Egypt, Legacy of Bush & Blair?

Is the policy of regime change coming to fruition? Revolutions across the Arab world and Iran appear to be vindicating the aggression of George Bush and Tony Blair. Regime change, imposed from outside, has been adopted from within. By citizens, by peace, and by justice.
It’s difficult for some to understand the boiling frustration and anger felt by those with socialist values, who believed that the policy of regime change was a great act of great benevolence by the western powers, only to be accused of being evil war-criminals by our friends and comrades.
We were accused of hate, imperialism and imposing western values on others. We argued back forcefully, but as Iraq descended into hell, our arguments were ground into silence. Beheadings, live on the internet, were the results or our benevolence. Kidnappings, criminals, and tribal genocide became the new regime.
We were found to be wrong, while the anti-war movement was found to be right. But rather than accept that our motives were pure, but our arguments were wrong, they attacked us with seething spite. It was never the outcome that they pointed to, but the evil in our hearts for promoting such a policy.
There were moments of optimism. The horror of what the Arabs did to themselves caused them to question their own values and societies that could create such nihilism, and question their criticism of the western world. The dogma that had held the Arabs back was being eroded by the horror that was Iraq. Then the eventual success of democratic politics in that country proved that it was possible, that representative government is an alternative.
The failure of the Arabs to become one nation seemed to be reversed, as 200 televisions channels appeared across the Arabia to bring them together. The various dialects of Arab, blended into a new language, named Media Arab, to allow them to communicate, for the first time in centuries. Iraq must have played a considerable role in this reforming development, but Al-Jazeera existed before the war, so it was difficult to claim much credit for the policy of regime change.
Maybe I was in denial with the desperation of some of my arguments by this time. I said that historians would consider the Iraq war to be similar to the French revolution, in that you wouldn’t wish your worst enemy to live through it, but it was very influential on the region. No one wanted to buy into this argument, but I wonder if that will change now.
By the end of the Iraq war, I was bitter about the sheer incompetence and the lack of an American plan. If we’d be able to go back and do it again, we’d do it right, but the benefit of hindsight is of little use to the past, and the future is dictated by the past. There would be no more wars of liberation after this.
I reminded people of the joke by the late great American comedian, George Burns, who once said, “When you’re young, you can do whatever you want, but don’t know how. When you’re old, you know how, but you can’t.” There would be no more regime change, because there was no political will.
Mubarak seems to have learned from the Iraq war. In his efforts to quell the revolt, his most intelligent and ruthless policy has been to remove the state, in hope of creating the fear of chaos that existed in post-invasion Bagdad. Most visibly, the Police have disappeared from the streets of the major cities.
But at the time of writing, 31st Jan, the policy appears to have backfired. Ordinary citizens are banding together to form civil militias to protect their property from looting. One journalist tells to 15 checkpoints in a one mile journey. Meanwhile, the troublesome gangs of young men on the streets of Cairo are picking up litter and offering to help carry people’s bags.
The days are early in this people’s revolt. The question of whether the reputations of George Bush and Tony Blair will be vindicated in the writing of history is still too early to tell. But it does seem to be pointing that way.

George Osborne joins the Jehovah Witnesses

George Osborne has become ridiculous. Everything he does is to avoid imminent market collapse. He’s now telling the BBC that he can’t change his fiscal policy as it would cause financial turmoil. Let’s just take a look back at what he’s said previously, and whether there is any veracity of these claims of imminent Armageddon.
Osborne’s argument before the general election was that a run on the bond market would cause the cost of government debt to escalate, throwing the economy into the downward spiral of borrowing beyond means to make repayments. This argument was not correct.
Firstly, government bonds, or gilts, are not variable interest rate. The market decides the interest rate at the time of purchase, but for the issuer, that rate never changes. If the bonds are traded on, then the rate is affected by the price the bond sells for, but that doesn’t matter to the issuer.
In other words, interest paid by the government doesn’t change on debt that has been issued. New debt, however, may command a higher return. If the market lost confidence in the ability of the UK to service her debts, then the Bank of England may find that when they issue new bonds, it would be more expensive, but the existing debt only pays the issued rate, so there is no spiral on the existing debt.
So Osborne’s argument was always fundamentally flawed, but it’s also interesting to note that the market had little inclination to demand a higher return on new issues of gilts anyway. This well written piece by Chris Dillow, the editor of Investor’s Chronicle, was in April 2010.
The gilt market looks like Monty Python’s Black Knight: no amount of blows can quell its bullishness. So far this year we’ve seen: the end of the Bank of England’s £200bn price support scheme; rising inflation; the increasing prospect of a hung parliament; a refusal of any of the main parties to specify where spending cuts will fall; and a reminder from Greece that European governments can suffer terrible debt crises. And the gilt market’s reaction to all this? “Tis but a scratch.” Yields on 10-year gilts are now exactly where they were at the start of the year – just over 4 per cent.
A month or so later, Osborne relied on his “market turmoil” tactic to scaremonger again, in the days following the election. The Tories were so nervous about closing the deal with the Lib Dems that George insisted that the talks should be finalised before the end of the weekend as he feared the market reaction on Monday morning if they failed. Again, the imminent collapse of the financial system. Again Armageddon.
The cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell has since appeared on a television documentary about these talks, repeating this fear as if it was a rational argument, such is the power of Osborne’s persuasion. But George was beginning to sound ridiculous. Why would the markets value Cameron and Clegg’s talks more than the institution of the British state and the ability of the Bank of England to honour its obligations? And why would the markets be so concerned about a single day or two when they are concerned with the pensions of whole of the British population? Did George Osborne have no idea of how markets work, or did he just have a peculiar talent in scaremongering?
So today we have a new promise of “financial turmoil” as George tells the BBC that a change in fiscal policy following the disastrous GDP figures would once again be catastrophic. He’d sacrifice happily mass unemployment and destroy the dreams and aspirations of millions of British people, for his unfounded fear of market turmoil.
He’s becoming a comedy character. Can you imagine him at home, arguing with his wife over the remote control? “If you don’t switch to Coronation Street, right now, the markets will go into meltdown tomorrow.”
It seems to me that George has followed the wrong vocation. He went into politics because he is such a great communicator that he has the ability to persuade people that his visions of doom should be taken seriously. But he was wrong to take his undoubted persuasion into the serious business of politics when there are other careers in which his arcane talents could be put to far better use.
Picture the moment, in a few months time. Ken Clarke has taken over No11, and Cameron has closed the door on Osborne’s career. George is at home miserable. He’s in the kitchen, looking into the fridge and thinking, “If I don’t have a cheese sandwich right now, the markets will collapse.” Then he hears his doorbell ring. He goes to answer it and finds a bunch of Jehovah Witnesses. “The end of the world is nigh. We have come to save you.” they cry.
For the peculiar talents of George Osborne, as one door closes, another one opens.

Overcoming My Stutter, Ed Balls

Today in The Times, Ed Balls has begun to open his personal life to the wider world and to eradicate the wrongful image of being Gordon’s hatchet-man.
In the article, Balls tell us that he saw the hit movie, “The King’s Speech” an uplifting Oscar nominated account of George VI undergoing speech therapy to overcome his stutter. Ed tells us that he found the film, “incredibly stressful to watch. I’ve had a stammer and I still do; a really serious one. I’ve spent three or four years really working on it so it’s much better now, but it’s really hard.”
He complements the actor, Colin Firth, for brilliantly portraying the emotions of the struggle with a stammer. “The emotion is tension, the feeling that you might let people down. It’s a worry that being yourself might not be good enough.” He continues, “The fear is I’m not going to be able to speak. Most people think a stammer as being overt, that you stutter, but what I have and what the King has in the film is what’s called interiorised disfluency. It’s an inability to get the works out.”
He speaks about his coping mechanism: “If someone writes a speech for me I have to rewrite it or ad lib. If I use an autocue, I have to edit it in real time. The words will be in the wrong order. There will be certain consonants that I can’t say together. It would be impossible for me to start a sentence with an H. I often start sentences with “look” or “well” because the key thing is to get moving.”
He says that the biggest issue is to accept your handicap and work with it. “The biggest problem is concealment. It’s like an iceberg. There’s a little bit you see on the surface but the issue is a massive thing underneath.”
I worked on the Ed Balls leadership campaign doing some photography and also hitting the phones to canvas party members. I had no idea that Ed had overcome such adversity or had such a great journey that could have been shared with audiences of Labour members up and down the country.
I left the campaign team before the ballot, as we had our own selection for a mayoral candidate in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and this to me, was a greater priority.
On the polling day for our mayoral candidate, I was taking a break from canvassing outside our constituency office, by having a coffee across the road, when I saw I saw Ed’s New Media Campaigner, Ellie Gellard next door outside York Hall. Some of you might know Ellie as “Bevanite Ellie” on Twitter.
I called out to her and asked her why she was here in the east end. She told me Ed was giving a talk to the British Stammering Association in York Hall. I asked if they were members of the Labour Party. She said “No, but he’s always had a stammer and we had a free morning to speak to them.”
It was always a frustration on the Ed Balls team that his complete lack of preparedness for a major selection process left them without the simple tools needed to operate, such as a list of CLP secretaries to approach and offer to speak to their members.
However, surprised that I was that Ed had time to do this, I was even more surprised that he had a story of a personal journey that he hadn’t shared with the Labour members during hustings. I told Ellie that the reason there was about 100 people outside the Tower Hamlets Labour offices, across the road, was because we were having our vote to choose a mayoral candidate. It would be a terrific canvassing opportunity, so I offered to introduce Ed to the members right there on the pavement. It seemed that he had a BBC interview shortly after, so they didn’t take me up on my offer, which was a shame.
Do you remember the photos from inside Gordon Brown’s office, just before they left No10? The finger painting pictures of his kids plastered across the walls in that scruffy but charming way of proud parents. The surprise to us as Labour members was that these photos hadn’t been released during the election. The man whose image was Stalin or Mr Bean or any other dehumanising image, was in fact, a proud dad more than anything else. These photographs showed that, but they were never released.
It’s often a frustration to people like myself who understand that media is about personal contact more than anything else, but that this is often the last thing that a professional politician will see. Ed Balls has worked behind the scenes at the highest level of government for many years now, but his Wiki page barely gives us a glimpse of the man. There is no published biography, and virtually no published articles on one of the most powerful Labour politician of our times.
It seems that Ed Balls is now recognising that it’s time to show us the husband, father, and an ordinary guy behind this intimidating reputation for intellect and conviction. He’s showing us that he’s a lot like you and me. We’ve all had to overcome adversity at some point in our lives. Ed’s story is timely due to the current hit film, but it’s also tangible and recognisable for all of us who have known a young man with a painfully difficult speech impediment.
He shows us what it’s like to be on the other side of that handicap. He gives us empathy. He offers us the chance to be a little more tolerant and a little more human, by showing us the humanity in himself.

Inside the Ed Balls Leadership Campaign

During the leadership elections, Ed Balls was the only contender with the ability to engage Labour audiences emotionally. Early in the campaign, at the huge Fabian hustings, he attacked the Tories’ desire to end breakfast clubs by reminding us that for some of these kids, it will be the only square meal they’ll eat that day. The audience gave a gasp to this, and I thought they’d fallen in love with this guy, but the polls stayed stubbornly low.

No other candidate was able to remind us of why we became socialists. At another hustings, he told the story of some children who were so amazed by their new school that one looked up at him and said, “I never thought we’d be worth this much”. It was touching, and everyone was drawn in by him, but still the polls stayed stubbornly low.

I met him at some point, and found him to be a really nice, easy going guy. He seemed to be a people person, which is a major quality in a politician. But the low poll rating refused to budge. He wasn’t going to win.

Bill Clinton once said that if you want to run for President, the first thing you have to do is to get people to see you as President. It didn’t matter how much raw talent Ed Balls had, by this time, he was being seen as the loser. I started to hear people describe him as being the henchman of Gordon Brown. They associated him with division in Downing Street, and bad news in Tottenham.

At the time, I was on Oona King’s campaign as photographer and film maker but I was frustrated and felt like my ideas were being ignored, which was unfair, on reflection, as these campaigns tend to happen under the sheer chaos of pressure. But I wanted to help the underdog, Ed Balls, so I made contact and offered to make a film.

I was only peripheral on the Ed Balls campaign. It was a bit weird in that they had been together since the beginning, while I’d come along only once it was obvious he was losing. It was a tiny, close knit team, mostly very young. Ed once joked that he came in one day, to find the campaign office empty. When he asked why, he was told that school term had re-started. He was only half joking.
I didn’t much enjoy the leadership debates, because it was so woolly. Maybe I was unfair. If any of them had any good ideas then those would have been spent during the last government and as we know, that government had lost the election. So maybe I shouldn’t have had such high expectations. But still, it was woolly regardless.

But with Ed Balls, he’d always make you listen to him, because he had such conviction. A good politician doesn’t ask what you want him to stand for, he tells you what he stands for, and demands that you stand beside him. As far as Ed was concerned, it was a catastrophic mistake to end the fiscal stimulus.

A good politician doesn’t fear being vulnerable. When asked why is it that the last government’s policy was to end the fiscal stimulus, even though Ed was a part of that government, he simply said, “I lost the argument.” There was no shame and no bitterness. His conviction was not shaken. When asked to clarify, he simply said, “I lost the argument.”

I think what I got out of last year’s leaders campaigns, was to learn about myself. I felt as if photography was below me and that I should occupy some higher position on the campaign, but without experience of campaigns, I had no skills. I felt that I had ideas to offer, but it’s impossible to come into a campaign with ideas; there is no time to chew things over.

I decided I should go back to writing, which I’ve done. Also to accept that I know precious little about the actual business of politics, but that I’d like to learn. I think the whole experience made me more confident, while at the same time more humble.

The other thing I know from the Ed Balls campaign is that if, in time to come, there is another leadership election, then he should time it to be between terms. Those young, but committed campaigners would be needed again, but this time as managers.

The Real Ed Balls

During the leadership elections, Ed Balls was the only contender with the ability to engage Labour audiences emotionally. Early in the campaign, at the huge Fabian hustings, he attacked the Tories’ desire to end breakfast clubs by reminding us that for some of these kids, it will be the only square meal they’ll eat that day. The audience gave a gasp to this, and I thought they’d fallen in love with this guy, but the polls stayed stubbornly low.
No other candidate was able to remind us of why we became socialists. At another hustings, he told the story of some children who were so amazed by their new school that one looked up at him and said, “I never thought we’d be worth this much”. It was touching, and everyone was drawn in by him, but still the polls stayed stubbornly low.
I met him at some point, and found him to be a really nice, easy going guy. He seemed to be a people person, which is a major quality in a politician. But the low poll rating refused to budge. He wasn’t going to win.
Bill Clinton once said that if you want to run for President, the first thing you have to do is to get people to see you as President. It didn’t matter how much raw talent Ed Balls had, by this time, he was being seen as the loser. I started to hear people describe him as being the henchman of Gordon Brown. They associated him with division in Downing Street, and bad news in Tottenham.
At the time, I was on Oona King’s campaign as photographer and film maker but I was frustrated and felt like my ideas were being ignored, which was unfair, on reflection, as these campaigns tend to happen under the sheer chaos of pressure. But I wanted to help the underdog, Ed Balls, so I made contact and offered to make a film.

I was only peripheral on the Ed Balls campaign. It was a bit weird in that they had been together since the beginning, while I’d come along only once it was obvious he was losing. It was a tiny, close knit team, mostly very young. Ed once joked that he came in one day, to find the campaign office empty. When he asked why, he was told that school term had re-started. He was only half joking.
I didn’t much enjoy the leadership debates, because it was so woolly. Maybe I was unfair. If any of them had any good ideas then those would have been spent during the last government and as we know, that government had lost the election. So maybe I shouldn’t have had such high expectations. But still, it was woolly regardless.
But with Ed Balls, he’d always make you listen to him, because he had such conviction. A good politician doesn’t ask what you want him to stand for, he tells you what he stands for, and demands that you stand beside him. As far as Ed was concerned, it was a catastrophic mistake to end the fiscal stimulus.
A good politician doesn’t fear being vulnerable. When asked why is it that the last government’s policy was to end the fiscal stimulus, even though Ed was a part of that government, he simply said, “I lost the argument.” There was no shame and no bitterness. His conviction was not shaken. When asked to clarify, he simply said, “I lost the argument.”
I think what I got out of last year’s leaders campaigns, was to learn about myself. I felt as if photography was below me and that I should occupy some higher position on the campaign, but without experience of campaigns, I had no skills. I felt that I had ideas to offer, but it’s impossible to come into a campaign with ideas; there is no time to chew things over.
I decided I should go back to writing, which I’ve done. Also to accept that I know precious little about the actual business of politics, but that I’d like to learn. I think the whole experience made me more confident, while at the same time more humble.
The other thing I know from the Ed Balls campaign is that if, in time to come, there is another leadership election, then he should time it to be between terms. Those young, but committed campaigners would be needed again, but this time as managers.

Cameron as Britain’s Gordon Gecko

In the film Wall Street, Gordon Gecko makes the famous speech “Greed is Good” to the shareholders of Teldar Paper.

You would have thought that the film maker, Oliver Stone, would be proud that the words he wrote have entered the common parlance of the English language, but Stone has always been discomforted by this film because the moral message he was preaching was overshadowed by the glamour of Gordon Gecko’s character.
The pay-off to the speech comes later in the film when Gecko speaks to Bud Fox of his frustration that the shares of Teldar Paper don’t rise after, “I’ve sacked half the management and still nothing.” His only strategy in taking over the company was to sack people in the belief that this would turn the company around. It didn’t.
When the Conservative led government tell us that they will improve the NHS by imposing a massive restructuring from above, by abolishing the Primary Care Trusts and having the ordinary GPs become the managers; we see a similar philosophy at work. They believe that all they have to do is sack all those useless managers and the NHS will be set free from the shackles of bureaucracy to achieve some wonderful efficiency.
The Conservatives do at least have a fashionable management principle to apply. They say that putting the GPs in charge will create a “bottom-up” organisation, where the decisions come from the place closest to the patients. In fact, this is a very flawed application of the bottom up theory.
Would our police force be better if only we could get rid of these borough commanders and (soon to be) directly elected commissioners and let the Bobbies on the beat and the PCSOs come together and collectively decide how to keep us safe? Would our streets be cleaner if we just let the road-sweepers be in charge? Would a big company like BP be better run if the petrol station owners came together to take over the management of this huge international concern? I think not.
The greatest flaw of David Cameron is his vanity. He desperately wants to be a leader with a vision, like Tony Blair. He wants to make some great radical change, but doesn’t have the intellectual resources to form a vision. We see this most clearly with his Big Society concept, which he continued to push on the Conservative Party even after it frustrated them on the doorstep throughout the 2010 election. The British people voted him in to sort out the deficit, but he desperately wants to be a master of great change.
If this were about allowing private companies to bid for NHS services, they could have allowed that to happen without abolishing the PCTs. If this were about ending postcode lotteries, then it will almost certainly cause a massive increase in postcode lotteries. If this was about achieving an economy of scale, then how will lots of small groups of GPs achieve this?
They kept this policy secret during the election. Why? What did they fear? Did they think that the scrutiny might scare the electorate? If so, they were probably right. Now they want to rush ahead with this huge reorganisation without study or scrutiny. Why? What do they fear?
Imagine the scene in a few years time, the scene from Wall Street where Gecko is frustrated with Teldar Paper, but imagine that Gordon Gecko is played by David Cameron with Andrew Lansley as Bud Fox. Cameron disparagingly tosses aside the report on the NHS, frustrated with the fact that sacking half the managers hasn’t turned the organisation around.
However, the big difference between this scene and the one in Wall Street is that Gordon Gecko only sacked half the managers of Teldar Paper, while David Cameron wants to sack ALL the managers of the NHS.
So much for David Cameron’s promise last year of, “No more top down reorganisation of the NHS.”

The Cat-Flap Coalition

Cat-flap coalition

Forged in the white heat of opportunism, the cat-flap coalition has ended the year with more resilience than we ever expected. Back in the summer, we talked about how long it would last. We underestimated the lure. We thought that Cameron had put out a saucer of milk, but it turned out to be goose liver pâté. And we seem to have lost our cat.
Hollywood screenwriters say that the first act ends when the protagonist passes the point-of-no-return. In this film, that happened when Dave held back the pâté as the reward for Nick committing to £9,000 tuition fees. Nick licked his lips and agreed. Now he is stuck in this movie, and, for him, there is no return.
Well before the election, Cameron told us that he planned to screw the students. But we did not listen. Each time that he accused the Labour party of creating a generation of debt, it seemed like just a rhetorical attack on Labour. Now we know that he meant that the young would pay for the deficit. It was not rhetoric. It was policy.
When we see the Tories bat away the students’ anger, towards the sandal wearers, we do not just see the stupidity of Clegg, but also the trickiness of Cameron. This is what we are up against. Tricky Dave is not to be underestimated.
It is often said that Cameron is hated by his own party. However, they cannot help but admire him. After all, there is nothing a Tory admires more than a bastard. And he has certainly proved his mettle as that. He represents the Darwinian philosophy that they wish to impose on us all: the rights of the individual over the community, the strong destroying the weak, the winner taking all.
The word “coalition” makes this bastardised amalgamation of right-wing ideology and cat-flap Liberals sound nice. Reasonable even. Well done Greg Beales, Ed Miliband’s chief wonk, who told the shadow cabinet to stop using the word. It makes them too cuddly, he reckons.
But his alternative is to call them the “Conservative-led government”. But this does not capture the true character of this bread-roll thrower and his sandal-wearing apprentice, this “cat-flap coalition”.
It is surprising how hard a time the Tories get when they go on Question Time and blame the deficit on the previous government. Whether you like it or not, it was us who created the deficit. But when the Tories point this out, they get booed. Because people just do not like them. They are not sure why. But they do not.
With us it is different. They did not vote us out because they did not like us. They generally do like us. They voted us out because they saw that we were tired. In last year’s election, plenty of people said they would like Labour back after the Tories had sorted out the deficit. They wanted the Tories to come in, do the job, and then leave.
This is the problem of “nice-guy Dave”. Once people got to know him, they saw him for what he is. If he had presented himself as a good old fashioned “I just want to cut your taxes” Tory, then people would have had a grudging respect for him. As it is, he has always tried to be something that he is not: “nice-guy Dave”.
Let us bring down his paper thin, but deeply cherished, image. Let us call him “tricky Dave” every time we can. Let us help people to better understand what exactly it is that they do not like about him. Let us call him “tricky Dave”, again and again, until it sticks.
And let us call his alliance with “honest” Nick Clegg by its proper name too: the cat-flap coalition.
Dan McCurry blogs here