The best anecdotes always involve national characteristics going on display. These normally bloom most in moments of crisis, judging from my European experience, but here are a few from a relatively calm series of events during Chinese National Day Celebrations in Tian'anmen Square.
We were gathered into the Foreign Experts' Hotel and each given an apartment - two bedrooms, a lounge and a kitchen plus bathroom and balcony, within view of the Olympics Birdsnest stadium. My daughter duly arrived from Africa and moved in, but as she was not a spouse, I could not get her into any official functions! I did manage to get a Chinese colleague into the fireworks in the Square, however, as the famous Chinese discipline began to slip for this final event.
My first conversation with one of the Americans was about the ' terrible smog' as he called the mixture of water vapour and pollution; but then miraculously the smog totally disappeared on National Day for the parade and we all got sun burned from the blazing orb in the sky. I don't think he worked out how the skies had cleared so easily, but old Beijing hands know very well that there are ways (making it rain in the early morning); also that there can be blue sky days if there is a nice breeze to blow the pollution away. His prejudices about the Chinese dated from the 1950's and would have been irritating if he had not been so completely predictable.
For the presentation, typically it was an Australian from the lucky country who was called up first.......while New Zealanders were put after the Netherlands and I was turned into a Brit and put just in front of the US (last in the English alphabet), with the UK delegation. There was no English rep, but a Scottish woman, a Welshman and an Irishman so the Celts were well represented. The Germans had a strong group and the only non tie wearer in the whole group was a prof from Berlin. He wore a white t shirt under his shirt, just as I wished to be dressed! He also made a good speech about his work from 1985 on production technologies. The Japanese made up the largest group, with many of them in their 70s and 80s even.
Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang made an excellent job of shaking 100 hands, including that of a blind Austrian and a wheel-chair bound German. He also went out of his way to shake the hands of all the wives and the few husbands who were there. Next Premier, I would say and a real 'ladies man' as the Welshman said.
Premier Wen made a very warm speech to us, without notes, but with translation, and indeed I can see why they appreciate all the talents which have been deployed in China - from South Africans helping with animal farming in dry parts of the country, to nuclear engineers and mine safety guys, to aerospace engineers and computer whizkids, early childhood education and human genome profs.....the list is quite long - chosen from 10,000 names submitted by ministries, provincial governments and the like. Apparently, there were 480,000 foreign experts in China last year, compared with only 10,000 in 1978. What is certainly the case is that our work on mine safety is greatly appreciated. I was interviewed by People's Daily online tv but don't know when, after the events, it is to be broadcast. I do have a dvd of the 40 min interview but it is read only. Will try to copy it.
The parade itself was also rather memorable, not because of the military display, which was more of the 'don't mess with us' variety and defensive in my view, and commercial advertising to potential buyers in the developing world. China's army is on UN Peace Keeping missions, after all, not fighting vicious wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or deployed to military bases around the globe, like the US and UK, and half of the EU countries. even NZ has sent SAS troops to Afghanistan, although we kept out of Iraq.
What struck me about the parades was that they were predominantly young people, with many more in costumes than in uniforms or in tanks. These were amazingly colourful, not just the ethnic dress but also the uniforms of the women soldiers, airforce and navy marchers, with rather short skirts, with white or black knee length leather boots. Never seen anything like that anywhere in a puritan, Lutheran or Catholic country even, before! even American cheerleaders look rather shabby by comparison and not as sexy, I have to say, and this was Red China!
But the piece de resistance of it all, of course, was the banquet in the Great Hall of the People. More than 5000 were filling the hall and the balconies in tables of 10 and, once again the premier spoke, very warmly about us as well as dealing with the future and the present. There were many older people there and quite a few foreigners. It was all over quite quickly, with the task of feeding us very well, completed with great efficiency by hundreds of young people from the country side.
My last day in Beijing was spent with my daughter and a Chinese friend at the Water Cube and the Birdsnest. Very funny, as I am sure has or will happen to you if you are in China for a while - I was asked by young people to be photographed with their mothers, brothers and sisters or kids - people from the countryside in the big smoke, rubbing shoulders with foreigners for the first time. I duly obliged and grabbed the mums and held them close! There is an income stream there somewhere!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Blair in Beijing
Tony Blair has been in Beijing in recent days, apparently on an environment mission, according to the journalist from China Daily who met him. No specifics. But the very presence of the man irritates me deeply these days - I am working in Beijing. Looking back on my years in the UK, I have to say that everything Margaret Thatcher did was predictable, although more extreme and ruinous than expected. She managed to shut down half of UK industry, skew the economy to the City and services and leave very little of long term substance in the wake of the global financial/economic crisis. Britain is a much poorer country as a result. Some recovery could have been made during the Blair-Brown years, but they continued down the same path. The UK, unbelievably to many other countries, has squandered its energy wealth in a mad fit of extreme liberalisation, which saw the coal industry virtually wiped out on the cross of competiton with low dollar imported coal prices (when the petro-pound moved skywards) and subsidised (initially) gas plant in the new privatised electricity system. The country will be broke in energy terms by 2020, from being the wealthiest EU country in the 1980s. Very few accessible fossil fuel reserves will remain. So sad.
It is difficult to find anything which Blair contributed to the country of a positive kind. True, he started a kind of constitutional change process, but that was inevitable under any government - the Scots and Welsh would not have had anything less than they got. Peace came to Northern Ireland, but Mo Mowlam made the most important political contribution, along with many, many other politicans from the UK and abroad, from the US to South Africa. And the local politicians delivered in the end as well. What Blair will be remembered for is not his hot air on climate change - the UK's rapid reduction in CO2 levels came with the rapid closure of the coal industry, when the introduction of cleaner coal technology could have enabled a transition to a lower carbon economy and maintain coal reserves. But the brutal sacrifice was made by Britain's miners and very little else has been done - where is the renewable energy or the energy conservation and efficiency programmes we knew would be needed from the first oil shock?
True, there is the minimum wage, but in the end employers grumped but did not block, as they did so easily the sensible introduction of a European style industrial relations system the country needs so desperately to modernise. Blair hates European social dialogue, because he dislikes trade unions.
However, his overwhelming legacy is his role as a warmonger and China Daily noted this in its first paragraph. The last position he should be put into by his fellow politicans in Europe is as the first President of Europe. He has simply created too much damage in the world. I cannot see him being taken very seriously in Beijing.
It is difficult to find anything which Blair contributed to the country of a positive kind. True, he started a kind of constitutional change process, but that was inevitable under any government - the Scots and Welsh would not have had anything less than they got. Peace came to Northern Ireland, but Mo Mowlam made the most important political contribution, along with many, many other politicans from the UK and abroad, from the US to South Africa. And the local politicians delivered in the end as well. What Blair will be remembered for is not his hot air on climate change - the UK's rapid reduction in CO2 levels came with the rapid closure of the coal industry, when the introduction of cleaner coal technology could have enabled a transition to a lower carbon economy and maintain coal reserves. But the brutal sacrifice was made by Britain's miners and very little else has been done - where is the renewable energy or the energy conservation and efficiency programmes we knew would be needed from the first oil shock?
True, there is the minimum wage, but in the end employers grumped but did not block, as they did so easily the sensible introduction of a European style industrial relations system the country needs so desperately to modernise. Blair hates European social dialogue, because he dislikes trade unions.
However, his overwhelming legacy is his role as a warmonger and China Daily noted this in its first paragraph. The last position he should be put into by his fellow politicans in Europe is as the first President of Europe. He has simply created too much damage in the world. I cannot see him being taken very seriously in Beijing.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Security of energy supply - a critical issue
The G7 recently declared in favour of a target on global warming - of limiting warming to a 2 degrees centigrade average increase from the pre-industrial period, by 2050. This has already been adopted as a target by the EU and is the best scenario for the UN scientific panel on climate change. Energy is critical in all this and it is worth looking at the energy security situation of the G7, in assessing this in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December.
There are some key facts in an era of Peak Oil. The world’s oil and gas reserve base is moving eastwards, as US and UK North Sea reserves deplete and Mexican oil fields mature. The majority of these reserves are now located in the centre of the Eurasian triangle, in Russia and the central Asian Republics, and due south in the Gulf.
Among the G7 countries, only Canada has access to secure, long-term indigenous fossil fuel reserves - oil, gas and coal. The US is a major energy importer although it has access to long-term coal reserves and by 2020 the UK, from its recent self-sufficiency, it will have very few long-term fossil fuel reserves now it has closed all but a handful of its coal mines. Japan, Germany and Italy are highly dependent on imported energy, while France which has nuclear and hydro generated electricity is nevertheless highly dependent on imported energy for transport and other sectors.
Looking globally, the energy economy has entered a period of growing instability. This instability has led recently to higher oil and gas prices and then to a sharp drop as the financial and economic crisis hit home and demand fell. At the same time the large, rapidly developing countries (China, India, Brazil) have increased their energy consumption and especially their fossil energy use. For China and India, a rapid move away from fossils is not possible in the medium term, although plans for improved energy efficiency could contribute to less rapidly increasing demand in China.
China is now the second largest energy consumer, after the US, using 17.7% of the world’s primary energy, compared with 20.4% in the US in 2008 (BP, 2009). In million tonnes of oil equivalent this corresponds to 2002.5 and 2299 respectively. While there is still some debate about the calculations, China has now overtaken the US in the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from energy consumption and flaring of fossil fuels - 6017.69 versus 5902 million tonnes ((EIA, 2008).
As the world economy comes out of recession, however slowly, rising demand will once again drive up prices at the pump. President Obama has ordered the US car industry to build more fuel efficient cars. He is quite right. Now is the time to dump the gas guzzler.
There are some key facts in an era of Peak Oil. The world’s oil and gas reserve base is moving eastwards, as US and UK North Sea reserves deplete and Mexican oil fields mature. The majority of these reserves are now located in the centre of the Eurasian triangle, in Russia and the central Asian Republics, and due south in the Gulf.
Among the G7 countries, only Canada has access to secure, long-term indigenous fossil fuel reserves - oil, gas and coal. The US is a major energy importer although it has access to long-term coal reserves and by 2020 the UK, from its recent self-sufficiency, it will have very few long-term fossil fuel reserves now it has closed all but a handful of its coal mines. Japan, Germany and Italy are highly dependent on imported energy, while France which has nuclear and hydro generated electricity is nevertheless highly dependent on imported energy for transport and other sectors.
Looking globally, the energy economy has entered a period of growing instability. This instability has led recently to higher oil and gas prices and then to a sharp drop as the financial and economic crisis hit home and demand fell. At the same time the large, rapidly developing countries (China, India, Brazil) have increased their energy consumption and especially their fossil energy use. For China and India, a rapid move away from fossils is not possible in the medium term, although plans for improved energy efficiency could contribute to less rapidly increasing demand in China.
China is now the second largest energy consumer, after the US, using 17.7% of the world’s primary energy, compared with 20.4% in the US in 2008 (BP, 2009). In million tonnes of oil equivalent this corresponds to 2002.5 and 2299 respectively. While there is still some debate about the calculations, China has now overtaken the US in the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from energy consumption and flaring of fossil fuels - 6017.69 versus 5902 million tonnes ((EIA, 2008).
As the world economy comes out of recession, however slowly, rising demand will once again drive up prices at the pump. President Obama has ordered the US car industry to build more fuel efficient cars. He is quite right. Now is the time to dump the gas guzzler.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Good on you, Judge Chin
Many small investors and no doubt some large ones will welcome the 150 year prison sentence handed down to Bernard Madoff by Judge Denny Chin. Madoff ran the largest of the recently exposed 'Ponzi' scams. In a Ponzi scam, money from new investors, rather than actual profits, is used to pay returns to older investors. Regulators are now catching up with these scams after what 'profits' they were apparently making completely crashed with the global economy last year.
What is amazing is that the regulatory authorities have been so slow about catching out these bank-rolling criminals. Madoff was at it for decades. But he was an esteemed former Chairman of the NASDAQ, the special stock exchange for hitech companies - the core of the future global economy. As a privileged member of the financial elite, he was simply left alone to carry out his crimes. Millions of ordinary people have suffered from financial mis-selling and even theft. Many are, rightly, calling for tough new regulations of financial markets. We have not yet seen much of this - yet billions of dollars of taxpayers' money are being pumped into banks and other ailing financial institutions to bail them out - in case of the very real danger that they will collapse the 'real' economy in which we all live and work.
Madoff and other self-proclaimed 'masters of the financial universe' have a lot to answer for but we, ourselves, are responsible for ensuring that our political leaders take the necessary actions. This means that we need to act at every level. Our own city is caught in the grip of these economic forces. The Wanganui District Council should be spending time sorting out its own mountain of debt to make us less vulnerable. It should act together with other district and regional councils to build financially sustainable local government. They, like we, as individuals, are vulnerable if we remain alone and isolated, but together we can exert real pressure.
Good on you Judge Chin, the son of poor Chinese immigrants to the US. You have struck a blow for us all.
What is amazing is that the regulatory authorities have been so slow about catching out these bank-rolling criminals. Madoff was at it for decades. But he was an esteemed former Chairman of the NASDAQ, the special stock exchange for hitech companies - the core of the future global economy. As a privileged member of the financial elite, he was simply left alone to carry out his crimes. Millions of ordinary people have suffered from financial mis-selling and even theft. Many are, rightly, calling for tough new regulations of financial markets. We have not yet seen much of this - yet billions of dollars of taxpayers' money are being pumped into banks and other ailing financial institutions to bail them out - in case of the very real danger that they will collapse the 'real' economy in which we all live and work.
Madoff and other self-proclaimed 'masters of the financial universe' have a lot to answer for but we, ourselves, are responsible for ensuring that our political leaders take the necessary actions. This means that we need to act at every level. Our own city is caught in the grip of these economic forces. The Wanganui District Council should be spending time sorting out its own mountain of debt to make us less vulnerable. It should act together with other district and regional councils to build financially sustainable local government. They, like we, as individuals, are vulnerable if we remain alone and isolated, but together we can exert real pressure.
Good on you Judge Chin, the son of poor Chinese immigrants to the US. You have struck a blow for us all.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
A Letter to Max
The problem is that the Fascists are relentless once they gain a foothold and they build on the developing euroscepticism which is running throughout established parties and in the UK has been running deep in the equivocal support the mainstream British parties have given to the European (Peace) project. One would have thought they would have learned their lesson by now. I can tell you that there is no appetite among the rising generation of NZers or Aussies to come come back to fight in Europe yet again if it all falls apart and that we, their parents and grandparents will not send them. NZers refused to send young men and women to Iraq to fight in that Imperialist war and will not do it again, lightly.
The political classes in Europe have made two critical errors - they have stopped explaining to the rising generations why they created the European Union (for peace in Europe) and have left the impression it was all just about free markets, which are now failing badly. Instead they created a complex system to keep the economic and social peace; so complex it is difficult to explain in translation from the official languages. Second, those national politicians, seeking to gain advantage over their national fellows, have attacked and denigrated European institutions as both too feeble and too powerful. When Europe has produced some stunning achievements they have often claimed credit for them, themselves. For example, Eurpean trade unions and employers organisations negotiated equal treatment in pay etc for both part-time workers and workers on fixed term contracts. these agreements have become the law of Europe and every member state, bringing equality and millions of euros in wage increases and benefits to millions of European citizens. Blair and Brown and many other national leaders claimed they had achieved this, when in the case of Blair and Brown, they did everything in their power to wreck our negotiations, as UK business did not want to pay equal wages.
So it does not surprise me that, with leaders who will not defend the peace treaties, that millions do not vote.
You should indeed Max, write a letter to the Independent and carry on doing all those things you have been doing before to campaign against this party, the BNP; for it is a party which supports what Hitler did in Germany and what the Japanese Imperial Army did in China and throughout Asia Pacific during the second world war. This is why it is so sad that it was able to secure two seats in the European Parliament created by a Peace Treaty after the end of that war in Europe, a treaty whose main purpose was to create an economic and social basis for a lasting peace in Europe.
As you know there are now quite a few parties like the BNP in other European countries and in the European Parliament, all seeking to pull the European Union apart and to establish militant, nationalist regimes in their own countries. If these, and other less militant parties with similar nationalist politics succeed in their efforts to wreck the European Treaties then we will not be just back to 1945 but probably to 1914 in Europe. The EU has many problems to solve, but not one of these parties has any intention of helping to do so.
My father 'did his duty' like millions of others (including many other colonials of German descent in Australian, Canadian and American armies), when he was asked to do it but he never once talked to us about this, so great was the effect of that episode of his life on him. But I thank God he did so, despite the tragedy that befell the German part of my family, some of whom went to their graves years before they should have done, during the wars of the 20th century. My father, an engineer on aship blown up off the D-Day beaches, grabbed the engine room clock as he finally left the bow section of the ship, which had remained afloat after being blown apart and he used to wind it up every week. It was a seven day clock and it ticked throughout our childhoods. We all knew that something terrible had happened, and this was the way he remembered his fallen comrades.
There are two films now showing in China about the 'rape of Nanjing'. One is the 'City of Life and Death' and it documents how the Japanese Army killed 300,000 citizens of the former Chinese capital city and raped thousands of women and girls in public and private. That Imperial Army, one million strong, went on to kill 4 million Chinese citizens citizens during the occupation of China, but was tied down by the Chinese people's resistance, instead of coming south to Australia and New Zealand, or east to the US, where they were trying to go. Japanese bombers and submarines did get as far as Sydney and Darwin in Australia in any event.
So, yes, Max, I do support everything you are doing to fight the ideas and influence of Mr Brons and his party. It is a very sad day for Britain indeed that you now have to do this.
in solidarity,
Dave
The political classes in Europe have made two critical errors - they have stopped explaining to the rising generations why they created the European Union (for peace in Europe) and have left the impression it was all just about free markets, which are now failing badly. Instead they created a complex system to keep the economic and social peace; so complex it is difficult to explain in translation from the official languages. Second, those national politicians, seeking to gain advantage over their national fellows, have attacked and denigrated European institutions as both too feeble and too powerful. When Europe has produced some stunning achievements they have often claimed credit for them, themselves. For example, Eurpean trade unions and employers organisations negotiated equal treatment in pay etc for both part-time workers and workers on fixed term contracts. these agreements have become the law of Europe and every member state, bringing equality and millions of euros in wage increases and benefits to millions of European citizens. Blair and Brown and many other national leaders claimed they had achieved this, when in the case of Blair and Brown, they did everything in their power to wreck our negotiations, as UK business did not want to pay equal wages.
So it does not surprise me that, with leaders who will not defend the peace treaties, that millions do not vote.
You should indeed Max, write a letter to the Independent and carry on doing all those things you have been doing before to campaign against this party, the BNP; for it is a party which supports what Hitler did in Germany and what the Japanese Imperial Army did in China and throughout Asia Pacific during the second world war. This is why it is so sad that it was able to secure two seats in the European Parliament created by a Peace Treaty after the end of that war in Europe, a treaty whose main purpose was to create an economic and social basis for a lasting peace in Europe.
As you know there are now quite a few parties like the BNP in other European countries and in the European Parliament, all seeking to pull the European Union apart and to establish militant, nationalist regimes in their own countries. If these, and other less militant parties with similar nationalist politics succeed in their efforts to wreck the European Treaties then we will not be just back to 1945 but probably to 1914 in Europe. The EU has many problems to solve, but not one of these parties has any intention of helping to do so.
My father 'did his duty' like millions of others (including many other colonials of German descent in Australian, Canadian and American armies), when he was asked to do it but he never once talked to us about this, so great was the effect of that episode of his life on him. But I thank God he did so, despite the tragedy that befell the German part of my family, some of whom went to their graves years before they should have done, during the wars of the 20th century. My father, an engineer on aship blown up off the D-Day beaches, grabbed the engine room clock as he finally left the bow section of the ship, which had remained afloat after being blown apart and he used to wind it up every week. It was a seven day clock and it ticked throughout our childhoods. We all knew that something terrible had happened, and this was the way he remembered his fallen comrades.
There are two films now showing in China about the 'rape of Nanjing'. One is the 'City of Life and Death' and it documents how the Japanese Army killed 300,000 citizens of the former Chinese capital city and raped thousands of women and girls in public and private. That Imperial Army, one million strong, went on to kill 4 million Chinese citizens citizens during the occupation of China, but was tied down by the Chinese people's resistance, instead of coming south to Australia and New Zealand, or east to the US, where they were trying to go. Japanese bombers and submarines did get as far as Sydney and Darwin in Australia in any event.
So, yes, Max, I do support everything you are doing to fight the ideas and influence of Mr Brons and his party. It is a very sad day for Britain indeed that you now have to do this.
in solidarity,
Dave
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Where there's muck there's brass
This old Yorkshire adage should be followed by the New Zealand and other country dairy industries to save on costs, provide energy and clean up the environment. As the global recession bites, New Zealand and other country dairy farmers will come under tougher cost pressures from increased electricity charges and environmental compliance. One solution is to use dairy waste to raise heat and power. Instead of taking fright at New Zealand greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rules, farmers can turn the situation to their advantage. New Zealand has a particular problem with methane, as 49 % of its GHG comes from grazing animals – mostly from their gut and out of their mouths and a the rest from the back end.
The technology involved comes off the shelf. It is in widespread use in the United States, being taken up in Europe and is now taking off in Asia. Any company which ‘cracks’ the packaging of a flexible system for dairy farms, will make a good living. Whanganui, where I live, and situated between large dairy regions, Taranaki and Manawatu, and having dairy farms of its own, could become a regional centre.
The technology works like this: dairy shed waste is flushed into a set of sumps; the grit is left to settle and then the waste is pumped into a digester. This produces methane gas from the waste, which is then burned to raise heat. It can also be burned in a small methane engine to generate electricity. Remote farms, using expensive diesel generators, can replace them. If a feed pad system is used, then more waste is collected while the cows are eating.
Here are the three wins:
• First, it allows farmers to manage their effluent better, including nitrous oxides. The process does not eliminate nitrogen, but manages it better.
• Second - it converts methane –20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – into useful energy.
• Third, in future, farmers will earn carbon credits for doing this. All political parties should be thinking about how to bring farmers into such a system early, to encourage the take up of biogas generation, now.
The Christchurch, NZ company, BioGenCool and Landcorp have a working prototype. Other trials have been conducted on middle sized dairy farms and several New Zealand companies are in talks with farmers to set up projects. Warwick Cutfield, technical director of Maunsell Engineering laid out the issues in a presentation to our Whanganui River Institute annual seminar back in February. Environutra, a start-up company is in discussions with dairy farmers in the region. The brass is in sight.
The technology involved comes off the shelf. It is in widespread use in the United States, being taken up in Europe and is now taking off in Asia. Any company which ‘cracks’ the packaging of a flexible system for dairy farms, will make a good living. Whanganui, where I live, and situated between large dairy regions, Taranaki and Manawatu, and having dairy farms of its own, could become a regional centre.
The technology works like this: dairy shed waste is flushed into a set of sumps; the grit is left to settle and then the waste is pumped into a digester. This produces methane gas from the waste, which is then burned to raise heat. It can also be burned in a small methane engine to generate electricity. Remote farms, using expensive diesel generators, can replace them. If a feed pad system is used, then more waste is collected while the cows are eating.
Here are the three wins:
• First, it allows farmers to manage their effluent better, including nitrous oxides. The process does not eliminate nitrogen, but manages it better.
• Second - it converts methane –20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – into useful energy.
• Third, in future, farmers will earn carbon credits for doing this. All political parties should be thinking about how to bring farmers into such a system early, to encourage the take up of biogas generation, now.
The Christchurch, NZ company, BioGenCool and Landcorp have a working prototype. Other trials have been conducted on middle sized dairy farms and several New Zealand companies are in talks with farmers to set up projects. Warwick Cutfield, technical director of Maunsell Engineering laid out the issues in a presentation to our Whanganui River Institute annual seminar back in February. Environutra, a start-up company is in discussions with dairy farmers in the region. The brass is in sight.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
May 1st reminds us - working hours are too long
May 1st is a Workers’ Holiday in many countries. It began as a harvest holiday. It became formal after tough strikes in 1886 in Chicago, for the 8 hour day. May Day should give us pause for thought about how long our working hours are. Between them, Kiwi men and women spend an average 62 hours a week at work. There is no legal limit on weekly working hours in New Zealand. Only four other developed countries have no limits.
The deep recession should also give us pause. There is much less work around. To preserve existing jobs, the National Government has extended the nine day fortnight scheme to firms with 50 or more employees, taking it down from the 100 minimum before. Well done. Shorter working hours would also share work around.
Long hours have a huge impact on family life, separating men, especially, from their children. Kiwi men work the second longest average weekly hours in the developed world, after the UK. Many women are working to boost family income because they have no choice, when their kids are young. These days we have many kids who are often ‘home alone’. Throw temporary, agency and migrant work into the mix and we can see social problems being created daily. Families are under pressure and the loss of income in the recession hits hard as well. Decent pay is essential, too.
Long working hours are damaging to health as well as to family life. May 1st makes us reflect and so, too, does our own Labour Day. It also commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day. New Zealand workers were among the first in the world to claim this right when, in 1840, the carpenter Samuel Parnell led the fight for the eight-hour day in Wellington. Labour Day was first celebrated in New Zealand on 28 October 1890.
Another milestone in the fight for shorter hours came with the Blackball miners’ strike in 1908. Blackball was the birthplace of the New Zealand Labour Party. Its foundation followed the 1908 miners’ strike to reduce hours of work. If we are to have a healthy society and families which spend time together, then working hours must be reduced. There needs to be much better social support provided for working families with young children. Otherwise we will reap an even worse whirlwind of social problems.
The deep recession should also give us pause. There is much less work around. To preserve existing jobs, the National Government has extended the nine day fortnight scheme to firms with 50 or more employees, taking it down from the 100 minimum before. Well done. Shorter working hours would also share work around.
Long hours have a huge impact on family life, separating men, especially, from their children. Kiwi men work the second longest average weekly hours in the developed world, after the UK. Many women are working to boost family income because they have no choice, when their kids are young. These days we have many kids who are often ‘home alone’. Throw temporary, agency and migrant work into the mix and we can see social problems being created daily. Families are under pressure and the loss of income in the recession hits hard as well. Decent pay is essential, too.
Long working hours are damaging to health as well as to family life. May 1st makes us reflect and so, too, does our own Labour Day. It also commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day. New Zealand workers were among the first in the world to claim this right when, in 1840, the carpenter Samuel Parnell led the fight for the eight-hour day in Wellington. Labour Day was first celebrated in New Zealand on 28 October 1890.
Another milestone in the fight for shorter hours came with the Blackball miners’ strike in 1908. Blackball was the birthplace of the New Zealand Labour Party. Its foundation followed the 1908 miners’ strike to reduce hours of work. If we are to have a healthy society and families which spend time together, then working hours must be reduced. There needs to be much better social support provided for working families with young children. Otherwise we will reap an even worse whirlwind of social problems.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dateline: Beijing
Last week I promised to look at equality in China.
First, there is the stunning fact that over 200 million people have been lifted out of absolute poverty in recent decades. China is now the world’s third largest economy, yet its citizens have a per capita income of US$3,100. This is one tenth of ours - US$31,000. They are 104 in the league table; we are 28. But the Chinese have been getting wealthier year on year, as their economic growth rate has been stratospheric.
This year China is aiming for a ‘recessionary’ growth rate of 8%! In the months since the global recession hit, 20 million jobs of rural migrant workers have gone in the export factories as orders to the US, European and other shops and factories have dived. But China has not been as hard hit as Japan or the other Asian ‘tiger’ economies.
As recently as 1990, three quarters of the Chinese population lived in the countryside. Now it is down to around half. In the US the rural population is only 7%. The government is pursuing a broad strategy of moving people to urban areas as a means of increasing incomes. However, special measures have now to be put in place to help migrant workers returning to their villages to set up small businesses.
The National People’s Congress, which meets annually in March has just ratified the government’s proposal to spend 4 trillion RMB or US$ 586 billion on the economic stimulus package. More money is available if need be, says Premier Wen Jiabao. Expenditures are already flowing through via construction and infrastructure projects into the industrial economy. Some imports from Western countries are on the rise again, which is important for New Zealand, as exports to China are now substantial.
The government is making efforts, too, to persuade the Chinese, who are great savers, to spend more of their cash. A large chunk of the $586 bn is going into the health and social security systems, which are underfunded. Perhaps the most worrying aspect for China is their huge holding of US government debt. If the US struggles economically, China cannot escape. So while China is in a better position than most large economies, there remains a vast gulf between rural and urban living standards.
First, there is the stunning fact that over 200 million people have been lifted out of absolute poverty in recent decades. China is now the world’s third largest economy, yet its citizens have a per capita income of US$3,100. This is one tenth of ours - US$31,000. They are 104 in the league table; we are 28. But the Chinese have been getting wealthier year on year, as their economic growth rate has been stratospheric.
This year China is aiming for a ‘recessionary’ growth rate of 8%! In the months since the global recession hit, 20 million jobs of rural migrant workers have gone in the export factories as orders to the US, European and other shops and factories have dived. But China has not been as hard hit as Japan or the other Asian ‘tiger’ economies.
As recently as 1990, three quarters of the Chinese population lived in the countryside. Now it is down to around half. In the US the rural population is only 7%. The government is pursuing a broad strategy of moving people to urban areas as a means of increasing incomes. However, special measures have now to be put in place to help migrant workers returning to their villages to set up small businesses.
The National People’s Congress, which meets annually in March has just ratified the government’s proposal to spend 4 trillion RMB or US$ 586 billion on the economic stimulus package. More money is available if need be, says Premier Wen Jiabao. Expenditures are already flowing through via construction and infrastructure projects into the industrial economy. Some imports from Western countries are on the rise again, which is important for New Zealand, as exports to China are now substantial.
The government is making efforts, too, to persuade the Chinese, who are great savers, to spend more of their cash. A large chunk of the $586 bn is going into the health and social security systems, which are underfunded. Perhaps the most worrying aspect for China is their huge holding of US government debt. If the US struggles economically, China cannot escape. So while China is in a better position than most large economies, there remains a vast gulf between rural and urban living standards.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
I am proud of my Chinese colleagues
I am very proud of my Chinese colleagues and the other foreign advisers working to reduce coal mine accidents among China’s five million miners. The number of fatal accidents in coal mines has fallen from a peak of 6,995 in 2002 to a provisional figure for 2008 of around 3,200. This means that thousands more families have their men folk alive, earning a wage which often supports all three generations of a family.
China’s coal output has increased hugely - from 998 million tonnes in 2000 to 2,720 million tonnes in 2008; so, expressed as a rate per million tonnes of coal produced, fatal accidents have fallen much more than 50%, from 5.8 fatalities per million tonnes in 2000 to 1.18 per million tonnes in 2008. But this figure remains very much higher than the rates for developed countries, especially when compared with Australia and New Zealand, whose large mines are the safest in the world.
But the story does not end here, of course. China is producing over 40% of the world’s coal. It is the fossil fuel with the highest carbon content. Oil has 80% of the carbon of coal on a energy equivalent basis and natural gas has 60% that of coal. Consequently, China’s carbon footprint is rising fast. In total, it has just overtaken the United States, which emits just over 6,000 million tonnes per year. China’s energy demand is rising in line with its 8% annual economic growth rate. Other countries are asking China to maintain this so that they can sell China their goods. China’s CO2 emissions are likely to double to 12,000 million tonnes by 2030.
The earth quite simply cannot sustain this. Consequently, the other part of our work in China is to help China to move towards a lower carbon economy – to first stabilize, then to reduce its emissions. This is no easy task. President Obama is one person who wants to help. He knows very well the US itself has a very great problem in meeting its Kyoto CO2 reduction targets. During the G20 summit in the UK early in April, the US and China discussed these issues. New Zealand and others must help them succeed. Otherwise, the frequency of extreme climate events, like one in one hundred year floods in the Whanganui region, will increase. We have a direct stake in the outcome.
China’s coal output has increased hugely - from 998 million tonnes in 2000 to 2,720 million tonnes in 2008; so, expressed as a rate per million tonnes of coal produced, fatal accidents have fallen much more than 50%, from 5.8 fatalities per million tonnes in 2000 to 1.18 per million tonnes in 2008. But this figure remains very much higher than the rates for developed countries, especially when compared with Australia and New Zealand, whose large mines are the safest in the world.
But the story does not end here, of course. China is producing over 40% of the world’s coal. It is the fossil fuel with the highest carbon content. Oil has 80% of the carbon of coal on a energy equivalent basis and natural gas has 60% that of coal. Consequently, China’s carbon footprint is rising fast. In total, it has just overtaken the United States, which emits just over 6,000 million tonnes per year. China’s energy demand is rising in line with its 8% annual economic growth rate. Other countries are asking China to maintain this so that they can sell China their goods. China’s CO2 emissions are likely to double to 12,000 million tonnes by 2030.
The earth quite simply cannot sustain this. Consequently, the other part of our work in China is to help China to move towards a lower carbon economy – to first stabilize, then to reduce its emissions. This is no easy task. President Obama is one person who wants to help. He knows very well the US itself has a very great problem in meeting its Kyoto CO2 reduction targets. During the G20 summit in the UK early in April, the US and China discussed these issues. New Zealand and others must help them succeed. Otherwise, the frequency of extreme climate events, like one in one hundred year floods in the Whanganui region, will increase. We have a direct stake in the outcome.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Arthur's instinct was right
The 25th anniversary of the miner’s strike has been greeted with much head-shaking about its wrong-headed leadership and failure to compromise. This view needs to be challenged for never has any community of working people contributed so much to their country and yet been so badly treated. Never has there been such a willful destruction of so many individual communities, of such a vast amount of productive public capital, or of a nation's strategic energy resource.
Perhaps the real measure of the miners' sacrifice is this: since records were first kept in 1850, more than 100,000 of them have been killed at work. Countless others were injured or struck down by disease, with the present generation only now being compensated for some of those diseases - bronchitis and emphysema. Imagine what it must have been like to have had one of those men as a son, husband or father. Now, at the point when technology can prevent such destruction, that selfsame technology is being removed from the few remaining pits.
On the 25th anniversary of the miners' strike three key points need to be understood. First, on energy policy: instead of being the only European Union country that is self-sufficient in energy and a net oil exporter, we have now joined the others in their energy dependency. This time the UK will be at the end of the gas and oil pipelines from Russia, central Asia, Algeria and the Gulf. Wind-farms, however welcome, will not save us.
Labour’s own energy white paper acknowledged this: "By 2020 we are likely to be importing around three-quarters of our energy needs. And by that time half the world's gas and oil will be coming from countries that are currently perceived as relatively unstable, either in political or economic terms." There are no major plans to build clean coal stations, but that is what Spencer Abraham, the US energy secretary, advised George Bush and Tony Blair in July 2003.
Second, the economic and social costs of destroying the British coal industry have been huge - at least £28bn. This is nearly half of the North Sea tax revenues of £60bn collected since 1985. Unless further support is forthcoming, the horrendous damage to mining communities will take at least two generations to heal, notwithstanding the work of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and the Coalfield Communities Campaign.
Third, the miners' strike could not have taken shape in the way it did in any other EU country. It would have been negotiated to a settlement firmly within the restructuring aid framework of the European Coal and Steel Community treaty, the founding treaty of the European economic and social model. Instead, in Britain we had the application of 19th-century industrial relations to an industry that was at a technological watershed.
Arthur Scargill, the miners' leader, was right about two things in particular: the huge scale of the redundancy and closure programme, and the inability of the consultation procedures within the industry to handle the issue. Restructuring had to be collectively bargained as well, but neither the National Coal Board (NCB) nor the government wanted to negotiate the substantive issues.
Scargill was right by instinct, but also because a group of us from Bradford University had done the research. In 1982 we showed the National Union of Mineworkers executive that automated, heavy-duty technology would produce a productivity explosion. If the market for coal remained the same, this would lead in the worst case to the loss of more than 165,000 jobs, or 74% of the 1981 pit workforce of 225,000. The first to go would be the coalfields of Scotland, the north-east, Kent and south Wales, which had received little investment. As Nelson Mandela observed with his customary frankness at an international mineworkers' conference in Johannesburg in 1992: "Scargill and the NUM have been vilified for trying to defend their members."
At the famous meeting of March 6 1984, James Cowan, NCB deputy chairman, admitted only reluctantly that around 20 pits and 21,000 jobs would be hit. Scargill's initial figure of 70,000 job losses was attacked as scaremongering. Only in her 1993 memoirs could Mrs Thatcher admit the truth. Ian MacGregor, NCB chairman, had told her in September 1983 that he wanted to cut 64,000 jobs in three years and extend the redundancy scheme to include miners under 50.
There are now fewer than 5,000 miners working in Britain's pits. While the second phase of pit closures arose in the 1990s from market displacement - mainly by the new, privatised gas power stations - the majority of job losses had earlier flowed from the productivity revolution. To illustrate this point: just one hi-tech coalface, at Kellingley colliery in Yorkshire, was producing 42,000 tonnes a week by 2003, almost as much as the 46,000 tonnes a week the whole pit was producing in 1983 from six faces, with six times as many men.
Many have argued that the miners' strike could have been settled well before that terrible year had run its course. This was made immensely difficult because the NCB would not negotiate. True, the NUM was forced into tactical options that made matters worse. And a civil war fought against the mining communities generated such pressure that an internal civil war broke out inside the union, at a time when members in the Midlands did not understand that their jobs were at risk.
There was always another way. The union had tabled a draft technology agreement in 1983. The NCB rejected it as "inappropriate". When NUM negotiators raised this in 1984 they were accused of moving the goalposts. A new technology agreement would have cut working hours and allowed older men to leave, to be replaced by their unemployed sons. Anywhere else in Europe it would have been seized upon as a basis for settlement. The October 1984 agreement with the pit deputies' union, Nacods, added an independent review body to the colliery review procedure. But it dealt with consequences, not causes, and was not binding.
Britain suffered a needless civil war and the mining communities were destroyed. Many thousands of managers and breakaway UDM members lost their jobs. And now the country is about finally to lose one of its founding industries.
Perhaps the real measure of the miners' sacrifice is this: since records were first kept in 1850, more than 100,000 of them have been killed at work. Countless others were injured or struck down by disease, with the present generation only now being compensated for some of those diseases - bronchitis and emphysema. Imagine what it must have been like to have had one of those men as a son, husband or father. Now, at the point when technology can prevent such destruction, that selfsame technology is being removed from the few remaining pits.
On the 25th anniversary of the miners' strike three key points need to be understood. First, on energy policy: instead of being the only European Union country that is self-sufficient in energy and a net oil exporter, we have now joined the others in their energy dependency. This time the UK will be at the end of the gas and oil pipelines from Russia, central Asia, Algeria and the Gulf. Wind-farms, however welcome, will not save us.
Labour’s own energy white paper acknowledged this: "By 2020 we are likely to be importing around three-quarters of our energy needs. And by that time half the world's gas and oil will be coming from countries that are currently perceived as relatively unstable, either in political or economic terms." There are no major plans to build clean coal stations, but that is what Spencer Abraham, the US energy secretary, advised George Bush and Tony Blair in July 2003.
Second, the economic and social costs of destroying the British coal industry have been huge - at least £28bn. This is nearly half of the North Sea tax revenues of £60bn collected since 1985. Unless further support is forthcoming, the horrendous damage to mining communities will take at least two generations to heal, notwithstanding the work of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and the Coalfield Communities Campaign.
Third, the miners' strike could not have taken shape in the way it did in any other EU country. It would have been negotiated to a settlement firmly within the restructuring aid framework of the European Coal and Steel Community treaty, the founding treaty of the European economic and social model. Instead, in Britain we had the application of 19th-century industrial relations to an industry that was at a technological watershed.
Arthur Scargill, the miners' leader, was right about two things in particular: the huge scale of the redundancy and closure programme, and the inability of the consultation procedures within the industry to handle the issue. Restructuring had to be collectively bargained as well, but neither the National Coal Board (NCB) nor the government wanted to negotiate the substantive issues.
Scargill was right by instinct, but also because a group of us from Bradford University had done the research. In 1982 we showed the National Union of Mineworkers executive that automated, heavy-duty technology would produce a productivity explosion. If the market for coal remained the same, this would lead in the worst case to the loss of more than 165,000 jobs, or 74% of the 1981 pit workforce of 225,000. The first to go would be the coalfields of Scotland, the north-east, Kent and south Wales, which had received little investment. As Nelson Mandela observed with his customary frankness at an international mineworkers' conference in Johannesburg in 1992: "Scargill and the NUM have been vilified for trying to defend their members."
At the famous meeting of March 6 1984, James Cowan, NCB deputy chairman, admitted only reluctantly that around 20 pits and 21,000 jobs would be hit. Scargill's initial figure of 70,000 job losses was attacked as scaremongering. Only in her 1993 memoirs could Mrs Thatcher admit the truth. Ian MacGregor, NCB chairman, had told her in September 1983 that he wanted to cut 64,000 jobs in three years and extend the redundancy scheme to include miners under 50.
There are now fewer than 5,000 miners working in Britain's pits. While the second phase of pit closures arose in the 1990s from market displacement - mainly by the new, privatised gas power stations - the majority of job losses had earlier flowed from the productivity revolution. To illustrate this point: just one hi-tech coalface, at Kellingley colliery in Yorkshire, was producing 42,000 tonnes a week by 2003, almost as much as the 46,000 tonnes a week the whole pit was producing in 1983 from six faces, with six times as many men.
Many have argued that the miners' strike could have been settled well before that terrible year had run its course. This was made immensely difficult because the NCB would not negotiate. True, the NUM was forced into tactical options that made matters worse. And a civil war fought against the mining communities generated such pressure that an internal civil war broke out inside the union, at a time when members in the Midlands did not understand that their jobs were at risk.
There was always another way. The union had tabled a draft technology agreement in 1983. The NCB rejected it as "inappropriate". When NUM negotiators raised this in 1984 they were accused of moving the goalposts. A new technology agreement would have cut working hours and allowed older men to leave, to be replaced by their unemployed sons. Anywhere else in Europe it would have been seized upon as a basis for settlement. The October 1984 agreement with the pit deputies' union, Nacods, added an independent review body to the colliery review procedure. But it dealt with consequences, not causes, and was not binding.
Britain suffered a needless civil war and the mining communities were destroyed. Many thousands of managers and breakaway UDM members lost their jobs. And now the country is about finally to lose one of its founding industries.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Equinox in Beijing
Spring in Beijing is a fascinating season. Winters are very cold and summers are very hot, but spring and autumn can be gentle seasons, with autumn winning. Spring, of course, is the time of the equinoxal winds. The spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere will be on March 20 and the winds are already blowing. Fine red sand is whipped up from the Gobi desert and blown through any crack in the windows, covering every surface. Biking on Beijing’s streets, in a sandstorm is no fun at all. The Equinox happens twice a year, in March and September. Night and day are of equal length, when the sun sits vertically above the earth’s equator. For me, wherever I happen to be, it also evokes a questioning of human progress towards equality. A socialist colleague once went so far as to argue that ‘The Equinox is inherently socialist!’
If physics cannot really be claimed for one politics or another, China certainly can. But which one? The last two centuries have been tumultuous in China. Movements pressing the case for equality have been in powerful evidence since the Christian working men’s movement, the Taipings, started their rebellion against the Emperor in 1850 until they were crushed in 1864. One of my boyhood heroes, the Christian General Charles Gordon was dispatched by the British Crown to lead the Emperor’s armies in putting down the Taipings. Around 20 million people died. Gordon later died at Khartoum, also a martyr. To locate this in time and place for the peoples of the Whanganui Region, my current home in New Zealand, in 1864 another British officer, General Cameron landed at the river mouth and disembarked 3,700 redcoats, having just helped to secure again the jewel in the Crown, India.
Former Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai was born in the days before the Spring Equinox, 1898. He is often attributed as saying, in answer to a question about the impact of the French Revolution of 1789, “It is too early to say.” Premier Zhou’s studies in France no doubt included Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. What he is remembered for, however, is his diplomatic finesse. He was responsible for inviting President Richard Nixon, the first major Western leader since the end of the Second World War to visit China, in 1972. The economic reforms began in 1978 and China is well on its way to becoming the world’s largest economy, which it was up until two hundred years ago. How equal it will be, is for next week’s column.
If physics cannot really be claimed for one politics or another, China certainly can. But which one? The last two centuries have been tumultuous in China. Movements pressing the case for equality have been in powerful evidence since the Christian working men’s movement, the Taipings, started their rebellion against the Emperor in 1850 until they were crushed in 1864. One of my boyhood heroes, the Christian General Charles Gordon was dispatched by the British Crown to lead the Emperor’s armies in putting down the Taipings. Around 20 million people died. Gordon later died at Khartoum, also a martyr. To locate this in time and place for the peoples of the Whanganui Region, my current home in New Zealand, in 1864 another British officer, General Cameron landed at the river mouth and disembarked 3,700 redcoats, having just helped to secure again the jewel in the Crown, India.
Former Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai was born in the days before the Spring Equinox, 1898. He is often attributed as saying, in answer to a question about the impact of the French Revolution of 1789, “It is too early to say.” Premier Zhou’s studies in France no doubt included Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. What he is remembered for, however, is his diplomatic finesse. He was responsible for inviting President Richard Nixon, the first major Western leader since the end of the Second World War to visit China, in 1972. The economic reforms began in 1978 and China is well on its way to becoming the world’s largest economy, which it was up until two hundred years ago. How equal it will be, is for next week’s column.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
A homage to British miners
Today I would like to pay homage to
Their year long strike in 1984-85 was against mine closures, to save their communities, their livelihoods and
They, their children and now their grand children have suffered the horrendous consequences of their defeat. Unemployment remains very high in their wrecked communities as over 300,000 jobs in the coal industry alone were killed off. Their children and their grand children are targeted by drug pushers. A few are joining gangs. Drug addiction and alcoholism are higher than elsewhere. Sounds familiar?
Be in no doubt who these men were. Former Tory Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan summed it up when he said in 1984, in a pointed message to Mrs. Thatcher, ‘the miners are the best men in the world – they defeated the Kaiser and they defeated Hitler’. They were in the front lines and dug the tunnels in the dangerous mud of Flanders and northern
I had the great privilege of advising their union for 10 years until 1993, on health and safety and technology. Throughout, they remained cheerful, and often incredibly funny. They would ring up the National Office and ask, ‘Is that the Marie Celeste?’ after the name of the ship found sailing around the world with no crew. As the mines closed, staff members were made redundant, too. In the end, few were left.
The defeat of the miners represented the virtual death of industrial
If someone asked me, 'How would you fix
Never has any community of working people contributed so much to their country and yet been so badly treated. The miners powered the industrial revolution. At the peak of the coal industry in 1913 there were 1.1 million miners or one in 10 of the work force.
They dared to oppose Thatcherism. In theThursday, February 5, 2009
The Immingham strike
John Monks, European Trade Union Confederation general secretary and former TUC GS was interviewed on Sky TV and handled this difficult issue every well, I thought. It spelt out the issues for workers' rights in europe and in the UK.
I note also that one of the strike leaders said they had sent the BNP packing when they showed up to support them. Brown and Mandelson need to realise that a failure to properly transpose the Posted Workers Directive into UK law and take other measures, means that in deep recessionary conditions, there will be further support for the BNP among the unemployed and poorly paid.
Immingham is an important test point for UK politicians and for the CBI; for if they do not care, as long as British employers can have access to cheap labour anywhere in Europe or at home, the chickens will surely come home to roost. It is a very important test point for the unions as well, as Immingham is one of the few places in the Yorks/Humber/Nth Lincs region where they still have some bargaining power. These are guys who are pretty tough and being paid quite well in a sea of lower wages.
I have seen an analysis of average BNP support across the North West in advance of the European elections and it is rather optimistic that it is not widespread enough to win a seat, albeit it very strong in pockets as around Burnley etc, but the point is that it is very high indeed in depressed regions, such as the former mining towns in both West and East north of England. If that depression grips more towns then BNP support will increase....the LP is nearly moribund in many places in the north and the unions are very weak indeed at local trades council level.
What is interesting in what I have read is that the press are broadly sympathetic for once to the workers' side and do not seem to have mentioned that the strikes are actually illegal, with the unions subject to fines if they are not ordering their members back to work, around the country.
For Brown and Mandelson, it is the toughest test of all, as it will decide if they remain 'free market Keynesians' more sympathetic to the employers' side, or true inheritors of Roosevelt and his New Deal for labour (he gave orgainsing rights to american unions in the 1930s as part of the New Deal) On that I am a sceptic, I'm afraid, but unless they do make it clear that they stand on the side of working people, they will may well fail in reviving the British economy.......their strategy of throwing so much money at it, without trying to lift the people's spirits, is unlikely to succeed. They need to give new rights to workers and to unions to organise, as Roosevelt did and try to secure an EU style social dialogue agreement which the unions can also deliver on.
Immingham is an important test point for UK politicians and for the CBI; for if they do not care, as long as British employers can have access to cheap labour anywhere in Europe or at home, the chickens will surely come home to roost. It is a very important test point for the unions as well, as Immingham is one of the few places in the Yorks/Humber/Nth Lincs region where they still have some bargaining power. These are guys who are pretty tough and being paid quite well in a sea of lower wages.
I have seen an analysis of average BNP support across the North West in advance of the European elections and it is rather optimistic that it is not widespread enough to win a seat, albeit it very strong in pockets as around Burnley etc, but the point is that it is very high indeed in depressed regions, such as the former mining towns in both West and East north of England. If that depression grips more towns then BNP support will increase....the LP is nearly moribund in many places in the north and the unions are very weak indeed at local trades council level.
What is interesting in what I have read is that the press are broadly sympathetic for once to the workers' side and do not seem to have mentioned that the strikes are actually illegal, with the unions subject to fines if they are not ordering their members back to work, around the country.
For Brown and Mandelson, it is the toughest test of all, as it will decide if they remain 'free market Keynesians' more sympathetic to the employers' side, or true inheritors of Roosevelt and his New Deal for labour (he gave orgainsing rights to american unions in the 1930s as part of the New Deal) On that I am a sceptic, I'm afraid, but unless they do make it clear that they stand on the side of working people, they will may well fail in reviving the British economy.......their strategy of throwing so much money at it, without trying to lift the people's spirits, is unlikely to succeed. They need to give new rights to workers and to unions to organise, as Roosevelt did and try to secure an EU style social dialogue agreement which the unions can also deliver on.
Immingham is a case in point - will they commit themselves to resolve the inadequacy of the Posted Workers Directive transposition in the UK and press to have the recent European Court of Justice judgements on cross border employment cases resolved in EU legislation? They could set this down as collateral for the unions, in return for bailing out CBI members with taxpayers money. It is the government's choice - will they remain false "Rooseveltians" and in the end just hand power to Cameron, who will care even less at the end of the day and is leader of a party which has by no means resolved its European arguments?
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