An Athenian aberration

There’s an odd little idea that has been going around a lot lately throughout both left and right circles with regards to democracy. It is hardly a new idea – hell, it is about as old an idea as they come – but it seems to be gaining traction more and more, as people see the failings of the current system and pledge themselves to obliterating those failings.

Specifically, this idea is with regards to our democracy. People are tired of what they see as the ‘political class’ more and more; the expenses scandal opened a valve, one that seems to spew out a mixture of critique and bile. People are angry at our ‘professional’ political system; MPs, the Parliament and the entire system have been dressed up and hoist high for all to see. How justified the anger actually is, that’s another matter entirely, but people have seen the worst excesses of the system represented in the worst possible way and now they want to blow the whole thing up.

So, you can understand why something that goes as far from that as possible is gaining ground. The idea in question is actually a classical one – namely, the selection of MPs by lot. The argument goes thus: the electoral system creates a professional political class, and this class is not representative, so why not abolish the professionalism and unrepresentative nature of it all by going utterly to the other extreme?

You can probably guess by now where I’m going with this. I’m personally stunned that so many rational people can buy into such an idea, and my aim here is to provide a succinct argument against the system and in favour of – roughly speaking – the system we currently have as one of representative governance (not to say I’m necessarily entirely in favour of our current system, of course).

The idea of lot selection sounds good in theory. There are a few fundamental flaws, however. Perhaps the most important of these has to be how capable the public administrators would be in such a situation.

Now, this may seem odd coming from a socialist, but I feel it must be said – the system of representative democracy is only viable because its ‘political class’ are generally intelligent. This is not to say of course that our current crop of leaders, to say nothing of those of years past, are exactly intellectually all there; our system as with many others is blighted by the taint of aristocracy and populism, and it would be folly to suggest that even the status of universities are representative of their talents, to say nothing of our elected politicians. However, for all their failings, those of success are generally bright chaps, and while they will make incorrect decisions (from my perspective, frequently) they tend to have at least some vague sense of rationality. Not that they always employ it of course, but that’s beside the point for now.

Perhaps more importantly, our politicians are trained for their job. Clearly, this has its bad points (for example, their frequent fellatio of corporate and special interests is a bit of a downer) but it also has its good points – by their education they are versed in the skills of logic, reason and debate. In other words, they are trained for the job.

Most democratic systems promote ability; electoralism does to a limited extent, and even concepts such as syndicalism and genuine communism promote by their nature the most talented taking the lead. This is thus one of the most fundamental weaknesses of the lot system – if we remove that ability, and that ‘training’, then we undermine the democratic system. Sure, the people we put the power in the hands of may be more representative of the general population – but can anyone truly say that they will be more capable? To quote Rafael Caldera of Venezuela, “We cannot ask to people with hunger to immolate themselves for a democracy that has not been able to give them enough to eat.”

However, let us assume that we are not concerned with this possibility – after all, the skills required are hardly difficult to grasp in theory, and there is no more necessity of a hierarchy of ability failing to develop in Parliament than there is necessity of such a hierarchy developing in a non-selective school. There is something more insidious for those of us who do not buy into the technocratic ideal – and I imagine that would include many of the supporters of the moves put forward. That being, the institution of such a system would mean the death of politics.

In essence, the move to such a system of governance means the abolition of serious politics. Why? Because those selected will not only be not guaranteed to hold their own strong political views (indeed, it is unlikely – those who care about politics are distinctly in the minority, and I imagine any selection procedure would most likely fill Parliament with apathetic eager just to let things trundle along until they can get back to doing what they want), they will have no incentive to push forward any political program. Hell, this is evidenced by the current system – look at how active your average safe-seat backbencher is. If very few of these people – people who actively chose to go into politics – are prepared to push their convictions even when they are practically guaranteed to win until they die or are caught naked with a young boy, toilet paper and peanut butter, what does that say about the likely activity of the more general population?

Ideology is fundamentally deprived by such a system. I know some will view that with glee, however, for many of us, us silly old sods who actually want to change and improve things and won’t just sit happy with a mediocre status quo that will keep on trundling into eternity if we allow history to end, this is a nauseating and frightening prospect. Be your goal socialism, libertarianism, anarchism, moralism, whatever you’re ultimately seeking, that becomes impossible without violent revolution if you change the system.

Chances are, if you didn’t want genuine change, you wouldn’t even stop to consider such a system. Yet, all the lot system does is entrench the status quo.

A final point, and this one may not be as universal as most of what I was previously saying, is the position of the vanguard. Now, the idea of a vanguard group exists in many different ideologies; as a socialist I am most familiar with it from Leninist theory quite honestly, but it can also be seen notably in social liberalism (if we take it to be true that a status quo in attitudes will not change itself by the simple fact that it is an unchallenged, accepted status quo, surely liberals must work to bring about the change in attitudes they want to see?) and libertarianism (going Galt and all that is fundamentally vanguardist). The citadels of capitalism/conservatism/bureaucracy/etc will not fall on their own; it will take an outside group to breach the defences and allow the five columns to act.

That vanguard has to work from somewhere. Particularly in the case of ideologies that accept the progressive ideal (that progress can be brought around through constitutional means – Leninists and perhaps even Randians of course would not, but social liberals, Eurocommunists, and so on would), that vanguard could come from governing bodies. How much power Parliament has is of course debatable, but it has historically served to foster a vanguard and push radical change upon the nation – after all, has increased social liberation not been partly achieved through the initiatives of Parliament in accepting it? Was Thatcherism not made acceptable by the Thatcherite government? It is debatable how much effect even as a vanguard any Parliamentary group can have, but it is worth considering at least.

The system of lot selection may seem nice on the surface. However, underneath, the perfidious evils of technocracy and incompetence boil. And while our system may not be perfect, it is certainly better than a permanent status quo.

BNP membership list

Alright, then. I can say a little about this now.

First off, the list IS genuine - at least, in part. Now, regrettably, I can't give you much in firm evidence for this at this time, but what I can confirm is there are new names on the list, and those names are genuinely BNP members who have joined up since the last time the list leaked (I know one personally - I'm not going to divulge his name without even having talked to him since the leak, though).

The leak I can now confirm IS post-last leak. According to BNP sources security's tightened on the list to the point which only two or three people can access it - I doubt that it's that secure, though, but it's possible, and if that is the case they have a big problem. From what I can see, given the bolding of April 2009 expiry dates and the 'lapsed Dec 08' sheet, it's the April '09 sheet.

Now, as for the stats. There appears to have been an increase in membership since last year - that's definitely possible, indeed, particularly given the majority of members joined BEFORE the last leak of the list. I don't have time to analyse it now, and I'm sure there's plenty of statwwankers willing to do that for me.

On the BNP peer, everything's gotten rather muddled there. Initially people (myself included) suggested that Baron Bramall, a former Chief of Staff, was a member of the list, given that there was definitely a Bramhall and he was a Lord. I can now confirm that this isn't the case (and apologies to Baron Bramall); it's in fact one Brian Bramhall who calls himself Lord for some genealogical reason I'm not going to try to decipher.

The list is freely available. I'm not going to link to it, obviously, but it's out there if you want to see it. A warning, of course; if you're thinking of using that list for anything other than curiosity or statporn, you're a cunt. The battle against the BNP won't be won by phoning up their members and breathing heavily.

Video: Socialism and the Necessary Evil

So, I was bored the other night.

Now, most normal people would when bored get drunk, get high, or both. However, I decided not to do that, and used the bored time to instead write and present a speech to the Internet.

Quiet, you.

It's on how socialism deals with the problem of the 'necessary evil'. Probably not the greatest thing in the world, but hey, I figure you might want to give it a look. Particularly given the distinct lack of content on here lately.

Enjoy.

Sun sycophancy and the new kneejerk

Oh, they've turned on Labour, no-one could see this coming!

So, as you may have heard, the Sun have once again decided it would be in their interest to back the winning a horse in a desperate and (sadly) non-futile attempt to curry the favour of whoever wins the next election (and I dare say that at this rate it’s becoming something of a by-gone conclusion that Gordon will be out by next July).

First, the loss of the Sun's support itself isn't terribly important. Yes, it's the most widely-circulated daily newspaper; however, I don't think anyone really is taking opinions from it or is even really reading it for the news (this contrasts sharply to the likes of the Daily Mail, for instance), not to mention that the danger of press bias is in the (admittedly sometimes less than) subtle arts of how things are worded, what's actually published, etc. Labour can get past any media unfriendliness if it's prepared to work for it on the streets and in Whitehall. The media has never been important as it's sometimes been made out, and its real influence on politics has been waning for a long time (albeit not to social networking; I do wonder how far this, for example, was joking - I can only hope the answer is 'completely', frankly).

Yet, given how the press seem to be making out it’s some major event, the BBC and ITV both leading with it this morning, you’d have thought that Rupert Murdoch was some sort of British Ayatollah dismissing his regime.

Well, that’s not completely inaccurate. No matter how you look at it, that damned scumbag wields a lot of influence over any government that’s willing to accept his support. And let’s not kid ourselves here – Labour not only have accepted, but actively solicited both publically and privately the support of the Murdoch empire, and have been prepared to accept its various diktats on ‘how things should be’ in order to retain that support.

This is what makes in many ways the reaction that Labour have presented to the failure of their latest bribes(and if such highlights of yesterday’s speech as the entire section about ‘anti-social behaviour’ wasn’t a Goddamn bribe to the right-wing press, then I don’t know what to think) to the right-wing press so reprehensible. No-one is claiming that the Sun is anything but a disgusting, hate-mongering rag that half of the time makes one check to see if they’re not wearing the glasses from They Live. We all know that, in short, they suck.

And now, Labour are making it clear, with their shouting about how they won’t be bullied and all that (led by Harriet Harman, the unacceptable face and empty head of the modern Labour movement). Yet, the problem is this. The Sun is going on about how what Labour’s said is too little, too late, for them; and for me, and I would wager other of leftist and generally sane strains of thought, the attacks made now are too little, too late.

It’s very simple, but if you need, I’ll spell it out. Why the fuck did you solicit the support of an organisation you supposedly hate so much, you pathetic bastards?

The response to the loss of the Sun’s support cannot be seen as anything other than a knee-jerk reaction. Sure, what they’re saying may be correct, if often distasteful (seriously, what the fuck). The problem is that they've spent a decade and a half of keeping shtum, even applauding the role of the Murdoch press in Britain and joyfully helping any attempt that they made to move public debate and opinion to their own ends (they did just yesterday afternoon, for fuck's sake). They've followed Murdoch like a poodle following a socialite.

Well, now the socialite's found a dog she liked better, and the poodle's been kicked out of the window. Now we have to behold the site of this pampered little creature yapping and squealing away at the side of the road while Murdoch squeals about his cute new bitch.

I won't torture the dog metaphor anymore, don't worry. The point stands, though. Labour's rejection of the Sun and their bullying tactics is too little, too late. This knee-jerk reaction cannot be seen as anything but desperation. That's not to say that this break with Murdoch has to be temporary; any future Labour leaders in the grassroots or even on the backbenches should take heed of what's happened here, and learn the lesson of what happens when you pander to scum like Murdoch (not that I'm confident they will).

On Tim Ireland and various bastards

Tim Ireland's been asking recently for people who back him in the difficulties he's been having with a bunch of utter cunts as of late to ask blog posts in defence of him. Unsurprisingly, especially to anyone was around for the event that gave this blog any sort of traffic whatsoever, I am proud to say I support him on this.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to write anything worthwhile on this, and certainly nothing that hasn't been better-said before. So, instead, for whatever readers I have who aren't also readers of various other British leftie blogs, I'm just going to link to Justin McKeating's far better piece on it and be done with.

If you haven't already heard about it, I urge you to read it.

(I'll start updating the blog properly soon. Promise.)

The trouble with the immigration debate

Immigration. Hrm. It's not an issue that we often have a chance to think through properly; there is a sizable minority who are vocally insane about the issue, after all (and I'd wager a sizable majority who are quite willing to go along with that sort of bull), so that never exactly helps discussion, and indeed said minority's ridiculous ramblings are so prevalent that when we DO think on the issue of immigration it's often in terms of 'the far-right are racist bastards'.

Now, of course, they are. Yet, that shouldn't mean we should in many ways pander to them by just doing our best to forget about the issue and restricting ourselves to halting the advances of the mob against those blasted darkie types. In many ways, hence, I'm very happy to see some debate on the issue being pushed forward into a decent sphere of debate - Carl Packman on Liberal Conspiracy has just published an article on this very issue, which I encourage you to read (hell, it's probably better than this post).

I dare say, however, that you didn't come to this blog simply to be given a link elsewhere. Well, I'd hope you haven't, although the amount of hits I get from people simply wanting that socialism copypasta makes me think twice. Regardless of reality, however, I must press on: allow me, hence, to share some of my own perspective on this issue.

Firstly, the immigration issue in general. The problem with the debate as it stands is simply this - when it comes to immigration, both proponents and opponents tend to put too much emphasis on single cases, rather than looking at the bigger picture. That isn't to say, of course, we should dehumanise the issue at hand; as much as many libertarians particularly would like to, I have never accepted the argument anywhere that we should treat humans as mere statistic. The problem is, rather than treating immigration as accounting, we are treating it in terms of anecdotes.

Of course, it's true for all issues - people tend to go for the 'I went there and it sucked/rocked so nyah' angle on almost EVERYTHING. The people waxing lyrical about the ups and downs of the system are the minority even among the people making public statement on these issues; the libertarian movement's the most vocal to on a huge scale break away from this, and even then many just puppet short, flawed arguments in places of short, flawed accounts. But for immigration, this is particularly problematic, and this applies for both sides.

For the anti-immigration side, you have people recanting two main types of anecdotes – the first is typified as ‘some Islamic fellow was taking the piss getting in a right fit about his benefits the greedy cunt’. Now, this is rather unavoidable, just as it’s unavoidable to have people basing their arguments on this one time they were in a hospital and it was super-sweet/soulsucking (delete as appropriate); however, the problem comes when we give such accounts credibility. This is simply because both semi-rational sides (although I admit the description of the Mail and such as semi-rational is stretch, but let’s roll with it for now) are quite willing to employ less idiotic-sounding anecdotes and claim they’re part of cogent political argument.

For the anti-immigration lobby, you have the tales of those bloody Kosovans or Iraqis or Somalis sponging off the state, that man from Gabon who fled his county and murdered two people here, that truckload of illegal Chinese immigrants who got through Dover unscathed. For the pro-immigration types, you have endless tales of this bloke or that bloke who the government’s deporting to hellish conditions, or some lovely tale about a community enriched by the arrival of a bunch of families from wherever and the joys of multiculturalism shining forth.

Frankly, this doesn’t help. On the right, such stories are encouraging hate against certain groups, and planting false racist perceptions whether intended or not. On the left, if anyone’s even listening to these sometimes Pravda-esque tales, all it’s doing is provoking sympathy for this ONE family or person, not advancing their cause at all (a lot of peoples’ problems with immigration comes from the view ‘most of them are bastards’). And for both sides, it’s simply entrenching an anecdote culture – it’s making it clear ‘it’s acceptable to base everything on this anecdotal piece of evidence’. It’s actively toxic to healthy debate on the issue; indeed, it’s entirely what the left should be avoiding if they want to persuade people on a wide scale, and what the right should be avoiding if they don’t want to encourage their own supporters damaging their own image.

The debate on immigration is only harmed by allowing it to degenerate into a case-by-case sparring match, to put it quite simply.

Now, I’ve said a lot about how we should really be acting when it comes to this debate, but I’ve said little on my own views. To be honest, that’s because frankly my own views are rather shaky on this. I don’t even have the easy escape of this being clearly ideologically definable, which on immigration is rather reserved to the most radical of libertarians and fervent of nationalists.

I believe strongly in internationalism, and fundamentally I am opposed to the idea of restricted nations – and, thus, restricted immigration, given that immigration is in many ways a construct to keep those considered unsuitable from joining a national group. This is the idealistic view. The problem is that in practice immigration is not as simple as on paper, and often stands to both further the exploitation of immigrant workers and to endanger the various gains that the Western working classes have gradually made against certain less charitable elements among business and government.

It’s a simple clash of idealism versus practicality. Being an idealistic sort, I’m inclined to say ‘open the borders and we can sort it out later’; however, I know that simply wouldn’t work out. The priority right now with regards to immigration thus has to be based on asylum seekers; quite simply, if we are to have restrictions on immigration, there is no-one more deserving of the ‘places’ than those genuinely in need. The system must be overhauled and particularly stripped of arbitrary rubbish like the ‘safe’ list of supposedly utopian states who are beyond mistake and thus cannot have residents who seek legitimate asylum.

Whether you agree with this view, or want to put me on a boat and kick me off this island, I hope you can agree on this: the most important thing for sane folks right now is to retake the debate from the criminally stupid. Whether for or against, we need to seize this issue and put the focus squarely on one thing – not statistics, not stories, just simple humanity.

Mark France, the DWP scapegoat

It's a sad reality of our current system that freedom of expression, in many ways, is a myth in our society. The libel courts under the Right Cretinous Eady (Private Eye ad nauseam), the inability to criticise your job without losing it, and the thankfully infrequent but always horrifying abuse of power by various organisations (yes, you, UNISON); if that mouth of yours annoys someone with power, you're in trouble.

Of course, that's unavoidable. We're not perfect creatures, after all; as long as some of us aren't amnesia-ridden, words will have their negative consequences. Yet, to paraphrase someone who I can only hope will be credited with the help of a benevolent commentor, although freedom of expression may be nothing more than a myth, it's a myth we have to believe in. It doesn't matter if it's true; all that matters is that it's right.

Now, you may wonder why am I going off on this idealistic rant. Well, it's because I've just forced to bear witness to the most disgusting violation of that principle I've seen in a long time, all thanks to a bunch of scapegoat-seeking scumbags hiding in the corridors of no-power.

Allow me to introduce Mark France. Mark is a fairly run-of-the-mill bloke; he's an admin officer in a Jobscentre in Bromsgrove, ekeing out a living on £15k a year. He's also a RESPECT activist, and most crucially he seems fairly good at this activist shtick, because he played a big part in the petitions against Julia Kirkbride after her expenses fiddle.

Mark France has done nothing wrong. Yet, as of today, he is a man chased out of his job, stranded in a recession without employment. There is no question about the quality of his work; even his bosses aren't prepared to lie about that. So, why has he been forced out?

He has expressed an opinion.

That's it. It seems someone in Bromsgrove was not happy about his little campaign. Lord knows why; I'm not going to try to even figure it out, because we don't know just which buggers put this forward, their scurrilous actions masked under a fog of DWP statements and vague talk of "the managers". Either they wanted France out personally for whatever reason; alternatively, they wanted someone to make an example of the nearest fellow with a brain and a spine in an atte to drain others of theirs.

So, they went after Mark. Technically, Mark is a civil servant; absolutely no-one would probably think of him as that, but that's what the official situation is. As such, he's governed by the civil service code, which says he has to be completely neutral when he's doing his job. Yet, can there really be any question of the man's ability to do his job? Hell, short of agitating violent revolution, would ANYTHING disqualify him from the work he was doing?

Fundamentally, is "speaking about politics on live national television, campaigning for signatures, making statements to the media, standing as an independent candidate in local elections without permission, and making comments on a politics website" worthy of dismissal? Lest we forget, there are British National Party members who are standing in local elections and are DWP workers - how can anyone justify such a double standard? Even if you would agree with the BNP members being barred (and I wouldn't), this case doesn't even compare - there is reason for concern about whether the BNP member's prejudices would get in the way of their jobs, but does this really hold true when applied to political bias?

I do understand. Civil servants must be neutral. Yet, I can't even see how this is within the LETTER of the law regarding civil service neutrality, let alone the spirit! Here is a man with no influence on policy, only a civil servant by technicality, who's done absolutely nothing but exercise his right to disapprove of a public figure.

Let's make this clear. Mark France is a victim. He is a victim of an arrogant group of managers who think they have the right to crush those would-be troublemakers on the most pathetic excuse, and who are convinced that they can get away with this anti-democratic bullying with no repercussion whatsoever. And what's worse, this has been done with the full consent of a government either too cowardly or too apathetic about basic liberties to intervene.

The worrying thing is that from the DWP's perspective, well, so far, so good. This issue hasn't been raised as often as it should have. While searching for information on this story, I only found a handful of blog posts; all I've seen in the mainstream media has been a story in Private Eye a few weeks ago. France's cause should by all rights be grasped and held high by both right and left and yet no support has materialised.

That has to change. Whether you agree with everything France has said or done in his life, what's happening to him should be sickening to any supporter of the liberal idea, of freedom of speech, hell, any opponent of abuses of powers. Forget the expenses issue - the fact that a man is faced with the choice of silence or destitution, in this manner, by a government department no less, is a hundred times worse than any two-bit politician siphoning off a few thousand pounds.

The word needs to be spread. They have attempted to hoist Mark France up, crucify him as an example to the rest of us. Let's rescue him from that cross, in the name of all that's bloody good with humanity. This injustice must be challenged so it is made very clear to all involved that we won't be cowed by their effort to shoot down such basic liberties - and that we won't let Mark France be broken in the crossfire, either.

(All thanks to Socialist Unity, The Daily (Maybe), Daily Referendum, and Harpymarx for being Googleable and actually helping to fill in the situation for me. I don't actually know France personally, and as an unemployed London student am about as far away as you could get from this case, but frankly, this just struck me in its horrificness)