The "art" of opposition

In Britain it is the constitutional duty of the Opposition to oppose – and I must say that Dave and his boys are pretty good at it – especially he and Osborne! With debating skills honed at Eton and St Pauls and Oxford this privileged twosome and the Rara brigade alongside and behind them can usually get the better of dour old Gordon and dull old Alastair. But then Brown and Darling have quite important day jobs – whilst all that Dave and George have to do is to search for the next jibe or epithet or riposte. So it would no doubt be a ripping wheeze to table a motion of no confidence and occupy a bit of parliamentary time and unnecessarily divert the Prime Minister and his colleagues from the important task of actually running something (the country, as it happens). “Running something” is not something that Dave and the boys know much about – never had a proper job you see! But then there was always a ready stash of cash available (still is of course) so they could concentrate on what matters – words not deeds!

Northern Rock in public ownership

Let’s be clear about the key issue here – this is not a failure of Government it is about a failure of capitalism. Of course it does not mean that the Capitalist model is defective – it means that the capitalist model is vulnerable on the margins.

Northern Rock’s failure was a failure entirely attributable to greedy and incompetent management who had no feel for their “stakeholders” or for the world in which they operated. Greed? Well just look at the obscene salaries (etc.) that they saw fit to pay themselves. Incompetent? Of course, no vision, no alternative scenarios - no hope!

How has Government handled it? Well the thought that the ridiculous Branson could be anywhere involved just shows how much there was clutching at straws. Government had assumed that there were checks and balances in the financial systems that would preclude the possibility of a Northern Rock situation. There were not. When ignorance, greed and incompetence rules then even Government cannot cope.

There was no alternative to nationalisation. That was obvious ages ago (well said Vince Cable). But let’s lay the blame where it is right to do so. On a system that trusts entrepreneurs (why?) and on a culture that allows these parasites to reward themselves obscenely before retreating in the face of “events” to their comfy houses and their generous pensions.

Hewlett Packard's throwaway world

To someone of my generation (baby boomer) today’s “throwaway” world comes as a bit of a shock. In short if something goes wrong you don’t repair it you replace it. Indeed in some case it doesn’t even have to go wrong – just be out of fashion or lacking in the latest features. Here’s a personal and to me a particularly damning example. About fourteen months ago my two-year-old Philips ink jet printer suddenly stopped behaving properly. The chap that helps me with my computing recommended that I junk it and buy a good quality replacement and the man at PC World recommended a Hewlett Packard (HP) “All-in-one” machine. It was £250, much more expensive than similar printers but it did a lot and was from HP, one of the global leaders in computer printers, so I bought it.

A few weeks ago the HP printer started to go wrong – after just fourteen months of use. PC World didn’t want to know - I hadn’t bought extended warranty from them so they washed their hands of it and they wouldn’t even look at it – at any price. The told me to get in touch with HP. I phoned the HP “help line” who gave me three or four numbers of “authorised” repairers to call. After an hour of fruitless phoning none of HP’s recommended companies would, like PC World, even agree to look at the printer. “We don’t do that model” was the usual reply. This for a standard top-of-the range printer that was only 14 months old! So I phoned the HP “help” line again and told them what had happened. “Try the Yellow pages” said the helpful assistant! Now at this stage I suspect that less dogged customers would just have given up and thrown the bloody thing away. But I decided to persevere and eventually found an HP repair specialist who agreed to look at the machine – in return for a diagnostic service payment of £52! A day or so later they phone back to tell me that the printer head was faulty and that it couldn’t be repaired at all.

When I wrote to HP’s UK MD to tell him the story (baby boomers don’t drop things lightly and we can’t bring ourselves to throw things away - especially when they are little more than a year old) instead of a detailed written reply I got a phone call from a oxymoronically named “Customer Service” assistant who informed me that as the printer was out of warranty there was nothing that they could do (I paraphrase, but only a bit)! He could give me some phone numbers to try…! Of course these were the same numbers that I had fruitlessly called a week earlier – as the Afghan proverb has it “Life moves in circles”!

Vote for Ken !

I will be voting without a qualm for Ken Livingstone for the positive reason that he has an excellent record and the negative reason that I can’t think of any pseudo-politician that I would less like to see in the job than Boris.

Let’s start with the positives. Livingstone has devoted his life to London. Shamefully treated by Margaret Thatcher in the petty and vindictive fight that she chose to pick over the role of the GLC Ken has risen from this setback to be the man who more than anyone has made London the great city it is today. Livingstone is the type of man who makes me think that politics can still be a noble profession. Why? Because Ken does things that matter and that make a difference. Unlike those in the land of the bland who need focus groups and advisors to tell them what to do Ken does it because he believes in it. He isn’t always right, of course – that’s the risk that conviction politicians have to take. But he is more often right than wrong. There are plenty of examples but the Congestion Charge is the best. How all of Ken’s enemies were standing on the sidelines (their customary position) to jeer in expectation of failure. How many Telegraph pieces and saloon bar gossipers were saying that it wouldn’t work, that it couldn’t work and that, as a result, the Mayor’s days were numbered. But it did work without a blip. Since the London plan was introduced, in 2003, vehicle speeds in the city’s central business district have increased by thirty-seven per cent and carbon-dioxide emissions from cars and trucks have dropped by fifteen per cent. One of the world’s greatest cities has a traffic management system that is the envy of the others– and without Ken Livingstone it wouldn’t have happened!

Now the negatives about Boris Johnson. Anyone, like me, who was privately educated and grew up in the post war years on a diet of Bunter and Biggles, knows the type. We didn’t have too many at my public school, actually – maybe it was too minor. But Eton turns them out by the Daimler-load. For years the Conservative party was led by these patricians – a long almost unbroken line from Salisbury to Home had the Noblesse that only Eton or Harrow or Rugby can bring. Sometimes there was a bit of the “Oblige” with the Noblesse - generally when an election was in the offing. And now, in the depths of their distress at being out of office so long, the Tories have reverted to type. The Bullingdon boys, Cameron, Osborne and Johnson are on the march! I don’t doubt that they are clever – if you pay £25,000 a year for your education that’s the least that a parent has a right to expect. But will the sensible British public be seduced by the fluffy hair and the well-modulated voices? Will they be fooled into thinking that the ability to govern in modern Britain is somehow helped by a privileged upbringing? Or will they feel, as I do, that what we look for in our leaders today is more than an easy manner and a patrician smile.

Disappointing McCain

Why does McCain need to spout the intellectually shallow conservative rhetoric that he now seems ready to opine? He’s got the nomination all but sown up without the need to compromise his values or try and unwind his positions. True the Bushies and (worse) the NeoCon fraudsters can’t stand the man. But by moving even an inch or two in their direction he risks looking no more than an opportunist. If the new Republican Party is going to be McCain’s then why would he try and keep on board those symbols of failure – the Texas mafia and the Wolfowitz mobsters whose days are numbered? Does he really think that the conservative Right is going to desert him come November in favour of Hillary or Obama? Does he really believe that the repulsive religious Right will do the same (therefore that he needs the shallow and foolish Huckabee as a running mate?)

If McCain does go pragmatist on us and start to try and embrace the remnants of Bush’s failed, discredited and fallen regime then he risks not just damaging his own status and credibility but of alienating the moderates who he must corral if he is to have a chance in the General Election.

Letter from London 28th Augusr 2006

Letter from London 28th August 2006 for the "Bahrain Tribune"

In a speech in America on 30th July Tony Blair said that “…for modern politicians, many of the policy prescriptions cross traditional left/right lines…on policy cross-dressing is rampant and is a feature of modern politics that will stay. The era of tribal political leadership is over…across a range of issues, there is no longer a neat filing of policy to the left or the right”. This was a precise précis of the present political reality, one that sees the leader of the Conservatives seeming to be a liberal and the leadership of the Labour Party very conservative indeed, at times!

Superficially beliefs used to drive British political parties much more predictably than they do today but, in reality, the truth has always been that there are only two manifesto alternatives. You either propose to do “better things”, or you propose to “do things better”. Historically it was usually the former option which ruled, at least in the rhetoric. The parties were distinguished by their radically different ideologies and the “better things” that divided them were polar opposites – socialism versus liberal conservatism; public ownership versus free enterprise and so on. In government these ideological imperatives were usually tempered a little (or a lot) - although there were occasional reforming administrations which drove forward a radical mandate for change. The 1945-1950 Labour government (Atlee) and the 1979-1983 Conservative (Thatcher) period are rare examples where a strong measure of ideology ruled. But these are the exceptions and most of modern British history has been characterised by middle ground consensus. In particular once the welfare state was in place there emerged a consensus that it was worth preserving. The battle for government providing public services and a measure of economic security to its citizens was won – so the debate then became about how to make it work better, not whether it should exist all.

The Labour Party took a while to cast off its dogmatic socialist baggage but it was Tony Blair’s first great triumph that it did so to such an extent that he became electable. This was symbolised by the removal from the Labour Party constitution of its Clause IV which had committed it to “…the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange” (i.e. to public ownership of much of the economy). In effect this change only formalised what had long since been the consensus – that Britain is a mixed economy and that it is not the task of Government to be directly involved in industry or in (most) of the service sector. The early Thatcher years, dominated by worship of the free-market and (according to her opponents) by greed had challenged this consensus, but under her latest successor (David Cameron) the middle ground has been reclaimed as Conservative territory. Cameron knows that the days when you could win elections from the fringes have probably gone for good and that by appealing to the prejudices of your core supporters (as all recent Conservative leaders have done on such matters as immigration and taxation) you make yourselves unelectable. So at the next election Cameron is most unlikely to run with any radical new policy initiatives – he is more likely to claim that he will do broadly the same things as Labour, but do them much more competently - that he will “do things better”, not do “better things”.

Letter from London 25th July 2006

For the "Bahrain Tribune"

On the final day of the Lord's Pakistan cricket Test match a small part of the Grandstand was colonised by around a hundred or so noisy and unmistakable Pakistan supporters. These were not, of course, the equivalent of the travelling "Barmy Army" - here on a cricket supporters visit from Karachi or Lahore. No - they were nearly all young people of Pakistani descent who were, I suspect, mostly born, bred and living in Britain - and with British Passports tucked away back home. Now in a country with Britain's freedoms these Pakistan supporters are entitled to support whatever sports team they like. That is their right. I just wish that, in sporting terms, they could be committed to the country of their chosen future rather than the country of their ancestors. I wish that they shared the pride of many in their communities when a cricketer of Asian origins (Sajid Mahmood for example) gets into the England team.

Now before anyone tries to "Colonel Blimp" me for holding these views let me explain a little further. If, at my advanced years, I emigrated to Australia (a country I like very much) and even became an Australian citizen it would not stop me from supporting England in The Ashes. Contradiction? Not at all. You do not cast off your personal allegiances of fifty years or more just because you relocate to another country. Once a Pom, always a Pom. But if I had children born and educated and working in Australia I would expect them (encourage them) to support the Aussies.

Sport, even cricket, is essentially trivial but in the case of nationality and allegiance sport can be a force for good, binding people of different backgrounds and cultures together in a common cause. When Sajid Mahmood's cousin Amir Khan won a silver medal in the boxing at the Athens Olympics I rejoiced along with him and his family who, whilst of a very different background to me, are all now as authentically British as I am. And there is certainly no more patriotic Englishman than Nasser Hussain (and his father Jo for that matter) notwithstanding their Indian origins.

So sport can be a force for good in binding people together whether it be in the England team (with their disparate national and cultural backgrounds) or those who support them in the stands. So why if you were born and raised in (say) Bolton of parents who emigrated from Pakistan would you support Pakistan and not England? It is emphatically not the same as your choice as to whether to support Bolton Wanderers or Manchester United. The reason any of us supports one club football team rather than another are many and varied and rarely even remotely contentious. But to openly reject supporting the national football or cricket team - the one that represents the country of your birth and of your nationality is a very different matter. All too often the failure of a young person, born in England and who grew up here, to support our national sports teams is an act of protest and a sign that he is, to a degree, alienated from his country. And yes, notwithstanding the triviality of sport, that alienation does matter and is potentially very disturbing.

Now this argument begins to get a bit heavy. Had the young Yorkshireman (born and bred in Leeds) Mohammad Sidique Khan chosen to express his discomfort with the British way of life by wearing a Pakistan cricket shirt and cheering on Pakistan at Headingley this August few would have given his actions a moments thought. But that was not Mr Khan's choice - he chose to express his alienation as a suicide bomber on a Circle Line train in London on 7th July 2005. Mr Khan's actions were those of someone on the lunatic fringe of the alienated but they stemmed, nevertheless, from the same basic causal roots as the entirely innocent actions of those Britons who choose to support Pakistan rather than England at a cricket match.

I have never believed that, in Britain, cultures should be subsumed into some bland, generic "Britishness" that is predominately white and Anglo-Saxon and has broadly "Christian" values. I enjoy the diversity of modern Britain and don't want it to change. But I do believe that this diversity can co-exist with a common pride in our nation and our nationality that all can share whatever our backgrounds. And I also believe that to support our national cricket team, irrespective of our origins or roots, can be a spur to the reduction of alienation and to unity. The less alienated any of us feels the more likely it is that the extreme expressions of alienation, such as that which happened in London on 7/7/05, will be less likely to happen again.

Letter from London 6th June 2006

For the Bahrain Tribune"

Shock horror in leafy London suburb – our neighbours are flying two red-crossed England flags from the windows of their car! My wife, who has this disarming habit of finding good in anybody, says that it must be for the children (they have two small boys). But in reality such things are not really done in the better post codes. The English class system of norms exists today as much as it ever did and (frankly my dear) the overt display of the cross of St George from your car is undoubtedly infra dig. Mind you it gives the chaps in the saloon bars or at the golf club another weapon against the great unwashed: “It’s the bloody white vans that always fly the things” a large G&T said to me at my local. “It’s very dangerous, they could fly off and injure someone” said the “pint of Best” standing alongside him. “True, true” I mused “but what can you do?”

Actually it is not just on the cars that this display of national fervour has broken out – the England flag is on houses, garages, pubs, shops – nobody wants to miss out on this opportunity to show our support for the boys in Germany. Aside from the chance it gives the more moneyed classes to pass scorn on the masses this overt exhibition of national fervour is quite an interesting phenomenon. Although England is quite a small country the regional differences are considerable. We were at a wedding in Yorkshire last week and although the social milieu was not much different from Surrey it was a world apart. People were naturally friendly to start with. I am a reasonably outgoing person and when I instigate a conversation with a stranger in the “home counties” I am often looked at with surprise and suspicion (Am I mad? Have we been introduced?). In Yorkshire there was no such reserve. Such regional variations of behaviour and attitude are very marked indeed and make it difficult to describe what “Englishness” really is.

The clichéd answer to anyone who points out that we are far from “One Nation” and that social rank differences and regional variations make us English far from homogenous is to say that we all bind together when we need to and that certain things always “unite us”. Such rhetoric is usually illustrated by some reference to when (in 1940) we “stood alone” and how the spirit of the Blitz was the true sprit of Englishness. I’m suspicious of all this because even sport (which you might think could be genuinely unifying) is actually quite strongly delineated along class lines. Rugby Union and Tennis are for the toffs or aspirant toffs of the middle classes. Football and Rugby League are for the worker ants (the ones that fly the flags from their white vans). Cricket and Horse Racing is for both, but a sort of social apartheid rules at the grounds and the racecourses with the middle classes drinking wine in the comfortable enclosures and the hoi polloi swigging lager on the terraces. Oh to be in England!

Letter from London 20th May 2006

For the “Bahrain Tribune”

I attended the Annual General Meeting of Shell (the corporation that I worked for for nearly forty years) last week and suspect that I was not the only person present to wonder if I had wandered into a parallel world which had the superficial appearance of normality – but was, in fact, almost completely alien. The AGM was being beamed to us in London from The Hague where the head office of the “new” Shell is located. The video and sound quality was good so we could see and hear the board clearly – although we could not see the whites of their eyes. After a while I began to wonder if in fact some new digital technology was in use that had created images of people who did not really exist – animatronic directors who had been programmed to behave in a certain way that was superficially convincing until you realised that nothing that they said made sense at all. The computer programming was very clever because when someone from the audience asked a question there was a brief moment as the speech recognition software cut in before the programmed answer came from the director’s mouth. Sometimes the answer actually related to the question but more often than not it related to a question that the software thought that the questioner should have asked (rather that the one that he actually did).

Shell has been through a hard time in recent years with scandals and dysfunctional behaviour and management incompetence that almost defies belief (one project has escalated in cost from $8billion to $20billion over the past year – an increase roughly equivalent to the GDP of Lebanon!). And yet with oil at $70 a barrel the profits carry on in and the directors richly reward themselves for their “success” – even the CEO they fired for mendacity and incompetence a few years ago rolls along happily on a pension of $750k a year. So institutions like Shell seem to suffer from mid-life crises and hubris just like we do as individuals. Shell is a long way from resolving their crises (indeed they seem in denial that there is still a problem at all – no mention was made of the reputation damage of the past few years at the AGM by the robot directors). The same can be said of Tony Blair and his tottering British government.

A little under a year ago Blair had an impressive week when he was the crucial factor in getting London the 2012 Olympics, when he handled with dignity and determination the London bombings and when as President of the G8 he hosted world leaders in Scotland. That week seems distant history now and there is the whiff of decay around Blair and his team. The real problem is not (just) that some of his ministers are inept and/or morally weak but that Blair himself is saddled with the ghastly reality of his foolish decision to back President Bush over Iraq. Unless and until, Blair admits that he was catastrophically wrong to have done this then there will be no closure. But one common factor of mid-life crises is that those who are mired in them never apologise and never explain. Perhaps Blair should look for a place on the board of Shell when he finally does retire as Prime Minister – he would certainly be at home there!

Letter from London 10th April 2006

For the “Bahrain Tribune”

The two lead items on the evening news here in Britain last Sunday were Iraq and the Italian elections. The first story was President Mubarak of Egypt saying that Iraq had now deteriorated into civil war. The Italian election story was how Prime Minister Berlusconi may win re-election as a result of his iron grip on much of the Italian media through his company's ownership of newspapers and TV stations. There is no obvious connection between these two stories - until, that is, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw unintentionally provided one. Iraq is not in a state of civil war, said Straw, on the contrary they are reaping the benefits of democracy.

The "D" word democracy is brazenly used by American and British leaders to justify their disastrous military involvement in Iraq, an involvement that has without question created the civil war conditions that Mubarak so accurately described. The tens of thousands of dead, dispossessed, orphaned and maimed Iraqi citizens are the price, according to this warped ideology, that has to be paid for the welcome benefits of "democracy". Meanwhile a western European country that has enjoyed these benefits for decades is ruled by a man with criminal convictions and whose brand of democratic government involves the effective suppression of the opposition parties' rights to a level playing field to communicate their messages in an election. That the democracy in Italian is a sham is a metter for the Italians I suppose. That the so-called democracy in Iraq is equally an illusion is in many ways the least of the problems brought to the country on the back of American and British armies of occupation.

I realise, of course, that there can always be the accusation that to criticise the American and British actions in Iraq can be seen to be wise after the event and to have been made in the light of the current civil war. But many of us who opposed this action from the start did so at least in part because we feared that in the vacuum created by occupation it was inevitable that Shiite/Sunni rivalries would burst into open conflict. I was personally on record in saying this, as were many other commentators who knew the Middle East well. To have lived in the region for many years gives all of us the opportunity not only to learn about the nature of the region and its many and varied communities, but also to see that the western model of government (which is what Bush and Blair mean by "democracy") has little place in the region. To suggest that a parliamentary style of government, based on political parties and an adversarial style is appropriate for much of the Middle East is just plain ignorant. And to impose it on a country like Iraq, and to justify this imposition even when chaos is all around, is not just naïve - it is criminal.

So the next time the benighted Anglo-Saxon politicians of each side of the Atlantic prattle on about how smart they are to have brought democracy to Iraq it might be right to ask them a question. Do they really truly believe that the imposition of this western governance model (which as we can see is deeply flawed even in their own backyard of Italy) has been worthwhile in the light of everything else that has happened? And (more importantly) whether it will endure five minutes when the American and British troops eventually scuttle home.

Letter from London 16th March 2006

from the Bahrain Tribune

Back in London after my flying visit to Bahrain for the Grand Prix I regard myself as very lucky to have been part of the event and to have been able to report on it for Tribune readers. You will know that I was pretty enthusiastic about what I saw not just the excellent circuit and facilities but also the terrific hospitability of the Bahrainis and expatriates who looked after me. British F1 driver Jensen Button clearly thinks that Bahrain is a pretty cool place to chill out for a while (having bought a house there) and I can now see why.

My trip started well with an excellent flight with Gulf Air from Heathrow. In my once business career I was accustomed to Club Class travel and became a little spoilt. But in my new life as a (mainly) sporting hack it has to be travel in the back of the plane – and with Gulf Air very good it was as well. Gulf Air once had a pretty terrible reputation in the region, but in the last few years (judging from my experience) they have got their act together in a big way. Their sponsorship of the Grand Prix was exemplary and I found my flights to and from London comfortable and even enjoyable. Service was good and friendly and even the seats were comfortable and the food not at all bad. It is this experience (of which you old Bahrain hands are perhaps familiar) that prompts me in this epistle to give you some good advice if you are planning to visit Europe this summer. Be very careful with whom you book your internal European flights!


My wife and I travel frequently to Spain and the airport nearest to where we go in Catalunya is dominated by the Irish airline RyanAir. There are other ways to get to our destination, but Ryanair’s airport is by far the most convenient. If you travel frequently with this carrier you get to know their idiosyncrasies. Although their flights are cheap (if you are flexible on dates and times) they will always be looking for new ways to fleece you. Flying out to Spain we had a fair amount of luggage, but returning we had very little so we were clearly going to be well within the 30Kg allowance for the two of us for check in baggage. We put one suitcase inside the other to make handling for us (and the airline) easier and approached the check in desk at Girona. The bag was weighed and it was only 16kg – a big 14kg within the limit for the two of us. But no, RyanAir has a new rule that each passenger must be within the limit and a couple flying together cannot aggregate - so our one and only case was one kilogram over the limit! Have you ever heard of this scam before? No, nor had we. So we either had to pay excess baggage for one Kilo or take one of the bags out of the other one and check in two pieces of luggage instead of one. The two pieces would, of course, still weigh 16kg but would now be subject to twice the handling and take up twice the space on the plane.

Now all of us are under some pressure when travelling and even very frequent travellers like me can buckle under the pressure occasionally. I protested about the absurdity of this new RyanAir imposed rule whilst fighting to turn our one check in bag into two to satisfy them. My protest (which whilst not mild, was not an out and out rant) caused Miss Girona 1971 at the check in desk to tell my wife and me to go to the back of the line – and she called security to enforce this instruction!

The moral of this tale is please avoid the ghastly RyanAir like the plague (there are dozens more stories to be told, but space and my good humour precludes this). Enjoy Gulf Air and Bahraini/Arab hospitality during your summer vacation – but don’t be tempted by RyanAir. They are a cheap airline in more ways than one.

Letter from London 27th February 2006

Published in the "Bahrain Tribune"

I voted for Ken Livingstone to be Mayor of London in the last mayoral election and I would vote for him again. This is for three main reasons two of which are fairly rational and one of which is more emotional and a tad mischievous. The rational reasons are that Mr Livingstone has really achieved something in his years as Mayor - not least improving London's transport infrastructure significantly. His introduction of electronic road pricing was brave and despite the dire predictions that the system would not work it has been a resounding success. The technology works reliably and central London is much clearer of traffic as a result. Some useful funds have been added to London's income as well. Ken has also greatly improved London's buses and he is also tackling the huge task of getting a better underground railway system. The second rational reason is that the Mayor is enthusiastic and unyielding in his pursuit of London's interests and is quite happy to take on Government or anybody else who he sees standing in the city's way. It was this enthusiasm that led to Ken's unequivocal support for the London 2012 Olympic bid - a key factor in the bid's success.

The emotional and mischievous reason for my veneration of Ken Livingstone is that the sort of people that oppose him are just the sort of people who it is always a pleasure to annoy! Ken is a hate figure for all of those who define personal freedom as the freedom to do what they like and when they like without "vulgar people like Ken Livingstone" interfering. So they are affronted that it now costs them money to drive their Four wheel drive gas guzzlers into London and by the various other "losses of liberty" that they see from the Greater London Authority's rulings. That the London bus service is improved is of no interest to this privileged mob as they wouldn't be seen dead on a bus anyway.

The newspapers of choice for the Ken Livingstone hate brigade are those owned by "Associated Newspapers" - the Daily Mail and the London Evening Standard. These newspapers have attacked Ken for more than thirty years, often in the vilest of terms. It was this history that led to the Mayor's intemperate outburst at a reporter last year - an outburst that has got Livingstone into trouble and for which he has now been suspended from office for a month. Whilst the Mail and the Standard and their petty-minded readerships will be crowing with pleasure this is not the position of the political world which has roundly condemned the fact that an unelected quango can remove from office a democratically elected Mayor. Livingstone's opponents may well rue the day that this suspension happened because Ken is at his best when his back is against the wall. He will turn this indignity to his advantage you can be sure - and I for one will cheer when he does!

Letter from London 11th February 2006

As published in the "Bahrain Tribune"

The new leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, is intent on imprinting on the minds of the electorate that he is to be the new master of the ideological and pragmatic centre ground – in effect Tony Blair’s logical successor. Keener students of British politics will not be surprised by Cameron’s stance – although it is unusual for a Conservative leader to embrace a broadly social democratic agenda quite so openly. “Social justice and economic efficiency are the common ground of British politics” Cameron said recently and modern history (not just Blair) teaches us that he is right. Certainly if it is power that you want then it is in the moderate centre ground where you have to be seen to live.


Apart from a brief dalliance with Labour when I was a student in the 1960s I have only once joined a British political party. That was in 1981 when I became a founder member of the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) – a party which promised to “break the mould” of British politics. The party was formally launched on 25th March 1981 by the so-called gang of four (Shirley Williams; Bill Rodgers; David Owen and Roy Jenkins) all of whom were politicians I admired - particularly Jenkins who was my political hero.

The attraction of the SDP to me, and to the thousands of others who became involved in politics for the first time with the SDP, was that the policy positions of the new party seemed rational, moderate, pragmatic and unideological at a time when the main parties had vacated the centre ground. Labour had bizarrely elected the old socialist firebrand Michael Foot as leader the year before signalling a major shift to the hard left. And the Conservatives had in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a leader who had contempt for the consensus politics of the post war years and who was determined to instigate a radical revolution driven by her belief in unbridled capitalism and her conviction that there is there was “no such thing as society”.

In the 1983 General Election the SDP, now in alliance with the old Liberal Party, garnered nearly 8 million votes - more than 25% - but (scandalously) the “first past the post” electoral system gave them a paltry 23 seats in parliament. The party was never a force in British politics again and faded away. But its influence was dramatic because over the next years Labour reformed itself and colonised the centre ground whilst the Conservatives squabbled amongst themselves and generally, until Cameron’s arrival, positioned themselves well to the right of centre.

Twenty-five years after the SDP burst on the scene we now have a broad acceptance of a political ideology by both major parties in Britain that is little different from what the Social Democrats were proposing. So whilst David Owen and his friends never gained power they do have the consolation that the centre ground that they once occupied alone is now very crowded indeed!

Letter from London 29th January 2006

As published in the "Bahrain Tribune"

The way that we greet one another in various languages and cultures says something about our priorities. “As-Salaam-Alaikum”, for example, is courteous as well as pragmatic. If somebody begins a conversation by wishing me peace that is both charming, and disarming - and it would be churlish of me to respond with anything other than wishing my greeter peace in return. The Chinese are also solicitous in their salute which roughly translates as “Have you eaten rice today?” This reflects the Chinese love of food and (perhaps) the fact that famines over the years have meant that all too many Chinese may not have eaten every day. In Britain we invariably mumble some remark about the weather (when, that is, we cannot avoid looking away in embarrassment). “Turned out nice again” or “Dull old day” are classic greetings as is the Scottish “It’s a bit dreich today”. “Dreich” is a word which conveys a feeling of dullness, dampness and gloom – so the Scots (who can be a trifle dour at times) like it very much. It is also a very handy expression in Scotland as it applies there for around 300 days a year - so you don’t really have to make much of a meteorological judgment most of the time!

Quite why we British are so obsessed by the weather I’ve never understood – most of the time it is fairly unremarkable and there are rarely extremes in any of the seasons. Mind you when it is a few degrees above or below the norm the tabloids will explode with hyperbolic headlines like “The Big Freeze goes on” (translates as “It’s cold”) or “Sweltering London” (“It’s hot”). Margaret Thatcher at the time of the Hong Kong negotiations with China called Britain a “cold and cloudy island” and wondered why the Hong Kong Chinese would want to trade “sunny Hong Kong” to come and live here. In fact this last outpost of the empire had a pretty terrible climate (hot and very humid for much of the year). By comparison, for many of us, the British weather is actually a plus not a minus.

Having lived in some extreme climates in my time I am actually pretty happy with what we have in Britain. In Scotland, it is true, you do need to have a phlegmatic personality to cope - but you will be rewarded if you are patient. On a sunny day in the Highlands there is no more beautiful sight on earth than to climb high and look across the Lochs and Glens. A little further south there are similar sensations to be had in the Lake District which so inspired Wordsworth and other English poets. But remember that Wordsworth also wrote of London that “Earth has not anything to show more fair…” than the view from Westminster bridge. The last few days have been cold but sparklingly clear and in the thin air the sun reflects magically from the surface of the freezing Thames. And spring isn’t too far around the corner and our wonderful seasonal cycle will begin again. Have a nice day!

Letter from London 16th January 2006

As published in the "Bahrain Tribune"

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and most likely next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, recently suggested that we should create a "British Day" on which we celebrate our nation. Whereas most other countries have their "Fourth of July" or their "Bastille Day" the British do not - hence Brown's suggestion. On the face of it is a reasonable idea that we should have a "National Day" - after all we are past masters of nationalistic fervour and celebration when we feel like it. So a day on which we our encouraged let our hair down to fly the Union flag might be fun. The problem, however, is that none of us seem terribly sure what it in reality means to be British, which might cause a degree of uncertainty about what it is we are actually celebrating. This confusion about our identity has led to a plethora of recent initiatives that seek to define "Britishness", and to popular television programmes such as "Great Britons" which tried to identify who our most notable countrymen have been.

I am unsure as to whether all this ballyhoo about Britishness is a consequence of a national inferiority complex, or the opposite. Are we being asked again to indulge in that game once mocked by Ogden Nash when he said, "Englishmen know instinctively that what the world needs most is whatever is best for Great Britain"? Nash was writing at a time when Britain was most distinguished from other nations by its Empire. True a little local difficulty in North America in 1776 had meant that we had long since lost one of the Jewels in the Crown, but much of the rest of the world was still coloured pink. And we still felt confident to sing "Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds be spread" to Elgar's great tune in "Land of Hope and Glory".

It is at least arguable that the reason that we have no National Day is that in our DNA is that character trait that, with varying degree of subtlety implies "The English, the English the English are best", and goes on "I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest". (Flanders and Swann). Why do we need a Day every year to simply state the obvious? This vanity can be mercilessly mocked as Noel Coward did when he said "It seems a shame when the English claim the earth, that they give rise to such hilarity and mirth" and we might feel that it has long since been consigned to history. But, to be serious for a moment, I am not sure that this is true. In the years since we lost an empire we have too often been reluctant to give up the conceit not just that as a Nation we are different (a truism that applies to all countries) but that we are "unique" and by implication better. Tony Blair has claimed a "unique" (his word) role for Britain because we are able to be both Atlanticist and European at the same time. The danger, of course, is that we end up neither comfortable with Bush's America (much of which is alien to many of us) nor with a more bureaucratised and united Europe. And so we bumble on professing our uniqueness and occasionally waving our flags but, it seeking to be friends with all, we are actually friends with none.

Letter from London 1st January 2006

As published in the "Bahrain Tribune"

The arrival of David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party has injected a well needed bit of excitement into the dull and predictable world of modern British politics. Whatever your political views the status quo was beginning to get a bit boring. The Labour hegemony was secure with even their loss of seats in the 2005 General Election attributable solely to a switch from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. In a few cases this switch let in the Conservative candidate and the party did make some modest gains in the election. But in reality these were undeserved and it was Charles Kennedy’s LibDems that the Tories had to thank for their modest progress.

Since the fall of Margaret Thatcher in 1990 the Conservatives have had a succession of inept leaders none of whom has captured the public imagination other than as a satirical figure of fun. The party has lost members, votes, seats and any vestige of credibility as a government in waiting. Whatever Tony Blair did (and he did some pretty odd things) Labour seemed secure in office. That has now changed, and whilst the Conservatives still have a mountain to climb, at least they have a leader, who has broken the mould of the succession of faceless, and hopeless, men who preceded him.

Much of Cameron’s current rhetoric is insubstantial and clearly designed to set a tone rather than an agenda. This is shrewd of him - he is well aware that there will not be a General Election in Britain until the year 2009 (at the earliest) and that there will be plenty of time in the years ahead for manifesto building. For now he needs name recognition (the media is helping him willingly to get this) and to establish himself as substantial in the public imagination. It is precisely the route followed by Tony Blair between July 1994 (when he became Labour Party leader) and May 1997 (when he won his first General Election). Cameron and his fellow members of the “Notting Hill” set of Tories are closet admirers of Blair and it is no surprise that they are adopting Blair’s successful methods.

As with Blair and the Labour Party, Cameron does not need to pander to his Party’s core grass roots supporters. In the same way that Blair would never get the vote of Tunbridge Wells man so Cameron will never make progress in the Labour heartlands. So what he needs to do is to win the backing of those who are not natural Conservatives, who have supported Labour and the Lib Dems in recent elections but who are open-minded to the possibility of a Conservative government. By pitching himself as “caring and concerned” he might persuade these floating voters to give him a chance, something his predecessors were quite unable to do. Michael Howard fought a shoddy campaign in last year’s election pandering distastefully to the prejudices of his core supporters (who no doubt loved him for it) whilst putting everybody else off! Cameron’s rush away from the lunatic fringe of Torydom to the very centre of British politics is the opposite of his predecessor’s approach and is wise and pragmatic - but whether it will succeed or not it is, of course, much too early to say.

Letter from London 19th December 2005

As published in the "Bahrain Tribune"

I was at a Sports Journalists’ lunch in London last week when Sebastian Coe made a brief appearance before moving on to a meeting at the House of Commons. He was received by all of us in the packed room with enthusiastic applause which I know was genuine, because there are few more cynical gatherings than the hard nosed hacks that make up the British sporting press. If they put their hands together it is not because they feel obliged to or are being polite. They do it because they mean it! Coe’s achievement in securing the 2012 Olympic Games for the city of London was without any question London’s big moment of the year, and Coe, although born in London, is really a Yorkshireman! And without being over emotional about this, that really is symbolic of why London’s bid eventually prevailed. London is not a parochial regional city but genuinely international. To be a “Londoner” is to be a citizen of the world, and for hundreds of years the city has welcomed and nurtured people from everywhere - even Yorkshire!

In the Olympic bid Coe and his team pitched that London would be an Olympics for the youth of the world, and he had with him a group of children from the London area to symbolise this. This was not contrived, some artificial “rainbow city” confection designed just to win the Games. It was genuinely (albeit cunningly) real and it showed what those of us who live in the city know, that if London is not your first home (as it is mine) it is, or can be, everyone’s second home. And it is this multi-cultural element that really does make us different. The football ground that I most frequently visit is “White Hart Lane”, the home of Tottenham Hotspur. It is not the easiest of grounds to get to and I usually get the tube to “Seven Sisters” and walk – that takes about half an hour and involves passing Jamaican fruit sellers, Halal butchers, Jewish bagel makers, Thai cafes, Cypriot grocers and many many more. If Tottenham is home to peoples from all around the world it is no more so than most of the London districts. That this multi cultural city works without too many problems and that it remains a magnet for travellers and for those (especially the young) looking to improve their life is part of its history and part of its present.
Sebastian Coe’s pitch to the IOC was, of course, designed to emphasise what it good about the city. And to the sceptics the London bid team said (as Ralph McTell wrote in his song “The Streets of London”) “Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London, I’ll show you something to make you change your mind”. And that something is not the Beefeaters in the Tower, the grand buildings or the parks and the boulevards. It is the people.

Letter from London 4th December 2005

As published in the "Bahrain Tribune"

Whether the English are unique in their reserve I cannot be absolutely certain (maybe there is a tribe deep in the South American rain forests similarly aloof) but we do tend to hide away. Our new neighbours have been in their house for three months now, but contact has been restricted (so far) to the odd embarrassed wave. “They seem very nice”, says my wife, an opinion based, presumably, on the fact that they haven’t encroached across the line between our houses nor played loud rock music late into the night. They may be crypto-fascists or planning a revolution, but if they keep themselves to themselves that’s alright.

We are close now to the time of the year when the English are traditionally obliged to actually have some contact with their “friends”. We send, on average, a hundred Christmas cards per household - it’s a chore but it does allow us the illusion that we are “in touch”. “Have you seen David recently?” I said to an old colleague I met by chance. “We exchange Christmas Cards” he said - which presumably meant that there was prima facie evidence that David was still alive. The Christmas Card list is a curious thing. On it, of course, are remote family members and the (for most of us) small number of people that we do regard as close friends. But then there are also the random names who have maintained their card priveledges because they always send us a card as well, and it would be impolite to stop. When we lived abroad the increased postage involved meant that this latter group dwindled to a hard core, but since we have been back in London it has crept up again and some people have mysteriously reappeared. Who the hell are “Jim and Sophie” I asked when looking at this year’s list “Tuscany ‘92, big blonde girl” the wife replied – “Ah that Sophie” I agreed, “yes we should keep in touch with her alright!”

I think that it was when home computers became common that the “Christmas letter” really caught on. These “round robin” epistles are frequently stuck into the Christmas Card envelope and generally itemise, in tedious detail, the events of the last year. The longest I received was eighteen A4 pages using quite a small font, not as you might expect from Tony Blair or David Beckham, but from a retired schoolteacher and keen rambler in Tunbridge Wells. The page and a half in great detail about the repair to his central heating boiler left little to the imagination.

The Christmas letter is, of course, for the benefit of the writer not the recipient. The content is usually less then modest, especially where children are concerned. “Sarah’s second year at Oxford has gone well and she is well on route for a “First”. Where does she get the brains from?” The self-deprecation is usually ironic in such letters. But whilst Christmas letters are almost always awful, they are perhaps better than no contact at all. Maybe we should push one through our new neighbours’ door (or, better still, copies of our last five years letters so that they can really get to know us!).