We are urged to combat climate change by cutting our carbon emissions and it was heartening to see even this Tory-led Government, after much shilly-shallying, endorse the recommendation of the climate change committee - the independent body established under Labour's breathtakingly progressive Climate Change Act.
The consensus of scientific opinion and the accumulation of evidence suggests that our climate is changing and will change. We must reduce the amount of carbon being poured into the atmosphere in order to save the planet. And this agenda has widespread support. After all, it makes economic sense.
Cutting carbon emissions involves reducing energy bills and it is hard to see why any finance director - in the public or private sector - should not be investing in energy efficiency measures. The payback time for the investment can be astonishingly short and long term savings show up in the bottom line.
Entrepreneurs, anxious to make a quick buck (but also often with a passion for the environment), should see the market opportunity to offer increasingly efficient solutions to saving energy. As energy prices increase, energy supply becomes more uncertain, and regulatory regimes prod energy consumers into demanding less, this will be a growing market.
Politicians should welcome the jobs and the increased proposperity that can come from businesses and the public sector reducing their costs and entrepreneurs' innovation of new energy efficient products. They will also welcome the social aspect: government schemes to improve the energy efficiency of some of our worst housing also addresses fuel poverty.
But I sometimes wonder if addressing fuel poverty were the only benefit, whether society would be as enthusiastic for the low carbon economy? The low carbon economy is an attempt to mitigate climate change - to reduce the chance of future climate change. But we hear little about adaptation - the other response to climate change which seeks to limit the impacts that are likely to befall us. And maybe that is because adaptation does not hold the same prospect for jobs and profits.
Climate change will leave us with more extreme weather conditions such as the gales that have become an increasing feature of our weather patterns in recent years. Rising temperatures wll see the extraordinary hot summer of 2003 become the norm in the next 30 years or so. We are already experiencing increased risks of flooding.
They key feature about all these impacts is that addressing them does not really help to 'save the planet': addressing them saves people instead. We know only too well the devastation and loss of life that floods can bring. During the 2003 heatwave, thousands of vulnerable people - mainly the elderly - died as a result of the conditions. Indeed, it is the weakest in society who are most likely to suffer from the impacts of climate change. Apart from our individual safety, extreme weather threatens our collective security. Whether it is gales or heavy snowfall, the vital life support systems of our cities, towns and villages can be disrupted.
And the other key feature is that all these things cost money. While climate change mitigation through energy efficiency cuts costs and creates wealth, climate change adaptation imposes costs on society - for example, flood defences, and trees and water features to soften heatwaves. These costs help to pay for our long-term collective security. They are costs that short-term individualism cannot countenance. And they are costs necessary to remedy environmental injustices.
That is why Labour must be the party that addresses climate change, not just the party of the low carbon economy. That is why Labour should seek to remedy injustices to the powerless, not just boost the profits of powerful. That is why Labour must be out to save people, not just the planet.
Monday, 23 May 2011
Sunday, 15 May 2011
The mask slips...
There was wonderfully revealing moment on BBC 1's Question Time last Thursday when Vince Cable's mask - or rather his thin veil - slipped. The Lib Dem Business Secretary was taunted about the way his party had ditched the ideas of the greatest modern economist, the Liberal John Maynard Keynes. Mr Cable fulminated - I do not recall his words exactly but I am confident I have them broadly right: "I was taught by disciples of Keynes. Keynes said 'When the facts change, I change my mind'. He did not experience the near complete collapse of the banking system that we have had to deal with."
Why is this revealing? Well, it does say something about the tension in the minds of Liberal Democrats. Keynesian economics is fundamentally predicated on the collapse of the banking system that Keynes saw first hand in the 1920s. It was then that Governments sought to cut public expenditure in response and the consequence was the downward spiral of decline which led to the Depression. It is very simple: increasing taxes and slashing public spending takes money out of people's pockets. When people spend less, businesses can't sell as much, they therefore reduce production, and thus must cut back on wage bills. Cutting wages and jobs takes money from people's pockets and the vicious spiral continues. Keynes said that during such periods Government should put more money into the economy.
That was why Governments worldwide - learning from Keynes and the failure of free market prescriptions - pumped so much money into the global economy. And it succeeded. Unemployment and misery on the scale of the Depression, a very real threat, was avoided. It was a costly exercise but the alternative would have been costlier. The money must be paid back. But paying back too much too soon will risk the recovery. The economic data published this week showing growth in France and Germany while the UK economy bumps along suggests that the Government is cutting too much too soon.
My point is that Mr Cable used to think so too, as he wrote in The Independent before the general election: "Now, the issue is whether the priority is to embark on large-scale, long- term, roof repairs or to rescue the inhabitants from a flood. The former, clearly, has to happen, but it is perverse [of Tories] to treat it as the most urgent task. The perversity undoubtedly has some deep ideological roots: a suspicion of the Keynesian legacy which is to champion the use of fiscal deficits to counter economic slump.". He used to think so; and his emotive reaction to the suggestion that he had abandoned Keynesianism suggests he still does. But he cannot say so.
Mr Cable's more significant revelation was the way he laid the blame for the economic crisis on the banking system.This was in stark contrast to his Conservative counterpart whose insistence, on the same television programme, that it was all Labour's fault drew howls of derision from the audience. One of the most unattractive aspects of the Lib Dem MPs has been the way they have ceased o speak for themselves and recited instead Tory slogans.
Mr Cable's slip was that he forgot to refer to 'Labour's mess' and he instead put the blame on the 'bankers' mess'. He knows the truth. The paltry turnout of 350 pro-cuts demonstrators was dwarfed by the million or so anti-cuts protestors. The public know the truth too.
Why is this revealing? Well, it does say something about the tension in the minds of Liberal Democrats. Keynesian economics is fundamentally predicated on the collapse of the banking system that Keynes saw first hand in the 1920s. It was then that Governments sought to cut public expenditure in response and the consequence was the downward spiral of decline which led to the Depression. It is very simple: increasing taxes and slashing public spending takes money out of people's pockets. When people spend less, businesses can't sell as much, they therefore reduce production, and thus must cut back on wage bills. Cutting wages and jobs takes money from people's pockets and the vicious spiral continues. Keynes said that during such periods Government should put more money into the economy.
That was why Governments worldwide - learning from Keynes and the failure of free market prescriptions - pumped so much money into the global economy. And it succeeded. Unemployment and misery on the scale of the Depression, a very real threat, was avoided. It was a costly exercise but the alternative would have been costlier. The money must be paid back. But paying back too much too soon will risk the recovery. The economic data published this week showing growth in France and Germany while the UK economy bumps along suggests that the Government is cutting too much too soon.
My point is that Mr Cable used to think so too, as he wrote in The Independent before the general election: "Now, the issue is whether the priority is to embark on large-scale, long- term, roof repairs or to rescue the inhabitants from a flood. The former, clearly, has to happen, but it is perverse [of Tories] to treat it as the most urgent task. The perversity undoubtedly has some deep ideological roots: a suspicion of the Keynesian legacy which is to champion the use of fiscal deficits to counter economic slump.". He used to think so; and his emotive reaction to the suggestion that he had abandoned Keynesianism suggests he still does. But he cannot say so.
Mr Cable's more significant revelation was the way he laid the blame for the economic crisis on the banking system.This was in stark contrast to his Conservative counterpart whose insistence, on the same television programme, that it was all Labour's fault drew howls of derision from the audience. One of the most unattractive aspects of the Lib Dem MPs has been the way they have ceased o speak for themselves and recited instead Tory slogans.
Mr Cable's slip was that he forgot to refer to 'Labour's mess' and he instead put the blame on the 'bankers' mess'. He knows the truth. The paltry turnout of 350 pro-cuts demonstrators was dwarfed by the million or so anti-cuts protestors. The public know the truth too.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Ask not (only) what your councillor has done for you...
On the day following last week's local elections, BBC Radio Manchester ran a talk show which asked the question 'What has your councillor ever done for you?' And, like the Monty Python sketch, it turns out they did quite a lot. People had been helped with housing issues, crime problems, neighbour nuisance, social care cases.Through this the BBC provided an admirable public service of demonstrating the range of social affairs that local authorities deal with. It also promoted an important positive image of the councillor as someone to turn to to help cut through red tape and get something done.
And yet... I have a nagging concern that such a representation of the councillor plays into the 'me me me' perspective on local democracy. How many of us have knocked on doors and been confronted with the question 'What has the Council ever done for me?'
The person who asks this question leaves their home - which the local authority may have built or even still own - and walks past the dustbins emptied by the Council, then along the pavement, swept clean by the Council. Illuminated by the municipal streelamps, they will drive along the road, maintained by the council, and drop their children off at the local council-funded school. If they do not work for the Council, they will work for a company which may supply goods and services to the Council.
At lunchtime they may have their sandwiches in the municipal park or work off the energy with a swim at the local recreation centre. After picking up the kids on the way home, they stop off at the municipal library. After tea the children may go to a youth club or sports class at the local Council-funded community centre while the parents nip to the care home to visit elderly relatives being cared for at the Council's expense.
We have also come across the person who suggest they can opt out of civic society. I am always bemused by the number of people who tell me that since they have no children and do not go to school themselves, they see no reason why they should pay for the education of others. There is a failure of the imagination: such people cannot see that they too benefited from schooling at someone else's expense and that the payback is that they do the same for others. There is a failure of perception: they cannot see that they benefit from the education of others, that having doctors, engineers and all the others with skills to help us is actually a good thing.
In every aspect of daily life, the Council is present. Yet many people do not make the connection. And this is reinforced when the main engagement with the Council seen to be the councillor in the role of adviser and advocate: securing personal benefits for the individual citizen. Don't get me wrong - this is an important role and the councillor should be there to ensure tat individual wrongs are remedied and individual citizens benefits form the services to which they are entitled. But those responsiblities of the councillor can sometimes obscure the role of determining the public good.
Councillors and political parties need to judged on their stewardship of the pubic good rather than the just the satisfaction of individual needs. And it is this idea of the public good which is oft times missing from political debates. We focus on parochial and personal issues rather than the whether what we do for the city as whole. We should ask not only what our councillors have done for us but what they have done for our city.
And yet... I have a nagging concern that such a representation of the councillor plays into the 'me me me' perspective on local democracy. How many of us have knocked on doors and been confronted with the question 'What has the Council ever done for me?'
The person who asks this question leaves their home - which the local authority may have built or even still own - and walks past the dustbins emptied by the Council, then along the pavement, swept clean by the Council. Illuminated by the municipal streelamps, they will drive along the road, maintained by the council, and drop their children off at the local council-funded school. If they do not work for the Council, they will work for a company which may supply goods and services to the Council.
At lunchtime they may have their sandwiches in the municipal park or work off the energy with a swim at the local recreation centre. After picking up the kids on the way home, they stop off at the municipal library. After tea the children may go to a youth club or sports class at the local Council-funded community centre while the parents nip to the care home to visit elderly relatives being cared for at the Council's expense.
We have also come across the person who suggest they can opt out of civic society. I am always bemused by the number of people who tell me that since they have no children and do not go to school themselves, they see no reason why they should pay for the education of others. There is a failure of the imagination: such people cannot see that they too benefited from schooling at someone else's expense and that the payback is that they do the same for others. There is a failure of perception: they cannot see that they benefit from the education of others, that having doctors, engineers and all the others with skills to help us is actually a good thing.
In every aspect of daily life, the Council is present. Yet many people do not make the connection. And this is reinforced when the main engagement with the Council seen to be the councillor in the role of adviser and advocate: securing personal benefits for the individual citizen. Don't get me wrong - this is an important role and the councillor should be there to ensure tat individual wrongs are remedied and individual citizens benefits form the services to which they are entitled. But those responsiblities of the councillor can sometimes obscure the role of determining the public good.
Councillors and political parties need to judged on their stewardship of the pubic good rather than the just the satisfaction of individual needs. And it is this idea of the public good which is oft times missing from political debates. We focus on parochial and personal issues rather than the whether what we do for the city as whole. We should ask not only what our councillors have done for us but what they have done for our city.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Labour's instincts: freedom and equality
In recent weeks the mask of decency, adopted by David Cameron to woo fair-minded voters, has begun to slip. Whether it is his mean-minded efforts to sabotage Gordon Brown's prospects of taking up a role as international statesman, his childish exclusion of Blair and Brown from the Royal Wedding or his patronising 'calm down, dear' taunt - all these reveal an upper-crust haughtiness which sees no value in those who oppose him.
He has even extended this profound disrespect to his Lib Dem partners over the referendum on electoral reform. If your instincts are for freedom and equality, then you recognise the right of others to participate in society without using your power to undermine their contribution. If you don't like their contribution, you argue against it rather than try to silence it.
It is this essential illiberalism on the part of Tories that makes them unusual bedfellows for the Lib Dems. Perhaps the hope was that Lib Dem participation in the Coalition would soften the meaner instincts of the Tories? But it is hard to see where this has been accomplished.
Even Lib Dem priorities like removing the detention procedure in the anti-terroism legislation has merely been given a new name and trimmed round the edges. Detention remains. In power, they are faced with the same issues as the Labour ministers they criticised and, unsurprisingly, coming up with the same solutions.
That is sad. Some of the excesses of the last Labour Government were a knee-jerk over-reaction to the moral panic about terrorism that engulfed western societies in the wake of 9/11. The time has come for a more confident reassertion of individual liberty against the precautionary security-oriented policy of the last decae.
But in a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, Cameron commended the post-1997 Labour Governments on making Britain a more tolerant society. It was, indeed, Labour who promoted gay rights and repealed the Tories' repressive Clause 28. It was Labour who instituted the Lawrence inquiry and acted to tackle hate crime. It was Labour who brought in the Freedom of Information Act which has been responsible for exposing corruption. And it was Labour who brought in the Human Rights Act - the most progressive piece of civil rights legislation ever. And it is this Act that the Tories have vowed to remove, setting up a joint committee with the Lib Dems to decide how to water down the existing rights.
There is no doubt that in the Coalition the Lib Dems are reduced to having say on how far they water down civil liberties and how they can 'spin' inaction as some radical change. Had there been a Labour-Lib Dem coalition, I suspect the debate would have been about the extent to which civil liberties were extended. Even now, it is Ed Milliband alongside Vince Cable who is making the case for AV much more effectively than Nick Clegg.
The only way fair-minded voters with an instinct for freedom and democracy can shake the LIb Dems out of their complacent complicity with Tory illiberalism is to vote for Labour candidates in the coming elections.
He has even extended this profound disrespect to his Lib Dem partners over the referendum on electoral reform. If your instincts are for freedom and equality, then you recognise the right of others to participate in society without using your power to undermine their contribution. If you don't like their contribution, you argue against it rather than try to silence it.
It is this essential illiberalism on the part of Tories that makes them unusual bedfellows for the Lib Dems. Perhaps the hope was that Lib Dem participation in the Coalition would soften the meaner instincts of the Tories? But it is hard to see where this has been accomplished.
Even Lib Dem priorities like removing the detention procedure in the anti-terroism legislation has merely been given a new name and trimmed round the edges. Detention remains. In power, they are faced with the same issues as the Labour ministers they criticised and, unsurprisingly, coming up with the same solutions.
That is sad. Some of the excesses of the last Labour Government were a knee-jerk over-reaction to the moral panic about terrorism that engulfed western societies in the wake of 9/11. The time has come for a more confident reassertion of individual liberty against the precautionary security-oriented policy of the last decae.
But in a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, Cameron commended the post-1997 Labour Governments on making Britain a more tolerant society. It was, indeed, Labour who promoted gay rights and repealed the Tories' repressive Clause 28. It was Labour who instituted the Lawrence inquiry and acted to tackle hate crime. It was Labour who brought in the Freedom of Information Act which has been responsible for exposing corruption. And it was Labour who brought in the Human Rights Act - the most progressive piece of civil rights legislation ever. And it is this Act that the Tories have vowed to remove, setting up a joint committee with the Lib Dems to decide how to water down the existing rights.
There is no doubt that in the Coalition the Lib Dems are reduced to having say on how far they water down civil liberties and how they can 'spin' inaction as some radical change. Had there been a Labour-Lib Dem coalition, I suspect the debate would have been about the extent to which civil liberties were extended. Even now, it is Ed Milliband alongside Vince Cable who is making the case for AV much more effectively than Nick Clegg.
The only way fair-minded voters with an instinct for freedom and democracy can shake the LIb Dems out of their complacent complicity with Tory illiberalism is to vote for Labour candidates in the coming elections.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)