Disconnection (Part 1)

I'm worried. Worried about all of us, worried about the path we are on, worried about where we will end up. And I'm worried that no-one else seems to be worried.

Firstly, I'm worried about the police. The aftermath of the G20 riots has been raked over all over the media by now, but without seeming to get to the core of the problem.

It seems obvious by now that at least one police officer paid a contributory part in the death of Ian Tomlinson. Numerous others at best failed to prevent a criminal assault, and at worst were complicit in an attempt to hide it.

But focusing only on this one horrendous crime threatens to make us overlook the more widespread problems. I've already written about the threat to civil liberties in the UK that some police tactics have become.

When police are surveilling political protesters and journalists, using pychological warfare techniques on protesters, and recruiting informers in protest groups a reasonable person may begin to suspect they are going too far. But when police arrest over a hundred protesters before they protest it becomes clear they are.

And when the protesters are released without charge, but with excessive bail conditions, it becomes... worrying. (Interestingly, the bail conditions said those arrested couldn't communicate with each other, either directly or indirectly. Which their lawyers advised them meant they couldn't talk to the press about it, either, as that could count as indirect communication.)

But it's not just these techniques that are the problem, it's also the justifications that are rolled out by the talking heads of the police. As well as the touchstone claim of fighting terrorism, they talk about how this is just how policing should be, that they know best how to do the job, that we should just leave them to it.

And it is the point of view of view betrayed by this attitude, that the police are somehow apart from society, that is the real problem. Because when the police start to see themselves as separate from society, society starts to view the police the same way - as heavy-handed, as authoritarian, as the enemy.

That can't be good.

But the police are not alone in seeing themselves as somehow disconnected from the rest of society. There is another group that appears to see themselves as above it.

National politicians have given the impression of being aloof from society for what seems like a long time now. By its very nature, politics tends to be clannish, but that tendency appears to have grown in recent years to include politicians of all parties in one over-arching group, the Westminster Village if you like.

Part of this is natural. Parliament is an exclusive club, and members of it have much in common with each other. But the most insidious thing they have in common is that they, and they alone, have control over how much they are all paid. Recent revelations on expenses suggest their general opinion is it's not enough.

MPs have been wary of rousing public opinion by increasing their basic salary. But they have been more than happy to vote for more and more generous, and lax, expenses allocations. They have used this as a roundabout way of getting more money into their pockets.

This attitude seems to have led to our MPs viewing expenses as their right, as a system to be abused to increase their take home pay. They developed a profoundly different way of looking at their expenses system, at their pay, at their job than any of the rest of us are able to do with ours.

But it is not only in their venality that our politicians stand apart. There is often talk of a Westminster Village, of an insular grouping of politicians, excluding the rest of the world. But this is not just the natural process whereby members of a group begin to identify with the group first. Part of it is deliberate.

There has been a move over recent years, pushed by the public, to have full time politicians, people dedicated solely to Getting Things Done once elected, people who aren't distracted by anything else. Hence the attacks on MPs having second jobs, and so on. But the laudable aim of having committed politicians has had an undesirable side-effect.

Because when we start to demand politicians treat their work 'as a real job', well, they start to do so. They start to expect promotions, a clear career path. They start to turn the role into a profession. And the things with professions is that they are designed to exclude people who don't meet the entry requirements.

And so we get Special Advisers who rise to the highest ranks of government without ever having to step outside of the Westminster Village from the start of their career. We get career politicians, who start off working for a political party, then get put up in a nice safe seat, then settle down on the backbenches to wait for a call to some junior government post.

I've seen this happen in the Labour Party. There was much hard work done to professionalise the party machine, the central party itself. And, of course, once you have the professionals running the party, it's obvious that they know best what should be done. So take policy making away from the party members. Make the party conference an empty talking shop, stop it passing motions that you don't want. Control the party from the top - because the professionals are in charge, and they know what is best.

The obvious end result of this cronyism and insular attitude is typified by the current fuss over Georgia Gould. Just 22, she is the hot favourite to be selected in Erith and Thamesmead, a nice, safe Labour seat. Her qualifications for this role seems to be graduating from Oxford, and studying for a Masters at the LSE. And, of course, her experience gained from a part-time job for Tony Blair's Faith Foundation.

You may assume that for someone so young to get to work for the Faith Foundation, she must show some stellar ability. Possibly. I don't know the girl, I couldn't say. But some may suspect she landed the job because she is the daughter of Blair's old friend, and Labour Party pollster, Lord Gould.

Politics isn't about professionalism. This may seem heretical, but it isn't. Do I want the delivery of public policy to be professional? Absolutely - and that's precisely why we have a civil service. Their entire reason for existing is to provide a trained, educated, professional group of people to carry out whatever policies a government chooses. They need to be professional. Politicians need to be inspirational.

By demanding professionalism from our politicians, we've created a situation where they practically have to see themselves as apart from the rest of us. We have created the sense of disconnect between us and them. They are no longer the brightest and best of us, the people we want to represent us, to lead us. They are an external other, a group who imposes their will upon us, a group that seems more and more similar to each other, regardless of the party colours they wear.

The disconnect of politicians, and of police, from the rest of us are just two small examples of a fracturing society, though. There is a much bigger problem out there, one that affects us all. And that's what I'll talk about tomorrow.

UAW union may take over Chrysler

I admit it, I find this both amusing and satisfying.  My unreconstructed socialism coming out again, no doubt.

UAW union may take over Chrysler (from The Guardian).

Anger and Apathy

So, then, the G20 summit has passed. Maybe it's saved the world, maybe it hasn't. I'm not going to pretend I can make an educated judgement about the likely success or otherwise of the new attempts to restart the global economy when even economists are holding their breaths. I don't know. I just don't know.

The other hot topic is the way police treated the demonstrators. There are questions to be answered about exactly what happened around the death of one man, Ian Tomlinson, especially as it looks like he wasn't even part of the demo, just someone trying to get home. The tactic of 'kettling' is coming under renewed scrutiny, as thousands were kept in one place for hours. And the behaviour of the police towards peaceful protests is causing concern, after allegations that the Climate Camp protest was violently broken up once the TV cameras had gone home.

(You know the police tactics and actions may have gone too far when The Times starts to question them.)

But that's not what I want to talk about today. There are no doubt thousands of shrill voices across the internet making their views felt on these issues, and I won't add my own to them.

No, instead I want to look at another side of it. It happened only slowly, as the news media started to get a little disappointed. Despite their dire predictions of mass riots in the capital, of a re-run of the Poll Tax riots, of the imminent collapse of Western society in an orgy or rage and violence, the protests themselves were rather quiet.

I mean, the police bottled up approximately 4,000 protesters right outside that symbol of the collapse of the banks, and the unrestrained greed that started it, and seems to continue still, RBS. And they broke 3 or 4 windows. A revolution, this was not.

And all told, we're looking at at most 30,000 protesters This was not the population taking to the streets. Now, I have no doubt that part of the reason for this is the dire predictions the media were making - surprisingly, when the media repeatedly refers to possible violent clashes, riots on the street, and such like, a lot of people won't go. The police must have been overjoyed at the scaremongering by the media.

But some commentators have been proudly claiming this shows that there just isn't that much anger out there, that we know it's tough for the government, but have faith they will do everything they can to get us out of this mess.

Part of me would really like to believe this.

But this doesn't match with what I'm coming across out there. I'm not seeing burning rage, certainly, but I am seeing a sullen resentment. I'm meeting people who are confused as to why we can't spend billions to fix the pensions hole in the Post Office, when we've spent far more than that on bailing out banks. They don't see why we're closing libraries when we're creating money to pour into the financial system. They don't understand why the same MPs demanding new financial prudence from banks are also claiming thousands for second homes.

They don't see why they are suffering when those at the top seem to be carrying on as usual.

And it doesn't take much to trigger them from resentment to anger. Just ask them about Labour - suddenly the rage is evident. Maybe it's worse because Labour is supposed to be the party that protects them. Maybe. Maybe it would be just as intense whoever was in power. Maybe.

Regardless, they're not going to vote Labour. All this talk about the polls turning round if we start to see signs of recovery, how the support for Cameron and the Tories is soft, how we can still make it, sounds more and more like wishful thinking.

And the reason is simple: I don't think the people I'm talking to actually think the Tories will do better. They don't think they'll do worse. They don't really think about that at all. No, the reason they will vote for the Tories is to punish Labour. And I don't think that desire to punish them will go away even if Gordon Brown does magically bring us to a land of milk and honey within a year.

Because, and this is where it links in with why people haven't been protesting, I think far, far too many people just think they can't have an effect. Nothing will change. As the old saying goes, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.

I think the perception, true or otherwise, that the three main parties are essentially saying the same thing with slightly different spins hasn't helped. People are beginning to think that voting doesn't really make a difference. So we have falling turnouts, attempts to shore up turnouts with postal voting (because we can't convince people to walk a few hundred yards down the street to vote), and the rise of smaller, more extreme parties - ones that at least offer something different.

But if you didn't think voting made a difference, there was always protest.

I remember, way back when, marching against going to war in Iraq. Maybe it's because I was young and idealistic, but I really thought we could make a difference. I looked around at the sea of people I was part of, stretching across Hyde Park, and I thought "Surely this means something? Surely no politician can just ignore this?".

Like I said, I was young and idealistic.

It wasn't just me. No matter whose particular estimate of numbers you want to go with, the two marches against the war that took place in London attracted huge numbers of people, a vast amount who believed that they really could make a difference, that they could make their voice heard, that their protest would have an effect in a democratic society.

But we all know how that story ended.

Now, I'm not saying that this means the UK isn't democratic - ultimately, MPs voted to go to war. It was a democratic decision, regardless of whether it was right or wrong.

But I am saying that decision had an effect on democracy. The marches were an incredible occurrence. A vast coalition of people from all walks of life came together to be heard. News reports described it as historic. Everyone seemed amazed at the size of these events.

And they failed. That's the important point - despite mobilising more people than anyone possibly imagined, they failed. Regardless of the rights and wrongs, regardless of whether it was democratic or not, millions of people were able to see on TV that protests didn't work.

So, when people think the parties are all the same, that protests are useless, what do you get? Apathy. Or at least it looks like apathy - people simply stop taking part. They make what seems a rational decision not to waste their time on something that will make no difference.

And that apparent apathy is what I think is the real threat, the real way that society can break down. People really are angry. Yes, they're keeping a lid on it (heavens, we are British, after all). But that doesn't change the fact that it is there.

Along with that anger, they feel powerless. They feel as if the people at the top will just keep on doing whatever they want, regardless of what everyone else wants them to do. They feel that voting makes no difference, that protesting makes no difference.

They feel they are ignored.

That's a dangerous combination. Anger, and powerlessness. Because as that anger grows - and it will, as the recession continues - as it grows, it has no way of being let out, no safety valve. Which means it builds up, until finally something, some spark, some event, something we can't predict, something happens that causes it to burst free.

What I worry about, what I'm scared of, is that we're not seeing a population happy to give the government the benefit of the doubt, but that instead, we're just seeing the calm before the storm.

That's what I'm scared of. I'm almost certain it won't happen. But that 'almost' is still scary.

Worrying about liberties

It's tough worrying about civil liberties in the UK.

Obviously it's a lot harder in other countries. I mean, worrying about civil liberties in Russia, where journalists are being murdered to shut them up, is a lot tougher, to say the least. Or in China, where those who complain are whisked away and imprisoned, never to be seen again.

Granted, it's not that tough. But it is kind of tough - because no-one needs to put pressure on you to be quiet. You feel it all on your own. You bite your own tongue. Or at least I do.

I mean, let's look at this sensibly. I see a report of behaviour by the state that seems to infringe civil liberties, such as the police surveilling political protesters and journalists, and I think to myself "This is terrible! They are treating people going about lawful activities, such as political protest, or reporting upon it, as potential criminals. Worse, they are being overt and aggressive in their filming, which surely can only be to try to intimidate the public."

Well, generally I don't think in quite such clearly defined sentence structure, but you get my point. On the whole, I think This Is A Bad Thing, and that Something Should Be Done.

But then some other thought processes kick in. Thought processes that are part of me because I am a polite, middle-class Englishman. Those thought processes which instinctively try to damp down rebellious instincts.

For example, I think to myself "Well, these police officers are just doing their jobs. They don't get to choose whether they follow their superior's instructions or not." And I think "After all, they're not doing anything illegal - I mean, taking photographs in a public place is perfectly allowed, and something I should be glad about." And I think "Surely they wouldn't be doing this if they didn't have a good reason? Maybe there really are ne'er-do-wells in these groups, people we should be keeping an eye on."

And by these steps, I start to dampen down my initial outrage, blanketing it in a cloak of possible justifications, or polite evasions of the unpleasant reality. All I am left with is a sense of disquiet at the events, a slight sense of disappointment in myself, and a rather bitter taste in the back of my mouth.

But, of course, that sense of disquiet never quite goes away. It lingers.

Which means that when I hear of another event, such as the police using 'psychological operations' against protesters it becomes that little bit harder to deaden the outrage. The disquiet grows that little bit greater.

This is all very odd for me. Because, well, how can I really worry about civil liberties in the UK? It's far too embarrassing. I mean, this is England, for heaven's sake. We have a long tradition of enlightenment about rights. Don't we? Surely I'm being foolish for worrying.

And I desperately want to believe that. I want to believe that the good old fashioned sense of British fair play will stop all these attacks on liberty. I want to believe that there is no chance a government could get in which would use all these new laws brought in to 'fight terror' to fight whoever opposes them.

I want to believe it, but I'd be foolish indeed to do so.

The UK isn't somehow immune from oppression. Bad people have used bad laws to silence their critics before. Hell, good people who passionately believed something we now think is abhorrent used bad laws to silence their critics. Unions were put down. Workers were abused. Millions were denied the vote, and threatened with violence for demanding it.

My golden vision of a UK filled with fair play is concocted from films and books that ignore those who weren't the right sort. I think of good, upright English chaps, doing the right thing because it is the right thing. But this sort of cosy image was pushed by an Establishment already fighting a losing battle - so they project an image of their sort as the right sort, who can always be trusted to act in the best interests of all of us.

Because that's the thing - I don't think Labour are really trying to put in place all the tools an oppressive government would need. I don't even think the Tories would do much different. They're just politicians, making the best decisions they can, given the information and guidance they are offered.

And the guidance they are offered comes from a group who are part of what we nebulously call the Establishment. High up civil servants, advisers, career politicians, they all end up working to maintain their control over the country, over society. Oh, not because they're a comic book evil villain, scheming to subjugate us all. No, because they really believe they know best how to run the country, how to make sure we all benefit in some way.

But this is where they're wrong. We live in a democracy - imperfect and flawed in many ways, yes, but one in which each of us has at least some say in the way our country is run. And over the years, we have become more sophisticated, more knowledgeable, we have learned more. We have earned the right to be trusted to make decisions for ourselves.

Which means that, actually, they don't have the right to keep tabs on us for our political activity. They don't get to tell us inquests can be held in secret, because a minister or a judge says so. They don't get to tell us we have to tell them before we travel abroad. They don't get to tell us we have to give them all the information on us they want, forever, and to buy a card confirming it. They don't get to decide what is best for us.

There never was a golden age of liberty in the UK. Things have often been worse than now, but it wasn't that long ago that they were better, either. So let's work to try and make some more progress, let's work to keep traveling along the road towards greater freedom, greater liberty. Let's stop trying to justify the actions of the state for them, imagine ways in which what they are doing could be right.

In my case, let's stop being quite so... British about it.

What a headline

From The Times: Prince Charles warns that Britain faces dementia catastrophe. Insert your own joke about the heir to the throne here.