Ed Miliband, champion bandwagon-jumper

So Ed Miliband has been jumping on another passing bandwagon, with his proposal yesterday to introduce a £5,000 cap on donations to political parties. Before I get on to the details about this one, let's have a look at Mr Miliband's last bandwagon-jump, regarding pasties.

You might have heard in the Budget given on 27th March that hot pasties will now be liable for VAT in the same way as other take-away food. The Labour leadership saw this as an excellent opportunity to portray the Chancellor and Prime Minister as out of touch fops, culminating in the Eds Miliband and Balls popping in to a branch of Greggs to buy some sausage rolls (Guardian video here). I bet the two Eds wish they'd been concentrating a bit more on the Bradford West by-election which took place the following day, though. Labour got absolutely turned over by George Galloway, with a Labour majority of more than 5,000 becoming a majority for Galloway of a bit over 10,000 (a swing of, wait for it, 37%). Guardian report here.

Watch your step then, Mr Miliband, with your leap on to the party funding bandwagon that is now rolling, courtesy of a secret recording that showed a Conservative party fundraiser offering private dinners with David Cameron and George Osborne in return for huge donations.

Miliband's proposal is that there will be a cap of £5,000 on donations to political parties. Now this will hurt both parties, but the Conservatives much more so, as a lot of Labour's funding comes from the individual political subscription fees that many union members pay to Labour. As I understand it, at the moment union members have to specifically request and then complete an opt-out form in order to avoid paying the political subscription, but wouldn't it be much fairer if you had to indicate positively that you wanted to contribute to Labour? Taking it further, why shouldn't trades unions administer donations to all political parties; why should I only be able to donate to Labour through union membership?

Don't get me wrong, I think there are problems with the way political parties are funded. I'm uncomfortable with wealthy individuals exerting significant influence over the Conservatives (and other parties) thanks to their donations that amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds. But I'm just as uncomfortable with the union grip on Labour, and I think Miliband is being hideously opportunistic with his cap proposal. It's got to be allied to reform of union donations, in my view.

I'll finish with the unsurprising news that the Unite union, one of Labour's main funders is very happy with Miliband's proposals, that will enable them to broadly carry on supporting Labour in the current way (link):

Unite supports Ed Miliband's efforts to restore faith in politics, and is pleased that the vital link between Labour and millions of working people is valued and will be retained.

Picture from the Daily Mirror

Gay marriage – it's an outrage

For my second whinge of this weekend (it must be the stomach bug, making me bitter and angry), let's have a look at the heated issue of gay marriage. This article in the Daily Mail has the latest story and in case you're surprised that I'm reading the Mail, I thought their article would be most favourable to the view that I'm about to have a right pop at. Trying to be fair and all that...

The short version

What in all of God's creation makes us Christians think we have the right to impose our particular view of marriage onto society as a whole?


The long version

Okay then. We Christians don't own the concept of marriage. And across the spectrum of even just mainstream UK Christianity there is a range of beliefs regarding marriage. For example, I gather that the Catholic Church has severe restrictions on remarrying people who've been divorced. (I don't have a link with the details, having tried without success to find any guidance on the Catholic Church in England and Wales website).

So there's argument one against this idea of protecting marriage.

Next, even if all Christians across the world believed the same things about marriage, what right do we have to impose those beliefs on others who don't share our faith-based starting point? Most people in the world are not Christian. So we're asking for our opinion to hold sway... why? Because it's what God thinks? I don't like where that could lead, not at all.

Finally, perhaps we Christians would like to argue on some objective basis, for example that permitting gay marriage on exactly the same terms as straight marriage would damage the family or something like that. Okay, let's have that discussion. But some evidence is required, otherwise doesn't it just boil down to 'This is what God thinks' again? Let's see if we can find any such evidence in what the Catholic Cardinal Keith O'Brien (that's him over there →) has been saying that has stirred this all up (the full interview that O'Brien did with the Sunday Telegraph is here)

Those of us who were not in favour of civil partnership, believing that such relationships are harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved... [my italics]

All children deserve to begin life with a mother and father; the evidence in favour of the stability and well-being which this provides is overwhelming and unequivocal. It cannot be provided by a same-sex couple, however well-intentioned they may be.

Well, here we have a couple of claims that can be investigated. Good. But is there actually evidence that, all else being equal (a key point), a gay partnership is more likely than a straight partnership to cause harm to the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of those involved? What about, again all else being equal, that it's better for a child to begin life with a mother and father, instead of two mothers or two fathers? O'Brien just seemed to beg the question in his interview, so please post in the comments if you know of any evidence for his claims.

One last thing the Cardinal said in his Sunday Telegraph interview:

Imagine for a moment that the Government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that “no one will be forced to keep a slave”. Would such worthless assurances calm our fury? Would they justify dismantling a fundamental human right? Or would they simply amount to weasel words masking a great wrong?

How is there any equivalence in these two issues? I just don't understand the point being made here at all. Keeping slaves is illegal in the UK (and many other countries) because it robs the slave of their basic human freedom. What basic human freedom would be lost if same-sex couples were allowed to formalise their commitment to one another on exactly the same basis as opposite-sex couples? Oh that's it, the freedom to be outraged at people who want to live according to their own moral standard, not someone else's. (Hypocritical snark, given what I wrote yesterday about assuming good faith in those we disagree with...)

Arguing honestly – a moan about Tim Farron, Lib Dem MP

Most of my blog posts are the product of at least a few days' thinking, but sometimes I hear or read something and just feel the need for a bit of a whinge. This is one of the latter occasions and is prompted by this piece from Tim Farron (that's him on the right) in today's Guardian newspaper. Farron, tipped by some as the next leader of the Lib Dems, is basically claiming that Labour and Conservative politicians don't have a conscience while Lib Dems do. Here's an excerpt from the start of Farron's article:

When I joined the Liberal party 26 years ago it was because, in my gut, the Liberals seemed the right people to me. Over the last quarter of a century, particularly in these last 22 months, I've been proved right.

When the Tories have had to "do difficult things" – when they closed the mines, the steelworks and the shipyards – do you think they felt bad about it? No. When Labour invaded Iraq, introduced tuition fees, clobbered the poor by scrapping the 10p tax rate or let the bankers off the leash, wrecking the economy – did they feel bad? I doubt it.

But here we are, the Lib Dems, in government taking difficult decisions to rescue our country from the abyss, and we spend our time feeling guilty and beating ourselves up. Do you know what that proves? It proves that we are human, it proves we are decent, that there is something in our DNA as a party that means Lib Dems acquire and retain a conscience.

Now, in my more tribal moments, I'm also tempted to believe that only the politicians from my camp make their decisions based on morality and good judgement. But that's nonsense, isn't it? It's the worst kind of 'my tribe, right or wrong' partisanship. And reading a senior politician making this argument in such a transparent and extreme way really gets my back up.

Drawing out the wider point, I think it's so important to assume good faith with those who disagree with us. If there's good reason not to believe someone is telling the truth, then fair enough, but how can it be right to dismiss the views of those who don't see things our way simply because they don't see things our way? It's certainly never going to bring people over to your point of view, I'd have thought: 'Oh, you've just demonised me just because I disagree with you. Now, let me give some serious thought to what you're saying...' Not going to happen, is it?

Lie back and think of England

You might be aware that people these days are, on average, living longer than they used to. I guess most people would think this is a very good thing, but it also brings problems; pensions are being paid out for longer and also the cost of old-age healthcare is increasing. It's been referred to as a 'pensions time-bomb' – we're not saving enough for our retirement. How to defuse this time-bomb then...?

One solution is, of course, to retire later. And we're seeing this; older people are taking part-time jobs after they've retired from their main career and also the age at which you can start claiming the state pension is rising. To be honest, the retirement age should have gone up to something like 75 decades ago, shouldn't it? I couldn't find the exact figures, but when the retirement age was first set at 60 for women and 65 for men, the average expectation was for just a few years of retirement. Now, you can reasonably expect around 20 years (figures at the end of this post) but the statutory retirement age hasn't gone up with the greater life expectancy.

Polly Toynbee in today's Guardian has a novel solution. Not for her, steady rises to the age at which we can start claiming the state pension. Her idea is to get the birth rate up, so that the economy will get a nice boost once these babies grow up and start working. The increase in tax take will then help us meet the pension liabilities and healthcare costs of those who will be pensioners in twenty years' time or so. Here's an excerpt from the Guardian article:

For decades European families have shrunk, though they were slightly increasing in size before the crash. Alarmed governments face more older people but smaller working populations to sustain them. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average total fertility rate is 1.6 births per woman, when 2.1 is needed to stay stable. Immigration helps, but countries resist large rises. Governments start with the obvious – making older people work longer, retirement age rising with longevity. But what about the birth rate?

I hope you've spotted the slight flaw in Toynbee's plan. I wonder how she proposes to meet the costs when all these new babies are older in years and costing the state rather than contributing to the national coffers. You remember Bernie Madoff and Farepak? Well, Toynbee wants us to implement this marvellous model on a national scale; where the only way of meeting our current liabilities is to get ever more people paying in until... the instigators get thrown in prison, perhaps. It's called a Ponzi Scheme, named after an American fellow called Charles Ponzi who ran a rather impressive (for a time) fraud based on international postage coupons. So it's a well-known way of making money by criminal means but I didn't expect to see it promoted in a national newspaper as a viable way of getting the nation's finances back on track.


Life expectancy statistics

According to the Office for National Statistics at age 65 the average life expectancy is another 18 years for men (i.e. to age 83) and another 20 years for women (to age 85). Back in the early 80s it was 12 years for women and just 6 years for men. I can't find figures further back than this but I expect they used to be even lower earlier in the 20th century.

Is Christianity really being marginalised?

As you might have seen, the UK's High Court has just ruled that a local council was not allowed to have prayers at the start of its official meetings. (Here is the BBC's report.) Some people, such as Lord Carey (the former Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Daily Mail, are bewailing the 'assault on Christianity' that this ruling represents. I'll quote a section or two from the Mail article as they show some of the hysteria that has greeted this decision:

A landmark legal ruling banning the tradition of saying prayers at council meetings was denounced last night as an ‘assault on Britain’s Christian heritage’.

The High Court controversially backed an anti-religious campaign to abolish official acts of worship. Christians and politicians reacted with dismay after a judge overturned centuries of custom by outlawing a town hall in Devon from putting prayers on the formal agenda...

Simon Calvert, of the Christian Institute, said: ‘Prayers have been a part of council meetings for centuries, and many people, either for religious reasons or cultural reasons, see them as a positive part of our national life.

‘It’s a shame the courts have taken sides with those whose goal is to undermine our Christian heritage. It is high time Parliament put a stop to this assault upon our national heritage.’

So, our Christian heritage is under attack because councils aren't allowed to have prayers as part of their official meetings? Well, this Christian couldn't care less. If local councillors who are Christians wish to seek the Lord in prayer before council meetings then they are absolutely free to do so. I don't see anyone looking to ban us Christians from gathering together round each other's houses, in pubs or in our church buildings to pray; do you?

What it seems us Christians are no longer free to do is to pray as an official part of local council meetings. Boo hoo. Times have moved on, people. If we want our democratic bodies to be representative of all sections of the local community, then the way meetings are conducted should (within reason) encourage everyone to feel they can take part if they wish to. Even if all members of a local council are Christians, then having prayers at the start of their meetings might well send the message that only Christians are welcome; or at least that Christian councillors would really be preferred, thank you very much. That's simply not right, in my view.

There's another point, too. You might say how about if all the councillors are Christians and most people in the area are too. Wouldn't it then be all right to have prayers at the start of council meetings? I still don't think so. First, the point remains that those who aren't Christians might feel excluded or unwanted; and the Christian councillors can still pray together before their meetings officially start, in order to avoid sending any message of exclusion. But second, since when did the New Testament ever encourage Christians to seek power through official channels? Christianity is a religion of the marginalised, the unwanted and the oppressed. Theocracy is Old Testament (at best), from a time when God was working his purposes in the world mainly through one nation.

Personally, I think Christianity changed markedly for the worse when church leaders got their hands on the levers of power (I'm looking at you, Constantine), bringing in an era in which outward adherence to Christian practice was the social norm. Even more disastrous than this is the temptation for particular nations to be seen as God's chosen instrument, as has recently happened (I'd argue) with the United States of America (more on this from me here). There's a lot that governments can justify if they view themselves as God's agent, leading a Christian nation...


PS – I will carry on my series about mistranslations in the Bible soon, but this talk of Christianity being marginalised has really got my goat.

You turn if you want to...

...The lady's not for turning. So said Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Party's conference in October 1980, when faced with pressure to reverse some unpopular economic decisions taken by her government. Her determined stance certainly went down well with her own party, with the 'You turn if you want to' speech garnering a lengthy standing ovation.

Some people, on the other hand, might prefer the approach the economist John Maynard Keynes, who is reputed to have said this:

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, would agree with Keynes on this one, I suspect. At least, it fits with his remarkable interview in the Guardian today. After almost two years of berating the Government's economic approach, Balls now says this:

My starting point is, I am afraid, we are going to have keep all these cuts. There is a big squeeze happening on budgets across the piece. The squeeze on defence spending, for instance, is £15bn by 2015 . We are going to have to start from that being the baseline. At this stage, we can make no commitments to reverse any of that, on spending or on tax.

I wonder when things changed from the Government's cuts being 'too far, too fast' to the cuts all being kept in place by Labour if they win the next election; it's a pretty screeching handbrake turn, seems to me. So has Balls come round to the Cameron / Osborne approach? Not exactly... From the Guardian interview:

I said to the parliamentary party a year ago last January that we would not know until October or November whether we were right, and whether Osborne's economic plans would not work. That would be the point, the first time, [when] we could judge how decisions made in 2010 would impact on growth and jobs in 2011. And it was this autumn that we saw the economy really stagnating. Now turning round the politics of this will take considerably longer. It will take us well into 2012, maybe longer.

He's blaming the Government's spending cuts for the situation that we are now in, with the economy growing very slowly and unemployment rising. And yet what of Balls' past as a key part of the previous Labour government? Where is his contrition for the massive and unsustainable increase in public spending carried out by Labour? (I blogged about his last year – government spending was £343 billion in 1999-2000 and £669 billion in 2009-10, whereas if spending had just increased in line with inflation over those years the 2009-10 figure would have been £438 billion. That's a 53% increase, after removing the effect of inflation.)


Edit... As far as I can tell, there are three possible explanations for Ed Balls' interview today:

1 - The option I outlined above; something has made Balls rethink matters so that, while he used to think the Government was cutting 'too far, too fast', he now thinks the cuts are necessary. But what is that something?

2 - Balls actually thinks the Government approach has been correct all along. If this is the case, an apology of sorts would be nice (but unexpected, to say the least - he's a politician!).

3 - The reason for Balls' apparent change of mind is political, not economic. He's trying to change the public view that Labour are more to blame for the spending cuts than the present Government is.

My vote is on option 3, unless someone can suggest a recent event that has made reversing the cuts no longer a realistic option for a future Labour government...

Double Dip

No, not that sort of double dip. This sort of double dip. It's been predicted that the UK economy is going to shrink over the next few months, meaning we are likely to see what is usually called a double-dip recession. If only it were simply about the demise of a certain sherbert-based confectionery product...

So what should be done? The red team says the government is cutting 'too far, too fast', to quote one of their favourite phrases. The blue / yellow team says the cuts are necessary and anyone who believes otherwise is a 'deficit denier', to quote one of their favourite phrases. I find it both fascinating and frustrating that people can come to such different conclusions based on the same information...

What's particularly got me thinking recently is how it seems to be all about growth, on both sides of the argument but especially with the Labour party. As I see it, there are two massive problems with this. Firstly, with the way that the growth of economies is measured, you could make the economy grow by employing people to do useless things like dig holes and then fill them in again. And secondly, the emphasis on growth ignores the existence of a rather large deficit (see this earlier post of mine). If we keep on borrowing money then surely sooner or later we'll end up just not being able to borrow any more. Like it seems half of Europe is on the brink of.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, will be giving his Autumn Statement speech tomorrow and I will be interested to see how he intends to reduce the deficit without completely destroying economic growth. Best of luck, Mr Osborne...

PS: Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Writer's block.

Kevin has turned Conservative

What's this? A (mostly) Conservative government doing things I like? But... the Tories are the enemy; I grew up believing they were evil, child-killing monsters who didn't squeeze the toothpaste tube from the bottom! Anyway, two good things they've done recently: one about their economic approach and the other to do with a consultation on entertainment licensing in village halls and similar venues [Kevin loses most of his readers to the sound of collective yawning...].

The economy, then. I wrote a while ago of my belief that the Government is not actually destroying the UK's public services. In a speech a week ago (full text of speech here) the chancellor, George Osborne, contrasted the UK Government's approach to that of some countries in mainland Europe. He said:

We had an emergency budget last summer on our own terms - not this summer on the market's terms - unlike so many other countries.

Contrast this with the Labour party's approach. They keep saying that cuts are needed (albeit at a slower rate) but they hardly seem to have identified any cuts that they'd actually make. Unless I've missed something, all their comments on the economy are along the lines of 'This is an ideologically-based cut that will cause much damage to the nation's public services'. So, Ed and Ed, what would you cut?

My second reason for singing the Government's praises is a much more niche issue that I noticed at work yesterday. Currently, village halls (run, usually on a shoestring budget, by a management committee of volunteers) have to get a premises licence if they want to put on entertainment for the public and if they wish to sell alcohol. The licence just covering entertainment (showing films, putting on plays, hosting dances etc.) is free but there's still a fair bit of administration involved, and it all contributes to the workload of, in the case of charitable village halls, volunteer trustees who may well be put off by all the red tape. So imagine my joy when I had an email on Monday about a Government consultation on simplifying the premises licensing procedures. I'm going to quote the foreword in full (with key parts picked out in bold) as I think it's a wonderfully clear statement of intent. Simple language, a clear summary of the current situation, and a straightforward statement of what the Government proposes to change:

At the moment, the law and regulations which require some (but not all) types of entertainment to be licensed are a mess. For example, you will need a licence if you want to put on an opera but not if you want to organise a stock car race. A folk duo performing in the corner of a village pub needs permission, but the big screen broadcast of an England football match to a packed barn-like city centre pub does not. An athletics meeting needs licensing if it is an indoor event, but not if it’s held outdoors. A free school concert to parents doesn’t need a licence, but would if there is a small charge to raise money for PTA funds or if there are members of the wider public present. A travelling circus generally needs a permit whereas a travelling funfair does not. A carol concert in a Church doesn’t need a licence, but does if it is moved to the Church Hall. There are many other examples where types of entertainment are treated differently for no good reason – the distinctions are inconsistent, illogical and capricious.

But they cause other problems too. Whenever we force local community groups to obtain a licence to put on entertainment such as a fundraising disco, an amateur play or a film night, the bureaucratic burden soaks up their energy and time and the application fees cost them money too. Effectively we’re imposing a deadweight cost which holds back the work of the voluntary and community sector, and hobbles the big society as well.

Equally importantly, the various musicians’ and other performers’ unions are extremely concerned that all these obstacles reduce the scope for new talent to get started, because small-scale venues find it harder to stay open with all the extra red tape. There is also evidence that pubs which diversified their offer to include activities other than drinking were better able to survive the recession. Making it easier for them to put on entertainment may therefore provide an important source of new income to struggling businesses such as pubs, restaurants and hotels.

Last but not least, laws which require Government approval for such a large range of public events put a small but significant dent in our community creativity and expression. If there’s no good reason for preventing them, our presumption should be that they should be allowed.

So this is a golden opportunity to deregulate, reduce bureaucratic burdens, cut costs, give the big society a boost and give free speech a helping hand as well. Our proposals are, simply, to remove the need for a licence from as many types of entertainment as possible. I urge you to participate in this consultation so that we can restore the balance.

Don't label me!

I want to have a moan tonight. There's been a lot of labelling in the media over the last week or so relating to people involved in the rioting. You know what I mean; 'feral youth', 'hooligans', 'irresponsible parents' and so on (and so on...). I wonder why we feel the need to label people like this, rather than talking about their behaviour. Is it because we think that we'd never do terrible things like those, those criminals are doing? Perhaps it's comforting to subtly draw a dividing line between basically decent, law-abiding people like us and low-life, hooligan scum like them.

It's reminded me of a couple of other references to labelling. Firstly, a friend of mine who has young daughters mentioned that she'd heard (or read; I can't quite remember) about a danger in telling your children that they're beautiful. This had never struck me before (isn't it the most natural thing in the world to tell your daughter that she's beautiful and you love her?) but apparently it can make your child think that you only love them because they're beautiful. I suppose this can easily be made worse by the effect of all the images in advertising that children get bombarded with as they grow up. I've no idea how solidly founded this research was; perhaps it's one person's hare-brained idea that's not based on any concrete research at all. Anyway, it got me thinking.

The second thing that came to mind was something I read a year or two back about academically gifted children. I think this was a proper research paper but I haven't been able to find it again tonight (apologies!). The article referred to two groups of children; both of which were given praise, but one along the lines of 'You're really clever' and the other with more specific statements like 'That work you did was really good'. Each set of children were asked to sit a test and could choose an easier or harder version. Here's the kicker; the children given the broader, labelling-type praise (the 'You're so clever' statements) chose the easier test significantly more often than the children whose specific pieces of work were praised. Label a kid as clever and it seems they'll choose the easier option, because they don't want to fall short of the standard set for them. Label their work as good and they'll choose the harder option, believing that it's within their capabilities. Interesting, huh?

Going back to the rioting and looting, I'm not at all meaning to excuse criminal behaviour. If people are found guilty of criminal acts then I think they should be punished. But I don't think it's helpful to label people as criminal, anti-social or whatever, as if they are fundamentally different from those who have not been out rioting over the last week. Also, as a Christian, it's a core part of my faith (a) that all people are made in God's image, to carry his glory into the world, and (b) that all people fall short of this ideal. To what extent each of us falls short isn't something that should concern us. Planks of wood and specks of dust...

A massive overhang of debt

With all the analysis, blame-laying and doom-mongering about the riots, I wonder if the speech George Osborne gave today about the global economic situation will get a bit lost. That would be a shame, I think, as he said some very interesting things about the amount of debt that many developed countries are in, and the impact that this debt is having. Osborne noted a few triggers for the ski-jump-like falls in the financial markets over the last week or so:

Mr Speaker, it is not hard to identify the recent events that have triggered the latest market falls.

There has been the weak economic data from the US and the historic downgrade of that country’s credit rating.

And the crisis of confidence in the ability of Eurozone countries to pay their debts has spread from the periphery to major economies like Italy and Spain.

Then he went on to explain what he thinks is the root cause of all these events, and this is the part that really caught my eye:

But these events did not come out of the blue.

They all have the same root cause.

Debt.

In particular, a massive overhang of debt from a decade-long boom when economic growth was based on unsustainable household borrowing, unrealistic house prices, dangerously high banking leverage, and a failure of governments to put their public finances in order.

Unfortunately, the UK was perhaps the most eager participant in this boom, with the most indebted households, the biggest housing bubble, the most over-leveraged banks and the largest budget deficit of them all.

Moaning about how stupidly high house prices are is one of my hobby-horses so I was pleased to see a senior politician like Osborne talk about a housing bubble. Is the Government preparing to let house prices fall back to a sensible level, i.e. somewhere near the long-term trend value of around four times the average salary? Given how much of the UK's sense of well-being seems to be tied up with increasing how prices I'm still rather sceptical, but we shall see... (Graph taken from This is Money.)

It's all kicked off

Wow, August is normally a very quiet month as far as politics is concerned. But the financial markets are plummeting following the USA's credit rating being downgraded and, of course, there's been a series of riots across London and some other parts of the UK. What's going on? I've not been at work for the last couple of days and I've found it fascinating to follow what different politicians, journalists and commentators have been saying about the riots. Here is the view of former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone:

While the first priority is to restore peace, to ensure the safety of everyone now and in the future it is also necessary to have a serious discussion about why this has happened.

I am concerned that there is growing social dislocation in London and a threat that the police will be forced into escalating conflict with some London communities. We do not want to go back to the 1980s.

The economic stagnation and cuts being imposed by the Tory government inevitably create social division. As when Margaret Thatcher imposed such policies during her recessions this creates the threat of people losing control, acting in completely unacceptable ways that threaten everyone, and culminating in events of the type we saw in Tottenham.

Tories will issue knee-jerk statements demanding support for the police but they are actually cutting the police. That amounts to pure hypocrisy.

It's definitely vital to discuss the background and triggers for these riots but surely now is not the time to try and score party political points. Too soon, Ken. Also, I think he's utterly wrong to suggest that 15 months of David Cameron's government have been a big factor but that's not the point. Save the blame game for later, when the violence is under control.

Having said that, I'm going to do a bit of armchair speculation of my own. I heard on the radio earlier some really insightful and sensitive (I thought) comment from a lady called Camila Batmanghelidjh, who founded and now runs an organisation called Kids Company. They work with severely deprived and vulnerable children, aiming to help them get (and stay) out of trouble and develop aspirations for their future. This is what she wrote in today's Independent. See what you think. It's got to be better than dismissing the people involved as 'feral rats', 'mindless thugs' and so on, hasn't it? Mind you, I am uncomfortable with how strong a link she draws between deprivation and rioting; how many of those rioting over the last few days are deprived? Whose fault is it that 'the established community is perceived to provide nothing'?

Going back to Ken Livingstone's blaming of the Government and their spending cuts, maybe it's more about a deep-seated failure of education, parenting, social support services, policing etc. (delete according to your personal view) in certain parts of the country. I was amused by the rhetorical question asked in this article from the Daily Telegraph: would the rioters stop in their tracks if their local authority were to reinstate their library?

The hope of mankind – Jesus Christ or the American Way?

I've just handed in my final theology course essay! I should be awarded a Graduate Diploma in Kingdom Theology in due course, once the final essay has been marked. Looking back over the last two years, I've learnt so much about God, his ways, and about myself too. I've also met some truly great people and hopefully I'll stay in touch with many of them. Most of them are finishing this year although I'm carrying on to the Masters programme, starting again in early September.

The final essay was all about the Roman Emperor Constantine and his impact on Christianity. Constantine supported the church very strongly, both in financial terms and through giving many church leaders positions of high political office. Whether this all benefited Christianity is, of course, another matter; and this question was the main focus of my essay. So I looked at how Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire in the first two or three centuries since Jesus' time, despite some horrific persecution at points during this period. I also had to write about the modern-day legacy of Constantine's merger of church and state, and it was during this research that I found George W. Bush seeming to equate Jesus Christ with the American Way...

Bush was speaking a year after the World Trade Centre attacks, giving a speech at the harbour of Ellis Island, where many immigrants entered the USA in the first half of the 20th century. Here's the last little section of his speech:

This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbour. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it. May God bless America.

And for comparison, here are the first five verses of John's Gospel (italics added by me):

In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

Now I know it's important to bear in mind the context in which we say things. Bush no doubt wanted to inspire his people to believe that the American way of living is worth defending, and not something to be ashamed of. That's fine, but to equate the American way of living with the true light of the world, Jesus Christ? Too far, Mr President.

Is Ed Milliband a robot?

I've just caught up with an interview that Ed Milliband gave to the BBC regarding the public sector workers' strike on Thursday. Now, I know that politicians don't always answer the question they're asked, often taking a particular line and sticking with it. But watch this clip (it's less than three minutes long) and see what you think:



Unless my ears deceive me, Milliband answers five different questions using a combination of the same four phrases , wording them more or less identically each time:

These strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on

(Five times)

Parents and the public have been let down by both sides

(Four times)

The government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner

(Five times)

I urge both sides to put aside the rhetoric, get round the negotiating table and stop it happening again

(Five times)

Does Milliband really not have anything spontaneous to say or is he too scared of a gaffe to deviate in any way from the script he's prepared beforehand?

My bit of public service for this morning

Oh My Word. I've just seen something about a survey that found only one in seven people (14%) knew the difference between 'debt' and 'deficit'. Here's the question:

The government says it wants to eliminate the budget DEFICIT in five years. From your understanding, if it succeeds, will total government DEBT in 5 years time be…

And here are the answers:

14% - Higher than it is now
23% - About the same as it is now
36% - Lower than it is now
10% - Fully paid off
18% - Not sure

No wonder Labour didn't get absolutely wiped out in the last election; it seems the vast majority of the country don't realise just what a mess they've made of the UK's finances!

So here goes with my attempt to explain what the difference is between those two words beginning with 'D'.

Debt – how much money you owe in total
Deficit – the difference between your costs and your income over a certain time period

That's it! Simple as that. So if you take out a £150,000 mortgage to buy a house, you are now £150,000 in debt. That's usually fine because as long as your income is higher than your costs then you'll gradually pay the mortgage off (unless you're on an interest-only mortgage but that's another story...). But if you're personal finances are in deficit, meaning that you're actually spending more than you earn, then your debt will increase; you'll owe more than what you initially borrowed to buy the house.

Here's the bit that people in the survey evidently didn't grasp. Reducing the deficit just means that your debt won't be increasing at such a fast pace. And if you manage to get your deficit down to zero (so your income and outgoings are the same), you'll still be in debt but your debt will stay the same. It won't go away though.

Returning to the UK's national finances just to finish, if we do indeed reduce the deficit to zero in five years' time that means our debt will still be increasing over the next five years. It just won't be increasing so rapidly. And in five years' time, if the deficit is then zero, our debt will stay steady (but we'll still be coughing up the interest payments on one and a half trillion pounds or so of debt). Simple as that, right?

Wolves and lambs, babies and cobras

Those of you who know me will be well aware that I'm a bit of a politics junkie. So I was struck by something I read the other day about two of Jesus' disciples, Matthew the tax collector and Simon the revolutionary. Here's the idea, from Greg Boyd's book, 'The Myth of a Christian Nation'.

Simon belonged to a movement called the Zealots, who formed in the early first century AD with the aim of freeing Israel from Roman occupation. The Zealots were key players in the Jewish Revolt of AD 66 which led to the Roman destruction of the Temple and much of Jerusalem in AD 70.
















Apparently, Zealots were known to assassinate people like tax collectors for their collaboration with the hated Roman occupiers. So it's likely that Simon would have viewed Matthew in a very dim light. From Boyd's book:

Historical records indicate that the zealots despised tax collectors even more than they despised the Romans, for tax collectors not only paid taxes to support the Roman government (something zealots deplored), but they actually made their living collecting taxes from other Jews on Rome's behalf. Even worse, tax collectors often enhanced their income by charging more than was due and keeping the difference.

It must be the case, then, that being disciples of Jesus gave Matthew and Simon something in common that was so strong it over-rode their (pretty major) political differences. They spent three years or so on mission with Jesus, learning from and ministering with him. No doubt, this would have changed their political views, so that at least (Boyd again) 'the tax collector would no longer cheat his clients and the zealot no longer kill his opponents'. It reminded me of Isaiah 11, which imagines a time when 'the wolf and the lamb will live together' and 'the baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra'.


Oddly, though, we have no record of Jesus directly addressing either of the political views that Simon and Matthew brought along when Jesus invited them to follow him. Jesus teaches from an entirely different perspective and refuses to get drawn in to passing comment on which political view or 'kingdom of the world' is better. The kingdom of God is simply of a completely different nature. I'll finish with Greg Boyd's summary of the issue, which I guess applies more to what he sees in his country (the USA) but has certainly given me food for thought:

We have lost the simplicity of the kingdom of God and have largely forsaken the difficult challenge of living out the kingdom. We have forgotten, if ever we were taught, the simple principle that the kingdom of God looks like Jesus and that our sole task as kingdom people is to mimic the love he revealed on Calvary. Our unique calling as kingdom people is not to come up with God's opinion of the right solution to political issues. Our unique calling is simply to replicate Christ's sacrificial love in service to the world.

Abolishing boom and bust

It seems that modern economies inevitably go through cycles of boom and bust, with high levels of growth for a few years followed by a period of stagnation or even recession. Gordon Brown, our former Prime Minister and, before that, Chancellor, said that abolishing this cycle was one of his key aims. For example, in his pre-Budget Statement from 1997 he said this:

For forty years our economy has an unenviable history, under governments of both parties, of boom and bust. Stop-go has meant higher interest rates, less investment, fewer successful companies and lost jobs. It has been the inevitable result of a failure to take the long-term view.

So the real choice facing Britain in the coming Budget and beyond is between, on the one hand, muddling through as we have done for decades from one stop-go cycle to another.

Or, on the other hand, breaking with our past, burying short-termism and securing long-term strength through stability, sustained increases in productivity, and employment opportunity for all.

I wonder what he was thinking when he said this. Did he imagine steady, unspectacular growth in order to secure 'long-term strength through stability'? Or, even back then in 1997, did he have in mind what actually took place over the last ten years?

And what do I think did happen over the last decade or so? Well, it's got a lot to do with house prices. The Bank of England just released the latest figures showing how much money people are using to pay off their mortgages. In the last three months of 2010, seven billion pounds (or 2.7% of post-tax income) apparently went into reducing people's mortgage borrowing. This is in stark contrast to the period up to early 2008, when according to the BBC withdrawal of equity from homes was giving people a 9% increase to their post-tax income. I have not checked the figures but please do say if you think they're wrong!

Now I'm guessing that if my post-tax income got a 9% boost then I'd spent a fair chunk of that on stuff, on things that will feed in to the GDP figures. To steal a phrase I just read on a political blog one big reason why the economy is now in so much trouble is that 'we effectively brought forward into 2000-2010 the domestic element of economic growth of 2010-2020'. What people took out of the value of their homes, they are now paying back at a record rate (again, so say the BBC).

Why do I blame Labour, in particular Gordon Brown, for this? Because it was under their watch that house prices increased so much, allowing people to use their house as a giant cash machine. I suppose this would be all very well if house prices could just keep on rising in order to fund the increased household spending, but how can that be? How could house prices carry on rising at upwards of 10% a year? Did Gordon Brown think this is what abolishing boom and bust looked like?

So the growth in the economy was to a large extent funded by an unsustainable boom in house prices. And my point is really that Labour could have done something about this. They could have regulated the income multiple that banks etc. were permitted to lend for a mortgage. They could have left housing costs in the inflation calculations (they were removed in December 2003) and raised interest rates to keep inflation under control. And finally they could have been more cautious about the shared ownership and key-worker schemes that have expanded so much in recent years. People don't need all these clever schemes to help them 'buy' their first home if house prices are kept at a sensible level.

And all this means I have a hard time accepting anything that Labour say now about the current government endangering the UK's future prosperity. No, Labour did that themselves when they failed to keep a lid on house price rises and, of course, government spending while they were in power.

The Conservative 'massacre' of public services

I was catching up on the day's news before going to bed and got distracted by this article in the Independent. George Osborne will be giving his Budget speech on Wednesday and the news media are full of speculation about what he'll be saying. The article I've linked to isn't really about that, though; it looks at what Labour might have been doing had they won the election last May. You can read it yourself to get all the details but I just wanted to mention a few surprising statistics. From the article:

Government spending totalled £343bn in 1999-2000, which, if it had just kept pace with inflation, would have reached £438bn by 2009-2010. In reality, spending in that year reached £669bn, an increase, in real terms, of 53 per cent, over a 10- year period in which GDP had grown by less than 17 per cent. When you factor in how much of that GDP increase was the result of unprecedented levels of private debt then the truly unsustainable nature of the public spending becomes vividly apparent.

That's right, after cancelling out the effect of inflation, Government spending increased by 53% from 1999-2000 (roughly when Labour stopped following the previous Conservative government's spending plans) to 2009-2010. And that increase was not based on the UK's gross domestic product going up by a similar amount in the same time period as GDP only went up by 17% from 1999 to 2009 (ignoring the effects of inflation – this wasn't stated in the article but I checked the figures on the Office for National Statistics website, geek that I am).

The other little snippet from the Independent article is that, according to the level of cuts set out by the Government, the welfare budget in 2014-15 will (again, accounting for the effect of inflation) be 34% higher than it was back in 1999-2000. So what gets portrayed as virtually the destruction of the welfare system will still leave a system rather more generous than how things were 12 years ago. Finishing with another quotation from the article:

When government departments have become accustomed to year-on year real-terms budget increases of about 4 per cent, prudence can be mistaken for butchery, and the sort of efficiencies which the private sector has long regarded as normal are seen as justification for strike action.

Something to bear in mind next time Ed Balls or Ed Milliband start moaning about the Government's ideological slashing of the welfare system, perhaps?

Kevin explains what the ‘Big Society’ means

Followers of UK politics will know that David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has a bright idea which he calls the ‘Big Society’. The idea has been greeted with rather a lot of indifference and confusion so Cameron is giving it a re-launch. He spoke yesterday about the Big Society being ‘a different way of governing’ that is ‘going to get every bit of my passion and attention over the five years of this Government.’ Stirring words, eh? Or does it still leave you cold?

Well I thought I’d have a go at explaining what the Big Society is, seeing as so many people say they haven’t got it yet. Masochistic, I know, although I’d prefer to say that I like a challenge. I was prompted to do this by something I read on the Political Betting blog the other day and then something that a workmate told me earlier this morning. Here goes:

You see a problem of some kind; say a neighbour who struggles to get to the shops or a park that is full of litter. The Big Society response is to think, ‘I can do something about that’, and to get on with doing your bit to resolve the issue. You and a few friends keep in touch with the neighbour and offer to help with their shopping. The Big Government response is to complain that the Council should be sorting things out better. Maybe you do tell the relevant authority but you don’t do anything about it yourself.

My workmate gave me a practical example. A friend of hers has been in a nursing home for a couple of weeks and was talking to the staff before he left. The guy lives with his parents, who are both very elderly and need a lot of support. But they manage due to a wide network of family and friends who are always popping by to help with whatever needs doing. Big Society. However, this wasn’t good enough for the nursing home staff who said something like, ‘Oh, so there’s no professional help.’ Big Government. That is the assumption which David Cameron is trying to wean the country from; if a paid official is not involved then it doesn’t really count. And I wish him well.

Christianity and Politics (part two)

A few weeks ago I wrote on here about the interaction between Christianity and political power. My personal view is that all faith systems should be treated equally by the state, so I have not been joining in with the seasonal complaints about how our country has lost its Christian heritage and we can't celebrate Christmas properly any more.

Well I've just read an article which so neatly illustrates the opposite view to my own that I feel I have to write something about it. Someone on a messageboard that I read posted this article about the repeal in the USA of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (or DADT) rule which currently allows homosexual people to join the armed forces as long as their sexual orientation remains secret. When the repeal of DADT is signed into law, openly homosexual people will be able to apply to the USA military. At the moment, they are not able to do so and apparently over 13,000 people have been dismissed from the armed forces in the USA after their sexual orientation became known.

If you read my previous post on Christianity and politics then you can probably guess where I stand on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. I don't think the state should deny people certain opportunities or services because of their age, gender, faith, sexual orientation, etc. So I was pretty stunned when I read that article I just linked to. The author's view is that the DADT policy itself, which allowed gay people into the military as long as their sexuality remained secret, was 'a slippery slope down the slide of societal collapse' and 'a slick wink and a nod to homosexuality'. According to the writer, the new policy means that 'our once noble military is being used to conduct a social experiment in debauchery, ostensibly to prove the point that moral turpitude need not necessarily reduce the effectiveness of our fighting force'.

I know very little about how you sign up with the USA military but maybe someone can tell me whether there is a wide-ranging test of morality that you have to pass as part of the entrance procedures. Are you asked about how generous you are, how well you control your temper or about your faithfulness to your (opposite sex) partner (to whom you were married before you slept together)? Or is sexual orientation the only issue of morality (if it is an issue of morality – I won't go there in this post!) that ought to be considered? I can just possibly see the argument that allowing openly gay people into the military could lower morale and cause some people to leave or not sign up in the first place (the latter point is made in the article). But this argument could have been used – and probably was used – by those who argued against equal rights for black people, or for women, or for any other marginalised section of society. Too bad if some white people stopped using buses because they might have to sit next to a black person! Too bad if some straight people leave the armed forces because they might end up serving with someone who is gay! Government shouldn't pander to our prejudices, it should promote and enshrine in law equal rights and opportunities for all.

It's particularly odd to see the Founding Fathers of the USA invoked in an argument for faith-based restriction of people's rights, considering that the Declaration of Independence says this:

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'

I'm struggling to see how this can be squared with denying certain people the right to join the armed forces because of things those people do in the privacy of their own homes. And that leads on to my second issue with the article and the view it espouses: what gives the author, or me, or anyone else, the right to have our particular view of morality imposed on others by the law of the land? Who says my view is correct? And even if it is correct, why should I get to rob others of their right to live as they see fit? Focusing in on Christianity, what did Jesus say about enforcing your views on other people? He gave plenty of teaching about what his followers should be like but I can't find where he told his followers to compel non-Christians to also obey those ways. Indeed, the New Testament seems to show Jesus' followers respecting and obeying authority, apart from where it is in direct contradiction to the ways of Jesus.

Christianity and Politics

‘Tis the season to be jolly. Also, ‘tis the season to complain about the loss of Christian values and traditions in the UK. I’m thinking in particular about some local councils having ‘winter lights’ rather than ‘Christmas lights’, and how you often hear about the ‘festive season’ instead of the ‘Christmas season’. This is a Christian country, people say, so we should be free to celebrate Christmas in public without worrying about offending minority faith, ethnic or nation groups.

This got me thinking about the wider issue of how Christianity is intertwined with the social fabric and indeed the governmental structures of the UK. We still have an established church, with several of its bishops sitting in the House of Lords. This means that Christianity (or rather, one part of Christianity) has a presence right at the heart of our law-making system. Isn’t this a marvellous thing, though; what am I moaning about? Well, it feels to me like a special privilege for (one part of) Christianity and I don’t think Christians should rejoice in special privileges. I think it’s really important that the state treats all faiths equally as much as it possibly can, without any particular faith being specially favoured or squashed. There are limits to this – for example around things like equal rights whatever your age, gender, sexual orientation etc. – but I think the government should be religion-blind unless there’s a powerful counter-argument.

Let’s go all the way back to when the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal and gave the Christians power and resources. It often seems people think this was a great moment in the history of Christianity. Suddenly the Christians could meet together freely and even start to influence the policies of Rome. But at what cost? The Christian faith went from a radical, releasing, dangerous way of life to (for many people) an avenue for the exercise of political power, or simply an automatic, taken-for-granted part of your identity as a Roman citizen. Grand, ornate church buildings sprung up everywhere, the church had much greater resources than before but maybe the life-changing energy started to go. Here’s a short introduction to the view that political power wasn’t such a wonderful thing for the early Christian church:



I love the illustration in that talk about how hard it is for us to see our own assumptions, like fish being blissfully ignorant of what the water they are swimming in is like. The culture we live in can have such a powerful impact on us and we must watch out for how it affects us. What if we’ve got the whole power thing all wrong? What if Christians in political power are not supposed to pass laws reflecting Christian values and limiting people’s sinning? What if Christians are not supposed to seek political power at all?