Category Archives: politics

UK policies and politics

Total honesty? Discretion and life lessons…

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From Wikileaks…

Oh dear Wikileaks.  I hope you realise what you’ve done.

There’s a lot of comments on the internet about “this is what the internet should be about” or “this is what openness and transparency should mean” or “this should be acceptable in a democracy“.
I couldn’t disagree more.

I’m going to try to look at what on Twitter is tagged #cablegate from a slightly different perspective.
Here’s four bits of private thought or private discussion to think about:

#1 “Um, is your mum really going out wearing that top?  It’s not her colour, I mean, seriously.  It brings out the red in her nose and makes it look like she’s been drinking.  The fabric clings to her sides and the pattern shows off the rolls of spare tyre fat.  She looks like a bulgy, drunken -thing- squeezed into your t-shirt, except she bought it for herself. So embarrassing”.

#2 “She smells. Again.  She’s our best friend – it’s always been all three of us together. We’re going to have to stage an intervention.  You’re going to have to say something, I mean.  It’s for her own good really – if we notice, presumably everyone does.  It’s not like she doesn’t wear deodorant, but ergh, she needs a stronger one or something. Foul”.

#3 “He hit me.  It was just once, really hard, on the back and he grabbed my wrists so I couldn’t hit him back so they hurt too.  He got too angry and just turned into some kind of monster.  A one-off strike.  He’s never done it before.  He’s never hit our daughter. I don’t think he would. But I never thought he’d actually hit me.  Should I walk out?”

#4 “He’s boring.  But Milly says if you want something from him just smile.  He probably doesn’t get many girls anywhere near him, I mean would you even talk to him if you didn’t have to? Yuck, he’d probably want to date you or something.  Gross.  But he does ‘get’ maths and I don’t want another D”.

No one ever said that humans are nice.

And knowing what to say publicly and what to say privately or not to say at all is part of the process of growing up.

Things have changed a bit even in my lifetime.
Two generations before me it was all stiff upper lips and keeping mum – well, it was a time of world war.  Then things loosened up a bit with the babyboomer generation, the not-at-all-threatening-nowadays Beatles and Rolling Stones, letting it all hang out Woodstock-style and talking about sex became the norm.  The yuppies made it less necessary to be discreet about money.
And now, so much of the time, anything goes.

The issue becomes how much of your life to live in public – with Facebook, Twitter and blogging, what do you say and what do you keep to yourself?
This is accompanied by increasingly candid celebrities – the Kerry Katona/ Katie Price self as a commodity measuring self-worth in column inches. Katie Price is of course also a very canny business woman and extracts a high price for this exposure.

The risk with such instant and compulsive access to broadcasting that we say it without thinking.  That can be a big mistake – your job can depend on you not saying the wrong thing.  Just because you can say something publicly, doesn’t mean it should be said publicly.

Take my (let’s be absolutely clear about this) fictional examples above.  In those situations:
- would the speaker be better off if the content was said publicly?
- would the subject of the discussion, in the terms discussed?
- would the world be a better place for it being said out loud in full hearing of the subject?

I don’t think that there’s a single example above where either party or the wider world would’ve derived benefit from those thoughts or private discussions being put out in the public domain.  I’d be interested to know what you think.

Clearly thinking horrible thoughts about your friend’s mum’s dress sense and actually saying it to your friend in those terms would be stupid – at the end of the day, “c’mon, she’s my mum, dude“. Even if the critique is true.

With the boyfriend that hit out in anger, the call is much harder.
Let’s be absolutely clear, one adult hitting another or a child is utterly, utterly unacceptable and should never, ever happen.
As ever life is a bit more complicated than that.  The problem here is what’s at stake for the parties involved.  It has clearly happened – but is it a one-off, or a slippery slope? Should it ever be spoken about, apart from to each other?  Is there counselling needed as a couple or anger management? What about praying together? Would raising it in public cause more problems than it solves? Or does no never mean that this violence should signal the end of the relationship? Would walking out at this point be sensible, or a serious overreaction?

Sometimes you need to be able to have a candid conversation in order to be able to handle a situation well.  Take the smelly friend – to me, it is clearly in her interests in the long run to know, but definitely in her interests that her friends get together in the short term to work out how to do so so that no hurtful language is used. Even if it feels a bit like talking behind her back – which of course is what they are doing even if they don’t mean it badly.
It is ok to think uncomplimentary things about friends sometimes – I’m particularly bad at washing up, and remembering birthdays and to phone people. I’d expect others to say this about me.  But not necessarily to me, thanks guys, behind my back but privately is just fine.

But what about getting the maths help from the geek you’d never go near unless you needed his help?
Leave aside that quite often the maths geek turns out in the long run to be the better sort of husband and the good looking, popular boys usually start to believe their own publicity and are less good to be around- no teenage girl really believes that, even with Glee on TV.
The reality of life is that often you do things that you might not otherwise do to advantage yourself because its expedient to do so.  You might even talk about it with your mates. It doesn’t make it the morally right thing to do.  But that often doesn’t stop you. And you can usually find a way to justify it to yourself.

Everyone has a nasty part of their mind.
(Oh yes, even Christians).
And sometimes we just go with it.
(It’s not hypocritical to acknowledge that, the whole point about being Christian is recognising your sin, knowing you’re flawed and seeking to overcome it, not do it again and be forgiven).

So how does this link to the Wikileaks release?
According to the Guardian:

Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise this weekend as Washington prepared foreign governments for the revelations, contacting leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan.

The point about diplomacy is that, in order for positions to be informed ones, the type of thing that for an individual might be an inner monologue, or at a push a private conversation, needs to be discretely shared with others within an administration so that agreed internal positions can be found.
Then the right language can be found to achieve the right outcome.

For that reason, I am slightly amused by comments like “the next G20 is going to be soooo awkward“.   If so I guess that would be choice not necessity.  The point is that diplomacy is the art of moving from the raw approach to the smooth interface.  Seeing the furiously paddling legs of the swan may belie the graceful beast above the water but it is merely exposing the workings, not invalidating the whole bird.

Who gains from the Wikileaks cables release?
People who want to exploit divisions between friends, or those who wish to synthesise outrage in order to justify an action of their own.
Some will be genuinely offended, feel let down or angry.
Some will just be curious about the weird world of diplomatic communication.
Some in IT security will no doubt be expecting a call to beef up information protection.
But those that lose are the diplomatic and security personnel who have been compromised, the people who were discussed or quoted, the people who might now face personal danger as others “respond”, and the people who genuinely believe in more governmental openness and see this as a nail in its coffin because it so clearly shows that with great IT power appears to come great irresponsibility.
And if the middle east is destabilised, we all lose.

Are Wikileaks villains, misguided, or heroes of openness?  It’s up to you.
But for me, sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.

(image c/o http://www.essentialstyleformen.com/features/advice-discretion-is-key/)

Asking for the impossible

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I’ve just read the Spectator magazine’s comment on David Cameron’s trip to Brussels on Thursday.

For obvious reasons, the article focuses up front on what eurosceptic right wingers in the UK might want the Prime Minister to do and say there.  And rightly dismisses them.
Without a written constitution the UK seems to have less protection than, say, Germany on issues that affect us at a constitutional level.
But -as Foreign Secretary William Hague made clear in his party conference speech- actually we already have most of the protection we would want.  The 1973 European Communities Act can always be repealed, most people would expect a referendum were there to be another treaty (I think this is A Bad Thing due to the complete lack of understanding about the EU in the UK, and probably the worst mistake of Blair’s premiership after Iraq but that pass has been sold now).
What we cannot have is a law that says that the UK parliament can introduce law that conflicts with EU law and expect it to stand – the point about a single market is that we agree to the same rules for a level playing field for business, consumers and workers.
That would be asking for the impossible.

But the European Commission and European Parliament are also asking for the impossible.
Asking for a 5.9% budget increase (plus extras if you are the EP) is simply not credible when everyone else is cutting back.  And as for direct taxation, how much do the institutions want the public to hate the EU?
Seriously, I’m already hurting enough due to the austerity measures my own national government is introducing, and that’s including things like taking the cap off rail fare increases meaning my season ticket could cost £8000 a year by the end of this parliament (2015).
What on earth is the EU going to do with that sort of increase in funding that actually going to help me in my day to day life? And I say this as someone who starts from a EU-positive position!

Then there’s France.
As one website puts it “France on general strike while Britain watches the X Factor and Wayne Rooney”.
We’ve had our pension age put up to 66, they’re striking over an increase to 62.  We’ve had our universal child benefit removed, public sector pension contributions increased plus a pay freeze (that’s something like a 12% pay cut in real terms), pension tax relief  on private sector pensions capped etc.etc.  They have a strike with a slogan “the right to benefits”.
I love France.  I’ve mentioned before the dream of a little coastal B&B and a slower pace of life. Rioting is not civilised but you can’t help admire the determination to keep the way of life to which they have become accustomed. Are the Brits lazy, apathetic or just more pragmatic?

When Jose Manuel Barroso gave his state of the Union speech earlier this year, he said that we needed an “open debate without taboos“.
So far this seems to have been code for attacking the UK budget rebate.  As I said previously the Budget Commissioner has already screwed any prospect of sensible debate on this issue in the UK press, as Sunday’s Sunday Express front page amply demonstrated (oh and this one earlier in the week).

I need to spend more time reading www.capreform.eu before I full understand the issues, but Sarkozy is quoted as saying “I say clearly, I would be ready to have a crisis in Europe before I accept the dismantling of the common agricultural policy. I will not let our agricultural sector die“.

Really?

This, surely is the chance then, for everyone else in the CAP reforming group to put Strasbourg on the table.
Ok, Sarkozy, we saw you’d rather have an EU crisis than dismantle CAP.
If we are to accept this archaic and expensive drain on our resources, you should accept that we will not tolerate the Strasbourg circus every month.
This would be a genuine issue of EU interest, and would be one of the most positive things that the EU could do for the public – ending something which is a visible waste of their money, showing that they care about what we are going through.
There will of course be a range of other vested interests that are likely to get in the way of this happening.  There always are.
But surely this is a chance to push for one seat for the European Parliament (Brussels) – which is a coalition agreement commitment for the UK government.
Under any other circumstances going in with this would be asking the impossible…

Fat is definitely still a feminist issue

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As the bloggers have it, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Christina Hendricks has apparently got so fed up with being called curvy, she’s going to slim down from her (UK) size 14 to fit the Hollywood norm. This is her at her current size.
Christina is of course already gorgeous, someone to aspire to look like and sparking a fashion revival of 1960s style c/o her role in the show Mad Men.
But she’s far from the first to feel the pressure to lose weight to seek public approval or worse, to feel happy with herself in public.

Sophie Dahl was voluptuous, the first plus size super model, but shed loads of weight after becoming famous. This is one of the “before” pictures.

Even Margaret Thatcher, whose voice famously changed as part of her makeover to become a credible party leader, lost a stone.  It was never mentioned.

What’s going on?  Leaving aside the issue that the fashion industry has nothing to do with making the average woman look beautiful and everything to do with selling us something to idealise (and to keep buying their products to cover our flaws), we have to ask ourselves why do women do this?

The idea that this might be being done to appeal to men is nonsense – men tend to prefer curves (according to an article in Current Anthropology, a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 is thought to be the best in terms of demonstrating good health and fertility).
So is the pressure coming from other women?  The front of the weekly gossip mags always seem to be about celebrities who have lost or gained weight, and in the case of the latter, sometimes there are pregnancy rumours. That seems a particularly cruel way of noticing that someone’s gained a few pounds.  Look at the female columnists: they seem to gain their prestige by criticising other women.  Which man gets the criticism for his looks that women in the public eye are subjected to?  It’s ludicrous.

The classic TV pairing of older-man-younger-woman is still the norm on regional news programmes around the country.  Moira Stewart has disappeared from our screens.  Jenny Murray and Libby Purves seem confined to radio.
But Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney do still seem to be allowed out, and the BBC at least has been trying some positive action to encourage women over 35 to appear on our screens.  Last year, in an effort to overcome the apparent ageism, the BBC advertised for older women to read the news and added Zeinab Badawi (world news on BBC Four), and Julia Somerville and Fiona Armstrong to their portfolio of news anchors.
And I try to feel grateful for the existence of Loose Women on ITV1, even if it’s not really my sort of programme…
Notice though that these older women presenters are still relatively thin and certainly glamorous.
The average sized woman in this country is a size 16. For older women, the average is higher.  Can it really be the case that average sized women are only represented on screen by Mary Bryne on the X Factor and Anne Widdecombe  on Strictly Come Dancing?
Mary Byrne on the X Factor

Before you wonder if I’m going too far, think about Adrian Chiles, Michael Macintyre, Eamonn Holmes, Mark Addy in the Tesco ad… With the exception of Michael Macintyre (who appears solo and whom we can forgive almost anything if he can indeed get the country skipping again…) most appear on screen with a younger/ slimmer/ more glamorous female partner.

Having an all-male panel on comedy programmes is still acceptable.  More usually these days there’s one woman – for example Jo Caulfield, Andi Osho, Lucy Porter, Shappi Korsandi on Mock the Week,  Sandi Toksvig, Maureen Lipman, Jo Brand or Emma Thompson on QI.  But as Sandi Toksvig said recently, when are we going to get the three woman, one man panel without it being considered a “special edition”?  Well part of the problem could be that women aren’t funny (rubbish + more of this rubbish from Christopher Hitchens),the rumour that it’s women that don’t find women funny, and men don’t fancy funny women…
(If you’re interested in all this, try http://www.funnywomen.com/index.php)

Age is a problem, but fat seems to be the last taboo.
It seems that being fat is the fat person’s own fault, and therefore they’re a reasonable target for worse treatment or rudeness.
A while ago Ryan Air floated the idea of BMI-priced seating, and a fellow euroblogger stirred the controversy.  But my point – that pregnancy (and miscarriage) cause weight to increase, as does the menopause, show that policies like this could potentially discriminate against women…
I should probably at this point mention the fat/ poverty link.  But this is not an infallible rule. Some people who are fat are comparatively rich – not everyone subscribes the the Wallis Simpson maxim “you can never be too rich nor too thin”. And I’ve not even started on the race/body fat issue.
All I’m saying is that the issue of fat is a bit more complicated than the media might have it…

It’s worth noting that while one third of UK women are overweight, one third are underweight.  Being overweight can lead to all sorts of health problems, but so can being underweight.
So we should really be asking why, if fat people are kept off our screens in case they’re “normalised” or seen as anything other than a problem, why is it acceptable to show underweight people with such frequency?
I have friends with young daughters who are really concerned already by their daughters calling themselves fat, worrying about how they look – and the scary thing is that this seems now to apply to toddlers.  And don’t get me started on pink and princesses…

But if fat is a feminist issue, what should we do about it?
1) every time there’s a gym without childcare facilities, that’s a problem for mothers who want to exercise.  Any woman going to a gym should challenge this ongoing problem, on behalf of all.
2) Every designer who makes their clothes so that they look good on skeletons, and doesn’t provide samples/loan dresses even in a size that fits pre-diet Hendricks and Dahl, they put off someone like me from even bothering to slim to look good in their designs as I’m never going to both be happy and fit those clothes. We should make clear – perhaps via social media – that this is unacceptable, and by the way do they not realise how much of a potential market they are alienating.
3) Every time a female journalist criticises another woman for her weight or her looks, particularly if the woman criticised is a politician, scientist, writer, or is involved in a career which does not naturally lead to being a “brand ambassador” for a cosmetics company, we should comment on the website or email.

What do you think?

My Fellow Europeans: The State of the EUnion…

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Today, the Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, made his first state of the union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg (watch it here).  As Ralf Grahn has already pointed out, whether he should is a point of constitutional uncertainty. Executive power in the EU does not really rest with Barroso – perhaps he should have been accompanied by Buzek, Van Rompuy and, for the rotating Presidency held by the Member States, the Prime Minister of Belgium… hold on, not certain who that is at present…

And the BBC said that the meeting of EU finance ministers today may well overshadow Barroso’s speech in any case covering issues of real importance – the economic crisis and regulation of the banking sector…

So leaving aside the issue of who should have been doing the speech, what did they say and what does it mean for EU citizens?
Firstly we should note that this speech is being given to the European Parliament, and that will affect some of the things that are said in comparison with – say- a speech given to the European Council.  You’ll see what I mean later.
Second, there’s no underlying coherence to the speech – as Mary Honeyball (who was presumably there) points out, it’s a shopping list.  but that’s inevitable as the EU itself is a messy sort of compromise between a lot of ideas.

We’re promised “a Europe of opportunity where those that aspire are elevated and those in need are not neglected“.
“A Europe that is open to the world and open to its people. A Europe that delivers economic, social and territorial cohesion“.  I’m not entirely sure what economic, social and territorial cohesion means in practice – presumably it means that we all help each other out, spirit level style.  But let’s look at what that has meant in reality.

“Our interdependence was highlighted and our solidarity was tested like never before.  We have provided many of the answers needed – on financial assistance to Member States facing exceptional circumstances, on economic governance, on financial regulation, on growth and jobs“. Hmm.  If I was in Germany, I’m not totally sure I’d see bailing out the Greek economy where public servants can retire in their mid-40s as solidarity – solidarity needs to work both ways and the reform needed to equalise the exceptional circumstances needs to be in place.

Did anyone bar the most ardent, foaming-mouthed Europhobe really predict “the demise of the European Union” in the financial crisis?  I thought it was the Euro which was the target of most scepticism?
“The European institutions and the Member States have demonstrated leadership. My message to each and every European is that you can trust the European Union to do what it takes to secure your future“.  I feel very reassured, don’t you? :)
He also cited various bits of legislation that were coming forward, prompting one MEP to say it felt more like a forward work plan than a state of the union.

Barroso then turned to the economic outlook in the European Union – better than it was, with higher growth than forecast, and high unemployment sustained rather than growing.   I’m guessing that “budgetary expansion played its role to counter the decline in economic activity. But it is now time to exit. Without structural reforms, we will not create sustainable growth” is essentially the idea that once we’ve used tax payers money to bail out the bits of the economy that are collapsing, we need to cut back until its sustainable.
We then got a couple of sentences referring back to the Europe 2020 agenda – “accelerate our reform agenda. Now is the time to modernise our social market economy so that it can compete globally and respond to the challenge of demography. Now is the time to make the right investments for our future“.

The demographic challenge mentioned is falling birthrates and rising retired populations.  Basically, to sort this out we need to refocus our idea of work – that it’s not just about full-time, visible in the workplace jobs.  If we need as many people as possible to work, then we need to be taking seriously the role that women play – in the workplace, and at home.
First of all, we can’t just assume that everyone should be in full-time paid employment, effectively farming out our childcare and other caring responsibilities to paid carers in some big societal experiment.

We can’t assume that everyone will be fit enough to work into old age.
We can’t just continue to assume that women will fill the gaps – if we’re going for real social cohesion, we need to normalise the idea that men will do some caring – for their children, their partners, their parents – just as women do.  That should meant that quality jobs can be done in part-time hours rather than the assumption that working part-time means a lower level of ability.  We do need to think about how we identify talent and allow demonstration of leadership so that we really can use everyone’s talents – after all if there are more female graduates than men from European universities, what’s happening to them all that’s preventing them being the majority in leadership roles too?
If Europe takes a lead in this, then I agree with Barroso that “this is Europe’s moment of truth“.
But I’m not totally convinced that this is the angle he’s coming from here…

Barroso also lists 5 key challenges for the EU in the next year:

1) dealing with the economic crisis and governance:
the proposed solution is effectively more monitoring and “true economic union” – I’ll post separately on this another day but I’m a bit concerned that punishing the banks is politically popular but not economically sensible, and a Europe-wide tax on financial transactions on top of national levies is – interesting, when banks are threatening to move out of Europe.
Don’t get me started on the “own resources” debate.  Seems the European Parliament took this to mean that EU direct tax is on the cards – I predict right now that this is unlikely to go anywhere.

2) restoring growth for jobs by accelerating the Europe 2020 reform agenda:
This is where getting more women and older people into jobs is mentioned – although again policy on this neglects the wider role of people as people and not just as workers.  We do this at our peril.
The numbers are interesting – 6 million people have lost their jobs across the EU this year.  There are apparently 4 million job vacancies.
To put this in perspective, there are currently about 2.5 million unemployed people just in the UK (about 7.8% unemployment rate) compared with 4.6 million unemployed in Spain (unemployment rate of nearly 20%) – there are over 22% unemployed in Latvia and an Eurozone average of 10%.
So that’s a lot of jobs needed. Barroso’s solution will sensibly “be centred on skills and jobs and investment in life-long learning” – again just hope that the needs of women, who are, post-children, often working below their skills level are addressed via this approach.
I like the idea of an EU-wide vacancy list, but I’m filled with dread at the idea of an EU skills passport.  Many of the things that make you good at a job are hard to quantify – as anyone who has ever tried to move between sectors will know- and we risk lowest common denominator-ing the descriptions of ourselves to fit.
I’m fascinated to know how the EU will cut SME red tape by 38 million euro, and if they succeed, whether the UK press would ever report it as it goes against the EU= bureaucracy message…
There’s a lot too about securing energy supplies and renewables.  I guess I’m less worried about how it’s done (although I don’t really want to live any closer to a nuclear power station than I already do) as long as the lights stay on and the heating works in winter.

3) building an area of freedom, justice and security:
This was always going to be hard to read when France is expelling Roma and I noticed the stress on “legal migration”, but the section was remarkably short on detail.

4) launching negotiations for a modern EU budget:
Then we come to the budget, and the Budget Commissioner has already screwed any prospect of sensible debate on this issue in the UK press.
An “open debate without taboos” says Barroso?
This is the issue of European policy where all Member States are mostly about protecting their national interest.  Most remeber to wrap it up as in the EU’s interest.  The UK, for reasons of historic handbagging never manages to.  So I really hope they unpack all the taboos, including location of the EU institutions (goodbye Strasbourg) and that more than 40% of the EU budget is still agriculture, and cuts through the l’Europe, c’est moi waffle of some others.

Yes, it should be about getting most value for our money – as long as that is in line with the priorities we most want to achieve!
And check out the warning that the budget will inevitably go up in future: “Europe offers real added value. That is why I will be pushing for an ambitious post-2013 budget for Europe” – you can call it “spending more intelligently, by looking at European and national budgets together” but that word ambitious will put the frighteners on people who see the EU as a malevolent force trying to take over national budgets rather than as a partner.  Barroso even mentioned some areas where a Euro spent at European level brings more than one spent at national level: “energy interconnections, research, and development aid” – essentially cutting costs, avoiding overlap and better retrun on investment.  But convincing some that even economies of scale are a good thing is sometimes a bit of an uphill struggle.

And is there a hint at job cuts in the institutions?
“Of course, part of a credible European budget is the rigorous pursuit of savings. I am looking at the administrative costs within the Commission and other Community bodies like Agencies. We need to eliminate all pockets of inefficiency“.

5) pulling our weight on the global stage:
This is the tricky one. Not that the others aren’t, but Europe still has such a way to go in this area.
I have to admit that while I like being British and feeling like people know where I’m from as I travel the world, being British is not universally popular out there.  Nor is it that powerful any more.  Possibly except when seeking to trade.

But the “Who do I call?” question is still not really answered.  Should Clinton be calling Ashton?  Von Rompuy?  Barroso?  Hague?

Something similar to the “Suez moment” that showed to the government of the day in the UK that it could no longer act alone internationally was felt at EU level at the Climate Change talks in Copenhagen last year.
Barroso acknowledges that “we did not help ourselves by not speaking with one voice” but that was not the whole issue.
Barroso may well be “impatient to see the Union play the role in global affairs that matches its economic weight” but ultimately the deal at Copenhagen was done without the EU.  It was also done without the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and in fact without any of the member states that consider themselves big hitters.
In the end, the EU simply did not matter enough, because any deal was better than no deal at all.  that said, the future belongs to the BRICs, not even to the USA in the long run.  The EU is our best hope of still having some relevance.

If Barroso is serious about the EU acting internationally, then its staff need to be the very best diplomats and subject expert negotiators the Member States have to offer, especially in the Member States, possibly as seconded national experts, in the European External Action Service.

And if it is a cards-on-table discussion on how best to act internationally, then the interests of Member States, which vary, will need to be taken into account.  It’s hard to tell a proud shipping nation like Greece that, say, an Austrian with only theoretical policy experience of shipping is going to lead the delegation representing them in the relevant international forum.  That’s why Commission relations with Member States really matter.  The EU is just not going to be able to act with authority internationally if Commission staff attempt to bludgeon Member States into certain positions that don’t necessarily reflect what they would want.  Though I doubt anyone is attempting that sort of thing these days?
And if “size matters“, the issue of numbers of votes and seats are particularly important.  The rush to be represented as the EU should not be at the price of every Member State’s seat and voting weight – the measure should be what we have now, not what the USA has.

As for helping other parts of the world, while all Member States have “spheres of influence” where they are more likely to focus aid, I want to see that the pan-European effort adds to this rather than muddling efforts.
I’m not clear whether Barroso’s intended extra money for the Millennium Development Goals is on top of national budgets for the MDGs or whether the EU contribution includes the member states’ contributions?
Where’s the clear, coordinated campaign of strong voices against the stoning-for-adultery in Iran?
And yes, it’s crazy that different Member States have different equipment to help with the crisis in Pakistan, but are not necessarily coordinated to get it there helpfully.
As for a Common Defence Policy: don’t we need a common outlook on world affairs first?  Wasn’t that the lesson of Iraq?

I’m glad he pointed out that “Europe is not only Brussels or Strasbourg“.
However I encourage you to think on the statement “the Union will not achieve its objectives in Europe without the Member States. And the Member States will not achieve their objectives in the world without the European Union“.
While I obviously agree with the latter part of the sentence, I can’t help wondering:

- Should the EU have many objectives that are separate to those of the Member States?
- If so, where do they come from?
- How legitimate are they?
- To whom are they accountable?
- Do the EU population understand it?

Barroso rounded up with several of the www.bloggingportal.eu Barroso buzzword bingo ideas:  bedding down the new institutional set-up of Europe created by the Lisbon Treaty;  delivery is what counts; the Community Method (usually codecision- sorry, the Ordinary Legislative Process) is the secret of Europe’s success.

Barroso concluded his speech by saying to the European Parliament that “for Europe to succeed, the Commission needs your support“.
I slightly resent his further call for a “special relationship between the Commission and Parliament, the two Community institutions par excellence“.
If the EU is to work properly, even if the Council does do some things intergovernmentally rather than via the community method, it seems childish to pretend that it is inferior or frankly that the Commission and Parliament are more European.  The EU is a combination of these methods and the Commission atempting to sideline or alienate the Council where Member State governments are represented is hardly going to endear it to already sceptical peoples.

I’m trying to take a balanced view, but actually, this part of this speech has made me a bit cross.
Look at the Twitter summaries posted by the

European Parliament Europarl_EN twitter thread:
#Barroso: Majority in this House wants more Europe #SoEU (yes that is a different hashtag from the one being used for the buzzword bingo #SOTEU)
#Barroso: in a period of change: some want intergovernmental EU: I want community method #SoEU
#Barroso: People want more Europe/ support policies I have put forward #SoEU
#Barroso:On EU budget must win over public opinion about what EU budget should be used #SoEU

And this response by @Nosemonkey:
Note “win over” not “consult” RT @Europarl_EN: #Barroso:On EU budget must win over public opinion about what EU budget should be used #SoEU
Not all MEPs were uncritical of Barroso – Schultz wanted to know more about the haves and have-nots (of course, he’s the socialist group leader). Others were frankly a bit embarrassing – I mention no names.

But if most people in the European Parliament want “more Europe” then there’s a bit of a sales job to be done on why this is a good thing to the wider public.  Even in economically good times, the Constitutional Treaty’s referendums way back in 2005 were not all universally and enthusiastically greeted, and few people have had a chance to have their say since then.
There’s a series of posts in the EUblogosphere at the present on eurobarometer that might give some clues as to how the EU is seen at present.
If they want “more Europe”, I’d love to know how they communicated with their constituents on that point: in the UK, Euroelection leaflets are usually about local schools and hospitals and where Europe does get a mention it tends to be from those hostile to the EU about how it will be held back or withdrawn from.  I freely acknowledge that this is not the case everywhere, so what does a Europhile MEPs constituency surgery sound like?
And if this is a sign of the Parliamentary Europe that Vihar Georgiev talks about over on his blog, I think there’s a bit more discussion needed. And they certainly need a higher turnout across the EU to legitimise it.

It’s not that Barroso actually said anything so wrong in the rest of the speech.  It was just a bit – predictable.

Right at the moment, it feels a bit as if there’s a State of the EU for Brussels/ Strasbourg audience and a whole other speech needed for the wider public with a bit more clear language about exactly how the EU adds value.   Barroso was getting there in parts, but this appeal to the European Parliament’s ego at the end just wasn’t- right.

So the state of the EUnion is that the economy’s a bit messy but getting better, unemployment’s high but things are being done about it.  While finances are in a parlous state at present, working together saves money, more money is needed in the long run, more aid is needed for the rest of the world.  There’s a whole lot of debates still to be had about how things need to be done, but generally we’re all just getting on with it.
Not exactly inspiring, but then what politics is at the moment?  Even Obama’s halo seems a little tarnished these days.

And what a missed opportunity to kick off the whole “My Fellow Europeans” expression for starting speeches…

Eurobleugh

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image from www.nicetomeeteu.com


What’s wrong with you, you may well ask?

I’ve had a summer broadly off Euroblogging, in the main part because so little happens in Brussels in August.
I’ve also for work purposes avoided blogging on a number of EU-related issues which interest me.  A necessary sacrifice.
So EU-wise my blog’s been a bit quiet recently.

The thing is, I’ve also used the time to work out a bit what I care about, what motivates me to blog.   Yep, it’s my navel gazing post only a month after the majority of EU blogs went through this …

Over the last couple of years, my euroblogging has evolved to be focused on the UK’s relationship with the EU, and looking at the EU through a gender focus and faith focus.  I blog irregularly as I’ve other commitments, but I hope my slightly different take is interesting for my readers.  And I think overall I’m pretty happy with these things as my euroblogging USP.

I mean, I could critique the current common transport policy, the Tax Payers’ Alliance’s problems with the Trans European Networks Executive Agency, or seafarers and the ILO, but I’m not sure that would be very interesting.  I’ve tried to cover my interest in transport via practical posts on HS1 instead…
I’ve never cared a lot about agriculture beyond what I can see in the fields or arrives on my plate, and much as I care about climate change I’m just not sure enough on my numbers to do in-depth critiques of these sort of things.  So when I do do something in-depth, I probably do care about it, and I do know what I’m talking about.  I hope.
And have put off playing with my toddler to write it.

At the moment, with the “new school term” coming, I’m getting a bit of  a sinking back to school feeling.
I’m not quite sure why, but I suspect there’s an element of  not feeling very inspired by politics overall at the moment.

In the UK there’s a big and actually quite exciting political experiment going on – the first coalition government in a very long time and a referendum coming on a change to a voting system that none of the political parties specifically wants.
But while the big picture is exciting, day to day life is currently a question of which public service is going to change next and what does that mean for daily life for my friends and family.  And the attitude to the EU is – complicated.

And in the EU, there’s a weird sort of situation.
While the Lisbon Treaty is implemented (but hardly to public acclaim), and European External Action Service is established (and as male-dominated as we feared and expected), and the Council President is up and running (with an eye on consolidating a more wide ranging role during the Belgian Presidency of the EU), and all the little changes are put in place, I just don’t feel that there’s anything in particular to be enthusiastic about.
The euro is hanging in there, but I’m not finding discussions about greater economic governance inspiring – may be I would if the UK had been part of it and my daily life were being affected, but we’re not in “prepare and decide” mode any more, nor even “wait and see”.
And how long did it take the EU to get its act together for the people in Pakistan?

On top of that, I’m slowly realising that there’s no easy way back to Brussels in the near future.  To work there again any time soon, I’d need to make some pretty serious life changes.  I may not even work on EU issues soon.  But that gives me more scope to blog :)

I’m never going to be a daily blogger, or a several-times-a-day one.
I’m fed up with feeling that unless you can give all hours of the day to something, you are ancillary to it.  How on earth can any parent give 100% to anything, including their kids, and still make a difference in their other spheres of interest?  Why can’t the quality of contribution count as well as quantity?
And when it’s something I do for the fun of it, to test ideas and provoke conversations, I’m certainly not buying into a set of rules of the how and when.  I’m definitely a cat to herd rather than a sheep and so I guess I know I’m in good company in the euroblogging world :)

So I’m feeling a bit Eurobleugh.
I’m not in the mood for flannel, or theory over experience and applied example.
I want to know that it’s all worthwhile, that there really is an added value to me as a citizen in what’s going on – at all levels of decision-making.
I guess it’d be lovely to be seeing something happening that actually makes a difference for the good, rather than being the least worst option available.

So now I’ve got all that off my chest, let’s start September euroblogging with a positive attitude and see if there’s some good, persuasive arguments for what’s going on out there…

Justice? No, it’s criminal lack of foresight

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image from www.yourkenttv.co.uk

I know this is an age of austerity but it’s amazing what these cutback look like on the ground.  It’s also worrying the lack of joined up thinking amongst those with the power to make the cuts.

Don’t worry, I’m not naive.  I know there’s no masterplan, no overview of how and on what cuts are made.  That’s the problem in believing in local decision-making though, is that you do kind of expct some sort of consistency in the local area.  I’ll show you what I mean.  As you may have noticed because I’ve blogged about it a bit, Ashford in Kent is one of the growth towns in the UK.  Here’s what Ashford’s regeneration agency “Ashford’s Future” has to say about it:

Key facts about Ashford:
The fastest growing town between London and the Continent
Plans to create 31,000 homes and 28,000 jobs by 2031
Around £2.5 billion planned investment
37 minutes to London via the high speed rail link
Paris in 2 hours and Lille in under 1 hour from Ashford International
Exciting shopping opportunities in the extended County Square shopping centre and the Designer Outlet
Some of the best leisure facilities in the South East including a multi-million redeveloped leisure centre and international standard athletics stadium
Excellent and expanding education facilities including a multi-million Ashford Learning Campus for further education
2 million sq ft of commercial office development
Office rents 68% lower than in London and 40% lower than in the South East
House prices 28% cheaper than in London and 14% cheaper than the South East average
Fantastic countryside, including part of the Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty and extensive areas of woodland
Easy access to beautiful countryside, charming villages and the south coast
And – 85% of Ashford residents value the quality of life in Ashford

So what’s the problem?  Out on Saturday, I heard the story of a 15 year old, wrongly arrested for shoplifting in Ashford Town Centre. As ths is town gossip, I’d be delighted to have facts corrected, of course.

The police cells at Ashford police station have been closed.  This means that said 15 year old was apparently taken all the way to Folkestone for questioning. The way the story was told to me, once it had been acknowledged that it was a case of mistaken identity the 15 year old was released.  But he’s in Folkestone, 20km (12 miles) from where he was taken.  Fortunately he was sensible enough to point out that he was under 16 and get the police to get his parents to come and collect him.  But carting a 15 year old 12 miles from home on a mistaken basis, with no obligation to return him to his original location?  That doesn’t seem like an intended consequence, nor in line with the standards of child protection we’d expect from public authorities.

So then we learn that the closure of the custody suite is to be used as a justification for closing Ashford’s magistrates court.  Describing the court as “underused“, the money saved by not doing maintenance recently is also given as a reason for transferring magistrate court functions from Ashford to Folkestone and Dover.

But a letter in this week’s Kentish Express (not online, will see if it is still available) from a former Magistrate sets out the cost errors in the assumptions that this would save money, including the extra fuel and travel time of all the Ashford-based solicitors alone (NB there are only a couple of solicitors firms handling court work in Folkestone, and none in Dover).

One local solicitor pointed out the propensity of magistrates to grant bail to those kept waiting long in the day.  Another firm, Griffin Law, which is involved in the campaign to save the courts says:

The closure of a [...] Magistrates Court in Ashford is particularly ill thought through, given the government’s intention to grow the population of Ashford and surrounding villages.

And that’s exactly the point.  While it might be a short term saving to close the older magistrates court based in Ashford, it is Ashford, not Folkestone, which is well placed in terms of transport links (road and rail), Ashford that is designated the growth town, Ashford that is to expand so substantially.
It is therefore not the case that the population of the south east kent area is best served by moving the justice functions to Folkestone. Even now, Ashford is bigger than Folkestone.

This is a short-sighted decision, exactly the sort of thing that the level of cuts needed in public spending are likely to bring about, but without the careful holistic thinking that we might have hoped would be in place given the amount of time and warning the various different public bodies involved have had to think about it all.

It would also be great to see Ashford’s MP taking a leading role in fighting this sort of nonsensical decision that could potentially affect quality of life in Ashford.

Oh, and the international standard althetics complex Ashford’s Future mentioned?  That’s not being used properly – no compatitions etc. being attracted to the area – so that’s in line for closure too.  What a waste.  The Facebook campaign on this one is here.

Aid where it matters

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Please donate to the Pakistan flood appeal via DEC

With almost 20 million affected by flooding in Pakistan, and the sad news of the death of medical staff in Afghanistan who have previously been off limits, the issue of international aid is hugely important politically as well as to the individuals whose survival depends on it. Does it matter who delivers the aid?

In the case of the international group of doctors, dentists and others murdered in Afghanistan, the answer should have been no.

According to a beautiful piece on Radio 4 “From our Own Correspondent” this morning, some of the individuals in the group had been in Afghanistan for 20 years, raising their own children there. They were Christian but were motivated to help not by a wish to spread their faith but by a wish to help the poor and most vulnerable people in the world. Their work was, alongside general helathcare,  in dentistry (identified by Terry Pratchett’s denture-wearing barbarian hero Cohen as one of the three greatest things in life along with hot water and soft lavatory paper) and which clearly brings great relief, and with maternity care.

And that’s why it iseems they had been allowed to carry out their work in the past – their contacts and networks meant that they were able to give these vital services to people in desperate circumstances. Women and doctors were previously generally safe. According to the report I heard, this no longer matters and the unwritten rules of the conflict have changed.

They were killed for being foreign, for being Christian and, in the case of the Afghani in the party that was killed, for being the wrong type of muslim.  The report called these killings racist, pure and simple. Only the men with the guns, and those giving the orders, know why this was allowed to happen.  Because it is not just the individuals that were killed, not just their families, friends and the supporters of their charities that are affected.  It’s the individuals that were being helped or would have been helped.  It’s the children and mothers that may now have birth complications.  It’s the village elder with the rotting tooth that forms and absess and dies from blood poisoning.  There was no human kindness in this violent act.  Was it really Allah’s will that this support should not be brought to them?

Switch focus to the enormous humanitarian disaster in Pakistan.  While the rest of the world tries to get its act together and get emergency aid out, there are reports that “hardline groups” are filling the aid vaccuum.

So does this aid delivery matter?
Well, yes.  The shaky political balance in Pakistan may well be affected by the after effects of this natural disaster, and the knock-on consequences will potentially be felt worldwide.This potentially means a swing in public opinion away from the slow and remote-feeling official response to the crisis towards gratitude and support for more extremist groups (such as those favouring close links with the Taliban) who are actually getting the job done on the ground.
I’m not clear whether there are strings attached.  I’m not sure if they’re offering aid only to those of their version of Islam.  I’m not clear what they think about women being made to wear burkas – can only assume they’re pro given the positive towards the Taliban nature of the politics.

But if I was a Pakistani muslim on the ground, and it was my house and animals gone, my child falling ill from dirty water, my parents starving, I’m not sure how much I’d care about those things in the short term.  If they were willing to give the aid to me now, I’d take what they offer gratefully rather than wait for a government-approved response that might come too late.

But ultimately the response to these situations can and should only be humanitarian.
That’s aid with no strings, fast, from those who have something, to those who need it.
Whether you’re Christian, Muslim, of no faith or any faith, as a human being you surely have a social responsibility to give what you can.
You can do so via the link to DEC above.

Burka bans, Brussels and bended knees

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…the niqab is a feminist dilemma… and a European one…

Eurogoblin today reported that the three Presidents of the EU – Council President Van Rompuy, Commission President Barroso and Parliament President Buzek met with religious leaders from across Europe to discuss poverty and social inclusion.


Image of leaders family photo from Flickr under Creative Commons licence

What’s faith got to do with poverty and social exclusion?
While it is possible to argue that it should be the duty of all to mitigate against poverty and social exclusion, we have a choice.
Either, we say that the state should provide and by means of “fairer” or “progressive” taxation that can be spent for the good of all.
Or we say that the Big Society will provide, because as responsible citizens we should rail against and commit ourselves to the fight against poverty and social exclusion.
In most Member States the reality is somewhere between the two – the state takes some tax from us in the name of that purpose, but as it is not hypothecated we’ve no idea what percentage actually goes on these projects locally, regionally, nationally.  All we do know is that a huge number of people are homeless or do not feel themselves to be part of the wider community.
And the reality is that it is often faith groups that step into the breech.

Let me give you a small and very parochial example.
I’ve spent today at the Rare Breeds Centre – a kind of farm zoo and current home of the Tamworth Two.
This was the Ashford Baptist Church toddler group outing.  Some anonymous donations via the church and lift-sharing arranged by the ladies from the church who run the toddler group made it possible for a big group of us to go out for the day, with our packed lunches and have fun playing at the farm without having to pay for anything.
Now this may not sound like much, but the majority of people there don’t have holidays, don’t go for days out because incomes are low and costs when several children are involved just aren’t compatible.

In fact, most of the toddler groups in Ashford town centre are run by faith groups – not religious, in that we don’t require membership of a church to attend and we don’t “spout religion” at people who come.
But we do use the church hall, the organisers tend to be from one church or another and the children’s holiday club which is based around bible stories is advertised.  There’s no obligation to attend that either.  I don’t actually attend the church that runs this toddler group but I do approve of its open, inclusive approach and that it genuinely welcomes everyone, of all faiths and none.
There is a non-religious Sure Start centre, and a toddler group was started that declared that it was “an alternative to all the church-based play groups” but I can no longer find any details about it online.  The situation is a little different for play schools for pre-schoolers, not least because 12-15 hours worth of state funding is available.

That’s not to mention the soup kitchens, the event organisation, the small but helpful charitable efforts  that almost go unnoticed generally but help to keep heads above water.
So in these ways, we try to help with the physical needs of those around us.  Jesus commands us to this  - give him that asks of us our coats our shirts also.  There’s no sin in being poor – although the comments about workhouses etc. on the government’s spending cuts website suggests that some people today feel there should be.
Jesus also spends a lot of the sermon on the mount talking about the poor being blessed, the meek inheriting the Earth, everybody selling their possessions, and rich men having less than a camel-through-a-needle’s chance of entering Heaven…  Oh and for more on “the poor will always be with you”, see this link.

But surely it’s not just Christians that do this?
Of course not.  It is just noticably Christian-dominated around here – one of the things we noticed on moving here was the huge number of churches.  I’m sure in other areas of the country there are thriving synagogue toddler groups, muslim women’s get-togethers and more.

I know that charitable works are a requirement of some faiths, and that performing them is not only good for the individual but also good for the community.

But please don’t think that Christians do these things in some kind of effort to earn their place in heaven.  If you read the Bible, we don’t have seven things we have to do to (nor do we have to follow the rules of the old covenant in Leviticus), that just not the Christian position.
While some parts of the church have attempted to create structures and rules to make it easier to understand actually reading the New Testament shows how hard Jesus and the early Christians worked to say – no, that’s not ever going to be enough, God forgives you, accept it and that’s it.
And so when it comes to charity, we do these things because God himself has paid the price for the sins we have commited and we want to praise him and make his world a bit better.  going to church reminds us of this, because just like everyone else we find it hard to find time and hard to feel motivated all the time.

But you don’t have to be a person of faith to do this?
Of course not.  Humanism is after all placing the human at the centre where others place God.  But it is humankind and not the self that needs to be the centre.
And if it is hard to feel motivated without external help as a person of faith, imagine the sheer bloody self-motivation required to do it without and keep it on track and not self-serving.  It would take a stronger person than me to do that.

Is there a place for faith in the EU?
But I digress.
Does religion have a place in the EU?  Indubitably.

Look at the fuss about the Constitutional Treaty and whether there should be a reference to religion within it.

One religion?  It is indisputable that the present Europe was shaped by the Christian faith, Catholic and Protestant, and also by the enlightenment and the freedom to question (itself part of the true nature of protestantism) from which modern atheism takes its roots.

But even as a practicing Christian I’m still not sure that the Constitutional Treaty should have had a reference to this (and at the end, the Lisbon Treaty doesn’t).

I don’t think that we can always claim that all decisions taken in a state can truly reflect the ethos on which the state evolved.  To claim that we do everything in the EU on the basis of our faith/ faiths is to deny the nature of compromise by which decision-making to cover many conflicting and competing interests take place.  While it’d be great to think that all the politicians and policymakers were doing as Mark Greene suggests and remembering in their work that they are a “might policymaker for God”, I’m pretty clear that the UK expenses scandal shows that it is all too easy to forget how to do the right thing.

But the future of Europe looks multifaith rather than secular.
For all that we might try to draft rules of public engagement that exclude religion, that we might ban people in public office from actually mentioning the thing that shapes, inspires and drives them, most people across the EU have some sort of belief.
This may be in something ranging from “spirituality” and the supernatural, through humanism to the deification of science or money, to agnosticism, deism, right through to following an established faith.
Human beings bend at the knee.  This is not a design flaw.
How on earth can we expect decent policymaking if asking people to deny their fundamental belief systems?

And that brings me to the burka question…

Should women in the EU wear the niqab or the burka?
This is a European question in the sense that it is currently being asked all over Europe.

As Eurogoblin pointed out, the recent burqa ban overwhelmingly passed by the French parliament last week (335 votes to 1).
The Belgian lower house voted on a ban in April 2010 (note the handy BBC guide to different veils.
The Dutch were debating this as far back as 2006.
The Spanish parliament is also likely to start debating their own burqa ban this week.

And the UK? Immigration Minister Damian Green has said that any ban on religious clothing would be awfully “un-British”.  And he’s right.
Freedom of the individual is a very British concept and the idea that a woman might be fined as in the Netherlands for wearing something expressing their religion is distasteful.
I’m not sure I’d want to live in a UK that imposed on me whether or not I could wear a sign of my faith outwardly, and if this is a move away from the mealy mouthed illiberalism that clamped down on it through uniform policy, sudden changes to health and safety policy and statements from the NSS.
Besides, have you been to the West End in London?  This particular Nation of Shopkeepers could find itself hit in the profits if rich middle eatern visitors could not dress as the wish to shop.

So there’s no common approach.

Is the burka ban a European issue?  It seems Vivianne Reding thinks not – I hear that when asked about it, she said that this was an issue for national governments and not something that she would touch with a bargepole.

But as the Commissioner for women and equality (and fundamental rights, and justice), Commissioner Reding also needs to think about the burka as a feminist issue.
And that’s a dilemma.
On the one hand, equal rights means the right not to be subjected to men’s control, nor objectified.  Women should be able to work – or not to work – as much as they like, and so should men.  They should be able to dress as they want to dress…
Ah.
Because what if a woman want to celebrate her faith and her devotion to her God by wearing a headscarf, a veil, a chador, burka, hijab, niqab etc. ?
What if she’s not being oppressed into it by bullying male members of her family or her husband but has chosen freely and in full knowledge of the implications of what she is doing both religious and worldly to separate herself from the world?
Surely fighting for a woman’s right to self-determinism extends to her right to cover up if she wishes too?

So these are hugely tricky issues.  But we don’t live in the lyrics of “Imagine”, we live in the real world in all its messy, diverse glory.
God inspired, uplifts and makes us more than we can be by ourselves.  Europe needs that to flourish, no matter what flavour that inspiration is.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Just desserts?

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Or why Rupert Murdoch ought to care about clafoutis…

The tree in our garden turns out to have edible cherries.
This is fabulous – I love cherries and my mum and I picked loads of them yesterday.
They are small, dark Chanel Rouge Noir in colour and sweet, with a slight sour note.  Perfect.

We have so many I decided to cook them, and searched my cookbooks in vain for a clafoutis recipe.  The only one I could find required me to make a custard first, and with a migraine coming, that was too much.

So I went online.
The first two recipes Google found were on the Times Online website.  But guess what?  They are now hidden between the £1 a day, £2 a week pay wall.
Did I pay it?  Did I heckaslike. I found the recipe at the excellent Green Chronicle…
And it was delicious.

The thing is, when I find a recipe on the Guardian’s website, I often get distracted.  I end up reading Comment is Free, looking at different bits of the news and enjoying more of the lifestyle bits of the paper.
I used to do that with the Times website, but really what I’m after is the recipe.
Or the Alphamummy debate, or the theatre review that I was looking for.

But nothing makes me particularly inclined to pay £1 to get the recipe.

I already pay a TV licence and have access to the BBC.  I pay Virgin Media and have access to Euronews, Sky, CNN, Al Jazeera English and more.
On top of that there’s Google news and any number of online news outlets.

I used to buy the Guardian, the Times or the Independent pretty much interchangeably if I had a long train journey – otherwise reading a newspaper other than Metro is a luxury I’ve learned to live without.

And now we do so much more online, there’s a realm of excellent citizen bloggers out there who do not have pay walls and provide excellent news commentary, often better than the paid columnists in the mainstream media (I’d rather read Nosemonkey than Jan Moir any day).

So I don’t know whether the paywall is the future of online newspapers or not.  All I know is that it has made me feel less inclined to read the Times overall, and certainly not willing to link to anything that might mean me or my few readers shelling out £1 a day to read it.
If fewer, dedicated subscribers is the business model that works, then it just makes me worry about the quality of what I’d be getting behind that paywall anyway – less now, more in 10 years time.
I’m sure the clafoutis recipes would be fine, but you know what I mean.

Really radical healthcare

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I’ve just seen the letter from the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister to public sector workers asking for how and where cuts should be made.
Focussing the media vocabulary on cuts is missing a trick.
It sounds as if the interest is solely budget deficit reduction.  But this is not the whole story – the solution should also deliver a good service for the public.

Today’s proposed reform to the NHS is not perfect but is long overdue.

While some things (like getting a consultant’s appointment within a fortnight, or a doctor’s appointment within two days, including after work and at the weekend) have been great, I’m still not clear how some of the targets made any sense.
Anything that resulted in patients being admitted to hospital for a few hours in order to avoid an A&E waiting time target being missed is a nonsense.
After all, if you’ve ever tried to get discharged from hospital (as we did with my baby son), it can take 12 hours and a lot of tears and turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
I’ve also never understood the Value for Money argument for the Primamry Care Trusts – as far as I have seen their job is to duplicate letters coming to patients from the GPs surgery and from the local hospital (an extra letter from the PCT each time I got one regarding smear test appointments, for example).

But the Private Sector Lite idea that has been proposed is really not that radical.  Look, if you truly want money to follow patient, it needs to mean a real market in the public healthcare system.
Scary rightwing idea?  Not at all.  The model here is France and Belgium.

In Belgium, an insurance-based system (with a decent fallback for those in need) is run by mutuals.
That means no expolitation by insurance companies trying to screw their own customers and avoid paying out a la USA.
While each mutal has a different “ethos” (I used Mutualite Socialiste the first time I lived there, Partena the second, and my husband Mutualite Chretienne) essentially they all do a similar job and don’t have shareholders getting rish off the good health of the scheme’s participants.

What makes the Beligan system seem so radical if you are a Brit is that any genuinely quality provider can sell services within public healthcare system.
The ground floor of most of the apartment blocks on the big boulevards in Brussels feature a number of brass plaques.
Each building offers one or two GPs, or a gynocolgist, a physiotherapist, a dermatologist, a sports therapist…

Reputation counts – GPs are not in control, offering their patient one or two choices of hospital-based appointments – they provide a referral for a specialist and the patient chooses who they want to see.  The mutual says up front how much of the treatment they will refund depending on how public/ private the specialist is – an appointment at a private hospital will be partially refunded (at say 60%) whereas one at a public hospital might be refunded at 85%.

Oh, and in Brussels, it is possible to self-refer if necessary.
The mutual might not refund the appointment, but the truly free market means that it is possible to find someone to see you if you can’tget a referral but are worried about something.

So ultimately members of the public determine where money goes.
Public health with a bigger role for the patient – now that’s radical…