I missed the chit-chat. I just saw the effect. I remember the despair I felt when I first witnessed hundreds of people sleeping in Waterloo’s cardboard city – I had never before seen a homeless person. I remember wondering whether I had made a huge mistake in selecting this country as my home, as gay bars in Soho were raided and closed down. I remember laughing with incredulity at a friend telling me her parents were charging her rent for staying at home, before realising she was being serious. I remember the sickening confusion as I watched people beaten to a pulp during the poll tax riots. I remember crying as my father-in-law became bankrupt for the third time in ten years and had to ask us for a loan.

Cardboard City by Stuart Chruchill

It is such a collection of unique stimuli which forms the basis for an individual’s reaction to the death of Margaret Thatcher. I am baffled by the refusal of some people to see that; as the experience is different for each of us, so must the reaction be. Your adulation of the woman is as valid or invalid as my deep dislike of her. “Disrespect” is not the expression of a sentiment with which you disagree. “Disrespect” is quite different from attempting to penetrate a bubble of idolatry with dissenting opinion, divergent life experience or inconvenient fact.

I might advance the view that disrespect is reducing a Prime Minister’s political legacy to having “beautiful hands and lovely ankles” rather than Glenda Jackson’s biting critique of her politics. I might advance the view that disrespect is using her death as an opportunity to promote your fashion blog; that disrespect is needlessly interrupting a vital trade mission and recalling Parliament at great expense, when Thatcher herself refused to interrupt such engagements and return, even when her political future hung in the balance.

Saying she was the greatest ever Prime Minister, is not a personal eulogy. It is a political comment on the course of action she pursued while in post. It is not disrespectful to point out that not everyone feels this way. That the parking of millions on sick benefit was a cruel act, the consequences of which reverberate in today’s welfare debate. That the decimation of entire mining communities is directly related to the current discussion of “problem families that have not worked for [insert dramatic number] generations”. That her claim of turning the City into “the financiers of the world” has a direct impact on the magnitude of the 2008 financial crisis with which we still struggle. That her selling off of utility companies gave birth to current discontent about energy companies profiteering and fuel poverty. That her imposition of the poll tax on Scotland a year earlier than the rest of the UK revitalised today’s appetite for an independence referendum. That her attitude to Europe set the deeply adversarial tone with which every subsequent administration has had to contend. That the sinking of the Belgrano was seen by much of the rest of the world as needless loss of life, rather than patriotic act of defiance, and the hostility it engendered is one of the obstacles to forming close trade relations with the developing economies of Latin America.

To respond to these concerns with hysterical pieces claiming “the trendy, left-wing gadflies celebrating Margaret Thatcher’s death would probably be rotting in the Gulag if it wasn’t for the Iron Lady” does not detract from the legitimacy of the view that what is taking place is an evangelically fervent process of beatification and the rewriting of history. It adds to it. Especially coming from the mouths of the same people who, with equal fervour, advocated the benefits of a “raucous, irreverent press” mere days ago.

I had some sympathy for the argument that it is insensitive to speak up on such matters in the immediate aftermath of someone’s death, while those to whom she meant a lot grieve and offer their tributes. But that is not what has largely occurred. What has occurred is a circle-jerk of personal anecdote, engaged in with lachrymose alacrity and for political gain. The text has been in the broad style of “I once saw Dear Margaret in a corridor when I was working as a researcher at the age of 16, I collected the marigold which dropped from her lapel, I have pressed it between the pages of my teenage diary, here it is”. The palpable subtext, meanwhile, has been “we must be brave again, sell anything that is not nailed down, punish the undeserving poor, because it is what She would have wanted”.

Heterodoxy is not heresy. Abstention is not snub. Disagreement is not disrespect. Formulating a strategy for turning someone’s death into a “polls bounce” is. A party cannot claim that she was the last Prime Minister to radically change the direction of travel of this country and simultaneously suggest that where that journey has led is nothing to do with her. A party cannot claim that everything she did was simply perfect and simultaneously deny its own 1990 consensus that she had gone off the rails and the act of political matricide that followed. Your deep guilt and shame over deposing her is not reason enough for all others unquestioningly to allow her posthumous canonisation.

I get it. I just don’t agree.

THE NOTE:

“This Government of occupation and collaboration* has quite literally eliminated my ability to survive, based on a dignified pension into which, for 35 years, I alone paid (with no help from the state.

Since my age precludes me from personal, dynamic reaction (this is not to say that had a first Greek picked up a Kalashnikov, I wouldn’t have been the second one) I can find no solution other than a dignified ending, before I am reduced to looking through rubbish bins for food.

I believe that our youth with no future will take up arms one day and in this very Constitution Square will hang the nation’s traitors upside-down, like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945 (in Milan’s Piazza Loreto).”

Commenting on behalf of the Government, Panos Mpeglitis MP said: “In such cases one must be cautious with one’s comments. I can say that this man was obviously brave and sensitive. However, we cannot connect irrationally this suicide with the country’s economic circumstances.”

__________________________________________

* The original note refers to the “Tsolakoglou Government”, which was the Greek government during the WWII years of German occupation. It was appointed by and collaborated with Hitler. Recently, this has become a nickname for Greek coalition governments which have supported Troika imposed economic sanctions.

I have not yet read a single one that is not based on a fundamental misconception; that the freedom to publish what one chooses is tantamount to being free from responsibility for what one publishes. This isn’t true. I defend the Daily Mail’s right to splash whatever they want. This doesn’t mean it should be free from consequence.

“Publish and be damned” is still the principle, isn’t it? It certainly would be the case if similarly inflamatory statements were made about an individual. The Mail would probably expect a writ to land on their desk within hours. As a result, they think more carefully about what they say when it comes to people with the resources to sue them. They try to ensure that what they say is verifiably accurate. Why should it not be the same standard when talking about entire religious faiths, ethnic groups or classes of people?

Even if I accept that misrepresentation would be difficult to prove in this case, at least it would give the Mail pause for thought. The same pause for thought that they would afford a front page that concerned Peter Andre. Is it too much to ask that dead children and people who depend on benefits are afforded the same level of courtesy, rather than the “lob it in” approach?

The Standards Code has not, as few appear to understand, been drafted yet. The Leveson Report makes only three broad recommendations as to its content. One of them is that the Code must cover standards of “accuracy, and the need to avoid misrepresentation”.

It is vital to note that the principles proposed by the Leveson report have already been agreed – at least by the National press. The major point of contention was enforcement and whether it will be underpinned by statute or not.

So, to all those journalists saying “you couldn’t possibly make provisions for this sort of behaviour”, your editors have already agreed such provisions. The only question is whether we are serious as a industry about principles of “accuracy, and the need to avoid misrepresentation”. It seems such principles are too lofty and nebulous for some, especially if properly enforced. I find that very sad.

Some myths on men, I’ll take apart.
The first, in really quite a simple mode
If I refrain from burp and fart
And don’t adjust my plums, during this ode.

Keep drinking lads and listen well.
From you that’s all I’m asking.
The second myth we thus dispel
With proof we’re multi-tasking.

The third one, put about by them
I can rebut expediently,
If I take off and drop my sock
And pick it up immediately.

The fourth is that we’re not complex;
We do what “William” beckons.
They even claim we think of sex
Roughly, every seven blowjob.

Seconds.

We are the stronger of the two;
We’re born to give the orders.
And yet we’re nothing without you
Our mothers, sisters, lovers, daughters.

You are the word that soothes our fears,
The one that asks directions,
The silent witness to our tears.
The hand on our erections.

So, since we’re doomed to hear all day
we missed on evolution,
Let’s give the toilet seat a spray
and call it REVOLUTION.

To The Laddies!

The UK came out of the deep recession related to the start of the financial crisis here in the  third quarter of 2009.

Since then the economy grew by an estimated 1.715% in total under the previous administration in under a year.

After the Coalition took over, the economy has grown by an estimated 1.385% in over two and a half years.

This means an average monthly GDP growth rate for the relevant period of 0.156% under Alistair Darling’s Chancellorship, compared to an average monthly rate of 0.046% under George Osborne. And the latter includes the Summer Olympics.

The disappointing figures are accompanied by a gigantic expected increase of National Debt during the Coalition’s term from under £800 billion to £1.4 trillion. Also, our deficit is tracking higher than expected and the IFS expects that based on the figures April-December, it will actually increase this financial year. 

Even including the sale of 4G rights, which hasn’t actually been sold yet, but which the Chancellor has included in his figures, this is a desperately inept performance. Meanwhile the Government is continuing and expanding its brutal programme of cuts and privatisation. The only excuse offered for Osborne’s performance is that our trading relationship with the Eurozone had a more severe than expected effect on the overall economy, while at the same time promising people a Yes/No vote to dissolve that relationship altogether.

I cannot think of anybody other than George Osborne, in any context, who would not have already been sacked for such abject failure – except a hereditary Royal one. And even the there would be pressure to abdicate.

Source ONS

*I have apportioned the 2010 Q2 figures pro rata to the two administrations, even though that is extremely generous to the Coalition since the implementation of their economic policies can only be said to have started to take effect after the Chancellor’s emergency statement on the 22 of June 2010.

I said this to you today: Deflating the Big Fat Lie with Big Fat Facts

I’d like to add

My thanks to @MarkOfTheRennie

A small percentage of them will be the lucky progeny of the 10% of us who control over 50% of the wealth in this country. One in particular will be afforded every advantage imaginable.

The vast majority have a life of uncertainly and strife ahead. Many will join the 3.1 million children the IFS predicts will be living below the poverty line next year.

All of them will be born with an equal possibility of having the potential for brilliance – the potential to be the next Mozart or Newton or Hawking. To innovate, to work, to lead, to save this country maybe. Sadly, we have a government that does not believe in the State intervening to give them all the same chances. And they have the majority’s tacit collusion.

By the same accident of birth which predetermines one will be the future monarch, thousands will never get the chance to realise their potential. Some will escape, against the odds; this, we call mobility. Most will be born predetermined to be poor, disenfranchised, dependent, angry, drunk, hopeless, beaten before the fight began. This accident of birth becomes the single most important determinant of each one’s future.

I wish them all the best of luck. Though some will need it less than others.

Let me use the “national economy as a household” analogy, which Cameron and Co. love so much.

Every time someone takes out a mortgage loan to buy a house, having assessed that the repayments will be cheaper than renting equivalent accommodation, they are borrowing more to pay less. Not only are they saving money, they are also investing in long-term infrastructure.

Anyone who could afford to do this, but did not, would be considered unhinged by every Tory voter in the land.

Moreover, the ideal time to do this, would be while enjoying “record-low interest rates” as the government keeps boasting.

I hope this clarifies the concept for our Chancellor. Although I doubt it.

NEXT WEEK in our series ECONOMICS FOR DUMMIES: Demand and Supply; What are they?

I watched agog as a campaign to raise awareness turned into missing girl porn. It was plain when the public response which had been a help to the police, became a huge hindrance. I can identify the moment when the media’s mock concern for a little girl, turned into a morbid hunt for a corpse.

If all these things were entirely clear to me, a man on the Clapham omnibus, they cannot have been unknown to the television executives who made the decision to continue to feed the story.

What makes it particularly distasteful is that by no means could this be considered a “slow news week” – quite the opposite. And so, I posit, the tabloid-isation of the media industry is matter of choice; not necessity. Because it is easy.

In the climate of filling the 24 hour cycle with this sort of pornographic aesthetic of personal tragedy, Kay Burley confronting volunteers with the reality that the little girl is probably dead is simply the money-shot.

And still hacks continue to confront people with that harsh probability. People feebly respond “we have to keep hope alive”. The vans stay put. The cameras chase and the boom microphones assault.

This is a village in grief. Denial is a perfectly legitimate first stage to dealing with it. Like wicked buzzards the media appear to be saying: “Excuse me, but we’re on a schedule here. Could you get on with it? We would like good close-up shots of anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance before the day is out. Thanks.”

How about leaving them the hell alone? Anyone with a shred of humanity? No.

He flies in, makes a lot of noise, dumps on everyone from a great height, and then flies out again.

[This article was originally published in the New Statesman on 25th July 2012]

David Cameron: scary seagull. Artwork: Dan Murrell/New Statesman

Back when I worked for a large organisation, we had a term: “seagull manager”. It described someone, usually a consultant, who flew in, made a lot of noise, dumped on everyone from a great height, then flew out again, leaving others to deal with the consequences.

Parachuted into action more than two years ago, Cameron squawked hysterically about difficult decisions, the mess he inherited, a new kind of politics and the big society (whatever happened to that?). Since then, he has proceeded to spend the majority of his term, so far, defending arrested pals, disgraced ministers, fiascos, scandals and u-turns.

This week sees another spate of threatened strikes and underlying unrest. To the growing list of greedy doctors taking industrial action for the first time in four decades, unyielding police officers demonstrating outside Parliament, uncivic protesters occupying shops and banks, dishevelled students disturbing the peace and politically motivated nurses and teachers picketing No 10, we can now add unreasonable dairy farmers and unpatriotic border control officers. At what point in this nexus of insubordination, do we begin to consider that the fault may lie with the country’s leadership?

Apologists have posited that Cameron is powerless, caught in the middle of a battle on two fronts; with his torysvestite coalition partners and his own backbenchers. The truth is those are mere political skirmishes. The real battle, the one which threatens to be his Waterloo, is entirely self-inflicted. It is a battle with the country’s public servants.

When a young David William Donald Cameron, son of a stockbroker, grandson of a Baronet and direct descendent of King William IV, was caught smoking pot at Eton College, his punishment was to copy 500 lines of Latin text. I wonder if they included Cicero’s “Ut sementem feceris, ita mete” – whatever you sow, you shall reap.

Last year, he announced that he was “taking on the enemies of enterprise; the bureaucrats in government departments…” Every nurse, every civil servant, every immigration officer, every policeman heard that declaration of hostility. In the midst of the severest programme of cuts, an economic downturn unseen since the Depression and a radical reorganisation of just about everything, he declared war on the very people on whom he depended for delivery.

You may have opinions on the individual policies, cuts, measures; on the rights and wrongs of each dispute. What is indisputably cack-handed, however, is alienating the entire administrative arm of the state at a time when you depend on their effort and good will to deliver your programme; at a time when you require their stiff-upper-lipped acquiescence to having their pensions and salaries looted. The most basic experience of management would teach one that the key ingredient, in securing the success of an organisation, is the staff’s support.

So, is it any wonder those unionised chickens are coming home to roost and choosing a time when they can cause him maximum embarrassment? The government’s reaction is an overwhelming sense of embarrassment that visitors to these shores might be confronted with dairy farmer boycotts, airport queues, terrible traffic, strikes, riots, homelessness and economic misery -  in short, the reality of what most of us experience every day. Instead of seeking resolution, they say “not in front of the neighbours”. Throw a doily over child poverty. Pop some flowers on top of the half-dismantled NHS. A few cushions scattered around unemployment. Make the place look nice.

They even went as far as to announce they were seeking a High Court injunction to prevent border staff from taking action, before the strike was called off at the eleventh hour. A course of action guaranteed to polarise rather than facilitate. Mark Serwotka specifically commented on “the vitriol and vilification” to which PCS members had been subjected by ministers. More evidence of poor management – engaging with staff only when a disagreement has snowballed into a vendetta and, even then, aggressively and destructively.

Cameron never misses an opportunity to mock Ed Miliband’s friendly relations with Trade Unions. But shouldn’t any PM or would-be PM aspire towards friendly relations with Unions? They represent ten million working people in the UK, not even counting their families. The belief that having a pathologically unhealthy relationship with such a large and productive part of UK society, is evidence of strong leadership is not only illogical, but dangerous in the extreme. In what other line of business would you see a CEO boasting that he has a dreadful relationship with his staff?

That indefensible approach has been characteristic of this administration – not only in its industrial relations, but across the spectrum. Unmeasured words keep falling out of this fuchsia, angry man’s mouth.

Attacking immigrants may give him a boost with one part of the demographic. Attacking pensioners may curry favour with another. But what is the long-term strategy? Eventually all those groups start to merge into one angry, explosive mass. The unemployed, the working, the disabled, the impoverished, students, charities, parents with too many children, parents with too few, those with cars, those with caravans, the small business who can’t borrow, the small business who sells pasties, the cleaner paid in cash – it all adds up to an entire country seething with anger.

The difference between good opposition and good government is that the former is judged primarily on the quality of the talking, while the latter on the quality of the doing. But there are no comforting results to which one can point. This week, the IMF predicted that, far from reducing national debt as a ratio to GDP, it will continue to rise and peak by 2015/16. In 2010 it was less than £1 trillion. By 2015 it will be more than £1.5 trillion.

An Austerity Programme is like an episode of The Biggest Loser. Inspirational rhetoric and sweaty montages cannot save the contestants when they step onto the scales. There is a pre-agreed goal – in stones and pounds, or pounds and pennies. And lately what has become painfully clear is that, despite starving the country, the coalition will fail to meet its key self-imposed targets. It seems that the economy stubbornly refuses to be orated up and the debt just won’t be sound-bitten down. Words are not enough.

There is a limit to the credibility with which one can say “I’m not being nasty. Times are nasty.” The evidence disproves the flannel: Privatising public assets, mass outsourcing, protecting The City, lowering taxes for the wealthy and corporations, handing out contracts to friendly donors, cutting services to the bone – when has a Tory government ever done any different, in good times or bad?

There is a limit to the rhetoric of “difficult decisions”. Difficult decisions are made harder to deliver and less likely to succeed when they are meted out in an arrogant, mean-spirited, ill-tempered manner. The progressive voter understands this and will condemn Cameron for his character. The conservative voter understands this and will condemn Cameron for his failure to deliver.

Flashy but incompetent, clueless but obdurate – Cameron is the ultimate seagull manager. Whether judged on attitude or aptitude, he is truly, hopelessly bad at his job.