Monthly Archives: June 2018

Spivs or Citizens?

The black market flourished during World War Two. Some of that approach spilled over into the 1950s and beyond. This was best betrayed by the figure of Flash Harry, played by George Cole in the old black and white Ealing comedies of the time. Some of this spirit was still apparent in the TV series Minder, co-starring Dennis Waterman, twenty years later.

George Cole as Flash Harry
Flash Harry

Spivs do deals. Citizens negotiate. So who are we, we Brits? Spivs or Citizens?

Spivs

OK, the Americans elected, by a flawed electoral system*, a spiv. (*Reminder: Clinton won the popular vote.) But one with an American flavour, more Tony Soprano than Arthur Daley. But then, of course, the defining moment for the USA was Prohibition in the 1920s and 30s instead of the war for us.

There’s more than a little of the spiv in David Davies, our, don’t laugh, Chief Negotiator. But Theresa May left the EU summit threatening the EU27 about security cooperation. It came from the “they need us more than we need them” way of thinking we hear from time to time. As Marina Hyde says in Saturday’s Guardian: “Of the many roles in which May has been cruelly miscast herself, that of crap blackmailer is the most excruciating”. Blackmail: classic spiv behaviour.

Britain has never taken the time over the past 45 years of membership to really understand how the EU works. Media coverage of the routine work (where decisions actually get made) is virtually non-existent. The lies about straight bananas and the rest, dreamed up years ago by a bored Boris Johnson in his role as Brussels correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, hold a resonance to this day. It’s clear May has never bothered to educate herself either. It’s that or she has been bullied into taking a spiv-like stance by the Exit extremists in her cabinet, or, more likely, by the right-wing press. She continues to mistake these extremist views for public opinion.

At a time of real existential crisis for this country, she has failed to act in the public interest. Yes – I’m sorry – I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve said that already in earlier posts.

Citizens

I thought, wrongly as it turns out, that we were more “European” than we actually are. Half of us are, but not quite enough to win a simple 50:50 vote. European values – but not the EU – gave us the European Convention on Human Rights. The EU provides the foundation for much of the anti-discrimination and workers’ rights protections that many take for granted and other continue to use in their fights in the courts against patently unfair treatment. There are many in the Tory Party, not just Leavers, who would much prefer to see the whole Rights legislative framework dismantled. They see Responsibilities, not Rights, and see privileges as handed down on high from those entitled to run the country to the undeserving rest of us. For which, of course, we are supposed to be grateful.

European values, upon which the very values of the EU are built, start from the other end of the argument. During the course of the last few days, key European Leaders, in particular Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Leo Varadkar have all spoken of European “values” when discussing issues debated at the summit. Varadkar, in particular, has been the most outspoken, at least as reported in print. He cites these values as fundamentally incompatible with any proposals likely to emerge from the Chequers away day next Friday. In other words, May will spend a whole day debating amongst the warring factions of her own Cabinet to come up with a White Paper that will be rejected out of hand by the EU27. Other key EU leaders have supported Varadkar. So the old British strategy of “divide and rule”, so successful in the days of the British Empire, won’t work this time.

That doesn’t stop May going on a futile round of meetings at various EU capitals this week. And, anyway, isn’t it the job of the Foreign Office to give May impartial advice in this area, Oh no, wait a minute, I see a problem here… who was it May appointed as Foreign Secretary?

Nevertheless, by temperament, I’m an optimist. I mean that in the general sense that, on average, tomorrow will be better than today. One way we achieve that is by listening to each other with mutual respect and learning from this. Right now, we seem beleaguered and voiceless.

Teflon Spivs

Delboy and baby
Delboy and baby

Arthur Daley and Flash Harry are easy to identify as spivs. A more lovable type would be Delboy Trotter, of Only Fools and Horses fame. John Sullivan’s excellent script allowed all the main characters – and some minor ones too – to be developed into fully-fleshed, rounded characters. I, like many others I suspect, shed a tear or two at the “this time next year, we’ll be millionaires” moment just after the birth of the baby. But I digress.

In Britain, we have a very subtle, and very British, way of disguising our worst spivs as respectable members of society. I use the term “Teflon Spivs” here to describe them. Sometimes, all it takes is a little Latin: I speak of our Foreign Secretary again. A posh voice works: when coupled with a total disconnect from modern, everyday life, it’s irresistible to some. Yes, of course I mean Jacob Rees-Mogg. We simply build on our good old English class system. It still does the trick for a significant minority. Together with our undemocratic “first-past-the-post” voting system, it’s usually enough to keep the Tories in power on a minority of the votes cast for non-progressive parties.

house of lords
House of Lords

Teflon spivs abound in all areas of the Establishment. The House of Lords and the honours system are both inherently designed to promote Teflon Spivs. The Big Four accountancy firms are made up of them. The revolving door between the arms dealers and the MoD (the most corrupt Department in Whitehall) accommodates them. And some – I stress some – company directors fit this description. Oligarchs – who seem usually to be foreign, mainly Russian for reasons of geopolitics – are a significant subset of these characters.

Class War

The Labour Party has made itself largely irrelevant to this debate. There aren’t really any spivs – of either Teflon or non-Teflon variety – in the Labour Party. It is engaged in its own internal debates between the “Blairites”, who essentially said the Teflon Spivs, like the poor, will always be with us and we must accommodate them somehow, and those, including Momentum, who want to confront this position. Single-issue groups, on gender equality – think Me Too and similar movements – or the self-help groups following the Grenfell Tower disaster – offer room for hope.

Me? I think we’re overdue a proper class war. With social media and smartphones, this one will look different from the old days. I’m of the wrong generation to say what it will look like. But something is needed.

Spivs or Citizens?

That last paragraph means that I think more like a European than a traditional English person. There are a lot of us, but, sadly, not enough to set the terms of the debate. With the Rees-Mogg wing of the Tories impervious to facts and rational ideas, injecting liberal rationality into the ring is futile. So I guess things will get a whole lot worse before public opinion changes enough.

Right now, we are two countries, split down the middle. Danny Dyer was right when he blamed this on David Cameron. It may be a turning point – it may not.

But in the end, it will all boil down to what sort of country we want to be: spivs or citizens?

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Respect

I’ve changed my mind about what my next blog post will be about. I hope you see why.

Respect for Bus Passengers

Those who have read my earlier blog post, Stop Breaking Down, will know that I believe Stagecoach treats its passengers with contempt. You will also not be surprised to learn that, once again, I was let down today by the non-arrival of the X5 bus. On this occasion, the Stagecoach App on my mobile, which purports to show real-time running information, lied. There is absolutely no point in having an app if the information it gives is wrong. Add that to the list of failures within Stagecoach’s control.

Respect for the Poor

Grenfell on iPlayer
Grenfell

But then I watched (on catch-up) the 90-minute film Grenfell broadcast on BBC1 on Monday night. It captures the lives of those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire starting on the night of the fire through to recent days. I found it harrowing to watch. I cried at least three times. Watch it! But it clearly makes my problems with the bus service pale into insignificant trivia.

The personal accounts were the most moving. But the most powerful message for me was the lack of respect shown by the Kensington and Chelsea Council (overwhelmingly Tory and rich) and central government, Theresa May in particular, was the underlying cause of the fire. If residents’ concerns had been listened to – and acted upon – the fire would never have occurred in the first place. 72 people’s lives were a price worth paying to keep council tax low for the rich folk in the borough.

Respect for Our Constitution

Returning to a well-worn theme of my blog posts, it’s apparent that there are a lot of people Theresa May doesn’t respect. The walkout by SNP MPs today shows May’s lack of respect for the devolved governments of the UK. The failure to plan for the UK’s exit from the EU by means of an all-party committee and her attempts to railroad legislation shows a disrespect for Parliament. It is the ultimate irony of those pressing for the most destructive form of exit that their “take back control” seems to exclude the very Parliament that our constitution says is sovereign.

It seems that May’s respect is only to try to avoid the inevitable split in the Tory Party. She respects the exit extremists and, of course, Paul Dacre. We have to wait until November before he fucks off – too late, the damage of the poison from the Daily Mail is done already.

Respect for Democracy

The farce of the Donald Trump / Kim Jong-Un “summit” yesterday further reinforces Trump’s lack of fitness to be President of the USA. His childish attitude to the G6+1 meeting in Canada has exposed the truth about whom Trump actually respects. It’s the “hard men”, the dictators and human rights abusers around the world. Trump has no time for the niceties of democracy. It’s as if the USA were being run by the mafia, but I may be doing the mafia a disservice. As a fan of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano (albeit fictional) came across as a much more rounded human being than the narcissistic blob we call Trump.

So Trump is a real threat to western democracy.

Respect for the Underclass

I’m sorry to have started with such a trivial example (Stagecoach and their crap, expensive bus “service”). But there is a common theme linking all four of the above. It’s lack of respect – lack of respect for all those who are not one of “us”. The USA has spent more than 40 years developing an underclass whose views are always ignored: the non-white (Black Lives Matter), the poor, those who want stricter gun control laws – I could go on. Tragically, here in the UK, we have been doing very “nicely” developing our own underclass and this can only continue unless we kick out this government.

For me, being a member of the EU implies some small bastion of resistance to the present order, some hope of retaining some civilised values. “Global Britain” is a smokescreen for making things worse – a whole lot worse – for all but the richest few.

We’re all human beings worthy of respect: Grenfell, Windrush generation, women, black, brown, Scottish, immigrants with skills we need: I could go on. But you get the idea. R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Aretha said it 50 years ago, and she’s still right.

Gimme some Respect.

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Barking

Our dog very rarely barks. So when he does, it comes as a bit of a shock. I found my wife in the garden this morning laughing at our barking dog. The reason that she was laughing was because he was barking at his own reflection in one of the house windows.

yellow labrador
Dog very like our own!

Barking. Own reflection. That reminds me of something.

Reflection

It reminds me of the current state of what laughably passes for our government. Theresa May’s indecision is like being in a hall of mirrors. She is torn in indecision between the sensible majority of her party and the barking mad: the Dunces as I have described them in an earlier blog. She takes more notice of the dunces and the barking DUP, who exemplify the worst of 17th century bigotry and hatred – not least over their attitudes to the rights of women. When it comes to representing public opinion in Northern Ireland, the DUP is certainly barking up the wrong tree.

Hall of mirrors
Hall of mirrors

Whichever way she turns, she sees just the Dunces, the DUP and Paul Dacre. What she will do after November when Geordie Greig takes over at the Daily Mail, we shall have to wait and see. Inside her hall of mirrors, she takes no notice of the 48% who, like me, voted Remain. Businesses, specifically the CBI, have reduced UK growth forecasts because of the uncertainty caused by the dithering and disagreements within the Cabinet. As Prime Minister, therefore, she pays no regard to the National Interest. That’s the behaviour of someone who is either scared or barking mad. Probably the former.

Up Shit Creek

May has wasted two whole years engaged in futile debates between the wings of her party. These arguments are usually between two options, both of which have already been rejected by the EU27. Every deadline has been missed. She has now announced that the government’s White Paper will be delayed until after the crucial European Council meeting on June 28-29. That’s barking.

So where does that leave the country? Up Barking Creek without a paddle.

up shit creek
Up Shit Creek

Barking. Woof!

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