The Bewilderness

Gordon Brown: Brown Stuff IV: A Man For All Pensions

Somebody does not like Gordon. They are mostly pensioners. The Treasury  has been forced to release new material that shows he was aware of the consequences of removing the tax relief on occupational pension schemes. His own officials warned him of the pernicious consequences of removing tax relief, in that it would reduce the income of pensioners and adversely affect Britain's pension system.

The Chancellor dismissed the claims, but it has now emerged that he was given similar advice from within Government. One of the confidential policy documents states: “We agree that abolishing pension tax credits would make a big hole in pension scheme finances.” Another stated: “Those who are about to retire (or who have just retired) could be worst affected.” He was warned that pension benefits “would be smaller and this would run counter to a policy of improving retirement income” and that “The change would therefore lead to a reduction in pension benefits for the lower paid.”

He was even unwilling to settle for phased reductions in tax relief that would have rendered the transition more manageable for pension schemes. This will be a further blow to the Chancellor's tattered reputation. He is now known as the man who ruined Britain's world-class pension schemes. The Treasury's response was abject nonsense:

A Treasury spokesperson said: “The Times analysis is abject nonsense and a complete travesty of the information they have received.

“What these papers show is that from the early 1990s, the Treasury recognised that dividend tax credits were an anomaly in the tax system which distorted business decisions and discouraged long-term investment. Anyone who pretends these decisions have led to the funding problems for pension schemes in recent years, while ignoring the impact of the dot.com crash, the pension holidays in the 1980s and 1990s, and the rise in life expectancy is simply distorting the facts.”

What comes around comes around. Some small injustices are now being remedied as the Chancellor is forced to deal with the bodyblows of decisions that he took ten years ago, before he moves to Number Ten. Why has it taken so long for the media to raise this issue though? The destruction of our pension system has been a slow-motion car crash that could have been pinned on the Chancellor at any time in the last ten years and should have been. This is a mainstream media failure, now partially rectified. I give you Gordon Brown: the man who ruined the pensions of British workers.

Iran: What next, Mr Blair?

How should we assess Britain's success in its diplomatic efforts to release the hostages? Iran, more bellicose and intransigent, is now determined to use them as predigree prisoners for propaganda purposes and possibly put them on show-trials. The key to success is acquiring more levers to influence Iranian behaviour and exact a price for their actions.

Britain cannot bring military force to bear, due to the underfnding of our armed forces. We are unable to acquire a united diplomatic front following the debacle at the United Nations. Our sailers' plight will not be met with a range of new sanctions. At a meeting of foreign ministers in Europe, there was strong condemnation on the bogpaper press release that all such meetings issue. None of the Member States were willing to entertain the notion of real action: freezing export credit guarantees to Iran. Let us hear their reasons for turning their back on their ally:

EU foreign ministers meeting in Germany called for the sailors to be freed but ruled out any tightening of lucrative export credit rules. The EU is Iran’s biggest trading partner. British officials are understood to have taken soundings on economic sanctions before the meeting but found few takers.

France, Iran’s second-largest EU trading partner, cautioned that further confrontation should be avoided. The Dutch said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue.

Republicans in DC have rightly branded the government's dependence on international law and sanctions as "pathetic". Rightly, in this instance. The government prefers to maintain its reputation for upholding international law and ruling out other strategies that could exert  greater influence in Iran, such as interdicting their oil trade.  Blair's prissiness in holding the moral high ground is achieved by making all the right noises and going through the (bowel) motions. Yet, after the EU and the UN, the cupboard is bare. What next, Mr Blair?

Devolution Comes of Age

Magnus Linklater analyses the possible outcomes of the  Populus poll that gave the Scottish Nationalist Party a possible majority in the elections for the Scottish Parliament next month. The key issue is the referendum for independence that Alex Salmond has vowed to introduce before the end of the four year term, if his administration were to last that long.

An SNP victory, based upon a rejection of Blairism, would spell short-term disaster for Labour. Yet, not all at Westminster will be unhappy at this outcome. As Linklater points out, this draws the sting of criticism before Brown is 'crowned' and allows him to pose as the self-styled champion of Unionism. The Labour party will assume that the SNP minority government will be an interlude between the 'natural party of Scotland'.

Mr Brown, meanwhile, could present himself to the Scots and the English as the champion of a united Britain, thus winning back useful ground with those of his critics who are wary of his Scottish background. And he could do something even sharper — he could shoot the Nationalist fox between the eyes. Instead of waiting for Mr Salmond to come up with his consultative exercise, he could announce his own referendum Bill, which would introduce the real thing — a proper nationwide and binding poll asking the Scots what kind of future arrangement they really wanted.

The alarming problem with such endeavours is that they can backfire. Moreover, this does not tease out the perceptions of the Scottish electorate, since they add the underperformance of the First Minister to their disaffection with the Labour government at Westminster. Victory for the SNP will show which perception is the dominant factor.

The factors that play in the Scottish and Welsh elections are often ignored in England. Yet, the common feature is the detestation that the government is held by the voters. This will hammer the administrations and end the first phase of devolution: ending the phase of Labour party federalism that followed and built upon the pre-devolutionary system of administrative federalism. At the third election,  devolution will begin to feel the full power of politics.

Iran: What Has Europe Done For Us?

Whilst the parading of the soldiers on television shows that one of the hostages has been coerced into making a statement, Timothy Garton Ash sets the bar that the European Union would have to jump if its ideals hold any weight. The crux of his argument is that, withs anctions biting, Iran is ever more vulnerable to a temporary or permanent suspension of export credit.

But there is something Europe should do: flex its economic muscles. The EU is by far Iran's biggest trading partner. More than 40% of its imports come from, and more than a quarter of its exports go to, the EU. Remarkably, this trade has grown strongly in the last years of looming crisis. Much of it is underpinned by export credit guarantees given by European governments, notably those of Germany, France and Italy. According to the most recent figures available from the German economics ministry, Iran is Germany's third-largest beneficiary of export credit guarantees, outdone only by Russia and China. Iran comes second to none in terms of the proportion of German exports - in recent years up to 65% - underwritten by the German government.

The total government underwriting commitment in 2005 was €5.8bn (£3.9bn), more than for Russia or China. As the squeeze grows on Iran from UN sanctions and their knock-on effects, and as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fails to deliver on his populist economic promises, this European trade becomes ever more vital for the Iranian regime - and ever more dependent on European government guarantees to counterbalance the growing political risk.

Garton Ash also reports that this may be raised at a formal meeting in Bremen, since the European Member States are not volunteering their services here. Perhaps the national thrust of policies will persuade people like Garton Ash that other statements in his piece are a wishing teleology:

Many continental Europeans, if they have registered that there is a crisis at all - and many will not have, since Europe's media are still mainly national in form and priorities - will probably think of it as yet another consequence of a foolish, illegitimate Anglo-American military action in Iraq.

This also tells us that Iran will not be releasing the soldiers any time soon. Should we not raise the bar in Basra: scourging all Iranian influence from the city and ensuring that unrest in Khuzestan is stoked?

Iran Crisis: The World's a Stage, But Britain is no player

What are the resources at the government's disposal as the Iranian government brazenly displays the hostages? Blair's statements are designed to sound tough in response to the threat, but their tone is shrill and weak. The latest course of action is mapped out in Prime Minister's questions:

"It is now time to ratchet up the diplomatic and international pressure in order to make sure the Iranian government understands their total isolation on this issue."

Are the Iranian government isolated? Blair's statement hints that he hopes to lead a collective response from the European Union and/or the United Nations against Iran if the servicemen are not released. This is not a bellicose or a sufficient response.

Angela Markel, as President of the EU, stated in Berlin that we had their full "support and solidarity". Did the EU take concrete steps to demonstrate this? Unless one were to focus on the negotiations over nuclear power, which have been decoupled from the crisis, there has been rhetoric. This will not interfere with the important necessities for our EU partners like France such as trade and investment:

Renault aims to sell 1 million Logans a year by 2010, up from 247,514 last year. On March 3, it started taking orders in Iran, where the car will be marketed as the Tondar-90, Farsi for thunder.

Whilst Iran makes as much domestic capital from the hostages as it can, Blair is reduced to hawking his diplomatic wares around the capitals of Europe, trading in debts for a figleaf response to the crisis. What will he trade in to look good? Will he surrender our sovereignty for a press release?

Iraq: US Fight, British Flight

Whilst the Iranian crisis continues to expose the soft belly of Blair's Britain, with a growing fear that the government makes noises as a substitute for a strategy, Basra provides a salutary comparison between the British and the American experiences.

Britain always had the easier territory to patrol, if the Kurdish safe haven is discounted. The southern Shi'a provinces were uniform in religion, though divided by faction, tribe and positioning in respect to Iran. Yet, having proved unable to bring stability and security, the British government decided to reduce troops and withdraw from the city proper. The consequences were predictably clear and have come to pass, as UPI reports:

The Mahdi Army, led by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and the Fadhila Party, led by Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yaacoubi, have been fighting in Basra's streets for four days.

The two groups are positioning themselves for control of the area as British troops prepare to exit, according to the Washington-based business risk analyst Eurasia Group. Both hold seats in Parliament and are making bids for key posts in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's upcoming Cabinet reshuffling, including he Oil Ministry spot.

Compare this with the context in which the United States has had to operate: a large conurbation increasingly torn apart by terrorism, sectarian killings and ethnic cleansing. Moreover, they have faced a full-blown insurgency in the Sunni provinces. The response is a new commander, Petraeus, more troops in the movement known as the 'Surge' and a greater willingness to patrol the streets.

This is the opposite of the response undertaken by the British government, to whose pipes the armed forces must dance. Faced with an intractable security situation, the British withdrew to barracks behind the obfuscating spin of tactical positioning. Early indications show that violence in Basra has grown although it is not yet clear if the 'Surge ' will prove effective in far more difficult circumstances. But, with 'fight or flight', the United States chose the former, Britain the latter. When will US cheerleaders for Blair accept that he talks tough and quietly retreats when the political calculus allows.

Helmand Province: The Delicate Tactics of Reconstruction

The size of the formal Afghani forces, omitting irregulars and the private armies, will increase from 46,000 to 64,000 in 2007. This does not provide a force available to supplement or supplant NATO's counter-insurgency operations in the neear future.

The dilemma that the Coalition faces in dealing with the insurgency is equally clear. All of the provinces in Afghanistan view the reconstruction pot of gold as a form of spoils. If more of the pot is distributed in the South as a curb against the insurgency, other areas may well take up arms as a spur to entice more money from the occupying forces to themselves. Therefore, reconstruction is a delicate balancing act between satisfying semi-pacified areas under their warlords whilst disrupting the influence of the Taliban in the south. With the policy of eradicating poppy crops thrown in, this becomes a combustible and contemptible mixture.

The elders of Ghowrak have listed their complaints about the strategy of using villages as security strongholds, fuelling their naive xenophobia and grasping dependency:

"You do not need to be here in town," said Ghowrak's headman, Haji Pasha. "With your soldiers standing looking over us, watching our women and driving their vehicles destroying our land. Go into the hills to find the Taliban, don't disturb us."

Far from being enticed into repudiating the Taliban, elders lined up to complain about the foreign troops in their midst and, more bitterly, the lack of assistance from the Afghan government.

"Why are we not with you?" asks another villager rhetorically. "Why are we not thanking you for our security? Why should we do anything at at all for our government when it does nothing to help us?

"Please do something for us but do it in Kandahar to make our government give to us not to themselves." 

The problem of opium is secondary:

But for the soldiers the crops are the least of their worries. "Those are poppy fields right there," muttered one US paratrooper on guard. "Do I care? I care about Taliban scouts."

Paktribune's articles are always biased against the Coalition forces and overestimate the Taliban. However, the task of negotiating with the councils of elders (shuras) and peeling the local communities away from the Taliban is now followed by the United States as well as Britain.

U.S. and NATO soldiers are increasingly holstering their weapons and attending traditional Afghan lunches and tribal meetings known as shuras, embracing local customs in a land where conversation over tea is a national pastime.

The goal: to gather intelligence, advertise the aid and development that NATO and the Afghan government can bring, and talk transitory Taliban fighters into disarming. The counterinsurgency strategy is based on weeding out what NATO calls "Tier 2" Taliban - poor farmers or jobless villagers who are enlisted by hardcore, ideologically minded Taliban.

"We don't actually want to kill the Tier 2 people. We want them to be a part of the country," said Squadron Leader David Marsh, a spokesman for the NATO-led force.

"We think if people trust us they will share intelligence with us that will help them in the long run," Mennes said. "The economy has to grow. Security has to grow. If I come in and kill everyone it does nothing."

It is long and delicate work, moving from village to village throughout Helmand and depends upon getting the Kajaki dam working again. Then the Taliban 2.0 can become Farmers 1.0 again. The need to replace eradication with a saner policy is the other foundation upon which the present counter-insurgency rests. We will have to buy the poppies.

Holding Back the Estuarines

Acording to a new article in the Telegraph, many more of us are speaking the Queen's English. It is about that only part of her that is.  Lots of articles on English from the early nineteen-nineties onwards  announced the inevitable onward march of Estuary English. We were no longer having a 'laaff' but a 'larf'.   

Now, it seems that the regional accents are holding their own, and that you can draw a line from Northnampton, Birmingham and Portsmouth as the outliers of the South-east. Other accents have maintained their distinctive vowel sounds and regional varaitiosn often depend upon the size of the local population for the dialect.

The grarse spreading out from its London roots is gradually stifling the graaas, but one of Britain's leading accent experts said yesterday that a larf will never drown out a laff.

Students of the voices that make up a patchwork quilt of spoken English across the country have drawn up a map of the way in which the long "a" of received pronunciation has followed the exodus of Londoners into the rest of southern England.

Not so long ago people in counties such as Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire would pronounce "grass", "bath" and "after" as if they were spelled with a double "a".

Today, younger generations will say those words as the Queen does, or indeed as they do in the Queen Vic on EastEnders, as if the "a" was lengthened with an "h".

The old, extended "aa" is restricted to southern England west of a line from Cheltenham through Bristol and Bath to the south coast and in a redoubt around Norfolk.

With the huge number of immigrants moving into the country, and settling in London, we can expect more fluid variations, as we can already hear in some of the African and west Indian communities around the outer London suburbs. Accent is more uniform with social mobility, as always. Further accents can be heard at the new British Library website, Sounds Familiar.

Decoupling the Plugs

Pajamas media has noted, through an AP report, that Iran may be seeking a way out:

Iran said Monday it was interrogating 15 detained British sailors and marines detained in disputed waters to determine whether they intentionally entered its territory - an indication the country might be seeking a way out of the confrontation with Britain.

The Republican Guards, parallel, parastatal structures to the legitimate government of Iran, are not yet strong enough to force the Islamic Republic down the radical path desired. Nor is the country ready to go to war. Therefore, the diplomatic dance has begun, disentangling this hostage-taking  from any  other  issue.

Separately, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Baghdad that there was no connection between the seizures of the 15 and any other issues between the West and Iran. He, like Mostafavi, denied any aim for a prisoner swap.

    ”They entered Iranian territorial waters and were arrested and are undergoing the process of investigation and interrogation. It has nothing to do with other issues,” he said....

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office sought to play down fears that the incident would deepen tensions with Iran, which threatened to charge the 15 with illegally entering its territory.
    The seizure of the British service personnel has deepened troubles between Iran and the West, which is concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and accused the country of interfering with the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
    Blair’s spokesman said he intended to treat the seizure as a distinct issue. ”This is a matter that should be dealt with on its own merits,” he said.

Now that both countries have ringfenced the seizure for the moment, Iran is capitalising on the event to show its potential power, rather than ratchet up the escalation. There is still plenty of time for the diplomatic circus to fail, and concessions now may be withdrawn later. Iran specialises in hot and cold douches.
 

Gordon Brown: Tory Transvestite?

Denis MacShane has chutzpah. Politicians should believe what they write but, after the latest con-Budget, it takes effrontery to claim that New  Labour is now neo-liberal. Yes, Cameron and his donkeys may suck up to the public sector, but they learn from those who shifted (shafted?) Britain to the Left, in terms of charming the electorate:

No, this pledge of support for the gentlemen of Whitehall and their self-reproducing army of state employees paid for by our taxes came from none other than George Osborne, the close associate of David Cameron whose love affair with statism grows daily.

However, Denis betrays himself with that Europhile rush that he tried to omit but his hand typed in whilst his brain or research assistant wasn't looking:

The only bureaucracy Messrs Osborne and Cameron appear to dislike is that in Brussels, where fewer Eurocrats than the staff of the BBC try to keep open markets working in 27 cantankerous nations.

Most Tories will not accept MacShane's arguments that Tory statism is bad, but Labour's record is worse. Nor will they accept that the Budget was a success, as the polls indicate anything such. Brown is the most disliked politician in the UK today and MacShane's success is a collective denial:

That is why Gordon Brown's Budget caused such delight on Labour benches. The mound of shot foxes in front of Cameron and Osborne grew higher and higher.

The Chancellor played with the Tory Trotskys and Bullingdon Bukharins of Notting Hill and watched them fall one by one into the traps he had set.

To set income and corporation tax below levels that Margaret Thatcher dared to introduce was not so much catching the Tories bathing and walking off with their clothes as a vital caesura in the reinvention of Labour as a party serious about power.

If MacShane had not clouded this move in a partisan paean of praise to the Chancellor, one might view this as a serious effort to set the agenda. New  Labour is grappling with the polling disaster of the pissed off middle classes but pretending to be Tory transvestites is an unlikely solution. Like certain musings on the abolition of inheritance tax, we will hear more about low-tax Ireland in the future as a possible path for New Labour. Except that I doubt Gord, too tainted with his own 'success', is listening to Denis.