Role model

Nick Clegg has waded into the debate about Sheffield United football club re-signing former player and convicted rapist Ched Evans who is expected to be released from prison this week. 

From the BBC.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has urged Sheffield United's owners to "think really long and hard" before re-signing convicted rapist Ched Evans.

Clegg, Sheffield Hallam MP, said: "When you take a footballer on, you are not taking just a footballer these days, you are also taking on a role model."

Whatever conclusions one reaches on this issue, there is something particularly odious about a prominent politician using it for his own ends. Is Clegg really so desperate that he will stoop to using a high profile rape case to polish what he perceives to be his political credentials?

The answer is obviously yes.

White collar robots

My working life was almost entirely spent in environmental science. Over almost forty years I saw it change from a piecemeal, locally-based effort to a full-blown global bureaucracy with the UN at the top. It became process-driven.

Apart from an ambitious few who knowingly go with the flow, most capable scientists don’t cope well with bureaucracy. Their working ethic tends to be based on two assumptions.

The truth will out.

People are essentially ethical.

Unfortunately the truth isn’t that powerful and process-driven people are not known for an unequivocal reliance on ethical standards. As a result most scientists do not compete well with the implacable nature of process-driven bureaucracies. By the time I left, the good scientists had mostly departed and process worship was setting every agenda.

Even so I had an interesting time and probably learned more about human nature and the nature of institutions than I then realised. I now look back on it as a time of profound social change which eventually became obvious, but had been rather less obvious only a few decades earlier.

One reason why the left/right political dichotomy no longer works is that both sides of the political divide are process-driven. They also seem increasingly willing to merge their processes. The traditional left always loved process with its tendency to centralise every decision and its endless mistrust of the uncontrolled.

Today even our local electrician is enmeshed in process - trained, certified tested and certified again. The butcher the baker and even the candlestick maker too no doubt. Maybe the latter will make a comeback after a few more years of process-driven energy policies.

So political right dances hand in hand with political left because government and global business are nothing if not process-driven. We are entering a process-driven world where most young people probably have no prospect whatever of avoiding process-driven employment.

Everything they do will fall into one of two categories.

It will be part of a documented process – or

It will be forbidden.

The vast majority will have no outlet for their modest talents because there will be no tick box for modest talent. Process rules. White collar robots are the future.

The stitch-up

The Guardian reports.

Britain’s main political parties are heading for a pre-election clash over the introduction of English votes for English laws after the Labour party announced that it would boycott a “Westminster stitch-up” on the issue.

William Hague, the leader of the Commons, is chairing a cabinet committee that will examine proposals to introduce English votes for English laws, known by its acronym of Evel, at Westminster.

Of course it's a stitch-up in that it wouldn't happen if the coalition parties didn't see some party advantage to be gained. So what? It is a genuine issue just the same.

So the Labour party is seen to put party advantage ahead of a commonplace issue of democratic accountability. No surprises there, if the situation were reversed, the Conservatives and Lib Dems would be just as devious.

Many of us would much prefer to see a Labour party where democracy is an ineradicable part of its basic raison d'être. A party which fights for the interests of ordinary voters against the rich and powerful without ever sacrificing principle to expediency. A moral oasis in a corrupt world. Yet it ain't so. Never was.

Labour party to be sold?

Unconfirmed reports circulating around the Westminster village claim Tony Blair is proposing to buy the Labour party.

“It isn’t worth much, especially with Ed in charge,” said a source who wishes to remain anonymous. “So Tony thinks it could be worth a punt before the next election. It gets him back in the driving seat without all that leadership election malarkey. No mobile phones thudding against the walls either.”

Apparently the Labour party will be renamed the Lord Anthony Blair Offshore United Representatives party. When I pointed out that Mr Blair isn’t yet Lord Blair, the same source muttered that this was merely a question of semantics.

Our understanding is that in essence L.A.B.O.U.R will become what is known in progressive circles as a political-faith investment vehicle. It will be based on the private island of St Lynton, a sparsely inhabited tax haven in the Pacific Ocean. Although unfamiliar to UK voters, this arrangement is not at all unusual among those familiar with modern faith-based politics.

So how will the new arrangement affect current members of what is for now, the Labour Party? “Clearly the name will appear to undergo only a slight change, from word to acronym," my source claimed. "Most people won’t notice,” he added.

However we also understand that a brand new logo may be in the offing too. A red rose is not thought to be appropriate for the twenty first century – and what about policies? Are there plans to bring policy-making into the twenty first century?

“Absolutely,” my source enthused. “Policies will be announced on Twitter, making sure they are highly visible to all relevant voters. Each policy will have to be beautifully succinct of course, but we see this as an advantage in today’s highly mobile grab a coffee, grab a policy world.”

However, the plan may be scuppered by an internal Labour Party plan for what Lord Prescott calls a "manglement buyout".

Watch this space.

The informed patient

Every now and then we hear about people who look up their medical condition on the web and even tell the doctor what needs to be done. 

However, GPs could be said to mediate between patients and their own bodies and they certainly mediate between patients and the wider health machine. So patients who research their illness beforehand are trying to shortcut or at least understand part of the doctor’s mediation service. Presumably doctors don’t approve.

With the growth in information technology, this trend can be no great surprise to anyone including the medical profession, but what does it imply? If we look at the role of mediation in service industries then it could imply something of wider significance than healthcare.

As with doctors, the status of a mediator and the service they offer is often backed a certain mystique which also tends to be based on arcane knowledge. 

In times gone by this kind of mediation was almost entirely in the hands of the established church via its priests and high officials. Established churches offered the ultimate mediation service – mediation between the faithful and God - a very ancient form of social control.

A decline in religious observance seems to have coincided with a rise of a whole plethora of alternative mediation services still based, at least in part, on mystique and arcane knowledge. We call them service industries but the parallel with priestly mediation is striking. Potentially just as fragile too - in the face of information technology and the simple human desire to know.

So when patients arm themselves with knowledge before consulting their doctor, maybe we are seeing a fracture in the mystique of arcane knowledge. It’s not that the doctor has little to offer, but more interestingly, a possible crumbling of the doctor’s mystique and a recognition that his or her knowledge is accessible and not arcane.

The issue is complex because this is a subtle social and technological shift rather than a quantifiable economic trend. Even so it could have a profoundly negative impact on any service industry where the price and/or demand for mediation are sustained by an element of mystique and arcane knowledge.

Bankers we already know about, but how much of their trouble was caused by their inability or unwillingness to mediate between their customers and financial complexities? How much of an improvement would follow from a drastic simplification and demystifying of what bankers do? Has the mystique disappeared anyway?

Lawyers mediate between their clients and the law. On the surface there is nothing wrong with that, but what about the element of mystique and arcane knowledge which always seem to go with mediation?

To take an example from the entertainment industry, BrianCox offers mediation between TV viewers and the whole universe. Some folk don’t do things by halves do they? Lots of mystique and arcane knowledge behind that one.

Psychologists and psychiatrists offer mediation between a client and their own mind. Surely an example of professional chutzpah worth savouring.

Politicians offer mediation between voters and the hazards of the real world. Their credibility is crumbling to dust mostly because of their inability to mediate as claimed. 

However, their political failures could be the harbinger of wider failures. The failure of politicians to mediate as claimed, their obvious lack of arcane knowledge and the tarnished mystique of power may have implications well beyond politics.

Tories split the UKIP vote

The biggest electoral problem faced by UKIP was highlighted by last night's Heywood and Middleton by-election result. As expected the Tories split the UKIP vote, effectively handing the result to Labour. The UKIP mantra vote Tory and get Labour seems to have been vindicated.

From the BBC

Heywood and Middleton by-election result

Liz McInnes (Lab) 11,633 (40.86%)

John Bickley (UKIP) 11,016 (38.69%)

Iain Gartside (Con) 3,496 (12.28%)

Anthony Smith (LD) 1,457 (5.12%)

Abi Jackson (Green) 870 (3.06%)

An Ingenious Patriot

Having obtained an audience of the King an Ingenious Patriot pulled a paper from his pocket, saying: “May it please your Majesty, I have here a formula for constructing armour-plating which no gun can pierce. If these plates are adopted in the Royal Navy our warships will be invulnerable, and therefore invincible. Here, also, are reports of your Majesty’s Ministers, attesting the value of the invention. I will part with my right in it for a million tumtums.”

After examining the papers, the King put them away and promised him an order on the Lord High Treasurer of the Extortion Department for a million tumtums. 

“And here,” said the Ingenious Patriot, pulling another paper from another pocket, “are the working plans of a gun that I have invented, which will pierce that armour. Your Majesty’s Royal Brother, the Emperor of Bang, is anxious to purchase it, but loyalty to your Majesty’s throne and person constrains me to offer it first to your Majesty. The price is one million tumtums.” 

Having received the promise of another cheque he thrust his hand into still another pocket, remarking: “The price of the irresistible gun would have been much greater, your Majesty, but for the fact that its missiles can be so effectively averted by my peculiar method of treating the armour plates with a new—” 

The King signed to the Great Head Factotum to approach. “Search this man,” he said, “and report how many pockets he has.”

“Forty-three, Sire,” said the Great Head Factotum, completing the scrutiny.

“May it please your Majesty,” cried the Ingenious Patriot, in terror, “one of them contains tobacco.” 

“Hold him up by the ankles and shake him,” said the King; “then give him a cheque for forty-two million tumtums and put him to death. Let a decree issue declaring ingenuity a capital offence.”

Ambrose Bierce - Fantastic Fables (1899)