IS BRITAIN A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY?

“We are a Christian country and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so.” 
Prime Minister David Cameron on the 400^th anniversary of the King James Bible, December 2011

“We are a Christian country with an established church in England, governed by the Queen.”
Eric Pickles, Conservative Communities Secretary in Coalition Government. February 10. 2012

“My fear today is that a militant secularization is taking hold of our societies.”
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Co-Chair of the Conservative Party. February 14. 2012

“The concept of our established Church is occasionally misunderstood and I believe commonly
under-appreciated.”
The Queen, at a gathering of representatives of 11 religious faiths at Lambeth Palace, to mark her diamond jubilee, February 15. 2012

“I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.”
Bertrand Russell. 1956.

“The so-called Christian state is the imperfect state and the Christian religion serves as a supplement and a sanctification of its imperfection. Religion therefore necessarily becomes a means for the state, and the state is one of hypocrisy….The democratic state, the true state, does not need religion for its political completion. Rather it can abstract from religion, because it realizes the human foundations of religion in a secular manner.”

Karl Marx, December 1843.

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One might be forgiven for thinking that there has been something of a coordinated effort of late by high representatives of church and state to persuade us that we are all in danger of  losing our hard won right to freedom of worship at the hands of a determined army of “militant secularists”. Religious freedom is supposedly under sustained attack. Fanatical atheists want to prevent us from saying our prayers. Ancient and cherished institutions are under attack; our very identity as a nation is in peril. What has occasioned this panic?

In 2010 a member of the council in the small North Devon town of Bideford objected to the practice of prayers being said at the start of council meetings as part of the formal business agenda. As an atheist he felt embarrassed and offended by it. He failed to persuade members of the council to stop the practice, or at least to exclude it from the formal agenda. His case was taken up by the National Secular Society and a few weeks ago a High Court judge ruled that the practice was indeed illegal. Local authorities had no statutory power under Section III of the Local Government Act, 1972, permitting them to hold prayer meetings as part of their official agendas. The reaction to this ruling in many sections of the media has been little short of hysterical. It is being claimed that Christianity is under threat, for, needless to say the prayer meetings in those council chambers where they occur, are invariably Christian prayers. Voices have been raised in defiance of the legal ruling, pledging to continue the prayer meetings. The mayor of Bideford has promised to conduct prayers before official business, but says that in his view “anyone who does not want to enter the council chamber until the prayers are over is being disrespectful to the mayor.”

The unholy fuss over this is at one with the outraged stance adopted by the tabloid defenders of the faith that periodically pretend there are sinister forces at large who want to “ban Christmas”, because to celebrate it may offend Muslims and members of other faiths. Britain, we are told, is a Christian country, something to be celebrated, not denied. It is worth taking a sober look at this claim. In what sense, if at all, can Britain today be considered a Christian country? No-one doubts that Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan, for example, are Muslim countries due largely to the fact that the great majority of their populations are devout, practicing Muslims. In this sense, Britain is not a Christian country. According to the most recent poll (Ipsos Mori) carried out for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, only 54% of Britons identified themselves as Christians. But, of those, 74% thought religion should not influence public policy: only 12% thought it should. Of the professed Christians, 58% hadn’t attended a church service in the past 12 months; 46% oppose the UK having an official state religion, as opposed to 32% in favour. 74% of those who identified as Christians did so because they were born into a faith rather than because of any belief. Only 32% believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus and one in five do not believe in the resurrection in any form. Interestingly – and rather crucially for the claims of Christian faith – 49% of those who profess to be Christians do not believe that Jesus was the son of God and 1 in 25 don’t believe he existed at all. Ipsos Mori interviewed 2000 people.

Given these results how is it still possible for the Church of England and its political defenders to continue to claim that Britain is a Christian country? At one level it has to do with the defense of entrenched privilege. Twenty six unelected Church of England bishops sit in the House of Lords. The Church of England is the established church in England and the Queen is its “Supreme Governor and Defender of the Faith” though her writ doesn’t run over the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The established church needs to keep up the pretense that its establishment rests on a solid foundation, so it has always seized on the evidence of earlier polls suggesting that about 72% of the population describe themselves as Christians, to claim that Britain remains a Christian country. But it is now clear that in any meaningful sense, this is nonsense. The findings of the Ipsos Mori poll are not, of course limited to those who describe themselves as CofE. Included must also be evidence about the increase since 2001 in the numbers of Roman Catholics, boosted by EU immigrants. When one also takes into account the far higher church attendance at African and African-Caribbean evangelic churches, it is inescapable that the decline in the numbers identifying as Christians would seem to be most marked in what were more traditional, white, “CofE” sections of the population.

Reluctance among the clergy to accept the hard reality of rapidly dwindling numbers of the Christian flock is understandable, if indefensible. One does not need to question the sincerity with which their beliefs are held. It is evident that very many practicing Christians are actively engaged in selfless work in Britain and worldwide, dedicated to combating inequality and achieving a better world. In this they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with non-Christians, atheists and others who are working in the same cause. But it is inexcusable that those in positions of power and authority in the Christian churches should use their positions to defend their privileges and the privileges associated with “faith”. The proliferation of “faith” schools in the state sector has undermined attempts to reduce inequalities in the provision of comprehensive state education by smuggling in an insidious form of selection. The main beneficiaries are the CofE and Catholic schools, but there is now a growing demand for Islamic schools. All such institutions seek to indoctrinate children into a religious faith with all the exclusivist and sometimes gender-discriminatory and segregationist practices that go with it.

The Church of England used to be described as “the Tory party at prayer”. That description no longer fits. Now the church is more likely to be the butt of sarcastic jibes from the Tories about “bleeding-heart liberals”. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is frequently singled out for this sort of treatment. Nevertheless, deep-rooted social-conservatism thrives in the Christian churches. Engrained hostility to the ordination of women priests and bishops, opposition to gay marriage and homophobia are widespread. Divisions over such matters run deep in both the Anglican and Catholic churches. But the CofE clergy and the Tory ministers speak with one voice when they denounce “militant secularists” who, they claim, want to prevent Christians from practicing their religion. The carefully orchestrated assault actually distorts the meaning of both terms. “Militant” denotes something warlike and combative; “secularism” simply means the separation of church and state, or the belief that religious practice should be separated from the public affairs of state and from state education. The use – or misuse – of terminology is deliberate. Although secularists may well be - and often are – people of religious faith, the terms “secularist” and “atheist” are often conflated and it has become increasingly common, particularly in the attacks on Richard Dawkins, to append the adjectives “aggressive” or “militant” to every reference to atheists or atheism. So secularists are now indistinguishable from atheists. Although the term does not have quite the abusive connotation it does in the United States, it still has a pejorative ring to it in Britain, suggesting that atheists must lack a moral compass.

What is really at stake here is the fear within the religious and political establishment that the call for the disestablishment of the Church of England may gain serious support. Britain is not a secular state and it is increasingly difficult for its supporters to defend the status quo. In view of the now obvious fact that the great majority of the population can in no serious sense be regarded as Christian – indeed no longer regard themselves as Christian - the existing set up is hopelessly anachronistic.

But perhaps the clearest evidence of the terminal weakness of Christian sentiment may be seen in the way in which religious festivals and holy days are celebrated. Muslims and observant Jews fast on Ramadan and Yom Kippur; Eid ul Fitr and Passover are steeped in religious significance. How many people in this supposedly Christian country now have any idea what Lent is about – let alone observe it? What does Easter amount to? The crucifixion (the holiest day in the Christian calendar) and the resurrection of Jesus means – if anything – for most people, Easter eggs and Easter bunnies. And what of Christmas?

If a committee had been established to come up with a way of expunging from this festival any and every hint of religious observance, they could not have come up with anything better than the rampant consumer-fest that it has become. However joyous, Christmas trees and mistletoe are pagan rather than Christian symbols. This not to endorse Scrooge’s charge of “humbug,” Christmas can indeed be a joyous time, despite having been high-jacked by a rapacious commercialism. But whatever is enjoyable about it has nothing to do with the birth of a deity. One cannot but feel a twinge of sympathy for the shrinking minority of true believers who must, at Christmastime, feel rather isolated from the multitudes who celebrate they know not what.

DOES CAPITALISM HAVE A FUTURE? Or is a Better World Possible?

Despite the current discourse about the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ and the need for a ‘responsible’ or ‘moral’ capitalism, it is generally taken for granted that there is no alternative to capitalism in some form. Everyone is aware that something is seriously wrong with the way the system is working and that there is no easy fix. But discussion rarely goes beyond questions about bankers’ bonuses and how to deal with banks that have become too big to fail. There is great concern and debate about the apparently intractable problem of sovereign debt in the Eurozone and whether ever-tougher austerity is the right way to reduce deficits. Governments express concern about unprecedented levels of unemployment and a ‘lost generation’ of ‘neets’ - young people who are ‘not in education, employment or training’, but denounce ‘feral youths’ who riot in the streets, stubbornly denying that their rebelliousness is an expression of their alienation. As the bankers’ bonus bonanza goes into full swing again, public anger, fuelled by the cold pinch of austerity, shows no sign of abating. There’s a lot of political capital to be made out of all this. In the last few days, Labour’s threat of a parliamentary debate on bankers’ bonuses was sufficient to persuade RBS boss Steven Hester to waive his £1 million bonus. Today (February 1), disgraced former RBS boss, Sir Fred Goodwin, was stripped of the knighthood awarded on Gordon Brown’s advice in 2004 for “services to banking.” This is the man who, a few years later ran the bank into the ground, leading to its nationalization at a cost to the taxpayer of £450 billion.

Prime Minister Cameron is keenly aware that his government is vulnerable on this issue. In recent weeks he has won plaudits from the right-wing press (and that means most of the national newspapers) for vetoing a European treaty to impose tighter fiscal discipline across Europe and for his tough stand against those the tabloids refer to as “welfare scroungers.” He clearly hoped that waving the flag and trouncing the “undeserving poor” would take people’s minds off the complete failure of the austerity programme to stimulate economic growth. He also hoped to divert people’s minds from the growing gulf between the super rich and the severely squeezed majority facing relentless cuts to their living standards. But public anger against the fat cats of the financial sector is palpable and cannot be ignored. Neither can he ignore his Lib Dem coalition partners, who, under pressure from their restless rank-and-file, need to demonstrate some minimal inclination to rein in the bailed-out bankers. In the last few days Ed Miliband has found his populist voice again and has scored a few palpable hits against the prime minister in parliament. The hastily accomplished removal of  Fred Goodwin’s knighthood by a little known committee of senior civil servants was certainly initiated by Cameron. Whether there will be further action against others honoured for their services but equally culpable, remains to be seen. Few tears are shed for “Fred the Shred”, but this latest gesture is obviously part of a political game that is being played. Cameron needs his government to be seen as responsive to popular demands for some redress against a class of super rich billionaires who, though responsible for the financial crash of 2007-8, have got off scot-free. Upping the ante at Prime Minister’s question time, Miliband goads Cameron, demanding to know why he hasn’t made good his promise to name bankers paid bonuses over £1 million, and why he hasn’t accepted the high pay commission’s recommendation that an ordinary employee should sit on every pay committee. Cameron side-steps the questions and turns the table on Miliband by reminding him that he was part of a government that signally failed to regulate the banks and sanctioned multi-million payouts to bankers. Thus a serious issue is reduced to a point-scoring charade affording much amusement to members of parliament but doing nothing to get to the heart of the matter.

The record of the Blair-Brown New Labour government is the rod with which the Tory-led coalition can beat the opposition. And as long as there has been no decisive break with New Labour, Miliband remains vulnerable. Brown as chancellor championed “light-touch” regulation and Miliband was part of his team after he became prime minister in 2007. Like all members of the shadow cabinet he has refused to make any serious criticism of New Labour and its record in government. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls recently made clear that, if returned to power, Labour would not commit to reversing any of the cuts imposed by the present government. So there is no radical alternative to the Con Lib-Dem coalition.

At the heart of the matter is the capitalist system itself. During the last four years it has become clear beyond doubt that this system is in deep crisis. “The crisis of capitalism” is no longer a phrase confined to the lexicon of the Marxist left; it part of the vocabulary of serious discourse across the mainstream political spectrum. But, at best it is used to refer to the neo-liberalism that has been dominant since the 1970s. This, say the critics, has reached the end of the road and now it is time for capitalism to be managed in a more responsible, morally acceptable way. The idea that the neo-liberal model - unregulated capitalism, red-blooded and raw in tooth and claw, may actually represent the essential nature of the beast (as its advocates claim), is firmly rejected by the champions of “capitalism with a human face.” But, it can be argued that finance monopoly capitalism, is the essential and irreversible form the system takes in its latest, possibly final phase. If it is, then the present global crisis, however long it may last, is one from which there is no exit route into a radically reformed, humanized capitalism. And that begs the question, what, if anything is to take its place?

A socio-economic system that has survived many crises may survive this one. But it is not too pessimistically apocalyptic to conclude that if the future is to be dominated by an unreformed (and unreformable) global system driven by the dictates of profit maximization, the prospects for the survival of our own and other species on earth are bleak indeed. Whether it will be possible to change course and reverse the present drive to social and environmental disaster, is uncertain. But, if there is to be a future worth inheriting, it must be done. And this means that economic and political power must be taken out of the hands of the 1% who now wield it and transferred to those who will use it to effect a thoroughgoing democratic redistribution to serve the 99% who are now effectively powerless. This form of social organization is what has often been called socialism. One of the reasons why the concept of socialism has become so tarnished is because it became closely associated with the bureaucratic, statist dictatorships in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. Also, the right in Britain has damned as “socialist” the nationalization policies of the post-war Labour government.

The Marxist left, which almost everywhere now has only a marginal existence, must also share part of the blame for widespread public ignorance about socialism. In Britain, and throughout most of Western Europe, Marxist parties and groups have rarely devoted any time or effort to trying to explain what a socialist society might look like, and how, in the advanced capitalist world, it might be possible to bring it into being. Here it is only possible to state briefly what such a society would not look like and to mention some of the features it might possess.  The subject will receive further attention in future Letters from the UK.

1. Such a society would bear no resemblance to the bureaucratic state-controlled dictatorship established in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Despite the abolition of private ownership in the means of production and the formal establishment of “public ownership” through state control of industry and collectivization of agriculture, these measures were imposed through a ruthless exercise of state power by a bureaucratic dictatorship over the working people. In its worst manifestations, power was exercised through terror which resulted in the deaths of millions. Such a system cannot possibly be regarded as socialist.

2. Such a society would have no place for the medieval institution of hereditary monarchy and the aristocratic privilege of “honours” that corrupt public life in Britain today. Other, publicly sanctioned methods of recognizing public service, would be found.

3. While recognizing that absolute social equality is not achievable, such a society would work actively towards establishing the greatest degree of social equality possible. This would be made incomparably easier as the present system of private and corporate ownership would be replaced by various forms of public and co-operative ownership in which remuneration would be democratically decided by unions and employment bodies. Education would be free for all. Privileged, fee-paying, public (private) schools would be abolished.

4. Such a society would reject entirely both (a) state control of the media as practiced in the communist ruled countries of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and (b) corporate, multi-millionaire control of the media such as exists in Britain and throughout the capitalist world. All mass communications media would be brought under various forms of popular democratic control. All forms of censorship and restrictions of genuine freedom of speech would be removed. However, expression and dissemination of racist, misogynistic and homophobic prejudices would be subject to prohibition, as would all forms of incitement to act on such prejudices.

These are just a few of the features we might expect to find in a society that would be part of the “better world” that must be created if we are to have a future fit for human beings.  

“RESPONSIBLE CAPITALISM”, “MORAL MARKETS”, and - Goldman Sachs Bonuses

Something rather curious has been happening recently. Leading politicians, Tory, Lib Dem and Labour, have started talking about capitalism. It has happened before, but not for some time and then, referring to some particularly egregious example of corporate malfeasance, terms such as the “unacceptable face of capitalism” were used. Tory prime minister Edward Heath coined the phrase in 1973 to describe the activities of Lonrho chief executive Tiny Rowlands who had broken sanctions against the white racist Smith government of Rhodesia. Later, in 2004, Jim O’Donnell, managing director of BMW applied it to five directors of Phoenix Venture Holdings, the parent company of GM Rover, who had pocketed more than £16 million, even though the company had lost £89 million. The chairman and vice chairman were accused by Martin O’Neill, chairman of the Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee, of using “financial sleight of hand” to line their own pockets and of failing to exercise good corporate governance.

Such cases, when they occurred, were regarded as aberrant, involving corrupt or avaricious individuals. They were the occasional rotten apples in a barrel that was generally good and healthy. For the most part mainstream politicians, like the mainstream media, have hardly mentioned capitalism by name. Their preferred terminology has tended to refer to the “free market”. It is worth noting that terms such as “free market” and “free world” carry a heavy ideological baggage and emotive power. Since 1945 the implication in the use of these terms is that the “western world” is free and that the freedom we enjoy is inextricable from the “free market”. Until the collapse of the communist-ruled states in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the alternative to the “free world/market” was said to be loss of freedom and totalitarian tyranny. This was the constant theme of the mainstream media. It was also the theme of authoritative philosophers and economists such as Isaiah Berlin (“Four Essays on Liberty”) and Milton Friedman (Capitalism and Freedom). So powerful was this ideological contention that its influence is still pervasive today. But things could be changing.

The current talk about capitalism is different. Now the capitalist system in Europe (including Britain) and throughout much of the western world is in the most acute crisis since the 1930s. It is no longer possible for the ruling classes of the countries most severely affected to deny its severity. When the first phase of the present crisis broke in 2007/8, some of the more perceptive Keynesians, such as Will Hutton in Britain, realized that this time it was not just another “manageable” recession like those of the early 80s and 90s, but a crisis of global proportions and potentially catastrophic dimensions which could lead to a systemic crash. Hutton is fully aware of the social implications of the crisis, as is clear from his column in the Observer on December 4. 2011: “Be sure that British civil society will not accept its grim fate as if nothing is happening. There will be organized and angry responses – and rightly. We are about to experience economic, social and political tectonic plates on the move.” It is worth quoting a little more from this article as in it he expresses a view which has recurred frequently in what he has written since 2008. “This”, he says, “is a crisis of bad capitalism….The only way forward is a good capitalism.” He concludes that “socialism, certainly as conceived and practiced over the past 100 years, is no plausible answer.” Note the qualification, which is significant -“as conceived and practiced over the past 100 years.” We will return to that later.

What has occasioned this latest discourse about capitalism? Some, like Hutton, Krugman and Stieglitz have offered serious observations about the nature and causes of the crisis and have, since its onset in 2008, argued that there would be no way out of it through imposing severe austerity measures. But others such as prime minister Cameron are simply responding to the growing public anger about the multi-millions in pay and bonuses that the bosses of an already bloated financial sector continue to award themselves as the rest of society is obliged to pay for their profligacy. 

Cameron is also discomfited by Ed Miliband’s claim to the high ground in opposing “predatory” and “irresponsible” capitalism. Actually, both Cameron’s and Miliband’s rhetoric is reactive. It is the global financial crisis, the crisis in the Eurozone, the Occupation movement worldwide and not least the extraordinary upsurge of revolutionary fervour throughout the Arab world that have thrust questions about the nature of capitalism to the forefront of public concern. In particular attention has become focused on the role of finance capitalism. But the growing ranks of its critics who are trying to understand what caused the crisis and searching for ways of overcoming the social depredations following in its wake, will find little to enlighten or reassure them in anything that Miliband and Cameron have to say.

In talking about predatory and irresponsible capitalism, Miliband challenges Cameron to do something about exorbitant rail fares and bank charges; to end the “surcharge culture” and the “rigged energy market.” These are all matters of acute public concern and it is essential to confront and face down the banks, the railway companies and the energy suppliers. But they go nowhere near getting to grips with what even its staunchest defenders are forced to admit is a crisis of capitalism.

Cameron, like Miliband, says he wants a “responsible capitalism”. He talks of a “moral capitalism”, claiming that open markets and free enterprise are “the best imaginable force for improving human wealth and happiness”….”They are an engine for progress, generating enterprise and innovation that lifts people out of poverty and gives people opportunity.” “I would go further”, he says, “Where they work properly, open markets and free enterprise can actually promote morality.”

The point of all the rhetoric about the need for “responsible capitalism” is to counter the growing sense amongst those involved in protests and occupations across Europe, the USA and elsewhere, that (in the words of the banner raised over the London occupation at St. Paul’s), “Capitalism IS Crisis.” The ongoing and deepening sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone is as far as ever from resolution. As the UK falls into the double dip recession we were confidently assured by the government would not happen, the flimsy veil of credibility covering the “necessary” deep cuts of the austerity measures, is in shreds. A minority – but a growing minority – is beginning to question the nature of a system that is so obviously dysfunctional. On the same day (January 19.) that the City of London Corporation was given the legal right to evict the Occupy London protesters from St. Paul’s churchyard, Goldman Sachs announced that they had set aside £8bn to pay its staff an average of £238,000 each. Of course, such grotesquerie causes some embarrassment, even among the millionaires of Cameron’s cabinet. This is not, they tell us, the way capitalism should be working. We are left to infer that the ever-expanding gulf between rich and poor – a gulf that is growing greater by the month as the government’s cuts drive thousands more into hopeless poverty – is either not really happening or is something that should not trouble us. When working properly, Cameron assures us, the “free market” will lift people out of poverty. When might that be? How long should the one million unemployed young people in Britain be prepared to wait?

The protesters of the Occupy movement have got it right. In effect, they – and increasingly the re-energized trade union movement and the plethora of new activists – are saying that they have had enough. They have had enough of waiting for a lugubrious bunch of professional politicians to act on their behalf. The new activism must, and likely will be informed by a far greater awareness of the true nature of capitalism. They will be aware that it is not just a matter of excesses and the behaviour of “irresponsible” capitalists and greedy bankers. There is a growing understanding that the problem with capitalism is systemic. The system as a global socio-economic formation is in crisis. Boom and bust are in the nature of capitalism; they always have been and always will be. In its latest stage – finance monopoly capitalism – the cycles of boom and bust have become ever more frequent and ever more severe. The rise to dominance of finance capital in the western world since the 1970s has been in inverse proportion to the decline of the so-called “real economy”. As the economies based on manufacturing have stagnated, the real incomes of the working populations have declined. The illusion of continued prosperity in countries like Britain and the USA has been sustained by accumulated debt fuelled by unsustainable property bubbles. Now the bubbles are bursting with greater frequency and the European countries that were most heavily dependent on banking and the construction industry, such as Ireland, are hardest hit.

In conclusion it is worth returning to Will Hutton’s claim that the crisis is with “bad capitalism” and that the only way forward is to exchange it for “good capitalism.” He argued that socialism offeres no plausible alternative but added the qualification “certainly as conceived and practiced over the past 100 years.” It is not clear if Hutton intended this to be understood as a rejection of any imaginable form of socialism as an alternative to “bad capitalism”, but it is worth taking up this argument.

It needs to be said unequivocally that Hutton is right when he says that what has been practiced as socialism over the past 100 years does not deserve the name. (There are one or two possible exceptions that space prevents us from dealing with here). The countries of “actually existing socialism” in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were, despite state control of their economies, for the most part bureaucratic dictatorships in which the working class and peasantry held no actual power and in which, for the most part, the people were denied the elementary rights of freedom of speech and assembly. However one characterizes such societies, they were not socialist in anything but name.

Britain under the Labour government 0f 1945 -1951 is often described as socialist. It wasn’t. The nationalization of the “commanding heights” of the economy and the establishment of a “mixed economy” was a social democratic experiment which, in the harsh economic circumstances of the time, made considerable concession to a working population determined to redress the gross inequalities of the pre-war depression years. But it didn’t radically change the power structure. It was an example of social-democratic management of a capitalist economy. It wasn’t socialism.

If it is assumed that capitalism is incapable of resolving the contradictions with which it is so obviously riddled, the question of what is to replace it cannot be avoided. Will Hutton is right to reject what has passed for socialism over the past century. But, whatever we call it, there has to be an alternative to the present system. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of human society and the natural environment depends upon it. Consideration of what such a society might look like must be deferred to the next Letter from the UK.

WELCOME TO 2012 – Year of Harder Times and Joyous Jubilation

How different are the auguries for the year ahead from the assurances we were given by ministers this time last year. Then we were assured that the painful medicine the government had prescribed to ensure economic recovery during this parliament would be working a treat by the end of 2011. Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne, sticking stubbornly to his script, assured us that there was no need for a Plan B, as Austerity Plan A would ensure that there would be no return to recession but, on the contrary, we could expect steady economic growth in 2012 as the private sector picked up the slack shed by a public sector cut to the quick and shedding jobs by the thousand.

The economy has been flat-lining for many months and every reliable source now predicts a double-dip recession for Britain this year. Prime Minister Cameron admits in his New Year message that this will be a “difficult year.” No confident assurances this time promising light at the end of the tunnel any time soon. This will be a very long tunnel. But, he says, the nation has good reason to cheer up because we are going to be entertained this year to an unprecedented succession of circuses. The Tories have a long history of embellishing the reality of economic gloom with pomp and pageantry to distract the masses from the trials and tribulations of real life. No effort and no expense have been spared to try to ensure that the forthcoming Olympic Games live up to the standards set by Athens and Beijing. It is a fortunate chance that the queen’s diamond jubilee falls in June of this year, to be followed by the Olympics at the end of July. This guarantees that the royal razzamatazz, succored by a sycophantic monarchist media, will intensify from now until June and keep rolling through July to merge with the “spirit of the Olympics” and run its course until the end of the games in August.

The cinema may also play into the uplifting mood music. Last year the award winning film The King’s Speech (mocked by some unkind wit as “The King’s Speech Impediment”) helped to keep aloft the media-stoked jubilation around the “fairy tale” royal wedding in April. This week a film – The Iron Lady - about Margaret Thatcher opens in London. According to the critics it is a largely uncritical treatment of its subject, suggesting that, despite her faults, Thatcher deserves to be honored as “great leader” and a courageous woman who successfully resisted a male dominated conservative establishment. This view seems to be endorsed by Meryl Streep, the Hollywood actor who plays Thatcher. Although as a liberal she dislikes Thatcher’s politics, she says she wanted to explore the Iron Lady’s “humanity”. Her performance has been hailed as a tour de force. Streep/Thatcher stares down from ads on every other London bus. This glamorized image is the way her admirers would like to imagine she looked.

It is doubtful if the film will help the Tories to turn Thatcher into a “national treasure” on a par with Churchill, which is what many of them would like to do. But apparently there are moves afoot to give her a state funeral. It seems that Gordon Brown has been involved in discussions with Thatcher and the queen about this. It is more than just an idea. It looks as though there is every intention to go ahead with it whenever it may be that the old lady passes on. If this is a serious proposition, it will be entirely in keeping with the steely determination of the Tory-led government to push through the most right-wing agenda since Thatcher herself was in office. Indeed, in its wanton destruction of public services this government is rampaging where Thatcher feared to tread. In this they are simply in lock-step with a ruling class engaged in carrying through the most extensive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich since Victorian times.

State funerals in Britain are customarily accorded to heads of state, though other “extraordinarily distinguished commoners” may also be honored. During the twentieth century only one such commoner, Sir Winston Churchill, was given a state funeral. By common consent Churchill was “extraordinarily distinguished” mainly because of his wartime leadership between 1940 and 1945. The decision to award him this honor was taken by the Labour government led by Harold Wilson and, whatever view one may take about state funerals, few would deny that Churchill deserved to be honored for his wartime leadership. He certainly led a united country and inspired a national determination to resist Nazi tyranny.

Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive leader of modern times. Nearly two years ago this column reflected that:

            “The Thatcher years saw the most bitter class conflicts in Britain. A year long miners’ strike, sparked by the government’s intention to close pits and run down the coal industry, ended in defeat for the miners. This was the showdown that Thatcher had been waiting for. The National Union of Mineworkers was the strongest union in Britain and its back was broken. The defeat of the miners and the passage of punitive anti-trade union laws led to the weakening of the whole labour movement. The bargaining power of labour was drastically reduced in the face of a sustained onslaught which effectively destroyed Britain’s manufacturing base. Swathes of the country’s industrial heartland were laid waste and have never recovered.”

It might be added that she was a leader whose commitment to democracy was skin deep. She regarded the trade union movement as “the enemy within.” Such was her loathing of the left that she denounced Nelson Mandela and the ANC as terrorists. But she was an enthusiastic supporter of General Pinochet and maintained her friendship with him long after she left office. Her sentiments in these matters were shared by some of her ministers. None of this, of course, found its way into the film. The present Tory leadership prefers not to be bothered by such inconvenient facts and will no doubt, when the time comes, choose to extol her role, alongside Reagan, in helping the “free world” to defeat communism.

Just as during the depression of the 1930s, royal circuses – jubilees, funerals, abdication and coronation provided distractions from mass unemployment, hunger marches and looming war clouds, so the coming year and following years offer similar distractions. It is hoped they may cheer up the growing numbers of those who have lost their jobs, those who have been thrown out of their homes, those dependent on food handouts and soup kitchens – or those rather more fortunate who are simply finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Or perhaps they may provide entertainment if not enlightenment for the one million unemployed young people who have no hope of finding work and those who can no longer afford to go into higher education. At any rate, it is hoped that it will distract them from rioting or joining trade union marches and demonstrations against the cuts.

As the jubilee approaches the mass media will be awash with unctuous drooling about “60 Glorious Years.” Visitors from abroad, here for the Olympics, will be reminded that Elizabeth II is the longest reigning monarch since Victoria (who notched up 63) and that, at present showing, she will soon be the longest ever to reign in Britain. Another way of putting it is that she has the dubious honour of being the longest serving unelected head of state in the world. Behind the razzamatazz of the jubilee some of the more thoughtful constitutional theorists may be wondering whether she may outlive the Union over which she reigns. One of the unintended consequences of the domination of the Westminster parliament by a Tory party solidly rooted in the southern counties of England, is growing support north of the border for the Scottish Nationalists. They now have a solid majority at Holyrood and they are led by the canniest politician in Britain. While at the moment Scottish independence may seem a long way over the horizon, it is not too fanciful to suppose that at some point during these increasingly hard times the Scottish electorate may decide that the only way to break the stranglehold of an elitist English party that has no mandate in Scotland, is to make a clean break of it and opt for independence. Of course, it may not come to that, but for the first time in living memory the possibility of the break-up of the UK is being seriously discussed. Should it come to that, the constitutional implications will be enormous. Institutions and constitutional certainties that have been in place for hundreds of years will be thrown awry. The whole British political system could be derailed. Impossible? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.

NOT VERY WELL AND ALL ALONE: THE UK AND THE EU: Irreversible Decline and Deepening Crisis

The Europhobic wing of the parliamentary Tory party, which these days encompasses almost all their back benchers and some members of the cabinet, is in full-throated battle mode against the EU. At the time of writing (8 December) David Cameron is due to arrive in Brussels for yet another crisis summit. He does so with their demands that he “stand firm for British interests” ringing in his ears. They insist that any proposal to revise the Lisbon treaty must be put to a referendum in Britain. As treaty revision is precisely what the German and French governments have in mind as a means to pushing through a tighter fiscal union within the Eurozone, this puts Cameron in a tight spot. Earlier this year the coalition government signed up to the European Union Act according to which a referendum could only be called in the event that important UK powers were to be transferred to the EU. A revision of the Lisbon treaty which only affected the countries of the Eurozone would not be sufficient to trigger a referendum in Britain and if Cameron were to attempt to play that card in Brussels, he would get short shrift from Merkel and Sarkozy – and probably from everyone else. Likewise with the demand that certain powers be repatriated from Brussels to Westminster, Cameron is unlikely to get very far. Tory MPs want to tear up those more progressive EU employment laws protecting workers’ rights and conditions of work. In the name of “defending British industry” from interference by Brussels, Cameron has pledged to safeguard the independence of the City of London. “The City” refers to the “financial services industry”, the big international banks and finance houses that have over the past twenty five years or so found London to be a safe haven of “light touch” regulation. Since the destruction of what was left of Britain’s manufacturing base in the 1980s, this is the only “industry” that is thriving in the UK. Safeguarding the independence of the City of London means resisting any attempt (a) to impose a financial transaction (Tobin) tax and (b) to separate investment from retail banking. Both these measures, were they to be adopted, would go some way to reining in an “industry” that a few years ago brought the whole economy to the brink of catastrophe, but has subsequently reverted to “business as usual”.

Although the right-wing Europhobes are mostly motivated by narrow English nationalism, they tap into a wider mood of resentment against what is reasonably perceived as bureaucratic disdain for democracy in the halls of EU power. This has been most evident in the peremptory way that elected governments in Greece and Italy have been sidelined and their leaders replaced by “technocrats” when it was felt they were insufficiently compliant, or incapable of implementing the austerity programmes dictated as quid pro quo for retaining them within the Eurozone. In countries of somewhat lax fiscal probity such as Greece and Italy, popular resentment has been less against the EU as such than against the stronger northern European states, particularly Germany. This has become especially inflamed in Greece where memories of a brutal Nazi occupation are deeply ingrained. In Germany itself, the folk-memory of the great inflation of 1923 has haunted successive generations, brought up on the belief that it led inevitably to Hitler and the Second World War. Germans have been only too happy to exchange the discipline of the drill square imposed between 1933 and 1945 for a democratized protestant work ethic that they feel, with some justification, has enabled them to become the productive power house of Europe. The darker side of this, though, may be seen in a growing resentment and impatience against those whose perceived fecklessness and dishonesty at the Germans’ expense now seem to put at risk their hard won prosperity. The sense of superiority this has engendered has led to revived concerns about a new German bid to dominate Europe. While such concerns may be exaggerated or groundless, the erosion of democratic procedures in the EU cannot be so easily ignored. Resentment at this is evident in the fierce defense of national identity in the Greek anti-austerity protests. Anger and resistance are likely to spread elsewhere as national parliaments are sidelined and austerity measures intensified.

December 10. The two days that have elapsed since the preceding paragraphs were written have served to render them no more than a preface to the main story.

There is a famous cartoon by David Low which appeared in the Evening Standard on June 18 1940. It depicts a lone British Tommy standing, fist raised and defiant, on the storm-swept channel coast facing darkening clouds from the European continent and approaching Luftwaffe bombers. It carries the caption “VERY WELL, ALONE”. The cartoon appeared just a month after Churchill had replaced Chamberlain as prime minister and ten days after the evacuation from Dunkirk. A week later France capitulated to the Germans and the whole of western Europe lay under the Nazi jackboot. Britain stood alone.

This is the spirit that the Europhobic Tory press and the triumphant gaggle of Tory backbenchers now invoke following David Cameron’s return from Brussels. They seek to present his cheap and specious claim to have defended Britain’s vital interests by vetoing the EU-wide treaty intended to prevent the collapse of the euro, as an act of Churchillian grit and courage in the face of overwhelming adversity. But this is definitely not Britain’s finest hour. In fact it is more like the shabbiest act by a British prime minister in living memory. While still in opposition, Cameron de-coupled the Tory party from the centre-right grouping of EU conservatives, to join up with the most right-wing ultra-nationalists in Eastern Europe. This was to reinforce his Eurosceptic credentials with his own backbenchers. Far from recalling Churchill in 1940, Cameron’s trumpeted defense of Britain’s vital interests is reminiscent of Chamberlain’s return from Munich in 1938, claiming that he had defended Britain’s interests by securing “peace in our time”. He also received a rapturous reception in the House of Commons from an adoring Tory party. But, just as then, the euphoria will not last long once the dust has settled.

The likelihood now is that Cameron will have isolated Britain from the rest of the EU, not just the 17 members of the Eurozone but also the nine that remain outside. They have refused to follow him in vetoing the proposed revision of the Lisbon treaty and seem likely to sign up to whatever procedures may now follow to consolidate tighter fiscal union amongst the seventeen. To have used the veto to protect the City of London from a financial transaction tax in the name of defending Britain’s vital interests, hardly accords with the coalition government’s supposed commitment to tighter regulation of banks. It will be interesting to see whether the Lib. Dems in the cabinet will insist that the government accepts the report by the Independent Commission on Banking recommending that high street banks be ringfenced from investment banks. But it is doubtful whether Cameron’s action to “protect the City” will succeed. The Association of British Insurers, which lobbied hard against a financial transaction tax, believes that the British veto might not prevent the passage of EU legislation that could still “damage the financial services industry in Britain.” 

Cameron went to Brussels determined to veto the proposed treaty revision come what may. He knew that to have acceded to it would have meant a full-scale backbench revolt which would have made it virtually impossible to resist the demand for a referendum. This would have torn the coalition apart. But whatever satisfaction he may draw from the cheers of his Europhobic supporters is likely to be short-lived. The Europhobes hope and expect that this is the first act in a drama that will end with Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. They also think (and hope) that the present crisis in the EU will end with the collapse of the euro and the break-up of the union. Such an outcome can no longer be dismissed as fanciful. But to imagine that having jumped ship the UK can stand by and watch the European enterprise sink beneath the waves (or to use Tory grandee Michael Heseltine’s metaphor, to imagine that the UK can drift off into the Atlantic) is naïve in the extreme. If the EU breaks up, the UK, whether inside or out, will be irreparably damaged. Notwithstanding the delusions of the little Englander Europhobes, the whole of Europe, including the UK, is sliding into a deep recession. The ruling classes of Europe will, as always, seek to resolve their crisis at the expense of the working people who were not responsible for causing it.

There is little to indicate that the measures contemplated by the EU leaders are likely to be any more effective in dealing with the crisis than those already undertaken. The present disputes reflect conflicts of interest between the ruling classes of the strongest European powers. Germany has the most powerful economy in Europe and as the dominant force in the EU is determined to impose fiscal discipline on its recalcitrant southern subordinates. But the Germans are determined to resist allowing the European Central bank to be used to prop up defaulting and potentially defaulting countries of the “southern periphery”. So far, there is no indication of how, short of allowing the ECB to undertake “quantitative easing” (printing money) on a large scale (which would be in the teeth of German opposition) the European Financial Stability Fund will be able to accumulate the 2 – 3 trillion euros said to be necessary to meet such eventualities. Given that there seems to be no workable solution in sight, all the “crisis summits” appear to be doomed to failure. So, the collapse of the eurozone , and possibly the EU itself, cannot be ruled out.

Whatever happens in coming weeks and months, one thing is certain: the 1% will continue to try to shift the burden of their crisis onto the 99%. Whether they succeed will depend upon how effectively resistance develops. Every effort must be made, everywhere, to ensure that it does.

MUCKRAKERS IN THE DOCK: Britain’s Tabloids become The News

Any of the three million devotees of Rupert Murdoch’s top-selling daily tabloid, The Sun, with sufficient curiosity to take their eyes off page three, might have noticed something rather curious about the paper’s front page during the week commencing 21 November. A headline-grabbing news story involving a succession of celebrities and bereaved families with whose lives and activities the paper would normally have shown a very keen interest, had passed without comment. In fact, to find any reference at all in the paper to an event of great public interest and full of sensational revelations, they would have had to turn to page 6, where, on 22 November, it received a cursory mention at the bottom of the page. It was treated similarly by most of the other tabloids. Very puzzling? Not really.

The reason for the tabloids’ stony silence, or at best minimal grudging mention of the story, had nothing to do with lack of interest on the part of their proprietors and editors. It was because they themselves, used to being the unchallengeable makers and fakers of sensational and lurid “news” stories, had become the news. The spotlight was being turned on the shabby, disreputable and criminal activities that lie at the very heart of tabloid journalism in Britain. And they don’t like it one little bit.

In the wake of the scandal at News International that resulted in the peremptory closure of News of the World (The Sun’s Sunday sister), David Cameron, anxious to distance his government from their toxic association with Murdoch and to reclaim the initiative from Ed Miliband, announced in July that there would be a public inquiry into the relationship between the press and the public, the police and politicians. This would also extend to a consideration of media ethics, practice and culture. It is worth recalling that none of this would have happened had it not been for the diligence of a single journalist at The Guardian newspaper and a few MPs in working to expose the cover-up of criminality at the News of the World. Indeed, Cameron was a close friend and confidant of Rebekah Brooks, former News International chief executive, recently arrested and bailed in connection with phone hacking and corruption. He also chose as his director of communications former editor of News of the World, Andy Coulson, also arrested and bailed on similar charges. Lest it be thought that mentioning this is to unfairly accuse the prime minister of guilt by association, it need only be said that a huge pile of evidence was already building up against these people long before Cameron chose to dissociate himself from them. Indeed, he clung to them until the last possible moment. But in this Cameron was not alone. Celebrity and power, particularly when the latter was associated with Murdoch, cast its spell only too easily on his predecessors, Blair and Brown. Clearly it was also about patronage - and fear; the need to receive and retain the blessing of the great, all-powerful media mogul, without which all electoral hopes may as well be abandoned. And all this really tells us is that governments have been – and continue to be – in the grip of global corporate power. The deepening international financial crisis makes this clearer by the day.

So, the inquiry led by Lord Chief justice Leveson has begun its deliberations at the Royal Courts of Justice. Its first days have caused something of a stir and at the moment it looks as though it is likely to be thorough and exhaustive. It is unnecessary here to report in detail on the testimony of witnesses who have appeared so far. They have included celebrities and the parents of murder and abduction victims. All have had their phones hacked. They have given devastating accounts of the intrusive extremes to which tabloid journalists have gone in pursuing and harassing them. The actor Hugh Grant exploded what he called the “10 Myths of Tabloid Journalism”, cleverly debunking such hoary canards as the self-serving claims that any attempt at regulation means that we are “heading for Zimbabwe”, and that the current right to privacy under the human rights act “muzzles the press.” Harrowing accounts of the torments they have suffered at the hands of hackers and paparazzi have been given by parents of murdered and abducted children. Such behaviour has not been limited to the “main culprits” – Murdoch’s tabloids. Papers named also include the Daily Mail (self-styled champion of respectable middle class values), Daily Express, and Daily Mirror. These are the daily papers with the largest readership. They have a combined circulation of about seven million. Most of the tabloids thrive on prurient gossip, muckraking and sensationalism. When questions are raised about the ethics of their brand of journalism (to dignify their activity with a term it does not deserve) they retort that they are simply giving their readers what they want. They interpret “the public interest” as whatever the public (meaning their readers) finds interesting. It would be too easy to infer from this that peddling the salacious and superficial, however lamentable, is non-political. But this is far from the case.

It is often claimed that press freedom is not compromised by corporate ownership. This claim usually rests on the argument that the sine qua non for a free press is a “free society” by which is almost always meant, a capitalist society. The argument goes that only a free (capitalist) society permits the competition necessary for the free flow of ideas and the freedom of expression essential for a free press. Proof of the supposed truth of this contention is evinced by reference to the state controlled media of the former communist countries, and now of dictatorships such as those in Libya and Syria. So, just as it is claimed that in view of the failed socialist experiments in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, there is no possible alternative to capitalism, it follows that if we want a free press and communications media, we have no alternative to accepting the control of such media by corporate capitalism. Liberal critics of corporate control and the kind of egregious excesses exposed in the News International scandal, believe that the worst of these can be dealt with by tighter regulation. Before addressing these arguments it is worth looking again at the nature and extent of corporate power over the British press, and considering the political interest and influence of such power. For our present purposes only the tabloids will be considered.

In a market where newspaper sales are falling, four large corporations are dominant. News International (The Sun); Associated Newspapers (Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday); Trinity Mirror Group (The Mirror, Sunday Mirror, The People) Express Newspapers (the Daily Express, Daily Star) account for sales of 11.6 million tabloid titles. The editorial policy of most of these papers is solidly right-wing. The overriding concern of their proprietors is to extend their market share. Ethical considerations play no part in this. One only has to consider three of the main players in this field to see the point. Murdoch’s News International, the most powerful, is now too notorious to require further comment. Associated Newspapers is dominated by Lord Rothermere, one of the last of the old fashioned press barons. The Daily Mail has for more than a century followed an unswerving right-wing agenda and, in the 1920s and 30s was outspoken in its support for fascism. Its current editor, Paul Dacre has been described as “one of the most feared men in the country.” The newcomer, Richard Desmond, who owns Express Newspapers, made his millions as a pornographer. His company also owns TV Channel Five.

Those who defend the tabloids – primarily of course their owners, their editors and the journalists who work for them – claim that they are only giving readers what they want. Curiously, they have also sometimes argued that the largely right wing editorial line of these papers does not influence the voting behaviour of their readers. That this is nonsense may be adduced from the political stance of The Sun in general elections over the past twenty years or so. The most notable of its many crude anti-Labour admonitions was its front page on the eve of the 1992 election, which Labour was widely expected to win. It depicted a light bulb with the caption “Will the last person to leave Britain put out the light.” Following the surprise Tory victory, the tabloid proclaimed “It Was The Sun Wot Won It.” By 1997 the Tories were a busted flush and, prior to that year’s election, Murdoch summoned Tony Blair to an audience to assure himself that he would promote the interests of News International. He was so persuaded and duly threw the weight of his tabloid titles, especially The Sun, behind New Labour.

This is not to argue that the 11 million or so readers of the tabloid press in Britain are so gullible that they swallow whatever they are fed. But it is obvious that the strident right-wing, Europhobic and frequently xenophobic outpourings of these papers have an effect. The proprietors and editors intend that they should. The skill of the most popular tabloids lies in their deliberate cultivation of a journalistic style which persuades many working class readers that they “speak their language.” But this is only part of the purpose of tabloid journalism. Its main purpose is to encourage and perpetuate a preoccupation with trivia. Celebrity gossip, scandal – particularly involving the sexual peccadilloes of film actors or footballers – a studied anti-intellectualism and mock plebeian promotion of “common sense” are the common components of the most successful tabloids. The Sun, which is at once the most successful and the most unpleasant of them, bases much of its appeal on crude sexism, daily demeaning women by publishing pictures of topless nudes in provocative poses, thus perpetuating the immature “lad” culture on which it thrives.

There is a political purpose to all this. As long as the multi-million readership of papers such as The Sun continue to be preoccupied with trivia and worse, they will, it is hoped, take little interest in serious politics. They may be persuaded to meekly accept their declining living standards, severe cuts to public services, millions of unemployed, the abandonment of young people to a future without jobs or hope. They may, it is hoped, be persuaded that the two million public sector workers who are about to stage the biggest strike since the 1980s in defense of their pension rights, are “irresponsible troublemakers” who are “holding the country to ransom.” This is the political agenda behind the scandal that the Leveson inquiry is now exposing to the light of day.

What is now being exposed is a modus operandi by tabloid papers that should have been obvious to anyone who gave the matter a moment’s thought. The methods used to obtain the stories on which such papers thrive, involve criminal activity, unconscionable harassment and persecution of those targeted by the hacks and a breathtaking lack of concern for the misery they wreak in pursuit of their stories and their victims. For the first time all this is now being exposed to the light of day. Will it radically change the nature of tabloid journalism? Probably not. It is nevertheless a welcome development in what will be a long and arduous struggle to break the corporate power over the communications media. Until that power is broken, we will not have a free press.