It’s cut a bit long, but the video above is worth a watch. I like the concept of a direct and consensus based decision making process, but… (more…)

I first remember listening to the BBC World Service when I was about twelve or thirteen, tuning in on a little shortwave set I inherited from my grand-dad, with a frequency chart for Southern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, trying to find the perfect spot between the crackle and whizz of the static, and the exotic sounds of French and German international stations. Ten years on, I’m listening on a Wi-Fi radio, freed from static (and straight into the parallel nightmare of buffering and reduced quality streams for non-UK listeners), but the station is almost the same, and I love it just as much. I know that lots of others love the World Service too; it’s the only broadcast station—radio or television—which people will, quite unprompted, lavish praise upon if broadcasting comes up in conversation. It carries an image of British broadcasting which shows it to be amongst the best in the world.

By all accounts, the present British Government should love it dearly as well. In a world in which soft diplomacy counts increasingly, the power of a station spreading—from the shores of the Pacific, to the heart of the Sahel—such a positive image of Britain, cannot be underestimated. This makes it so perplexing that a government which has been acknowledged as having a certain amount of foreign policy nous*, should neglect the immeasurable value which the World Service brings to the country and the world, in its decision to transfer the funding of the station from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to the BBC itself, and to demand budget cuts.

The World Service has already been through a down-sizing, when large parts of the station’s cultural output were lopped off in favour of a more news-focussed schedule a few years ago, but despite that, it has somehow managed to retain its greatness as a radio station. Geographically castrating the service will do nothing to help this, and I can only hope that the ingenuity of the staff will keep the unique character of station alive, even if it loses the estimated 30 million listeners as a result of the cuts.

*Not that, as this post should attest, I agree with this Government on much, including foreign policy.

Humour me for a moment, and go to the iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, or Spotify. I’m sure you will agree that the experience of buying music from these stores in the comfort of your own home is far more pleasant than the noisy and uncouth atmosphere of the average branch of HMV. Now, using the search box, try to find the song ‘Loca’ by Shakira. If you’re in the UK, then this toe-tapping number will probably not show up, or if it does, it will be on an obscure compilation album released by Sony Music Entertainment Austria.

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And so, another year has passed. I can’t really say that 2010 was “an honest, argumentative, real, and better year”. Indeed, in the British politics-sphere, much of the political debate which occurred amounted to little more than contrasting statements of “I’m right, and you’re stupid because you disagree with me”. Nevertheless, the introduction of the first Green MP to the House of Commons was one big step towards my hope. The response to the total failure of the Copenhagen climate talks was also encouraging, and the relative successes achieved at Cancún are testament to the gradual realisation that we have to grow up, and think of how we’ll cope in the future.

I’m sometimes drawn to ask whether political leaders are capable of coping with more than one thing at once. Extreme poverty, conflict, environmental crisis, the end of cheap energy; these are all floating around us, demanding solutions. Yet the biggest political efforts, and the largest investments, are made in the propping up of a financial system which is proven to be catastrophically flawed. I’m not naive, the financial system is an integral part of our way of life, and its reformation into the totally green ideal that is envisaged in the various iterations of the Green New Deal will take time; short term action to keep the whole lot going was largely justified and required, but the air of crisis which is hanging around it all is leading political leaders to think that their excessive and overblown measures to ‘stop the ship from sinking’ are just that. Such delusions keep political energies and capital from the other problems where such things are badly needed.

2011 is the year when action is needed. Action on climate change, with a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol as an essential outcome of the talks in South Africa in December; action on making the economic system we are saddled with into a green and sustainable one, which will work for people well into the coming decades; action on generating sustainable energy to replace the old fashioned fossil fuels we rely on now; and action on cutting the gap between the richest and poorest, and removing the barriers to development for the poorest countries.

So, when my 2012 New Year’s post arrives, lets hope the vast chasms in development and quality of life, reported last year on this blog, will have narrowed to some degree, and that what honest debate 2010 gave rise to has translated into strong and worthwhile action.

Happy New Year, may 2011 be good to you.

I could never quite bring myself to proclaim, “anyone but Barroso”, last year when the post of Commission President was being considered—what with the implications that I’d plump for Wilders or Griffin instead—, but still, I really can’t say that I think he’s any good.

When I think of Barroso, I think of the grey concrete and soulless boulevards of the European quarter of Brussels. He is a civil servant and a bureaucrat; I can’t summon any idea of what he stands for, and, perhaps more importantly, where he wants to take the EU. Maybe this could be seen as a good thing, for the EU to have a settled time to get used to its new system with Lisbon &c., but while the EU is doing the equivalent of breaking in a new pair of shoes, where does it leave public perception and opinion of the Union?

Various blogs and newspaper articles have suggested that the post-war idealism of peace in Europe, brought about by the unity between nations, is meaningless to most people of my generation. Frankly they’re right. I still think it is one very positive contribution of the European project, but it isn’t something that can motivate people to accept what is still an oddity in most people’s conceptions of what a state is, and where laws come from.

Ultimately I wasn’t surprised by Barroso’s first State of the [European] Union. It was as much of a feast of buzzwords as many have predicted, and it didn’t really seem to say anything astonishingly new or push forward a continuing vision of where the European project is going. Perhaps it will prove a worthwhile contribution to the political process of the EU, with a growing acceptance that the citizens, and thus their representatives in Parliament, are prime, with the executive reporting to them, but I have little faith that this isn’t just going to end up like the sort of mechanical and contrived show that so much of EU politics and governance manages to perform. The fact that the compulsory attendance of MEPs was discussed before, with members being infantilized by a requirement to press voting buttons to confirm their presence is perhaps testament enough to the unnatural character of such an occasion.

Image from the European Parliament on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons licence.

I just got home from a couple of election parties; the first was the official GroenLinks party, at which I managed to end up on telly by accident, while the second was a friend’s traditional-style election night party (conveniently, the parties were in different cities). The elections in question are of course for the Tweede Kamer (lower chamber) of the Netherlands. If there is one thing which has marked out the night, and which I think I’m going to remember, it is the boost in the share of the vote for the anti-Islam and far-right PVV. British readers will know its leader, Geert Wilders, for his attempts to show his film, Fitna, in the House of Lords. While I don’t think he’s quite as bad as Nick Griffin, lets just say that he doesn’t have the nicest policies.

I don’t know what the ultimate result from this election will be yet, and I never like to trust polls when the declared results are as tight as they are right now, but I really hope that, somehow, a centre-left coalition, led by PvdA (Labour) can emerge. After the last few sets of national elections in Europe producing centre-right, or just outright right, governments, please let the Netherlands be the exception.

“The story ends there,” … “I don’t want to hear anyone commenting on them. Nobody is authorised to comment on the gays. You will spoil things.”

President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika

“The president has demonstrated that he is a caring father, a considerate and tolerant president. We wish him good health in his everyday endeavours as he continues leading the country to
respecting human rights and to economic prosperity,”

Statement from Chimbalanga and Monjeza

Homo Malawi verlaat verloofde voor vrouw [Gay Malawian leaves fiancé for woman]

Headline on NOS Nieuws

How nicely the story of the two gay Malawian men who were sentenced to 14 years hard labour has wrapped itself up. After being pardoned by the “caring father” who is the President, and after turning out to be straight after all, the sensitivities of the national culture need not be offended any longer.

I feel very uncomfortable with the way that this issue is being brushed under the rug. Chimbalanga and Monjeza are only two people, but with absolute certainty, there are thousands more in Malawi, and millions across Africa who are just like them, and who have to face their daily existence being frustrated due to a combination of excessively conservative morality, and imported laws from 19th and 20th century European empires.

Lets hope that next time something like this happens, the outcome will show some actual progress for LGBT rights.

I’m not sure why this election didn’t inspire me to blog in the way that I did for the US presidential election. It should have, what with it being for my own country and all, but I just didn’t see any reason to break out the custom election day theme, and live-blog it all. Anyway, I thought I’d better salvage this blog’s reputation as a political blog, and write something about the “con dem nation” (entirely plagiarised from Twitter) that we seem to have pieced together.

First off, isn’t it a bit odd to see at least one member of the European Movement as a Secretary of State in a Tory dominated cabinet? Perhaps I’m just putting too much emphasis on the European side of things. Anyway, my initial reaction to the BBC News footage of Cameron was, “could’ve been worse”, followed by noting that he’d opted for a plain microphone with no lectern (call me cynical, but was this his first theatrical step as PM?).

Policy-wise though, all I can say is that this government will be bad for Britain, and bad for Europe. Like the Irish Green’s coalition with Fianna Fáil, I think the Lib Dems will end up tarnished by their senior partner, hurting their chances in future elections, and thus removing any chance for them to show that, contrary to all evidence, they have some back-bone. The proposals for a referendum on AV are pointless; AV is pointless as an alternative, because it doesn’t do what an alternative electoral system needs to do, which is make Parliament more representative of the citizens. So, well done to the Liberals for capitulating on the one thing I wanted Liberals in government to do.

More in my sphere of concern is the impact of the new government on Britain’s place in Europe, and the effect that a Eurosceptic government in one of the big states will have. The Conservative’s insistance on calling for powers to be repatriated in some areas, and trying to put a brake on other areas will probably not hurt the EU too much. It’s a big thing, and it can comfortably withstand an uncooperative government or two. It will however hurt Britain. Enough Europeans (by which I mean people involved in Euro-politics) already complain about our intransigence, and that ill will towards the UK will probably only increase. It’ll be interesting, though perhaps uncomfortable, to watch how this affects the real world.