Why I am not a Centrist

Recently U.K.Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has made two major speeches (one at the party conference in September, the other this month on welfare reform) in which he has made a great deal of the virtue of being in the political centre.

To me, there is neither virtue nor sin attached to being in the centre; and the centre has never been where I though I was. On particular issues, yes of course, it can happen that the right, just or practical solution is about halfway between two other proposals put forward by opposing groups. On occasion though, one extreme is right. Imagine, say, a political leader, possibly a Liberal, saying, "On one hand there are the Fascists. On the other hand we have the democrats. We are halfway between the two, rejecting the extremism of both camps, so we must be right." A particular difficulty about being in the middle by firm preference, rather than by chance, is that the middle is defined by where the extremes are. So if someone on the right, say, or the anti-environmentalist side, or whatever duality you're looking at, moves their group way to the right or whatever, the centre moves right and you must move right with it. This gives remarkable power to extremists!

The more cynical centrists, such as the court around Tony Blair when he led the Labour Party, jink right or left to make sure that a majority of voters are nearer to their position than to the position of their main opponents. The less cynical ones are puppets just as much.

If you run through major political philosophers, you'll find some who defined themselves as conservatives, monarchists, nationalists, Christian democrats, liberals, social democrats, socialists, anarchists - but not centrists, unless you count Popper as a centrist, and I would suggest he's outside the right-left spectrum.This is because centrism is not a political philosophy at all: it's either a political tactic (stay in the middle and you'll win elections) or amounts to little more than a belief in negotiation, diplomacy, the rule of law, caution - things many people clearly not in the centre also believe to be generally a good idea.

Political parties need passion. How can you be a passionate centrist?

The old, pre-merger Liberal Party constitution said Liberals "in all things, put freedom first". That sounds quite extreme. That party was often willing to take flak proposing things that seemed way out at the time. A party sharing in power will necessarily be more selective about that, but need not lose its soul.

But where is that soul? At one time I would have said quite confidently that it lay in a combination of individual liberty, support for community and individual empowerment through free collective action (active citizenship) and fairness (equality). I still think that's the essence of Liberalism (plus environmental responsibility), and distinguishes leftish Liberal Democrats, despite snide remarks from Nick Clegg's court, from social democrats, who have more faith in a centralist state and less interest in small-group action. But the second quality in particular seems to have been forgotten by many and that, together with a debasing of community politics so that it becomes local party campaigning without any idea of empowerment, may explain why a belief in the rightness of being in the centre (as opposed to being in the centre on some key issues but not on others) has gained so much ground despite its essential emptiness.

The heart is still there, but beating uncertainly.

Some Central American country has had an election

Some central American country has had a presidential election and the incumbent, widely characterised in the U.S.A. as a socialist despot, has been returned.

I am of course talking about the U.S.A., not Venezuela.

A lot of people have discussed and analysed the result of the Obama - Romney contest, often perceptively. I'm not going to second-guess them, but just look at three things.

First, commentators keep saying certain states - especially Ohio - are key determinants. We should remember that the political balance in most states is constantly changing, both because of changes within that state such as a decline of heavy industry or an influx of prosperous retirees or Latino immigrants, and because the nature of the Democrat/Republican divide is always shifting. Social-economic factors probably count for less, and questions of social attitude for more, than they did not long ago, which may account for states like West Virginia, Missouri and Tennessee moving away from the Democrats while Virginia, Colorado and California move towards them. Not so long ago California was a crucial marginal state and any Democrat not easily winning West Virginia was in big trouble. Of all Obama's wins, Ohio was the second closest: he could have won quite easily without it and a tiny shift would have meant just that, so the comfortable wisdom that Ohio always decides it may be on the way out.

Secondly, observing how close the results were in Florida and Ohio (a swing to the Republicans of 0.5% would have won them Florida, and a swing of 1% in Ohio would have been enough) I wondered if despite Obama's eventual healthy lead in the popular vote (misrepresented by many commentators commenting before the big Democratic votes of California and the other Pacific seaboard states were counted) Romney might actually have won on a tiny shift. However, a closer look dispelled this impression. Because Obama hoovered up (Roosevelted up?) states like Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as small states like New Hampshire and Nevada, he could have won without either Ohio or Florida. The next closest state in Obama's column was Virginia, and there a 1.5% swing would have been needed. Even that would have left Obama the winner. To lose he would have had to surrender all those first three states plus the fourth closest win for him, Colorado - and that would have required a 2.4% swing to the Republicans and for Romney to win the state while his comrades were losing control of the state legislature.

Thirdly, I thought about the choices of running mates. Both seemed questionable. Romney, like McCaine a moderate Republican, like McCaine assuaged his party's carnivores with a hard-line running-mate. McCaine probably thought his choice a stroke of genius with woman voters angry at Obama for defeating their champion Hilary: in fact Palin was a liability. Governor Ryan of Wisconsin is a less ignorant hard-liner, but he couldn't even carry his own quite marginal state and as for motivating Republican hard-liners, they surely so hated Obama that they would have voted anyway; while the idea of Ryan a heartbeat from the presidency disturbed moderates.

No such concern hangs around the veteran foreign-policy specialist long-time senator Joe Biden. However, the reasons why he seemed a good choice for Obama's running-mate in 2008 seemed to count for less this time. He brought experience to balance Obama's inexperience - but whatever you think of Obama, he certainly had a lot more experience by 2012! Biden brought age to balance youth - but by 2012 grey-haired Obama seemed more than four years older! He brought "blue-collar" (working-class) credibility to the rather academic and unearthy Obama running against a populist war hero - but although this still counted, in 2012 Obama was running against a Mormon millionaire and blue-collar voters might have been less inclined to defect. Biden's state, Delaware, is tiny and safely Democratic. Obama could have approached a Marine veteran Virginia senator, for example, but he stuck with Biden, who could have been offered the Secretaryship of State Hilary Clinton has said she's vacating. Maybe he was right, because most people thought Biden ran rings round Ryan in their debate.

Do you get the impression I'm fascinated by the politics of this obscure central American country? Well, I am, and frustrated too by the gridlocks and the power of vested interests. Maybe it needs an American invasion to sort things out.

Dying to speak

I've just finished reading a book about the European revolutions of 1989, when Communist regimes crumbled one after one in Eastern and central Europe. I lived through that period, albeit in a Western democracy, and the account revived memories. As a History graduate, it struck me very strongly that nothing like this had happened anywhere since the European revolutions of 1848, which were spread by railways above all else (and those of 1989 by TV and radio, while the "Arab Spring" was hugely influenced by the internet. The 1848 revolutionaries' successes were mostly very short-lived. While many of the new governments ran into trouble and people became disillusioned, none of the countries involved have returned to anything like the old system and in all of them except Romania democracy seems reasonably secure.

People faced hounding from their jobs (OK, not to unemployment, but a professor could end up as a cleaner), were imprisoned, beaten up and killed for their beliefs and their refusal to give up. Families were deliberately and insidiously wrecked.

So those of us who never had to risk death or disgrace to speak our mind or vote in a free election shouldn't take these things lightly or say they are of no value.

Politicians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!***£%$£££**!!!

"Politicians" has become a dirty word. However, no state that got along with an element of free participation by at least some of its citizens has ever donw without politicians. Even in the direct democracy of Athens there were political leaders.

So those who rubbish politicians as a class must stand for one of these two things:

*EITHER some kind of dictatorship

*OR much more honest and better-behaved politicians.

I do suspect that some of the anti-politician and anti-politics culture is whipped up by right-wing media because the more people distrust politics and politicians, the more they will be happy for decisions that used to be taken openly and democratically through the political process to be left to corporations and (which is not quite the same thing) to the market. I've posted on the limitations of the market before, but just remember two things about the market: it doesn't think far ahead; and if you have a thousand times someone else's spending power, for the market, you have a thousand times the power. Forget one person one vote.

However, even the most ideologically pure free-marketeers admit some room for collective, democratic government, for which you still need politicians. I think hardly anyone in stable democracies wants dictatorship. Still politicians, then, but maybe better ones?

That's a perfectly reasonable aim and the U.K. parliamentary expenses scandal gives it force. But that scandal related purely to NATIONAL politicians (control over local expenditure is much tighter) and yet it's tarred local councillors with the same brush. As for the sort of honesty that means sincerity rather than decent behaviour over money, people say they want that kind of honesty in politicians yet those who display it are often pilloried for putting their feet in it.

It's also worth remembering that opinion surveys over nearly fifty years have shown that U.K. voters have a very low opinion of M.P.s and councillors in general, yet often like their own local representatives. In other words, there is an anti-politician assumption which is unaffected by positive experience of your local person.

There's a widespread assumption that local elected politicians are paid careerists - yet if you look at the allowances U.K. councillors get, they vary between about £1,000 a year and £10,000 (excepting what a few people like a leader of the council get for what's maybe half a full-time job), not big money especially if you consider that being an active councillor will involve expenses (driving around a lot, for example, and very likely some of your election expenses) and many hours of work, not only meetings but taking up problems for people, talking with people, researchiung issues and so on.

Someone posted on a local paper discussion board that their council would be better if the councillors were all independents instead of "political careerists". Well, look at the typical local council and you'll find many of the councillors are retired people who've had careers and now want to do something for their area and promote things they believe in. Others have good non-political careers they may well be damaging through the spare time and mental energy they take on council business. Out of 50 councillors you might find about eight or ten who had national political ambitions and maybe two of those would be elected to parliament, not necessarily for more than a few years.

As for independents, there are some good ones, but here are some of the minuses:

- they're all well-off. Political parties can pay the election expenses of relatively poor candidates, but independents pay their own, unless of course they have rich friends who may expect favours in return.

- you generally have very little idea of what they stand for or how they'll vote on key issues: there's no manifesto, for a start.

- if they do express a commitment, there's no mechanism to stop them going off in a completely different direction, whereas a party candidate elected on a manifesto who completely ignored it would probably be in trouble.

- very often they're party loyalists in disguise, so you get the party rule without the honesty of knowing you're voting for the Conservatives (say) to run the council. In a recent town council election not far from me, seven people were standing as independents yet were endorsed en bloc by the Conservative district and county councillors and behaved like a party slate.

Sometimes it seems the anti-politician mood is so strong that people forget that the vast majority of local political activists are volunteers who believe in something.

Two nations divided by a common language and...

Someone (the most popular candidate is George Bernard Shaw - or, as he's known in the States, "George Bernard? Sure!" - is supposed to have said that Britain and America were two nations divided by a common language. Despite the odd argument over faucet/tap, john/toilet, humor/humour and tenderize/tenderise, we do have a common language, which enables us to misunderstand one another better because we assume that someone speaking our language is similar to us and better communication means more differences are identified. In Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", the Babel Fish, which enables instant translations from any language to any other in the galaxy, has been the cause of countless wars because suddenly people understood what that lot were saying.

Nonetheless, Britain and America (meaning the USA) do have a lot in common, so it's significant that they seem to be growing further apart despite globalisation. The divergence can be seen most in and around religion and politics - much less, say, in literature and business - and it's on politics that I want to concentrate.

The early American colonists came mostly from England and Scotland, and most of the rest from Ireland, which for good and ill had experienced much English and Scottish influence. They imported not only a language but a legal system and both political ideas and experience of representative politics. When the break came, leading British and Irish opponents of the British government such as the elder William Pitt and Edmund Burke saw the American rebels as Englishmen fighting for English rights. After independence, British people continued to emigrate to America and trade across the Atlantic preserved a close relationship. After one short and slightly half-hearted war in 1812-15, the two countries never again went to war despite a massively long frontier between the USA and Canada and all the uncertainties caused by Westward expansion north and south of that border. Major artistic figures like Whistler, Henry James and Charles Dickens were famous in both countries and moved quite freely from one to the other despite the length of the sea crossing. In the twentieth century the countries were allies - eventually - in two world wars and have been formal allies ever since.

When I was growing up a politically-aware kid, the main oddities about American politics (in the eyes of Britons) seemed to be:

*The very different system, with primary elections, a federal system, an elected President and so on, with the American President a hugely powerful figure compared to a British Prime Minister;
*Racial oppression in the South; and
*Two parties which didn't seem to differ much, in contrast to British and West European political systems dominated in most countries by some sort of centre-right conservative party and some sort of democratic socialist party.

The difference in the systems still exists, though the American President, so often blocked in Congress, now seems a much less towering figure. The American South has changed astonishingly and with Britain now having a much larger Black population than it had in 1945, the differences between the two countries in this area are now much smaller.

But important trends in politics have gone in opposite directions. While the U.S. is still governed by Democrats and Republicans, the political divide there has widened to a chasm. In Britain and nearly all Europe, on the other hand, the big right and left parties dominate less than they used to and are harder to tell apart than they were in the 1940s and 50s. While the influence of organised religion on British (and most European) politics has waned, in the U.S. it has increased, and it's fundamentalist strands of religion that call many of the shots.

The economic and geographical divides that underlay the Conservative/Labour divide in Britain (bosses and bosses' assistants against the industrial masses; countryside and suburbs against towns and inner cities) have almost vanished, but when we listen to American politics, it seems that remark about two countries divided by a single language could be applied within America. Liberals and Conservatives seem to draw on different cultures with little in common and the level of hatred and vituperation in American political debate startles us.

I understand one reason for this is an unspoken pact between the two parties to draw the boundaries of congressional districts in ways which minimised the number of marginal seats, thus creating a situation in which the great majority of representatives did not have to appeal to the middle ground. Low turnouts also helped the more zealous zealots, whose supporters could be counted on to turn out, to dominate - but higher recent turnouts in Presidential elections haven't reversed the trend. The shift has largely helped the right (conservative) side, so that whereas when Kennedy was battling Nixon, American politics was not obviously to the right of British politics except in the Deep South, now an American moderate liberal can sound like a European conservative and the Tea Party sounds to a European like something on the wilder fringes of the outside right. There is also what seems to a European Christian like an odd alliance between unrestricted capitalism of the devil-take-the-hindermost-and-the-hindermost-is-actually-morally-inferior type and fundamentalist Christianity. If anything the religious types in Britain tend to be on the left and the Catholic right of continental Europe, while conservative on social issues, is not particularly conservative on economic issues.

In Europe, including Britain, economic issues dominate alongside immigration and the environment. These issues matter in the U.S. too, but abortion is a massively bigger issue than anywhere in Europe (even the Irelands, Spains and Polands)and it's practical politics to attack the theory of evolution - a debate most Europeans view dumbfounded. Now I'm not suggesting the European version is better in all respects - I wish abortion was debated more in Britain - but the American system, with weak political party organisation and discipline, is ill-prepared to deal with deep and bitter divides and as someone who has greatly admired the American genius for politics, I wonder where America - that is the USA - is going.

Can representatives think? (2)

Back to the subject of what should direct the votes of MPs and other elected representatives. In the first post I argued that an election manifesto should be a serious commitment, but that there were very good reasons why the commitment could not be absolute. I also pointed out that while people criticised MPs for not doing what their electorate wanted, the same people valued decisiveness and knowing what they wanted in prospective governments and leaders.

The late 18th century politician, political philosopher and reformer Edmund Burke took a stand on MP's independence from direction by their voters, arguing that he owed his voters his considered opinion, not his vote. They turned him out at the next election, but at that time, and into the late 20th century, many voters would have accepted that while on certain high-profile issues, they themselves could make a good judgement, on most they didn't have the information or wisdom and MPs might - so they would vote for someone who seemed to share their values and approach rather than seeking precise agreement on policies. I remember a more recent politician, the Liberal MP John Pardoe, answering a question on the popularity of capital punishment and his own opposition to it by saying that his voters knew they weren't going to get that policy from him, so if they voted for him, it was on other grounds.

Increasingly, though, people have access to masses of information. They're also used to being able to buy what they want on Amazon or in the supermarket and it's easy for this to determine how they see politics - not just a choice between Labour, Liberal Democrat or Conservative, or between four or five individuals standing for office, but shopping from a detailed and specific menu. The availability of information is empowering, but the shopping analogy is dangerous when applied to politics, which concerns collective decisions on common issues (so you can't always get what you want) and where issues are interconnected in ways that may not be obvious.

In Burke's time, though, party ties in Britain were very weak, especially in the Whig Party, which was a very loose alliance of factions with no central control. A thoughtful MP like Burke really could follow his conscience or his judgement unless the personal interests of his patron were endangered - and richer men than Burke had not even that limit to consider.

That is not a credible way of running a modern government: it doesn't work anywhere. Back in days when the British Liberal Party had no local councillors in most areas, the idea was popular amongst those Liberals that councillors should be free of party discipline and follow their individual judgements all the time. This was never an idea that survived long once they had a group of elected councillors, because a group that behaved with no coherence would be torn apart. A group actually running a local authority needs to behave with some consistency so managers and others can make plans and we don't end up with popular decisions in one field of work that make nonsense of other decisions in a related field. An elected group can debate things and make a collective decision, taking into account what it knows of wider opinion, but once that group decision is made, those who lost the vote should vote with their colleagues except in rare and limited circumstances - ot otherwise there's chaos.

Most British people view a general election mainly as an exercise in electing a government and do expect the government to have some direction and coherence - which requires some party discipline, though the discipline can either be top-down (do what the leader says) or bottom-up (that's the decision the conference or the group of MPs reached). However, MPs who vote with party discipline against strong local views on something are often punished. If they weren't, people would certainly feel disempowered and ignored. So is Burke still right or not?

I don't think there's a simple answer. Most Liberal Democrat local council groups allow some flexibility for councillors pressing local issues where arguments for the priority to be given to road safety measures on one road, for example, aren't strategic issues. It gets more difficult when a ruling group has taken hard decisons on a schools reorganisation which must involve some schools closing, but everywhere a school is threatened, the closure is unpopular. If every closure were voted on individually with everyone voting freely, there would be no reorganisation with disastrous effects if school rolls were falling. So it may be necessary for a representative to make the case of his voters, do what (s)he can behind the scenes, but accept the final decision.

There is also the competing factor of issues of conscience. I find these hard to define, since to me all political issues are moral issues and all are practical issues, but it seems reasonable to accept there will be a few issues where individuals have deeply-felt beliefs which cut across party boundaries and where it's unreasonable to expect them to be bound by party discipline. However, that may well lead them into votes which go against what most of their voters want!

To sum up: I think people want politicians who:
KNOW WHAT THEY WANT AS A GROUP, ARE FIRM AND HAVE CONSISTENT DIRECTION
NOT ONLY LISTEN TO THEIR VOTERS, BUT OBEY THEM
THINK FOR THEMSELVES AND FOLLOW THEIR CONSCIENCES.

Trouble is, you can't have more than one of those - unless you can go along with a messy compromise of bits of each.

Can representatives think? (1)

Many though the faults of MPs and other elected representatives are, I'm not going to join in the easy flow of contempt for them. Would those who have nothing but contempt for them and for politics in general please propose their alternative way of resolving common issues? There are other ways, of course - dictatorship, for example, or a marketisation of everything that means if A is fifty times richer than B, he's fifty times more powerful.


No, I want to discuss what degree of independence MPs and other representatives should have - and if their independence is limited, by what.


I was moved to this by learning that polls show the British electorate think (1), that MPs should always vote in keeping with the majority view of the people (not sure if this means in the whole country - probably in their constituency only) and (2) that if an MP is elected as a member of a party on a manifesto, he or she should stick to the manifesto commitments 100%.


These two ideas are clearly contradictory. A manifesto is bound to contain some ideas which don't command majority support. A party that only put forward commitments it was sure would enjoy such support would be cowardly and likely to be blown here and there by shifts in public opinion. Actually, there's evidence that English people at least, whatever they say to pollsters, prefer would-be Prime Ministers and governments that know their own mind to ones that seem not to, even if the former stand for some things those voters don't like. Mrs Thatcher benefited from this and her Tory successors lost support through appearing as reactive populists. A national manifesto commitment may command majority support in the country as a whole, but not in our MP's constituency.


Even if they weren't contradictory, I'd suggest the ideas are misconceived. A party in opposition can put forward policies that appear to be practical according to the best analysis and information available to them at the time. Coming into government, they can find, for example, that confidential information paints a different picture, or the situation can have changed drastically, for example if an apparently healthy economic situation has turned into disaster; or civil servants or other advisors or voluntary organisations can put forward compelling arguments why, to achieve their goals, these are the wrong policies. All that without the possibility of facing a need for coalition with partners whose aims are largely different, or that the promises weren't entirely sincere in the first place!


Insincere promises get politics and politicians a bad name. But there are honest reasons why a manifesto commitment cannot or should not always be implemented, though these situations should be relatively rare. So what is a "pledge", like the U.K. Liberal Democrats' pledge on student funding? Since anyone who knows something about practical politics knows a manifesto commitment should represent a sincere intention but cannot be 100% solid, if a small minority of manifesto commitments are picked out to be pledges, I can only imagine this is suposed to mean these promises alone are sacrosanct - so to make such a commitment knowing there is perhaps a 10% chance it may have to be broken is a bad mistake. To pursue the example, the Liberal Democrats, my party, knew it was very unlikely they would be able to govern alone or even as the biggest party short of a majority. What actually happened, that circumstances meant there was very little alternative to a coalition, could be no great surprise. For me, the dropping of that policy as part of the give and take of compromise in a coalition was understandable, but it raises the question of whether a "pledge" is just overblown language for an intention.

What about MPs voting with their consciences, or with a collective party decision, and against the wishes of their electorate? I'll look at that in the follow-up post, probably after I return to the tale of Odanglesex County Council and the Away Day.

Monarchy - who needs it?

I pause in the account of the strange goings-on at the Odanglesex County Council Outdoor Activity Centre for a nude flash. Sorry, no, a post on monarchy, brought about by the Diamond Jubilee celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II in the U.K..


My problem is that U.K. and non-U.K. visitors to this site will see this very differently. My guess is that the jubilee would have merited a brief mention on Indian or U.S. T.V. news (former colonies, after all) with a chance to watch more on some minority channel, and not that for the French, the Germans, the Japanese or the Mexicans. Here in the U.K. it was wall to wall.


The pageantry is impressive, a magnificent huge dance; the colours blaze out. The crowds seemed to be enjoying themselves even in cold, damp weather that our ancestors would have taken to indicate God's displeasure. What I caught of the commentary was embarrassing if one's mental facilities, particularly the critical and analytical ones, were turned on.


The point was fairly made that the Jubilee, representing 60 years on the throne, was a rare event - only one female monarch before had lasted that long, though that fact sounded a bit like one of those peculiar statistics dredged up by the backup to commentators during quiet passages in a cricket test or a golf competition ("Now what about this? Stroganoff has never before scored three or more under par in a round in a competitive match in Scotland when it was raining!") But it was also said several times to be an historic occasion. Now as a History graduate with a continuing interest in the subject I know a bit about historic occasions and events. They're ones people in the future judge to be very important, so they're still being discussed and taught about hundreds of years later. Things are important because they affect the lives of a lot of people. For example, the invention of the printing press was an historic event. So was the climactic last day of the struggle for air superiority over southern England in 1940 known as the Battle of Britain. So was the unification of the Chinese kingdoms and Luther's nailing his 95 theses to the church wall. I'd suggest the Diamond Jubilee is not an historic event because it will change nothing of consequence; neither will the precise length of Queen Elizabeth II's reign affect many lives much outside the royal family.


It was claimed that the queen was Britain, which would be dangerous if it were to be taken seriously, and that we Britons were unified in her - but how? For what purpose? Creating what action? The great majority of Britons were unified in 1939-45 by a difficult and dangerous task and an external threat, though not a few were outside that unity (Fascist sympathisers, criminals exploiting the absence of the younger, fitter policemen and the wish to find a way round rationing, suffering people who considered any peace better than the bombing, idealistic pacifists) but that unity was against something and for something and there were practical and urgent reasons to co-operate. The unity of celebrations like the one just gone seems to me to be no more than a warm feeling, though to give her credit, Elizabeth II has always made an effort to encourage us to be inclusive, tolerant and to some extent internationalist.


She's done a pretty good job, an alienating and troublesome job despite the perks, but I want to think about the monarchy in general, not one monarch. What are the arguments for it? These perhaps:

*The royal family has a lot of experience in the job
*It's healthy to separate the quasi-religious function of emblem of the nation from practical political power because ruthless political leaders as Presidents can exploit the feeling that they represent some kind of mystic national identity to overcome opposition
*In the British system, even in a republican version, the President would not have anything like the power of the Prime Minister and would probably be a rather colourless figure, perhaps a semi-retired politician not quite successful enough to make prime minister
*It represents a lot of history
*People like to look up to a royal, even a minor royal opening some event that would run very well without them.


And the arguments against? Perhaps these:
*It's far more expensive than an Irish, German or Indian-style presidency
*Being a member of the royal family for life does some strange things to people and it may be better to have a president who was a normal person living a fairly normal life for most of his or her life
*Our monarchs have become understandably so cautious about the slightest intervention in actual politics that the role of the head of state as a kind of umpire, helping to facilitate some order after a chaotic election result or government breakdown, challenging an overweening prime minister so that at least Parliament gives proper consideration to his or her proposals in the light of full information (as didn't happen over the Iraq war) and making occasional verbal interventions when the constitution or basic values of the country seem to be at risk, has been lost. Irish and German presidents, for example, can fulfil this function because they are elected, and it's healthy for democracy.
*Through no fault of the monarch, the monarchy stands at the apex of a system of honours, distinctions, gradations and instinctive inequality (though the Scandinavian monarchies seem to have cut this link).


There is much more that could be said. Any views?

What is a Liberal - to me?

When I last posted I described how the term "Liberal" has come to mean different things in different places, its roots, and how it evolved in Britain. I ended by describing the party I joined at the end of 1966 as I saw it then.

So if I told someone I was a Liberal and they didn't understand, roughly what would I say?

The constitution of the Liberal Party (before merger with the Social Democratic Party) said Liberals "put freedom first". All other political creeds have at best a conditional adherence to freedom. Nationalism, for example, can be advanced along with freedom or at its expense. Many early social democrats in the Labour movement supported free expression and democracy in Britain because they were the established culture and convenient channels for creating a fairer, more rational and better planned society: elsewhere, as in the Soviet Union, they saw these things as disposable if the end result was their kind of society. But "freedom" means almost as varied things to different people as "Liberal" does.

At its most basic it indicates an absence of control. That can't be absolute, or society would disintegrate, but if I am prevented by law from drinking alcohol, criticising the founder of the state or painting my house in vivid, clashing colours, those are limitations of my freedom. Some limitations are justified to protect the interests of other people or life forms, such as limitations on late night noise or on killing rare animals. But it isn't only the law that stops me doing things. If I'm blind and paraplegic, for example, a mere absence of help will profoundly limit what I can do. In a profoundly poor, disadvantaged community, I may not need a legal ban to tell me I won't be a judge or conduct an orchestra or sail in the Olympics. This leads to a concept of freedom as maximising people's potential. The term "potential" is loaded with hidden value-judgements (what if my potential is to be a brilliant serial killer?), However, I support the idea that maximising people's opportunities is an aspect of freedom and Liberalism. Where I disagree with the "economic Liberals" who have gained leading positions in the British Liberal Party in recent years is that I see opportunities closed off by poverty, by hatred and discrimination and by the actions of big business more than by the legal restrictions imposed by a democratic state.

For Liberals, freedom is freedom of the individual. The freedom of a nation or people from a wider state - of Scotland from Britain, Corsica from France or the Tamils of Sri Lanka from Sri Lanka - should be valued if it contributes to individual freedom, but not otherwise. But stress on individual freedom can lead to an atomistic view of society, again seen among "economic liberals" and Thatcherites, viewing society as separate individuals pursuing individual goals and impeded by government. In fact, we achieve freedom and awareness collectively through relationships. Political freedom is protected by a web of free organisations, universities, trade unions, political parties, residents' associations, pressure groups and charities, churches and other religious groups. When we join and get involved in something like this we are not buying something in the market - we're sharing in common action for something we judge to be valuable.

Promoting such activity is for me essential to Liberalism. We are more free if we can influence our human environment (laws, institutions, roads, buildings, education, social care) and do so by such free association. A passive society getting on with its economic activity and voting every few years for a centralised government might satisfy a social democrat (no intention to refer to the SDP here) because it might be relatively fair and benign economically, but it should not satisfy a Liberal. Hence Liberal support for all kinds of devolution of power aimed at bringing power nearer to people.

The more unequal society is, the more freedom is restricted because masses of people have little choice and little influence on what is done in their name. An academic Liberal when I was a student argued that Liberals and (democratic) Socialists both valued freedom and equality, but the Liberals put freedom first when the two conflicted. I'd add, or amend, that Liberals and Socialists both want equality, but Socialists are more interested in equality of wealth and Liberals in equality of power. Centralised command socialism tries to achieve a degree of equality of wealth and creates profound inequalities of power. Liberals pursue political reforms and local activism to redistribute power, but in an extremely economically unequal society, the rich will always use the power much more effectively than the poor.

There is one last aspect of modern Liberalism very important to me. When I joined the party, raising environmental issues (as I did) made you seem a bit odd in any political party. The business-first economic Liberal parties of some European states are not greatly interested in green issues, but the Liberal Democrats in Britain have pursued them harder than the other mainstream parties (unless you're Welsh, as Plaid Cymru (Welsh nationalists) seems to me to have much better environmental credentials than the SNP (Scottish nationalists). It isn't very obvious to me how this dovetails with the rest of Liberalism, but I suggest seeing the rest of creation as having value and rights independent of human interests (a "deep green" position) is a logical extension of Liberal internationalism and opposition to narrow hatreds and fears such as in racism.

Now someone might point out the Liberal Democrats of Britain are currently in a Conservative-led coalition which is doing some not very Liberal things by the criteria I've suggested. True - and it's doing some Liberal things (stopping I.D. cards, abolishing the default retirement age, tax reductions targeted at the lowest-paid). But the experience of power and of coalition have led to soul and mind searching by Liberals, revisiting questions like "What is a Liberal?". I think that's healthy - and I'll never accept the answer is just "Someone wanting a weak state and an absence of government restriction on civil liberties plus more freedom for business and for individuals to buy what they want in the market".

I'm a Social Liberal. I want a Liberal society.

Missspokes

If Dubya didn't call them missspokes, he should have done. Please note this is about missspokes and not misspokes.

They occur in all walks of life (drives of life in America, where they don't walk; cycles of life in Amsterdam). Classics like the sign at the English church, "Preachers for July will be nailed to the church door" and the sign by the railway crossing "Beware of trains going both ways at once" lighten life. On a slightly more mundane level, poor grammar results in signs like this in a bird hide in Somerset: "The benches in this hide are not fixed to the floor to allow better access for wheelchairs" (you might have thought that was the reason, but actually they're fixed to the floor to stop people stealing them); or the following expression of distrust at a car park in Norfolk Police: "Do not leave valuables in your car. Police make regular visits".

I'd like to highlight some political bloopers and misunderstandings from my own experience in local politics in London, some as good as the candidate somewhere who proclaimed, "Vote for my opponent and you'll get a pig in a poke. Vote for me and you'll get the real article!"

The scene is a tense council debate on a Conservative motion on the Council's sex education policy, which the Conservative group had decided (not unanimously, I suspect) was "promoting homosexuality", which was illegal (promoting it, I mean). The actual policy just said something like "recognising alternative orientations and choices". A populist Conservative female councillor is leading the attack (I will be quite vague about this because I know that, greatly to her credit, she told this story against herself to a Young Conservative group later). She proclaims: "What these people do in the privacy of their own homes is up to them, but (dramatic pause) I DON'T WANT IT SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT!" Cue mass collapse. The presiding Deputy Mayor, a white-haired stalwart of the old Labour Party, is unable to maintain gravity or indeed his posture and comes up with the markings on the mayoral dais etched on his reddened face.

Now myself, speaking on a discussion on plans for a new shopping centre and a proposed underpass: "We must make it safe for muggers!"

Or a Labour councillor casting doubt on a Liberal councillor's concerns about a patch of land in his ward that had become a magnet for defecating dogs: "We must closely examine the source of the problem!"

Finally, not a miss-statement but a lesson in not making assumptions about people, or rather, since that's unavoidable, maintaining a healthy caution about the assumptions.

It's a European Parliament election, an event which in Britain usually creates the frenetic interest characteristic of slow readings of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I'm canvassing door to door and doing what I usually do when encountering "Don't know"s - asking if there's anything that they're concerned about. The door is answered by a middle-aged white woman. She didn't know there was an election. I try the question about her concerns.

"YES!" she says. "All these illegal immigrants!" (I make some tentative guesses at this point). "They're all flooding in through other countries and my son in law says these Italian and Greek and Spanish police are all corrupt!" Slightly confused, I suggest that corruption does sometimes occur in our own police. "MY SON IN LAW'S A POLICE OFFICER!" she says. Aaaargh. But she's still expanding on her concerns about border controls. A young Black man appears at her shoulder, obviously about to leave. He looks at my Liberal badge, gives me a thumbs up and a word of support, and leaves.

"That's my son in law," the woman says.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I thought I should say that and keep the Odanglesex Chronicles for tomorrow. Unfortunately it seems the Australians have jumped the gun and inaugurated 2012 before the fabric of being was ready and the Japanese retaliated. The whole world will never all be in the same year again (but was it ever?).

It might seem that one of the best reasons for celebrating the end of 2011 and the start of 2012 is that 2011 (apologies to my most sensitive readers) has been a bit of a bummer. The world economy has lurched from crisis to crisis, with the continent I'm associated with (however hard the Brits tried to separate themselves by melting the sea-ice at the end of the last ice-age to flood the North Sea and English Channel)in the worst crisis. After irresponsible bankers caused a world recession, the governments of at least two European countries have effectively been turned over to - the bankers.

But...while the Arab Spring will lead to massive disappointments, as all true revolutions do, it's been an extraordinary demonstration of the power of hope and love over brute power and greed; and not all the gains will prove illusory. Even the Occupy movement (which unlike protesters in Tahrir Square seems not to be focused on specific changes) is a healthy reaction to the undermining of democracy and community.

Hope. Then act.

The Market and the Ballot (2)

As I suggested two days ago, the Market is great for reflecting individual choice in the present. It can be distorted by advertising campaigns - people buying a particular car or drink or footwear because they've bought the message that it'll make them young and popular and sexy and trendy, perhaps, when in fact it can't deliver most of these things - but customer pressures do quite often go against what the producers or retailers might like.

The question of what should be left to individual choice can usually be settled through John Stuart Mill's test. Does your choice hurt someone else (or, we might now add, for example drive a species extinct)? Some things cannot be settled by a series of separate individual choices: in my post on the dangers of being customer-centred, I gave an example of a controversy over proposals to cut down some trees in a public park. It is not possible for all the different users to have what they want, so a much-despised thing called politics intervenes to make a collective decision. As I suggested in that post, a danger of a zealous market approach to public services and decisions is that it undermines the understanding of community decision-making and co-operation and creates the expectation that individuals should always be able to get what they want; and when they don't, they turn against politics and democracy. Our species developed as a social animal making collective decisions: it's an essential part of being human.

Where an individual choice can be made without harming others though, as in a frail old person deciding to spend on making her garden accessible rather than on improvements within the house, it's of course far better than professionals deciding for her.

I am not usually one for conspiracy theories (they have abounded through history and very few of the alleged conspiracies have gained any support from evidence subsequently coming to light), I do suspect that behind the populist campaigns of the Murdoch press, for example, is a wish to denigrate public service, politics and democracy, not to bring in dictatorships, but to make people happy to see collective democratic decision-making replaced wherever possible by the market.

So would there be a problem? In some areas, yes - as if we can't understand the processes of debate and compromise that lead to a decision on that public park or library, we may end up with no public parks or libraries, only charged-for services far more accessible to the rich than the poor.

A few years back, two radical right Conservative writers embarked on a  series of articles on land and housing policy. They actually came up with some good points, such as that German local authorities' greater powers to raise local income from business led to more balanced decisions on building proposals; but in advocating the abolition of land planning, they proposed, in some detail, that government should not intervene in issues of wildlife habitat protection. If enough people wanted some marshes preserved for wildlife, they said, they could join the RSPB or whatever, pay subscriptions and donate, and their economic power would be measured against that of the developer.  Now this proposal was mad for several reasons, but I want to concentrate on one. Whereas in democracy everyone has one vote, to influence public decisions, in a free market power equates to spending power. A million people of modest means could support an organisation trying to establish or preserve a nature reserve and be "outvoted" by one billionaire or by a corporation made rich by consumers who would never have been consulted on the nature reserve and might be horrified at its destruction. The extreme pro-market approach is simply grossly inegalitarian: it assumes that the more money you have, the more power you should have in a straightforward relation: a hundred times the money,  a hundred times the power.

The Market and the Ballot: (1)

Over the last thirty years or so, in Britain and many other countries, the areas of life controlled by market processes have expanded at the expense of those controlled by government. In many cases, of course, the governments were not democratic - East European Communist regimes or African or Latin American military dictatorships, and the replacement of these regimes has been accompanied by marketisation of many areas of life, especially in Eastern Europe.

I want to concentrate on the existing democracies and to point out some of the dangers and losses along with the undoubted benefits of the triumph of the market.

Anyone who saw the old Soviet regime with open eyes, for example, would know how an absence of market mechanisms can distort and deaden so many areas of life. The shops do not stock what people want and they have no great incentive to attract customers or to sell. The customer does not matter - only what the state says the customer should want. Even in mixed-economy, democratic Finland in the 1970s the effects of the combination of a state monopoly on the sale of alcohol with planning policies that deliberately held down the number of bars and other alcohol consumption outlets below demand, were to disadvantage small producers, reduce choice and the quality of advice and leave bars with so much demand that they could afford to offer a bad service and be rude to customers because they would still make a profit.

The market is very good at reflecting customer choice where customers or families can make individual choices and where they are well-enough-informed to do so. This has been extended into some areas of public service, for example the "personalisation" of social care in the UK. In principle, people who need help such as frail old people, instead of being offered types of help they may not want, get a budget and can spend it as they like. There are risks, particularly with vulnerable people lacking good advice, but basically this is a liberal and empowering measure. Even where services are hard to break down to an individual choice - it would be impossibly inefficient for each household to make a free choice of their refuse collector - an element of competition can be healthy, with local authority providers competing with the private sector, social enterprises and one another. The benefit here is not an extension of personal choice, but a likelihood of better value for money.

In some areas, though, the market does not work well. Consumers may not be well-informed enough to make a good choice. For example, energy provision in the UK is theoretically a free market with competing providers, but the deals are so complicated and so often look good but on exhaustive study are bad, and the companies make it so hard to swap, that there is virtually no real competition and the vast majority of people are on deals substantially worse than they could get. This may well be through collusion, and in theory at least, action by a regulator could force changes which made the competition real. But the point is worth noting - that an unregulated market does not necessarily work for the best for consumers. This may be because take-overs and aggressive business tactics result in monopoly, which the state can and often does ban. But monopoly does not necessarily mean providers understand less about customer desires than in a competitive market. Let's compare rail travel or policing with credit cards or car insurance.

Policing is a state monopoly (though I could see that changing, with state-given powers for private security forces). The police do not suffer economic pain through loss of customers if their performance is poor or their actions unpopular. But people who are dissatisfied often complain - to the police, to the media, to their elected representatives. As the police know they need the support of the community to be effective, such pressures have an impact. and the police generally know lots about what people want of them. Some rail travellers have choice if a car journey would be a credible alternative, or a flight, or a bus journey: but in the UK, many commuters have no real choice. The car journey is too stressful, too comparatively unsafe, too difficult when it comes to parking, to be attractive, the buses are too slow and the airports too far from home or place of work. So people who feel aggrieved by changes in the timetable or by cancelled services complain or even campaign. Consequently, if the rail companies don't know what people want, it's a deliberate act.

By contrast, what do you do if you find a better deal on your car insurance (a genuinely competitive market), or you're unhappy about some inefficiency at your credit card provider? You switch. There is no point in telling the company you're leaving what turned you off. You just switch. Companies may try to test customer preference through surveys, but very few people respond, and the findings are unlikely to reveal, for example, that while a change in a  service is popular with 65% of customers, 20% disliked it enough to leave - so the company will be reassured and will not consider offering two options to satisfy both groups.

Where services are provided on by local authorities, there is another thing you can do. Your experience of the service can influence your vote. Many other things influence voting behaviour, of course, but it's a safe bet that a new administration that makes services better stands a better chance of re-election than one that doesn't.

Markets also famously think short. Depletion of non-renewable resources, for example, does not have much impact on the markets until the crunch is very near. Where confidence is the issue, as with loans, ridiculously excessive confidence can drive towards a sudden collapse as in 1929 and 2008 - and then lack of confidence can be just as illogical. Markets also think narrow. If a company can save modest amounts of money by making 30% of its staff redundant, and the consequent loss of money through lost business is less than the gain through reducing the wage and energy bills, it will almost certainly make the change. The state, and through it, all taxpayers, pick up the bill in increased benefits take-up, health problems and so on. It is possible for government to disincentivise such choices, but business will use its influence effectively.

When I return to this, I'll look at situations where collective democratic choice implemented by bureaucracies is directly in competition with an atomised market approach and at how marketisation sits with the cocept of community.

Was that heavy? OK - to my post on the winter ale festival, I add high praise of Shalford's Levelly Black and Allgates' Caskablanca.

And I leave you with another learned presentation on words. Cats are kept in a cattery; bats in a battery; apes in an apiary; nurses in a nursery; and alligators in an allegory.

Happiness is not a cigar called Hamlet

There used to be clever and amusing TV adverts with the punchline "Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet". They stopped way back. Maybe now they sponsor Shakespeare plays in return for product placement. Was that guy in Denmark always called Hamlet?

Happiness goes in and out of politics. In the early 19th century Jeremy Bentham, many of whose ideas presaged scientific totalitarianism, said the aim of government should be "The greatest happiness of the greatest number". This is more or less accepted by a lot of people, and the old objection that you can't measure happiness has to some extent been answered by pollsters who can ask people how happy they are and count the results. It has strengths: if the whole population is miserable, one would expect a government to try to do something about it, and a focus on happiness prevents a narrow focus on, for example, economic growth or national aggrandisement. However, Bentham's formula implies that if we could make the great majority of people happy by unlimited oppression of a minority, we should do it. As a "deep Green" I don't think values should be based purely on human happiness, ignoring other life-forms (though I recognise political reality, that in human society human interests will come first and others may be decisive if the human interest debate is evenly balanced) and as a Christian I don't accept that the main human goal should be happiness, but awareness and love - still more difficult things to measure.

Consider this question I put to a friend who has deep moral convictions which seem to exist separated from his political philosophy. Imagine a society with slavery. The free exist happily without bad consciences on the proceeds of the slaves' work and the slaves, not realising they could be free or scared at the prospect of freedom, are content being slaves. Into this society comes someone preaching against slavery. Do you support or suppress him or her?

When I continue this post I'll talk about the British Government's "wellbeing index" which has been laughed at, preached against and praised as setting up happiness as a government goal.

The Dirty Word Politics

Overheard from local TV news, an item about an NHS (public sector) hospital which had run into a lot of criticism, including from local members of parliament: an MP saying, "This is NOT about politics, it's about patient care." Presumably the senior doctors, who had hit back at the criticism, had accused her of "playing politics".

Now politics, as I argued in my posting on the pitfalls of being customer-centred, is the process by which any open society resolves disputes. You don't do it by diktat of the King or the President-for-Life, or by flipping a coin, or by selling the decision to the highest bidder. You do it by a process of debate and a decision by someone who can be called to account. There are many blots and weaknesses in the process, but the alternatives are not attractive and bad politics does not damn politics any more than bad football damns football or bad soup damns soup.

So did the MP think the care of hospital patients was outside politics? Seems to me if politicians behaved as if such a thing was nothing to do with them, we wouldn't be pleased. "Playing politics", however, refers to irresponsible politics for short-term party or personal gain, which is a bad thing and should be punished by criticism and by voters' votes - though in my experience any politician who raises something uncomfortable for the people in power gets accused of playing politics, just as media are when wrongdoing is exposed.

Earlier today I visited a website where there was discussion of the punishment of a politician who'd been convicted of falsely claiming expenses (those who share my background will know it was Lord Reservoir). He came in for a lot of understandable stick. But one commenter said all politicians were crooked. Now you may find this hard to accept, but that isn't true. At the very least, some politicians are more honest than others. If you react to corruption or other obvious wrongs by saying "they're all the same", that excuses the corrupt and cynical of all political punishment. If you are cynical and venal, you do something wrong and people don't blame you any more than all the other politicians, how can the system be made cleaner? If people react by saying, "I won't vote any more," that suits the exploiters fine.

The Odanglesex Chronicles: Councillor Wayneflete's Volunteering (2)

FROM: Melissa Gurney, External Communications Facilitation Consultant

TO: Hamish Carpenter, Transformational Excellence Manager

cc: Kenneth Spotlessnob, Director of Transformational Excellence and Strategic Vision

     William Wayneflete, Leader of the Council

The volunteering with Kiddiz Kingdom went fantastically! Councillor Wayneflete wanted everyone involved to know how pleased he was. I've spoken to the man from the Odsex News and he's promised not to use the one where the little kid threw the ice cream and it stuck on Bill's golf club tie. They're using one of him with the wheelbarrow and the one with him shaking hands with Charles Glover, the guy who runs KK.

FROM: Hamish Carpenter, Transformational Excellence Manager

TO: Dale Brashcon, Transformational Excellence Champion

Dale:

A potential problem. When I helped with Bill Wayneflete's volunteering as a means of publicising what we're doing to support the voluntary sector, I was not aware you'd deleted the part-time post of Volunteering Officer which supported volunteering by our employees and by the Odanglesex population in general. The opposition could suggest this is inconsistent.

FROM: Dale Brashcon, Transformational Excellence Champion
TO: Hamish Carpenter, Transformational Excellence Manager
cc: Melissa Gurney, External Communications Facilitation Consultant

Hamish:

I'm afraid Kenneth is not very pleased about the debacle over Kiddiz Kingdom. First of all, the ON did use the photo with ice-cream all over Councillor Waynflete after all. More seriously, were we not aware that Charles Glover was about to be charged with fraud? What do we chair the Police Consultative Forum for? The ON ran the fraud story on its front page with the photo of Councillor Wayneflete shaking hands with Mr Glover. It also ran the wheelbarrow picture in its captions competition with the header, "What's he got in the wheelbarrow?". As you recommended Kiddiz Kingdom, Kenneth would like you to speak to Councillor Wayneflete and see what damage can be repaired.

Dale.

The Odanglesex Chronicles: Councillor Waynflete's Volunteering (1)

Kenneth Spotlessnob: Hamish, can I have a moment?

Hamish Carpenter: Certainly.

Kenneth Spotlessnob: It's about the Odanglesex Volunteering Strategy. Councillor Waynflete wants to support it by volunteering for a half-day. Dale thought you'd be the person to suggest some possible opportunities. It must be local, of course, and not too controversial. External Comms will handle the publicity. Can I leave that with you? It needs to happen in the next two weeks.

Hamish Carpenter: OK, I'll see what Julie or Mike have to suggest.

FROM: Hamish Carpenter, Transformational Excellence Manager
TO: Kenneth Spotlessnob, Directror of Transformational Excellence and Strategic Vision

Kenneth: Julie and Mike have come up with some suggestions and Reema added a couple. The timescale is a bit tight for the voluntary sector, of course, but how about:

Odanglesex Wildlife Trust: digging out a pond in Nuteley Wood
Great Age Odanglesex: storytelling to residents of Oakleve Close
Friends of the Soke of Odanglesex Railway: painting and decorating Odways Station
Kiddiz Kingdom: Tidying garden and play area at Kiddiz Palace
Sticklehampton Youth Club and Sticklehampton with Claymoor Parish Council: litter pick on High Street.

Hamish

FROM: Kenneth Spotlessnob, Director of Transformational Excellence and Strategic Vision
TO: Hamish Carpenter, Transformational Excellence Manager

Hamish: Thanks. OWT are out because of the argument over the development on McGonagall's Swamp. Great Age likewise because Bill is a bit sensitive about his age and doesn't want to be photographed with a lot of old people. I tried the railway one on him and he pointed out that it could seem to be taking sides on transportation options in a way unhelpful to the bus operators or the new road campaigners who represent, of course, some important business interests. He'd love to do the youth club one if it weren't joint with the parish council. Of course you know the chair of that one is Councillor Bruce-Roberts, who he feels might make political capital out of it. So it had better be Kiddiz Kingdom. Can you forward a choice of dates? Melissa will sort out the photos.

Kenneth

TO BE CONTINUED

The dangers of being customer-centred

Who could argue with it? Public services and agencies should be customer-centred. It's constantly repeated and has become an article of faith - which usually means (outside religion at least) that it's wrong.

The urge to be customer-centred is partly a reaction from the old attitude that people receiving public services should be grateful for what they got, whether it was a pension or a planning decision. But that attitude is just about dead in most parts of the public sector (not, perhaps in welfare benefits or health) and the can be few people who haven't got stories about arrogance and lack of concern for customers in large private companies.

Nonetheless, surely it's good to see things from the point of view of the customer and try to give them what they want if resources permit? Not always. Being more customer-centred would certainly be healthy in the NHS, where centrally-imposed targets ruled until recently and few managers were much bothered about whether patients were happy or miserable, engaged or bored, or felt they were not treated as human beings. But secondary health services are one of the public services that can largely be reduced to an agency interacting with a "customer". Some can't.

Although a sophisticated understanding of who are a council's or the police's "customers" is possible - it can include a whole community plus others who pass through or work in a place - customer language persistently beckons people towards seeing public service as being like buying cheese in a supermarket or insurance on the internet. But if I choose to buy Lancashire cheese, the effect on someone else's desire to buy Cheshire is imperceptible. Some public services, like personal care for old and frail or disabled people, can be seen this way. There are pitfalls, especially around vulnerable people making informed choices, but they're capable of being overcome. Other public services and decisions are quite different.

Take two examples.

Social workers are trying to help the Jones family, who have multiple problems and are struggling hard to stay together and bring up their children. At the same time, neighbours are complaining about anti-social behaviour by the children, the police suspect the adults of fly-tipping, and one of the social workers notices something which could raise concerns about whether the adults are abusing their children. Who are the customers? Action that is in the interests of one customer and pleases him/her may be against the will and interests of others. This is not an academic question as I strongly suspect that in some recent cases of child murder, too strong a focus on the parents as customers was one of the reasons why the signs of danger to the children were discounted.

The local park, which had got a bit dilapidated, is being improved. Some people want some trees removed, and argue:
(1): It would give people a beautiful view down to the lake;
(2): There is some danger from falling branches;
(3): It would improve conditions for mountain-biking and tobogganing.

Others disagree and the following arguments are put by different people:
(1): The trees are beautiful;
(2): The trees sustain wildlife and are of more biodiversity value than open grass;
(3): Kids like them and an element of danger is a natural part of growing up.

No solution can be found which satisfies all the "customers". Someone will have to make a controversial decision. Moreover, should we consider as "customers" the future generations who will be affected by the decision - or the wildlife, whose value and interests may not be adequately represented by whether people think it cuddly?

We could hold a meeting of all interested parties and take a vote - or say that politicians are elected precisely to take tough decisions like this, and having lobbied them, we'll wait for their decision. Both of these are called "politics", which is how we resolve conflicts in an open society. But the constant talk of markets and customers in public affairs obscures this and creates an impression that public affairs, like the insurance market, is a matter of people serving your wishes in return for your money, and if you don't get what you want, they've failed. But as I've shown, in public decision-making this is not always possible. We are in danger of losing an understanding of how to resolve conflicts collectively by debate and democratic decision, and an acceptance that a fair process may lead to an outcome you don't like. That undermines democracy itself.

Let me finally refer to a big report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission called "Hidden in plain sight - an inquiry into disability-related harassment". It quotes two cases where a vulnerable disabled adult was seen to have an association with a teenage child who had his own problems - including a history of violence. Agencies aware of the matter looked at it purely as a child protection issue. The child beat up and murdered the adult. Public workers were no doubt determined to be customer-centred about the child.

So, OK - be customer-centred; but always ask at least, "Who are the customers? Have I included all the people who may be affected? Are there legitimate conflicts involved?". And remember education and nature aren't cheese.