U.S. presidential election (7): no less than 15 politicians now declared as candidate for their party’s nomination
June 15th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The race to enter the White House in January 2017, as the successor to Barack Obama, is becoming crowded now.
On the Democratic side, there are just four candidates and Hillary Clinton is the strong favourite to win her party’s nomination.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, no less than 11 candidates have declared and there might yet be more. There is no clear favourite, but Jeb Bush fancies his chances of becoming the third president from the family.
You can see the names and brief details of all the candidates here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (1)
800th anniversary celebration of Magna Carta
June 15th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Something as quintessentially English as Magna Carta was celebrated today at a memorial put up by Americans in the field at Runnymede where the document was agreed and which I have visited.
But what was Magna Carta? Why was it called that? And why is it still important today? The BBC answers these questions here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
The halving of trade union membership in Britain – and how the unions are fighting back
June 14th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
I was a national trade union official – with what is now the Communication Workers Union – for 24 years (1978-2002) but, in my working life, I have witnessed a sharp decline in trade union membership from a record of around 13 million in the mid 1970s to 6.4 million in 2014.
It is not that working people no longer need the support of trade unions. It is partly the relentless legislative attacks from Conservative Governments. It is mainly the profound changes in the structure of work: from manufacturing to services, from factories to offices, shops and homes, from long-term, stable work patters to flexible work arrangements including outsourcing, agency work, part-time work and zero-hours contracts.
Trade unions need to reinvent how they organise and service their members and how they work with other community groups. So I was pleased to see an interview with the appealing and effective General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress Frances O’Grady and the news of a new campaign which she calls “citizen bargaining”.
She states:
“We need to create new models of trade unionism, because there’s one thing about representing people in BT or BMW or the NHS, and there’s something else about organising baristas and cinema workers and shopworkers.”
and:
“Imagine if we could win systematic broad support from families, communities and the public. Collective bargaining almost becomes ‘citizen bargaining’ with the employer, to win fair treatment for workers.”
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
How many in Britain still smoke and what is it costing us?
June 13th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Fortunately fewer and fewer people are smoking in the developed world but, here in Britain, almost one in five (18.5%) is still a smoker. According to a new report entitled “Smoking Still Kills”, the annual cost is almost £13 billion – £2 billion to the NHS, £1 billion to social care, and the rest in wider costs to society. Of course, the human cost is even greater with 80,000 premature deaths in England each year and all sorts of ill-health experienced by millions.
A coalition of 120 public health organisations believes that we should be aiming to reduce the proportion of UK smokers to 5% by 2035 and that a levy should be imposed on tobacco companies to help pay for the harm that cigarette smoking causes. You can read more about the report here.
Posted in Social policy | Comments (0)
My 14th short story: “Letters From Above”
June 12th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Of all the 31 short stories that I have written and published on my web site, “Letters From Above” is probably the most enigmatic and mysterious. I invite you to read it and see what you think. You’ll find it here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Does Britain need a written constitution and, if it does, will it get one?
June 11th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
We have managed without one for 800 years and we are in a tiny select group of nations – including Israel and New Zealand – that does not have one. A recent article in the “Washington Post” appears to suggest that the time has come for us to codify and up-date our unwritten constitution into a single agreed document.
I’m not convinced that Britain needs a written constitution: although it would presumably make matters neater and clearer, it would reduce the flexibility that arguably is the genius of out current arrangements.
What I am sure of is that we are not going to get a written constitution any time soon: it is not a priority in these challenging economic times and there is just no way that we could achieve the necessary consensus.
Constitutions usually emerge from moments of historical discontinuity like a revolution or civil war or decolonisation. Since the notion of written constitutions emerged some two and a half centuries ago, Britain has never experienced such historical incidents which explains why we do not have a written constitution and will not agree to one.
Meanwhile, if you would like to understand better the British political system, you can check out my short guide here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (2)
How homosexuality was made illegal in Britain and the consequences of such an iniquitous law
June 10th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
On 6 August 1885, late at night in a House of Commons debate on the Criminal Law Amendment Act, the Member of Parliament Henry Labouchere suddenly produced an amendment to the Bill before the House. This amendment criminalised homosexual acts.
The only discussion was over the penalty to be imposed. Labouchere had proposed a maximum of one year. Sir Henry James suggested two years and Labouchere agreed. The whole debate had four speakers, including Labouchere. It lasted four minutes and consisted of a total of 44o words.
Before this measure was repealed in 1967, some 75,000 men were convicted. One of these was the brilliant mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing whose story was told recently in the film “The Imitation Game” [my review here]. I have extracted the information on the 1885 law from a short biography of Turing [my review here].
Posted in History | Comments (1)
Two films about masters of the information age
June 9th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
A handful of men (women do not seem to figure) have created mega companies that have come to utterly dominate the information age: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter.
In recent years, there have been films about two of these men: “The Social Network” [my review here] about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook and “Jobs” [my review here] about Steve Jobs and Apple. I saw the first movie on its release in 2010 but I have only just caught up with the second which came out in 2013.
Both films are worth seeing but “TSN” is by far the better.
Posted in Cultural issues, Science & technology | Comments (0)
What do the radicals of this generation want when they win power? Not what earlier generations wanted.
June 8th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
“… what do the radicals of this generation want when they win power? The success of Syriza, of Podemos in Spain and even the flood of radicalised young people into the SNP in Scotland makes this no longer an idle question. The most obvious change is that, for the rising generation, identity has replaced ideology. I don’t just mean as in “identity politics”. There is a deeper process going on, whereby a credible identity – a life lived according to a believed truth – has become a more significant badge in politics than a coherent set of ideas.”
This is a perceptive comment in a piece in today’s “Guardian” newspaper by Paul Mason, economics editor of Channel 4. I think that we are seeing a serious and sustained loss of support for established political parties (and churches) as we witness a decline of ideology (and theology). Many people – especially young people – no longer have a ‘big picture’ view of the country or the cosmos; instead identity is taking over from ideology.
These trends have massive implications for political programmes and policies. As Mason explains:
“A 25-year-old who has known only temporary work, on an individual, performance-driven salary, is going to find the concept of a wage agreement puzzling. A young person who expects to move jobs, cities and even countries several times over in their working life would, if asked to design a welfare state from scratch, do so in a way that allows people to carry their entitlements with them. And designed from scratch today, by a generation hooked on choice and networks, it is unlikely the NHS or education would come out as monolithic single systems.”
These trends also have enormous implications for political parties and democratic politics. I have written about the challenge to the older democracies here.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (3)
The importance of the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest
June 7th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
I like to attend short courses at further education colleagues in order to continue learning, keep the mind active, and postpone dementia. This weekend, I was at the City Lit college in London to do a one-day course entitled “Making Sense Of The Battle Of Hastings And Its Aftermath”. Our lecturer was the redoubtable Michael Bloomfield.
The battle took place on Saturday 14 October 1066. It was not in fact located at Hastings on the coast but at a hill some seven miles north-west of the town which was later named Battle.
In those days, battles tended to last only a few hours before one side was deemed to have won. However, the Battle of Hastings started at around 9 am and went on until dusk.
The English were led by King Harold II while the Normans were commanded by Duke William II. We do not know the precise number of troops invovled on either side, but the English are thought to have had around 7,000 men while the Normans are believed to have had about 10,000. It was a bloody conflict with the estimated dead being perhaps 4,000 English and 2,000 Normans.
Famously the Normans won and Harold was killed, although the arrow in his eye has no more evidence than the Bayeux Tapestry which features some misrepresentations.
The Norman Conquest changed England. It introduced a new political system, a new language, a new system of land holding, a new direction for Anglo-Scandinavian society and a reform programme for the church in England.
The Norman Conquest also came to define what we now call the United Kingdom. The Normans were not satisfied with conquering England and, over the next few centuries, tried to conquer Ireland, Wales and Scotland. They succeeded with the first two and failed with the last despite several wars over the centuries.
The seminal point about the Norman Conquest is that it was the last successful invasion of England and therefore Britain.
The single most important fact in understanding the nature of the British political system is the fundamental continuity of that system. Britain has not had a revolution of the kind experienced by so many other countries and Britain has not been invaded or occupied for almost 1,000 years. Is this true of any other country in the world? I can only think of Sweden.
You can learn a lot more about the Battle of Hastings on the relevant Wikipedia page.
Posted in History | Comments (4)