New Year Reflection
This post was originally going to have a different title, but then the year ended and I still hadn’t actually written it, so something a little bit strange was replaced something bland and generic. Which works as accidental commentary on recent developments in Western consumer capitalism, does it not?
Actually, I’m lying. This post is actually the remains of multiple potential posts strung hastily together and given an irritating and vaguely pretentious gloss. It won’t even really function as anything coherent. I am too arch for my own good, am I not?
Given that a majority of the big news stories of 2011 were some combination or other of tragic, depressing and frightening, the self-indulgent tat that tends to dominate media ‘reviews of the year’ seems even less appropriate than normal. And, yet, pumped out they were, as though there’s nothing wrong in reducing financial meltdown or mass death to sugary nostalgia-fests (and, in the case of BBC News 24, an actual advert. Stay classy guys!) mere months after the events in question happened. You have to wonder why they bother as it’s not as though anyone actually watches (or reads) those things. Doesn’t seem worth tarnishing your soul for, but then I’m not a journalist.
Moving on, somewhat, Václav Havel’s death added a rather mournful tinge to the end of the year, and I’m mentioning it here now because I always liked him. Amidst the the usual platitudes (and, alas, a degree of witless idiocy from fools determined to act as unfunny caricatures) there was a nicely done piece by Michael Billington that is well worth a read. Christopher Hitchens and Kim Jong-il died around the same time, but I did not care for either and will end this paragraph now.
It occurred to be recently that one of the most important developments in British Politics since the formation of the current (worthless) government has been a degree of polarisation not seen for a long time, and not just in terms of party support, but also (and much more importantly) in terms of policies advocated and values voiced. Moreover, the bases of the two mass parties are now genuinely convinced (i.e. not just as a ritualistic hangover) that the other mass party wants to attack their standard of living. There is no consensus amongst the political parties, nor is their any consensus within the wider electorate. Not only is there no consensus, but there is nothing that even looks like a consensus. Now, is this reflected in mainstream political coverage, whether on the telly or in the papers? Well… er… no. Watching or reading it, you get no sense of the extent to which politics in Britain has become deadly serious of late. It all seems to operate on the basis that there is a broad consensus about the direction that the country ought to be moving in, and that this is shared by policymakers, opposition critics and the ordinary voter. This, in practice, leads to coverage that is far more pro-government than most of the hacks responsible are probably aware of.
I recently made the error of watching the trailer for Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit. The experience was not unlike watching my childhood get repeatedly mugged in an endless network of grim alleys and unlit courts. It will, of course, be a massive commercial success. And thus I end as I began it, by mentioning how something a little bit strange has been replaced by something bland and generic.
Democracy in Europe (Part One)
It’s hard not to think of disturbing things while watching the news these days. Or, better still, just after. Disturbing things such as, for example, the general economic crisis and the apparent delusion of the (arguably) great and (surely not) good that democracy is fundamentally an irritant and a danger to order and economic security.
It was with this thought that I remembered, quite suddenly, an interesting passage that I’d copied out of a journal (Urban Studies as it happens) a few weeks ago. So, you know. Here it is:
‘…state fiscal transfers will be eroded by the dismantling of the Keynesian welfare systems so intrinsically related to the social democratic consensus politics of the early post-war Fordist era; and (if it happens) European Monetary Union will result in regional inequalities which will be a whole order of magnitude greater than those we see today.’
The author of the article was A.J. Fielding, the article bore a name from central casting (‘Industrial Change and Regional Development in Western Europe’) and the the relevant addition details as ‘volume 31′. The article was written in 1994.
Comparing New Zealand elections
Obviously the recent election in New Zealand was less than entirely positive from a social democratic perspective, but, it could certainly have been significantly worse. In any case, all elections in New Zealand are interesting and all are under-analysed. So I thought… why not do something utterly unproductive? Like comparing the single-member electorates (and just electorates before the introduction of the current system) to have elected Labour members in big National victories.
Which is an excellent excuse for a map.
Logically speaking, the first election to compare this one with would be the last one (2008), also a National victory. Only four seats changed hands for certain: Wigram (south east Christchurch; previously held by ex-Labour left-winger Jim Anderton, and now reclaimed by Labour), Waimakariri (northern Christchurch suburbs; National gain from Labour), West Coast-Tasman (massive division on the west coast of South Island; Labour gain from from National) and Te Tai Tonga (the Wellington/South Island Māori division). Christchurch Central (a Labour seat going into the election) is currently tied and will be settled when postal votes are counted. So, basically, only South Island seats changed hands this election.
The last big National victory before 2008 was in 1990, when the Fourth Labour Government (best known for introducing unpopular free market reforms; later intensified by the new National government) was heavily defeated. Radical boundary changes brought on by the introduction of MMP make direct comparison difficult, but it’s fun to try anyway.
Only a couple of seats were won by Labour on the general ballot in 1990 and by National in 2011; they were Auckland Central, Napier (which was then confined to just the city itself; it expanded massively to its rural hinterland in subsequent boundary changes), Nelson (which was also expanded, but not to the same degree) and West Auckland (which is a little more complicated; most of the former constituency seems to be in Waitakere – narrowly held by the Nationals – but part is clear in New Lynn, a Labour seat in 2011. So this may be an inaccurate inclusion). Further borderline cases exit because of radical boundary changes; a significant part of the then-Labour seat of Panmure now has National representation, but the electorate’s core is in a very safe Labour seat, the eastern Christchurch seat of Yaldurst is now (I think) mostly split between Wigram and rock-solid National Ilam, while large parts of Christchurch North were drawn into the previously mentioned Waimakariri division. Obviously if Christchurch Central goes National when the postal votes are counted, then this section will need an update.
There is then the strange case of Peter Dunne (the former Labour MP who founded the centrist United Future party in 1994) who then, as now, represented Ōhariu in Wellington, but then for Labour. Boundary changes complicate matters there as well, but not a great deal. Then there’s the ever bizarre business of the Epsom division in Auckland, now held by the extremist free-marketeer ACT party, but then all covered (perhaps obviously) by National seats. 1990 was also the last election before Winston Peters happened, meaning that Labour won all the Māori seats (there were only four back then).
The list of seats held by Labour in 2011 and not in 1990 is much larger. In Auckland, Te Atatū was National then and Labour now, and the same can be said for most (I’d need a more detailed map to be entirely sure) of the old Titirangi division, while appears to be mostly in the current New Lynn seat. Mount Roskill was easily held by Labour in 2011 (and by the Labour leader Phil Goff no less), but was then called Roskill and was a loss to the Nationals (with Goff the defeated Labour candidate). In Wellington, the division of Miramir was National in 1990 but is now part of the safe Labour seat of Rongotai, while three other divisions in northern suburbs of the city were National then and do not have National MPs now. In Christchurch, large parts of the division of Lyttelton (National then) are now in Port Hills (Labour now), while all of the seat represented by Jim Anderton* is now in Labour electorates. And finally, both West Coast and Tasman were National gains in 1990, and (as noted already) West Coast-Tasman is a Labour seat now.
This will do for now, I think.
*For the ‘New Labour Party’. A left-wing break-away from Labour. Hilarious in hindsight, or what?
Gary Speed RIP
I’ve something else to put up here today, but it doesn’t feel right doing that without noting… you know. RIP.
University of Wales 1893-2011
And so the inevitable and the unavoidable has finally (and inevitably and unavoidably) occurred. The University of Wales has been, to all intents and purposes, abolished. Given the historic importance of what was once a truly national institution (at least as far as academia and generations of Welsh students and their parents were concerned) to the development of modern Wales, this is sad news and a sad end. In the end the University (one of the last real links to the increasingly distant age of Liberal Wales) collapsed under the weight of a series of incredibly tawdry scandals. It could not carry on and it is perhaps for the best that the end came sooner rather than later.
Still, in many ways the old federal University of Wales (the ‘unique force for popular aspiration’ as K.O. Morgan put it) died years ago, as the old institutions that were part of it (Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor and even Aberystwyth) began to slowly sever their ties to it. In many respects it is probably true to say that Wales no longer really requires a single ‘national university’; that it outgrew the need for the University of Wales long before the institution collapsed in disgrace. Which doesn’t make the sad dotage and death of the UoW any less of a shame.
The Alternative White Paper
The ‘Alternative White Paper’ on Higher Education is certainly worth a read and this can be done over at the Guardian site. Needless to say, it does a very good job of skewering this government’s dangerous Higher Education policies (a position that, shockingly enough, I agree with) and it is to be hoped that it gets as much attention as possible, even if that is unlikely.
If any single part deserves to be singled out for praise and for additional attention, it is the following:
“The commodification of higher education is the secret heart of the White Paper, which the government does not wish to debate openly. The government seeks a differently funded sector, one which can provide new outlets for capital that struggles to find suitable opportunities for investment elsewhere. Against the backdrop of collapsed productivity in traditional sectors, we are in a new phase of private sector stimulus at the expense of public provision. The role of government will act as a broker for private investment in services and it will be achieved on higher levels of individual indebtedness and higher leveraging at institutions. These are the very conditions which have given rise to the current financial crisis.”
Gleision Colliery Disaster
It seems that I only feel the need to post here when something terrible happens, but then I suppose that’s not so surprising. There’s not much that can be said about the disaster that hasn’t be said already and I’ve no intention of pontificating on the meaning of the tragedy or any such nonsense. That comes later and from other people. The right words, though, aren’t always easy to find, so, once again, an image will have to do:
- SWMF Banner
(The image is from the South Wales Miners Library, somewhat needless to say)
An important article
Much of what has been written about what happened on Utøya (in English at any rate) has hit the wrong tone and has not only failed to comprehend the context and full horror of what happened, but has actively attempted to obscure the issue. This remarkable and moving piece by Luke Akehurst over at Labourlist does a magnificent job of redressing the balance and deserves the widest possible readership.
No Further Comment Necessary
Because there really isn’t much that can be said.
