A class above? - Britain's politicians

The concepts of Parliament and the evolution of the British political system appear to be extremely atypical. The rules of Westminster are dominated by tradition and convention. There is something very British about it all, the fact that there is and has been great disharmony; and yet we seem to get on with it. It does of course have its merits, the fact it is very flexible and nothing is entrenched in a written constitution. Of course, many people – mainly on the left – would say it is inherently unfair on the minority. Andrew Neil’s television programme about British politics being run by an Etonian and Oxbridge mafia highlighted the fact that the traditional routes taken by previous politicians are now redundant and the aggrandising of the professional politician is now pervasive.

This new breed of politicians has climbed the slippery pole through internships and research posts at Conservative or Labour Party HQ, to become advisers and then establish themselves as politicians. The issue Neil saw was that this coterie were emerging all from elite institutions that were becoming breeding grounds for future Ministers. Cameron, David and Ed Miliband, Osborne, Balls and Hague all read PPE at Oxford and generally followed the same route into politics. The argument is this: do our politicians, all coming from wealthy backgrounds, lack a real understanding of what politics is about at the grassroots? These men are extremely intelligent and have a great understanding of political theory and ideology; but does it justify them to make decisions on behalf of people they don’t particularly understand.

I think the problem of Neil’s examination is that he posed some questions but he didn’t really go anywhere with it. Surely we should be asking if there are so many old Etonians in the cabinet, then what happened to people like John Major and Gordon Brown. All these former Prime Ministers went through grammar schools, a selective institution that nurtured generations of pupils with a real possibility of high office. The irritable question that no one pointed out was that grammar schools worked, it was the secondary modern system that didn’t, creating a fault line that neither political party wanted to remain. It is a case that private education has maintained high standards whilst comprehensives had to adapt themselves to a universal education policy.

Perhaps it is just a case that this argument was more ‘explosive’ because of the news earlier on the day regarding the economy. For people struggling to make money in today’s climate, it may be seen as naive for Mr Osborne to blame the woes of the economy on the weather (How British!) The departures of the so-called working class influences of Andy Coulson and Alan Johnson only made the point a bit stronger. Historically, we must remember, it has been an easy gimmick to question someone’s experience or upbringing for political barracking; I don’t think this week’s analysis should detract away from that. Also after so much scrutiny regarding patronage and expenses, a great deal of effort has been made by all parties to regain public trust and enhance participation. As many commentators agree, the new faces within Westminster have a good grounding in the outside world and at a local level. I think ultimately we should be able to trust our politician’s judgement and their political record, not just their academic background because if you don’t like them then you can always vote them out.

America: she will bounce back.

It is becoming self-evident that Americans believe themselves to be in decline. Many are now thinking that the next generation of Americans will be poorer than their parents. It appeared to be inevitable that America would be caught up economically by the population-heavy likes of China and India but is it possible that there is a decline in cultural identity and that Americans are losing their ability to understand what being American is all about.

After America’s defeat of Soviet Communism that led it to become the world’s only superpower, it appeared not to have even reached its apogee. Over the next few years the world looked to America’s vision and leadership over global events. As American backed democracy helped paint the world in new shades of hope and freedom, the US-led coalition defeated Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War; the American dream was living, loudly and proudly. September the 11th changed all that, it made Americans question why people would want to attack them and their country. The War on Terror showed that it was incapable of fighting all wars by itself and the rhetoric of omnipotence was as apocryphal as the enemy itself.

We now know that the Soviet economic plan was flawed and struggling before the words Glasnost and Perestroika entered our political discourse. Perhaps the immediate struggle is the idea that China, using a similar economic model to the US, is now competing to overtake her in political, economic and military stakes. Even Napoleon said ‘When China wakes, she will shake the world.’ America cannot begin to compete at the same economic revolution that is propelling China forward. The ideological battle of the free West against the shackled East appears to be fragmenting in round two.

Many Americans hold proud the idea that to be American was to be winner in the lottery of life; though it is something President Obama holds with a deal of relativism. People forget that these words were being uttered a century before by an Englishman in a similar position.

An abandoned factory in Detroit, Michigan.
http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2010/06/rust-belt-road-trip-75-urban-decay-pics/

Many Americans hold dear that being American is not a nationality, it is an ideal. A place where no one is judged, the land of opportunity; something we see every day when watching an American film. Is this what America is struggling with? The idea that it may no longer be ‘great’ and that is being usurped by foreign powers. The more acerbic members of The Tea Party movement saw the founding fathers and constitution as divine and cannot concede to inferiority, particularly if it is God-given. The great industrial hearts of Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cleveland – the factories of the Midwest – are rusting into economic grapes of wrath. Even on television, the anachronistic films starring John Wayne or Bruce Willis – the American good guys – are being replaced with a different view of America – Mad Men during its rise to The Wire showing its fractured soul. Even America’s own portrait is distorting.

Yet despite America’s political upheaval in recent years it is still the place where people want to go and fulfil their lives. It is still generating ideas that are transforming the way we live our lives i.e. Facebook, Google and Apple. The world is becoming multilateral and American ideas are propelling it forward, despite the economic setbacks of recent years. America must remember the dark hours during the Civil War and Pearl Harbour, it did emerge stronger. America is changing: ethnically, culturally and evolving politically; it must meet the challenges economically. The world doesn’t get excited over Chinese state visits or Indian trade missions; they look to Presidential visits and the excitement of going to America. America cannot be cleansed of its soul in a decade, the world owes it too much and it will fight back.

Foreign trade: The moral or economic good?

An interesting story bypassed the news agenda last week that could affect British interests in the future. The Chinese vice Premier Li Keqiang visited London and other parts of the EU to sign multi-billion pound trade agreements. He was also trying to rebuild China’s image after the Nobel Peace Prize, where the winner Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese pro-democracy campaigner, was absent through house arrest. China is opening its frontiers to the world and formulating its own foreign policy, proscribed to be undermining the work of many Western Governments insisting on human rights and education, compared to China’s open trade policy with any nation. To what extent can countries like the UK lecture other nations about human rights, yet trade openly with them. Can foreign policy in any way be idealistic or does pragmatism rule the waves. In any instance, self-interest or supranationalism is always going to affect one party.

Anglo-Sino relations have historically been fractured. The Chinese have always felt that British global hegemony had subjugated their proud traditions and the effects of two 19th century opium wars humiliated the Chinese Emperor and its people. These measures saw the frosty handover in 1997 of Hong Kong, in what the British saw as the end of Empire and the Chinese saw as a return to status quo. Almost 15 years after the handover, to what extent can Britain lecture China about human rights, not because of its own colonial past but more the obvious economic and cultural gulf between the two nations. There have been run ins over the past few years; the former Climate Change Secretary and now Labour leader Ed Miliband, angered the Chinese Government over his comments that they had destroyed potential negotiations at the Copenhagen Summit in 2009. Ties were broken off after the UK saw Chinese policy in Zambia as a form of colonialism and then there is the continuous argument that perpetuates over Tibet.

The ultimate goal of foreign policy between countries, effectively nowadays, is to pursue trade and maintain friendly relations. Realists identify with this and the dictum of 19th century Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston is often quoted, “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” Newer forms of diplomacy like the one pursued by American President Woodrow Wilson through the advent of the League of Nations ultimately failed, and failed disastrously because of the self-interest of individual states. The EU and other trading blocs have been more successful because the financial incentives are axiomatic. The pursuit of a moral foreign policy has been unsuccessful because no matter how pressing an issue is, if 5000 defence jobs are lost because of a philosophical foreign secretary then the people will call for his head. The idealistic legacy of William Gladstone perhaps is something to learn from history. A grand social reformer at home, but his dogmatic pursuit of Christian interventionalism saw him fail to convince other nations that it was for the moral good. Something his indefatigable rival Benjamin Disraeli saw from the Opposition benches as naive. Perhaps the belief the world can be shaped by universal truths is a failing itself.

It is therefore in Britain’s interests to be trading with countries like Libya. There is the obvious financial benefit but there is a diplomatic discourse that breeds ideas. Opening economic borders opens groups to the realms of democracy and free speech. China learnt in South Africa, a country with a history of human rights abuses, that it cannot expect South African workers to work in the same conditions as its Chinese counterparts. Britain will continue to increase trade in China, Turkey and Russia but it will be well aware that in the aftermath of recession the pound speaks louder than a human rights lobby.

England's Cricketing Industrial Revolution

It appears that English cricket has not even reached its zenith. After years of being shackled by our own colonial ancestors we have liberated ourselves from historical dogmas, in what can only be called a thrashing. Perhaps the most famous series of them all, Bodyline, was not remembered for England’s resounding 3-1 series victory, but for the perceived ‘ungentlemanly’ behaviour of the English fast-bowlers. The 2010 series will be remembered for the simple reason that England were a fantastic all round cricket team, but are there any particular reasons why and if anything could be learnt?

Let us not forget this series win was not purely founded on one win in Australia. It is the culmination of reform from the top down of English cricket over the past ten years, in a period that was not easy. The series defeat to New Zealand in 1999 was the summer when the whole system imploded as England officially became the world’s worst Test side. Through the 1990s, England were a decent team, they had good players e.g. Stewart, Thorpe, Gough and certainly, but as a force in test and one day internationals they were moving nowhere. The initiation of central-contracts was part of the first steps to re-professionalise cricket and change the relationship between the county and national system. The contracts were given to the country’s best players, whilst future talent joined the England Academy in winter camps. It made the players full-time England internationals rather than county players that represent England.

The results spoke for themselves with away wins in West Indies, Pakistan and South Africa, culminating in the 2005 Ashes victory. Much of England’s success came through the television contracts with Sky Television. The most recent deal in 2008 saw Sky pay £300 million for a four-year contract, with full coverage of England plus the domestic season too. The other success is the adoption of foreign coaches and importantly their ideas. The appointment of the head coaches Duncan Fletcher and then Andy Flower, both Zimbabweans, have improved the management and training practises.

In some ways this mini-cricketing revolution could be compared to the Industrial Revolution throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The money from Sky is a sore point for traditionalists because matches can only be watched through a monthly subscription, but this money has allowed England to progress. It pays for the coaches, the contracts and the money hitting grassroots cricket. In the industrial revolution it was the money of entrepreneurs that built the canals and the factories, not the government of the day. Watching a programme on Sky the other day called ‘How England won the Ashes’ showed how the money has helped design bowling technologies that reproduce the deliveries of potential opponents. It reminded me of the investment in the British Army during this period that helped produce new weapons like shrapnel shells. There is no irony that in an environment where there is entrepreneurialism it produces more ideas and subsequently inventions, think of America in the twentieth century.

Historically, it is argued that the Britain began to decline in the late nineteenth century. As rivals began to catch up e.g. Germany and America, they were educating their youngsters in science, engineering and maths, whilst Britain failed to adapt its education policy to the likes of its rivals. Many of these countries adopted policies of economic protectionism. Britain and its Empire boosting other growing world economies, whilst they prevented overseas investment. The English cricket team have learnt from this lesson to become the World's best Test team. However, they must continue to revolutionise their methods and ensure to employ the best coaches and innovate their training, like the British cycling team. They must understand the consequences of history and build on this success.

After war: Post Combat Trauma Stress

I have just started watching Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg’s World War Two miniseries ‘The Pacific’. As a narrative perspective it is easy to conclude that ‘Band of Brothers’, the 2001 series set in the grey clouds of Europe, is better and for many reasons. The war in Europe had its obvious heroes and villains and moral structures of good versus evil. These were typified by acts such as the liberation of Paris to the discovery of the death camps in Hitler’s blood lands. The Pacific war did not breathe the romance of liberating Europe; it was a war of attrition. US Marines launching seaborne assaults on isolated islands in the hope of flushing out a determined and virulent enemy. It was savage and neglected and often distorted by the realms of Hollywood and the denouement in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We have a Hollywood interpretation of the brutality of war but have time for those who gave their lives for such causes. Yet there appears to be great neglect to those mentally scarred by war. In recent years the National Arboretum was erected in Staffordshire to commemorate the war dead and much publicity and charity has been made of sites like Headley Court, dedicated to help injured soldiers recover after life-threatening injuries. The toils and scars from the death and blasts in World War One are etched in our memories through the poems of Sassoon, Owen and Graves; yet the legacy was vivid in the minds of those who survived the front only to face a hell from within. The British Army identified around 80,000 men suffered from the exposure to such atrocities, many of their wounds would never heal and they ended up in asylums.

Figures show that more American soldiers have committed suicide in the past decade than have been killed in combat in Afghanistan. Post-traumatic combat stress (PTCS), as it has now been identified, has caused countless dedicated men to turn their lives to drugs, alcohol and crime.

It is estimated that around 20,000 veterans are within the criminal justice system and that 10% of the prison population is filled with former soldiers. There is an argument that many members of the armed forces came from the fringes of society and that enlisting, cruelly, was the best way to steer clear from crime, but that would be an indictment on the reputations of many these honourable men.

In the last twenty years, the British Army was involved in Iraq twice, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone; all for varying durations with incalculable risks. Young and inexperienced men are entering situations that are abnormal to society, and expect the things they saw, did and became as normal. Perhaps it is understandable that drugs and crime have become their tonic.

It is now normal procedure for decommissioned battalions, who have just seen combat, to spend a fortnight or so unwinding in places like Cyprus, away from the enemy’s bullet and the banalities of family life. After the Falklands War it was noticed that members of the Parachute Regiment, who flew back home, were more likely to suffer PTCS or commit suicide, than members of the Royal Navy who had a two-week journey back to the UK. It is deemed that this decompression is a vital starting step to let soldiers unwind from months of combat.

War is never glamorous and even the bright lights of Hollywood are reflecting on the trials of soldiers in modern-day warfare. We know the sacrifices made in such theatres are heavy on families and communities, but perhaps it is changing our relationship with mental illness as well. We live in a country where the public no longer accepts or understands the need for long drawn-out wars. Most soldiers would acknowledge and fear the ideas of sacrifice but I daresay many would disregard the scars that come with it.