How Long To Go?

A decade and more ago I was reading of and attending lectures and meetings about the concept of "sustainability" and the various threats to Earth and humanity which were heading for crisis.  There were expert groups and people active jointly and individually.

Much of this seems to have evaporated or even gone underground.  At one time the Events Calendar that came in the letter box had a number of major items but now virtually none.  So what happened to sustainability?

It has now given way to something called Resilience and this article from "Naked Capitalism" explains this change and what it means.  But it is not good news in its way it is worse.  That is not just the battle but the war has been lost and all we can do is take care of ourselves and let the rest go hang.

Quote:

The problem that faces our societies is that we have developed industries and policies that were appropriate at a certain moment, but now start to reduce human welfare, like for example the oil and car industry.

Their political and financial power is so great and they can prevent change. It is my expectation that they will succeed. This means that we are going to evolve through crisis, not through proactive change.

Unquote.

If anything as you look around it appears that all our major political and economic entities are about anything but sustainability.  We all want more now or as soon as possible and to be provided with more again into all our futures.

But this entails continuing depletion of soils and the earth and using its resources to the full in the shortest possible time.  One theory is that world wide over most farming lands there may be less than a hundred crops left, in some areas a lot less.

Across the world governments are voted in on the basis that they intend to and may give more to more people.  How long is this sustainable?  When might there be calamities that force collapses of governments and states in which the only way is down or out or both?  History tells us that a many people's have been lost and civilisations gone in the past.

Has it already begun?

The Royal Prerogative

This was drafted in expectation of a hung Parliament and had nothing to do with the thoughts and hopes that the Prince of Wales conveyed to members of past governments, now to be published, honest guv', swear on my Burke's Peerage.

If the new House of Commons proves as unsatisfactory as it might be and in consequence we have a government that is disorganised and seems at serious odds with the needs of the nation, perhaps Prince Charles may invoke historical precedent.

Gathering a few loyal retainers together he could march into the House, turf the Commons out and establish the absolute rule of the monarchy.  Should he add to this sequestering the assets of the leading financiers in the City along with other measures to assert his authority over taxes, spending and the economy it will bring much needed change.

It is likely he might face some London centric opposition from members of this displaced ruling group.  If so, I would suggest retiring to a part of real England, say Nottingham, raising his standard and calling all loyal subjects to support him and assist in his taking over control.

In view of the happy event this might well be their marching song.

It could still happen, I await my phone call to the colours.

Life On The Heap

On Friday there were some predictable reactions to the election results.  One bone headed ignoramus sprayed  on the memorial to the women of World War 2.  I remember those women and what many of them suffered.  The memorial in fact recognises this among the ordinary women at the time.

Many luvvies have been shocked and some have shown their stripes.  Jessica Duchen in her blog called David Cameron a swine by implication.  Given the number of high Tories I have seen at Covent Garden her comment suggests pots and kettles.

In the playground the fray is just beginning.  According to Wikipedia there are 38 Labour members of the current Scottish Parliament with an election to come in May 2016.  The campaign began this weekend with the UK election out of the way.  That is if the media blitz from the SNP is any guide.

Also, at the moment there are around the same number of lost Labour souls, losers of once safe seats, looking at five years to go before the next UK election, if they were even selected as candidates, let alone elected.  For those who enjoy political blood sports it could be a feast.

Among the factors bearing on this is the chance that there will be no BBC to complain about or make use of in that the writing is on the wall for it in its present form.  What will be left is a guess, but let us hope for the survival of the cartoon channels and Radio 3.

Even there the BBC Proms might make a tasty package for some media people to take advantage of its world following.  It could be tempting, yet again this year the BBC has botched the TV coverage in its programming.

The problem of perception at the moment that is all pervasive and unrecognised is that there is extensive and rapid change going on in parallel in many sectors across the world.  As we have signed up to globalisation full scale we cannot be immune and equally we cannot control whatever political devices we employ.

Our government, so called, is largely a branch office for entities that are regional, such as the EU, or global in some form or other.  The EU itself is only an intermediary regional office in many respects.  Where the head offices are and who they answer to, if anybody, could be anywhere in the world.

As all are wired up and communications instant they have become more powerful and effective in issuing rules, regulations, directives and the rest.  The trouble is that in much of the world the branch and regional offices are corrupt, grossly inefficient and bad on detail and so are some head offices.

So in the Atlantic Isles and the various bits and pieces of so-called government the struggle and effort is comparable with groups of ants with different ant heaps fighting over which lump of matter to push into their particular heap.

But there are a lot of anteaters about with long noses who see the ants as their nutrients and basic diet, notably interests that are more global than the governments, better equipped and more powerful.

Especially, if they control the media and the political choices made among those who want admission into any governing entity.

Curses I'm Foiled

At one time it was all too common for people to either incur curses or lay them on other people.

This has gone out of fashion lately, notably with blogging and other forms of modern communication, arising from a more secular society and the rise of science.

There are now other and better ways of making life a misery for someone who upsets you.

But curses are still with us as this link from Tax Justice Network suggests basing it on a long article in The Economist.  This is about The Finance Curse with reference to The Resource Curse, the idea of which has been around for a little time.

Essentially it is based on the experience of many nations who have put too many eggs into too few baskets, to put it briefly, sometimes to the point of one major area of activity dominating the economy and in turn governance.

A sample of what might be coming relating to my blog on "Running The Numbers" of 4th May is this from Andrew Dewson in Saturday's the 9th newspaper "The Independent" under "The cloud burst that proves Google is coming for Wall St."

Quote:

Lo and behold, on Wednesday the privately held “big data” company SunGard unveiled new software that can process and analyse 6 billion trading and market-related messages per hour, with the ability to raise that to a mind-boggling 25 billion per hour. The software is powered by Google Cloud Bigtable, using the same algorithms that power Google’s other big data services, like its search engine and maps.

Unquote.

This means in effect a lot fewer people each controlling and doing a great deal more than at present.  In my town the changes in office work and related activity is all too evident in the empty offices for sale and the others being turned into flats.

The many nations currently attempting to pile into financial services and related activities because of all the jobs and money flows and by doing so put their monetary and economic systems in their hands could be in for a bad time.

Namely a small elite controlling it, a small number in the middling and technical ranks, a lot of low paid doing the menial work and a lot of others with no work at all.

Does this look familiar?

Going Bump In The Night

If you thought the election was bad, then read this:

Your name is on it in fact all our names are on it.

But it ought to miss.

I think.

Fraud In The Freezer

One thing we can be certain of is that the financiers etc. who caused so much trouble and loss in the past will not be pursued by whoever is in power no matter the scale and nature of what the courts should decide are crimes or not.

It is not impossible and if the Icelanders can do it why is it so difficult for our government?  Or is it that we have so few lawyers who are able to understand and deal with the legal issues compared with Iceland?

In rowans-blog.blogspot.co.uk he has had a lot to say recently on the subject notably on Wednesday 29 April, "J'accuse the mafia banking sector of wholesale criminality" about who should be up before the beak.

At least in this sector Scotland is far from sidelined, indeed almost the leaders of the pack.

His comment the day before on HSBC is interesting as well.

Business as usual?

Labour In Vain

One of the great questions of the 2015 Election is how did Labour manage to lose it so badly?  An article on the LSE web site deals with this among others quite simply and clearly.  It is by Patrick Dunleavy, Chair of the LSE Public Policy Group and Head of Democratic Audit.

It is here and is based on the thesis that if Cameron sticks to his promise not to contest the 2020 Election then in effect he has three years more to go.  What will then matter is proper succession planning for a clear handover.

He describes the Liberal Democrat manifesto as the shortest suicide note in history if only because it was lacking in so many ways.  As for Labour, it seems to be much their own fault because they simply have not learned and are unlikely to learn the lessons of recent history.

Quote:

The Bourbon Labour elite

It was said of the late Bourbon dynasty monarchs in France that despite living through the French revolutionary and Bonapartist periods, they had “learnt nothing and forgotten nothing”. This seems an apt characterization for a Labour party leadership that has had more than two decades to face up to inevitability of constitutional change in the UK, and repeatedly refused to do so (outside a brief period from 1997 to 1999).

A whole generation now of political analysts and reformers have pointed out to Labour that the first past the post voting system becomes incredibly unstable in any multi-party context, and your best bet is to change to proportional representation before you get overtaken. 

The wipe out of Labour’s Scottish MPs proves the point in dramatic fashion, and it will now be very hard for the party to undo. Scotland was long a ‘dominant party system’ for Labour,  but now looks like it has become one for the SNP.

Similarly I have lost count of the times that Labour leaders have nodded sceptically through the arguments that devolution for Scotland and Wales alone was unstable; that a written constitution is needed to restabilize the UK; that House of Lords reform was a century overdue; that the only way for Labour to win was to have genuinely popular leaders and reasonably distinctive policies; and that the party needed a far healthier relationship with its supporters.

Yes, yes, the nodding Labour elites have said. But voters care little for such things – it’s the ‘bread and butter’ issues of the economy and the NHS that matter, not political and constitutional reform.

Ed Miliband’s whole leadership style was premised on the tactical exploitation of this and that issue, on scraping back to power in a multi-party world without ever trying to resolve the larger issues or achieve genuinely popular policies that might compromise a future Labour government’s grip on the levers of power.

Even in the post-referendum dealings with Scotland, Labour’s devo-max proposals were always as few and as mean little concessions as possible.

And yet what in the end kept Labour’s growth in 2015 votes to a dismal 1.5 per cent, despite Cameron’s economic policies and the erosion of the NHS? Overwhelmingly it was the collapse of the Liberal Democrats to the Tories and to UKIP (foreseeable under FPTP), and a late ‘safety first’ reaction against the potential ungovernability that Labour's cumulative constitutional inaction has now induced.

The set of issues so ‘unimportant on the doorstep’ proved very important indeed for voters in the polling booths. Even when Miliband goes though, it is not yet clear that any potential successor has really escaped the mindset of Labour’s last fifteen years.

Unquote.

So who succeeds Ed Miliband?

My nine bob note is on Sadiq Khan or Chuka Umunna if only because Andy Burnham has form when dealing with the NHS and is an Everton fan.  Tristram Hunt of Kings College Cambridge also has hostages to fortune.  Yvette Cooper is a light weight who has lost her ballast.