What will be Gordon’s reward?

Gordon Brown quoted in The Telegraph this morning

“We are leading the world in sweeping away the old short term bonus culture of the past and replacing it with a determination that there are no rewards for failure and rewards only for long-term success” and

“In the future there must be rewards for success – but long-term sustainable success and not just short-term gains”

I am not sure where this rule about rewards for long-term sustainable success will leave Gordon Brown come the next election. Although he may not be wholly to blame for the current state of UK PLC, his years at the Treasury and the policies he then promoted have played a significant part.

There is a measure of political self-delusion in trying to claim that we are better placed than others to weather this recession/depression; similarly in the argument that he is merely the victim of circumstance.

If he is pinning his hopes on the electorate believing him, then today’s Times/Populus poll will be a great disappointment.

A worthwhile resolution

You cannot do better than read Samuel Brittan in today’s FT, The problem with all this economic doom and gloom.

The most alarming feature at present is the fatalistic public mood. The slump is being discussed as if it were a natural catastrophe like the arrival of the comet that destroyed the dinosaurs. All the popular talk is of retrenchment, cutting down and spartan savings of all kinds. It should not take a genius to appreciate that such activities can only make the situation worse and aggravate a downward vicious spiral. I would be the last to argue that people should spend recklessly for patriotic reasons, but nor should they stint themselves.

Brittan reminds us that he wrote almost a year ago of the of the need to ‘buck up’, of avoiding talking ourselves into another depression. What was true then, is more so now.

Sticks and stones?

An interesting five minutes driving home late yesterday, listening to Louise Bamfield of the Fabian Society debating about chavs on the World Tonight. She was there to put Tom Hampson’s argument, from his article in the latest Fabian Review, that we have to stop using the word ‘chav’. Then this morning an article in the FT by Emma Jacobs, Move over chavs, here is a pikey (the latter apparently now the insult-du-jour, according to a King’s College language consultant referred to by Jacobs)

I don’t agree with Hampson that using ‘chav’ ‘betrays a deep and revealing level of class hatred’. I do agree that it is a deeply unpleasant expression. Trying to find the discussion on the BBC website, I first found a 2005 article, Charvers, which shows that things have not moved on much in the past three years.

And equally thought provoking post, Britain’s social recession, by Matthew Taylor in his RSA blog yesterday,

This extreme level of social pessimism [found in the countries of old Europe] is accompanied by a rejection of structural explanations of disadvantage. Whilst there is growing resentment at the very rich, people are more and more inclined to say that the poor have only themselves to blame. This is not fertile territory for developing a new agenda for social solidarity and action.

The figures on expectations of growing inequality are particularly stark. One of the other points made by Roger Liddle is that education – which many progressives hoped would be a driver of social mobility and inclusion – has actually become a major driver of social polarisation. The reason for this is simply that the wages available to those lacking higher education are falling, and will fall even faster now hard times and higher unemployment rates are here again.

Making education a force for inclusion and opportunity will require more than a further cranking up of an increasingly problematic standards agenda. We need to ask what education is for and we need a system which is not about finding our whether children are able but how they are able and how their abilities can be developed.

Becoming modesty

The eldest is now back in the UK, after Berlin and Milan, and living in Hackney. Just around the corner, it seems, from one of the mad mullahs, so lots of police activity. The day before yesterday she managed to lock herself in the bathroom. It took 20 minutes and the Fire Brigade to release her: they were as surprised as we were to learn that the bathroom door had a deadlock. It makes you wonder about the previous tenants. Anyway, no harm done and at least she had her dressing gown with her (her mother’s first thought).

Yesterday evening her front door bell rang. There was one of the boys in blue. They were making house to house enquiries about three “parked” cars. Not, as the eldest immediately thought, to caution her for wasting the Fire Brigade’s time! I doubt that Red Watch complained.

Plus ça change, plus ça le même chose

An interesting meeting this morning with Bill Wells of 2.0 Ltd. An opportunity for gossip and information. And a lovely idea, that the Digital company is the woollen mill of the 21st century: a few very clever (and rich) people running it; and a vast number of people simply working for them. Mrs Gaskell, you should be living at this hour.