The Filter^

Tale of the day

This is exactly the sort of thing I can imagine myself doing.

Steve Baker - Wycombe candidate for the Conservatives

I have just heard that the Wycombe Conservative Association have chosen Steve Baker to be their parliamentary candidate at the next general election (see here for more details). This is very exciting news. I have known Steve personally for some time now, and we've been working closely to launch The Cobden Centre - a think tank devoted to banking reforms.

What strikes me most about Steve is his ambition. He is not a career politician and has a fascinating background with the RAF and computing. But the first time we met it was clear that he was dissatisfied with the current political system and intended to do something about it directly. Steve is the sort of person that sets a clear goal and then achieves it. It's therefore no surprise that he's found a constituency that want to back him, and that wants him to represent their views in Westminster. I think the people of Wycombe are very lucky to have him.

Although most politicians and commentators have come round to the view that the financial crisis was the result of an artificial boom caused by excess credit creation, Steve has systematically tried to understand the full implications of this. He is incredibly well read on this subject, and even manages to balance this understanding with the sort of pragmatism and sense of reality that academics like myself fail to get! Congratulations Steve.

What's the problem with the BNP?

I'll probably try to watch Question Time tonight, but can't understand why people are so offended by the BNP. For me the BNP represent three things:

1. Promoting "British" interests
2. Socialisation of the means of production

As someone who advocates free immigration and a free market, it's obvious why I disagree with the BNP. But having watched the conferences of the three "major" political parties, there's no fundamental difference between their views and the BNP. The only real debate is what you count as "indigenous Britain" - the trouble the Tories and Labour face is defining the "Britain" they promote. At least the BNP are clear on this. Yes, Nick Griffin is odious. But he's a politician. If you are repulsed by listening to the BNP on this week's Question Time, you'll realise how I feel every week.

Alan Maclean and decisive politics

I don't vote because the probability of decisiveness is virtually zero. With representative democracy, the idea is that our "elected" officials have greater decisiveness and therefore more incentives to have accurate information about what they're voting about. But this doesn't mitigate against human error, as this example clearly shows:

Politicians in Jersey have decided to spend £10m on a new park because of an accidental vote.

After more than half a day of debate, plans to spend the money on the Millennium Park were passed by just one vote, with 23 in favour and 22 against.

Senator Alan Maclean said he had meant to vote against the proposal but papers on his desk meant he had pushed the wrong button.

Given the level of political knowledge possessed by the typical voter, it's probably a good thing that their vote hardly *ever* counts. It's just a shame that the votes of politicians, on occasions, do!

The Autocrat, the Foreign Secretary, His Wife & Her Conductor

Even if the rest of the West had a little trouble deciding which side of the fence to launch political missiles from during the Russo-Georgian conflict last summer, the reaction of Foreign Secretary David Miliband was immediate and firm. ‘Brains’, as he’s known in cabinet, urged ‘hard-headed engagement’ with Moscow after the Russian invasion of South Ossetia whilst delivering a strong message of support for Georgia from Tbilisi itself. It was a gesture of principle and confidence which crowned a reputation-building summer for Miliband. It must have felt pretty good, too, coming just weeks after some respected colleagues had urged him to challenge Gordon Brown for the labour party’s leadership.

One wonders, though, how the conversation fared around the kitchen table back at the Miliband’s home, where the Foreign Secretary’s wife, Louise Shackelton, is emerging as an increasingly fascinating figure. She was reported by The Times to have encouraged her husband to launch a leadership bid in early August, but that was a few weeks before the situation in South Ossetia became critical. It’s a good job, because Ms Shackelton has one or two allegiances of her own. As a violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra, she finds herself frequently under the command of conductor Valery Gergiev, the LSO’s iconic, unshaven Principal Conductor and a significant force in Russian politics.

Amongst maestri, Gergiev has a superlative reputation based chiefly his ability to coax the best noises from orchestras through innate musicianship and non-reliance on a standard conducting technique. He was offered the job at the London Symphony Orchestra – Britain’s best-funded ensemble and the only UK orchestra to make it into Gramophone magazine’s recent poll of the 20 best orchestras in the world – in 2005, and is a workaholic globetrotter, prone to overstretching himself. Players generally respect him, but on the London orchestral scene, where you don’t arrive late for a rehearsal no matter where your private jet has delivered you from, there has allegedly been tension between Gergiev and his LSO players.

Whatever the truth of that allegation, Gergiev certainly isn’t as attached to his LSO players as he is to those of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, of which he remains Artistic Director. As an ethnic Ossetian who holds significant sway in Russia, Gergiev was able to mobilize the Mariisnky orchestra in a matter of hours on 21 August – getting it to the Ossetian capital Tskhinvali for a concert in the city’s ruined Civic Centre. A performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphonies took place that evening laden with political meaning, most of it Pro-Russian. Speaking alongside Gergiev on the podium, the President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity blamed the west – ‘America and the Ukraine’ – for the descent into war (some 24 hours earlier Miliband had rejoiced in Georgia and the Ukraine’s new-found path to NATO membership). Soldiers waved Russian flags as the Mariinsky’s Principal Percussionist beat out Shostakovich’s inexorable Bolero-inspired rhythm depicting the 1941 siege of Leningrad. In the both the physical and musical acts of this performance, Gergiev appeared nothing less than a conjurer - just as he did in 2006 when he shocked the music world by suddenly unveiling a new concert hall for his St Petersburg orchestra, built in a matter of months. This appeared a miracle to many Russians, who are used to watching for years as their car parks and road resurfacings slowly and laboriously materialise.

Perhaps Gergiev got it done with a little help from his friends. One of whom, and a very close one too, is Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – the man accused by former US presidential hopeful John McCain of creating an ‘autocracy’ in Russia. Gergiev is reportedly godfather to Putin’s children and vice versa. The two have stood shoulder to shoulder on a number of issues, though Gergiev is keen to project himself as a force for good in a troubled world. His powerful and uplifting performances can be immensely moving, and he acted with statesmanlike calm and reassurance after the Beslan school siege in 2004. But recently, Gergiev's outspoken support for Russia’s actions in Georgia, the territorial positioning of his Tskhinvali concert and his closeness to Putin have all sketched a rather different portrait of the artist. It must be a talking point for Shackelton and Miliband, particularly as the foreign secretary likes to visit the Barbican Centre to watch his wife performing with Gergiev. Recently, he’s proved himself all too aware of the iconic significance of musical collaboration. Last month he witnessed his wife playing a Brahms Piano Quintet with another politico-musician, the ivory-tickling US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

I spoke to another violinist in September, the much respected virtuoso Lisa Batiashvili. She was born in Tbilisi, but left during Georgia’s difficult days under the Mugabe-style presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze. But in March 2008 Batiashvili returned to work with the Georgian Chamber Orchestra, recording folk songs from the country arranged by her musician father after original miniatures by Sulkan Tsintsadze. As the Sony Classical record neared its release date, Georgia and Russia lurched into conflict, and as we spoke, the fallout from that conflict was becoming visible. And so the conversation turned from the nature of Georgian music to the nature of Georgian life. ‘Georgians are having to re-start everything from zero’ she told me. Batiashvili is a formidable talent and presence; a widely respected performer. But talking about the conflict, you could sense the protective sadness in her voice. She wouldn’t be drawn into commenting on Gergiev’s actions, but spoke frankly and emotionally about Russian aggression and bullying towards Georgia – echoing many of Miliband’s post-invasion comments, though in strikingly frank and non-political language.

No matter how rousing and touching her passion for Georgia, political posturing isn’t Batiashvili’s style. But it is Gergiev’s. His performances of music by the likes of Shostakovich and Prokofiev highlight – intentionally or not, for he has moved towards a desire to express politically-laden music in purely abstract terms – the oppression of Soviet Russia; an oppression which ironically spawned so much great music. But on viewing the well-publicised shot of Gergiev brotherly eyeballing Vladimir Putin post-concert, you somehow feel Gergiev’s humanist currency being debased. A creative colleague of Gergiev’s from the Mariinsky, the Georgian ballerina Nina Ananiashvili, launched a fierce attack on Russian oppression following the war. Gergiev’s reaction was dismissive and rhetorical. He talks of death, reconciliation, healing – all of which his music illuminates. But with Putin at his side and a Russian flag waving victoriously over South Ossetia, freedom of thought seems to be left waiting in the wings. Like Ananiashvili, Miliband continues to stick his neck out in pointing to Russian aggression, even in the face of recent allegations from the BBC’s Newsnight that Georgia wasn’t entirely the wronged party. Perhaps, as one reader post on The Times website observes, music should side with humanity, not friends. If Louise Shackelton does become a prime ministerial wife one day, the observance of this mantra could make her the picture of decorum and integrity – qualities with which it became increasingly difficult to associate Cherie Blair.

Tullock Votes!

• Video of the day
• Image of the day

This is Diplomacy

Have we learnt anything since that horrible day six years ago? Apparently not, introducing:

Infidels Are Cool

Just a quick look at its blogroll: Anti-CAIR, BNP and Me, neo-neocon, StopTheACLU...etc. All of them unbiased friendly neighbourhood blogs for all ages. Or not.

Back to politics

I blame the parents

...is a typical voice heard during this silly season's infatuation with "yoof" culture, but could someone enlighten me on it's meaning - is it:

• I attribute these events to the causal influence of bad parenting

or

• I hold the parents responsible

Let's look at the latter, which seems in no way controversial, since if children were responsible for their actions, they wouldn't be children. The distinction between adult and child is that the former takes responsibility for the latter until maturity. But if we hold parents responsible, the question is Who are the parents?

A parent is simply someone who nurtures a child, and would seem to include the following criteria: financially support; educate; provide moral guidance. Parenting clearly doesn't require biological production, but is mainly a legal position regarding overall responsibility for a child. The greater the size of the welfare state, the greater the parenting role that the state assumes. The causation is important, but it's clear that regions of social depravity coincide with where the state attempts to act as parent.

I'm not trying to make a James Bartholomew argument here, I'm simply asserting that in many parts of the country, the state really does act as parent. If I really wanted to press home this point, I'd say that the state kidnaps babies, but I wouldn't want to offend the sensibilities of our emotionally-charged readership.

What's my point? Well, that during this years silly season the primary issue seems to be the utter failure of the state to successfully parent, that the reason for this is because the state doesn't accept any responsibility as a parent, and that this is all the more ironic now that politics has "returned" from its summer holiday to sort out the problem.

In The Telegraph Brown says,

I want us not to be in any way sectional but be a government that genuinely unifies the country

The implicit assumption here is that the government has the capacity and rights to provide an underlying moral/social order, and the complete dismissal that for many people it is parents, and not the state, who should provide this. Does anyone else not see the irony of a politician using a particular ideological position to argue for unity? Wouldn't we all realise the absurdity of the Archbishop of Canterbury declaring

I want us not to be in any way sectional but be a religion that genuinely unifies the country

Of course if this was just pub talk it'd be amusing. When socialists spend their student days philosophising we can realise that it's just a phase they're going through, even though about a quarter of our country will be able to find a subsidised, un aproductive, life career. The majority will find genuine employment, and actually pay for the nations public services. However it's not pub talk. We cannot all just "agree to disagree", because the political classes presuppose a political solution. So allow me the opportunity to make two simple points:

• Don't become a parent unless you're willing to accept responsibility
• Don't assume that everyone shares your values

Society depends on it.

Update: I've clarified some of the above in light of constructive comments

Endemol to 'evict' Mugabe

Reality TV giant Endemol has been approached by the United Nations to help rid the world of one of its most troublesome and stubborn dictators, Robert Mugabe. Given the ongoing failings of international sanctions and diplomacy, Mugabe’s deranged and damaging regime in Zimbabwe has proved a headache for statesmen around the globe; he was recently likened to ‘a turd that won’t flush’ by one senior US State Department official.

   It’s believed the Dutch TV consortium has been in talks with the United Nations recently surrounding plans for a ‘Big Brother’ style eviction, during which a stage would be secretly constructed outside Mugabe’s palace in preparation for a shock ‘live eviction’. Davina McCall would be charged with knocking on the despot’s door and leading him out by the hand onto a garishly-coloured set where he would be immediately disorientated by a flurry of paparazzi-shots and inane questions about who ‘really annoyed him’ in Zimbabwe. Mugabe would then be whisked to a secret location for a photo-shoot and interview for a tabloid newspaper before standing trial for crimes against humanity at an unconfirmed location.

   ‘Endemol have a track record of removing troublesome and dangerous characters with ease week after week on their Big Brother shows’, said a UN official. ‘Everything else has failed – we need to think outside the box and Endemol may provide the perfect solution to the problem of removing Mugabe.’ Speculation that Mugabe is being groomed for participation in Endemol UK’s next series of Celebrity Big Brother has been rebutted by sources close to the company.

What's Labour Done for Us?

I don't intend this as a parry to Anthony's eloquent post about the economic legacy of Gordon Brown, largely because his ideas are researched, developped, and interesting - and like a politician demanding a 'full and frank debate', I don't really understand the issues. But for a contrasting piece of pop-politics, here's one idea to float in advance of both the local elections in the UK and Gordon Brown's accession to the Prime Ministership in June (Tuesday 5 June for my money).

I've been in Bristol for a couple of weekends recently, a city that I lived in the centre of for five years from 1994-1999. I've been back a couple of times a year for the last eight years, and I the city has been utterly transformed during that time. And then there's Manchester. I visited Manchester twice a year from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s. I then re-visited the city in 1999, and went to live there in 2002, leaving in 2004. I was back there in February of this year, and again had in mind the transformation of the city since the 1990s.   

There was a rumour circulating in Manchester in 2002 that the day before the dignitaries arrived for the Commonwealth Games, a fleet of white-vans was despatched into the city to literally 'pick up' undesirables (anyone holding a can of special brew, sporting a short-term facial injury or fiddling with their genitals underneath their tracksuit bottoms) and drive them to a holding pen for the duration of the opening days of the event. Though one suspects it never actually happened, this micro-example of short-term city cleansing is surely a model of bad social and economic practise; a vacuous clean-up act. The transformation of our cities has been anything but. It has been lasting, steady and from the grass-roots up.   

My point is that Bristol and Manchester seem alive with confidence, creativity and friendliness. They have become more European; more democratically and embracingly successful. It's not the muck-and-brass of a gleaming hotel adjacent to a crumbling social housing block (although you can point cynically to examples of that that aren't indicative, just symptomatic), but it's actual progress. There's genuine cultural ambitiousness, too, which has come from increased arts funding and that is by default a social tonic for our cities.

Economics? Well, I'm a layperson when it comes to things fiscal, and can't, given my limited understanding, point to central or local government, or even to economic policy, as being the driving force behind the changing face of England's cities (I've not been to Cardiff nor any city in Scotland since 1992). But Anthony did touch earlier on the common concensus that Gordon Brown's economy has been the most stable and successful for decades, and let's not overlook the fact that it all started back in 1997, not long before the seemingly terminal decline of our cities began an inexorable reverse.