Labour Manifesto 2015

Remember this date. This is the day Labour lost the UK General Election of 2015. Either by gross miscalculation, curious happenstance or the greatest piece of political chicanery this side of the Trojan Horse.

For me, it began several weeks ago. When the normally tight-fisted George Osborne, the man responsible for the UK's public finances in the UK LibCon Coalition Government these past five years, suddenly became all fairy godfather.

Previously, George had developed all sorts of reputation for squeezing public spending, cutting this, slashing that, taking milk out of babies' mouths, returning public spending to the days of Richard III. You get the picture.

Then, all of a sudden, using the admittedly rapidly improving UK economy as a foundation, he became the Dark Prince of Largesse. We will create 1,000 jobs a day. Let 2.5 million Housing Association tenants buy their own homes. Freeze rail fares. Cough up £8billion a year extra for the National Health Service. He even wrapped some of this up in something called 'Money-Back Monday.'

Look. Tories don't do things like this. And certainly not George Osborne. Whom everyone has come to hate as the man who, yes, has restored public finances and got the UK economy to the point where it is one of the fastest growing in the world, but who has put every third family into eternal servitude in order to achieve it (as the Opposition would have you believe).

I knew something was wrong. The people in charge of the Tory election campaign are dry and dour. There is a message: 'we got the economy right, Labour are economically illiterate, f**k off.' They have stuck to this message through thick and thin. Gnashing. Wailing. Screams of anguish of biblical proportion notwithstanding.

Why would they suddenly hurl caution to the wind? Toss their hard-earned reputation for fiscal rectitude in the trash can? And do it so egregiously that no-one would believe them? Now we know why. No-one would believe them.

Either someone high up in the Tory high command has an ear in the Labour camp, or someone made a brilliant deduction. That Labour would try to change its colors in the middle of the election campaign.

For, while the Tories have stubbornly stuck to the script of financial correction and economic healing these past five years, Labour, at every turn, have offered only one prescription for the woes following the Great Recession: borrow more and spend our way back to economic growth.

Never once have Labour sought to borrow the clothes of Tory financial prudence - until this morning. And no-one will believe them now.

Miliband is trying to do a Blair, who, in the run-up to the 1997 General Election, attempted (successfully) to undo the harmful reputation Labour had built for itself during the Seventies and Eighties, as being a socialist advocate of near total economic incompetence.

The difference was this. First, Blair achieved his turnaround before the General Election of 1997. Not during it. Secondly, he accompanied the change in tack with apologies for previous Labour mistakes. Miliband has never truly apologized for the mess his party (he was a Cabinet Minister) handed over in 2010.

So, this about-turn by Miliband was likely to be viewed with some suspicion in any event. But, due to the antics of the Tories in the past few weeks, it will now be met with utter ribaldry.

You see, the Tories have it both ways. On the one hand, their mouths have been seen to utter words like 'rail fare freeze,' 'more money for NHS.' People don't forget that. They might disbelieve. But their minds will do that Ricky Gervais thing: no, not the Tories; but they went on telly and said it; no, not George; but he was on Andrew Marr ...

And yet, if you watch the Andrew Marr interview with Osborne very closely, especially now in the context of this morning's Labour Manifesto, you ever so gently begin to wonder if Osborne isn't taking the piss.

So, on the one hand, the Tories uttered the words. For whatever it is worth. At the same time, we all know the Tories have improved the economy. There will be more tax revenues. There have been savings. The money is there. We just all thought they would be putting it in a grand piggy bank. Not giving any back. But they could.

Nevertheless, we're still pretty sure it's unlikely. Oh c'mon. We know our George. Come the day after the election. He'll bury that key to the piggy bank deep in the set of Game of Thrones And we'll never see it again. Gotta love him. But at least Junior's got a job. We all have a good chuckle (maybe?), and move on ...

Then. Boom! Labour come out and do the same thing. Change colors. But in reverse. And the electorate, now primed by the Tories, get the point and collapse in helpless laughter. OMG. They're doing it too. Brilliant!

In other words, by taking the piss (maybe?), by spending a couple of weeks egregiously acting like Labour on steroids, the Tories have completely undermined Miliband's oh-so-serious, seeming conversion to Tory fiscal principles.

But there is one crucial difference between the two parties' respective cross-dressing. George having a tease (maybe?) is sort of harmless fun. If he doesn't do what he says, meh.

Labour's change of clothes is potentially more harmful. Promising fiscal rectitude, and then not delivering (cf. same promise in 1997; fast forward to mess in 2010), could destroy the economy - again. This ain't quite so hilarious. And I think ordinary folk will see the difference.

Plus, add in this bit of electoral calculation. Droves of Tory supporters aren't going to abandon their party because one of their leaders has said they are going to pledge £8billion more to the NHS.
Droves of socialists will desert the Labour Party, for the Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru, if they seriously believe Labour just became Tory-lite.

My prediction? As a consequence? Labour's polling figures will now freeze at about 31%. The Tory share will gently rise to about 35%. And that is what the actual vote will show on May 7. As for the rest, only memoirs will tell us if this was an amazing confluence of co-incidence, or a move of pure political genius ...

Could The Election Lead To Constitutional Crisis?

This doesn't happen often. Lap it up. I was wrong. And my good FB Friend, Norman Fraser, was right. Good call, Norman. My apologies.

Somehow, his Liberal Democrat party and my former/current/if-only-they'd-picked-me-as-a-Parliamentary-candidate-in-2009 Tory party managed to dream up a crap piece of legislation called the Fixed-terms Parliament Act 2011.

Norman and I had a bit of a ding-dong about it as commentary to a wonderfully precocious essay I wrote the other day.

Bottom line, I was wrong because I thought there was no way that any half-way sensible mainstream British political party would seriously allow a piece of legislation that would permit a Parliamentary vote of no confidence in the UK government to lead to the opposition parties forming an alternative government, as opposed to such a vote immediately returning matters to the people, in the form of a new election.

Norman was right, because he realized that there was not one, but two mainstream UK political parties that could be so stupid.

Just why this is stupid is best summed up in a very long essay by Simon Heffer, who is more long-winded than me, but less precocious and more accurate.

For me the bottom line is: First, this Act probably represented the largest single transfer of power from monarch to Parliament since Cromwell beheaded Charles I, and it appears to have been drafted on the back of an envelope.

Secondly, and more importantly, how on earth can you completely ignore the just-expressed wished of an electorate, and hand power over to folks who were not elected to lead?

Look, I know people will say that is what the Coalition Government of the last five years represented. But that Government was led by a party which won the largest number of seats in Parliament in the General Election of 2010. That counts as some sort of electoral approbation.

However, the specific circumstances that concern me, and apparently Heffer, too, and which makes such a nonsense of this Act, is what happens if the Conservatives are once again the largest party after this current election, can't get a majority vote in Parliament, the Act kicks in, and Labour (with less seats than the Conservatives) forms a government with the Scottish Nationalists?

Leave aside the mockery of democracy that represents, it would involve England, Wales and Northern Ireland being governed essentially at the whim of a Scottish political party (no offence, Norman), when not one person from England, Wales or Northern Ireland had the opportunity to express their opinion in the ballot box on that party.

Like I say, leave aside democracy, does anyone have any concept of what that would lead to constitutionally and politically in England, Wales and Northern Ireland?

A Parliamentary vote of no confidence should always and can only ultimately lead to a new election. What a mess this is going to be ...

Pollsters Predict: Miliband Nudging Ahead

Touch of UK Election geekdom this fine Wednesday morning. Look, I know The Guardian is in full left-wing campaigning mode. But that does not excuse ignorance of demonstrable trends and British constitutional practice. Sigh. By the numbers.

Any halfwit, looking at the trend of polling from last May until now, can see that the position has moved, albeit painfully slowly, from an 8% Labour lead to an average 1% Tory lead. That hardly favors Miliband.

There is nothing to suggest any change to the scenario where the SNP is projected to take about 30 Labour seats in Scotland.

Add the latter to the general polling trend, and every professional election forecast in the UK is predicting the Tories will end up with the most seats in a stalemated Westminster Parliament. Including The Guardian's own forecasting unit.

At which point we move on to a very dry recitation of UK constitutional reality. Grip hot chocolate firmly.

Under UK constitutional practice, the sitting Prime Minister is known as First Agent, and may have first shot at forming a government that can command a winning vote in Parliament. Please note: winning vote, not majority of seats.

If he or she can not do so, under the Gus O'Donnell (Cabinet Secretary at the time) rules, instituted in 2010, if the sitting Prime Minister can not command a winning vote in the new Parliament, he or she must invite the leader of the largest party to attempt to form a government.

There is all this guff about, even if Cameron leads the largest party, Labour will form a government with the SNP. Not only will that not happen (I'll come to that), it can not happen.

As both sitting Prime Minister and as leader of the largest party, the only person calling the shots will be David Cameron. He will be under no obligation to invite Ed Miliband to do anything.

But. But. What will happen to government? Well, nothing. Or rather, nothing will change. The existing government will continue. You see, Cameron knows that stalemate favors him. How so?

The economy will continue to improve. All the major reforms are in place. No more legislation is required. As to Parliament, as and when votes are required, Cameron will forge temporary alliances, and challenge the opposition parties to vote him down.

Aha, that's when Labour/SNP will defeat him and force him to hand over power. Er. Not so fast.
Contrary to all the chit-chat, Labour don't want to be seen dead supporting SNP.

At worst, SNP will demand a new Scottish Referendum. At the very least, SNP will be seen to be imposing policies on the English. Either option would be the kiss of death to Labour in England for a generation.

Besides, under the new Fixed-terms Parliament Act 2011, defeat in Parliament would not hand power to Labour. It would lead to a new election.

If Labour are not the largest party in Parliament after this coming election, there will be a truly ugly battle for the soul of the Labour Party. Add that to an improving economy, and Cameron would love an early second election. Not so much Labour.

So. The constitutional reality is that, if the Tories are the largest party after the coming election, they will remain in office, until such time as Labour feel it is safe for them to test the will of the British people again.

In the meantime, Cameron will preside over an improving economy, and will use his skill at compromise, honed over five years of coalition government, to seek the support of Parliament only for consensual legislation, that does not openly piss off Labour. Indeed, look for Cameron to cherry pick from Labour's wardrobe.

Nick Clegg on course to lose seat at election, according to Lord Ashcroft poll

This is the second of my essays today on 'you see, the system does work' April Fool's Day. This one about the British General Election. In response to an article in The [London] Guardian.

First thing to say is that, even now, after some forty years of being involved in elections on both sides of the Atlantic, I still get a tingle at the beginning of any election, be it for dogcatcher, co-op board director, UK Parliament or US President.

Elections are all about the most basic human choice. At the end of the day, after all the fanfare, millions, billions, slanging, lying, banners, babies and barnstorming, elections are about human beings, each having one vote only, designing their destiny.

The guy who cleans my grocery store bathroom this evening has one vote. I have one vote. The billionaire backing my Republican state governor has one vote. You can make it count. Or you can find some reason not to do so, and whine afterwards about how the result wasn't the one you wanted. It's your choice.

Next point is that a lot of folks in the UK are getting all aerated about the possibility that we may have a Parliament with no one party or even group of parties having an overall majority. So, the argument goes, making stable government an impossibility.

Actually, history has shown that some of the most stable governments have come from parliamentary systems where the party make-up looks like a patchwork quilt.

The reason being that political leaders are constantly having to discuss, negotiate and compromise in order to introduce new legislation. So very little frivolous legislation gets considered. Only the important stuff. Where there is some sort of consensus. Makes sense to me. I'm looking forward to it.

Third point. I hope that Nick Clegg is a part of that negotiating. In the US, I'm a Democrat. In the UK (I'm a dual citizen), I still count myself a Tory - even if a somewhat left-wingish one.

I think that the immediate past LibDem-Tory Coalition Government has been one of the best things to happen to the UK in the past forty years. You got Tory business sense with LibDem compassion. And by and large, they got it right.

The only reason this pact worked was because the leaders of the two component parties exercised good judgment, compromise when it was needed, hard-headedness when it was called for, and incredible courage when it was least expected.

Nick Clegg is the living epitome of a public servant putting the welfare of his people before his own party and his own personal ambition. His party will get a drubbing at this forthcoming election. Nick may well lose his seat. But, for what it is worth, and I may be one of the Tories in the universe to say this, he has my admiration.

I mean, how can you say anything nasty about a political leader whose first election photocall is with a hedgehog and a party of schoolkids? C'mon.

No, I reserve the nasty comments for Lord Ashcroft, whose firm conducted the poll the subject of the attached article.

Elsewhere it is reported that Lord Ashcroft is resigning his seat in the House of Lords. Good. Ashcroft is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. We're not allowed to say that, because he is also very litigious. Bollocks.

He was a very secret member of a group called the Savoy Mafia, which in the Eighties, helped to organize illegal arms deals in the UK, and funnel profits and 'commissions' back to senior folk in the Conservative Party. You remember this. My book. The book, as you also probably know, is due to be published commercially this coming June.

When the dust finally settled at the end of the Eighties, Thatcher had resigned as Prime Minister, and non-Thatcherites got to controlling the Conservative Party, Ashcroft became the keyholder for all the naughty money that had been tucked away in Switzerland. Some $600 million at last count.

His remit was to use that money to influence the Tory Party specifically, and British politics generally, to ensure that we had the 'right' government policies in the UK.

In 2010, Ashcroft funneled millions into a whole swathe of Tory marginals. Now, he produces 'influential' polls once a week, which he quite openly states he hopes will influence the outcome of the current UK General Election.

This would account for what The Guardian cutely describes as 'poor relations' between David Cameron and Ashcroft. Cameron recognizes Ashcroft for the crooked greaser that he is. Notwithstanding the fact that the rest of Westminster and Whitehall cower at his every footfall.

I am also not surprised to learn that Ashcroft is thinking of once again becoming a 'non-dom.' He wants to get back to managing his Belize empire. Where he owns a whole shipping line. And pretty much personally set up its offshore banking industry. All of which proved very useful in his drug-smuggling, money-laundering and arms-dealing operations over the past few decades.

Something you will read little about in UK or US newspapers. Because Ashcroft sued the crap out of The [London] Times when it dared to suggest (accurately - er, I managed to get hold of the redacted documents from the DEA, through several FOIA requests, snigger) that Ashcroft had been the subject of DEA investigations for drug-smuggling and money-laundering.

We also know the latter to be true because the US citizen who was the source of the leak about Ashcroft was later prosecuted by Dubya (Randal; scroll down).

Of course, I open myself to litigation from Lord Ashcroft for saying all of this ... pause, waits ... nope, nada. Shame. I could use the free publicity.

Bottom line? Even if it is in a weird and roundabout way, including citizens like me taking it upon themselves to pay attention, take notice, ask questions and then write down the answers for others, the system works. Happy April Fool's Day!

The Tories' Second General Election Strategy?

Well. This new poll, predicting that UKIP will be in second place in 100 UK Parliamentary Constituencies after the May General Election, adds a new twist to a likely Tory second General Election strategy. Goes something like this:

Provided Labour secure anything short of an overall majority, the Tories will not allow anyone else (but the Tories) to form a government after the General Election in May. They can still do this. The constitutional convention is that the government in power remains in power until they resign.

They present a full legislative program, full of goodies, to Parliament, daring the opposition parties to join forces and defeat the list of goodies. In particular, they include the legislation required to stage the in-out EU Referendum, and legislation to allow only English MP's to vote on laws for England.
This does two things:

1) It puts certain MP's in a quandary, because they don't want to be seen voting against a EU Referendum, when UKIP might be in second place in their constituency.

2) It puts Labour MP's from England in difficulties, because the issue of letting Scots vote on English laws is especially sensitive in northern England, where folks feel they should have as much devolved power as Scotland. If SNP loudly vote against such legislation, and any Labour MP has joined them in voting against what is known as EVEL (English Votes for English Laws), again those Labour MP's might well suffer in a second General Election.

If the Tories win the vote on their program by use of such devices, they stay in power. If they lose, they go back to the country, and hammer the naysayers for voting down goodies, EU Referendum and EVEL.

Voters in those seats with UKIP in second place, having seen how close UKIP got, and being generally disillusioned that the first Election produced a stalemate, or elected MP's who then voted against goodies, a EU Referendum and/or EVEL, those voters then move to UKIP in a second Election. Possibly producing as many as 50 UKIP MP's, taken mostly and equally from Labour and the Tories, with a few from the Liberal Democrats.

Net result? Cameron loses about 20 seats to UKIP. But gains a likely partner (in UKIP). Who have just secured 50 seats. And reduced Labour by 20. Likely making the Conservatives the new largest party in Parliament. Able probably to form a new government in coalition with UKIP. Or to enter into a confidence and supply agreement with UKIP. Sneaky, huh?

Did I miss anything? Hey. Wake up ... !!

How Thatcher's Government Covered Up A Pedophile Ring

And so, the sleaze and corruption of the British Government of the Eighties finally hits American shores. And I'm not talking about my book. Although the two are linked.

The article in the Daily Beast about political pedophile rings is a bit simplistic. But that is to be expected. It took me some twenty years to understand the machinations of the British Establishment.

The next important point to note is that British political parties of all hue are going to get savaged by this scandal. The filth may have occurred during the Thatcher years, but every government since has covered it up.

Why is it all coming out now? I don't really have a clue. Certain folks are dying. Society is more open. Nothing can stay hidden in the age of social media. We all suddenly became angels. Take your pick. All I do know is that, back in the Eighties, British society was definitely more closed than it is now.

How was this allowed to happen? How was it able to happen? I wrote recently about how the British Establishment worked back then. No point in repeating myself. Read that post.

I knew a little about this. A number of the gentlemen's circles referenced in my post operated tangentially to the Conservative Party. I was well aware of senior politicians who used the annual Party Conference as an opportunity to step out with whatever beau happened not to be their spouse. There were rumors of seedier activity. But only rumors.

The connection with my book is that one of those gentlemen's circles was the one benefiting from kickbacks associated with the burgeoning arms trade, kickbacks which found their way to senior figures within the Conservative Party and Government.

My book is the story of how I discovered that my dead mate was one of those who set up the operation which laundered those kickbacks.

It has become increasingly clear to me that any investigation of any one of these gentlemen's circles is met with stiff rebuff from Britain's intelligence services.

I am still not sure which is regarded as the darkest secret: the arms dealing, the pedophilia, or something yet to come to light. But it is my opinion that someone somewhere is very concerned that investigation of one circle will lead to exposure of the others. And so investigation of all is suppressed.

My book details the suppression I experienced over the course of my exposure of the political corruption associated with arms dealing - corruption which has continued since the Thatcher years, and which therefore taints all of the major political parties in Great Britain.

There is one further, and for me very poignant, link between my book and this developing scandal. One of the first British journalists to write about the political pedophilia of the Seventies and Eighties was Simon Regan.

Simon Regan was Editor of an investigative journal called Scallywag. He wrote about abuse in boys' homes in North Wales back in the Eighties. Simon was excoriated by his fellow journalists and disowned by the political establishment.

But he became my friend. We finally hooked up in the early Noughts. He took a huge interest in what I was doing, and very generously offered to help me write the book. He died of ill health before he could help me.

He saw the connection, as I did, between all of the machinations of the British Establishment in the Eighties. He was a beacon of light for me, during years when I felt nothing but darkness and rejection, except from my closest family and a few enlightened souls like him.

He displayed immense courage tackling powerful forces all on his own. I wish he were alive to see what my meager efforts may be now be about to unleash.

For I do feel that this is the year it will all come crashing down. The scandals being exposed by the official investigations into establishment pedophilia in Great Britain will eventually meet up with the allegations in my book about that same establishment and its illicit arms dealing. And who knows what else.

This post didn't start out as a homage to Simon. But it is fitting that it has become one. And a salute to all those brave citizens who are not prepared to sit by idly while those they have entrusted with authority abuse it in the belief that they are too powerful to be caught and brought to justice.

Facebook comments here.

How David Cameron could win the general election but not the keys to No 10 - Double Yawn

I love it when UK political pundits take their own wishful thinking and present it as scientific analysis. Let me have a shot. Actually using figures provided by the Labour-leaning quality newspaper in the article here.

First, voting intentions have not been stable in the UK since last November. At that time, with the UKIP bubble still at its height, Labour were recording an average 3% lead. I've checked. I could find only one acknowledged Tory poll lead, and that was for 1%.

Since then, the landscape has quite steadily moved in the direction of the Tories. Currently, leaving out wombat pollsters like Survation, the average Tory lead is about 1%.

But then you start looking at the narrative, and the situation becomes really interesting.

The last couple of weeks, on the face of it, have been quite dreadful for the Tories. Billionaire Tory donors, merrily skipping to elite fund-raising balls, and doing the tax-dodging fandango with drug-money banks and simpering toff Tory Cabinet Ministers from Eton.

Immigration out of control. Pledges broken. The NHS in about the same condition as most of its patients. Weakness on Syria. Weakness on Ukraine. And to top it all, Malcolm Rifkind.

In 1997, John Major had a booming economy, and yet he lost in a landslide, 'cos a couple of his MP's couldn't keep their trousers on.

And yet, in the past ten days, three separate polls, two of them in left-wing newspapers, have shown a 2% Tory lead, for like the first time in three years. Not to mention the analysis in the newspaper article linked to, which oh so casually, sniff, just happens to mention that, well, the Tories just might, kick cat, be the largest party in May.

This isn't scientific evidence of stability. This is a begrudging admission of defeat, three months before the Election itself.

And no-one wants to admit the rather uncomfortable reasoning behind the recognition of defeat.

Deep down, at some point in the past two to three weeks, folks have actually started to become scared of Labour.

This is the difference between Major and Cameron, notwithstanding all the recent bad headlines for the Tories. People weren't scared of Blair in 1997.

For sure, folks in the UK have no love for toffs, squires and billionaires. We invented the Peasants' Revolt. But right now, those scumbags know how to make money, that money makes jobs, it supports the Tories, and the Tories know how to run an economy which also makes jobs.

Trade unions don't make jobs. Trade unions support Labour. And Labour don't seem to be able to announce an economic measure that doesn't include a tax rise. Heck, even that nice man Vince Cable calls Labour "economically illiterate."

For a while, people were buying the line about Labour being better for the NHS. But again, there seems to have been a palpable shift in the past month. Folks suddenly, quietly get that you can only fix the NHS with a healthy economy.

As for immigration, whether it is due to UKIP, Cameron or Merkel, people have finally got that message, too. The immigration fiasco is due to Europe. And the only party in a position to do anything about Europe is the Conservative Party.

There are some other bits and pieces. But, the bottom line is, people are finally, begrudgingly, buying the Tory brand.

The author of this analysis keeps on weighing matters in terms of the rising and falling fortunes of the minor parties. But he and others are 'missing' the most important factor: folks are finally giving up on Labour for this election cycle.

And it gets worse. This is only what is visible. I wasn't expecting a regular Tory lead of 1% until the end of March.

If it is appearing this soon, who knows how many people out there feel the same way, but can't yet bring themselves to admit it to a pollster?

Then we come to the chatter about what will happen if the Tories are the largest party. Sigh. For here we come up against woeful ignorance of the constitutional rules.

Those rules, or conventions, changed after the last General Election, in 2010, as we advanced towards the formation of the LibCon Coalition Government.

It used to be that the sitting Prime Minister called the shots, even if he or she were no longer the head of the largest party in Parliament.

If they felt they could not command the confidence of the House of Commons, either they could choose to step aside in favor of the party with the most seats, or they could call a second election.

After 2010, especially with the passage of the Fixed-Terms Parliaments Act in 2011, that all changed. After the results are finalized, the Cabinet Secretary now automatically calls on the leader of the largest party to attempt to form a government.

Now. We could descend into a deliciously geeky discussion about whether or not this is actually the new rule. But the bottom line is this: as a consequence of what happened in 2010, which became the de facto new norm, a sitting Prime Minister, who no longer heads the largest party, might squirm for a week, but eventually, he or she would have to concede to the leader of the new largest party.

If the latter remains the Tories, they ain't going to waste time trying to form a Coalition. They don't have to. Under the terms of the Fixed-Terms Parliaments Act, they have only to follow the new procedures.

There is automatically a fixed term of five years for the new Parliament. The Tories will forge ahead in minority.

They could choose to do next to nothing in Parliament. Continue to preside over an ever-improving economy. While allowing all of the legislative reforms of this past Parliament to take hold. And just wait out the five year fixed term.

They could supplement this with a Presidential style of government out of 10 Downing St. Using Orders-in-Council, the UK equivalent of US Presidential Executive Orders. Who needs coalition?

If the other parties sought to derail them with regular votes of no confidence in Parliament (the only trigger for an election, bypassing the five year fixed term), the Tories would go back to the country with the line that all the other parties were conspiring to upset the wishes of the electorate and the attendant, continuing economic recovery.

Or, the Tories could quite boldly force an immediate second election by simply presenting to Parliament a comprehensive program the other parties would have to defeat.

It is generally agreed this strategy would seriously disadvantage the Labour Party, which simply wouldn't have the funds to fight a second election so soon.

Bottom line: the truly striking aspect of this analysis is that the UK's leading left-wing quality newspaper is so openly discussing the prospect of a Tory victory three months before the General Election. All the rest is so much embarrassed shoe-shuffling.

Taint of super-rich stops the Tories in their tracks - Yawn

Spot of UK politics geekdom. The narrative in the UK at the moment is: if the Tories are winning the argument, how come they ain't surging in the polls? In my opinion, this is the wrong narrative. It ought to be: if the Tories are regarded as such a nasty bunch of billionaire-loving, tax-dodging sleazes, who hate poor people, how come they ain't bombing in the polls?

The answer to all of this, in my humble opinion, is very simple. This election is about jobs. The ones we got, and don't want to lose. Or the ones we want the kids to get.

So it is that Labour make great play of the fact that the CEO of newly-merged chain pharmacy Boots-Alliance-Walgreens, who is worth an estimated $10 billion, dodges UK taxes by living in Monte Carlo.

Frankly, Joe Ordinary doesn't care. He might care in 2020, or 2025. But right now, he wants a job that pays enough that he doesn't need a government handout. And if the Boots guy can sell him cheap pharmaceuticals and give him a job, he doesn't give a toss where Stefano Pessina lives, or how many yachts he owns.

The author of the article linked above thinks that the Tories would be doing better if they did the hoodie-hugging thing all over again. Wrong. The mood of Joe Ordinary changed after the Great Recession.

Again, Joe will feel all gooey and huggy when he feels his job is safe. For all the good news on a UK macro-economic level, Joe ain't stupid. He knows he ain't out of the woods yet.

So. He'll support the boys who are in bed with the billionaires, so he can get a job and cheap groceries. And he'll vote for the guys who want to reduce any drag there may be on his chances for economic survival. Which means the political party which positions itself as anti-Europe, anti-immigrant, tough on welfare recipients, and tough on companies that don't give sensible pay rises. Er. That would be the Tories. Eventually. When people tire of UKIP. Which they seem to be doing already.

Is Joe going to tell the pollsters this? Heck no. It's embarrassing. What folks are telling pollsters at the moment is who they want to vote for, not who they are going to vote for. And come the day, they will not be voting for Miliband.

Check out this article by the Deputy Director of Labour progressive group Progress. It sounds like he's claiming that people on the doorstep are saying: hey, we love Labour, but ...

That's what they ought to be saying. Three months away from a General Election. After the most stringent austerity program ever. After a week which highlighted the close connection between toff Tory Cabinet Ministers and tax-dodging billionaire Tory donors.

Actually, what they are saying is: we hate the Tories, but ...

So what, I hear you say? I've done the door-knocking routine. In what we call a 'caravan' of supporters. A parade of cars arrives. All noise and color. Balloons. Leaflets. Happy smiles. Can we count on you on polling day?

It takes a tough soul to say anything other than the usual litany of side-steps. Er. I'll be there. You know I'll do the right thing. I like the color of your bus.

Yet, here is a seasoned political campaigner letting slip that he heard that the Tories and Labour were neck and neck. That folks were saying anything nice about the Tories. Trust me, you have to read between the lines. Such a response on the doorstep spells looming disaster for Labour.

At this stage of the game, I'm going to stick my neck out a bit further. I think the Tories are going to win, with a very small overall majority. And Labour will actually lose a few seats overall. Not to the Tories. But to SNP (in the main) and to UKIP (a bit; possibly one seat; possibly Grimsby; but lots of votes; which may hand some seats to the Tories).

Carrboro, NC Police/Citizen Dialogue - A Starting Point

I have held several conversations with three Carrboro Alderpeople about citizen design of policing in Carrboro, NC. I have reported those conversations widely, to act as a starting point for a process of citizen design, both for Carrboro, and, perhaps, for other communities in the US.

Lookee Who Came A-Visiting ...

So, my sister Maggi in England was taking a break from mother-in-law care over the New Year, and was visiting some old family friends in Cornwall. Shapland by name.

Look who popped in last Thursday, to get his (British) General Election campaign going, by visiting the chocolate factory started by Alex Shapland (bloke on the right) a few years ago with government money.

Maggi, who took the pic and who is not by any stretch of the imagination a die-hard Tory, was loathe to say that the visitor (ok, British Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron) was really quite charming, and, according to Alex, asked all the right questions. Don't you hate it when you like the person you really don't want to like?

Meanwhile, I know that our Dave is looking forward to both his re-election in May, and the publication of The Book in June ...

How Will Young People Vote In UK General Election 2015?

There is a quite fascinating end of 2014 poll in The Guardian. Fascinating, because its results aren’t what they at first appear to be.

At face value, the poll appears to be saying that young people in the UK, who will be first-time voters in the General Election next May, that is, young voters between the ages of 17 and 22, will be more likely to vote Labour than Conservative, by a factor of about two to one.

Right, you might say. Hardly surprising, you might say. Young whippersnappers don’t know their tit from their elbow. Can’t remember who caused the economic mess. They’re all fussed by the Great Recession, and more particularly by the harsh medicine meted out by the LibCon Coalition Government. They’re disillusioned, pessimistic and angry, and are punishing the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.

That’s what I assumed – well, less the whippersnapper part. Until I read the details in the pretty graphic attached to the article.

You see, the young people interviewed aren’t disillusioned at all. Yes, they think the economy is still an important issue. But they’re quite optimistic about their outlook. Huh.

Then I have a look at their position on a couple of carefully chosen subjects, and blow me, they support the monarchy and pretty much believe that the deficit should be reduced by cutting spending. Whoa. These are no disillusioned, radical socialists. What gives?

Hmm. I remember coming of age in the UK in the early Seventies. I was in my early teens when Labour screwed up the economy in the late Sixties. I was still in school, in my later teens, when the Tories continued to screw it up in the early Seventies. And I was in my very young twenties, when first looking for work in the middle Seventies, when Labour were making a pretty good fist of screwing up the economy all over again. Essentially, we had a decade of my formative years, when I came to know the expression ‘long-term unemployed.’

I was pretty much convinced the Great Recession and its aftermath were going to be a grim re-run of that decade, and would end up radicalizing a whole generation of young people in the UK. It looks like I might have been totally wrong. Why?

The answer may well be that the suffering was nowhere near as bad or as long as we thought it was going to be. By the time most of the current age-range 17-22 were first looking for work, all the news was that the UK economy was picking up. Whether they were actually finding jobs or not, they knew it wouldn’t be long before they did.

In other words, in purely cynical, political terms, it may well be that the LibCon government was too successful, too soon. Now that young people believe the worst is behind them, they are confident and can-do. They’ve moved on. They don’t care who caused the Great Recession, because it’s history. They don’t blame the Tories for the medicine. They may even be grateful. But it’s irrelevant. That’s so five minutes ago. Now it’s all about get a job, and ooh, let’s be humane with our politics.

This may partly explain why their politics are not more radical. It was all over too quick for them to suffer enough to radicalize. It may also partially explain why the Tories are now backpedaling furiously on the economic good news. Hang on lads. Don’t go off and be all liberal/Labour on us quite so quickly – not out of the woods yet!

There is something essentially touchy-feely about the politics here. It’s still not nice to support the Tories. It’s still cool to be Labour. Even Green (not so much LibDem, who are a tad tarnished). And it’s ok, too. Because the worst is over. In other words, they’re not supporting Labour out of anger, but out of confident largesse. Everything is going good now. So time for some noblesse oblige. But there is a possible sting in the tail.

There is no loyalty evident in this poll. It says to me that this is a here today, gone tomorrow generation. Happy to be doing something else. In the time it takes to change a channel or download a new app.

If they stick to their guns, vote the way they say they might, Labour wins, and it then screws up the economy, this lot will abandon Labour in a heartbeat. All is flavor. All is scent. Farage doesn’t smell good. Labour do. But if the bubble of this young, fluid generation is burst, they could well switch in numbers to the Tories in 2020, begging them to come back and make things right again.

And therein may lie a further rub. This is a fickle bunch. Raised on TV reality shows and video games. Where you do what you need to do to get what you want. It may not be cool to say you’re voting Tory. Doesn’t mean you don’t know which side of your bread is buttered. Doesn’t mean you’re going to do what you say. Or rather. Not do what you say you’re not going to do. A little 1992 with your tea, dear … ??

Jeremy Thorpe, CIA Torture and UK Child Abuse

The game of British politics, empire and the attendant gravy, used to be the domain solely of British gentlemen. Think ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’ Governor Swann, Lord Beckett, Norrington and the East India Company.

By and large, the British gentlemen were second and third sons, who inherited nothing, and had to go out into the world and make their own way, their own name and their own fortune. Any way they could. With all roads leading back to the nascent City of London.

Then, in the nineteenth century, Great Britain got all democratic on itself, and offered ordinary citizens the vote (well, men first; women a good while later – no-one’s perfect).

This trend towards allowing ‘normal’ folk into the establishment, and its associated treasures, became embedded during the First and Second World Wars, when men of all class fought and died alongside each other in huge numbers, and in common cause.

Culminating in the Swinging Sixties. Think ‘Austin Powers,’ Michael Caine in ‘Alfie’ and the better ‘Italian Job.’ Groovy, working-class hippies getting stoned alongside toffs in their blazers.

But, at this time – that is, the Sixties and Seventies – although toffs no longer owned the establishment and its benefits alone, they still regarded themselves as a class apart.

They hung out in their exclusive clubs, from Parliament to the greystone manses in Pall Mall and St. James, commiserating, plotting. And there was much to plot about.

For these gentlemen were scared. Their politics were all pretty much restricted to a spectrum working its way rightwards from center-rightish to loony-tune-get-out-a-telescope-and-you-can-see-them-skimming-along-on-the-right-wing.

What they were terrified of was what they saw as the rise of trade unionism and socialism, and its natural and imminent metamorphosis into Godless communism and dictatorship of the unwashed.

At which point, back up a tad. For sure, the British gent liked to think he was still solely in charge. And, to maintain the pretense, spent much of his time, evenings especially, gathering in various, restricted gentlemen’s circles in the posher parts of London, primarily Mayfair.

Some of the circles were quite benign. Gaming clubs. Bridge, poker. My mate, Hugh Simmonds, the subject of my book, played bridge with the likes of senior Tories such as Iain Macleod, in a gaming club in Curzon Street.

Mind you, he also spent not a little time hanging out at another gentleman’s club, known as MI5 (domestic British Intelligence), which, at that time, also had its HQ in or around Curzon Street.

A well-known card player in gentlemen’s circles, one Lord Lucan, disappeared, never to be found, in 1974, after allegedly murdering his nanny. The belief is that one or other of his gentlemen’s circles helped to spirit him away.

Benign, or not so benign, in the Sixties and Seventies, the establishment in London was awash with interconnecting gentlemen’s circles, all of whom felt themselves immune to the encroachment of ordinary citizens and the rule of law.

Card-playing circles, gentlemen’s clubs, networks for homosexuality (then, still illegal) and child abuse. No-one is suggesting that Jeremy Thorpe, former Leader of the British Liberal Party, who was accused in the mid-Seventies of attempting to murder his alleged gay lover, was connected with child abuse. But all of these gentlemen’s circles interconnected. And Jeremy was every inch the gentlemen.

Lord Lucan spirited away. Jeremy Thorpe involved in a plot to save his political career. Secret parties in various parts of London, for male members of the establishment, to engage in child molestation. And most of these circles overlapping with the most secretive gentleman’s circle of all. No, not Masons. Although, those too. Nope. British Intelligence.

When gents no longer controlled the overt levers of power, they sought solace in covert. For many a year, MI5 and MI6, and all manner of other initials and numbers, were the almost exclusive preserve of gentlemen. Who felt no allegiance other than to their own concept of what the nation and empire should be.

So it was that, in the Sixties, and moving into the Seventies, when the gentlemen of the London clubs and circles felt themselves threatened by the advance of socialism, the open socialism of Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and the pinkish Toryism of Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, they took it upon themselves to begin plotting against their government.

Intelligence officers mixed with City gents, loony-tunes, defense contractors and the like, to make arrangements in the event of left-wing takeover. Even to pre-empt takeover. Sometimes in discussion groups, like the right-wing Monday Club. Or in more sinister paramilitary organizations.

Nothing came of the plotting. But networks were established. The primary duty of the Intelligence services to protect Queen and country, had been replaced by a more subjective goal of furthering the interest of the Intelligence services themselves. One became conflated inextricably with the other.

And so it was that these networks conspired to bring Margaret Thatcher to power. And she, in her gratitude, extended to the Intelligence services carte blanche (and a big hefty budget) to do her, and their, bidding.

One of the first things that Thatcher realized upon her accession was that the medicine she believed was necessary to restore the country’s public finances to health would almost completely devastate what was left of Britain’s manufacturing industry.

She needed something to replace it. She turned to arms manufacture. By the end of her time in office, Great Britain had become the world’s Number 2 arms exporter (it is still Number 5), and one in 5 of the British population was associated in some fashion with supporting its arms industry.

Britain’s embassies became international sales offices for British arms. And the Intelligence services were used to scout out potential buyers.

If you want to succeed in the long-term at arms sales, you can’t just deal with legitimate customers. You have to sell to the bad guys, too. And you can’t do that by the front door.

So, a whole backdoor arms sales operation was established. My mate was involved, among other tasks for British Intelligence and Margaret Thatcher, with setting up the money-laundering for this backdoor.

Another facet of the backdoor was a group (yes, another gentlemen’s circle!) called the ‘Savoy Mafia,’ so-called for its proclivity for holding meetings at the posh Savoy Hotel in London.

The ‘Savoy Mafia’ was a collection of Intelligence officers, arms dealers, senior Tory politicians, defense contractors, city gents, and civil servants, with direct lineage from the right-wing groupings of the Sixties and Seventies plotting against socialism, the primary tasks of which was secretly to arrange some of the more sensitive backdoor arms deals, and to plough illicit profits and commissions back to its members, including Margaret Thatcher’s husband and son.

It is the contention of my book that my mate was intimately involved in arranging the most secret of those deals: the one that benefited Margaret Thatcher directly.

Now, while all this was going on, Thatcher, in her feverish attempts to balance books and make money for Britain, got all chummy with the new Republican US President, Ronald Reagan.

Reagan had a problem. He wanted to do all manner of naughties around the world, kinda-sorta to bring down Soviet communism, but he couldn’t. Because of the need for congressional oversight. No problem, said Thatcher. We’ll do it for you. For a price.

And so, she hired out Britain’s military and Intelligence services to do America’s covert dirty work around the globe. Assassinations in the Lebanon. Arms deal with Iran. Killing Soviets in Afghanistan. You name it. British Intelligence or its military were there doing it.

We now know that this dirty work continued through the Blair Prime Ministership (Blair’s support for Bush’s invasion of Iraq; British complicity in CIA torture), and possibly into the Prime Ministership of David Cameron, who has made international arms sales the cornerstone of his government’s export policy, and maintains the closest relations with President Obama.

So what? Well, again, back-track a bit. In the Eighties, we have British intelligence (mostly still those pesky British gents, but as social mobility increased through the Nineties, Noughts and Teens, a few more oiks, here and there), we have British Intelligence openly involved in money-making ventures with arms sales and other activity on behalf of the US.

In other words, these gents circles. Which originally ran the empire. Then through circles in London, in the Sixties and Seventies, played games with each other, nasty sex games, harmless card games, and pointless plotting games. Morphed in the Eighties into a much more dangerous Intelligence-based activity, executing covert foreign policy, wielding influence in political circles domestically, and making obscene amounts of money to keep all the wheels greased.

They felt themselves beholden to no-one but themselves, and they would do anything to protect their power and the huge amounts of money they had made and were still making. An imperative which became even more ingrained when the whole secret power-wielding, private money-making enterprise took off tenfold as President Bush and the CIA declared their War on Terror, a War undertaken in the main by surrogate nations and private corporations, and funded by hundreds of billions of dollars.

My book sets out a scenario which suggests that Tony Blair’s Prime Ministership came to an abrupt end because he dared to impose his own man as head of MI6, against the wishes of the gents in Intelligence.

And these gents now feel threatened. Again. Allegations are coming to light about some of the uglier aspects of the games their gentlemen forebears played in the Sixties and Seventies. Allegations about parties for gents and their interest in child abuse.

There is already suggestion that British Intelligence tried to interfere with investigations into the latter. But why? What business should it have been of theirs?

Because they realize that investigation of one of those circles might lead, through interconnection, to revelation about all of them. Up to the present day and the enormous, corrupt influence they wield in the corridors of Westminster and Whitehall.

We’ll see if commercial publication next June of my book (under the title ‘Maggie’s Hammer’), which expands on all of the above, has any success in advancing revelation …

The Hunt for Margaret Thatcher's Assassin

In November 1988, I was an ambitious young lawyer and politician in a sleepy well-heeled bedroom community to the west of London, England. Then, my boss, mentor and close friend turned up dead in a local woodland glade. No explanation. No suicide note.

The circumstances did not add up. But no-one seemed to want to find the answers. So, using my forensic skills as a lawyer, I began my own investigation. Asking the right questions. In what quickly became the wrong places.

I discovered I had stumbled on a high-level intelligence operation gone wrong. Join me as I dodge bullets, face down the CIA and British Intelligence, and play cat and mouse games all around the world with an operative of Israeli Intelligence, all in my frantic efforts to get to the truth, before the assassins gets to me.

Using my natural gift for story-telling, I have written a book - a spellbinding tale of adventure, suspense and drama. An ordinary guy caught in extraordinary circumstances. On a quest for truth.

A quest which leads all the way to former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and her successors. And to what may become the political scandal of the century, on both sides of the Atlantic.

And to a frightening truth about my deceased friend …

What Do I Think Of Margaret Thatcher?

The usual questions one asks of the death of someone who once hogged the headlines are: where were you, and what were you doing when she died?

Not with Maggie. More so even than with her great friend and political ally, Ronald Reagan, the interrogatory which will resonate throughout history will be: what did you think of her?

Which is about as good a general epitaph as you will find anywhere. There are very few who are sentient about matters politic who do not have an opinion, and almost the same number would hesitate to suggest that she was irrelevant.

A divisive leader, who forever changed Great Britain? A leader of unyielding will, who transformed Britain's economy? An inspiration? A mindless thug? A champion of freedom? The ultimate authoritarian?

We none of us seem to be in any doubt as to her character traits, only as to whether or not they were positive or negative.

I am biased. I joined the British Conservative Party in 1977 because of her. More specifically, because of the Introduction she wrote for the Tories' pre-Election Manifesto Election Manifesto, "The Right Approach."

She didn't scream for communists and socialists to die. She didn't rail against colored immigrants or welfare queens. She calmly explained (or at least, this was my tender 21 year old reading) that pretty much all politicians think they are right.

But that there are times the political pendulum swings too far in one direction. And in Great Britain, at that time, the pendulum had swing too far away from individual freedom. The ability for ordinary folks to have a meaningful say in determining their own destiny.

I didn't know this at the time, but this was to become my own rallying cry over the decades. Whether as UK Tory, US Democrat, social libertarian, co-operator or Occupier (I've ... um ... evolved politically since the Eighties).

I am always working to help create space to allow individuals the opportunity to make decisions about their lives in freedom, with dignity, and without interference from arbitrary authority.

How did the Tories work out for me? Ah well. Your first political party is like your first love: you never really let go. You close your eyes to the bad. And return for what you remember of the good. Time and time again.

And so it is that I have entirely avoided the question, what do I think of Margaret Thatcher?

I really can't answer. So, I'll answer by revealing what I think of my active time with the Tories in the Eighties. And let you deduce the rest.

I am proud that we gave many who were trapped in social housing the opportunity to enjoy the dignity of owning their own homes. I am proud that we began the process (which continues to this day, under leaders of different political hue) the process by which means many more than used to be the case can achieve success in their lives, regardless of where they were born, the color of their skin, their regional dialect, or the income of their parents.

And I will forever live with the enduring, stomach-churning shame that I looked the other way as we - not just Thatcher, not her Ministers alone, but we - as we desecrated working-class community after working-class community to achieve ends we thought more important than the human soul.

And now I sit here and cry. For a brilliant, focused, flawed, favorite Aunt. Who has passed. And for the memory of those we hurt, which memory will never pass.

"Where there is hatred, let me sow love." - Francis of Assisi

The Olympics: Social Empowerment or Societal Gentrification?

Is it bricks and mortar that resurrect a socially vulnerable neighborhood? Or is it role model and mentoring? And anyway, who defines what is a ‘socially vulnerable neighborhood’?

If we are to define ‘socially vulnerable’ on the basis of the net contribution to society, I find the Hamptons more toxic than Harlem, Chipping Norton more harmful than the East End of London.

But, commentary on the benefits or otherwise of the financial classes to our common economic health, I want to spend a few minutes, on a day when the Brits won a fistful of Olympic medals (wasn’t going to let that slide), wondering aloud about who it is we call ‘poor,’ why, and what really works when it comes to empowerment.

I remember when last I was resident in the UK, I lived in a ramshackle bedsit in Slough – home to the English version of ‘The Office.’ One day, I read a poll in the popular daily tabloid, The Sun.

The poll told me that folks considered themselves poor if they had no bathroom exclusive to themselves (me), no color television (me), no car (me), and didn’t go abroad on vacation at least once a year (me, too).

What the poll did not mention was: not having a door or windows in the kitchen, only holes in the wall (me); drug addicts upstairs (me); and a knife-wielding psychopath in the room across the hall (also me).

What was extraordinary was that the poll was subjective. And that it was all about material possession. By definition, I was poor as a church mouse. But, I didn’t feel poor.

I had a roof over my head. Food in my tummy. Money in my pocket (enough, not a lot). I kept my room clean and warm. I occupied myself with books and writing. And to all intents and purposes, bearing in mind my purpose at the time was research for my book, I felt quite comfortable.

Yet the world increasingly measures a person’s happiness by the accumulation of property. And, if those at disadvantage cannot or will not earn the money to buy, then stealing and the like become the acceptable alternative.

In the run-up to the London Olympics, I read a piece about the Atlanta Olympics which characterized those Olympics as rather sad, being as they had been held in a city rife with racism and violence.

I was in Atlanta from 1992 to early 1996, and was still resident in Northeast Georgia during the Olympic Games, and through to 2002. I do not remember feeling as if I was trapped in a seething cauldron of vice and misdemeanor.

As chance would have it, I then read an article in The New York Times Magazine, which describes the adventures of a snitch called Alex White, who, interestingly enough, grew up a stone’s throw from the site of much of the Atlanta Olympics - http://tinyurl.com/7fq75r7.

Frankly, I only got as far as the first few paragraphs before I got angry. Look, I grew up in a fancy upper-middle class town, just to the west of London. A stone’s throw, thirty miles and a million dimensions removed from the site of the London Olympics, in the East End.

I know what privilege is. And I know how it can buffer one from any other perspective on life. Partly by happenstance, partly because I went looking, I found out what it was like to live at the other end of the spectrum.

The inner city. The feeling of being trapped. The certainty that one wakes up every day without any hope of denting, let alone controlling, one’s own destiny. Where all are the enemy. The landlord. The electric company. The drug dealer. The police.

But I have known folks who dug their way out. Who got the meanest of jobs. So that they could finance further education. Who went looking for good mentorship. Who had fine teachers. Caring parents. And who were the first  to correct me on my view of victimization.

Who would tear me new ones if I spoke of the bottomless tyranny of history and legacy. Who would truck no talk of ambition, achievement and behavior being the preserve only of those with good environment.

The environment that made the man and the woman was the environment each person created in their head. Bad behavior, they told me, was bad behavior. Don’t be bringing your trashy white condescension (I think they word used may actually have been ‘shit’) into our neighborhoods.

And it was these same lovely women of whom I was thinking (why is it that it is strong women who teach me all my lessons in life?), when I got angry at the NYT article. For the article describes how Alex has always been out of control. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his mother’s fault. It was inevitable. And if anyone was to blame, it was the corrupt police.

Which, in turn, got me thinking about Olympic Legacy. I did a little research and came up with a note about the legacy of the Atlanta Olympics - http://tinyurl.com/449jtso. And then two more describing what folks believed would be the legacy of the London Olympics - http://tinyurl.com/ccszkov and http://tinyurl.com/chxv669.

And all I saw was bricks and mortar. As if the disadvantaged South West of Atlanta has been permanently enriched by the new Centennial Olympic Park and the new dormitories for Georgia Tech, and the East End would experience similar renewal by being right next door to the technical marvel that is the new Velodrome and some enabling joyhouse of materialism called the Westfield Stratford City Mall.

What is required for true mindset change is all the help one can muster to allow those who want to make the most of their lives to do so. And I don’t mean by designing for them what their aspiration should look like. If someone is happy getting a High School education, working in a flower shop and raising a happy family, then that is empowerment of that person – if they are able to achieve it.

The emphasis should be on enabling all the resources necessary to be available in those communities at risk. And resources means more than buildings. And more than money. It means teachers. And mentors. And not just for the children. But for their parents, too.

You can throw any amount of resource at a community, at an individual, but none of it counts for squat if the person and people concerned do not take advantage of it.

I do not know what made an obviously resourceful person like Alex not want to try a different path. I don’t know what his parents (or parent) were or were not doing. What the situation was with his school.

But, as my good lady friends (the ones who didn’t want my ‘shit’) made clear to me, it requires a dose of reality, along with charity, to empower. I do not feel sorry for Alex. Bluntly put, he needs to grow up. I do not feel sorry for people who make themselves victims. I am a recovering alcoholic. I know all about that.

I do not believe that poverty is simply a lack of money. It is also sometimes a lack of resolve. Of dignity. Of respect. And that can be found in the most squalid of material circumstances. Provided we want to get off the pity pot long enough to find it.

Mind you, the folks for whom I have the least time are those who make it out, and never feel the moral obligation to turn back, and offer a helping hand, or a word of advice.

I don’t have any real solutions here. Merely thoughts. A reality check. For myself, if no-one else.

If we convince ourselves that we have left a legacy from these Olympics simply because we inject cash and build a few irrelevant monuments, we are kidding ourselves, and we are letting down those we affect to want to help.

Empowerment comes from a change in mindset – both of those who wish to do the empowering, and those who (like Alec) so assiduously find excuses not to be empowered (sorry if that’s a bit too strong for some) – and then the human resources necessary to encourage empowerment, and to allow it to occur.

And by the way, writing this, I am the same person who campaigns for programs to help folks empower themselves, by alleviating the worst immediate symptoms of poverty - http://tinyurl.com/bto3ejd.

Now, an interesting anecdote on empowerment. When I was a brash young English Town Councilor, back in 1979, convinced I knew it all, and ready to establish my enduring legacy in one term, I tackled with the issue of gypsies.

Now, I will leave to one side the argument about whether or not they were true gypsies, or merely Irish didicoi’s. They were travelers. They camped in inconvenient locations. They made a mess. And the world and his auntie were convinced they stole everyone’s telly and automobile radio.

The great and glorious in the land had decreed (Caravan Sites Act 1968) that the solution was for every local governmental area to provide static sites, equivalent to the number of ‘gypsies’ in the area at any given time.

Of course, it was a nonsense. Who could know? They were travelers. But all the local worthies willingly entered the fray, because, as soon as you provided the arbitrarily calculated number of gypsy sites, you became ‘Designated.’ Which meant that you were legally entitled to move on any gypsies who were not encamped on the publicly provided sites.

My little local government area was in the process of agreeing the last site, which would have met the Designation quota, when I became Geoff the Town Councilor, at the tender age of 23.

I looked at the plans, and, with good reason mind, opposed the site unequivocally. To the applause of the 1%-ers, whose house values I was nobly rescuing.

Long story short. Kept up resistance for a year. Got some changes. Site got approved anyway. Went down with sinking ship. Much appreciation. Use of eldest daughter (I wish). But onwards to the new dawn of gypsy site in constituency. Designation achieved.

Except the gypsies would not play ball. There were five pitches to the site. But they would insist on parking as many as twenty caravans. It was a mess. They used the portable loo’s as firewood. And the telly’s were disappearing again. It was just not good enough.

What to do? Well, I’m nothing if not a tad unconventional. So, I thought it might be a good idea to go talk to them. My fellow Councilors were in shock. You mean, go down THERE? There are dogs. And filth. You won’t come back alive (um … work out that pretty use of language).

Well, I trundled down in my wellies (which took care of the mud). Barked just as ferociously as the dogs. Which aroused the curiosity of the gypsies. Ok. They WERE Irish.

Why are you here? Well, you happen to be my constituents. Why wouldn’t I want to talk to you? Right. Best come in and have a sherry then. Don’t mind if I do. And then proceeded to have the most extraordinary conversation.

It seems (not surprisingly, when you think about it) that they were all Irish-Catholic. And bred proverbially. Had at least six or seven kids each. And they needed at least three or four caravans to a family (not just the one, determined by some three-pieces in Whitehall).

Plus, they couldn’t promise they wouldn’t steal. Part of the blood, don’t ya know? But they would really like it if they could just be allowed to build (and finance) their own sites, on land they would buy and maintain, in locations that suited them, and not on out-of-the-way tips, like the one they were currently occupying. Oh. And their caravans already had loo’s. So, thanks for the firewood.

Hmm. I contacted a body called the National Gypsy Council (I know, I know, it sounds about as redundant as a pension fund for zombies; but it’s real, honest). They confirmed what my new-found chums had said, and told me that they had been campaigning for private sites, rather than public sites, like for ever.

Bottom line: Parliament had passed an Act, which was nonsense. Because no one bothered to ask the folks involved. Skip some thirty years (and I do not make myself out to be an expert on travelers in the UK today; but this is my impression), and it would appear that the narrative has, indeed, moved from public to private sites.

What is the moral? Talk to folks. Be honest about what is required. But then also, be tough, when that too is required. I told my ‘mates’ that I would pass on their views (that made for an interesting Council meeting, I can tell you). But that I would still set the police on them if I caught whiff of their stealing.

For the most part, the co-called ‘poor’ do not consider themselves to be ‘poor’ in spirit. Sure, they want a helping hand. For certain, they want schools and neighborhoods that are as goods as anyone else’s. But they know the difference between helping hand and hand-out.

And, they are the first to recognize those who play the victim, and need a good kick up the backside. And they are no less likely to take a mile, if given an inch, as any of the so-called 'entrepreneurs' to be found in the City of London and Wall Street. It ain't about breeding and background. It's about trust and verify. Trust everyone, but verify everything.

Empower, don’t nanny. Help, don’t smother. Assist, don’t enslave. Ask, don’t demand. And for the love of all things Velodrome, please stop building monuments to irrelevance. And then calling them ‘revitalizing legacy.’ Whether Millennium Dome or wooden outhouse …

Today, We Are All Londoners

The emotional import of these London Olympics didn’t truly impact me until I saw the Queen sitting in the Stadium during the Opening Ceremony. At that moment, the years fell away. And I saw a young Princess Elizabeth.

Her courageous father defied the pleas of advisers, and stayed in London throughout the Blitz of World War II, while German bombers pounded the East End of London. He stayed, to share the danger with his East Enders. They never forgot. And they loved him for it.

His daughter ascended to the throne less than a decade after the end of that awful War, her father exhausted by his sacrifice. In this year, when Britons the length and breadth of our small but proud isle celebrate 60 years of the Queen’s selfless service as Head of State, a selflessness learned from her father, we see her sitting in a magnificent Stadium, risen from the ashes of that same East End.

I can not believe that she did not feel the symmetry of honor that the moment represented for her, for East Enders and for all Britons, every bit as much as we all felt tremendous pride at the show we put on for the world, in spite of the troubles that beset our land.

It isn’t easy to present to the world a living montage of our past, when, for many visiting, that past reminds them that it was built on our unwelcome conquest of their lands. Nor is it so simple to forget that shenanigans in the financial districts of the host city, in the past few years, once again contributed to devastation in their nations.

Yet all present were gracious and open-hearted in their enjoyment of the international spectacle of togetherness we staged for them, and in which we invited them to engage. My hope now is that the pride we felt and the show of unity that we created can last more than the two weeks of the Olympics.

Great Britain has a unique opportunity to show the world that the Olympics are more than a two-week slogan. That we learn from our mistakes. That we are more than a fading Empire. More than a City of thieving financiers. That we are a nation that stands together when the moment is darkest, that we build together, and can overcome any adversity together.

At a time when our country is hurting from self-inflicted economic wounds, we nevertheless found a way to stage the greatest international show on earth. We can use that experience as a catalyst for dragging our country out of its financial and spiritual woes. And show the rest of the world a way forward for them, too.

As one people, with one voice, united as we have been for the Olympics and for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, we turn on those financiers, who occupy another patch of the East End, within sight of the Olympic Stadium, and say, stop stealing from our citizens. Stop devastating a world that is hurting. Clean up your act. And start now to share the burden of righting the wrongs you wrought.

We turn to our politicians and say, we’re not going to ask the impossible. You are, after all, politicians. But try your hardest to pull together, for the rest of us, at least for a while. And do what you all know needs to be done to set our country back on course. If you must disagree, please do so civilly. But stop the sterile attacks. Forget the polls. Jockey for political advantage another time. Just do the right thing. Now.

We turn on the media and demand that they stop the whining, the hacking and the bribing. If we are worthy of the Olympics, we are worthy of more than tits on Page 3, John Terry on the Back Page and gossip in between. We deserve a press that exposes the callow, highlights success, and provides informed and useful opinion that enriches our nation, not Rupert Murdoch.

I am by experience a cynic. But I am at heart always an optimist. The Opening Ceremony of these London Olympics was nothing if not about heart.

So it is that I truly believe Great Britain will continue to surprise the world. Not just by staging the very best Olympics ever. But by using the symbol of these Olympics, risen from the ashes of the East End, to act as inspiration, as we lift the remainder of our country from its current miseries.

And in so doing, creating an even more enduring legacy for the rest of the world. Demonstrating that the Olympic Spirit, of fortitude and strength, aiming ever high, can be an ongoing venture. Not just for a few, in the sports arena. And not just one that occurs every four years. But, a venture of renewal and growth that works for everyone. Where all share and all succeed.