things”, responded Conservative MP Margot James. Indeed.
You see, set against this backdrop, the grand illusion becomes all too clear: convince the low-paid worker that the dispossessed deserve to be punished and that the money saved will come to you. Sadly, no element of it is true. It is a very effective, but totally dishonest card trick. It is sharply exposed by the fact that even IDS, before the election, thought the only way to reform welfare in a way that encourages people back to work would involve a short-term rise in the welfare bill.
And let us put things in further context, as the UK debt hits one trillion pounds. And because that is such an inconceivable figure, let me give you an analogy. If the total UK debt was one hundred grand (£100,000) then the Government has spent the last 48 hours squabbling about Child Benefits worth a total of twelve pence (12p). My suggestion is that there are other, much bigger things which need fixing urgently and deserving of public anger.
So, with a calm head and a steady heart, ask yourselves the question again. Why should anyone on benefits be taking home more than someone working on £35k a year? The answer is simple: if a fair judgement is made that, looking at all their circumstances, it is the minimum they need to survive.
And the simple beauty of this generous principle is that it applies to everyone. Once ASDA or McDonalds have decided that they have no further use for you, that is.
Calling Captain Osborne
A recording has surfaced this morning. I set out the transcript in full:
Cost Guard: Hello.
Captain: Good evening, chief.
Cost Guard: Listen, this is La Garde from IMF. Am I speaking with the captain?
Captain: Good evening, Chief La Garde.
Cost Guard: Tell me your name, please.
Captain: I am Captain Osborne, chief.
Coat Guard: Osborne?
Captain: Yes.
Cost Guard: Listen, Osborne. There are people trapped on board. Now, you go with your lifeboat. Under the bow of the Economy, on the right side, there is a ladder. You climb on that ladder and go on board the Economy. Go on board the Economy and get back to me and tell me how many people are there. Is that clear. I am recording this conversation, Captain Osborne.
(Captain tries to speak but IMF can’t hear him clearly.)
Cost Guard: Speak up! (captain tries to speak) Captain, put your hand over the microphone and stop speaking in that ridiculously plummy, posh voice!
Captain: At this moment the UK Economy is listing.
Cost Guard: There are some bankers who are coming down the ladder on the bow. Go back in the opposite direction, get back on the Economy, and tell me how many people there are and what they have on board. Tell me if there are children, women, disabled, unemployed, NHS patients and what type of help they need. And you tell me the number of each of these categories. Is that clear?
(Silence.)
Listen Osborne, perhaps you have saved yourself from the crisis but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!
(Noise can be heard in the background. Apparently other IMF officials are shouting to each other in the same room about “the rating, the rating”)
Captain: Please …
Cost Guard: There is no ‘please’ about it. Get back on board. Assure me you are going back on board!
Captain: I’m in a private hedgefund, I am under here. I am not going anywhere. I am here.
Cost Guard: What are you doing, captain?
Captain: I am here to coordinate the rescue plan…
Cost Guard (interrupting): What are you coordinating there! Get on board! Coordinate the rescue plan from on board! Are you refusing?
Captain: No, I am not refusing.
Cost Guard: Are you refusing to go aboard, captain? Tell me the reason why you are not going back on board.
Captain: (inaudible)… record-low interest rates…
Cost Guard (interrupting, yelling): You get back on board! That is an order! There is nothing else for you to consider. You have sounded the “Quantitative Easing Alarm”. Now I am giving the orders. Get back on board. Is that clear? Don’t you hear me?
Captain: I am going abroad.
Cost Guard: Go! Call me immediately when you are on board. My rescue crew are in front of the bow. Wait, what? ABOARD not ABROAD.
Captain: Where is your rescue crew?
Cost Guard: My rescue crew is at the bow. Go! There are already bodies, Osborne. Go!
Captain: How many bodies are there?
Cost Guard: I don’t know! … Liam Fox, Andy Coulson… Christ, you should be the one telling me that!
Captain: Do you realize that it is dark and we can’t see anything?
Cost Guard: So, what do you want to do, to go home, Osborne?! It’s dark and you want to go home? Go to the bow of the Economy where the ladder is and tell me what needs to be done, how many people there are, and what they need! Now!
Captain: My second in command is here with me.
Cost Guard: Then both of you go! Both of you! What is the name of your second in command?
Captain: His name is Danny (static)”
Cost Guard: What is the rest of his name?
(static… “you go” – “no, you go” … static)
Cost Guard: You and your second in command get on board now! Is that clear?
Captain: Look, chief, I want to go aboard but the austerity plan here is drifting. I have called Dav…
Cost Guard (interrupting): You have been telling me this for an hour! Now, go aboard! Get on board, and tell me immediately how many people there are!
Captain: OK, chief.
The Funniest Thing I Read All Day
Today’s London Evening Standard devotes significant space to the resignation of Colin Barrow, the Tory Westminster councillor at the centre of the parking charges fiasco. In his piece “No 10′s relief at abrupt departure” political editor Joe Murphy includes the following hilarious paragraph:
“Senior political sources reveal that the Prime Minister was almost ready to speak out against the scheme days before it was postponed at Christmas. David Cameron was worried that the parking charges would damage jobs and growth, by driving customers and staff away from the West End.” [my emphasis]
Almost journalism
I can now exclusively reveal that according to thoroughly unreliable (and frankly, non-existent) insider sources, David Cameron also:
- was almost ready to sack Andy Coulson, days before he had to resign in disgrace;
- was almost ready to oppose the privatisation of the NHS, days before it was agreed with private healthcare providers and other party donors;
- was generally almost ready to be almost ready to be ready to stamp out anything unpopular on which the government has been embarrassed and had to perform a U-turn;
- was almost ready to “shut up”, minutes before Sarkozy told him to;
- almost addressed City bonuses, almost achieved growth, almost brought about a fall in unemployment, and almost reduced the deficit in his 20 months in charge.
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Which leaves me with one question: Is there no depth to which this gang of PR thugs will not stoop?
The answer is probably: Almost.
The Cook, The Thief and The Do-over
The following article was written by me and published in The Huffington Post on 10th January 2012.
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Occasionally, my brain’s synapses fire in an unusual way. I was as bemused as any man, for instance, when I heard the news of Antony Worrall Thompson’s arrest for – what shall we call it? The media seem to have settled on “antics”. (Aren’t those TV personalities delightful?) I guess the alternative of “an offence under section 1(1) of the Theft Act 1968″ did not quite trip of the tongue. And “shoplifting” is a term reserved for the poor.
And this is where I diverge from most. Because my very next thought was of Nicolas Robinson. He is the 23-year-old who was arrested for stealing water worth £3.50 from Lidl during the London Riots. He did not participate in the Riots – he was walking home from his girlfriend’s house, passed by an already burgled Lidl and, in a moment of monumental stupidity, decided to help himself to some bottled water. He had no previous convictions, was in full-time education and entered a “guilty” plea. He was sent down for six months.
At the time our Prime Minister went to great lengths to encourage courts to mete out tough sentences like it. He advocated a “zero tolerance policy”. The Daily Mail, for one, did not believe the rhetoric. “Tough sentences? Forget it”, it warned. “These teen yobs will be treated as if THEY’RE the victims”.
So, imagine my surprise at their article this morning which reacts to the news that Worrall Thompson has been given a mere caution, for stealing goods a total of five times in the last few weeks, by listing a litany of excuses including a terrible childhood, an alcoholic mother, financial worries – the list goes on ad nauseum. Worrall Thompson himself adds the possibilities of psychological problems and Alzheimers.
Granted, the circumstances in the former case are very different, in the context of large-scale pilfering. The powers that be decided an example needed to be set. However, Worrall Thompson is in the public eye and also sets an example. He is not there by coincidence, either. He has chosen to be one of the advocates of the Young Briton’s Foundation. He purports to go to our schools and colleges to promote conservative values, to “combat left-wing bias in the education system and the mainstream media”. This is very relevant.
Now, I am not advocating a lack of sympathy or compassion for him. I am simply asking: Where is the sympathy and compassion for Robinson and others like him? What do we know about their childhoods, their mothers, their pressures, their medical conditions, their lives?
Delivering the right message to young people is paramount. We simply cannot do it from the ethical quicksand that stretches between the treatment of the Antony Worrall Thompsons and the Nicolas Robinsons of this country. We cannot do so from the no-man’s-land which separates the second chances for Liam Fox and Andy Coulson and the four years prison term for those who posted the wrong thing on Facebook.
If we persist in occupying this land of hypocrisy, the only message which is likely to come through – loud and clear – is this: that the difference between a prison term and a caution is money and status; that the poor get to do time, while the rich get a do-over.
And some crazy left-wingers, the sort the YBF seek to combat, have suggested that maybe, just maybe, it was precisely this disparity which was at the root of the Riots.
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I would encourage to read the comments on the original Huffington Post page, which are illuminating and infuriating in equal measure.
Some Racism, It Seems, Is Acceptable
The following article was written by me and published in The Huffington Post on 6th January 2012.
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The other day I got into a taxi with my mother, who is visiting for the holidays. The driver, hearing us exchange a few words in a language that was – pun intended – all Greek to him, inquired as to our provenance. My response “Greece” drew from him a chuckle and the comment: “Should I ask for payment in advance?”
I decided to react with qualities which, those who like to ascribe national identity to virtues and flaws, might consider “terribly British”. I took it on the chin; self-effacingly laughed along; and kept the stiffest upper lip seen on a Greek since the Caryatids.
The driver meant nothing by it, I’m sure. It was simply the latest episode in a growing trend.
On 30 December, I watched the Angelos Epithemiou Christmas Special on Channel 4, frankly, agog. It was only days after Dan Renton Skinner collected the British Comedy Award for Best Breakthrough Artist for his – and I use the term as loosely as fathomable – comic creation.
“What is the difference between Angelos Epithemiou and blacking up to poke fun at ‘darkies’?” I asked my friends. Various arguments were advanced in response: “It is racist, but in a comically ironic way”; or “the ethnicity is incidental – he is an idiot and a slob that just happens to be of Greek origin”. None of these points answer the original question, of course.
If I applied black shoe-polish to my face and stood up at the Comedy Store, would a 2012 audience tolerate me long enough to assess the ironic quotient of my routine? Would they wait to discover whether my obscene ethnic caricature was incidental or instrumental? Were Hollywood film villains incidentally German, then incidentally Russian, then incidentally Chinese and finally incidentally Iraqi?
Harry Enfield as Stavros
But what about Harry Enfield’s ‘Stavros’ or Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Borat’, you might ask? Both Stavros and Borat possess two essential qualities. Firstly, they are written with exceptional warmth and affection for the character. Secondly, they are funny. Angelos is neither.
The unpalatable truth is that, as paradigms shift and – vitally – as some minorities acquire a powerful voice, the focus moves onto others who are not yet able to protect themselves. Writers, too lazy or thick to construct comedy on observation, wit and invention, simply switch to new, easy stereotypes. And, sadly, the phenomenon is not limited to comedy.
Four weeks ago Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator, was asked to comment on the eurozone crisis on Sky News. He described it as a “Mars and Venus thing”. He went on to analyse the difference between “the pretty hard-working Northern Europe and the kind of siesta squad; the mañana-mañana guys at the bottom who don’t really have the same approach to work and wealth creation”. The comment drew a little chuckle from presenter Adam Boulton – much like my taxi driver’s.
I tweeted Mr Nelson and asked him whether he thought this was a fair representation of all southern Europeans. Whether he thought he could have gotten away with such gross generalisations expressed in such a flippant way with regard to any other ethnic group. He replied to me with: “Greece, France, Germany, Britain all have different ways of working. Chinese work harder than anyone, but not necessarily better”. I asked him whether that meant that a prospective employer would be quite justified in choosing a person of Chinese background over me, a Greek, on this basis. He did not reply.
I have given up trying to explain that there is an important agenda behind the campaign to portray Greek people as lazy, profligate and unreliable; that it diverts from an examination of corporate greed and the real causes of the crisis. Any Daily Mail reader is, by now, convinced beyond all reason that the entire western world is on the brink of collapse because a country with an economy which accounts for less that 0.5% of World GDP pays its train drivers too handsomely.
Some months ago I wrote a detailed article which presented data from organisations such as the OECD in order to expose some of this mythology. A Canadian commenting on my article explained that I could present all the data I wanted, but the fact remained that at his local Greek restaurant the other night the service was really slow and this proved the matter conclusively.
One slow order of moussaka for table 13 and Greek Nobel Laureates, the 2004 Athens Olympics, the 10% of our population wiped out in WWII, El Greco, Maria Callas and a host of other paragons of excellence, are wiped. One slow order of moussaka for table 13 and the fact that my grandfather was called to the army six times in his lifetime to fight with exceptional courage for the allied forces, is forgotten. One slow order of moussaka for table 13 and the fact that my mother has worked tirelessly for the Department of Archaeology for 40 years to now be asked to survive on a pension of 450 euros a month, is irrelevant.
And this is the crux of racism. The dehumanisation of an entire group; their descent to a punchline. The transition of poorly supported, highly prejudicial, discriminatory stereotypes into folklore fact. The general application of a truism, regardless of propriety or capacity to offend and hurt. The abbreviation of five entire countries, with proud histories stretching millennia, into a swine synonym: PIIGS. And thinking this is fine.
The question is whether people in the entertainment arena like Mr Skinner or the media like Mr Nelson choose to prick these balloons with truth or lazily endorse and strengthen them. And that is all there is to it.
So, while we deservedly celebrate the refusal to accept certain types of discrimination – be it in the Stephen Lawrence verdict, the punishment of overpaid footballers or the chastising of a Hackney MP for saying something about “white people” – let us also be vigilant that it is not replaced by a more generalised xenophobia. Because folks need to blame someone when they’re scared and right now folks are terrified. So, let us be measured rather than hysterical; progressive rather than backward; reasoned rather than screeching.
I say “us”, but I will probably be far too busy breaking plates, spending money I didn’t earn and having siestas. So, really, it is down to you.
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I would encourage to read the comments on the original Huffington Post page, which are illuminating and infuriating in equal measure.
Be 11 Today
Thoughts and emotions are always confused for me this time of year.
I sit here like Scrooge, doing the books. Only I am not counting money – I am trying to reconcile the balances of my life. Trying to tally the columns of generosity, kindness and creativity with those of self-absorption, bitchiness and cruelty. I find myself in deficit again, but hopeful that next year I might break even.
There are bleak aspects – my beard has more grey in it, my family thousands of miles away, I am worryingly single and 40, my father no longer here, my mother forgets things more and more. There is cause to be grateful too - I am healthy, strong and sane. The collection of people who populate my life has improved dramatically this year – both by re-acquainting with old friends, spending more time with family and coming across some new, fabulously exciting, truly inspiring people (you know who you are).
There is always the desire to make this Christmas perfect – or, to be honest, to replicate one that has already been perfect. And there are some wonderful contenders:
I am six. My parents have brought back toys from abroad. There is a doll that speaks and walks. She is beautiful. There is a brand new Meccano set. In a few days I will make a drawbridge that lifts and drops by motor. There are “Chiquita” bananas – a delicacy in Greece back then.
I am 19 and in Paris with my friend Natasha. We are shoplifting Champagne from “Ed l’Epicier”. The youthful energy that surrounds us is nothing short of elemental. Lust and Love hand in hand, we dance the night away to Mylene Farmer. Drunken, debaucherous, divine, we bum cigarettes from stunned bystanders and laugh.
I am 33 and decorating a very designer white Christmas tree with black baubles. The flat is perfect, Steve perfect, salary perfect, hair perfect. We are doing pork with truffle oil this year – turkey seems too common. Presents consist of sinfully expensive electronics.
No. It has to be this one: 
I am 11. Travelling with my family around Italy – Rome for Christmas, Venice for New Year. Staying at beautiful boutique hotels, back when a dessert trolley was just about the most magical thing I had ever seen. Looking at lavish shop windows with their mechanical displays of nativity scenes. Eating ice-cream outside the Collosseum in the middle of winter. Laughing with abandon every time an Italian offered us wishes of “Auguri! Auguri!”, which in Greek means “Cucumber! Cucumber!”
So, what was different then? We argued as much, our financial worries were more significant, the presents less extravagant, the choice of movies on TV more limited. The only difference was that I was looking at the world through the eyes of an 11-year-old.
So here is my promise and my advice. Be 11 today. Shed your cynicism, neglect your worries, tear open your presents without trying to save the paper and play with the box as much as its contents, eat without counting the calories and, most of all, give those you love a big hug (whether with your arms if they’re near or with your heart if they’re far) and let them know you love them. Even if you’re on your own, treat yourself to a nice meal and enjoy the festive telly and the quiet and your own splendid company.
And the next day, and the day after that, do exactly the same. And, if you’re lucky and really good at this game, your Christmases might merge into the life you all deserve.
A New Year stretches ahead – scary, glittering, beautiful, political, ulcer-inducing, wrinkle-inducing, exciting, creative, messy, glorious. Share it with me?
The Kim Is Dead. Long Live The Kim.
Sometimes wry comedy strikes one like an unexpected missile from the most unlikely places.
Sky News, helpfully, showing a map of all the places that could be reached by a North Korean missile. The outermost circle is not even about a weapon they have. It is about one they COULD develop.
I, for instance, have found myself amused by the coverage of Kim Jong-Il’s death and his son’s succession. The general sense is one of gloom. Various pundits have expressed the “slim hope” that this might herald a new era. That, at long last, North Korea “shall join the West”.
Meanwhile the gap between the rich and the poor in the US and Europe is at its widest and growing at its fastest, senseless bombings and shootings in our capitals, election-rigging in Russia, child poverty reaching new highs, the finger-pointing between France and Britain reaching new lows, the collapse of the banking system, police brutality in the breaking up of the Occupy movement in the States, war raging in the Middle-East and North Africa, appointed rather than elected leaders of two of the world’s oldest democracies, the oppression of dissenters, the demonisation of the poor and ill.
So, cheer up folks. Maybe your hope that North Korea will join the West is not so far-fetched. We are showing a tremendous willingness to meet them half-way.
And as for the trepidation about someone considered “an unknown quantity” in control of nuclear weapons… We survived eight years of George W Bush with his finger on the button and The Voice of God in his head. We may just make it again.
Margaret Cho as Kim Jong-Il in 30Rock
The Politics of Lowered Expectations
Never mind the budget deficit. Never mind the Euro. We are in the middle of a much more serious crisis. A crisis of ideas; a deficit of thought.
I find everything about David Cameron and his posse absolutely odious. Everything. The personality and behaviour of alpha males who torment weaker kids in school; the idolatry of style over substance; the inappropriate jokes when dealing with serious subjects; his condescending attitude to women; his sense of entitlement; his incredibly weak grasp of facts squarely within his portfolio; his circle of friends and neighbours – Brooks, Murdoch, Clarkson, Coulson et al; his capitalizing of his poor boy’s illness and death.
This does not make me a blind follower of the Labour Party or an Ed Miliband groupie. Don’t get me wrong – the fact that we are experiencing a period of particularly weak opposition complicates matters considerably. Certainly, it increases my levels of frustration.
But I am entitled to find Cameron offensive as a specimen of humanity, regardless of the alternatives. And the fact that he points to the alternatives with derision in order to inflate his own ego, only makes him more so.
Let me give you an example. The debate on Europe in the last few days has been characterised by the laziest, the most jejune of narratives: That dissatisfaction with Cameron’s performance at last weeks summit is implied support for the deal on offer; implied support for Merkozy’s drive for austerity and centralisation.
I am Greek. Believe me, I feel the pain of the current Franco-German oppression acutely. I understand that the deal on offer has a good chance of actually making things worse. But the fact that this is a bad proposal makes it much more, not less, important to participate constructively. It makes it vital that politicians of all ideological hues, from all member states put their egos aside and try to find a workable solution. Because there are people’s lives at stake.
And yet to suggest this, draws the inevitable response “would you rather Cameron signed?” No, I would not. But as Hungary, Ireland, Sweden and others have demonstrated, there is considerable political space between signing and shouting “screw you, Johnny Foreigner” while flinging faeces.
“Well, Ed Miliband will not tell us what he would have done, so what’s your point?”, the hecklers heckle.
Suppose I went for a haircut (and I use the metaphor because of its debt-related connotations) and the stylist washed my hair with bleach, causing it to fall out. A defence along the lines of there’s-a-barber-down-the-road-that’s-even-worse, would probably result in serious bodily harm. “Found on the linoleum floor” the tabloids would report “violated with a BaByliss hair-iron, in ways too terrible to describe”.
So, this is my point: Only the government is in a position to act. Only the executive is actually in charge. The suggestion that a citizen cannot be critical of the Prime Minister’s conduct and results, unless a viable alternative has been put forward by the opposition, is intellectually indefensible. I can have an opinion. I can put forward alternatives without anyone’s help. I can disapprove of the Government’s policies without reference to some other hypothetical, parallel universe.
I have the right to demand the highest standards of the people who lead the country I call home. I have the right to ask the Government to aim higher than “not as bad as them”.
There was a time when politicians included great men and women. Thinkers. Visionaries. We still quote them with reverence fifty, one hundred, two thousand years later. I wouldn’t quote the current party leaders even if I were their biographer. Except perhaps with disdain and sadness.
“We have among us a class of mammon worshippers, whose one test of conservatism or radicalism is the attitude one takes with respect to accumulated wealth. Whatever tends to preserve the wealth of the wealthy is called conservatism, and whatever favors anything else, no matter what, is called socialism.” R. T. Ely said that more than a century ago. What has changed? Nothing.
Would you vote for a politician who insisted on communicating with smoke signals? How about one that sent troops to battle, armed with branches and slings? A Prime Minister who wanted to abolish the internet and the printing press? “Of course not – don’t be silly”, you say. And yet we are happy to vote for people who try to govern the country armed with hundred-year-old economic models; models which have failed spectacularly. Who try to improve our lives by applying dusty, antiquated philosophies. Who have been talking about money for so long, they lack the vocabulary to talk about anything else.
Scientists – brilliant minds, way beyond mine – crash nutrinos into each other, with unimaginable speed, in tunnels that we have dug under vast mountain-ranges. Astronauts observe the particles’ minute effects from space stations. And yet when it comes to the things that matter most, the best we can do is a group of people who bicker, crack jokes, shrug their shoulders and mutter “dunno”. People who are content to say to future generations: “We were planning to save the planet, but we ran out of money. Sorry.”
And it is a very explosive cocktail, that. To gallop away with innovation in every facet of our lives and give the power to wield it to the most impenetrably stupid. And unless we stop marginalising and start listening to the few that have new ideas, fresh ideas, naive, impossible ideas, we shall find ourselves not just broke. But truly bankrupt.
