Familiarity in the modern age

July 2, 2009 3:59 pm in notes from JK

The age of deference has long gone, and I don't mourn it's loss. To me deference carried with it unquestioned authority which led to paternalism.

However deference and familiarity are not inherently tied together. It is striking how people struggle (probably unconsciously) with how to address one other in correspondence. For example in recent emails and letters I have had:

Dear Councillor

Dear Mr Kitcat

Dear Cllr Kitcat

Dear Jason Kitcat

Dear Jason

I don't wish to be overly formal. I also am certainly not looking for deference. I very much see my role as being a servant of the people.

But for someone I've never met, let alone corresponded with, I personally wouldn't open a letter on firstname terms. I wouldn't greet them on firstname terms either when I first met them.

In many cases I think people aren't aware of the distinctions: they rarely write formal letters or emails and so just write them as they would a message to a friend.

Others do intentionally use familiarity as a tool in managing relationships. Officers in some public services are notable for always using first names, perhaps that's their training.

Why does it matter? I think properly addressing people says something fundamental about how we treat each other and respect each other.

There's little I can do about this issue except try to correspond in the way I think most appropiate but I hope that by blogging it I might at least raise awareness amongst my tiny readership!

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When will people see through Cameron's Blairite strategy?

June 19, 2009 6:00 pm in notes from JK

I'm reading Peter Oborne's excellent "The Triumph of the Political Class" and it probably couldn't be a better time to be reading it as Parliament continues to dig itself into a deeper hole. I wish I could quote whole swathes of the book on this blog, but I shan't. It is a shame more of Mr Oborne's work isn't readily accessible online - there is an excerpt of the book here on the Daily Mail website which doesn't seem to be that reliable at the moment.

Anyway one thing that struck me in the book is Oborne's absolutely searing yet precision attack on the relationship between the new political class and the media, he argues that they have in many cases become one. For example BBC Political editor Nick Robinson being married to key Blair advisor Anji Hunter.

Oborne argues that, along with the increasing disregard for Parliament, a situation arose where politicians and reporters colluded in reporting unreal events as being reality - statements never really said, actions never taken, figures based on no facta and so on.

The Tories were not doing well in this Blairite environment where so many connections, lunches and favours intertwined the media and New Labour people. So, in the same way that Blair outdid the Tories to win office, now Cameron is trying to be the Better-Blair. Like Blair, Cameron comes across well on TV, but he also is not honest about his policies or values. A Blair mimick is the last thing we need right now. Blair was in many ways a disaster for this country, leading as he did an assault on our democratic system, human rights, civil service, position in the world through ill-advised wars and undermined the status of MPs in our mode of governance.

Cameron offers nothing new and I just hope more people will realise that Cameron is not an alternative to Labour. It's the same kind of thinking, the same kind of new-politico-media people with the same dishonest values which got us into this mess.

There are honourable exceptions but Parliament as a whole has failed to hold the executive to account, to prevent expenses abuses or to stand up to the epic scale of dishonesty being perpetrated by our politicians. Oborne has documented so many huge mistruths and inexcusable omissions that one is left to believe the entire culture of Parliament is rotten - and they have got away with it.

Cameron, Brown, Clegg and their lot have been party to these acts for a long time. They are a disgrace to politics and we deserve better.

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Old Royal Alex Buildings safe... for now.

June 19, 2009 5:35 pm in current affairs

I am rather late in reporting this good news, this week has been super-busy both at work and in political life.

The Planning Inspector found against Taylor Wimpey's appeal meaning that the original Planning Committee's decisions to refuse permission to demolish and build stand. This is absolutely the right decision and fabulous news. All credit to the local residents associations, particularly the Montpelier & Clifton Hill Association and the Brighton Society who put together the most remarkably professional and well argued case in favour of saving the old buildings. Without them the Council would have undoubtedly lost the case.

I was extremely apprehensive about this appeal due to the resources Taylor Wimpey were willing to throw at it. When I spoke to the Inquiry myself Taylor Wimpey's barrister was rather persistent in trying to catch me out with his questions, desperate to show improper behaviour by the planning committee. I think I dodged all the verbal traps!

So for now the buildings are safe, but we must all keep a watchful eye on them to prevent them falling into disrepair. We must now wait to see what Taylor Wimpey's next move will be - a challenge to the inquiry, a new application to the council or perhaps cutting their losses and selling?

My Green colleague Cllr Amy Kennedy is newly a-blogging, and doing so with impressive gusto as well as an eye for design. So do have a read of her post on the Alex. Amy is one of the Greens on the planning committee and our built environment spokesperson.

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Catching up after the Euro elections

June 13, 2009 8:18 pm in notes from JK

Phew. What a week and a bit.

Election day last week was frantic and exhausting, which is how they are supposed to be. We put on a huge operation across the city to ensure we were visible at as many polling stations as possible. It was very noticeable that barely any activists from other parties were visible, we heard reports of one LibDem and two Tories across the whole city.

Then for a few days we had to wait, with the small respite of some good Green council election results in other regions. Finally Sunday evening came and as a candidate I went to Southampton to be at the regional count held in St Mary's football stadium. The atmosphere was a strange one with no 'real' counting happening there, we were waiting for local authorities to send us their results. The mood wasn't helped by the computers crashing rather too often (I'll blog more on that soon) and all the BNP crowd hanging around in suits and rosettes.

The result came in very late, after 1am if I recall despite the returning officer promising it would all be over by 11am! We did very well, with our regional vote share up about 4 percentage points in the South East and nearly 100,000 more votes being cast for us.

The two biggest cheers of the night were when we heard the Oxford and Brighton results where we beat all the other parties to top place across those cities. In Brighton & Hove we won 31.4% of the vote and 26.1% in Oxford, 11.5 and 6.4 percentage points up respectively in each of those cities!

However despite all the growth of the Green vote across the UK, we sadly did not win any more seats. While I'm delighted and relieved that our two existing MEPs Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert have been re-elected to their third terms with increased margins, it's disappointing that all this growth didn't see more Green MEPs returned, especially when we came so close in a number of regions.

I calculate that in the South East we needed about 29,500 more votes to beat the LibDems for that last seat. Not beyond the realm of possibility, especially if No2EU hadn't been there. I respect and support the diversity of parties a more proportional electoral system brings. However the UK Euros are counted by probably the worst form of PR which means people need to be realists.

I don't think anyone in No2EU would be able to disagree with our key policies. Their website says No2EU wanted to oppose the Euro-Gravy-Train, EU militarisation, privatisation and champion civil liberties... the Green Party already offers those things and is established in the European Parliament. Of course you can't count on votes transferring between parties, new parties may well mobilise people who wouldn't otherwise have voted. But in the North West region No2EU won more than enough votes to, if they had been Green votes instead, stop the BNP and elect a Green. Again in the Eastern region No2EU and Animals Count votes, if Green votes, would have been enough to get a Green MEP there. Green MEPs are totally committed to workers and animal rights issues, and have a clear track record. Despite obvious good intentions, splitting the vote sets back our common cause much more than any publicity gains these tiny parties campaigns will have had.

The speeches from successful candidates in Southampton were pretty dire, and completely empty of any policy other than Caroline Lucas and a smidgeon from Nigel Farage. I couldn't help myself from heckling Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan as he smugly attacked Brown and proclaimed the new Tory dawn was upon us (or something to that effect). I shouted "Clear out your moat. Get back to your duck house," to hearty guffaws all around. I know Daniel is one of the better Tory MEPs but it infuriates me that they are attaching themselves to a message of change... They are part of the establishment which maintains the status quo. Many Tory MPs were very noticeably implicated in the expenses scandal -- the Tories should be judged on that, not given an easy ride.

Monday saw me back on the campaign trail. Yes, no rest for me despite having only got home from Southampton at 3am. You see on election day a Tory Councillor Paul Lainchbury submitted his resignation. Odd timing until you remember that Labour ministers were resigning one after the other during that election week. It must have been something in the air.

So we have a council by-election in Goldsmid ward which is a strong target for us Greens and we have a good candidate in Alex Phillips. If Greens win the seat from the Tories then we'll be in a stronger position to push through our policy priorities as the Tories won't be able to win votes without some form of cross-party support. So it's an important by-election and we're going to be working very hard to win it.

I am going on holiday in August so once the by-election is over on 23rd July I know I will be looking forward to a serious break. Until then it is rosette to the ready, here I come Goldsmid!

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