On this day

New unemployment figures come out - at 7.9% it shows an increase by 35,000 in the 3 months leading up to October. No panic, says the government, its cool because starting next year they'll start stopping people's benefits if you don't 'take part', as employment minister Chris Grayling puts it, and get a job. And, pray, where are these jobs?

Oh yes, the private sector!

Oh come ye brethren into the ether of employment incorporated.

The hope that the private sector will one day pick up the stragglers, which they only will if they have confidence that the economy. Is a continuing and growing private investment in individuals really what we want? And if so, what kind of jobs are likely to be available from companies which are continually downsizing? In a letter in the Telegraph, 18th Oct 2010, signed by an absolute army of company executives, promises were made that “the private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector.” To name a few of these CEO signatory's companies and their respective recent layoffs we have...

BT (35,000 cut since 2008)

Boots (900 over the next 3 years)

Marks&Spencer (1,000 in Jan2009)

Carphone Warehourse (450 in 2009)

GlaxoSmithKline (4,000 in Jan2010)

Arup (20% of workforce over the past year, more to come)

Kingfisher, owner of B&Q, (3,000 since 2008, another 1,000 to come)

Whitbread, owner of Premier Inn and Costa Coffee, amongst others (600 in the past year - but not Lenny Henry, curiously enough)

Yell (1,300 since 2008)

Stats taken from CorporateWatch.org - read more here

Meanwhile, clashes in Greece. Former conservative minister Kostis Hatzidakis took a beating and much fire spread was sparked around Athens. Measures have been taken to protect businesses, at the peril of the workers, who say -

"We need to send the government a message that we will not accept measures that lead us only to poverty and unemployment," Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary at the civil servants' union Adedy.

Curiously, overlooking views of tear gas and molotov cocktails, the chap reporting from the incident itself for BBC news stressed the anger of the Greek citizens, not the 'violent minority' who are responsible for violence in this country. Why do we have 'irresponsible violent minorities' who 'ruin peaceful protests', while the Greeks' have concerns about reforms when their anger spills into violence? Anyway, as self-appointed spokesperson for the concerned British, I extend the hand of support and solidarity to all our Greek friends in their time of struggle.

Elsewhere, I didn't do much at all.

Letter from Joan Ruddock, Lewisham MP

Thank you for your email. I was very sorry to learn of the scenes at the Council meeting. I was in parliament that evening, as usual, so I have no direct experience of what happened.

The Mayor has issued a statement which indicates that some people had planned – through social media – to use violent tactics to prevent the meeting taking place. As people were encouraged to ‘bring paint, flour and shoes to throw from the public gallery’ the Council had no option but to ask the police to maintain order.

As one of the leaders of the 1980s anti nuclear weapons movement I am a strong supporter of people’s right to demonstrate – but it must always be non-violent. People who set out to cause violence must take responsibility for it.

I am absolutely appalled at the Coalition’s cuts – both those already made and those that are planned. I make every attempt to speak out against them in parliament. I will also make my views known about how I think the cuts should be made locally (I have supported the Save the Libraries campaign).

The enemy is the Coalition not Labour – people should be venting their anger on Tories and Lib Dems not Labour politicians. Coalition plans will transfer resources to the rich – Lewisham is the 39^th most deprived borough in England. The Prime Minister’s Council West Oxfordshire is in the top 5 least deprived. London Borough of Lewisham is expecting to lose around £70million of its funding while West Oxfordshire is expecting an increase. However, there is no option for the Council of not making cuts. They have a legal duty not to spend outside their budget.

Those who condemn Labour politicians are doing exactly what the Coalition wants. The burden of decision-making is being shifted from central to local government.

With regard to higher education funding. I am shocked that the Coalition should be proposing 80% cuts to university funding and putting the burden of making up the shortfall onto students.

I know that many students from higher education institutes across London live in my constituency and I also have Goldsmiths College and part of the Trinity Laban estate in Lewisham Deptford. I am in constant contact with the institutions and students and their representatives. You may like to see the contribution I made to the debate on the 30th of November http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm101130/debtext/101130-0004.htm#10113070000100.

I couldn’t get called to make another speech and Vince Cable wouldn’t take many interventions. However I voted against the government’s proposals and will continue to oppose.

Yours sincerely

Rt Hon Joan Ruddock MP

A couple of fine things to note - UfSO / brutalpoliceblog

The recent work of the University for Strategic Optimism included ....

...following an encouraging talk by the university on what they are all about. This was at the Anthropology teach-in last monday at Goldsmiths University and was pretty productive, not least in getting more involved in the UfSO. Watch the mini-lectures here, or on Yootooob

Following that they embarked on a course of optimism par excellence, inviting the public to join in the protest on thursday, with roses and hearts and other such nice things. Video here.

But the one that impressed me most was the action on the day itself, the 9th of December, by all those who protested, I might add. We all know the bill passed but it isn't about that; the coalition have been shaken, and will continue to be shaken as the students and the unions unite, and those not represented by unions too. In short, everyone who is being effected, and its a fair chunk of the populace. On this day, the Uni was holding a conference on violence on the front line, where they conversed with public and police alike, attempting to fuse the respective discourses so often at odds with one another. Alas, the police don't contribute too much, preferring to stick with the more hands-on approach - maybe this is wise, for who knows what could happen if they started to speak? Gotta remain responsible, these boys and girls in blue, and yellow. Stick with brute unthoughtout force, it's not like they could ever be made accountable for that. I'm rambling. Watch the video, and note the cheeky dubstep.

http://universityforstrategicoptimism.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/ufso-first-conference-on-violence-9-10-12/

Nina Power's illuminating blog led me to another illuminating blog, which follows nicely from the UfSO's most recent post. It is http://www.brutalpoliceblog.com/ and it compiles thoughts and documentation on the behaviour of the police not only at the student protests in London recently, where Alfie Meadows' encounter with a truncheon left him needing brain surgery, but at the TopShop protest, Dublin protest, way back to the Ian Tomlinson incident. The videos are downright shocking and deserve a good peruse.

"Why, 'scuse me officer, could you point me to the nearest post office?"

Thoughts on Neoliberalism, and the Wisdom of Whitehall

'Our technocists and technocrats have their hearts in the right place, even if it is what they have in their minds which is given priority' Henri Lefebvre, Notes on the New Town.

In Notes on the New Town Lefebvre explains how a new boredom has arisen in the social communities he sees. Not the boredom of yesterday that had 'something soft and cosy about it', but 'the pure essence of boredom.' The concern of Lefebvre, his associates and followers, including the Situationists, went beyond simply being bored, for they were analysing and documenting what they saw as modernity imprinting itself on social products, its own fears replacing history itself. The products of capitalism were obscuring the harsh realities of capitalism. These concerns have not diminished, but a new key word has replaced that of capitalism — neoliberalism — as the ideological force responsible for exploiting to their full effect what many see as the problems inherent in capitalism. In Britain we have a prominent culture of educated fellows learning about how the world works, we have a system which allows the free dissemination of knowledge and ideas (the internet), we have a politicised intelligent youth and a coalition government who are attempting to reason with them, and push through their measures of fairness and progress. Why don't the people buy it? Do the politicians themselves buy it? Why do we continue to characterise politicians as sinister fiends who care for power and power alone?

Cameron and Clegg

The above Lefebvre quote resonates in world in which the responsible collectives which run the show—the economic gurus, the banker-gamblers, the politicians—come across as so reasonable. You may laugh but it's true! They speak with such conviction and look you right in the eye on Question Time; they explain their questionable use of MP's expenses and why they voted for the war in Iraq; they explain why they should be given, or should be giving, huge bonuses. And in response we say they are liars or stupid or power hungry. In short, we simplify their behaviour in the act of castigating them, by goading and teasing them in the press, by occasionally dismissing them. But they are not stupid, or evil, or completely self serving, or only concerned with the defence of power. So we are asking the wrong questions, and we are letting them off the proverbial hook.

Politicians are responsible, and as such they forget their hearts and follow their minds. Minds are accountable in a different way than hearts, they are said to abide by logic and reason, and thus are dependable. They work within models, they refer to statistics. In 1981, Northern Irish prisoners followed their hearts, Thatcher, her head. According to Lefebvre, it is the bourgeoisie's use of analysis and analytic reasoning which allows for a dismantling of things previously united — nature and man, being and thought, etc. We can see this dissemination in the way the market works — exploiting gaps, creating middle men. But simultaneously everything is unifying — relationships have become money relationships, everyday life is reduced to its functions, capitalism subsumes everything, power spreads and unifies. And all this occurs under various ideological motifs and gestures, deployed in accordance with what is considered to be the common good. Could this be the technological essence of being that Heidegger warned of? A type of being characterised by standing-reserve, by optimisation and calculus? Heidegger's mind led him to these complex ideas, did his heart lead him to Nazism? Anyway, we follow our minds, and remain responsible, accountable to the right persons, and thus, when considering politicians, it fails to matter whether they have their hearts in the right place, for all that matters is their actions, and the results of those actions. We can condemn them justly, for they followed their minds and look what happened.

But should our hearts be so disregarded? Policy makers have come to a point where everything is decided on the basis of its economic merit. The education system is the most recent example. The government has become, collectively, one mind disregarding its heart. For arts and humanities can be justifiably undermined for their supposed lack of economic contribution (a point contestable in itself). They come to this conclusion using all their inherited logic and reason, handed down to them as they climb the political ladders of Whitehall. It is this handing down which contributes to the method of reasoning that they endorse, this type of reasoning which first surfaced during their school years. Models are applied to society, predictions are made, rational argument decides the outcome. (It is ironic that the government are undertaking such extreme political economic measures while they bring out this happiness index, which works on the premise that GDP is not the be all end all of a society's quality of life.)

Economics is a projection, it deals with the future. Yet the unsustainablilty of the capitalist drive always leads the way. Our responsibility for future generations has become a much used catchphrase, excusing austerity and bolstering public image of reckless companies. Moreover society exists in the present and the people who inhabit that present are as relevant as the ones who will come to inhabit it. For all those whom have gone before us, and all those to come, we will readily accept the importance of the output of the arts and humanities. We figure the past, and note the great works of art and literature. We build upon the ideas that they had; we learn about them from their artifacts. And to the future, which remains perpetually abstract and yet we continue to manoeuvre so as to create it in its perfected utopian state, quality of life remains a key phrase, characterised by flourishing arts and humanities, enlightenment and other such silly hopes. So, is it for us, those feckless occupiers of the insignificant present who have to forfeit this privilege? For the good of the future, the agents of the present must be sacrificial? Need one mention the chances we can expect for a resurgence of the damaged arts and humanities for this imagined future?

But it is not, in reality, that we do not care for those in the present. We are just selective. We project great things for the future; we build it in all its glory, but we must, for us, forget about what will make it glorious. In the meantime, we must work. We must work for those whom we have selected for care — those in positions of power. For this is what filters down through the discourses of time to meet us now in the logical, reasonable minds of those who represent us. It is a pattern far too rigid to be undermined, says the voice in the head. Far too complicated — only chaos would remain if these delicate structures were left un-oiled. The Platonic hypothesis that wisdom and reason should rule, with these abilities beholden by definition by those who are in power who decide what it is to be wise and reasonable, simultaneously excludes the masses who are not only ignorant, in Plato's sense, but ignorant by definition, as those without power and the ability to define ignorance. So he who wields the budget, in that battered old red suitcase, goes forth toward the public, a barrier separating them, and announces his plans without a qualm, for reason has informed them and no one can question that.

At a time when certain educational paths are being discouraged, certain social divisions being widened, and when cross-party political consensus is rife, should we not be turning the tables? Questioning the education of the politicians? Naturally, everyone knows that a disproportionate amount of cabinet members were privately educated and went to Oxford or Cambridge, but we usually highlight this when talking about class and opportunity. What about the type of education they are receiving, the nature of the degrees politicians have done, the messages, the ideology, the logic, the reason? Is it constitutive to a broad reasoned debate of the type we hope to find in Parliament? Is it constitutive to the sort of agonist pluralist democracy that political thinkers such as Chantal Mouffe endorse? Maybe the positive discrimination which is always rearing its questionable head to get ethnic minorities and women into politics should instead be used to include people from a variety of educational backgrounds.

Recently, as they were handed half, or a third, of the blazing torch of power, the Liberal Democrats have unfortunately been unmasked as the neoLiberal Democrats and are, as such, perfectly at home in this coalition. For it is the principles which encourage the bloating of the private sector and the treatment of individuals as firms, ready to be invested in which are thriving now. We should not be surprised, if we follow Foucault's genealogy of Liberalism to its opportunistic roots embedded in Political Economy, as opposed to the much nicer idea of universal human rights and the like. Moreover, as Mouffe has shown, following various thinkers, liberal democracy is a paradox, if one considers them in their respective popular logics. And so is the Liberal Democrats, too, a paradox, for they tell us all the time — they're in power, yet they're not in power; they are progressive and fair, yet the policies they endorse say otherwise; they disagree with the rise in fees, so they abstain because they know it will pass anyway. The newly politicised youth will learn, with a fine example, the woes of neoliberalism, and maybe that is what the government is trying to curb, by attacking the humanities, for it is here where critique happens, and critique is a dangerous thing.

More like Simon Poohes

A moment of (pointless) direct action.

Dear Mr. Hughes,​

As a student from Goldsmiths College you are my most local Liberal Democrat MP. I, along with all those my age who I know - mostly students - voted for the Liberal Democrats in the previous election. Most of those had been voting Liberal Democrat since they were eligible to vote. It was not merely the pledge to refuse to accept rising tuition fees (which, as we now know, was a farce) or the promise of new, more trustworthy era of politics (again, another farce) which secured the vote of the younger generation for the Lib Dems. It was the growing number of people in this country who believe in equality, fairness and progress - all those things churned out with the liberal rhetoric now shown to be hollow - that secured the limited but important slice of power that your party now hold. These people still hold these convictions but are now understandably disillusioned. I now know of no one who will vote Liberal Democrats either in my generation, where they all previously did, or older generations, which didn't vote Lib Dem anyway.

If nothing else, however, the actions of your party have politicised a generation at an unprecedented level - firstly with the televised debates and the subsequent frenzy, and then with the u-turns and Tory policies which now lurk in your shadows. This politicised generation, for good or bad, will send the Lib Dems to their grave, both for their failure to hold true to the liberal ideology which encouraged such support, and their lack of political conviction. This has been brought to the fore in the wake of the abstaining voters. Surely there is no place in politics for those who can't make up their mind? Not that that's the case, for we all know that abstaining is a purely tactical move designed to maintain a fragile coalition. This has to be condemned (no pun intended) as spineless. Opposition to a proposal should be expressed in a way which actually opposes it, not actively allows it to pass. In your Evening Standard article today you claim to have opposed the measures, by abstaining as agreed, yet you also seem to think Vince Cable's education package is pretty great. The other oversight in this article I will point out is your assertion that 'the next six months will be easier'. I can't see this being the case.

Yours Sincerely,

F.I.P

for Simon Hughes' apologetic, read http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23905910-simon-hughes-why-i-abstained-in-tuition-fees-vote.do

What Big Teeth You Have - the myth of apolitical youth; the myth of the post-ideological age

There's a big presence of a kind of cynical 'what do you expect of politicians?' that seems to run through the blood of a chunk of British public. They have seen people dismayed with the actions of their politicians, they have seen people fight back, and they have seen not a difference ever made. But positive change, like negative change, is a subtle affair. Who knows what the world would be like had no one protested Vietnam, or even the Iraq War - I choose examples here where the protest itself did not stop the thing happening at all, where protest could be said to have been a waste of time by the cynics - and environmental protests which, as of the time of writing, have not yet saved the world. The importance of people expressing themselves in these ways can not be underestimated, and those who attempt to curtail it need a serious telling off (ahem, kettling). This is not to mention the efforts of the suffragettes, and so forth, whom's efforts directly effected policy. We should question the way the protest as a 'right' is defended and encouraged by those in power, and contextualise this with their response when it gets out of hand. What is at stake for power and thus the efficacy of the protest in these respective moments?

The voice of many an angry folk is used when the people get the sense that they are not being represented, and this is why they are angry. They are angry not only at the politicians, but the union-based puppet-show which casually represents their respective groups - for the students, the NUS are like a group of self-satisfied elders, making assumptions as to what their village-folk actually want, against the blatant disapproval of said folk. The NUS become effectively a political group concerned with mediation, with all the inconsistencies and spin of the mainstream media.

I often hear a criticism levelled at 'today's youth', that they're apolitical, self- centred, they all want to be celebrities. So on and so forth. So when 130,000 of them, and people who are not 'the youth', it must be said, march against rising university fees and cuts to education and beyond, are they said to be not apolitical? Not quite - they are now 'naive', ('what do you expect of politicians,' again) naive to the political real. 'We've done it all before', says the lady from the Times, 'but then at least we were fighting for something.' The something in question being the Vietnam War. Apologies for not being born at the time, but governments don't only wage unjust wars against other countries, they target their own citizens (thank god we don't have oil or we'd really be in the shit.) If not naive, the 'students' who, according to much of the media are the sole perpetrators in the protest movements we currently are seeing, are only concerned about how much spare change they have to spend in the SU bar. Because that's what students do - get bloody drunk.

Of course, the students now will not be paying the new fee rise, for they are already in university paying a smaller, but still outrageous, fee which is binding. Why could they be marching then? They're OK, surely, with only 18,000 debt? Maybe it is the fact that they are struggling to find work, and have noticed from time to time a large Osborne swipe of the axe at various jobs in their local communities. Maybe they, since leaving university with whatever degree, have been dependent on their parents, or benefits, as they struggle to find a footing in the job market which offers them endless internships and so-called experience which is apparently great for your CV. Maybe, finally, they are not so self-centred and they are out in the freezing cold marching due to some principle they've conjured up, that education should be a right; that an educated society is a privileged society; and the whole range of interests and university programmes should be treated as having the same merit, validity, social relevance, etc. (I'm referring to the targeting of the arts and humanities here).

Education should, thus, be distinct from training, which is what it's fast becoming (become?), for there is merit in pursuing one's interests, and their should be, and is, a place in society for all of those respective interests to have total relevance. Education should not be changeable on the whims of the markets, wherein economic factors alone decide what courses are viable; where a workforce is created in an academic institution tailor made for the narrow consensus which informs the free-market ideal, and the companies who abide by this idea. What would happen to the opinion? Education is rewarding and influential. One of the benefits, no necessities, of it is that it provides a massive group in society with the experiences and apparatus to think for themselves about a whole wealth of issues, and the fact that some come out with marketing degrees and some come out with philosophy degrees is a good thing, for it allows difference of opinion, and that is vital in a productive society, and moreover is vital especially for a society which hopes to one day be 'fair', with all the little things that can be included under that big word.

In terms of the post-ideological, listen to this gent from the coalition of resistance, from John Hutnyk's fine blog..

http://hutnyk.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/the-future-is-going-to-come-true-buy-this-bloke-a-beer-said-my-friend-vij-future-presidential-candidate-for-the-united-socialist-federation-of-europe-i-reckon/

hear hear.

(more theory next time)

and then, right before my eyes, he exploded into a thousand pieces of glass.

The following occured during the summer, when I was still waiting to embark on the MA I have now started. It looks ahead to a time which I have finally reached, from where, in turn, I now look back to what I was once expecting. I put it up now partly because I havn't been bothered to do so thus far, and because I now have a slightly clearer idea about what cultural studies is. And that question, dear reader, is of troubling concern to this me of yesterday. Not that it matters, i now realise, for half the time my associates concern themselves with discussing what cultural studies is and is going to be. No one really knows, you see.

*

I am soon going to London to study. This summer is mostly spent in the westcounty, somewhere between a state of preperation and anxious academic malnutrition. A heavy dose of procrastinaiton accompanies me, even though I have nothing to do. I was asked by the man, as he peeked up at me from his position on the floor, So why are you going to london?

To do a Masters.

Oh right, he said. Is that in a subject?

It is - Cultural Studies.

'Oh right. And eh. So eh, what does that involve?' He was protecting his eyes from falling dust. His rounded glasses were on the floor beside him. He had blue overalls, and a head shaped like the Isle of Wight.

It was a question frequently asked of me by people enquiring about the future. They would invariably not actually care, but still felt obliged to be clear on the matter. An ambiguity shrouded the name, Cultural Studies. Understandably so, I guess, for what is culture? Only, like, everything.

So I said: well, things like the philosophy of art, political theory, literary theory, media studies -

'Oh yeah,' he said wiping his brow. 'My sister's in media. She's a caterer, works on set. Does walk on parts from time to time, yeah. Not easy getting into media. She was lucky, met a weatherman, bought a dog off him. Though, a Masters has got to help ey.'

'Yeah, well, I mean, it's not media per se. It would be more . . . studying the media from the peripheries, and -'

'Lots of opportunities as a weatherman. Or woman, I might add. High turnover, you see. The only keepers are the ones with the right names, you know? Like Jon Snow, David Frost, and there's eh, Dan Snow. Yep, they've been reporting the weather for years, for years.'

He continued: ' . . . but not many stay on, 'specially with regular names. There was that one, that woman, a real looker she was. Sarah, eh. Sarah something. You know the one?'

Alas I didn't.

'Where is she now?' he mused. 'See, they dont hang about for long. They get into the meteorological department, away from the public. The public hates them, you see, always have done. The British and the weather. There's some magical connection, there is. The English await the weather like the lonely old woman awaiting her visiting grandchildren.' He sat up, as if suddenly happening upon something unmissable in the corner of his mind. 'And the weather report is like a card, or phonecall saying - "we're on our way". Nothing worse than the wrath of disappointed grandparents, we all know it. So the weathermen are the bringers of good, but misleading, news, Cos they're always wrong, right? The grandchildren always have better plans.'

'How's it coming on?' I asked. He stood up and looked at me. He held a blackened tissue.

'See, not many people know it,' he said, 'but the first day of summer, traditionally the 3rd wednesday of May, is national "taunt the weatherman" day. It came about because news anchors were getting bitter about the attention the weatherman was getting, back in the sixties, this was. So they started changing the script, or putting up messages on the screen behind them. You could get away with anything on TV then. Yeah, they'd have a report of a fine day ahead, a fine day, and you'd have sun plastered all over the country, with bits of blue tak. But he'd be saying, "so get out yer raincoats, if your heading out today, because this weather is set to stay." The chap on the newsdeck would be creasing up. These days, on the third wednesday of May, they do things like that. April fools for weathermen, and women, I might add. Well, won't be long now mate. Just got to check the eh -

'But now,' he said turning back to me, 'It's a bit sinister. If you're a weatherman you better get used to abuse on the streets, that's right, on the streets. "You said it would be sunny," they screech. "My washing's on the line!" Oh dear. They throw fruit, they throw pasties. Depends where you are - what shops are nearby I suppose. I think I'd throw a spanner. Although that might hurt. No, I have no issue with the weatherman. So, do you come at it from the media, or the meteorological, angle then, you prospective weathermen?'

'Well I don't want to be a weatherman, I'm studying Cultural Studies.

'Right, well we're almost done here. You're semi-converter plasma conducter was shot, so I replaced that. And the old jig ramp could do with a greasy make-over. But that's your perogative, son. Last thing I want to do is sell you a greasy make-over - '

I nodded.

' - but in all honesty, without a make-over your ramp will fail and your jig flap could fall off on the way home.'

'OK, well. Do what you need to do.'

He shuffled off, continued in silence. No more did we speak. I looked down the road, pretending something interesting was down there. Tomorrow, I'll have the same thing with the boiler man.