South Belfast Diary

The last post

2009-05-23T21:26:00.006+01:00

At last Nick and I are moving house, after eighteen months of trying to line up buying and selling in a falling market, when most people had decided to sit it out or build an extension.

We've had several disappointments: a couple of houses where it turned out that the vendors weren't anywhere near ready to move when we were, and another where we had doubts about its condition but also decided, after a second visit, that it was too small. We've veered between South and East Belfast, agonising about whether East is too far out, or whether we were going to have to pay way over the odds to stay in the South of the city (of course we were).

But finally the search is over. Our new house is lovely, but we've compromised on location. In other words, we've been priced out of South Belfast and are going East, to the borders of Belmont and Strandtown, not far from where my great-great-grandfather lived when he came to Belfast in the 1860s. We've lived in Stranmillis for nine years and have enjoyed it, but now we're both looking forward to exploring our new neighbourhood.

There are only two disadvantages. First, a longer journey to work; and second, I can no longer keep a South Belfast Diary. So this is the last post. After a short break to settle in, I'll be back with a new blog, accessible from this one of course.

Award thingy

2009-05-14T21:50:00.005+01:00

Wise Web Woman at The Other Side of Sixty has given me an award thingy, pictured right. Here are the conditions:

The recipient of this award is recognised for the following:

1) The Blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervade amongst different cultures and beliefs

2) The Blog contents inspire; strive to encourage and offer solutions

3) There is a clear purpose to the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding of Social, Political, Economic, Arts, Culture and Sciences and Beliefs

4) The Blog is refreshing and creative

5) The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking.

The Blogger who receives this award will need to perform the following steps:

1) Create a Post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award

2) The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post

3) Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably citing one or more older post to support

4) The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award conditions

5) Blogger must display the Award at any location at the Blog.

So what has this blog 'achieved'? Well, nothing, really. I’m just about to move away from South Belfast and so it will soon be replaced by a new one. I’ve enjoyed developing my opinions through the discipline of writing posts and in response to thought-provoking comments, which is why I do think blogging is a positive activity. But pressure of work tends to intervene and means I can’t post as often as I’d like – and now a pile of marking beckons and I have no time to say any more. So now all I have to do is to pass on the award to:

Nick, for his constant efforts to make sense of the world – some entertaining, some deadly serious, all expressed wonderfully clearly;

Liam, for reminding me what political debate is all about and for grounding today’s political issues so firmly in socialist history and philosophy. The latest post, on financialisation, is a cracker;

And the Dublin Opinion group blog, for all things Dubby. Where is the Belfast equivalent?

How much is too much?

2009-05-10T23:02:00.005+01:00

Although the expenses row is going to affect MPs from all parties, there’s something particularly distasteful about those from the party professing to represent the many not the few claiming for bath plugs and second-hand books. MPs are saying they’ve kept to the rules, although naturally they understand why the public are so upset and of course the rules have to change and they can’t comment on individual cases. A new independent body is apparently going to do that.

But the debate has become too focused on examples, rather than on the important more general questions. Why should MPs be able to claim for, say, groceries and home improvements? Why should the people who decide on our tax levels be able to evade Capital Gains Tax and their full council tax liability? Even if there is no rule to say money for home improvements should be repaid on sale of the property, why didn’t it feel wrong to be making a profit out of the taxpayer?

So it’s time to think about what the total package should be for the job - let’s say for the sake of argument a backbench MP. First there’s the salary. It’s been said that the labyrinth of allowable expenses has grown up as a response to comparatively ‘low’ basic pay of £64,766 a year. If I hear another Labour MP say that we’re in danger of creating a climate where only rich people can go into politics, I’m going to throw something at the TV. Backbench MPs basically do three things: constituency work; attending the Commons and committees; and party political business. Other public sector workers earning comparable amounts may work equally long hours, often managing larger budgets and more staff. So let’s stick with the salary level, and if some of the present incumbents think it’s inadequate then they should butt out.

Then there’s accommodation. In jobs where you’re expected to work on two sites, your employers should pay for what is in effect your second home. The majority of the contested issues over the past few days have concerned the purchase, refurbishment and sale of either first or second homes. None of these would apply if the costs of renting a second home were met but home ownership costs were disallowed on grounds that they were an investment rather than a requirement for doing the job; and if no costs at all were met on the MP’s primary residence. It would also make MPs lives much simpler as they wouldn’t have to spend so much time in John Lewis. Needless to say, rental costs wouldn’t be paid if an MP’s main home was within an agreed distance from Westminster.

Which brings us to travel costs. I do actually think First Class train travel is justified. Second class is crowded and noisy, and it’s likely our MPs will have to work in transit. So - a First Class season ticket between the constituency and London, which also gets you to and from the London second home. For MPs who fly home, Business Class is perhaps not so essential in the air but gives access to better working facilities while waiting, so again is probably worth it for the taxpayer.

Finally, a couple of more minor points. We’d all expect MPs to be able to keep in touch with the news, with Parliamentary business, with their constituents and with their families. Provision of PCs, laptops, broadband subscription (in both homes) and BlackBerry or similar seems reasonable. And the provision of a cash-limited hospitality budget, claimed against receipts, with the names of those entertained provided and a justification for the event, is actually a safeguard against corruption.

And just one other thing. MPs should pay their taxes. All of them, in full.

WTF is wrong with the British people?

2009-04-30T19:35:00.004+01:00

Two recent items in the Guardian have started me thinking about how the British people have lost the run of themselves over Labour at the moment.

The first, today, was the reaction to Peter Hain’s Comment is Free piece about the BNP. Hain said, correctly, that it was vitally important they didn’t win a European Parliament seat, and cast his mind back to the 1970s campaigns against the National Front:

‘…the BNP leaders are more sophisticated than the old National Front. They wear suits rather than openly flirt with nazism. They sound smooth and plausible on radio or TV. They are exploiting alienation from Westminster politics, particularly among the white working class. Yet their politics are fundamentally similar: the scapegoating of black people, Muslims, Jews, foreigners, gays and lesbians for social and economic problems. Whenever they are ascendant locally, racial violence and racial hatred are barely beneath the surface.’

And what’s the reaction from commentators – in The Guardian, remember? Well, it can be summarised as: ‘Labour is making such a mess of things that we don’t blame anyone for voting BNP; Labour will get what they deserve.’

Excuse me? I remember the days when, if you were fed up with Labour, you thought about voting Liberal Democrat, or Green, or staying at home. Not voting for a party whose policies include repatriation, and whose concept of Britishness isn’t based on citizenship as measured by your passport, but by the colour of your skin. Since when was there any justification for voting for such a party? - or excusing others who do so?

The second item was a summary of three recent opinion polls on voting behaviour, all of which put the Tories on 45%. That’s nearly half. Surely there can be no clearer demonstration of the political and economic illiteracy of the British people than the intention of large numbers to vote for a party that would cut public spending at the present time, just when unemployment is rocketing. Do people really think they will pay less tax under a Tory government? No – the Tories may well use a greater share of tax revenues to repay national debt more quickly, but it’ll be at the expense of the services we all depend on.

So let’s recap. If you want to live in a country governed by the Tories, along with a sizeable BNP presence in Europe and in local government, and you are middle class:

you’ll have to pay higher taxes

and pay for medical care

and for your children’s education, including university

and for a state of the art burglar alarm.

If you're working class:

you'll be fucked.

Clear Keynesian water

2009-04-23T08:22:00.003+01:00

So what do you do when you’re responsible for a national economy in the worst recession for sixty years? You hold your nerve and have a good look at the options.

You’ve already bailed out the banks to the tune of 3.5% of GDP, to ensure that, unlike 1929, voters don’t lose their savings. You are now stuck with rapidly increasing unemployment, plummeting inflation, a damaged housing market, and loss of public confidence including dreadful opinion polls that indicate you are likely to lose the next election whatever you do.

The options involve the amount you borrow, the amount you tax, and the amount you spend. It’s where economics meets politics and most of us run screaming from the room.

The Chancellor responded with a skilful strategy to begin to restructure the UK economy for the very tough ten years or so ahead of us. Borrowing will remain high, because maintaining public services and investing in the future are more important. Income tax increases were restricted to 50% tax on earnings over £150,000, which for once could be popular. But Alistair Darling did say that further measures were to be considered once recovery sets in, and I would expect these to hit many more of us. In terms of benefits, Labour continued to provide a framework to back people’s own efforts to earn a living and care for their families, rather than make cuts as the Irish government has done. Most impressively, the caring responsibilities of grandparents were recognised. Older people did well out of this Budget, with an increased pensioners' tax allowance, keeping the fuel allowance increase, and larger ISA limits for older people. Again, Darling did not have to do this.

But the most interesting aspects of the Budget came in the spending provisions. First, the emphasis on supporting younger people back into work was welcome. They have had the worst deal in the economic crisis and are quite rightly a priority here. Second, the emphasis on investment to tackle climate change and to kick start a green economy was impressive, although I suspect it doesn’t go far enough. Third, the difficult balancing of ‘efficiency savings’ and new investment in public services: here, growth in overall spending has been reduced but in England the focus remains on health and education, along with a fund for new business development in emerging technologies. The devolved administrations will have their own priorities; Northern Ireland has done much better than we deserve in terms of overall allocation, although what we do with it will be another story and for another post.

I do have some reservations. Predictions of growth in 2010 and 2011 sound over-optimistic. It’s not worth retaining the VAT reduction until the end of the year. References to public sector ‘efficiency savings’ may lead to back door service cuts or quality reductions. Raising the minimum wage now would have helped to set the standard for new lower paid jobs as they come on stream in the next few years. Most importantly, there were no tax cuts for lower income households.

But by and large, the Chancellor did hold his nerve. This Budget sets out Labour’s stall for the next UK general election, and voters in Britain will have the starkest choice to make since 1979. Labour intends to grow us out of recession, thus providing clear Keynesian water between them and the Tories. On Newsnight, Philip Hammond was clear that the Tories would borrow less and cut sooner. The problem for Labour, though, is what to do if the anticipated recovery is slower and more modest than predicted.

It’ll also be interesting to follow the progress of the UK and Irish economies over the next year or so, given the different approaches of the two governments. Cowen’s first two budgets show us what could be in store for the UK under Cameron – a sobering thought.

An interview with Robin Wilson

2009-04-19T18:56:00.002+01:00

I interviewed Robin for Irish Left Review recently - the delay in posting the link here is because I've been away for a few days. Robin's latest project, Platform for Change, now has a web site and a Facebook group.

More than you ever wanted to know about me

2009-04-11T08:41:00.003+01:00

Blogging has hit yet another hiatus due to work, but I have found time to be interviewed by a fellow blogger over at Mars Hill.

The psychology of dissident republicanism

2009-03-28T09:20:00.002Z

Recently I saw the film City of God: two hours of men shooting each other in the Brazilian slums. Yesterday, coffee with a friend included a long discussion about the implications for Irish republicanism of the events of the past two weeks, including Martin McGuiness’s ‘traitors’ statement and the arrest of Colin Duffy.

Readers may by now be wondering where this post is going, apart from those who are enjoying the idea of two middle-aged women sitting in a South Belfast coffee house mulling over the history of the physical force tradition. Anyway, we were remarking on the youth of two of the men arrested for the murder of Constable Carroll in Craigavon, and the survival of the concept of fighting for Ireland into a generation that can’t remember the bad old days – but who have their heroes, such as Colin Duffy.

In Northern Ireland, a small number of ideologues who believe it’s still possible to achieve a united Ireland through violence can capture the imagination of young people (usually men) and encourage them to take part in murder. But throughout the world, murder is committed for many reasons, some ideological and some criminal. In City of God, the local drugs trade was carved up into gang-controlled areas, with predictably lethal results. If your standing in the community can be increased by shooting a policeman, or dealing drugs, or blowing yourself up, it’s much more of an incentive if other options are unattractive - such as a legal but low-paid job, or a life on the dole.

So what makes a young person in Northern Ireland get involved with dissident republicans, rather than knocking on doors to increase the Sinn Féin vote? And why now? Is it a desire for a united Ireland, in which disadvantage will magically vanish? Or is it the volatile combination of deprivation, testosterone and hero worship that plays out in many parts of the world in different ways, but with the same desperate result? The answer might get us closer to being able to stop it.

Just do it

2009-03-22T12:09:00.003Z

Andrew Mawson’s ‘The Social Entrepreneur’ is the most inspiring book I’ve read in ages. Mawson moved to Bromley by Bow in London’s East End in 1984, to be a minister in a run-down and underused United Reformed Church. He transformed the huge building and surrounding land into a multi-purpose community centre including nursery, health centre, arts activities, social support and a park – the Bromley by Bow Centre (pictured). And the church? It’s still there, much smaller, in a refurbished building that doubles as the nursery.

I remember visiting the Centre a couple of times in the 1990s, and being very impressed at the facilities and range of activities. Mawson funds his initiatives through charitable and business donations, voluntary activity, some charging, and state sources including service provision. His model has been endorsed by people from across the political spectrum. What’s significant is that he starts with identified need, and then looks for funding and support to meet it, from whatever sources he can find.

There are three particularly thought-provoking sections. First is the account of the early years – from church to community centre. Mawson had no extra money, but he had space in a huge decrepit building. So if anyone approached him and asked to use it, he said yes. No risk analysis, no ten-page funding application, no written contract – just yes.

Second is his account of dealing with the local council and health services after a failure to support a dying parishioner and his subsequent attempt to set up the now successful local health centre. I tend to be suspicious of organisations that go off and do their own thing without reference to state structures. But it has to be said that if the state fails an area – which I remember was happening in the East End at that time – then unilateral action is preferable to doing nothing, and doesn’t preclude campaigning for improved state services as well.

Third is the story of the failure of his model to be adopted on a wider scale. It seemed to be impossible to capture the essence of the project in policy documents, lists of outputs and outcomes, and ‘good practice’ guides. Politicians wanted to see more Bromley by Bow Centres, but national steering groups and advisory committees led by civil servants couldn’t break away from the worst aspects of risk averse public sector culture. Mawson continues to despair on this one.

The original church was not connected with the multi-cultural neighbourhood – and couldn’t be. In expanding the range of activities, based on common needs rather than on religious belief, the Bromley by Bow Centre now benefits everyone. Worth thinking about, wherever we live.

The story of the thing

2009-03-17T16:23:00.004Z

Recently I admired a colleague’s jacket. It turned out the she’d bought it in Toronto, in a district we both knew, and on a memorable day. The jacket wasn’t just something to wear to keep warm, or even to look good – it had a story attached.

It looks as if I’ll be moving house soon, which has started me thinking about how much of my stuff has meaning beyond its use or beauty, making it harder than it should be to follow the William Morris rule. Things are bought on holiday, given as presents, inherited, or just seemed to be so right at the time.

Other things gain emotional meaning through use. I’ve been drinking my morning tea out of the same mug for at least thirty years. It was one of a pair and the other one was broken by a friend who has since died, when he was decorating our flat in London. Layers of meaning and memory.

That’s how older people, in particular, end up with houses full of stuff which they don’t want to get rid of. It’s hard to throw things away, or, more poignantly, they manage to do so and then regret it. Too much of anything on display gathers dust and looks wrong in this minimalist age. I’ll be trying to balance use, beauty and memory in the new house – wish me luck.

Why I won’t be twittering or tweeting or whatever it is

2009-03-12T23:16:00.002Z

I’m just starting to rediscover the ‘life’ part of my work/ life balance, after six weeks of intensive work and a fairly hectic month before that. Anyway, the busy period finished on Tuesday, so at least I managed to get to Belfast’s silent protest against the recent murders. No blog post on the subject as yet, but I have nothing to say that hasn’t already been said by others.

Which brings me to Twitter. As a blogger and regular user of Facebook, it seemed the logical next step and I have been investigating it.

With blogging I have a lot more than 140 characters to play with. I can try to put forward a coherent argument and if I fail I can’t blame the word length. There’s scope for a limited amount of debate via the comments function, although the interactivity of blogging software could be improved. With Facebook, not only do I get the chance to post boring status updates, but I can also put up photos, post links to items elsewhere on the web which I think might interest my FFs, join groups to show my support for various causes, and send and receive invitations. As far as I can see, all that can be done on Twitter is the equivalent of a status update – the famous 140 characters – including links to web sites. People say that news travels faster on Twitter, but I’m happy to wait for the BBC online.

I do acknowledge one useful aspect, though. Twitter is being used as an information resource by national governments, political parties and campaigns, with open access. In these cases, it functions like an instantly updateable mini web site and I can see the sense in that.

But for individuals, I don’t think so. What did I do today? Sat at desk. Worked. Ate sandwich. Worked some more. Ate banana. Went home.

Why on earth would anyone want to know that? I’m with Jon Stewart on this one.

Goodbye, Labour

2009-02-12T21:37:00.005Z

Well, I’ve just left my last Irish Labour Party meeting and handed over my Treasurer’s books to someone else.

Everyone in the Northern Ireland Constituency Council had a decision to make in the light of the report of the 21st Century Commission, which was adamant that the Party wouldn’t allow its Northern members to stand in local elections. This evening we had copies of the full report including details of the membership survey – which showed that two-thirds of respondents wanted Labour to operate on an all-Ireland basis. But that's clearly not going to happen.

I was one of the very few branch members who felt unable to continue their membership under these circumstances. Most are disappointed but think it’s important to keep the branch going. They’ll be represented at the March conference in Mullingar and will continue to argue their case.

But I think the attachment of leading Labour members to the SDLP is too strong to be broken for many years to come. The fate of the separate commission on the future of Party activity in Northern Ireland shows this. It has seldom met, has not considered papers put to it by Northern members, and has met only with the SDLP rather than undertaken wider consultation on how politics is developing in the North and how Labour might fit in. I argued that the committee was a delaying tactic and I was right. I think I’m right again now. I’m surprised Labour’s leaders are so out of tune with the views of the Party’s grassroots, who perhaps have a more realistic view of Northern politics, including the electoral gap which could have been filled by a cross-community democratic socialist party.

Ah well, that's that. It’s been suggested to me that I should check out the British Labour Party, but I’ve decided not to join another party that doesn’t contest elections, and so I’ll be taking a break from party politics for a while. It’ll be interesting to see how the ‘normalisation’ of Northern Ireland politics progresses – or doesn’t – in the new economic climate. And of course you don’t need a party card to keep on blogging…

Adopt a restaurant

2009-02-11T10:03:00.002Z

Interesting article in the Independent yesterday about the increasing number of restaurants that are going out of business due to the economic situation. The media attention has been on the high profile operations, but more modest establishments have also been affected.

The article included some suggestions for restaurants on how to keep going during a recession. The focus needs to be on good service, targeted special offers but not necessarily competing on price, keeping a good relationship with suppliers, and closely watching both margins and overheads. All good business advice, as I remember from my bookselling days, but there’s also something we customers can do.

I sometimes think that the new culture of middle-class frugality has gone too far. It’s time to say that not everyone has suffered massively from the economic crisis. Some jobs have been lost and more are insecure, especially in the private sector: that leads to lifestyle changes. For the rest of us, we still have some disposable income – and some costs have even gone down over the past year, such as petrol and mortgages. It’s time to become more discerning consumers, and eating out is the perfect place to start.

We all know the nightmare restaurants that shouldn’t be in business even in the good times. Other perfectly adequate establishments are not making the necessary effort to adapt. I was in a bar restaurant in central Belfast last week where I had to practically beg them to let me pay – I could easily have walked out instead, and nearly did. That’s a place that has survived due to its location rather than the quality of its food or service.

Let’s boycott such places, and adopt a local restaurant that we would miss if it closed down. The sort of place you might go to after the cinema or on a night when you can’t be bothered to cook; where you take visitors to your home town because they’ll get a friendly welcome as well as good food; and where you might go for a celebration blow-out because it’s reliable and they won’t rush you for a second booking that doesn’t materialise. In my case, it’s the Moghul in Botanic Avenue. Can’t imagine life without it, and I hope I won’t have to try.

How not to justify your argument

2009-01-30T08:15:00.005Z

I didn’t live in Belfast during the Troubles, and I’m very aware that I can’t even get near a sense of what it must have been like. Therefore I’ve decided not to comment directly on the proposals in the Eames Bradley report.

However, the interview on Hearts and Minds last night raised some more general points about what I’m beginning to call the ‘new élite political accommodation’ in Northern Ireland. By this I mean how the plethora of elected and appointed bodies is moving towards agreement about workable governance, backed up by the civil service, the co-ordinating bodies in the voluntary sector and to some extent the trades unions. More of that another time.

Eames and Bradley were obviously upset and to some extent baffled by the response to their report. They have done Northern Ireland a great service by carrying out the work, whatever one may think of the recommendations. But their responses to questioning on Hearts and Minds brought out three justifications often used by élites:

1. It was a difficult task

The answer to this is, yes, that’s why people of standing and experience were asked to examine the issue, and why we intend to treat your conclusions with respect. But we are still entitled to ask questions and to disagree.

2. If you knew what we know, you would agree with us

A particularly powerful argument in this case. Eames and Bradley have spent eighteen months listening to what people want, which, they said, is as much information as possible about the circumstances in which their loved ones died. But it’s not logical to assume that, if all of us were party to that experience, we would come to the same conclusions about how the desired outcome should be achieved.

3. Well, what would you do instead?

This is irrelevant in a debate about what has been proposed rather than what the alternatives might be. It’s particularly inappropriate to ask a journalist this question, as was done last night. Élites are very fond of asking the great unwashed how they would deal with the massive responsibilities involved in governance. The answer might be: better than you think.

So if you hear a person in a position of power using any of those arguments, start asking questions - but with due respect.

Four Australian cities

2009-01-26T06:35:00.008Z

I’m now back in cold, windy Belfast, and my time in Australia is already beginning to seem unreal. Australia Day seems a good time to reflect on my experiences of Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney. It’s striking how different the four cities are, and how strong the reactions of Aussies are to them all. For a hilarious take on all this, see Baino’s recent post.

I’ll start with Adelaide, the city I know best and am very fond of. I suspect that for the average person it offers the best quality of life of all the state capitals. This is a secret known only to Adelaide’s residents, who put up with jibes about how boring it is in the hope that thousands more people don’t suddenly decide to move there and spoil it all. The state government feels obliged to run advertising campaigns to attract more people, but so strong is the prejudice against the place that they never succeed. Adelaide has reasonably priced housing, a good transport system including a fantastic new airport, and an impressive cultural life for a small city (it’s known as the Festival State). The surrounding area includes great beaches and wineries, and the weather is usually good.

It’s easy to pop over to Hobart from Adelaide, which I did for the weekend to visit a friend. Living in Hobart is rather like living in Belfast: it’s isolated, and can be quite wet and cold, so people wonder why you might choose to live there if it’s not where you were born. Another similarity is the difficult history, as the settlers in Tasmania treated the Aboriginal population with even greater brutality than elsewhere. Hobart is a beautiful place, though, with its graceful bridge and nearby Mount Wellington. The city has a hippy-ish, slightly drop-out feeling, due to the large number of second-hand shops, and the Salamanca Market (pictured). I had my best vegetarian meal ever at Sirens. People in Perth are obsessed with being far away from everyone else, but I felt that more in Hobart, perhaps because it’s on another island.

Melbourne and Sydney are much larger cities and are rivals – arguments about which is best will persist until Australia sinks into the sea at the end of time. Nick and I did interesting things in Melbourne: saw better art and museums than in Sydney, including the wonderful Rosalie Gascoigne at the Ian Potter Centre (much better than Sydney’s second rate Museum of Contemporary Art); wandered around the Botanic Gardens; loved the trams; ate out in Richmond and Carlton; and admired Docklands. But there’s something about Melbourne that doesn’t quite hang together. The city seems to be trying too hard, hampered by a natural setting vastly inferior to most other Australian cities, and terrible weather.

In Melbourne, we asked friends of ours why they didn’t live in Sydney. They replied that you need a lot of money to live well in Sydney, and perhaps that’s at the heart of the difference between the two cities. We stayed at Milson’s Point (our ferry stop is pictured at the top of this post) and enjoyed wandering around the beach and harbour suburbs, all far outside our price range if we had wanted to live there. It appears that in Sydney, you’re fine as long as you stay near the water; otherwise, with the exception of a few trendy areas in the inner city, living conditions can go downhill fast, and you might as well move to Adelaide. But I can forgive Sydney anything due to the magic of the New Year fireworks, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, the ferries, Manly Beach, and the Chinese Garden at Darling Harbour.

So if I were forced to live in these cities, where would I choose? Sydney if I won the Lottery, Adelaide on a lecturer’s salary, and Hobart to retire and write the novel.

He's in!

2009-01-21T22:36:00.003Z

I have nothing to add to the commentaries about yesterday, but I couldn't let it go unrecorded here. A great moment in history.

Cleared for take-off?

2009-01-16T09:27:00.005Z

Like many people, I’ve had a long association with Heathrow airport. I was brought up on the flight path, about 30 miles away, and spent a fair bit of my childhood hanging around the perimeter fence, when I wasn’t at other airports or at air displays. The best times were when my cousin came over from Belfast and we would get taken to some aviation-related activity together. He went on to become a pilot, but in those days girls didn’t do that sort of thing.

Many years later, I worked for Hounslow Council, near Heathrow. Even in the sealed, air conditioned environment of Hounslow Civic Centre, our signal to start packing up to go home was the departure of the evening Concorde flight, without doubt the noisiest commercial aircraft ever. When travelling to work, or around the borough, it was always a shock to suddenly look up and see a huge plane overhead – although it was surprisingly easy to ignore the noise. As I was working on regeneration issues, I became very aware that the airport provided jobs for many Hounslow residents.

Since living in Belfast I’ve had more contact with Heathrow as a passenger, of course. It’s an airport I’d like to avoid for long-haul if at all possible, but the minor delays I've experienced don't really bother me. Although you can be held up at Heathrow due to weight of traffic, delays due to ‘late arrival of the aircraft’ can occur at far less crowded airports. Heathrow’s location is convenient – it’s easy to get into central London and, for me, a good place to hire a car when visiting friends and relatives in the rest of the south east.

So where does this leave me in the argument about the third runway? Very firmly against. Despite the government’s proposal to require ‘greener’ aircraft, the environmental impact of a third runway is undeniable – both immediately, and in perpetuating the culture of frequent flying. The idea of a high speed rail link with Scotland is great, but why should it be dependent on the third runway? It should be a priority in its own right, to at least cut down the number of flights within Britain.

The loss of homes is a difficult issue, as there are times when the greater public good does require the acquisition of land through compulsory purchase – for example for the proposed high speed rail link. But I don’t see that the public interest is served by this project, and therefore the loss of homes and communities is unnecessary.

Regarding jobs, it’s true that Heathrow is a major employer in West London, but no-one is saying jobs will go if the third runway isn’t built, just that no more jobs will be created. In terms of international links, many big cities have more than one airport and international travellers are quite able to cope, including planning their flight connections. It’s daft to claim Heathrow needs to expand to protect London’s economy.

I am also concerned about safety, which has not been at the forefront of the debate. I’m used to looking out of the aircraft window on the way into Heathrow and seeing other planes. I marvel at how air traffic control keeps everything safe, and I wonder how that can be sustained with even more flights from the third runway.

The priority for all of us at the moment should be to think carefully about whether we need to fly, for business or pleasure, and to take alternative forms of transport where possible. In Northern Ireland we are more dependent on flying than elsewhere in the UK, but in Britain there is massive potential to improve the train network. The economic downturn will also reduce demand. Heathrow’s third runway is scheduled for completion in 2019, but I predict that it will never happen.

P.S. A reminder this morning of the skill involved in flying a plane.

To march or not to march?

2009-01-11T21:35:00.004Z

I wasn’t sure whether to attend Belfast’s march and rally for peace in Gaza yesterday, organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

On the one hand, like many people, I’m horrified at Israel’s actions in Gaza and their disproportionate response to the undoubted provocation from Hamas, an organisation that doesn’t want to co-exist with Israel but to destroy it. I wanted to be part of the march in order to be counted. On the other, I was aware that the event would attract people whose definition of the word ‘ceasefire’ is somewhat more one-sided than my own or, indeed that of other participants such as the churches or Amnesty International.

In the end I went along and was glad that I did. There was a good turnout and a good-natured atmosphere, although I could have done without the ‘Israeli Nazis’ flag. The BBC’s pictures were biased: they focused too much both on the overtly pro-Palestinian gestures and also on the attendance of Irish republicans.

I missed the éirígí direct actions at Castle Court before the march and at Marks and Spencer afterwards – I was too busy warming up in Clements to be shopping, for once. I’m dubious about the effectiveness of a boycott of Israeli goods. It’s political rather than economic action that’s needed to stop the killing – not least from Barack Obama after his inauguration next week.

But what makes me furious is the intimidation of shop workers – which, from the report on Slugger clearly did take place (although éirígí's report implies that a jolly time was had by all) . How does attacking low-paid workers in Belfast advance peace in the Middle East? How does jeopardising the safety of women working to feed their families in Northern Ireland prevent the deaths of other children in Gaza? What kind of working class solidarity is that from an organisation that claims to be socialist as well as republican?

I’m in favour of carefully targeted and non-violent direct action, but in this case the analysis was flawed and the tactics were woeful.

A missed opportunity

2008-12-02T22:46:00.004Z

My analysis of 'section 8' is here on Irish Left Review.

Economic debate on Irish Left Review

2008-11-27T06:32:00.004Z

See Michael Taft's 10-point plan Towards a New Economic Narrative over on Irish Left Review - and take part in the debate.

Living in a seaside town

2008-11-26T22:40:00.007Z

I’m staying in Glenelg, Adelaide’s oldest seaside resort and only 20 minutes by tram from the city centre. New luxury apartments and a rather architecturally intrusive upmarket hotel sit beside older holiday accommodation, some beautiful old houses – some well looked after, some not – the bars, cafes and shops of Jetty Road, and the restaurants in the Marina area. And, of course, the beach.

Jetty Road is Glenelg’s main drag. At the beach end you can get a coffee or a beer, and buy your souvenir T-shirt and boomerang along with a daily paper. As you move inland towards Brighton Road, the shops aimed more at residents and day trippers appear: fruit and veg, chemists, clothes and shoe shops, bottle shops, mobile phones, and really cheap bargain stores doing their best to prop up the Chinese economy. The trams come down the middle of the road, interspersed with buses and cars, and pedestrians just do their best to cross where they can. Controlled chaos, especially at the weekend, when people pile into the place to shop, eat, drink, walk along the esplanade and go for a swim.

Glenelg is a little bit posh, a little bit boho, a little bit young and, I suspect, a little bit poor around some of the back streets. I’ve spent quite a bit of time there over the last three weeks because I’ve been working, taking the bus to the university every weekday and not doing much except some socialising at weekends. It’s my first experience of living in a town that’s orientated towards enjoyment rather than work, and it’s made me think about the planning issues connected with these places.

In my field, there’s an urban/ rural policy divide, although no-one seems quite sure when urban becomes rural or vice versa. The suburbs get sandwiched in between but do get some attention. Not so, it appears, for seaside settlements. I’m not talking about the many port areas which have been turned into luxury apartment ghettos, but the smaller settlements which may have had a fishing industry tucked away at one end but which always had a substantial holiday and day tripper market – somewhere like Newcastle, Co. Down, for example.

What makes Glenelg work? A number of things that aren’t in themselves restricted to the seaside: social mix, a good range of small businesses catering to a strong local and tourist market, lots to do during the day and in the evenings, good transport links, an extensive and well-kept public realm. It appears to be a safe place; certainly there isn’t much rowdiness late at night, and there are very few police around. Add the beach and the weather to this mix and you have a winner.

So next time I’m thinking about urban and rural regeneration, I’ll remember there’s an alternative. Go to the sea!

Close the door on your way out

2008-11-18T04:48:00.003Z

Discussion of the report of the Irish Labour Party's 21st Century Commission into the future of the Party has been deferred until next March, for understandable reasons. We in the Northern Ireland Constituency Council have had the section of the report on Northern Ireland leaked to us. The Commission is not recommending that Labour stand for election in NI - even if the SDLP were to merge with Fianna Fáil. A separate Commission was also examining the position of Labour in Northern Ireland, and NI members of that body have received a letter from Eamon Gilmore confirming the position set out below.

So it's no. Not now. Not ever. Go away. I'll be writing about why this is mistaken next week on Irish Left Review.

21st Century Commission Section 8: Labour and the island of Ireland

Historically, the Labour Party is an all island organisation. Labour was also organised in the north by stalwarts such as Paddy Devlin of the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Gerry Fitt of Republican Labour. Today we share the same philosophical views with the SDLP, our sister party in the Party of European Socialists.

Indeed one indication of how closely aligned are our aims and objectives is found in Mark Durkan’s speech to our 2006 conference. Taking as his theme the 90th anniversary of the Proclamation of Independence, he reminded his audience that up to one child in three in this country – North and South – still live in poverty, many in extreme poverty. He asked: “Can all parties North and South not join in a democratic covenant that by 2016 we will truly have fulfilled the 1916 Proclamation’s commitment to treat all the children of the Nation equally?”

Such a covenant would entail:

· A community where no child is ever left behind because of disability, or left out because of colour
· A Nation where to be a child of Ireland does not have to mean a child of Irish parents
· A society where parents of an autistic child do not have to research, lobby and petition various service providers as though they are the first
· A culture where young women are safer on our streets and young men are safer on our roads
· An island where children and their families will be protected against persecution and prejudice as well as poverty
· An economy that invests in the skills and values the talents of all young people including those with learning disabilities
· A country whose services and systems, laws and budgets truly proclaim “Every Child is our Child”.

This is of course very similar to the covenant we set out in Chapter 1 of this report. We should seek to work with our sister Party in Northern Ireland to achieve these aims across the island by 2016.

In marked contrast to many European democracies where issues of economics, social equality and class became of paramount importance, the politics of Ireland in general and Northern Ireland in particular after 1922 was dominated by the War of Independence and the subsequent partition of Ireland. In Northern Ireland this created in effect nationalist and unionist Labour Parties, deriving support from their respective communities but with little political strength. The unionist dominance in Stormont had, in any event, turned Northern Ireland into a virtual one party state. Under its watch, and with the acquiescence of Westminster, sectarian discrimination against the nationalist minority in the workplace prevailed.

All of this, in time, became explosive. It eventually erupted in the 1960s with the civil rights movement, the Orange opposition, Stormont intransigence, the arrival of politically motivated violence and the imposition of direct rule from London.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party emerged from the civil rights movement with the help and support of the Irish Labour Party. Brendan Corish, then Labour Leader, encouraged old Northern Labour stalwarts like Paddy Devlin and Gerry Fitt to link up with the newly elected civil rights Stormont MPs John Hume, Paddy O’Hanlon and Ivan Cooper. The original constitution of the SDLP was modelled on that of the Irish Labour Party. In addition the Irish Labour Party, which still had a small political organisation north of the border, a remnant of its establishment in 1912, instructed all its members to join the new SDLP. Labour sponsored the SDLP for membership of the Socialist International and subsequently for what is now the Party of European Socialists.

More recently, after the Assembly elections in 2007, the DUP and Sinn Féin emerged as the dominant parties of the unionist and nationalist communities. This, together with an announcement by Fianna Fáil that it intended to organise in the North, exasperated (sic) anxieties within the SDLP as to its future role in Northern Ireland politics. It appeared that significant numbers within the party, particularly outside Belfast, would have seen such a move as a lifeline for their organisation.

The problem for the SDLP was that any move to link with Fianna Fáil might have resulted in the party splitting between those who favour an all-island nationalist party, with a “catch all” appeal, and those whose preference is for a party with a strong commitment to social democracy.

What should the Labour Party’s response be to events in Northern Ireland? Should the Irish Labour Party follow Fianna Fáil and consider organising in the North?

Our first response to these questions is that they are not at all as immediate as they were when Commission 21 was established. The Fianna Fáil “threat” to the SDLP’s viability has been removed: it now appears that plans to organise in Northern Ireland are no longer a priority and have been postponed indefinitely.

In addition, the SDLP itself has rediscovered a strong voice and a message for its constituency. That voice and message were most recently heard in the speech given by Mark Durkan to the British Irish Association meeting in Oxford in September this year.

As politics develops in NI and the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement are bedded down, the old issues between unionists and nationalists will be replaced by the same sort of issues that confront government and public administration in any modern society. And hopefully the institutions of the Agreement will adapt accordingly. The SDLP Leader has argued that, at the time of the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, the system of designation of Assembly members as nationalist or unionist was “necessary because of what we were coming from but should not be necessary where we are going”. These measures had sectarian or sectional undertones and should be bio-degradable, dissolving in the future as the environment changed.

As we move towards a fully sealed and settled process we should be preparing to think about how and when to remove some of the ugly scaffolding needed during the construction of the new edifice….

If we are serious about a truly shared future then we have to allow for truly shared politics where parties can – and have to – appeal across the traditional divides. The fault-line in our society will still be there but it should not determine the party political cleavage for future generations.

[these are extracts from Durkan’s speech – not clear in the original document]

In the interim, however, the reality remains that Northern Ireland is not a fully normalised society. Under the Agreement, elections are contested between parties designated as either nationalist or unionist and they draw their support accordingly. Until some of this “ugly scaffolding” is removed – and that can be done only by those who agreed to erect it – we are not at all convinced that parties based in either Dublin or London have any real or significant contribution to make to Northern Ireland politics by organising there – and adopting one or other of those labels for the purpose.

Effectively, this would require Labour to opt for adherence to – and to seek votes exclusively from – just one of the two traditions, would split the existing progressive vote and would risk unsettling the present balance between the parties.

We are also far from convinced that there is any real demand at present within the North itself for a single, all-Ireland social democratic party, as opposed to the strengthening of links between the two existing parties.

The Irish Labour Party’s approach is determined by two major considerations. The first arises from our membership of the PES and the fact that we and the SDLP are sister parties in the social democratic tradition. The should, in our view and that of the PES, be a vibrant local PES party in Northern Ireland, capable of maintaining a clear electoral presence and with the capacity to win seats at local, Stormont, Westminster and European level.

If the SDLP, in whole or in part, chooses at some future stage to merge or create formal links with Fianna Fáil then it would automatically lose its membership of the PES. In all likelihood, in those circumstances a potion of SDLP members would decline to follow the party into such a merger or alliance. It would then be important that we, along with the British Labour Party, ensure that the social democratic and labour movement is adequately represented in Northern Ireland politics. Under the Statutes of the PES it would be possible for the new party to allow for dual membership for Northern Ireland members. Accordingly, an activist could be a member of the new party and the Irish or British Labour Party. Such a provision could accommodate the dual community identity (“British or Irish or both”) that remains at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement.

Our second major consideration derives from our own history and convictions. Labour is a party that is both Irish and republican and that aspires to a shared, 32 county future. However, we recognise the reality that, even with most guns silenced, for most of the time, Northern Ireland remains a bitterly divided society and in danger of becoming ever more so. There is more and more evidence of a hardening of separateness between both communities, of a society that is becoming more divided by tribal identifications. Parallel with efforts to maintain functioning political institutions, we need a real effort on all sides to tackle the sectarian divisions that have increased rather than diminished since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

A devolved government and assembly may contribute to normalisation but, of themselves, they cannot provide a comprehensive solution. We all of us need to address rather than exacerbate the structural divisions within Northern Ireland. Where people live, for example, where they send their children to school. These are the immediate challenges we all face in resolving conflict, combating sectarianism and establishing reconciliation between all people in the North.

We are convinced, therefore, that every Irish nationalist who wants to unite this country must recognise as a task for themselves the need to address rather than exacerbate the structural divisions [word missing from scan] and in particular within Northern Ireland. [some repetition here but reproduced as in the original.] After all, if your vision of a republic cannot include – and instead insists on the defeat of – your political opponents, then it is not a true republic at all. At its most basic, a “republic” denotes public property which is owned in common by, and attracts the allegiance of, all citizens.

For that we need a new accommodation, a new framework and a new form of words, if we are to continue the unfinished project of nation-building.

Both Labour and the SDLP need to work together. We cannot accept as adequate a stasis with nothing better to hope for than separate provision, separate development and a parity of esteem that is exclusively grounded on a sectarian headcount. We need instead a framework that embraces the diverse origins and traditions, ethnic, historical, political and spiritual, of all our people. We need to acknowledge, accommodate and celebrate the fact that we have a rich variety of social and cultural heritages on this island and that neither glorious achievement nor suffering, trial and struggle are the particular preserve of any of our forebears or any of our histories.

That is the national struggle for 21st century Ireland.

Eamon Gilmore, as leader of the Labour Party, should, as a priority, work with Mark Durkan to forge a common policy platform along similar lines to those being proposed against child poverty in the Republic. This common platform should be developed into a common commitment by both parties to be delivered by 2016.

Both parties should commit themselves to working together to develop and deliver the policies and others [sic] consistent with the goals and objectives that define our parties.

The Northern Ireland electorate must continue to have the opportunity to vote for a social democratic party such as the SDLP. We – and indeed our sister parties throughout Europe – are committed to ensuring that there will continue to be a member party from Northern Ireland within the PES.

The relationship between our parties is grounded on a mutual acknowledgement of our different situations and a mutual respect for each other’s autonomy. But there are strong and enduring links between us, based on friendship, solidarity and philosophy. We should work together to make those links more visible, to our members and to the island as a whole.

Update:

See Garibaldy's comments in full here.

Stormont deadlock

2008-11-14T05:17:00.004Z

Just down the road from my apartment in Glenelg, Stormont is for sale. But at this rate, how long before Stormont back home appears on estate agents’ web sites?

Here in Australia, the Chinese economy and the outcome of Australian Make Me A Supermodel are of far more importance than anything to do with Northern Ireland. But even at home, people are getting fed up. O’Conall Street has noted the lack of support for the dispute between the DUP and Sinn Féin – and it’s even the subject of a competition in the Belfast Telegraph.

So what’s the disagreement about? Mark Davenport sums it up:

….it all goes back to the talks at St Andrews in Scotland in 2006. Sinn Féin believed they had a deal that a local minister would take charge of policing and justice by May this year. However, the DUP insist they didn't sign anything.

Excuse me? Government in Northern Ireland has ground to a halt for that? Although I’ve said before that I think the matter is more complicated for Sinn Féin, the time has come to face up to the extent of disfunctionality at Stormont, and the reason for it.

The current deadlock is a symptom of two wider problems with Northern Ireland’s political system: lack of trust and lack of appropriate representation. First, the trust deficit within the enforced coalition means no-one is prepared to make a concession in case it’s interpreted by their communal bloc as a defeat – ironic given that the public just wants them to get on with it. Although I understand why the system was put in place in 1998, it’s time for the British and Irish governments to step in, accept that it’s not working, and review future options. This will require another period of direct rule.

Second, by lack of appropriate representation I mean the increasingly ridiculous situation of a party political system based on national identity. Surely the events of the past year show that what’s needed are politicians who can respond effectively to economic and social problems, in the interests of all of us. Instead, everything is put through a territorial filter and opposed in code. Another spell of direct rule would provide an opportunity to focus on the restructuring of local councils, giving the smaller parties (and perhaps some new ones) the chance to build up support and show they can act across the communal divide.

Negotiations continue on the deadlock, and it’s reported that a resolution may be close. But even if this is so, it won’t be long before another contentious issue will arise. Northern Ireland’s political system is fundamentally broken, and it's time to do something about it.

Settling in

2008-11-13T00:02:00.006Z

I’m on a two-month work visit to Australia with some holiday at the end, although in reality the two will be more intertwined. I started with a week in Perth, Western Australia, a city that was new to me, based on a visit to the School of Earth and Environment on the beautiful campus of the University of Western Australia (pictured). I was made very welcome and had some productive discussions about possible student exchanges, joint degrees, and collaborating on PhD and postdoctoral research.

I’m not sure about the rest of Perth, though. The trouble with being on a work trip is that sightseeing has to be fitted into, er, work, and I could have done with another week in the city to get the measure of it. I did manage to visit the excellent Art Gallery of Western Australia, unfortunately tucked away behind the railway station rather than located on the superb waterfront, and I attended a dinner at Government House.

I also spent a day in Fremantle, which had that vaguely expensive hippy-ish ambience which appeals to my generation. I had a great lunch at Mario’s, browsed in the Markets, and then went on a tour of Fremantle Prison. The prison is similar in design to Crumlin Road Gaol, and features not only a gallows but also a flogging frame, if you are into that kind of thing. Some of the cells are reconstructed as they would have been in different times in the prison’s history (nineteenth century pictured).

Then it was on to Adelaide in South Australia, where I checked into my apartment in the seaside suburb of Glenelg. I’d been spoilt by my Perth accommodation - a great apartment in a hotel in the CBD - and I knew Glenelg was going to be more basic as I needed to stretch my budget. I’ve got used to it now, but it has a kind of Twin Peaks ambience…

I’m based at the School of Geography, Population and Environmental Management at Flinders University for four weeks. I’ve visited Flinders before, and it’s great to catch up with old friends, and make some new ones. I brought work to do, of course, and we are discussing writing a paper comparing port redevelopment in Port Adelaide and Belfast.

So I’m established in my new routine - public transport, a weird apartment, a laid back seaside town, good weather, friendly people. Could be worse!

Yes we did

2008-11-05T08:37:00.003Z

At one of Obama’s final election rallies, Bruce Springsteen said he wanted his country back. Well, I’m glad he got his wish, along with the rest of the American people and, it seems, the rest of the world.

Obama’s victory feels like more than a national issue. Not just because what the US does impacts on us all. More because the election of the first African American US President marks such a fundamental step forward in their society, and a step that’s been embraced with such enthusiasm by the people.

Obama has made history through making people care about politics again as well as by changing what power looks like. I hope political parties the world over are making that connection and thinking seriously about their own practices as a result. Those long lines of voters, reminiscent of Nelson Mandela’s Presidential election, were inspiring.

Right up until last night, it wasn’t clear whether Obama would pull it off – a feeling reinforced by his campaign’s approach of not taking anything for granted. The campaign was superb, using electronic communication to galvanise support and raise money, but not to replace the face to face contact that wins elections – UK New Labour please note.

Obama has talked of change and unity, and now he gets the chance to show us what he means. With the possible exception of Mandela, no politician in recent history can have taken power with so much good-will behind him.

Trouble is, I remember the last time I felt like this about an election victory. May 1997, Tony Blair. I really hope this is different.

It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over

2008-10-21T10:56:00.001+01:00

See my comments on the US election campaign so far, at Irish Left Review.

Who is the most patriotic of them all?

2008-10-14T23:23:00.004+01:00

Today, Ireland’s budget was the first to show what the economic crisis will mean for ordinary people. It was ‘a call to patriotic action’, according to Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, which of course is nonsense. To be more prosaic, it provided some information about the tax and public expenditure measures that other countries might also adopt to reduce their rapidly increasing deficits.

And there’s no doubt some of the proposals were shocking. The 1% levy on all wage earners, despite Lenihan’s attempt to contextualise it by stating that 36% of Irish workers pay no regular income tax. Means testing of medical cards for the over 70s and an increase in A&E fees (both of which, incidentally, will do more to ensure that the North remains in the UK than any unionist polemic). Larger class sizes in schools. Increases in student registration fees. On that basis, the most patriotic of the Irish will be the poor, the sick, the old, and those trying to get an education.

But there was increased spending too, although not exactly a Deal Nua. First, the housing market: increases in tax relief for first time buyers and more spent on social and affordable housing. The distribution of spending between tenures will help individual households who need social housing or who are trying to buy their first home, but as a package they will help the collapsing construction industry as well. Second, there were some increases in social welfare payments and health spending, although some will argue not enough. Third, energy: increase in the fuel allowance, more spent on the warmer homes scheme, more tax on bigger cars and an air travel tax. Perhaps a sop to the Greens, but more likely to be part of the restructuring of households budgets that we’ll all have to get used to.

The Prime Time debate illustrated the problem with opposing this budget, though. Richard Bruton for Fine Gael fell back on the old chestnut of efficiencies (i.e. cuts) in public spending, which took on a vicious edge as he was pushed by Miriam O’Callaghan to be more specific and began talking about bloated bureaucracies and no pay rises this year.

So is there another way? I wonder if Ireland could have held back more to see what other countries will do. With hindsight, it wasn’t best to rush into guaranteeing bank deposits without the kind of restrictions included in the UK scheme a couple of weeks later. And if every country in the ‘developed’ world ends up with problems balancing their books, then who knows what they might come up with to sort it out. Running a huge public spending deficit might end up being quite acceptable. After all, if you can nationalise your banks then anything could happen.

P.S. Here's a good basic explanation of what's happened to the world's economy over the past few weeks

Co-ownership: handle with care

2008-10-09T13:02:00.007+01:00

A new private finance deal has made more money available for co-ownership, seven months after the waiting list was closed due to lack of funds. I’m not surprised that it’s back, only that it’s taken so long.

It’s understandable that people want to own their home, rather than rent. The UK and Ireland are two of the many countries in the world where home ownership is regarded as common sense – you get security of tenure, a capital gain, and the flexibility to move around. It doesn’t matter that there are constraints on all three of these benefits: security of tenure only as long as you can pay the mortgage; a capital gain in a rising market or over a long period of time but also the potential for negative equity; and a choice about where to live which is limited by price. People are prepared to take the risks of home ownership because the advantages can be – and usually have been – so much greater.

I have gained enormously from being a home owner, and therefore feel rather cautious about raining on anyone else’s parade. But I do have to point out that now might not be the best time to be considering it if you are on a low income.

The Semple Review recommended an increase in funds for co-ownership last year, but the evidence for this report was gathered when NI’s housing market was booming and first time buyers were being priced out. Since then, prices have fallen (although perhaps not to affordable levels), but it’s harder to get a mortgage, a larger deposit is required, and the interest rate will be higher.

Government policy has not caught up with the changes in the housing market and is still promoting home ownership whenever possible. The message continues to be ‘if you can’t afford a whole house, we’ll help you buy part of one’. There are a number of different types of these ‘intermediate’ or ‘affordable’ home ownership models currently available or under discussion in NI, for example the Own A Home pilot scheme in Portadown, the possible extension of the House Sales Scheme to allow part purchase, and now the return of co-ownership through the Co-ownership Housing Association. There’s also a consultation document out on a Mortgage Rescue Scheme including the option of selling part of your home to a housing association and becoming a co-owner.

These piecemeal initiatives need to be brought together into an integrated strategy on sustainable home ownership, which identifies the groups that would benefit from each of the schemes. Such a strategy should also recognise that some people will never be able to afford to buy, and that they should not be encouraged to do so. After all, isn’t that how the credit crunch started?

Co-ownership will be the right choice for some, and I’m sure the Co-ownership Housing Association will provide good advice to applicants. The important thing about co-ownership (sometimes known as shared ownership) is that you have to pay rent on the part of the house you don’t own. This rent is at a social housing level, but it’s still an extra cost on top of the mortgage repayment, rates, and repairs and maintenance costs. It’s a good deal for people in secure jobs who are likely to see their salary increase over time. But given that unemployment is likely to rise as a result of the economic situation, and that mortgages will continue to be expensive and harder to get, access to any kind of home ownership for those on low incomes should be treated with extreme caution at the moment.

City girl

2008-10-05T19:57:00.003+01:00

I was brought up on the edge of a small town in Berkshire, but I’ve always been a city girl. I don’t think the world is divided into those who love cities and those who hate them. It’s divided into those of us who enjoy short periods in the country, but for whom cities are our lifeblood – and the rest. I just walk taller in the city.

The attraction of cities when you’re young is obvious. Things to do, people to meet, the anonymity which allows you to make mistakes without someone telling your parents (although by this definition Belfast is not a city), a sense of possibilities and of opportunities – along with the more scary options of loneliness and failure, of course: see Jonathan Raban’s Soft City.

As one gets older, the cultural aspects of city life begin to appeal rather more, along with the politics, the architecture and general ambience, and of course the shops. It’s also possible to start taking the city for granted. When in London, I got used to being able to catch world class art, music and theatre without making much of an effort. If there was a national political demonstration, I didn’t have to think about transport beyond hopping on the bus down to Trafalgar Square. And when I lived 15 minutes by Tube from Oxford Circus, my credit card got a lot more exercise than it does today.

But cities are great for older people too. In London, I always said I would retire to the Barbican and go to concerts in my slippers. For older people, cities offer convenience, good health care, public transport which means we can give up the car, and enough culture, education and politics to keep the brain alive. The trend of moving to a city apartment after the kids have left home is entirely positive, in my opinion.

Living in Belfast, a small city, is different again. There’s an element of sophistication, of course, but also a lack of diversity and not enough good theatre and art. Belfast is remaking itself in the post-Troubles (but not post-conflict) era, but hasn’t yet decided what kind of city it wants to be, and who it wants to be for. Our fragmented politics isn’t helping here.

So – favourite cities? London is growing on me again after eight years of living elsewhere. I’m becoming fonder of Dublin, Toronto and Glasgow on closer acquaintance. Chicago is a recent discovery and Venice is unique. I’ll be visiting Perth for the first time next month, along with returning to Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney by New Year. So at the moment I would say Chicago, Vancouver and Sydney are the favourites, in reverse order – but that may change!

It’s not about me – or is it?

2008-09-24T14:38:00.006+01:00

Nothing brings out my sense of territorial ambiguity quite like watching the British Labour Party conference.

On the one hand, Labour had to be forced by the courts to allow membership in Northern Ireland, and has no plans to stand election candidates here. So we can’t vote for them.

On the other hand, Northern Ireland is part of the UK, which has a Labour government. A number of important issues are not devolved to Stormont including defence, taxes and benefits, foreign policy, and currently policing and justice. In addition, constitutional matters remain in the gift of Westminster (although matters are rather more complex in the case of NI due to the involvement of the Irish Government), as we have a devolved rather than a federal system. So what happens at Conference does matter to us here in Northern Ireland.

I was impressed by the content and political astuteness of Gordon Brown’s speech yesterday, and I hope it’s the start of a comeback for him and for Labour more generally. I wasn’t so keen on the straight steals from Obama’s campaign. When Michelle Obama told us all what a great guy her husband was, I thought thank goodness we’ll never see that in UK politics – and it took a month for the idea to cross the pond. And as for ‘it’s not about me’ – when I heard a commentator on Radio 4 saying Brown needed to make ‘an Obama of a speech’, I don’t think he meant Brown needed to make Obama’s speech.

However, I’m not sure if I’d join up again even if Labour did operate a fully functioning party in Northern Ireland. In any democratic socialist party, there’s always a tension between pragmatism and idealism and, in British Labour, pragmatists have been in the ascendant since the mid 1990s. (I would say that in Irish Labour the idealists are currently more in evidence.) The next couple of years could see a change in public opinion about the balance between individualism and collectivism, in response to the economic situation. Jon Cruddas already has some interesting ideas about restructuring income tax. So perhaps idealists have a chance to have greater influence, given the changes that will be necessary to respond to the credit crunch, oil shortages, and global warming. The question is whether that influence is best exercised from within, or from outside the party.

Oh do grow up

2008-09-18T21:27:00.005+01:00

I’ve just been watching the debate on Hearts and Minds about the Northern Ireland Executive’s failure to meet for three months due to the continuing disagreement about the timeframe for the devolution of policing and justice powers. The debate was memorable for two reasons: first, Mark Durkan actually made sense; and second, Gerry Kelly was completely unable to put a comprehensible case for the behaviour of Sinn Féin, in the end resorting to the slander that Durkan supports a return to majoritarian rule, rather than addressing the question.

Anyone who has managed to finish Jonathan Powell’s account of trying to make the Assembly work from 1998 until May 2007 will not be surprised that Sinn Féin are trying yet again to engineer a crisis. Powell’s book will make you wonder why Tony Blair bothered to keep going once the DUP and SF became the largest parties, as each became expert at the brinkmanship which kept power at Westminster for years longer than was necessary.

This time Sinn Féin want to make sure they get what they want – whatever that is – as the long overdue 11 plus replacement, as well as a better deal for the Irish language. Although I’d like to see more state support for my dismal efforts to learn Irish, I really do think this is not the time to push it. When it comes to the 11 plus, however, it’s a disgrace that no decision has yet been made, and as was said on the programme, that will be in the minds of many parents far more than who pays Hugh Orde.

But the biggest disgrace is that fuel poverty payments are being held up as part of this row. An announcement for the rest of the UK was made a week ago. Sinn Féin say these payments can be agreed through a special powers measure, but other parties disagree. To hold up benefits for the poorest and most vulnerable, in order to wrangle over administrative powers, is despicable. Given that it appears all parties agree with the package, legal advice should be taken about the quickest way to get the decision made, and it should be done. Unfortunately this doesn’t apply to the equally urgent 11 plus decision, as there are fundamental differences of opinion here and coming to an agreement would be difficult even if the Executive were prepared to meet.

I’m sure many people from elsewhere in the world find it hard to believe that our Executive are behaving like this at a time of economic crisis. But actually there is a good reason why it’s happening. Sinn Féin are in a difficult position over policing and justice. On the one hand, many of their supporters live in areas where there are severe problems with crime and anti-social behaviour, which they want dealt with by the PSNI rather than by ‘informal justice’. So Sinn Féin are calling for a timetable for devolution of policing and justice. However, accepting political control of this area means accepting the state’s monopoly on the use of force through the rule of law, as Gramsci explained so well. Once Sinn Féin do this, they are fully integrated into the government of a partitioned Ireland, which will alienate others who voted for them.

So there is mileage in creating a delay, perhaps even by collapsing the Executive and Assembly. Sinn Féin need to grow up and get their priorities right, or they can never participate fully in a Northern administration. And I don’t know where that would leave us.

You can put lipstick on a blog, but….

2008-09-14T19:09:00.002+01:00

I don’t usually think of myself as a woman blogger, just as a blogger. I’m aware that I’m in a gender minority in cyberspace, but I’m not sure that I care. This is because, as a middle-aged woman, I feel less invisible when on my own personal soapbox than I do in everyday life.

Of course there are times when I feel ignored. I think all bloggers, male or female, know that feeling when you’ve slaved away at a post on something you feel strongly about, and no-one comments on it or picks it up elsewhere. Or when you comment on another blog, and subsequent commentators (who just happen to be male) completely ignore your points. But does this happen because I’m a woman? The truth is, I don’t know. I might just be writing shite.

Or, indeed, I feel ignored when the Irish Times publishes a magazine feature on women bloggers in Ireland and, ahem, doesn’t include me. Yes, I’m pissed off with the article, and why?

Well, before I start, I should say that many of the women featured have blogs I like, and I have made one new discovery – the wonderful Maman Poulet, who was obviously the token politico. But I do think the article presented an unfortunate view of women bloggers, which hasn’t done us any favours. The majority of blogs featured are, to be kind, rather superficial. Now, I’m as capable as any women of blogging about relationships, shopping and the shortcomings of himself, and in SBD’s early days I wrote more about the first two of these – the third is off limits in case of retaliation! But I’ve reduced the number of posts on these subjects, because I don’t think they are very interesting. About half my posts have been about politics, more so recently because so much has been going on. I’m really pleased to have started blogging for Irish Left Review (ironically, my next post was going to be about women in politics) and I’m also developing an academic group blog, with a colleague.

Of course women, as well as men, blog on a variety of subjects and that’s how it should be. And of course we don’t all have to agree – the Grandad controversy taught me that. But the article suggests that women blogging in Ireland are concerned primarily with fashion, food, cosmetics, family and dating anecdotes, and handy household hints. Is this true?

You can put lipstick on a blog, Irish Times, but it’s still a blog, and has to be judged on its merits.

A Place Called Unity

2008-09-01T12:27:00.001+01:00

See my thoughts on Obama's nomination acceptance speech over at Irish Left Review.

It’s official

2008-08-28T20:35:00.008+01:00

So Barack Obama is now officially the Democrats’ Presidential candidate, along with his vice-presidential running mate Joe Biden. The constant claptrap about ‘family’ and the American Dream is getting to me already, but maybe my cynical attitude is because I’m not an American. We do politics differently in these islands - although I can’t see any British Labour politician managing defeat as graciously, almost enthusiastically, as the Clintons. And the Brits have a reputation for hypocrisy?

The rudiments of a policy agenda persist in shining through: universal health care, ‘responsible’ withdrawal from Iraq, improving education opportunities. But the overwhelming message so far is the same irritating mixture of inspiration and vacuity as found in The Audacity of Hope, which I didn’t find as impressive as Dreams from My Father.

The later book sets out Obama’s political views, supplemented by more on his about family life. He’s honest about the value-free zone that modern politics has become: ‘in few other professions are you required, each and every day, to weigh so many competing claims…There is a constant danger, in the cacophony of voices, that a politicians loses his moral bearings and finds himself entirely steered by the winds of public opinion’ (p.65). I wonder if he discussed that with Gordon Brown last month.

The best chapters in Audacity are, in the main, about politics – for example ‘Opportunity’ discusses revitalising public services. Elsewhere in the book, though, we learn that he supports the death penalty in extreme circumstances (‘mass murder, the rape and murder of a child’), and that he’s deeply ambivalent about institutionalising gay partnerships. He’s better on the complexities of the abortion issue, and also on his difficult and (then) unpopular decision on Iraq. But although I moan about the emphasis on family in the campaign, the best chapter in this book is the final one, on, yes, ‘Family’, which brilliantly merges the personal and the political.

It’s worth supplementing your Obama reading with David Mendell’s book, 'Obama: From Promise to Power', which provides a fascinating account of Obama’s political career, with his 2004 Convention speech identified as the pivotal moment. It clarifies Obama’s ambition and calculation over the years, quite rightly in my view, as you don’t get to be a Presidential candidate by accident. The fatigue, the domestic problems, the importance of money and good staff, and the need to remember constantly that anything you or your family say or do will be scrutinised by the media, is all there too.

The next ten weeks will be hard work for many people. Sign up with the campaign to keep in touch.

John Lewis tries again

2008-08-28T10:45:00.007+01:00

I see John Lewis is trying again to get a store built at Sprucefield.

John Lewis is one of the few things I miss from London. When I lived in Highbury, I was 15 minutes by Tube from the Oxford Circus store, the best place to watch North London couples arguing over the purchase of a new sofa, carpets or fancy kitchen equipment. When I moved to Northern Ireland, I had a brief, irritated e-mail exchange about their lack of plans to develop here, before cancelling my store card.

John Lewis has the perfect combination of high quality goods and great service. It was a real shock when we first arrived, having to buy furniture and white goods from shops that charged for delivery and weren’t very specific about when they would deign to drop by with said item, plus not appearing to care whether they sold anything to us in the first place. Perhaps the John Lewis reputation for service is because they treat their staff well? – although I gather they don’t have union membership. Local shops who have been concerned about the competition should be aware that price isn’t the only consideration for some of us.

It’s a shame John Lewis seem to think they won’t get the sales to justify a store in central Belfast. I would have preferred them to House of Fraser in Victoria Square. Although they have a lot of stores in out of town developments, I think of John Lewis as being primarily a city centre operation, with the added benefits of keeping centres alive and helping the environment by allowing us to use public transport for our shopping trips. I also don’t understand why they didn’t move into the South a few years ago, when consumption was booming and there was a gap in the middle to high end of the department store market. And of course Waitrose would do very well here too.

But if it’s Sprucefield or nowhere then I’ll be leaping into the car as soon as they open.

I’m not available right now….

2008-08-26T20:22:00.002+01:00

This morning I remembered I hadn’t checked my mobile for three days. Friends are familiar with this syndrome. ‘But I rang you! Or I texted you!’ they exclaim. They soon get to know that the best way to get in touch via e-mail, as long as I’m at home or at work.

But if I’m on holiday I’m pretty much completely off the radar. No BlackBerry, no wifi compatible laptop – usually, no laptop at all – and an increasing disinclination to check my e-mail at public access points. If my hotel has internet access I might log on, and even manage a status update or blog post, but I’m usually off line literally and metaphorically.

I don’t have an iPod either. I listen to ancient cassettes in the car (it’s a pretty ancient car) and CDs in the kitchen. I’ve thought about buying an iPod when planning various holidays and other trips which involve flying, but have always decided against it because I love to read on a long flight – and reading time is precious.

Of course I don’t have a job which involves having to be in touch all the time. Nobody is going to die without immediate access to my expert opinion on research methods or urban regeneration policy. It’s good practice to reply to student queries within a day or so, but I’ll always have my out of office reply on if I’m away. Obviously in a job with short-term deadlines, or involving life and death decisions, it’s more important to keep in touch, as it is also for those doing the double shift of paid work and parenting.

But constant availability isn’t progress, it’s a new form of extending working hours. Capitalism is doing very nicely out of mobile communications in more ways than one. Make sure you use technology rather than letting it use you.

Yes We Still Can

2008-08-20T22:13:00.002+01:00

If I lived in the USA I would be campaigning for Barack Obama. I think it’s wonderful that a politician can galvanise people in this cynical age. Obama has revived the ancient art of political speech-making and allied it to the very modern use of the internet, with stunning results. There’s also, of course, the issue of his background: not simply that he is black, but rather that, like many Americans, he has a very mixed heritage in terms of race and class. And he does actually have a political message, even if you sometimes have to dig a bit to find it under the general bonhomie.

So it’s disturbing to have had a sense of support fading slightly over the last few weeks, culminating in today’s first McCain poll lead. Stories of policy ‘flip flops’ began early in 2008 but became more frequent during the summer. The Obama World Tour was, I think, misjudged. It gave him the photos with foreign leaders, most of whom Americans don’t know much about. July’s Berlin speech was great hoopla, spoilt only for those of us in Northern Ireland by a surprisingly inaccurate reference to our ‘walls’ coming down – spend some of that campaign money on fact checking, Barack! But it made no impact on the people who matter: the voters. And since his return home, the press have quite rightly been tougher on him and McCain’s campaign is getting its act together, forming a pincer movement which won’t let up now until November 4th.

The next few weeks are crucial for Obama. He accepts the Democratic Party nomination as presidential candidate on 28th August, a surprise to those who thought he already had it and had perhaps been elected when we weren’t looking. He’ll announce his vice-presidential running mate in the next few days – by text message. And then the real fight begins.

Obama is so, like, ready to lead. I hope he still gets the chance.

Wardrobe CBA

2008-08-09T21:45:00.003+01:00

I’ve been having a clothing clearout this weekend, and it’s started me thinking about the lack of correlation between the amount I paid for something and how much use I get out of it.

Women’s magazines go on about something called ‘cost-per-wear’, a simple Cost Benefit Analysis intended to persuade you to buy expensive clothes on the grounds that you’ll wear them more often and they will last for ever.

For some people this may be true. For me, I’ve found that I don’t tend to keep my more expensive purchases for a long time, even if I do enjoy them for a year or two just like my cheap stuff. Of course, if they are one of my impulse buys that don’t stay in the wardrobe for long, parting with them to the charity shop is more painful.

For example, I had to dress more formally when I worked in local government in London than I do now as a lecturer. I brought various suits and jackets with me to Belfast but there was no call to wear them as a PhD student. And when I was back to needing something smart for the odd exam board or conference, a baggy cut and big shoulders were no longer the thing. So out they went, as they should have done years ago.

My wardrobe cost-per-wear must vary from about 5p for my wonderful old black denim jacket to around £30 for this year’s mistakes, smock tops being prominent here. It’s a sobering thought that my best buys this summer have been a handbag at TkMaxx and a shirt from eBay. The only lesson I’ve learned after so many years of shopping has been that you just can’t tell what’s going to stick around.

Trying to understand the credit crunch

2008-08-05T23:04:00.003+01:00

Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about how the credit crunch came about, so that I can understand what’s happening to the housing market. This is as far as I’ve got:

1. The credit crunch started because American banks expanded their mortgage market by giving loans to households at high risk of being unable to keep up repayments, due to low wages, insecure work, disability and so on.

2. The banks had two ways of dealing with the potential risks this incurs: first, they charge a higher rate of interest on these ‘sub-prime’ mortgages. Second, they sell on the debts to other financial institutions, including banks (the debt repayments provide cash flow). In some cases they parcelled up the bad debts along with less risky options. The financial institutions who bought these debts were based in various countries, including the UK.

3. People who should never have been sold mortgages in the first place started to default on their loans, not due to worsening economic conditions but because they were a bad credit risk. This is why the crisis could develop at a time when employment and inflation levels were not a particular problem.

4. The increasing level of bad debts meant that financial institutions had to write off more of the debts they had bought, and they didn’t get the anticipated cash flow from repayments, thus affecting their profits.

5. As a result, they became more cautious about buying debt packages, which meant banks were stuck with their bad debts and got into difficulties.

6. And they became cautious about any inter-bank lending and borrowing, thus restricting the amount of money available to borrow, e.g. for domestic mortgages, property development on a larger scale, or business loans. Northern Rock is one of the banks that can’t borrow from other banks, so it can’t lend more to improve its cash flow, and can’t sell on its bad debts.

7. Restrictions on mortgage finance for domestic house purchase lead to a reduction in the amount institutions are prepared to lend as a proportion of the borrower’s salary and also as a proportion of the value of the property: 100% mortgages, or more than 100%, are no longer offered.

8. Housing demand starts to fall, therefore prices fall.

9. Buyers don’t come back into the market to take advantage of lower prices because they can’t get a mortgage easily, most commonly because they don’t have the required deposit to make up the proportion of the value of the property not covered by the mortgage.

10. As a separate issue, energy prices start to rise, causing price rises generally and affecting the ability of potential housebuyers to save for their deposit; these households may also have other debts on which interest rates rise

11. Many households, not just potential housebuyers, cut back on their spending

12. The knock-on effect of both the credit crunch and higher energy prices start to impact on the wider economy. This is where we are right now. Unemployment should start to increase, although the current UK picture is more complex – the claimant count is rising, but unemployment is static as there are more people in the labour market than ever before.

So what next? Doing something about the decline in the housing market is regarded as crucial, although the Crosby report, commissioned by the Treasury to review options for government intervention, leans towards the do nothing option. We learn today that a stamp duty ‘holiday’ is a possibility. Although this would reduce the cost of moving, and therefore put a bit more money towards the deposit, it doesn’t tackle the root of the problem, which is the decrease in mortgage availability.

So should the UK government intervene in the housing market? Or in any other way? Or would it just be using taxpayers’ money to allow people to buy houses two years earlier than they otherwise would? I will return to this subject.

The vultures are circling

2008-08-03T20:17:00.004+01:00

One good thing about taking an interest in both Irish and British politics is that there’s usually something of note going on somewhere, even though it’s hard to keep up with it all. And at the moment British politics is humming.

The whole Gordon Brown thing has given me a new respect for management theories. Having had to take various psychometric tests over the years as part of training courses, and having regarded them as one step up from reading my horoscope, I now have to admit that there is such a thing as a leadership type, and our current Prime Minister ain’t it. I’ve been a tremendous Gordon fan all the way through the Blair years, and it’s been awful to watch him having a terrible year in a job it’s clear now he should never have taken.

But the biggest damage could be the return of the Blairites. More meaningless waffle about ‘choice’ and right-wing nonsense about Britishness, all delivered with a glottal stop which they clearly didn’t learn at Oxford. And all because Brown’s supporters, who still have the better ideas, are weaker on strategy and tactics.

There needs to be a fight for the soul of the British Labour Party - and it needs to be soon.

After Glasgow East

2008-07-27T23:58:00.002+01:00

Much has been written over the past few days about the Glasgow East by-election and its likely aftermath. It was indeed a watershed, but not because a seat in a Labour heartland was lost. The SNP is a credible party for a protest vote: they are left-leaning and have power as the largest party in the Scottish Parliament, to say nothing of the national question. Personally I think Crewe and Nantwich was more of a disaster. No, the significance of this one is its timing – Party Conference this year will be hell on wheels.

It is more important to ask what people are protesting about, and how Labour might respond. It’s not enough to keep saying the Party is listening. I look forward to learning more about the decisions made at the National Policy Forum this weekend, but from what I’ve read so far it’s piecemeal and reactive stuff.

It will be clearer who should lead the Party if we know what Labour stands for. In times of economic hardship, Labour should prioritise protecting the poor as much as possible, through ensuring benefits retain their real value as the cost of living rises, and also by returning to an emphasis on the importance of high quality public services, which used to be known as the social wage. Labour could learn from the Irish experience of social partnership here.

Also the electorate needs to grow up. Cheap energy isn’t coming back; cheap food probably shouldn’t. House prices need to continue to come down if the next generation is ever going to be able to afford home ownership. We’ll need to modify our behaviour, and it’s gratifying to see this starting to happen. We’ll also need to become more aware of what governments can and can’t control, or rather, how much government intervention in the market we want, and how we think it should be paid for. This is the context for the debate on Labour’s future.

Two American cities

2008-07-27T01:04:00.007+01:00

Nick and I have been on holiday in the USA for a couple of weeks, in Chicago and New York City, as he has described in more detail.

In Chicago there was a sense of pride in the city, people were friendly and we felt welcome. I had been at a conference before Nick arrived, and after three days in windowless, air-conditioned rooms, I was ready to start exploring. Millennium Park contained some fantastic designs including the Anish Kapoor sculpture Cloud Gate (pictured). The nearby Art Institute had a brilliant collection, despite some rooms being closed for renovation: I particularly liked the Ellsworth Kelly commission in the Sculpture Court.

We also took an excellent boat tour organised by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. If you are in Chicago do take this opportunity to learn about the development of the city centre and the different architectural styles used. Buy tickets in advance, as they sell out, and in the summer try to get the 9.30am tour to avoid the worst of the heat. Finally I would recommend the Chicago History Museum.

We’d last visited New York City twelve years ago and thought it was fabulous, but couldn’t say the same this time. We did interesting things, but somehow they didn’t cohere and we left with a sense of a tired and fragmented city, existing from day to day but not really aspiring to much more. And the people are incredibly rude and unhelpful, more so than last time, we thought.

Of course we went to the incomparable Museum of Modern Art, Rothko and Pollock being my favourites while Nick enjoyed the special Dali exhibition. But we found the new acquisitions disappointing, and the same applied at the Whitney Museum. The more established collections may be playing it safe, but we discovered the New Museum of Contemporary Art where there was a higher standard, in a great new building in the Lower East Side. It is near the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which has expanded since we last visited and now has a wider educational mission: ‘to promote tolerance and historical perspective through the presentation and interpretation of the variety of immigrant and migrant experiences on Manhattan's Lower East Side, a gateway to America.’ Unmissable.

Two other historical sites we visited were the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, and Ground Zero. Ellis Island was fascinating, but it took us two hours to get there from the time we bought our ticket in Battery Park, including about an hour queuing for the ferry - on a very hot day. The visitor centre at Ground Zero was hard to find, but I’m glad we didn’t give up because the displays tell the story of 9/11 in a dignified and moving way.

So we came away thinking that New York consisted of a series of disjointed experiences which we wouldn’t have missed, but I suspect we won’t visit again. Chicago, on the other hand, is now on the list of favourite cities and we’ll definitely be back.

My generation

2008-07-26T20:36:00.004+01:00

A happy birthday to multi-millionaire and pillar of the Establishment, Sir Mick Jagger, who is 65 today and will be adding the UK state pension to his other riches.

I couldn’t think of an appropriate song of his own with which to serenade this Baby Boomer, but by chance was listening to Patti Smith today and this is the one. Play very loud.

Patti also does a great cover of Gimme Shelter.

The cartoon that didn't shock America

2008-07-16T02:00:00.005+01:00

It's been interesting trying to follow US politics here on holiday in the USA, in Chicago to be precise. It's easy to let it all pass you by, as both the TV and the newspapers are by and large pretty dreadful. Politics is reduced to slogans, which helps me to understand the appeal of Barack Obama - all you need to know is that he's for change, and then carry on with the rest of your life.

But this week's New Yorker cartoon penetrated this indifference to some extent. Think of a UK equivalent - say, in 1996, Cherie Blair waving a balaclava and an AK-47 while Tony sits around in a Celtic shirt. The New Yorker's defence has been that they are satirising the idea that Obama is unpatriotic. Hmm. Many are not impressed - including his opponent Senator McCain.

The event made me realise that I'm in a different culture. At home, the idea is that you don't publish things that might offend. Here, a trip to Chicago's Freedom Museum explained that in the USA, as a result of the First Amendment, the balance is much more towards expressing yourself and then fighting your corner if someone disagrees. The museum does a great job of presenting the argument that this is more democratic but, of course, more difficult when 'freedoms' contradict each other.

Could it ever catch on in Northern Ireland, I wonder?

P.S. The New Yorker redeems itself with this article.

I-dentity

2008-06-30T20:43:00.004+01:00

When I first arrived in Belfast, I thought it was charming that so many people were interested in where I came from and where I lived, and why I’d moved here, and exactly what was so great about their part of the world that I had chosen to settle here. But after eight years I know better. The following exchange is the most recent of many:

Him (recently introduced, in a social setting): So where do you come from?

Me: Belfast.

Him: No, no, that’s not a Belfast accent, I mean, where are you from?

Me: Well, it depends how far back you go…..

Him (getting irritated): Where were you born?

There are a number of assumptions made by people who meet me for the first time. They are: that I’ve not been living in Northern Ireland for very long; that I don’t intend to stay; that I couldn’t possibly prefer Belfast to London, or to anywhere else on the planet for that matter; and that I know absolutely nothing about Irish history, geography or politics.

I accept that some of these assumptions could be the result of experience. In particular, I think it would have been very arrogant to come and live here without trying to understand Northern Irish society, although hanging around North Belfast for a year doing research for a PhD in community participation might appear to some to be a little extreme. I can understand that if people I meet have had negative experiences with other English people, they would be too polite to say so.

But I think the response is more likely to be based on a couple of other factors.

Firstly, Northern Ireland is still not used to immigration. People are suspicious of outsiders because they can’t understand why anyone would voluntarily come to live here. There is a remarkable sense of inferiority about the place and a failure to appreciate its beautiful location and scenery as well as the many strengths of its people. Of course this is the legacy of the Troubles, which I don’t want to minimise, but more confidence please, people!

Secondly, immigrants don’t fit into the ‘placing’ discourse. Where you live, your name, and where you went to school, are meant to identify you as Protestant or Catholic without the question having to be asked directly. Once this is established, people know the topics to avoid or treat circumspectly, in order not to give offence. To be outside this structure creates anxiety and sometimes hostility. In addition, some do have particular issues with the English, which I respect and tend to defer to, whether it’s Cromwell, the Black and Tans or the Anglo-Irish Agreement – none of which I was personally responsible for, by the way.

So for everyone who knows me, or who might meet me in future, here are the answers in advance:

· South East England.
· Belfast.
· Stranmillis.
· Eight years.
· Not at all, we love it.
· Yes, my father’s family come from here.
· No, I managed to find it with no problems, I’ve been here before.
· I did know that, actually.

Dreams from my Father

2008-06-29T21:03:00.005+01:00

Barack Obama’s autobiography Dreams from my Father was first published in 1995 and reissued in 2004 to capitalise on Obama’s increasingly high profile, but it’s a book that would still be worth reading if he were toiling in obscurity for life. This is because, whatever else he does or doesn’t achieve in future, Obama can write, and he has a story to tell.

The first paragraph describes where he was living when he heard his father had died:

‘The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn’t work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle.’

It sets the scene perfectly for an emotional and riveting memoir. The childhood in Hawaii, brought up by his white mother and grandparents after his Kenyan father went to Harvard to do a PhD and never came back. Then to Indonesia with his mother and a benevolent stepfather; return to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and get an education, joined again by his mother later when that marriage ended; a vibrant and fascinating account of community organising in Chicago; and finally a journey to Kenya after his father’s death, to meet to his extended family and find out more about his African heritage.

I’m sure many readers will enjoy the Kenyan section the most. Obama understands the complexity and richness of family and neighbourhood connections and how they form the bedrock of most people’s lives. He also understands poverty, and the dilemmas of identity in the modern world where attachments to more than one country are increasingly common.

But my favourite chapters were the Chicago years. The account of community organising in a housing project, in a disadvantaged area within a racially divided city, helps us to understand why Obama went into politics. He describes the soul-destroying attempts to find common issues, to mobilise impoverished people, to lobby the Chicago Housing Authority and local politicians. The limitations of that job drove him to Law School and subsequently into the Illinois Senate. It now looks as if he’ll end up in the White House, with a background unlike any previous president – and I’m not just talking about race.

Finding a balance

2008-06-19T07:42:00.002+01:00

I have trouble with the phrase ‘work – life balance’. It implies that work is something separate from the rest of ‘life’, and that something called ‘life’ is more important than work.

And what is ‘work’ anyway? For some it means paid work only, and for others it includes household chores or caring responsibilities, or attending a dinner party when you’d rather stay at home and watch Big Brother. In other cases, there are people who love their jobs, sometimes for the social contact rather than for the work itself, and don’t consider their employment to be ‘work’ at all.

As I get older I find I balance my working time instinctively. I’m a last-minute person, so I tend to oscillate between spending long hours on something urgent and more leisurely periods of reading, filing, catching up on e-mails and of course preparing for the next crisis, which wouldn’t occur if I worked at a more consistent pace. But luckily I have a lot of control over my time, and out-of-hours access to my office, and so I get by.

So where does that leave ‘life’? – all those other keywords such as relationships, friendships, reading, music, politics, socialising, travelling, cooking, and even blogging? Well again, for me a lot of this takes place in the very grey area between work and the rest. If I read a book on Irish history it’s interesting in itself but can also help me with my research. I’ve met many of my good friends through work, and sometimes when we meet up we talk about our jobs. I use examples from my travels when teaching, whether or not the trip was funded by my employer.

Of course there are other times when what I do has nothing to do with work, and I’m glad of the chance to switch off for a while. But my point is that sometimes it’s just not realistic to seek balance between different aspects of our lives in the short term because they are so intertwined – and I would argue that short-term and carefully managed obsession with one thing can be a creative and productive approach.

Perhaps the best we can do is to try to achieve balance over the course of a lifetime, and to make time for the things that matter to us.

Rights and the Right

2008-06-16T22:34:00.003+01:00

I’ve been away for the weekend and was thinking about David Davies’s extraordinary decision to resign and contest a by-election on the issue of 42-day detention for terrorist suspects, and apparently also on ‘the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this Government.’

He is of course correct about both 42 days and the general sense of erosion of civil liberties through such matters as extensive use of CCTV and the introduction of ID cards. It’s been one of the most disappointing aspects of New Labour governments that they’ve taken on the agenda of strong state control without much question, and it needs to be challenged.

There’s only one problem. The man’s a Tory.

Both the Right and the Left of British politics have a problem with civil liberties, of course. For the Left, the dilemma is about the extent to which individual freedoms should be limited in pursuit of the common good. For the Right, it’s about how to ensure the continued production of surplus value (directly or indirectly) while also allowing us enough autonomy to stave off a revolution.

However, as a working person, I find it useful to take the view that if a Conservative appears as if he is going to act in my interests then I should be very very suspicious indeed. Thanks to the magnificent TheyWorkForYou, it’s possible to look up Davies’s voting record. For example:

· He did, of course, vote for the Iraq war. So much for the civil liberties of the Iraqi people, but perhaps foreigners don’t need them;
· He voted against the hunting ban, but again perhaps animals don’t have rights;
· He voted against the equalisation of the age of consent, against the repeal of section 28, and was absent for votes on civil partnership; but gay men and lesbians don’t need rights either.

And there’s even a slight glitch in his speech explaining why he resigned, with a reference to ‘so-called hate laws’: well, I’m sure they come in handy if you’re being harassed on grounds of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or religion, none of which are likely to apply to Mr Davies. To be fair, he voted against ID cards and also against the introduction of student top-up fees, but both will affect his middle class constituents. On the other hand, the Independent reports that he 'supports the death penalty for premeditated murder'. Which probably won't.

It was surprising to see Liberty appearing to welcome his stance. If I can dig up a few disturbing items from half an hour on the internet in my spare time, I would have thought their staff could have made some more extensive checks before allowing their Director to state that: ‘…democrats from across the spectrum care passionately about rights and freedoms. MPs of all parties hold courage and conviction about these values and few more so than David Davis.’

Davies is in favour of civil liberties for people like him. And the by-election stunt should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

….. but not if you’re gay

2008-06-09T21:31:00.003+01:00

The Iris Robinson ‘gays can be turned’ row has inspired more comments on Slugger than anything else I remember, and of course bloggers have been posting away like mad on it. The most sickening thing about all of this is that Mrs Robinson obviously feels she has done nothing wrong.

I’m not sure her husband will agree, however. No matter how much he backs up the little woman in public, does he perhaps remember the Programme for Government for which he is now responsible? Let’s look at some extracts, along with a sneak preview of Iris’s next Nolan Show comments:

‘We have much goodwill and support both at home and abroad – including from the United States and the European Union – to help us realise the opportunities and address the challenges we face. We will seek to build on this goodwill and support to create a confident and vibrant region that plays its full part in North/South and East/West relations……... Working together we can build a shared and better future for all – a society which is at ease with itself and where everyone shares and enjoys the benefits of this new opportunity. This is our commitment to you.’ (p.4).

Except of course if you are gay. And if you foreigners out there think that supporting us means you have the right to criticise that, then you can just get right back to where you came from. Nobody has loved us for years and we still don’t care. And you can take your Foreign Direct Investment with you.

‘As an Executive, we will support business, and create the conditions in which enterprise can flourish. We will work to grow the economy and private sector to generate high value jobs. This will include, amongst other things, a focus on increasing private sector investment in innovation and on improving the strength of our tourism sector. This will require investment……..to create a region which offers a high quality of life to those who wish to live and work here……This is essential if we are to retain our young people, our existing highly skilled employees, and attract the people and investment required to drive the increasingly knowledge-based economy.’ (p.9)

But not if you’re a gay entrepreneur, and heaven forbid that you might be ‘coloured’ as well! We don’t want gays on high value jobs either, even if you are the best in the world and for some reason you want to come and live in our wee country. And tourists – forget it! Take your money to London or Dublin! And if you were born here and happen to be gay, we’ll be glad to see the back of you no matter how good your degree is. Competing in the global economy has its limits, don’t you know.

‘We must also continue our efforts to address the divisions within our society. Progress has been made, but at a time when our society is being transformed, sectarianism, racism and intolerance are still too evident. They mar our reputation, blight our economic prospects and have a corrosive effect on our society.’ (p.12-13).

I can cope with Catholics having rights, as long as they don’t want a united Ireland, but I draw the line at…. You know what I mean, Stephen?

The hell of marking

2008-05-13T19:24:00.002+01:00

I would love to be blogging tonight on Alistair Darling’s spectacular failure to get it regarding his compensation for making poor people poorer by making a lot of other people a bit richer too, so that we’ll all shut up and keep on voting Labour (except those of us in Northern Ireland, of course). Or I’d like to be writing about how the most appropriate advice for Caitriona Ruane right now is ‘when you’re in a hole, stop digging’. I’d like to be writing a book review, which I haven’t done for a while, or sharing my summer travel plans, or posting yet again on democratic socialism in Northern Ireland.

But I am stuck in the hell that is marking. Every academic I know agrees it’s the worst part of the job, and I feel incredibly guilty for letting out the secret. I have eighty essays to mark and am just over halfway through, and have to get them all done by Thursday morning. That’s eighty checks on subject matter, structure, spelling, references and so on; and eighty sets of meaningful feedback to give.

And that’s why I feel guilty. When I was a student I would have been furious to think that marking my work was a chore, after I’d put so much effort into it. And for all the cynicism about students nowadays, and the odd one who obviously can’t be arsed, most do try hard. They deserve my best attention, to make sure they get a fair mark and also some useful feedback. And of course discovery of the odd gem does keep me going. So back to work, feeling refreshed by the break…..

If Boris is the answer, what was the question?

2008-05-03T09:56:00.005+01:00

It’s hard for those of us who don’t live in London to understand why Londoners chose Boris Johnson for their new Mayor – and I write from the place which is run by Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. Are the bendy buses really that bad? But every politician should be as generous as Johnson in their victory speech, and it was particularly appropriate for him to acknowledge Livingstone’s leadership after the bombings on 7th July 2005.

It appears that a number of issues contributed to the result. There was an inner/ outer London divide, with the outer areas going for Boris. Personally I find outer London utterly depressing, but there’s no doubt many of the run-down suburbs need more public investment. Do voters really think they’ll get that from the Tories?

There may also have been a racist element, and it’s also alarming that the BNP gained a London Assembly seat. Perhaps some voters genuinely felt that Livingstone was too close to Islamic extremists, but despite the overall success of London’s multiethnic society there is still a small-minded element around who were able to attach themselves to Johnson, without his approval I’m sure.

Other London-based issues which could have been influential include the slight hint of patronage around Livingstone’s administration, and the old ‘time for a change’ argument put forward by the politically illiterate. Well, be careful what you wish for. More seriously, crime and anti-social behaviour are obviously of concern and perhaps people thought Johnson would be able to run the police better than Ken. But in that case why didn’t they vote for Brian Paddick?

There is of course the possibility that there was a protest vote based on the Government’s record, and in particular on the abolition of the 10p tax rate. But it was the more affluent boroughs that won it for Boris, and in any case it must have been widely known that Ken didn’t support the change and has been a maverick both inside and outside the Labour party for his entire political career. Also, there was a low turnout and so if it was a protest vote it was not very effective. The abysmal 45% turnout, albeit higher than London’s previous two Mayoral elections, shows there was little confidence in any of the candidates. That less than half the voters should bother to turn out says more than anything else about the state of democracy in one of the world’s greatest cities.

P.S. Keep an eye on Boris with BozzaWatch...

Political support and voting in Northern Ireland

2008-04-26T22:29:00.003+01:00

Recently I wrote a paper with the snappy title ‘Political identity and support in Northern Ireland politics 1998 – 2006’, on behalf of Labour's Northern Ireland Constituency Council, for the Labour Party Commission on Northern Ireland. It’s an updated version of statistics from some work I did in 2005 at QUB’s Institute of Governance. I applied for funding for an action research project to try to bring together people from the different ‘third space’ political parties (neither nationalist nor unionist) in order to try to develop this aspect of Northern Ireland politics. We held a well-attended seminar at which there was clearly a lot of support for the project, but we didn’t succeed in getting any cash for it.

I recall a visit from an English charitable trust to which we’d applied. Their staff member, who dealt with all their Irish applications, asked some very pertinent questions and was clearly very aware of the issues. He was accompanied by an Englishwoman from their board of governors, who kept on asking why we needed money to get people to talk to each other. Put that woman on the Community Relations Council right now, I say.

Here are the summary points from the report, which covered the years 1998 - 2006:

· A substantial proportion of people, ranging from 30 – 40 per cent, do not describe themselves as unionist or nationalist. The proportion is increasing slightly over time.
· Over the same period, when asked which party they support, many people either support no party (between 11 and 26 per cent over the years) or don’t know (5 – 18 per cent).
· During the period 1998 – 2006, support for unionist and nationalist parties combined reached a low of 56 per cent in 2006 and never rose above 69 per cent.
· In elections, the 30 – 40 per cent of the population who do not support the communal parties reduces to a band of generally around 5 – 7 per cent who turn out to vote.
· There may be many reasons for this and turnout is not unusually low compared with other parts of the UK and with the Irish Republic. We cannot assume that they point exclusively to the possibility of a gap in the electoral ‘market place’.
· However, in 2005, 41 per cent of respondents had a lot of sympathy with the statement from non-voters that ‘I would have voted if there was a strong non-sectarian party’.
· It would be reasonable to conclude that at least some of the missing voters cannot identify a current political party they wish to support.

I’m a lot more cautious about the results than I was in 2005. As I say above, there may be many reasons why people in NI don’t vote, describe themselves as unionist or nationalist, or support a political party. One reason is the possibility that they don’t tell the truth to survey interviewers, a subject which is not treated seriously enough by social researchers. Still, there is a gap and that means there is potential for a new political party to gain support and votes.

What does it mean to be Labour?

2008-04-22T22:55:00.006+01:00

Since I moved to Northern Ireland, there have been times when I’ve been very glad not to have to decide whether to vote for the British Labour Party, and never more so than when following the ‘10p tax rate’ arguments this week. I was astonished to hear the announcement of its abolition last year, but given there wasn’t an outcry at that stage from Labour MPs, let alone from the voluntary sector and the trades unions, I thought I must have misunderstood.

But of course the issue resurfaced as soon as the measure actually came to be implemented and it transpired that 5.3 million people across the UK would be worse off. Out of 351 Labour MPs, 39 are backing an amendment to the Finance Bill to compensate those who will lose out. So 312 Labour MPs care more about their careers than about the low paid.

Those of us who are democratic socialists know that compromises have to be made from time to time. That’s the difference between being a revolutionary socialist with no chance of ever making anyone’s life better, and having the chance to use the mechanisms of the state to the advantage of working people. It’s a tricky balancing act and one which New Labour seem to have had a lot of trouble with, to put it mildly. Some of their decisions which were wrong in hindsight appeared to be perfectly reasonable at the time, or at least to be arguable.

But this time the decision strikes at the heart of what being Labour is all about – a redistributive philosophy, from each according to their ability and to each according to their need. The tax changes will penalise young people without children, those who retire early, and part-time workers – and higher earners will gain, adding insult to injury. In the days when I lived in England and was able to vote Labour, I did so expecting to be taxed more highly as my income increased, and that if my income fell, I would pay less tax. In those days, it was the Tories who bashed the poor. I also accept that as someone who has chosen not to have children, my taxes should contribute towards services for families, for the general good of society. But I don’t see why a person on minimum wage should be put in that position.

If Labour MPs have any political compass left, they must join the opportunists in other parties, who are doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and vote for Frank Field’s amendment.

Update: the following day, Gordon Brown announced there will be a compensation deal and the amendment was withdrawn. By that time it had 46 signatories, so I apologise for over-estimating the spinelessness of the PLP by, um, 7.......

Further update: Looks like the rebels have been conned.

Want not, waste not

2008-04-19T17:40:00.005+01:00

There’s been some press coverage this week on rising food prices, as part of which Newsnight looked at how much food we buy and don't eat.

The Love Food Hate Waste campaign says that in the UK about a third of the food we buy is thrown away – more than potato peelings and the odd piece of rotten fruit, in other words. The site is full of good ideas about how to shop more carefully and recipes to use up leftovers, all very laudable. It’s part of the UK WRAP initiative, which covers a wider range of initiatives to reduce waste and recycle more. Compost Awareness Week starts on 4th May, folks.

But how on earth do people manage to amass all this excess food in the first place? A couple of years ago, I worked away from home and lived on my own during the week, and I admit that a few things did go off, mainly fruit and milk. Now, when cooking for the two of us, I plan menus and take a list to the supermarket - interestingly, I rarely see anybody else with one. I don’t always stick rigidly to the list, but I can say honestly that we eat everything except peelings – I have to confess that we don’t have a compost bin.

An example from last week: I cooked too much egg fried rice with leeks one night, the leftovers went into baked potatoes the following evening, and a half tin of baked beans that got shunted out of the potatoes ended up in a vegetable hotpot which did us for the next two days. So why doesn’t everyone do this? Being vegetarian probably helps, as I don’t worry about reheating ingredients. One of the best parts of Christmas is mixing together all the vegetable and potato leftovers on about the day after Boxing Day, adding leftover cream and Stilton, and baking for about 20 minutes. It’s really not that hard.

I just have one niggle about Love Food Hate Waste. It’s funded mainly by the government, i.e. my taxes. Usually I’m all in favour of the nanny state and telling people what to do, not enough of it around. But surely in this case it’s more appropriate for Love Food Hate Waste to be a charity and to raise funds from the private sector which is benefitting from selling us all this unnecessary food in the first place?

Jobs across the border

2008-04-14T22:22:00.005+01:00

An interesting news item today about the possibility of up to 5,000 jobs in financial services being created in Northern Ireland as a spin-off from investment in the South, without firms losing their Southern tax exemptions.

The deal was struck by the two Finance Ministers on this island, soon to be the new Taoiseach and First Minister. Peter Robinson is quoted in the Tele as saying: ‘For years people have been talking glibly about cross-border co-operation that is to the mutual benefit of people in Northern Ireland and the Republic. This is what it looks like.’ And he is absolutely right, because he’s going to make it happen.

The DUP have little patience with publicly funded all-Ireland agencies, and of course boycotted them in the early years of the Assembly. They want to increase private investment in NI and have been very strategic about building links with both the Irish Republic and Scotland to this end. But this has nothing to do with the peace process, community relations, cross-border love-ins or anything at all other than cold hard economic facts.

Fairly obviously, Northern Ireland gains through achieving a massive chunk of the Programme for Government target of attracting inward investment for a minimum of 6,500 jobs, 85% to be above the median wage. The Republic gains by finding a way round Dublin’s skills shortages and keeping firms on the island at a time when no country wants to lose foreign direct investment. Firms gain from lower wages and running costs, and keep their state subsidy through tax breaks. Individuals in Northern Ireland will get jobs, although feelings will be mixed in the South – as they were when Aer Lingus moved to Aldergrove at the expense of Shannon.

But it’s all in the context of an economic downtown and tough global competition, in which jobs can go just as easily as they can arrive. There is a new investment dynamic developing on the island and it’s a challenge for the trade unions and the parties of the left.

The importance of getting published

2008-04-11T23:18:00.005+01:00

Kim and Zhan have an excellent post on the HSA blog. ‘Getting published, getting known: some advice on writing for publication’ provides essential points for early career academics.

The publication of papers in peer-reviewed journals is a little-known part of the job outside academic circles and I find an explanation of the process usually inspires a mixture of incredulity and mirth. It goes like this, at least in the social sciences:

· Spend at least a year carrying out and writing up a research project, in between teaching and administrative duties
· Then start writing papers for publication from the research findings
· Send a paper to an academic journal, plenty to choose from but needs to be a balance between the journal’s ‘impact factor’ (i.e. how influential they are) and how confident you are that they will accept it - it’s not done to send a paper to more than one journal at a time
· The editor sends the paper to at least two other academics to review anonymously
· They provide comments which allow the editor to decide whether to accept the paper, to reject it, or, most commonly, to invite a resubmission with often quite substantial changes which can take months to do
· The paper is then resubmitted, unless you give up. Sometimes the editor’s decision is to reject it (after all that work), or to ask for further work to be done, or to accept the paper for publication – hurrah!
· It can then take a year or so before it appears in print.

The process for books and book chapters is less rigorous and so they are not so highly prized as outputs for the UK Research Assessment Exercise. Again it’s hard to explain that books, which might have a wider readership or even be a valuable teaching resource, are less valued than an 8,000 word essay in an obscure journal available only on expensive subscription.

Every job has its quirks, but even so…..

My excellent blogger awards

2008-03-25T19:53:00.005Z

A timely notification from Gesa, which allows me to get back to emphasising what’s good about blogging and bloggers.

Here are my top ten, in alphabetical order so as not to offend, although I don’t know why that should concern me any more:

Asylum: John Self’s Shelves: How does he do this and have a job as well? Fantastic literary resource.

Cedar Lounge Revolution: This was my nomination for best blog in this year’s Irish Blog Awards. It’s a serious group political blog including a fantastic Left Archive, written in complete sentences with no swearing. Of course it was never going to win.

Democratic Centre: Against bigotry wherever he finds it - a voice for change in Northern Ireland.

Draw Breath: Ciarán and Isabel’s blog and photoblog. You never know what’s going to be next but you know it’ll be interesting.

Nickhereandnow: Nepotism rocks! But so does his blog so that’s OK.

Paint and pastel: Many academics are very boring, but Gesa has an entire other life as an artist, as set out here. And she’s excellent at both.

Slugger O’Toole: Still an indispensable part of the morning news check.

Splintered Sunrise: Another one where I wonder how he finds the time. This is where to keep up with the 57 different varieties of the Left, past and present, as well as a huge number of other subjects.

The Other Side of Sixty: Politically spot on, well written and passionate. A role model.

Your Friend in the North: Well-argued and thought-provoking posts on a wide range of subjects, and he usually agrees with me too! Who could ask for more?

Y'all feel free to nominate your own top 10, now.

If you think PC is a computer, please log off now

2008-03-24T12:22:00.004Z

I’ve been participating in a short debate about ‘political correctness’ over at Grandad’s and Nick’s. It’s left me wanting to make some points at greater length than is possible in a comments box, both about political correctness and about blogging.

First, ‘political correctness’, a term nowadays used only by people who are against it. I remember the English right-wing media hysteria of the mid-1980s about baa baa black sheep, black coffee and personhole covers, none of which were true. So I had a sense of déjà vu when I read Grandad’s post. What strikes me is how each side of the debate talks about tolerance. Those who think political correctness is the work of the devil just want to go on calling people what they feel like calling them. Those for whom political correctness is about respect for others ask that we should try not to hurt their feelings.

These arguments were covered in more detail during the debate and I won’t repeat them here. But there’s another angle, as far as I’m concerned. The way we address people is linked to the way we think about them, and that’s about power. In order to justify slavery, the inferiority of the black person over whites had to be socially constructed, or how could you justify owning another human being? Equally, the stereotype of the stupid Irish person justified colonialism, including leaving them to starve during the Famine. I could go on. If we think people are inferior, it’s easier to deprive them of their rights. Ireland is rapidly becoming a more liberal and multicultural society, and we have those issues to come. I’m sure that’s why the debate is less familiar here and why many people still think that words do no harm.

I want to end with a few comments about blogging. I have no objection to a well-argued, serious post against political correctness, and I would disagree in the same vein. However, Grandad’s post was a tirade ending with: ‘And if you are offended by any of the above, then fuck off. You snivelling little cry baby’.

Of course it’s up to him what he puts on his blog, and he was nowhere near inciting the kind of violent hatred which would justify a ban; nor were any of the comments in this category. But notice the little blue splash on the right-hand side. Yes, he was one of this year’s winners in the Irish Blog Awards. If you are a well-known and, presumably, often-visited blogger, I would suggest that you do not bring Irish blogging into disrepute through such intemperate posts.

See also Wise Webwomen's great post on the same subject

Wise councils?

2008-03-13T22:08:00.002Z

There were never going to be seven new councils in Northern Ireland once the Assembly was reinstated. It’s been a long road since the first Review of Public Administration consultation document in 2003, when the question of rebalancing NI’s unique mixture of overgovernment and democratic deficit was first raised.

The councils aren’t by any means the whole story of the RPA, but today’s announcement of an 11-council structure by 2011 was the best we were going to get and was certainly better than the 15 preferred by the NI Local Government Association. The reason is simple. Councils need a critical mass of finance, competent staff and good quality councillors to deliver services efficiently and to become the democratic focus of their area.

Details on the transfer of powers will be announced to the Assembly after Easter. This meant the press coverage today concentrated on the political make-up of the new councils rather than on what they would actually do. We had Fred Cobain bleating about Belfast turning green, when what he should be thinking about is who Northern Ireland’s new communities are going to vote for, and why it probably won’t be the UUP.

The new powers will include ‘aspects of planning, as well as rural development, the public realm aspects of local roads functions, urban regeneration and community development, a range of housing related functions, and local economic development and tourism’. The Minister made an interesting point on Hearts and Minds tonight when pressed by Noel Thompson on when these powers might be devolved. She said that both trust and capacity were needed first. So we could be waiting a while yet.

The NI Executive press release contained the usual guff about ‘strong, dynamic local government creating communities that are vibrant, healthy, prosperous, safe and sustainable and have the needs of all citizens at their core’. Who writes this stuff? The emphasis on community planning is important, though. Successful community planning can bring together service delivery and democratic decision-making, but if done badly it’s a great job creation scheme for bureaucrats. There will be a lot more to say on all this.

Public Meeting: A Right Wing Budget?

2008-03-10T19:40:00.006Z

Debate on the Northern Ireland Executive Budget 2008-11

When introducing the Executive’s Budget on 22nd January, Peter Robinson announced to the Northern Ireland Assembly: ‘It is almost 40 years since a Finance Minister elected by the people of Northern Ireland presented a budget in a stable political environment.’

But what kind of a job has he made of it? What does the budget say about the vision of the Executive for the future of Northern Ireland and about how they intend to pay for it? Who gains and who loses?

Come along to the open meeting to listen to speakers from three political parties and debate the issues.

Thursday 20th March, 7.15pm

Grosvenor Conference Centre, Glengall Street, Belfast
(opposite the Europa Bus Station)

Chair: Mary McMahon

Speakers:
Mark Bailey, Green Party
Stephen Farry MLA, Alliance Party
Mark Langhammer, Labour Party

Organised by the Labour Party’s Northern Ireland Constituency Council

ALL WELCOME

Budget text and associated documents available here

All stressed out and nowhere to go

2008-03-07T19:23:00.003Z

Over the years I have become very good at dealing with stress at work. I think domestic stress is much harder to deal with – less agreement on how to behave and much harder to walk away.

At work, nothing would get done without a degree of stress, but the worst kind is outside our control, often the result of managerial incompetence.

So if the pressure’s on, here’s how to deal with it.

1. It’s not you, it’s them. You were perfectly all right before all this stress came along and you’ll be all right afterwards. This is a temporary situation.

2. But it’s up to you to make sure it stays temporary. If the stress is likely to be long-term, such as a restructuring with new job responsibilities, get cracking and start using the words ‘trade union’ and ‘rights’. And if you’re not in a union, don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.

3. On the other hand, short-term stress that’s under our own control can be exhilarating. If you’re given a new piece of work that’s going to stretch you, for example, try to make sure that you can get on with it without interference, or work in a team with colleagues you respect (er, you do respect at least some of the people you work with, don’t you? – if not, see 7).

4. Nowadays, flatter management structures and budget restrictions mean it’s not easy to delegate or outsource to help with the workload. But if you have too much to do, there’s no point in creating a bad atmosphere by moaning about it to colleagues who have no power. Talk to the person who can resolve it or keep quiet.

5. Distraction has its place, but don’t let it get out of hand. The odd glass of wine, bar of chocolate or night out on the town may help in the short term, but don’t go for a major avoidance exercise. Instead, book a holiday for the week after your deadline.

6. Don’t assume health problems experienced during a stressful time are psychosomatic. Get your doctor to examine the possibility of a physical reason for your symptoms. Inoperable cancer will play havoc with your holiday booking.

7. Know when to take the money and run.

Ulster says goodbye

2008-03-04T23:57:00.007Z

I’ll leave people who have lived in Northern Ireland for much longer than I have to tell their stories about the Big Man now that he is to stand down as First Minister and party leader - an iconic figure for unionism, more famous for saying ‘no’ than anyone else on the planet, and one of the few Northern Ireland politicians to be recognised widely outside the place. There are different views about his own prejudices, and a recognition that he works hard on an individual level for all his constituents, but there’s no doubt that over the years his comments have been used by others to justify sectarianism and bigotry.

Whatever about the history, he led his party into the St Andrews Agreement in 2006 and onwards to a remarkable coalition at Stormont last May. We’ll probably never know what was said to them by Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern – perhaps ‘it’s the end of the road’ would be the most likely – and therefore why the deal was done. Paisley himself said it was to prevent the Dublin government having more power in the North, so presumably he was convinced that the alternative was joint authority.

But once it became clear that the Assembly was going to last, Paisley’s role became less clear. The DUP is being honed by Peter Robinson and others into a neoliberal, right-wing party which puts the market first and community background second. An all-Ireland agenda is welcomed if it’s good for business, and a ‘shared future’ means economic prosperity for all. Although it’s still a party which values Christian religious belief, Paisley’s departure also means a stronger separation between church and state. The DUP is having to confront the contradictions between nationalism and the free market, and is coming down on the side of the market. The DUP and Sinn Féin have developed a symbiotic relationship in government, which has raised questions about the role of the other parties in the Executive and the future of the mandatory coalition model. These governmental debates left Paisley on the sidelines, as the need for a demagogue declined – at the same time as (alleged) ordinary decent corruption reared its head in his family. It's the right time to go.

With thanks to Mary who happened to ring while I was writing this

And to the New Statesman for picking it up

A new housing agenda?

2008-03-02T11:44:00.006Z

Last Tuesday’s announcement by the Minister for Social Development was the government’s response to last year’s Semple Report on affordable housing. As such, it’s disingenuous to bill it as a ‘new housing agenda’. It’s a populist statement which, although not without merit, promotes access to low-cost home ownership and social housing without mentioning issues such as provision for unpopular and expensive special needs groups, or local opposition to new developments.

Plans include:

· Building at least another 5,250 units of social housing in the next three years;
· Making co-ownership (buying part of your house and renting the rest) easier;
· Establishing a Mortgage Rescue Scheme;
· A new form of co-ownership for social housing tenants;
· Action to reduce the number of empty homes;
· A long overdue requirement for developers to provide some social and affordable housing in new private developments;
· Measures to improve the sustainability and energy efficiency of new social housing.

Although the social housing commitment is welcome, it’s less than the Housing Executive’s housing need calculation of 2,500 new homes a year. However, the biggest problem with social housing targets is programme delivery, not funding. Otherwise, policy is all geared towards home ownership – and of course some of the new social housing will end up being bought by tenants as well.

It’s understandable that people want the security of owning their own home as well as the equity gain which is an increasingly important addition to earning power in helping to determine life chances. But at a time when the economy is faltering, is it responsible to encourage even more people to take out a large mortgage? Even with a ‘mortgage rescue’ scheme to pick up the pieces?

There are a couple of other specific proposals, each of which would have merited a separate statement as they are extremely significant in policy terms: an ‘Eco-village’ of 350 ‘mixed tenure’ homes on the site of the Grosvenor Barracks in Enniskillen; and £7m for housing improvements in the Village area of South Belfast. The Enniskillen scheme ticks all the right policy boxes; however, the evidence for the success of planned ‘mixed tenure’ developments is itself rather mixed.

The long-awaited funding for the Village regeneration makes an important statement about the government’s role in areas which are still prime targets for developers. Public money is still to be used to keep them residential and to some extent affordable, rather than to allow the market to take over and turn areas like Sandy Row and the Village into an extension of Belfast City Centre. Personally, I think this strategy is only sustainable if these areas become ‘mixed’ in the Northern Ireland sense, including welcoming immigrants which I understand they are starting to do. That’s the reality of the vacuous Ministerial quote that ‘more sustainable homes will lead to more sustainable communities’.

So although there’s a lot to commend in this announcement, it’s far from a new housing agenda for Northern Ireland.

How to survive your PhD

2008-02-29T20:08:00.004Z

There’s a good post by Rowland Atkinson over on the HSA blog on how to get a PhD without going mad or becoming a complete recluse. He quite rightly emphasises the role of partners in the process as PhD study involves becoming obsessed with the details of an obscure topic and it’s no fun living with someone in that state. As for the few months of ‘writing up’, it’s best to forget about it afterwards, rather like childbirth I suspect. Now that universities are performance driven, the days of students spending years on their PhD are gone. You have to produce your thesis in four years or it counts against your department’s future funding for postgraduate research.

I did my PhD as a mature student and enjoyed the opportunity to stand back from what I’d been doing for a living and have a think about aspects of it I’d been taking for granted. The greatest shock to the system wasn’t the isolation but rather having to do everything myself – as a manager I’d been used to delegating, and suddenly this project was all my own. It was certainly worth it and in my case it led to a new career as well.

The luck of the Irish class

2008-02-26T22:35:00.003Z

I’m just back from my Tuesday Irish class, fresh from my very scary first attempt at the conditional tense. One of the benefits of working or studying at Queen’s is the chance to taker a language evening class for £10, and there’s a wide choice available. It’s tremendous to have such an opportunity on the doorstep.

But those of us in the Irish class appreciate it even more because we nearly lost it. We’re a mixture of staff and students, from different disciplines, but the one thing we have in common is that we’re all busy. So of course there were times in the first semester when we didn’t attend. Then, at the start of the second semester we received an e-mail cancelling the class as the number attending was now too small for the class to be viable.

I could understand why Queen’s felt the need to do this, as the classes are obviously heavily subsidised. But after an e-mail exchange between classmates, several of us decided to complain and ask that the class should be reinstated.. I really didn’t hold out much hope, but after a couple of weeks we were told our class was back!

So now no-one ever misses a week, out tutor didn’t lose his job, and I’m well on the way to a few complete sentences even though pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired. I think the conditional tense is going to have a wait a while, though…..

Oh, Delia!

2008-02-24T14:01:00.003Z

I was taken aback to see packets of instant mashed potato on display at my local Sainsbury’s yesterday, and then I remembered – it’s the Delia effect.

Delia Smith’s influence used to lead to the promotion of omelette pans or cranberries, for those who were inspired by her books to try some real cooking rather than living out of tins and packets. But her latest book, How to Cheat at Cooking, argues that nowadays we can buy good quality, nutritious packaged food and therefore it’s OK to produce a quick meal by just adding water.

In our time-poor society, who hasn’t been guilty of taking short cuts? – I’m not against that. I always use tinned beans, for example. But surely there are a few basic guidelines which can be followed even when we have little time to spare? For example:

- minimise intake of preservatives, including salt, and other additives
- eat less (or no) meat, and less fat generally
- steam instead of boil, grill instead of fry
- eat more fruit and vegetables
- eat less.

Delia’s latest should really be called How to Cheat Yourself Out of Good Food. And the great British (and Irish) public needs no help with that at all.

Taking a break

2008-01-31T10:15:00.000Z

I'm taking a break from blogging for a while, back at the end of February.

P.S. Congratulations to Nick for being shortlisted for Best Newcomer in the Irish Blog Awards!

I’m Not There

2008-01-22T21:27:00.001Z

It’s a long time since I’ve seen a film which I didn’t want to end, especially at 136 minutes according to the QFT. Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There is ostensibly about the life of Bob Dylan, although anyone expecting a straightforward biopic will be disappointed – and obviously has been, if you look at the film review web sites. The film is an impressionistic montage of events in the lives of seven characters, some with different names, which are more or less connected to Dylan’s life or songs.

There were many fantastic performances, including Cate Blanchett as one of the Bobs (yes, really) and Charlotte Gainsbourg as the wife of (I think) two of the others. The complexity is easy to grasp as long as you don’t try too hard, rather like watching David Lynch’s films. The music, of course, was superb – mainly but not all Dylan – and prompted some wonderful set pieces. I particularly liked Ballad of a Thin Man, with a confused art critic as Mr Jones, and a Sixties party scene including an Edie Sedgwick character set, very appropriately, to the Monkees’ I’m Not Your Stepping Stone.

As I headed down Botanic Avenue towards my late night curry, I wondered why the film was so uplifting. Naturally the music helped, as well as the pace and complexity. But the film also asked us to reflect on the life of an artist who can’t explain what he or she seeks to express, won’t be tied down emotionally or politically, and whom others seek to understand and interpret simplistically, as well as to exploit. I’m Not There made connections between being an artist and being an outsider, exemplified by the scenes of the youngest and oldest Dylan characters riding the boxcars at the beginning and end of the film. There’s something life-enhancing about knowing such people exist, even if most of us wouldn’t want to be like that.

The rocky road to Ballymun

2008-01-19T14:05:00.002Z

During the week, Margaret Ritchie visited the Ballymun regeneration project. The DSD press release on the visit was headed ‘Belfast can learn from Ballymun in Dublin when it comes to regenerating key areas of the city’. DSD didn’t mention any particular areas to be targeted for the Ballymun treatment, but the BBC suggested the Lower Falls, Lower Shankill and Crumlin Road were likely.

So what can Belfast learn from Ballymun? The DSD press release emphasises bringing together public and private sectors, and the importance of Masterplanning. However, both have proved problematic in Ballymun. Despite some important successes in involving the private sector, the new Ballymun shopping centre remains unbuilt. The lease is owned by a well-known Irish property developer who will start work or sell the site at a time which suits them rather than the Masterplan - BRL’s web site now says construction will start at the end of 2008. If you swim with sharks then you will sometimes get eaten. DSD please note.

The Ballymun Masterplan is praised widely as a model of good practice, although there were some reservations about the consultation process. The Ballymun plan is an excellent summary of what area-based regeneration should be about. The problem is that masterplans need to be implemented, and in Ballymun it’s going to take about twice as long as originally intended – not unique for such a complex project. A particular issue in Ballymun is that so much of what’s in the Masterplan is not within the control of the regeneration agency, Ballymun Regeneration Ltd (BRL). This is a learning point for DSD, although again I suspect not one that was on their list.

No-one would suggest that Ballymun could have been left as it was. The regeneration has many positive elements and it has improved people’s lives. As well as the points above, Belfast could learn from the imaginative design of many of the public buildings and the social housing, and the increasing focus on environmental issues. Another aspect of the regeneration which is important for sustainability is the quality of the social housing management. In Belfast, the Housing Executive and most housing associations are very good at what they do, and the expertise is more likely to flow the other way, as Dublin City Council’s housing management standards still leave a lot to be desired.

So Ballymun isn’t a particularly special project despite the benefits it is bringing to many people. It’s the only one of its kind on the island, but similar to projects in other countries, and indeed seems to have been influenced strongly by the regeneration of Hulme in Manchester. Ms Ritchie could have spent a more productive couple of days visiting New Deal for Communities projects in England, or a week looking at the USA’s HOPE VI and Moving to Opportunity programmes. But perhaps I’m missing something here.

Anyway, there are some reasons why Ballymun isn’t a good model for Belfast. First, the funding structure is different. The project has been funded overwhelmingly by the public sector, either directly or in the form of tax breaks. The social housing, in particular, is not part-funded by the private sector as is the case with housing association construction in NI. If DSD wanted a Ballymun-style regeneration of inner West and North Belfast, it would cost far more than any politician would be prepared to pay.

Second, Ballymun is a peripheral estate (although less so now than when it was built in the 1960s). The model may be appropriate for the regeneration of, say, Ballybeen and Tullycarnett as a unit. But inner city areas could benefit more from the examples of Fatima Mansions or Dublin Docklands.

Third, BRL would be the first to admit that there have been problems with community consultation. BRL has tried hard to improve matters but there is a clash between professionalism and local interests which I don’t see happening in the same way in the more collaborative atmosphere of existing Belfast regeneration projects – as with the housing management, Belfast can teach Ballymun rather than the other way around.

And, of course, we now come to the elephant in the room. The scale of Ballymun’s regeneration is not possible in inner city Belfast unless planning takes place across community divides. And by this I don’t just mean the patchwork that is North Belfast, but an Inner North West masterplan covering the Falls, Shankill and lower Crumlin Road and Antrim Road. Masterplanning requires working together rather than working alongside. And I can’t see that happening for a few years yet.

Politics in 2008 Part 3: Britain and UK

2008-01-12T11:54:00.000Z

I started to wonder if it would be 2009 before I finished this 3-part series, due to having had to go back to work after Christmas – but also because the GB/ UK part of the picture is hardest to grasp. I’ve tried to find a theme in each of the three posts which identifies where politics has been heading over the past year in these islands and trends for 2008, and I do think something interesting is happening in the UK around what the state is for. It’s most obvious in relation to devolution, but there are also questions about the UK’s relationship with the rest of the world, about the state and the people, and about the state and political parties.

Devolution was in the news in 2007 due to elections in Scotland and Wales, as well as the restoration of the NI Assembly. The Scottish Parliament now has a minority nationalist government, the Welsh Assembly a coalition between nationalists and Labour, and of course in NI we have no choice but to have a coalition. All these are the product of proportional representation. The first past the post mentality of UK politics is beginning to change, as politicians have to think more collaboratively about which other parties they could work with and the mechanics of preference voting.

Some policy differences are beginning to emerge across the UK, most particularly in health and social care but also in education and housing – see Our Kingdom to keep up. The reaction of the English to greater policy diversity has been interesting. Having turned down the chance of elected regional government in the North East, they have now started to whinge anew about the West Lothian question, including campaigning for an English Parliament. The logical end to this debate is fully fledged federalism, unless the Scots get their independence first. The issue will continue to be high profile in 2008.

The UK’s relationship with the rest of the world is in flux, too. I think that’s also about changes in the UK’s identity and influence, with economic power shifting East towards India and China, political power still focused in the USA, and the EU suffering from its own identity crisis. The ambivalent attitude towards the EU could become another distinguishing feature between England and the rest of the UK where we can see the sense of an economic alliance of smaller nations and the social benefits of EU membership. The relationship with the USA also needs to change, depending on the outcome of the Presidential election.

The function of the state at home needs some thought as well. Not being a liberal, I’m in favour of some aspects of social control, such as action of some kind against anti-social behaviour as it makes people’s lives a misery. The smoking ban is great, too. But we are becoming a more authoritarian state in more disturbing areas such as immigration and welfare benefits, culminating of course in identity cards. I do think people need to start worrying about this, as well as the corroding fear of difference (foreigners, Muslims) that is put about by the popular press.

Finally, the relationship between the state and political parties should be straightforward. Politicians are elected to govern and the activities of their parties are regulated by the state to avoid corruption of the process. Last year wasn’t great for that dynamic, and this year is starting out just as badly. Financial issues are overshadowing what should be the main story in 2007 and predictions for 2008: Gordon Brown as new Prime Minister. Having been a fan, I’m extremely disappointed – and surprised – that after a good start he’s not showing the leadership I expected and that he’s re-introducing nuclear power. I don’t see that 2008 will be a good year for the British Labour Party.

Politics in 2008 Part 2: Republic of Ireland

2008-01-05T13:06:00.000Z

I said that the focus in Northern Ireland over the past year has been on high level policy and on structural issues. In the Republic, it’s been about service delivery in the context of an economic slowdown.

The general election resulted in a new coalition government including the Greens, which I was sceptical about, and embarrassing compromises have been made (Hill of Tara, Ringsend incinerator). But some improvements are coming through: the ‘carbon budget’; a positive response to the Kyoto protocol (a new context for infrastructure improvements); and, perhaps most significantly, the beginning of a turnaround in planning policy with forthcoming proposals to restrict new building in towns and villages. The latter will involve fierce debates and the positions of the other political parties will be interesting; it could be a defining moment in Irish politics.

There’s been a lot of coverage of the decline in house prices, but 2007 may also have been the year when people realised it doesn’t matter how much your house is worth if you can’t get health care when you need it. The shocking news stories highlighted problems with clinical competence, communication between bureaucrats and the Minister, and the failure of the ‘managed’ market involving partial health insurance coverage and a state-funded picking up of the remaining pieces. Clearly both regulatory procedures and the economics of the system need to be reviewed, along with more consideration of an all-Ireland approach. It’s ridiculous that people in Donegal have to go to Dublin for specialist care when they could go to Altnagelvin or one of the Belfast hospitals. It’s also surprising that there’s no national civil society campaign for better health care in the Republic. The political parties have plenty to say, as do the unions, but a non-aligned campaign would draw wider public support. Perhaps it will happen this year.

Otherwise, the Mahon Tribunal carries on and it appears that public sympathy for Bertie is waning. What a shame this didn’t happen before the general election last year. Labour and Sinn Féin still haven’t recovered from disappointing election results and need to think through their future strategies and public profile more carefully. The referendum on the Lisbon Treaty could provide an opportunity for this.

I would also like to see a debate on support for the Irish language. Abolish the Gaeltacht areas, redirect the subsidy to State-wide arts events and language classes (and the wonderful TG4), remove the compulsion to learn Irish at school, and there will be a new dawn in Irish speaking, I am sure.

Politics in 2008 Part 1: Northern Ireland

2008-01-02T13:54:00.000Z

2007 was an interesting year for politics in these islands, to put it mildly. Elections galore: NI Assembly, Irish Republic, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, all resulting in coalition or minority governments of some description. And a new UK Prime Minister. So I’m reviewing the possibilities for 2008 in a special three-part series.

Beginning closest to home, if I had to pick one outstanding 2007 event it would be the restoration of the NI Assembly in May. The emphasis has been on getting to grips with the realities of power, involving high level policy and structural issues rather than the details of service delivery. The draft Programme for Government and Investment Strategy documents are trying to bring NI more into line with the neoliberalism of the rest of the islands, with economic development as central and a furore about cuts to the social housing budget and to health. No doubt the consultation process will see some adjustments to the figures, there will still be less than is needed but it will be presented as a gain. The other key policy issue will be the devolution of policing and justice powers, which is scheduled for next May. Last year I would have said that if anything could derail the Assembly that was it, but now I think the big arguments will be connected with the budget, which I suppose is a sign of the new times we are living in.

The structural issue that will continue to be discussed is the existence and nature of the enforced coalition. Margaret Ritchie’s withdrawal of funds from the Conflict Transformation Initiative and debates over the draft budget have revealed the cracks and led to speculation that the SDLP and the UUP may work more closely together or even become a formal opposition. This would lead to the interesting spectacle of two oppositions in the Assembly, as the United Community group is already performing that function and I don’t see any possibility of the two groups working together. In fact, I don’t think an SDLP/ UUP coalition is feasible. Both parties need to rethink their identity and role in the new political environment before they can consider working relationships with other parties. But the bigger picture certainly needs thinking about. The Assembly and Executive Review Committee is due to review the voting system, designations and cross-community voting in June 2009. It would be sensible to bring this forward by a year and to consult as widely as possible on alternative options – perhaps including fewer Government departments and Ministers. Incidentally, the long-awaited Review of Public Administration now looks as if it’ll be implemented in a patchy manner depending upon what the relevant Ministers see as being in their interests. A missed opportunity.

The final point is that it’s good to see the First and Deputy First Minister making new links with other countries. It’s part of selling Northern Ireland to the world as a place where it’s fine to do business but perhaps more importantly where the quality of life is good. And maybe there’s also an awareness that the world is tired of hearing about Northern Ireland’s problems. I think the joint agreement with Scotland is the most significant: two jurisdictions that could easily be in competition for investment, education resources and tourism promising to work together instead. We’ll hear more of it. Perhaps Wales has not followed suit due to its Labour-led coalition?

New Year crocus

2008-01-01T12:09:00.000Z

This is the earliest crocus ever in my garden, discovered this morning.

Make them, break them

2007-12-28T20:50:00.000Z

I was amused by this item in the Guardian today. Psychologists have found that men and women maximise their chances of keeping their New Year resolutions in different ways. Men are more likely to succeed if they break their objectives into small steps and reward themselves at every stage; they also found it helpful to focus on the outcome of the resolution, ‘such as losing weight to become more attractive to the opposite sex’. Hmm.

Women, on the other hand, did best if they told everyone about their goals, so that they could receive ‘encouragement’ if they relapsed. The researcher suggested that women could ‘write down their resolutions on a big piece of paper, sign it and place it somewhere prominent at home’. Yes, why not give everyone a huge laugh every day?

The hot tip for everyone is not to leave your resolutions until New Year’s Eve, hence this early post on the subject. Although they are not really ‘New Year’ resolutions then, are they?

The reason I found all this so funny is because this year I had resolved not to tell anyone about any of my New Year resolutions, and to break them down into small steps and reward myself incrementally. Obviously I should add getting a sex change to the already incredibly long list. Right now there are TEN, about double the usual. In order to conform at least partly to gender norms, I’m prepared to share a few of them:

1. Before the assassination of Benazir Bhutto I had already decided to take more interest in international politics, i.e. outside Britain and Ireland. Events in South Africa, debates on the Lisbon Treaty, and my trips to Canada this year have also made me feel very ill-informed.

2. Move house. Which will probably involve being more frugal as well.

3. Keep up the Gaelige.

4. And the blog.

5. Work harder.

That actually turned out to be six of the ten, so perhaps I’m more of a girlie than I thought. The other four, though, are nobody else’s business.

Should bloggers get a life?

2007-12-09T13:33:00.000Z

I’m sure I’m not the only blogger to have had Doris Lessing’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech drawn to my attention. Lessing says:

“Writing, writers, do not come out of houses without books. We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned, and where it is common for young men and women who have had years of education to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing.”

The issue of children being raised in homes without books, by parents who do not read, is not new in the 21st century. Some writers have managed to emerge from this background, but class and gender bias have undoubtedly deprived the world of many more. Neither is the idea of a ‘fragmenting culture’ new – it’s the cry of the threatened throughout the ages. It’s surprising to hear Lessing complain about how ‘our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned’, when her earlier great novels took on patriarchy in those decades, and would have led me to think she would be in favour of that sort of thing.

Lessing does have a point about weaknesses in the education system which disadvantage young people. There are many reasons for this: the home environment, lack of funding for education and for libraries, lack of respect for teachers, the political emphasis on test and exam results, consumerist culture, television, and no doubt many more. But Lessing has only one culprit in mind:

"We never thought to ask how will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging."

So ‘we’ (who?) blame the internet, and blogging in particular, for civilisation’s decline. Well, the internet has certainly changed my life. I can’t imagine doing my job without it, both in terms of access to information and the ability to communicate easily with people all over the world. Of course not all the data are reliable, but learning this is part of using any information resource. The internet also helps me to make better use of my leisure time: news sources, concert tickets, route planning, flight booking, arranging to meet people, posting photos on Facebook, as well as googling anything and everything I want to know. Why should this fantastic resource be labelled inane just because some sad individuals use it to look at porn?

And now I turn to blogging. It’s terrific that so many people are prepared to put their time into this free resource. I always start the day with a look at Slugger O’Toole for news and local debate; I’ll check out John Self for book reviews; Cedar Lounge and Splintered Sunrise for politics; and Flirty for entertainment. I could name many others. Of course there are dreadful blogs out there: boring, inaccurate, sexist and racist - but as with the internet as a whole, the good far outweighs the bad.

Writing South Belfast Diary has helped me to sharpen up my opinions and my writing skills. I’ve found it particularly helpful to clarify my views on Irish politics, but because this is a personal blog I write about anything I like, which is very liberating. Blogging hasn’t stopped me from being involved in a political party, taking an evening course, reading books, attending concerts and plays, and going on holiday. And having a full-time job. In other words, from having a life. I would argue that a couple of hours spent putting together a well-informed blog post is a superior use of leisure time to, for example, watching TV reality shows or soap operas, shopping as a leisure activity, socialising with people you don’t like in order to avoid your own company, or becoming obsessed with work.

Far from detracting from life, blogging enhances it. It gives a voice to those of us who wouldn’t otherwise be listened to. But to blame bloggers for the deterioration of intellectual discourse in post-modern times is according us a little too much power, I think.

The price of democracy

2007-12-03T21:34:00.000Z

People are talking about money and politics. No, not the interminable inquiry into ‘certain planning matters and payments’ in the South. This time it’s British Labour, although there’s no hint that any British politician has gained personally from the mix of farce, incompetence, and general turning of a blind eye that’s been going on. It’s impossible to tell whether the people involved made mistakes or hoped they wouldn’t get caught, whether in Labour Party Head Office, in deputy leadership campaigns, or in Scotland.

Of course, as has been pointed out today on Slugger, here in Northern Ireland we’d never have got to hear of David Abrahams. Regulations here allow donors to political parties to be declared to the Electoral Commission but kept secret from the public, in case of intimidation - although I thought you got intimidated if you didn't give to some parties? (If you want to see at least some of the donations to Sinn Féin, go to the Republic’s Standards in Public Office Commission web site.) If the Electoral Commission finds an ‘impermissible or unidentified donor’, they are allowed to make this fact public but still not to name the donor. Other differences are that Irish citizens, political parties and some other Irish organisations are allowed to donate to NI political parties, quite rightly recognising our unique position here, and there is only voluntary regulation on loans, because we’re all so honest.

Inevitably the question of state funding for political parties has arisen, yet again. There’s a good short guide to GB party funding here, including the point that opposition parties already receive some cash for administrative costs in order to level the playing field with the party in government. In the South, there is modest state funding of political parties and the sky hasn’t fallen in as a result, although it hasn’t got rid of all problems in that area either.

But in the UK it’s not a popular suggestion. Politicians are seen as untrustworthy and anyone who gives large amounts to a political party must be doing it to get an honour, or planning permission. Why aren’t they giving the money to charity instead? Most voters refuse to face up to the fact that the democratic process has to be funded somehow. All available options involve a combination of state funding and voluntary donations, even when they include an overall cap on expenditure. It’s illogical for those who complain about taxpayers’ money going to fund party politics also objecting to people who can afford it giving money openly to the party of their choice. No wonder some high-profile donors take an illegal route – wrongly, of course.

In the UK, politics is our dirty little secret. That has to change.

Househunting

2007-12-01T21:28:00.000Z

After a summer spent bickering about whether to build an extension, Nick and I decided to move house instead, just as Northern Ireland’s overheated property market took a cold shower. We bought our current home when we moved to NI from London, which was a very fraught process and we nearly ended up homeless. The house was meant to be temporary as it was rather small, then I became a student again and we didn’t have much money, then we got to like the area, and somehow seven years passed.

So here we are, househunting again. It’s important to keep it in perspective. Our house is perfectly adequate for the two of us and we’re very lucky to be able to think about buying more space (and getting away from the local teenagers). I was reprimanded, quite rightly, by a Labour colleague when I moaned about being ‘marooned in Stranmillis’.

But still, there are four obstacles to progress:

1. The houses on offer

There are very few of them and they are mainly rubbish. They are either in the wrong area or they don’t have everything we want – and this time around we are being very, very fussy. Of course you have to know what you do want, and that has been a learning experience. Garden? Not bothered. Second shower? Essential. East Belfast or Holywood? Not after sitting in rush hour traffic for half an hour to view a house on the other side of town. We have a much better idea of what we want than when we started looking a few months ago. Even if it’s not out there for a price we can afford…..

2. The prices

The general rule seems to be that however much you can afford, you always need £100,000 more. We have more to spend than we ever thought we would, given we’ve never earned vast salaries, and yet even in a property downturn our limit is creeping up and up. I’ve stopped saying how dreadful it is that the bank’s prepared to lend us so much, and started to be grateful. It’s a slippery slope.

3. Estate agents

I’m not one of these people who wants to buy and sell without an estate agent, as it’s too time-consuming. All I ask is a bit of basic competence from the people whose job it is to do these things. There seems to be a increasing trend for owners to be out when you go round to view, and the agent meets you there instead. So if I want to know where the boiler is, or what that discoloured patch on the ceiling might be, or (when viewing a waterfront apartment) whether there’s a second lift in the building that might be big enough to move in our furniture, I would like an informed response. And I’d also like property details that don’t mislead by concentrating only on the good bits, but I know that’s too much to ask.

4. And if we move out of South Belfast, I’ll have to change the name of this blog….

Keep the Red Flag flying for democratic socialism

2007-11-20T22:24:00.000Z

I enjoyed the Labour Party Conference in Wexford last weekend - but quietly, as my drinking and carousing days are over. Most of the worthy list of motions were agreed unanimously, bringing home the fact that we’re not able to implement any of them as we’re not in government. I was expecting more analysis of the last election performance, but this has been wrapped up into a ‘Commission on 21st Century Labour’, which will report to the next conference.

My highlights included:

· A mature debate on drugs policy, prompted by a range of motions including one to legalise cannabis. Another Commission looms, but rightly so as it’s a complex issue.
· An informed and passionate debate on an amendment to the Party Constitution, proposing to replace references to Labour as a ‘democratic socialist party’ with ‘social democratic party’. If you are the sort of person who would rather have your teeth pulled out than attend a political event, this is the kind of thing that makes you despair. But in fact it’s at the heart of socialist ideology and I heard it described as our Clause IV moment. In this case democratic socialism stayed, to a roar of approval.
· The classic line from Eamon Gilmore: ‘Eamon de Valera would never have taken fistfuls of cash in a suitcase’.
· The decision to adopt the Red Flag as the Party anthem. Now I’ll have to learn the words.
· So many young people attending and contributing actively through speaking and standing for the NEC, plus a packed Labour Youth fringe meeting.
· The comradely nature of debate and generally good-tempered and upbeat atmosphere.

And of course there was the motion and fringe meeting concerning the Commission on the future of Labour in Northern Ireland. The motion was proposed by Ruairi Quinn on behalf of the NEC and seconded by Mark Langhammer from the NI Labour Forum (pictured). Quinn made his position crystal clear: we could look at change but that the relationship with the SDLP was paramount. Speakers who still don’t understand why some of us are not in the SDLP welcomed the opportunity to strengthen the relationship between the two parties, with one suggesting we ‘build the centre’ in NI to include the SDLP, the UUP and other parties except the DUP and Sinn Féin; but by implication not including Irish Labour. The reason the motion was passed was because it didn’t commit the party to doing anything except exploring the issues.

The fringe meeting continued the discussion in a level-headed manner which bodes well for the operation of the Commission. But it’s frustrating to be asked ‘have you thought this through?’ about the Border and the national question, when in the Labour Forum’s first few years we talked of little else. Supportive platform speakers emphasised the benefits to Labour of being an all-Ireland party, but also that we all respect the position of the SDLP and that any changes such as standing in elections would be gradual. SDLP members welcomed the opportunity for debate, and we were assured that discussions with Fianna Fáil were just that and no more.

So we have our Commission, but I’m not sure the outcome will be to the liking of Northern Labour members. The intensifying links between the SDLP and Fianna Fáil have had no impact on the relationship between the SDLP and Irish Labour at senior level. It seems to me that the future of Irish Labour in the North depends very much on what the SDLP does next.

Labour Party fringe meeting

2007-11-12T12:55:00.000Z

DEVELOPING THE LABOUR PARTY IN NORTHERN IRELAND: SHOULD LABOUR WAIT AGAIN?

Chair: Joe Costello TD

Speakers:
• Jan O’Sullivan TD
• Joanna Tuffy TD
• Kathleen Lynch TD
• Sen. Dominic Hannigan
• Cllr.Gerald Nash
• Mark Langhammer (NEC, Chair NI Labour Forum)

Saturday 17th November
White’s Hotel, Wexford
5.10 - 6pm
McCarthy Room 1

The Labour Party Conference will debate a motion on the future of the party in Northern Ireland. The motion is proposed by the NEC and will be seconded by the Northern Ireland Labour Forum. If successful, a commission will be established to consider options including standing for local government elections.

This represents a significant opportunity to move towards normal, governmental politics in Northern Ireland. Fianna Fail has already established a Committee, led by Dermot Ahern, to consider organizing and contesting elections in Northern Ireland, which will report by Easter 2008.

Labour has had party members from Northern Ireland since 2001, and an active Branch (the NI Labour Forum) since late 2004; Constituency Council status was approved in 2007; and the
Party Commission is the next step.

The respected commentator and key peace process interlocutor, Denis Bradley recently commented that Stormont “…can only ever be an administration and not a proper government.” Irish News (1 November 2007). In developing the political future of Northern Ireland, the choice now is Communal (i.e. Protestant versus Catholic) politics, or Governmental politics. The question for the Labour Party is whether we lead that development, or whether we “tail end” Fianna Fail. The position of the SDLP is another consideration.

Come along to our meeting and contribute to Labour Party thinking on the issue.

Go, Dusty!

2007-11-07T23:13:00.000Z

I’m slightly too young to have enjoyed Dusty Springfield’s early hits when they were first released. At the end of the hippy era, with heavy metal on the horizon, it was hard to see beyond her dowdy appearance and her mainstream appeal. She seemed like the kind of act you would watch on TV, with your parents.

So it’s great to be rediscovering her now. The reason was because I’m starting to enjoy Amy Winehouse’s music, and she’s been compared to Dusty so I was browsing the two of them on YouTube. Here’s a selection of Dusty’s best, mainly from the early days. Ignore the dodgy sound quality and the polyester outfits – that woman rocked.

Click to get the YouTube links as I don’t like putting the big screen things on my blog:

I Only Want To Be With You

Wishin’ and Hopin’

Can I Get A Witness

I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me

Nowhere to Run

Son of a Preacher Man

Belfast Festival 2007

2007-11-06T09:04:00.000Z

I managed to get to four Belfast Festival events this year, more than ever before, because the programme was more appealing than in previous years. I have little sympathy with the Festival’s perpetual whine about funding, as in the past they have offered a combination of obscure events and inefficient administration. Both have been addressed this year, although the £1.50 flat rate booking fee was still irritating – why not just increase the price of the ticket?

Another promising aspect was the greater number of events held outside South Belfast, and my first outing was to Tina C at the Spiegeltent in Custom House Square. We marvelled at the ‘tent’, in reality a large, temporary, ornate pub. The brochure had omitted to tell us that Tina C was a transvestite, but I wish I had legs like that. Fantastic jokes, singing not so great. I was surprised to see most people were middle-aged, as I thought this one would attract a younger crowd.

Second was the hot ticket David Lynch and Donovan, in a packed Whitla Hall. It was a weird as it sounds, and didn’t really work. David Lynch answered questions, and his films remained a mystery as the answer to everything turned out to be transcendental meditation. Donovan can still hold a tune, though, and I had a very pleasant wander down memory lane along with most of the audience - who again were middle-aged. At this point I began to wonder if you have to be over 40 to buy a Belfast Festival ticket.

Then it was the lecture by Naomi Klein based on her new book ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’. It was thought-provoking and had evidence of a lot of background research, but I had a couple of questions. It’s important to remind us of the role of crisis in maintaining capitalism, and to identify natural disasters and regime change in the list. However, she didn’t mention the additional everyday dilemma for governments of trying to avoid fiscal crisis in a political climate where it seems unacceptable to increase tax. Secondly, I wasn’t sure her analysis could be applied to civil wars and other territorial struggles such as the Troubles, where the state or states have a different role. Incidentally, the quality of the questions from the audience at this event was dire. I didn’t have the courage to participate, but I cringed at the impression Ms Klein was getting of Belfast’s radical thinkers.

Lastly I went to Bach’s B Minor Mass at Clonard Monastery, performed by the Dunedin Consort from Edinburgh. It was the first time I’d visited the Monastery, which is spectacular and a fabulous venue for music. The performance was great, with a small choir and Baroque instruments. Magic.

I would like to have gone to more than these four events if I’d had the time. I look forward to next year’s Festival, anyway, and I haven’t always said that.

The Road Less Travelled

2007-10-29T23:03:00.000Z

I don’t usually read pop psychology books, but I picked up this one in the Bookshop at Queen’s while looking for research textbooks. It took a while to get through it, and my general impression was that it started off brilliantly and went downhill, ending in a morass of ill-argued statements about how serendipity proves the existence of a god. The book was written in 1978, which accounts for some gender and racial stereotyping, including an appalling slavery metaphor which really should have been replaced in a later edition. However, I still got a huge amount from reading it.

The first section, on discipline, is one I’ll return to when life gets tough. It reminds us that life is a series of challenges from which we learn and grow, and more importantly that a mature individual wouldn’t want it any other way. It made me realise just how much problem-solving we do every day, and how crucial is the quality of the decisions we make – both what we do and how we do it.

I also enjoyed the next section, on love, by which Peck doesn’t just mean sexual love but also a broader love for humanity. His definition of love is great: ‘The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth’ (p.69). It rings true not just because if we love someone we want to promote that process of growth, but also because it helps us to identify the opposite phenomenon – the person who stifles change in themselves and in those around them.

And, indeed, later in the book Peck proposes that the opposite of love is evil rather than hatred, and that evil is an enhanced form of laziness. This is where it gets complicated. His reasoning is that laziness prevents spiritual growth in a passive way, but that evil people actively avoid development by destroying opportunities to progress, in themselves and in others. Hence evil is: ‘the exercise of political power – that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion – in order to avoid extending one’s self for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth.’ (p.267). As a non-religious person who is increasingly convinced that evil is a reality, and that it comes from within rather than from an outside force, I found that very plausible, even though I’m not sure about the logic in the jump from laziness/ passivity to evil/ active resistance.

And there’s a great quote for Friday afternoons:

‘..no matter how seemingly healthy and spiritually evolved we are, there is still a part of us, however small, that does not want us to exert ourselves, that clings to the old and familiar, fearful of any change or effort, desiring comfort at any cost and absence of pain at any price, even if the penalty be ineffectiveness, stagnation or regression’ (p.265).

Once?

2007-10-28T11:36:00.001Z

I saw ‘Once’ last night at the QFT, where it’s nice to see audiences appear to be increasing. The bar was busy too.

The film wasn’t at all what I expected. The trailer implies it’s the usual boy meets girl, they get along, they have problems, they overcome them, there is a happy ending. In this case, all to some great music, set in Dublin, and with the very modern Irish twist that she is Czech.

So the first problem was that I didn’t like the music. The tone was harsh and it wasn’t that melodic or well constructed. My second problem was that the plot was so sexist. The Czech woman is a classically trained musician who writes her own songs. There’s a scene where she plays the piano in a music shop and he is entranced (the two main characters don’t have names, by the way.) But moments later, he has taken out the music for one of his own songs and they’re playing and singing it together. From that moment until nearly the end of the film, the focus is on his work and her contribution to it.

I was also quite bored for a lot of the time, as the plot ambled gently on through boy meets girl and they get along. But without sex – after his initial clumsy proposition which is almost politeness, and indignantly rejected – because, as Facebook says, ‘it’s complicated’. He has an ex in London who is still his muse, and she is married with a child. The boy and girl problems weren’t about the world outside, they were about their own emotional issues. It was left up to us to decide whether we thought they had overcome them, and in either case there was evidently more trouble on the way. If we concluded that there was a happy ending for the couple, it was going to come at a price.

The marketing tag for this movie was ‘How often do you find the right person? – Once’. The film actually reminded us that it’s not that simple. Despite my reservations, I'll remember it for a long time to come.

Irish Labour and t’North

2007-10-17T09:07:00.000+01:00

Well, they are all at it. Discussions within Irish Labour over the past few weeks have resulted in a proposal to set up a commission to consider its future in Northern Ireland, including the potential to participate in elections. A motion to the Wexford conference next month will be proposed by the National Executive Committee and seconded by the Northern Ireland Labour Forum.

The proposal is derived from the Forum’s original conference motion asking that members should be allowed to stand for local government elections. There was always going to be some unhappiness in the Party over how this might affect the SDLP, and the current proposal is obviously a compromise. However, the commission will be a much-needed forum for debate on the future of democratic socialism in NI, and so Forum members are feeling less aggrieved about the change than might be imagined.

More posts on this to follow, I’m sure, but for now here is the text of the motion:

Conference:
· Welcoming the eventual establishment and functioning of the institutions for power-sharing within Northern Ireland, together with North/South and British-Irish institutions, and looking forward to a period of reconstruction, reconciliation and constitutional stability in Northern Ireland and to a deepening of friendly social, economic and cultural links across the island of Ireland and between Britain and Ireland;
· Considering that peaceful and stable conditions allow for new developments in politics and politcal relations across these islands and enable a form of party politics that reaches across the sectarian divide, on a genuinely cross-community basis;
· Noting and reaffirming our historic relationship with the Social Democratic and Labour Party, as sister parties in the Party of European Socialists, and confirming our belief that all people on these islands owe the SDLP a profound debt of gratitude for its persistent and ultimately successful witness to the non-violent alternative and the power of political engagement;
· Further noting that membership of the Northern Ireland Labour Forum is open to Party members living in Northen Ireland; that the NILF may hold meetings, elect officers and elect delegates to the Party Conference; that its principal function is to support the activities of the Party within this State; and that the Party Constitution does not at present permit it to put forward candidates to contest elections in Northern Ireland and requires it to support in such elections the candidates of the SDLP;

Directs the NEC to appoint a special commission, representative of the NILF, the PLP and the NEC, together with Party members with specialist knowledge and expertise –

1. to invite and receive submissions on and to consider the future role and organisation of the Party in connection with Northern Ireland and its internal affairs, and for that purpose to meet with relevant parties, trade unions and other interest groups,
2. to explore the potential to participate in elections there, and
3. to report its conclusions in sufficient time to enable the recommendations of the NEC, including any proposals to amend the Party Constitution, to be debated at the next following Party Conference.

Thank you for not sharing.…

2007-10-06T17:06:00.000+01:00

Nowadays we’re told that it’s good to talk. Disclosure is healthy. Reveal details of your personal life to everyone you happen to meet and you will be popular.

I have to say women are particularly guilty in this respect. Of course there are some men who won’t stop talking. These are the ones who monopolise the conversation at social events or work occasions such as conference dinners, and have no difficulty going on and on about themselves to someone they’ll never meet again if I see them first. But they are exceptional and easily avoided. Women always seem to want to know all about you and to tell you all about themselves. And then pass judgement.

The reason I despair when I’m stuck in a mire of trivia and inappropriate personal detail isn’t because I’m a misanthropist. It’s because, paradoxically, it doesn’t tell you very much about the person concerned. You learn facts, but not what makes them tick. The time spent discussing some of the items on this list could be used to talk in greater depth about things that really matter, like work, politics and religion. The problem here is that you might disagree, and modern social interaction isn’t good at handling that.

So for those who are looking not to bore me (or others) rigid, here’s how to do it.

Jenny’s list of what to keep to yourself

1. Details of your health problems. Just adopt a long-suffering expression and mutter that it could be worse. If you are actually dying, you are allowed to mention it – but people who talk obsessively about their health are usually very healthy
2. Recommendations of alternative health remedies for said health problems
3. If female, your menstrual cycle or your menopause symptoms
4. Your sex life; quite enough to hint that you do or don’t have one and some indication of your sexuality would be helpful. This is not the same as discussing your emotional problems, which Agony Aunt Jenny was born for
5. An account of your past three serious relationships including why you broke up
6. How the weather affects your mood
7. Problems experienced on your journey to work, unless they are extremely bizarre
8. Whether you ‘like’ a politician you don’t know, especially if further inquiries show that you have no idea of their party’s policies
9. Anything about sport. You are permitted to disclose your tribal allegiances, whether they be to Kerry or Manchester United, or both, but that’s as far as it goes, please
10. The food or other substances that trigger your allergies.

Making a living in the ‘free world’

2007-10-03T09:40:00.001+01:00

The new British immigration debate was highlighted recently on Channel 4 in two contrasting programmes. In Ken Loach’s brilliant drama ‘It’s a Free World’, a young woman, sacked from her dodgy employment agency due to sexual harassment, sets up on her own and exploits first legal and then illegal immigrants, is ripped off herself, and ends up back in Eastern Europe recruiting migrant workers just like she used to do as an employee. Loach shows how she’s not blameless (buying a 4x4 rather then paying her workers, who retaliate by threatening to kidnap her son), but also how her generation feels let down by the welfare state and is terrified of ending up poor. The play skilfully presented multiple layers of exploitation by class, gender, age, ethnicity and nationality, and the only winners were middle class professionals and big-time villains.

The following week, Jon Snow presented Dispatches on ‘Immigrants: The Inconvenient Truth’: the results of research by the Institute of Public Policy Research: ‘Britain’s Immigrants: An Economic Profile’. I caught the first few minutes by accident and was riveted, even though the promise to ditch ‘political correctness’ nearly lost me – that usually means ‘I am now going to make a racist or sexist remark’. The research showed which immigrant groups contributed most, as well as least, to the British economy, which challenged racial stereotypes – Nigerians contribute most, so remember that next time you get one of those e-mails.

Snow interviewed economic migrants from countries whose economic base is so different from the UK that it makes financial sense for professionally qualified people to work in manual jobs here; asylum seekers who have suffered unimaginable persecution; and, at the other end of the scale of suffering, the new globalised workforce, highly skilled and mobile, taking advantage of well-paid opportunities in multinational companies. The programme wasn’t entirely successful in that it presented an unfairly negative picture of some groups, particularly Somalis, but again it conveyed some of the complexity of the issues.

‘It’s A Free World’ was fiction, of course, and had lots of great reviews. ‘Immigrants: The Inconvenient Truth’ was ignored by the liberal press but received lots of coverage in the Mail and the Telegraph. Various right-wing blogs and discussion forums had a field day too. Needless to say, the details of Snow’s argument was lost in tirades about welfare scroungers and white people who couldn’t get a council house.

Democratic socialists are failing miserably to influence public views on immigration, I think for two reasons. First, a connection between immigration and other issues of exploitation and discrimination is rarely made for a mass audience, as it was in these programmes. Socialists are well placed to analyse how this works, using the experience of other groups. It’s now well understood, for example, that the nature of women’s oppression is affected by other factors such as their class, ethnicity, age, disability and sexuality. Likewise, the experience of immigrants will vary according to these issues, plus others, within the context of globalised capitalism. Some of these points are covered in the recent Manila Declaration of the Socialist International, and trades unions take action to protect the rights of migrant workers who are already here – but political parties in particular are very timid about trying to raise the level of debate.

The second point is that public discussion is focused on numbers, although ‘immigrants’ and ‘migrant workers’ now cover such a huge range of different groups that a more nuanced approach is needed. Socialists may or may not want to take the view that there should be no restrictions on the movement of labour; in either case, the position should be justified. But if the subject is avoided just because it’s difficult and sensitive, then others will continue to take the lead and play on popular prejudices.

Fianna Fáil and t’North

2007-09-20T18:40:00.000+01:00

There’s been a lot of comment over the past few days about the announcement that Fianna Fáil is to set up a committee to examine the possibility of organising in Northern Ireland. There has been particular interest in the implications for the SDLP, especially after Mark Durkan’s description of the move as a ‘positive development’ and his refusal to rule out a merger of the two parties.

It’s interesting that the general view has been to welcome the initiative and to predict an eventual merger between Fianna Fáil and the SDLP. But I wonder if all this optimism is a little premature.

Rumours of Fianna Fáil’s ambitions regarding the North have been around for a few years now, but although there are some members in Derry, nothing substantial has come of it. The current initiative is only to examine the options available, which might include closer links with a Northern party - obviously the SDLP. Standing for Westminster elections has already been ruled out, although whether this is due to republican principles or fear of offending Gordon Brown is debateable.

But the real puzzle is why on earth Fianna Fáil would want to consider coming North at all. Reasons might include:

· To damage Sinn Féin: It’s in Fianna Fáil’s interests to annihilate Sinn Féin in the South, which they are well on the way to doing. But why pursue them across the border? It would be far more difficult to take votes away from SF up here than it has been in the South, given different historical allegiances and the more impressive performances of SF politicians.
· To shore up the SDLP: Fianna Fáil in partnership with the SDLP or as a merged party would create a more powerful nationalist party in terms of resources and would position the new party or alliance as a 32-county entity, all of which could increase SDLP support. But against that is the question of whether Northern voters would not only defect from SF (see above) but would vote for a party with a history, real or alleged, of corruption and nepotism at local and national level.
· To deflect attention from the Mahon Tribunal: This is unlikely, as Southern voters don’t care about the North.
· To put republican principles into practice: Fianna Fáil is a deeply pragmatic party and would not act out of principle if they would lose votes or influence as a result. One of the most puzzling aspects of this move is the detrimental impact it could have on the relationship between the Irish and UK governments.

I’ve predicted before that Fianna Fáil and the SDLP will merge eventually, and I still think this will happen. But the SDLP is not yet in terminal decline, and the question of how a closer working relationship would benefit Fianna Fáil has still not been answered to my satisfaction.

In terms of the wider restructuring of NI politics, the announcement does make it a lot easier for Irish Labour’s Northern members to make their case to stand for elections to local councils, which they will do at the Wexford conference in November. Those who have argued against such a move due to the need to remain loyal to the SDLP must be feeling a bit shafted this week.

A girl called Lionel

2007-09-16T20:47:00.000+01:00

I’ve read three novels by Lionel Shriver over the summer, and they were all riveting. Her main strength is telling a good story, starting from a strong ‘what if…?’ scenario.

Double Fault (1997) asks ‘what if you and your husband have the same career and one of you turns out to be a winner – and the other doesn’t?’.

We Need To Talk About Kevin (2003) has its roots in the Should We Have Children discussion. ‘If we don’t then are we depriving the world of a brilliant artist or scientist?’ says one of you. ‘But’ – adds the other – ‘what if we bring a serial killer into the world?’

The Post-Birthday World (2007) addresses another modern dilemma: ‘should I stay or should I go? And what would have happened in either case?’

The novels are not without flaws. Characters can be two-dimensional and writing style can be clumsy in places, although when carried along by the pace of events it seems to improve. There are also unconvincing plot twists in We Need to Talk About Kevin and in The Post-Birthday World, which I won’t give away.

So what is it that makes each of these novels such a satisfying and gripping read? There are two main points, I think.

First, women today have more choices about how we live our lives than did previous generations: not just in what we do, but how society treats us as a result. The ‘what if?’ questions have changed. Nowadays it’s quite feasible that a husband and wife might end up competing in their careers; that the decision to have children might involve giving up existing benefits in the hope of something more fulfilling; and that, as shown in The Post-Birthday World, a long-standing commitment to one man may be broken in the face of an overwhelming desire to be with someone else – or not.

Secondly, Shriver examines power within heterosexual relationships incredibly well. The modern context, again, has changed and grown more complex. Although all three novels provide many examples of power issues between couples, there are two particularly interesting examples of women being disadvantaged by dominating men: the husband’s views on bringing up Kevin prevail, and in The Post-Birthday World, one of the options involves Irina following an itinerant sportsman around, to the detriment of her own career.

There is also the local angle. Lionel Shriver worked as a journalist in Belfast, as Malachi O’Doherty has noted. Whatever about his point, it’s nice to see the peripheral NI references covered accurately and sometimes with humour, as in this example from The Post-Birthday World:

‘….all over the world, the incantation Northern Ireland had magical powers. With the potential to put commercial soporifics out of business, the topic could drive die-hard insomniacs into a deep, dreamless sleep within sixty seconds’.

Holiday highlights

2007-09-05T20:52:00.000+01:00

Here is an account of my best moments in a recent holiday in Western Canada, to supplement Nick’s more detailed posts.

In Victoria and Vancouver we went to art galleries which included the work of Emily Carr, and in Victoria we visited her old house, which is preserved by the state. Born in 1871, she studied art in San Francisco, London and Paris before returning home, where her paintings were not well received. She did other things for years in order to support herself, and returned successfully to art in her sixties after being influenced by Canada’s Group of Seven artists. She’s an example to us all.

In the Royal B.C. Museum, we were amazed to find a brilliant exhibition about the Titanic. It was based around items found in the wreck, but included much more, such as accounts of the building of the ship, its launch, and the start of its maiden voyage in Southampton. I’m usually not very keen on ‘Titanic Studies’, despite my shipyard heritage, but enjoyed this one immensely. There is of course the question of what on earth the exhibition was doing in Victoria, but I decided not to go there.

We found Victoria rather staid, but arriving in Vancouver was a breath of fresh air. The waterfront areas were spectacular and there was a real buzz – we thought it would be a good place to live. One very touristy thing we did was to visit Grouse Mountain, where a number of activities are laid on including a fantastic chair lift ride with wonderful views over the city, not for those with a fear of heights.

But in the end Vancouver didn’t quite replace Sydney as our favourite city , as we still found examples of, shall we say, the Canadian failure to engage (aka ignoring people). Although not as bad as Toronto and someone did actually crack a joke with us at one point.

After several days in Vancouver we boarded the Rocky Mountaineer train for a two-day journey to Calgary. This involved travelling through spectacular scenery, being stuffed with food and drink, fantastic service (no failure to engage here), staying overnight in a town reminiscent of Twin Peaks, and the batteries in my camera running out at the start of the most amazing scenery on the second day. It really was the trip of a lifetime - highly recommended.

And in Calgary I found some jeans that fit me – miracle! – in Eddie Bauer, a store I just love but which doesn’t have branches in the UK or Ireland. I obviously have a North American-style arse. As opposed to an arse the size of North America....when thoughts like this begin to intrude, I am well and truly home.

Gaeilge go brách!

2007-08-16T22:13:00.000+01:00

This autumn I really really am going to learn Irish properly. I went to classes for three years and know about six words – OK, a few more than that, but I certainly can’t hold a simple conversation. I don’t even know if the title of this post is entirely correct.

I’m in good company, though. In Northern Ireland, the 2001 census found that 10.4% of the population had some knowledge of the language. However, if you look at the figures in more detail, only 4.6% say they are able to speak, read, write and understand spoken Irish, in other words are reasonably fluent. Elsewhere within the UK, 21% can speak Welsh and just over 1% can speak Scots Gaelic.

In the South, there is a complete volume of 2002 census analysis on Irish speakers (2006 not yet available), as well as an unpublished government report which predicts the spoken language will die out in 20 years. Over the whole country 42.8% can speak the language, rising to 72.6% in Gaeltacht areas. Of those who speak it, in the State as a whole 21.6% speak it daily, 29.3% never, the rest somewhere in between. In Gaeltacht areas, 54.4% speak it daily and 7.3% never. The number who can speak the language in the Gaeltachtaí seems low, and in the State overall the figure who use the language daily is higher than I would have expected.

Of course census figures are self-declared, with the possibility of exaggeration creeping in. The TG4 series ‘No Béarla’ was a reality check here. In the South, most people made a valiant effort (except in Dublin) and seemed to be able to understand the language but not converse in it; in the North it showed that those who want a genuine Gaeltacht in West Belfast have a very long way to go.

So there are problems in both jurisdictions, albeit of course very different ones. In the South, the Gaeltacht approach has essentially failed - although there are anecdotal signs that Irish-medium education is becoming fashionable and I doubt if many people would like to see the language disappear altogether. Bilingualism seems to be the best way forward, assisted by the arrival of increasing numbers of people from parts of the world where it doesn’t seem unusual to speak several languages.

In Northern Ireland, arguments continue about the status of the commitment made to an Irish Language Act in the St Andrew’s Agreement. The DCAL consultation papers are worth a look for lots of background and discussion of the options. If we get any kind of legislation at all, it looks as if it will follow a language scheme approach, similar to Wales, Scotland and the Irish Republic. This requires public bodies to make provision for use of the language but does not provide a legal right to use it. Of course the language is contested territory in the North, and despite the oft-cited role of Protestants in its history, and the claim that the language belongs to all of us (which I support), we can’t overlook its recent history and the reaction that provokes in some quarters. I do think more sensitivity is needed over this.

Of course, making provision for use of the language isn’t the same as actually using it. I’m surrounded by people who think learning Irish is a waste of time, and I do find it hard to argue rationally for its preservation. I just know that it has enriched my short stay on this island to know the place names, to understand some of the English linguistic twists and origins of words, and to feel connected with the history and culture. That’s why I want to continue to make an effort. Just like this young man.

Holiday reading

2007-08-04T20:07:00.000+01:00

I’ve got a holiday coming up soon and have started to think about packing. This means selecting my holiday reading first, and then filling up the rest of the suitcase with unimportant things like clothes. Then my hand luggage includes: my diary, which I would never entrust to an aircraft hold; newspapers, magazines and books purchased at the airport; water; my new digital camera; and as many tax free purchases as I can manage before Nick catches up with me and confiscates the credit card. It is possible to spend more at the airport than the cost of the flight, although not this time as we’re going to Canada.

Anyway, I’ve got as far as separating my holiday reading into categories, although I haven’t yet selected the actual books:

· Work-related: for example, there’s a new book out about the politics of civil society (do try to keep awake at the back there).
· Irish history and politics, including some of the basics. Big choice of unread Queen’s University Bookshop sale purchases here.
· Novels: Again plenty to choose from, all those I’ve bought and never got around to reading: very likely to include Lionel Shriver’s new one after enjoying ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’. I always take too many, and they are likely to be supplemented by airport purchases, so that the net number of unread books at home actually increases.
· Books I would like to re-read: this is the luxury category but I’ve been prompted by A.S. Byatt in the Guardian today to consider Middlemarch - for the fourth time.
· Books which are the subject of conversation: ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins is on the list, as I’ve already nearly finished The Blair Years.

Of course most of the books selected come home unread, because, on all but the most disastrous holidays, there is a lot more to do than to read. Such as going to bookshops – and buying even more books. Oh dear.

Democratic socialism in Northern Ireland

2007-07-29T12:36:00.000+01:00

The Northern Ireland Labour Forum of the Irish Labour Party has launched its campaign to be allowed to stand candidates in the next local elections in 2009. The Forum’s Chair, Mark Langhammer, set out the argument in detail in a speech a couple of weeks ago. This comes soon after developments in British Labour Party organisation here, followed by supportive remarks made by Alan Johnson MP during his deputy leadership campaign.

There’s been quite a lot of discussion on blogs recently about the future direction of democratic socialist politics in NI. The question has usually been: should the (British or Irish) Labour Party stand for election in NI? Usually followed by the supplementary: what would be the effect on the SDLP?

I think the question that actually needs to be asked is ‘how can all the people of NI be given the opportunity to vote for democratic socialism?’ So what are the issues?

First and foremost, everyone in society who is in agreement with democratic socialism should be able to support the representative party (or parties). With regret, I have to say that rules out the SDLP as a contender, because its members designate as nationalist in the Assembly. It seems to me to be fundamental that a democratic socialist party should not be on either side of the tribal divide. Although the SDLP is NI’s member in the Socialist International, it is primarily a nationalist party and therefore discussions about the effect on the SDLP of Irish or British Labour organisation in NI are irrelevant. We are not swimming in the same pool.

Second, the position on the border should be clear. Democratic socialism is an international movement, which is why the presence of the Irish Labour Party in NI can be defended – a party with international links can operate in more than one jurisdiction. The policy of both Labour Parties on the border is unity by consent. In the event of a border poll, there would be debate and no doubt disagreement in both parties. The ability of a democratic socialist party to accommodate people with different views on this matter, within a unity by consent principle, is a major strength and in the NI Labour Forum has already led to the discussion of a new perspective – ‘not British or Irish, but both’.

Third, the question of whether people will actually vote for democratic socialism is beside the point; the situation that must be remedied is that people in NI don’t have the opportunity to do so. There may very well be a constituency out there. Mark Langhammer says:

‘There is a large and growing middle ground of people of all religious affiliations who collaborate in work, in trade unions, in the voluntary sector and community groupings many of whom would be concerned to develop a Third Strand in northern politics..’

However, the reality is that the vast majority still vote for parties based on communal affiliation and the history of trying to break that pattern is not very encouraging. One or two seats may be won at the first or second attempt, but hopefully good policies and organisation will reap more substantial gains in the longer term.

Lastly, on a practical point, people need to be clear which party they are voting for. It appears likely that both Irish and British Labour will eventually contest elections here. Currently, both insist they have the right to use the name ‘The Labour Party’. The two parties need to come to an agreement about terminology and about who stands where in order to maximise the combined vote. This may not be easy. In the end, squabbling between parties may be the thing that jeopardises the new opportunity for democratic socialist politics in Northern Ireland. The electorate would not forgive us for that.

Seven songs I'm enjoying right now

2007-07-25T20:29:00.000+01:00

I got this meme from Neil’s blog, and have taken it literally to mean what I’m actually listening to now rather than my ‘seven favourite songs of all time’, which I’ll keep for another day. Like Neil, I won’t tag anyone but feel free to pick it up.

Kimberly – Patti Smith
Patti Smith is a recent discovery, one of the rock classics whose music you think you know but it turns out you don’t. What a woman. Kimberly just has the edge over Land for me as the latter rambles, although it is far more influential of course.

Mr Jones – Counting Crows
Not being one to keep up with popular music, I heard this in a record store last year and had to ask what it was. A brilliant song about young men and ambition – but what would I know?

Black Horse and the Cherry Tree – KT Tunstall
Because mainstream isn’t always boring. Great voice, great lyrics, slightly odd.

Like Lovers Do – Lloyd Cole
I used to be a big fan of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions in the 80s, although this is later. It’s a good one for the car.

Who Knew – Pink
Thanks to Nick for introducing Pink to our household. And she is very welcome.

Dr Fell – Juliet Turner
Home grown talent from Co. Tyrone. Both ‘Season of the Hurricane’ and ‘Burn the Black Suit’ are played regularly in our house. I’m sure the neighbours appreciate it.

Tangled Up In Blue – Bob Dylan
Another classic. ‘Blood on the Tracks’ must be a strong contender for best album of all time.

An afternoon of nostalgia

2007-07-22T20:35:00.000+01:00

I’ve kept a diary since I was 21, in A4 notebooks which usually cover about 6 months each. This weekend I spent some time packing about half of them into boxes to store in the loft.

Of course, I couldn’t resist dipping into them, which I haven’t done for years. In my 20s I was working in mundane jobs and complaining about being bored, also there was lots of socialising and having no money. In fact, having no money was the best case scenario, as I was usually in debt. I met Nick and set up house with him, and there was politics too – first feminism, and then joining the Labour Party.

Things got more interesting during my 30s, when I was a local councillor, then went back to college and worked in local government (that is not a joke – it was interesting). My early 40s included holidays in Northern Ireland and finally the decision to move here. Newspaper cuttings over the years included Thatcher arriving in Downing Street, the death of John Lennon, the big CND demonstrations of the 1980s, the miners’ strike, the ‘Loony Left’ council days, the election of Tony Blair, the death of Diana, 9/11.

But what really struck me was a certain amount of consistency in my attitudes and behaviour. I’d always assumed that the person who had sat behind a till with a hangover for most of the week twenty-five years ago was not in any way related to the highly responsible and hard-working university lecturer of today (ahem). I may have to rethink that in the light of a number of enduring themes:

· Once out of the boring jobs, an obsession with work including some periods of ridiculously long hours
· Corresponding lack of domesticity and inability to look after things and people
· Too much shopping
· Feeling I don’t have enough friends, even though the diaries are stuffed full of them
· Politics – either as a spectator or a foot soldier
· Food
· Buying more books than I have time to read
· Not liking being told what to do
· Not liking to admit being wrong
· Terrible taste in men (with a few notable exceptions). A picture of one of them is stuck into an early volume, above which I have written ‘I suppose one day I’ll look back and wonder what all the fuss was about’. Well, yes. Maybe I have learned something after all.

‘You must come to stay….’

2007-07-15T10:48:00.000+01:00

When we lived in London, we rarely had people to stay. We didn’t have a spare room, most people we knew lived in London anyway, and those who didn’t were happy for us to go to them. But since we’ve lived in Belfast we’ve had lots of curious visitors, especially in the first couple of years.

I soon realised that being a good host in these situations is very different from, say, holding a dinner party, if only because you are counting the days rather than the hours before your irritating guest departs. I think I’ve found that being a host has helped me to be a better guest as well. So here’s the fruit of my experience.

Jenny’s guide to being a good guest

1. If your reaction to the invitation is ‘oh God, must I really?’, then try to get out of it. Damage limitation options include staying in a hotel or suggesting a shorter visit.
2. If you know you will be faced with problems in the house, such as not enough bathrooms, too many noisy teenagers, horrible pets, or spouses on the edge of divorce, then again find an excuse to stay in a hotel.
3. Praise everything. Most people make an effort if someone is staying with them, such as tidying up, even if it’s not apparent.
4. This includes not being rude about your hosts’ neighbourhood, town/ city, or country. You may say ‘of course I understand why you live here, but I could never move away from (your home town)’. NEVER make racist ‘jokes’ about the locals – English people visiting Ireland please note.
5. Pay your way. Don’t assume you’ve done your bit by shelling out your travel costs. Even if it’s understood that you don’t have much money and are using the place for a cheap holiday, taken your hosts out once, or buy them flowers.
6. Make an effort. For example: conversation, playing with the kids, helping with the washing up, not hogging the TV or computer, having some idea what you would like to do.
7. Don’t take sides in any personal arguments between your hosts and be tactful if asked your opinion about matters on which they disagree. Having people to stay is stressful – yes, even you.
8. Don’t drink more than your hosts, or take illegal drugs if they don’t.
9. Don’t stay too long. I find three or four days is ideal, longer for close relatives. If one party has children and the other doesn’t, a shorter stay is advisable. Around two hours should do it.

My guide to being a good host is more concise. Don’t take things personally, eat out as much as possible, don’t argue with your partner in front of your guests, and remember that you have the freedom never to invite them again if they are too much of a pain in the arse. After all, you are supposed to like these people, or there’s no point.

It’s got to be Gordon

2007-07-03T21:15:00.000+01:00

I’ve been out of the country and hiding from technology, so didn’t realise I’d been tagged by Mick for this meme. I wasn’t going to do any more of them, but this one gives me the chance to write about something I’m interested in, so I will make an exception. It’s also a bit old now, so I won’t tag anyone else.

I’m a Gordon Brown fan, which is causing ructions in our house because Nick doesn’t agree. I’ve been given six months to make the case or give in and admit Gordon’s as bad as the last one, which means an interesting post is due at Christmas.

So here goes with the lists.

2 things Gordon Brown should be proud of:

(i) Funding the original New Deal programme by a windfall tax on profits on privatised utilities. £5.2bn. Do it again please.

(ii) Proving that a Labour government can run the economy.

2 things he should apologise for:

(i) The five economic tests for UK entry to the euro – devised to ensure the UK never enters the single currency, without the need for political debate or a referendum

(ii) Support for the Private Finance Initiative

2 things that he should do immediately when he becomes PM (well after the first week, as I’m late on this):

(i) Revive the idea of ethical foreign policy, with everything that flows from that including getting out of Iraq and not becoming Bush’s poodle.

(ii) Look at more effective ways to tax wealth. Many older people in particular are asset rich, especially through home ownership, while younger ones are stuck with large mortgages and student loan repayments. Tax the affluent baby boomers! – even though I am one.

2 things he should do while he is PM:

(i) Copperfasten devolution by moving towards a federated UK, where the functions of the devolved jurisdictions are enshrined in further legislation and cannot be revoked by Westminster - and restrict voting on English legislation to English MPs, who can take the consequences too.

(ii) Ensure government is doing what it can to limit global warming, including taking part in international action, but also consider how to adapt to climate change if individuals won’t alter their behaviour and governments won’t try to force them to do so.

What do academics actually do?

2007-06-23T13:15:00.001+01:00

I don’t usually post about work, but this is the time of year when teeth get ground to the bone in universities. Colleagues all have tales to tell about the friend, neighbour or relative who has come out with a gem along the lines of ‘nothing to do until October, now’ or ‘you’ll be enjoying the sunshine over the summer, so you will’.

So what do academics actually do apart from give lectures?

We do research and write up the results: conference papers, academic journal articles, book chapters, editing books, sometimes writing or co-authoring whole books, reviews of other people’s books, research reports. There’s never enough time to write, and of what we write, not enough of it is ever published. If you wonder why it’s hard to upset an academic, it’s because we’re toughened up by the process of anonymous peer review. We’re judged on our publications output in the dreaded Research Assessment Exercise.

We also have to make funding applications for new research projects, of which only about 20 – 30% are successful. As with publications, you get used to rejection, and again we are judged on this in the RAE. We don’t stop teaching-related work during the summer, either. Lectures have to be prepared or updated, and sometimes new courses designed. Teaching administration continues, including admissions to autumn courses, as does supervision of Masters and PhD level students.

Then there are conferences. Yes, they can be in exotic destinations, but it’s very unusual to get funding without writing and presenting a paper, which is in fact what I should be working on right now. Conferences can be great fun, a way of catching up with what’s happening in your field and meeting potential new research collaborators. Or they can be full of backbiting careerists (tip for female academics: don’t ask a man about his work – he’ll tell you anyway and if you don’t ask, you might be able to get in a few sentences about your own before he starts). Unfortunately, sometimes it’s your turn to host a conference, which is a lot of work for no RAE return. A further aspect of travel is the chance for a visiting fellowship now and again, which is a great experience.

After all that we might manage a few week’s holiday just like everyone else. But I certainly don’t want to imply that I have a terrible time. I’m an entry-level, bog standard lecturer, but even so the life has great advantages. It’s intellectually challenging, creative, well enough paid, I get to travel, other academics are often pleasant, friendly people to be around (not always), and I even get to walk to work. I know people who find academic life frustrating, but personally, after other jobs I’ve done, I still can’t believe my luck.

Eat up the Greens

2007-06-16T14:28:00.000+01:00

Whatever the results of the Southern general election, it was fairly obvious that the Green Party was going to be approached to join a coalition. Others have expressed various views on this. I’m going to concentrate on the fact that the Greens have had to address the most fundamental dilemma of electoral politics – how much should a party compromise in order to get, or retain, political power?

Political parties work to gain control of the state to achieve their ideological aims, which they hope to be able to do with the consent of civil society. The scenario goes – devise a political programme, turn it into a manifesto, stand for election and hope to win enough seats to be in government on their our own or, in PR systems, with others. If defeated, act as an effective opposition and do it all again at the next election. Parties which do not take elections seriously are really pressure groups, as they don’t seek to make the transition from civil society activity to state power.

Experienced politicians know that they can’t always achieve everything they would like to when in government, perhaps because they can’t get public support, or it costs too much, or because they are constrained by EU policies or legal issues. Or because they have to get agreement with their coalition partners. They soon learn that they have to judge when to compromise, when to try to push something through, and – rarely – when to give up and resign.

Going into coalition with Fianna Fáil as beginners in these matters, with what’s left of the PDs looking on, is rather like choosing to learn to swim in shark-infested waters without a friend to keep a lookout. The initial omens are not promising. Thursday’s Prime Time saw Dan Boyle and Tom Parlon disagreeing about the co-location details in the Programme for Government. But more seriously, the Greens were getting screwed even as coalition negotiations were taking place. The decision by Dick Roche to finalise the M3 route was a disgrace. The decision was apparently taken on Tuesday, and the Irish Times reports an official from the Department of the Environment as saying: ‘it was decided not to issue a press release at that point because there was so much else going on’. That must rank with the British 9/11 ‘good day to bury bad news’ quote. Either the Green Party negotiators didn’t know about it and now look stupid, or did know and now look unprincipled.

The Green Party has made the first big decision about political power – when to go for it. Their next one is going to be when to walk away. Bertie can enjoy eating up the Greens for a while, but when, not if, they leave his government feeling sadder and wiser, no-one will be able to treat them in quite that way again.

Can I be a socialist and still like handbags?

2007-06-05T23:56:00.001+01:00

I’m not tempted by handbags myself. It’s partly because I don’t like the designs that are around at the moment, with lots of pockets and chains and fancy bits. It’s also because I can’t be bothered to move all my stuff from one bag to another – once I’ve bought one, there the stuff stays until I go off it, when it goes to the charity shop and another takes its place. When it comes to bags, I'm a serial monogamist.

Now if you’re talking about the perfect pair of black trousers, a well-cut suit, or comfortable black ankle boots with just the right heel height (hard to find at the moment), then I would have a wardrobe full of them – except for the suit, as I don’t have the kind of job that requires me to wear one more than about three times a year. And given the opportunity I would spend serious money too.

So when I was catching up on the weekend’s news today, the ‘handbags at dawn’ row interested me. I was interested in why Harriet Harman talked about a £10,000 handbag as a symptom of a divided society. There are other equally frivolous ways of spending that much money which make the point better, such as gambling, a few days at the Cipriani, flying lessons, or haute couture. Compared to these, a handbag is rather common, as well as being a strangely gender-based example.

And indeed, the response from Hazel Blears confirms my suspicion that the battle was about class. Blears claimed that people who work hard for their money (interpretation: people from a working class background like me – did I mention that I was from a working class background?) don’t want to be told how to spend it. The trouble is, this sounds very similar to the Thatcherite individualism that divided British society in the 1980s.

So politically I’m with Harman in that the UK needs some pretty heavy duty policies to redress growing inequality, which we all know it’s not going to get, whoever is deputy leader of the Labour Party. But personally I sympathise with Blears in that I don’t like being patronised by the upper middle classes. So the search for the perfect suit continues.

On friendship

2007-06-04T09:38:00.000+01:00

There’s been a lot of politics on this blog recently, and there will be more soon, so I thought it was time to get onto another subject for a change. It’s the time of year when friends come to stay, or I visit to catch up with them; also my social life has improved since I left Glasgow and I’m meeting some new people. So I’ve been thinking about what I look for in a friend, and whether I myself am a good friend.

Over the years, my most valued friendships have evolved slowly, usually from work or political activity. Two things have proved to be an obstacle to meeting people. First, I have a long-term partner, which means it’s tempting not to bother with other social contacts, especially when I’m busy. But it’s not healthy to get all your emotional support from one person, especially if they don’t like opera and think politicians are not to be trusted. Second, I don’t have children, so have no childcare/ school run/ PTA links. But I thought giving birth just to get a social life would be missing the point somehow.

So what do I look for in a friend?

1. They should like me. This sounds obvious, but it isn’t. Some people seem to enjoy spending time with people they aren’t very keen on. They talk but don’t listen; they patronise and disparage in order to make themselves feel better. Alice Walker wrote:
‘..no person is your friend…who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow….Or who belittles in any fashion the gifts you labor so to bring into the world.’ (In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, 1983)

2. I usually find my most enduring friendships are with people who are in some way unconventional: people who don’t always behave in a way that’s anticipated, or who have an unusual past, or who hold views that I wouldn’t expect.

3. They should be thoughtful. They should be able to challenge me if they don’t agree with my views, and we should be able to learn from each other.

4. They shouldn’t be bitter or cynical – I’m an optimist and I expect my friends to be optimists too. Sometimes I find older people can become very negative if they feel they haven’t lived the life they wanted. It’s not my responsibility to put that right.

5. They should be able to laugh at themselves. And me (occasionally).

6. Shared interests are quite important but over the years I’ve found that so are differences.

Friendship is a two-way process, so am I a good friend? I rather think not. I’m hopeless at keeping in touch, especially when I’m busy; I can be self-centered and talk too much; and as I get older I find that I enjoy being on my own as well as with Nick, both of which cut into socialising time. But I’m trying to get better at listening, being considerate, maintaining contact, and knowing when to walk away if I’m not being treated with respect. I feel that after 50 years I’m just about beginning to get it right.