CentreRight

9/11 Troofery in London

Nothing ruins my day quite like coming into contact with that breed of especially stupid person who thinks that 9/11 was an 'inside' job. Walking around Broadway Market in east London this weekend, I saw a poster which reminded me that such people have a like-minded community with whom they can share their delusions.

The poster advertised the 9/11 'truth' events taking place all over London this week, hosted by an organisation called Truth Rising, to coincide with the nine year anniversary of 9/11. So, if you are that way inclined, you can go to a 'party' where you dress up as your favourite neocon, watch 'Loose Change' (a fictional movie pretending to be a documentary that is a fave with conspiracy theorists) and then be entertained by spoken word 'legend', MC Angel, and someone who calls himself Planetman.

Alternatively, if Brazilian music interspersed with 'truth' films about 9/11 is more your bag, you are catered for at Notting Hill Arts Club. Earlier in the day, you could get together with Stop the War Hounslow, WeAreChange London and London Truth Action for a demonstration outside the BBC to 'pressurise' them into reporting the truth about 9/11.

We've all been unfortunate enough to meet the types that go to such events. The sort of person who thinks that President Bush and co were devious enough to:

• Mastermind the destruction of the Twin Towers (using explosives/remote controlled planes/holograms of planes, delete as appropriate);
• Pin it on al-Qaeda (the dozens of protestations of al-Qaeda that, yes, they really did do it was another cunning sleight of hand by the Bush administration);
• Find new and exciting ways to restrict civil liberties (it was truly astonishing how you could find absolutely no dissent or criticism of Bush in the news, on the street, in music, film, or art during his entire time in the White House);
• Lie about weapons of mass destruction in order to justify going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq (to further the interests of Halliburton/the military industrial complex/Israel/world Jewry/the neoconservatives/other people we don't like)

They seemingly weren't devious enough to take the next logical step and then fabricate WMDs in Iraq once they had invaded, in order to complete the illusion. Still, they pulled off most of their grand masterplan, and had managed to keep it secret from the entire world - until, of course, a few bright sparks on the internet got wind of the plans.

I suppose we should be used to such lunatics by now. But I do think we should manage to maintain our sense of anger and moral outrage at those who - when confronted with totalitarianism, wickedness and mass murder - choose to blame anybody but those actually responsible.

James Bethell: Sending Nick Griffin to jail would hand the BNP a lifeline

By James Bethell, Director of NothingBritish.com

Not many defendants at the High Court actually want a night in prison but when Nick Griffin stands in the High Court today he will be praying for a bit of bird.  Because martyrdom (or at least a few nights in the clink) is the only way he can redeem himself after a catastrophic year of electoral disappointment, financial mismanagement, egotistical bullying and political marginalisation.

Griffin emerged from the general election as a lame duck whose moral authority is irretrievably dented by his failure to make an effective case on behalf of Britain’s angry white lower-middle class, as witnessed during that Question Time debate, despite a recession, an unpopular war and record-levels of immigration. His organisation, once cited as an energetic example of Obama-style participation politics, is divided by factions and unhappiness.

After building up a substantial election war-chest during the post-Euro-election hubris, the BNP has blown its nest-egg on legal fees fighting an unnecessary, unwinnable battle against the Equality and Rights Commission over its whites-only membership policy. Griffin’s erratic leadership style has driven out hard-working lieutenants, he has failed to make an impact in the European Parliament and he spends his days writing daily begging letters to his disenchanted membership.  And yet the BNP’s one-sided constitution gives Griffin an unassailable role. 

Today’s court appearance epitomises Griffin’s self-destructive, egotistical leadership style, and the central role Griffin’s personal views on race have played in limiting the appeal of the BNP. The EHRC litigation handed Griffin a valid excuse to abandon the distasteful whites-only membership requirement and create a powerful “Clause 4” moment that redefined the BNP as a popular nationalist party capable of breaking out of the BNP’s electoral ghetto.

Instead, a committed fascist with a ethno-centric view of the world, Griffin sought to turn this case into a symbolic battle against the forces of political correctness, a struggle that had no resonance in the media, freedom of speech zealots or even his own members. Predictably the case has resulted in an embarrassing, costly defeat which even Griffin’s spin-machine can hardly defend.

As the case has progressed and Griffin’s tactics have grown increasingly desperate, the courts have become understandably frustrated by his slippery, schoolboy antics. However much Judge Paul Collins is tempted to teach Griffin a lesson, he should take a chill pill. Because the BNP are a busted flush. And about the only thing that could get them back in business is the martyrdom of their flawed leader.

Matthew Elliott: A response to Janice Small and CAER

On ConservativeHome yesterday, Janice Small – the director of Conservative Action for Electoral Reform (CAER) – explained why Conservatives should vote ‘Yes’ to the Alternative Vote. Unsurprisingly perhaps, in my new role as Campaign Director of the No2AV campaign, I disagree with her. I disagree because:

“AV is not … a proportional system. In some elections it could even produce more distorted results than the present first-past-the-post system. AV would not guarantee a more representative parliament or one better able to hold the government to account. … The public will not see this as correcting a broken system; most agree that the system is broken because of the MPs' expenses scandal, the lack of accountability and a government that makes up legislation as it goes along, rather than getting to grips with the real problems of a broken economy and a broken society.”

These are not my words, but Janice’s, writing for Comment is Free in February of this year. Janice’s article was in response to the announcement that Gordon Brown would be including a pledge in the Labour manifesto to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote. She went on to argue that:

“The only reason that Labour is now proposing the AV system is because they see electoral advantage in it. … This will be unpopular with his voters and leave the electorate with a very sour taste in its mouth if we are in hung parliament territory come the general election.”

In yesterday’s article, Janice hit the nail on the head when she wrote that “those who focus on crude party political outcomes are missing the point”. This referendum (should it go ahead in May) is about much more than partisan politics or whether one system favours one party or another. It is about the democratic future of our country.

Like so many who are in support of electoral reform, Janice’s article for Comment is Free suggests that she is actually quite sceptical of the potential of AV to change anything. She finished this article by saying:

“Let us have a proper debate on the different systems, finish Lords reform and abolish the undemocratic closed list system for MEPs, before changing the Westminster system – otherwise, it will, rightly, just be seen as cynical gerrymandering.”

I agree that First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) isn’t perfect – it could be improved by the introduction of recall of MPs, Open Primaries and Citizens’ Initiatives – but it is decisive. It has arguably produced the result that the country needed at every election, including the coalition that saw the country through WW2 to the current coalition that is fighting the financial hole we are in today. It is transparent and it is accountable.

I’m looking forward to listening to the debate in the House of Commons this afternoon, as MPs consider the constitutional issues involved in the timing of the referendum and whether there should be a threshold. Whatever Parliament decides is the fairest playing field for the referendum, I look forward to debating these issues further with Janice Small and her colleagues at Conservative Action for Electoral Reform over the coming year.

Seven barriers to a successful Papal visit (which I hope can be cleared)

By Paul Goodman

The last and first Pope to visit Britain was John Paul II, the best part of 30 years ago (1982).  Benedict XVI, his successor, will arrive at the end of next week.  I hope that his visit goes well.  But here are seven barriers that he'll have to clear.

• Secularism.  Britain is a more secularised country than it was 30 years ago.  Social attitudes to (for example) authority, rights, sexuality, privacy and transparency are very different to those of 1982.

• The impact of 9/11.  There's a new suspicion of established religion.  There's always been some - perhaps much.  But 9/11 was a gleam in almost no-one's eye in 1982.  That horror produced, unsurprisingly, a chariness towards - and some hostility to - Islam in particular and established religion in general.  The writings and actions of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Peter Tatchell with regard to organised religion are in some respects a product of the post-9/11 culture.

• The child abuse eruption.  The reaction to it of some senior Bishops was flawed at best and scandalous at worst.  Some of the abuse had taken place by 1982.  But there was no public recognition of it then.

• Media bafflement.  This cocktail of secularism, suspicion of established religion and the child abuse scandal suggests that any Pope visiting Britain today would receive less sympathetic coverage than John Paul II did in 1982.  Claims of media antipathy to the Church, and other faith communities, are often exaggerated - though the Times' coverage, as Damian Thompson has proved here, here, here, here, here, here and - please note - here (and elsewhere) is usually unsympathetic and sometimes misleading.  However, the main obstacle to fair coverage isn't aversion, or even bias, but incomprehension - a product of the secularisation mentioned earlier.  This isn't confined to the media: remember the Foreign Office civil servant who, when asked for ideas to help this Papal visit, suggested that the Pope open an abortion clinic.

• Memories of Pope John Paul II.  Pope John Paul was viewed in many quarters, at the time of his visit to Britain, as a heroic battler against Communism - and a novelty as the first non-Italian Pope for over 400 years.  With Communism collapsed - an implosion in which the Polish Pope played an epic role - Pope Benedict is in no position to compete.  John Paul II was an extrovert, a communicator, and a philosopher by training with a bent for mysticism.  He was also young (for a Pope) and fit (for his age) when he visited Britain.  Benedict XVI is an introvert, an intellectual, and a theologian of exceptional distinction with a deep understanding of liturgy.  He is also a man in his early eighties who will need rest during the visit.

• The deterioration of relations with the Church of England.  The early 1980s were years of giddy hope, in some quarters, for reunion between the two Churches.  Pope John Paul's visit took place in that context, and was probably its high point.  Since then, this prospect - always distant - seems to have vanished.  The Church of England has ordained women as priests.  The shock waves of the 1960s and 70s no longer rock the Catholic Church, which has since acquired a more traditionalist flavour.  Benedict XVI's announcement of a special arrangement to receive converts from the Church of England, set up to allow them to preserve parts of their Anglican heritage, was made without consultation with Lambeth Palace.  The reaction of the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury to the visit will be watched closely by the media.

• Money.  John Paul II's trip wasn't a state visit.  Pope Benedict's is.  Taxpayers stump up for state visits, and there's no evidence that they're any more hostile to one by the Pope than one by any other head of state (though many will be surprised and baffled that he is one).  But opinion polling suggests that many non-Catholic taxpayers at least don't want to meet the bill.

There is, by the way, an eighth barrier: the tangle of the arrangements for the visit made by the Catholic Church in Britain (hence the appointment of Lord Patten to try to smooth them out).  But that's another story.

As I say, I hope that the visit's a success.  It will open with lower expectations than those of 1982, which isn't a bad place to start from.  And Benedict XVI has a certain understated charm.

By the way, one barrier that would not so long ago have barred a Papal visit altogether - a particular old-fashioned prejudice against Catholicism in particular (as opposed to a more modern dislike of religion in general) - has faded away as a force.

Matthew Sinclair: How trade unions were funded by the taxpayer to the tune of more than £85 million last year

New TaxPayers' Alliance research is out today looking at how taxpayers' money is being spent supporting the trade unions.  The report looks at Government departments, quangos, councils, NHS Trusts and fire services; over 1,200 organisations.  We found that £85.8 million went to support the unions in 2009-10.  £18.3 in grants and other payments and £67.5 million to support 2,493 employees working for the unions but paid by the taxpayer.  The total was up 14 per cent from 2008-09.

This is a huge amount of money, significantly more than both the main political parties will typically raise in a non-election year.  The unions know how much of a scandal it is, they tried to stop organisations answering our Freedom of Information requests.

They will claim that the presence of union staff helps improve workplace relations.  But research by global business performance advisors McKinney Rogers shows that most employees consider their trade union representative uninspiring (54 per cent) or downright demotivating (27 per cent).  By contrast, 52 per cent find their company's CEO inspiring and 56 per cent find their colleagues inspiring.

Our report shows that the unions have a huge network of paid organisers at no cost to themselves.  And programmes like the Union Modernisation Fund support a range of projects that improve their technical capacity and recruit new members.  All of their actual work representing employees is paid for, so they can use their own income to build multi-million pound warchests to fight spending cuts.  £85 million in public subsidy gives them a huge advantage in their attempts to turn the clock back by decades, and go to war with an elected government with a clear democratic mandate to curb the deficit.

Public sector staff strike for fifteen times as many days per worker as private sector workers.  They rely on the fact that politicians and managers aren't spending their own money, and that their employers can't go out of business.  It is ordinary taxpayers who pay the price when they don't get the better schools that reforms should be delivering; when money is wasted on excessive spending and higher borrowing costs thanks to a failure to make necessary cuts; and when services they have paid for are disrupted by strikes.  It is an absolute outrage that taxpayers are being forced to finance their own muggers.

The regulations that force employers to pay for staff working for unions should be scrapped, the unions should pay those salaries themselves, and scandalous slush funds like the Union Modernisation Fund should be abolished.  If the Government don't act on this issue, they will accepting a gross distortion of our democracy that threatens their own efforts to fix the public finances, and they will be allowing a chronic waste of taxpayers' money to continue.

Letters from Zimbabwe - Mpilo Hospital

Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo used to be one of the best in Africa. The retired Clinical Director who met me remembers it in its heyday and worries that the number who know what it was, what it should be, are dwindling fast. There are still hundreds of patients turning up every day but while diagnosis may be possible, treatment often isn’t. The skeleton staff who work here have virtually no resources and have to work around the power cuts that are a daily occurrence across the city. Last year, their hopes for improvement were raised by the power-sharing agreement between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai’s MDC-T and the appointment  of Tendai Biti as MDC-T Finance Minister. But where Biti has brought desperately needed financial stability through adopting the US dollar as currency, the huge debts and fractured infrastructure he inherited (that for instance means everything is bought with cash, there are no electronic debit or credit card facilities anywhere) has hampered recovery.

Things are definitely better that they were last year. Supplies that totally dried up pre-February 2009 are now occasionally getting through to the Hospital. The day I was there, pethidine had arrived, the first painkiller for mothers in labour or post caesarean section that they had had for months. But where the facilities were rich in their space and their few dedicated staff, poverty paraded itself in an absence of bed sheets and equipment. There was no monitoring (not even a working blood pressure gauge), no food, no MRI or working CT scanner. The technical manager said he was desperate, if only he had the parts to fix the autoclave sterilisers they could then reduce infections. In the maternity unit, two midwives were seeing to 16 women in labour and simultaneously training eight students. The going rate is $43 for a hospital delivery, but no one is turned away in a country of 90% unemployment. Another two midwives oversaw the 168 post-natal beds with unqualified assistants. A 27 week old baby wriggled in the solitary incubator box but without the vital piped oxygen mask and over-hydrated on an adult drip. Other tiny, malnourished forms were held by their mothers, with the only measure of progress the ingestion of milk and a nod from the head nurse.

The one theatre has no anaesthetist but relies on a (now) specialised nurse who has learned on the job; and an ancient, slow steriliser means that in an emergency equipment in just washed and re-used. We can treat an infection, they say, we can’t treat a dead mother or baby. Amazingly they have delivered 4,850 babies in the last six months and only 151 babies (3%) and 19 mothers have died. 25% are HIV positive (the only HIV screening in the country is done on expectant mothers), which is down from the 50% rates of the 90’s. But the life expectancy remains stubbornly low at about 40 years, and it was only after being in Zim for a couple of weeks that I realised I could count the elderly people I had seen on one hand.

Professionals left the countries in their thousands after the land-grabs of 2000 began. In the rural areas, the clinics that Mugabe had specifically developed to ensure no woman was more than a day’s walk away, could no longer retain their staff who were fearful for their lives. But as the country descended into violence and chaos, there was no money to pay them anyway. By coming to work overseas, including in our NHS, professionals at least had a job and could send money home to parents and children left behind. The distribution of medicines waned with supplies drying up and unstaffed clinics, which is partly why last years cholera epidemic was so devastating and experts are fearing a rise in deaths from Aids as HIV medicines can’t be obtained. Cholera kills more quickly and there simply weren’t the facilities to treat the tens of thousands who became victims of the breakdown of the sanitation and water systems particularly in the east of Zim. Likewise the question of the impact of virtually no public health provision (beyond a successful NGO-run child vaccination programme) on the 70% of the population who are rural, on infections, on child mortality, can only have a heartbreaking answer.

The extra dollars promised for the hospital staff to boost their incomes from $200 a month to $3-400 is only occasionally getting through. But that’s nowhere near enough to lure staff back from the Zim diaspora. There are three general surgeons left in the Bulawayo region who are the only hope for anyone requiring any operation in western Zim. Last year, local people came to see the hospital, and they were so moved by the difficulties they saw that they raised funds for the broken down mortuary and laundry. Both are working again and the ex-Director is convinced that getting local people involved in their hospital is the way ahead, along with a new wave of training up medical staff. The recent relaxation of regulations means that Mpilo can raise its own funds and start to form contracts direct, instead of being stifled under the dead-hand of Harare bureaucracy or waiting for political nirvana. Ideas are bubbling in our minds as to how we can magnify these glimmers of hope as we end our visit in the Chief Execs office. I have left Mpilo, grins the former Director across the table, but Mpilo hasn’t left me. For myself, I can only guess and feel profoundly humbled at the depths of dedication and sacrifice displayed by the staff who are still here, trying to serve, wanting to heal. I am blown away by the tenacious spirit of those I have met. Yet I am also acutely aware that I am only meeting the survivors.

AV referendum Second Reading impending

The first measure of opposition to the AV referendum comes next Monday, September 6th.  The main Conservative MP rebellion is expected to come later, on the issue of timing.  Even wrecking amendments, such as adding an additional question offering an STV option to the ballot paper (though that would be a high-stakes game), are more likely to come later.

But even the first vote will have interest.  Will any Labour MPs feel honour-bound to vote in favour of the bill, having stood at the Election promising an AV referendum?  Will the Unionists and Nationalists all vote against, as expected?  Could this be a moment at which some (perhaps tired and emotional) Lib Dem MPs decide to openly vote against the Coalition?

Not the Today Programme's finest hour (or three)

In the middle of August we started a new feature on ConHome called Tories on Today, to record the appearances by Conservative politicians on Radio 4's Today programme.

Yet this week's schedule shows that the scorers have barely been troubled, with the only Conservatives interviewed on the programme over the last five days being Bob Neill MP, Graham Stuart MP and Murdo Fraser MSP - and all in discussions with others.

Today's edition of the programme has already attracted particular opprobrium (see Tweets from Fraser Nelson and Tim Montgomerie of this parish) for giving generous amounts of airtime to senior Labour figures, with Ed Balls and John Prescott both getting one-on-one opportunities to address the nation. 

But probably most questionable today was the decision to invite Sally Bercow to talk about William and Ffion Hague's dealings with the press this week, in the context of her being a politician's wife.

Whilst she is married to an MP, the fact is that she is a politician in her own right, having stood as a Labour council candidate at the local elections this year and indicated her desire to fight a parliamentary seat in the future. I believe she has every right to do that and, furthermore, don't blame her for one moment for taking any opportunity she is offered to promote herself in the media (and credit to her for the fact that she - not the presenter - raised her own foray into electoral politics this morning).

But surely it is wrong for the Today Programme to parade as a politician's wife, someone who has a very partisan agenda of her own?

Britain's role in the world

Many a commentator, in reflecting upon the country's fiscal crisis, has suggested that - whatever else happens - one important consequence will be Britain's finally withdrawing from the world stage and, in military and geopolitical terms, becoming a conventional medium-sized European power.  I don't accept that this is inevitable at all.  In fact, it's totally unnecessary and if it occurs it will be self-inflicted, self-hating, self-indulgent, and a renunciation of our duty to mankind and to history.

First, why would it be self-inflicted?  Well, why would defence spending be a priority for cuts?  Defence spending has been falling for decades as a proportion of GDP and indeed fell in real terms over the last Parliament.  Whilst other spending mushroomed, defence spending didn't.  So why do there need to be any cuts in defence spending at all?  We could choose to solve our fiscal problems by cutting back on the areas of spending where it rose.  We don't have to cut it where it didn't rise.  If we choose to cut defence spending, that will be a choice, not a necessity.  And if we choose to cut defence spending in such a way that that undermines our international role, that, again, will be a choice, not a necessity.

Were you thinking that our withdrawing from a global role in affairs is something to do with our experiencing a diminished significance as a country?  How?  Don't we have the main international financial centre, still?  Are we not still one of the half-dozen-or-so largest economies in the world?  Don't we still have an important network of alliances and blood- and business-relations bonding us to many countries? 

Google Books

I believe strongly - near-absolutely - in freedom of speech.

However (and I appreciate that there is a potential tension here) I do not believe in a near-absolute right to nick the speech of others. Or the expression of others, or intellectual property, or copyright, or whatever you want to call it.

That is why I view the ongoing arguments about Google Books with such interest, and recommend that one reads the single-page response from the catchily named Initiative for a Competitive Online MarketPlace to the growing policy discussion about how to respond to Google's approach to copyright.

ICOMP's position is admirably restrained and academic in its expression, but you might get an understanding of the problem from a single line:

"unauthorised scanning of European works by Google continues unabated."

Hmm.

Rage against the (media) machine

At 8.20pm last night I finished a phone call with my parents. I had been sitting in a nice park near my house, and strolled over to the gate. Which was locked - as was every other exit. There is no indication inside or outside the park that it will be locked at such an early hour. Younger people clambered over to freedom, but I currently have a sore shoulder from powerlifting so I couldn't generate the strength to do this.

I tried picking the lock and breaking the chain but nothing was doing. I was therefore reluctantly compelled to phone the fire brigade, who were terrific and initiated a not wholly straightforward process whereby I climbed and balanced using multiple ladders.

I tell this story for two reasons. Firstly, it will give those of you who know me the chance to chuckle at the thought of inelegant massive me perched atop a ladder. And secondly it should say something that despite being incarcerated yesterday, I am still far more angry at the treatment of William Hague, Christopher Myers and their families.

It has come to something when a person resigns having done absolutely nothing wrong. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of demonstrable fact.

William is allowed three Special Advisers (Spads). The Ministerial Code makes it crystal clear that ministers with additional responsibilities may have more than two special advisers. William is First Secretary of State as well as Foreign Secretary. Case closed.

Spads are appointed because the minister trusts them implicitly. Anyone who thinks that the job should be advertised in a broad, competitive process fundamentally misunderstands the role. Spads are there because they have proven loyalty to the minister and to make sure the civil service understands their master's wishes. Policy expertise and lengthy experience may be part of a Spad's arsenal (Hague's other two Spads have it in spades) but it is not a necessary requirement of the job. Spads are there to fix stuff. The civil service provides the expertise and the institutional knowledge.

The very essence of a special adviser means that only one person is fit to choose them: the Minister. It is right that the Prime Minister should sign off on the appointment, but  William Hague is the man to decide who would make a good special adviser for William Hague.

You may argue that Spads should not exist. In which case you are very foolish, as elements in the civil service are clearly determined to frustrate the wishes of ministers and they desperately need some ultra-loyal staffers to watch their backs. But Spads do exist, and given the actual nature of their responsibilities there is no reason at all why a bright 25-year-old should not be the best person for the job.

There is not and never has been any evidence whatsoever of an improper relationship between William Hague and Christopher Myers. William has felt compelled to address the matter head-on. Case closed. The massive shame is that Chris Myers found the hideousness unbearable. To anyone who says that this shows a lack of backbone, I suggest you wait until you experience something like this yourself.

There is a qualitative difference between this case and others, and it has nothing to do with party politics. I am all for holding politicians to account. I have tried to do it myself, for both Channel Four News and in my work for the journalist Peter Oborne. And yes, I have helped put the boot into Tories when I felt it was merited.  

I am not crying foul because it is a Conservative on the ropes. I am crying foul because it is clear that there has been no impropriety. None at all. Anyone who still thinks there has been either doesn't understand the point of a special adviser or has a very twisted and cynical mind.

When politicians are corrupt, we should and indeed must go for the jugular. When someone is a victim of baseless rumour and innuendo we should defend them to the hilt. The fact that someone can through smearing tactics be made to look bad is no reason to abandon them. William, Ffion and Christopher deserve the strident support not just of Conservatives, but of all decent people.

A final thought: the blogosphere is great; it is anarchic and democratic all at the same time. But if bloggers want to be taken seriously, they should try to exceed the standards of the gutter press, not contrive to fall below them.

Handle with care: Serbia’s relations with Europe

Nobody could doubt that the past few years have been painful ones for Serbia. 

Once the motor of the powerful Yugoslav state, the country now struggles to deal with the realities of its recent history that have reduced it to little more than a minor regional power, scarred by two decades of ultra-nationalist policies imposed by a short-sighted and self-serving political class.  Divorced from Montenegro and stripped of Kosovo, a province of profound cultural, religious and historical importance to the Srpski psyche, the Serbian state’s humiliation is absolute. 

The International Court of Justice’s ruling on 22nd July that Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia was lawful has once again opened old wounds and promoted a strongly-worded statement from President Boris Tadić insisting that his country will “never” recognise the province’s largely ethnic-Albanian government. Nobody, least of all the Kosovan administration, was surprised by Tadić’s statement. 

Given that memories of NATO’s armed intervention in Kosovo still profoundly effects the Serbian political psyche, the news that the country’s Government has decided to fully engage with NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme should be warmly welcomed – and indeed viewed as a clear pro-Western move by an administration whose political outlook  was formed in the years of Slobodan Milošević’s pariah state Yugoslavia.

Surely the Big Society is about more than volunteering?

Yesterday, I received a sneering email from an obviously partisan campaign group which implied that the Big Society is about nothing more than people giving their time. I beg to differ.

If society is "the sum of human conditions and activity regarded as a whole functioning interdependently" (Concise OED), then it comprises everything we do. Society includes family, friendship, volunteering, giving and exchanging.  It is a rich and comprehensive tapestry of human relationships which includes business.

If only some enterprises are "social", does that mean all others are anti-social? Surely not. We are sustained by an intricate network of production, exchange and consumption. Producing and selling the means of human survival, fulfilment and enjoyment is a vital social activity. All enterprise is social.

Provided the exchange of goods and services is not coerced, it is the creation of value for other people. Profit earned without privilege or compulsion is a measure of value produced for other people, in their opinion. Entrepreneurship is then the creative search to help other people.

Society is not built on gifts of goods and services. Giving is good, but a gift economy would soon run into the socialist calculation problem: how much of what to give to whom?  Yet a healthy society requires good will and the recognition that not everything can be bought and that not everyone has the means to buy. 

The change we need is a change within. From a belief that human relationships should be based on class conflict and mutual plunder mediated by the State, to a reliance on mutual cooperation. From the view that business is somehow bad, to the realisation that all enterprise is social. From condemnation of profit, to an understanding that it is a measure of the value created for others. From fear of bearing risk, to the truth, that the search to create value for other people is the foundation of worthwhile community. From waiting for the State to decide and provide, to energetic, innovative mutual support.

For me, the Big Society is about people having more to do with one another and the government less. It is about rediscovering the Golden Rule, the ethic of reciprocity which has underpinned so many traditions and communities and which was famously stated as:

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Those who sneer at the Big Society are sneering at the foundations of civilisation. They are dangerously mistaken.

Further reading

C S Lewis, The Abolition of Man, in which Lewis considers the Tao, the traditional body of natural law, and efforts to abandon it. My summary is here. 

On the choice between society or government, see Albert Jay Nock's classic, Our Enemy, The State (PDF).

Islam and modern society (German edition)

Whilst I was in Germany this weekend, Thilo Sarrazin, a Bundesbank board member, gave an interview to Welt am Sonntag, in which he said that Muslims do not want to fit into German society. Opprobrium rained down on him, with critics combing the statute book to see if he had broken any laws.

Why is this such a controversial statement? Would it be similarly controversial in the United Kingdom?