Jay Stringer's Blog, page 7

Left Of Self – On Libertarianism, Socialism and Ting

If you’re reading this after finding my site off the back of my ‘Open Letter To England,’ I apologise in advance. That was a rare moment of me managing to put an argument in a coherent manner. I make no such promises about today.

An interesting thing happened to me over the past week.

It turns out I’m a socialist. I wish I’d known. I wish it hadn’t taken other people telling me. (Spoiler alert; I’m not a socialist, though I don’t think it would be anything to be ashamed of if I was.)

I’ll back up and add a little context.

Over the past two weeks I’ve written about my views on Scottish Independence. The second article went a little nuts, and there have been more page views on my website in the last seven days than since I launched the place back in 2008. The comments to that article are still going, and on the whole (a scarily high percentage for the usually shouty and mean internet) the discussion has been informed and interesting.

The word “socialist,” doesn’t appear anywhere in my article. It doesn’t appear in any of the conversations I have in ‘real life’ in which I describe my views. I have friends who do consider themselves socialists, and they would either laugh or scream at the suggestion that I represented their views.  And yet, three different people in the comments said that’s what I was. Two inferred that I’d suggested as much myself.

What I did say was that I was a “progressive, Left Wing (when not Anarchist) thinker,” and I closed the piece with an appeal to the liberal soul of England to rise up again and fight. My own words let me down here, because “Left Wing” and “Anarchist,” don’t have to be in opposition in the way I’ve set them out, but I’ll let myself off. I didn’t feel the need in the discussion to patronise people by discussing the histories of the terms I’d used –and I still don’t feel the need now- but I’m beginning to question that position. The way we’re talking about politics seems to be changing. I’m addressing this point to the UK side of my audience, but I think it can be said the U.S. too.

The ground is shifting, and everything to the left of centre –hell, anything to the left of self- is being written off as some evil commie conspiracy. We only have to look at America’s health care reform, where the President of the United States has been accused of being a communist for adding new rules to a capitalist system of health-care. These new definitions seem to be slipping through without challenge, and it’s leading to a kind of political language that bears no relation to the issues that need to be debated.

Of the three people who described me in that way, two of them self-identified as Libertarian. (Both of them were people engaging in the conversation honestly, so this isn’t an attack. The reason I’m not quoting them here is to avoid being disingenuous and taking their words out of context.) And here’s where I start to find things interesting.

We’ve had a period of twenty years that’s shown that “Left” and “Right” are meaningless terms in the world of career politics. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair both governed as conservative leaders by buttering up the support of liberals. The current U.S. President is, as far as I can see, a moderate Republican, and the current British Prime Minister –for all his evils- can be damned with the faint praise that he seems to be one of the more moderate people in his government. We’ve had wars that nobody voted for, and an economy that’s taken a shit from a very great height with both sides of the political divide complicit in bringing it to that point. Into this situation, it’s easy to see where people can start to disengage and walk away. Some wander to this new English Libertarianism, and some of us flirt with Anarchism.

Now, ignoring the issues of classic liberalism, I first became aware of modern Libertarianism a little over a decade ago. I began debating politics with friends and colleagues from America, and some of them described themselves as this new thing, this thing I’d never heard of.

They made interesting arguments. They started by appealing to things that I would agree on. “Surely,” they would say. “You think that people should be allowed to say what they want, think what they want, take whatever drugs they want and fuck whichever consenting adults they want?” From there they would then move onto shakier ground. “Trust the markets,” they would say. “The state is the enemy,” they would say. “Legislation and regulation are not the answer.”

As open as I am to anti-authority arguments, I would say that surely, surely, the global collapse has disproved a large part of that strain of Libertarianism? We’ve seen what happens when the market is left to it. We’ve seen what happens when corporations, banks, and capitalism are left alone in a dark room with some KY jelly and their own darkest desires. We’re living it right now. We turned our backs and Capitalism privatised Government.

“Sure,” my Libertarian colleagues would be saying to me. “But not all Libertarianism is about that. There are right wing Libs, Capitalist Libs and Liberal Libs.” They’d say, “All we’re meaning, deep down, is that we know our own affairs better than the state does.”

I’ve mentioned many times that Thomas Paine is one of my heroes. If ever we need to build another statue or sing another song for an old dead white dude, it is this one. He is writ large in the soul of America. Although a controversial figure, one that is not often acknowledged or treasured in the country he helped to found, his fingerprints are unmistakeable. And his writings are easy to steal. People on the left, on the right, the centre, the high ground, the low ground and this very blog. We can all try and claim Paine as a fellow traveller. The Libertarians can make a strong case that he is one of theirs. I disagree, but I also don’t dismiss the case. Because of that, I can see why Libertarianism can take hold in America. It’s an ideology that hits to the very heart of the founding of the country.

And it’s an ideology that also has strong things to say on freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and on drugs and alcohol. It makes very strong cases on sex and marriage.

But then, so do most of the political ideologies we could debate. When you get down to it, and debate them all on their merits, most modern political ideologies pretty much agree on many of those things. Those on the right –paradoxically given they claim to be all about small state- are the ones who hold out on marriage, sex and drugs.

So it’s not about those issues. It’s the more troubling aspects (for me at least) that I need to home in on. And it’s those issues that make it fascinating for me to see the seeming rise in Libertarianism in England.

I’m going to make a totally baseless broad statement here. One that I cannot back up with any facts, and one that I invite challenge on. I wonder if English Libertarianism can be traced to certain regions? There are a few select areas in the country where the issues people face are simply not the same as everyone else in the UK.

That’s not say they’re all rich and comfortable. Not say they’re even earning more than me or people in other British cities, it’s just that the life they lead is different. There are people for whom the only real existence they see of “the state” is of a force that meddles slightly with their lives. They’re not all rich, but they’re not poor. They’re not all comfortable but they’re not starving. They’re certainly not all white, but UKIP can pick up votes from them. And in those conditions, I can probably understand that Libertarianism seems attractive. It’s the thought of “I’m okay, I don’t need state funding to escape poverty, I don’t need help to get an education, I don’t need a local library in order to dream, and I don’t want the government passing laws that interfere with my life.”

We are creating a fetish of ‘self,’ which puts that one concept above all else. It’s a highly privileged position to take. We can all make the assumption that we know our own lives far better than the state does, and that small government is the answer to everything, but to hold that view we need to ignore the fact that our neighbours are starving. There are 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. That’s more than one-in-four. ONE.IN.FOUR. What are these children served by us all taking our ball and going home? It extends further. By 16 years of age, children who have lived on free school meals achieve lower grades, and have higher occurrences of health problems, than children who’ve have more support at home. That translates into lower life expectancy and lower earnings, and replicates the poverty trap for the following generation. These stats may not be a glowing endorsement of state education, but they’re a damming attack on the idea that we’d all be better off left to our own devices. “Our own devices” would only help the latter group of children, and they’re already doing okay.

I’m sure English Libertarians reading this will feel misrepresented by this point. “We’re not saying we hate all government and we’re not saying leave people to die.” But if you’re admitting that, deep down, you think we as people do need to work together on certain things, then the case is closed. We’re already agreeing that collectivism is worthwhile, we’re simply haggling over money.

What worries me in the rise of English Libertarianism is the erosion of the social contract. And this is where the way we talk about politics is changing. We are allowing a new divide to form. One where any talk of social inclusion, or progressive politics, or any use of the term “Left Wing,” is instantly equated to “Socialism.” A generation after Thatcher declared society to be dead, are we simply accepting it to be the case?

Pulling together is the only way to pull through. A social contract is the only means to improve society. I hate the current political system. I want to see it dismantled and rebuilt. But that doesn’t mean the ‘state’ has to be the enemy. It simply needs to be us. Of the people, by the people, for the people. We can’t pretend to have that at the moment, but we also don’t need to be socialist to see it has merit.

We already have the means, the creativity and the capital to end poverty and improve health, but we choose not to. There is no lack of money. There is plenty of money. But it’s locked up in hedge funds and private accounts. We’re taught to demonise people on welfare despite the fact they are good for the economy. A person on Jobseekers Allowance, which is less than minimum wage, is putting their money straight back into the economy. They’re not saving, hoarding money in trust funds or land investments. They can’t afford to. They’re given money and they spend it, it goes into shops, into the economy. If we raise benefits rather than cut them, more money will be spent in shops. If we raise the minimum wage (boo, hiss, legislation) even more money will be spent in shops. On the other hand, if we give corporations tax breaks, if and when we give in to the Libertarian ideals on that one, what does it get us? That money isn’t going back into the economy. It’s being sat on.

State spending is something else Libertarianism is not too happy on. Again, trust capitalism, let it invest, let the market dictate advancement. There need to be a few inconvenient truths pointed out here. If you’re reading this post, you are using an internet that was partly developed with state funding, and you’re doing it on either a computer, a tablet or a phone that contains pieces of technology developed using state funding. The private sector stepped in on all of those things and made crucial advancements and investments, absolutely, but we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now without some form of state support. If the things I write make me a socialist, then the things you read make you one, too.

I said near the top that we are changing the language we use when we discuss politics. We are allowing the meanings to shift, and then the ground beneath our feet is following. Why is this happening? It’s all distraction. It’s circus sideshow. We are in the same world we’ve always been, but with flashier graphics and louder shouting. The issues of “Left Vs Right,” “Liberal VS Conservative” or “Red VS Blue” have never really been what matters. Libertarians are good at spotting that. But then, Marx was good at diagnosing problems too. Neither have workable solutions. The real issues of the world (naturally, this is in my opinion) boil down to three central conflicts. “Corruption VS Honesty,” “Self-Interest VS Society,” and “Inclusion VS Exclusion.” And the changing nature of our political debate, the increasingly juvenile fetishisation of self, simply gets us further from resolving any of those conflicts.

I’m not sure that makes me a socialist, but I stand to be corrected.

 

Scottish Independence; An Open Letter To England

I wrote about my views on the Scottish Independence referendum last week. I don’t intend to make a habit of it. This will be my last post on the subject –at least until closer to the time- but I do have a few things left to say about (and to) people south of the border. And that’s not to ignore people in Wales and Northern Ireland. In the first place, I grew up in England and live in Scotland, so I’m more qualified to speak on the issue from that point of view and don’t feel I should pretend speak for how people in the other two countries feel. In the second place I think -as my piece today will speak to- people in those countries are likely already familiar with there being two (or more) sides to this debate.

We’re starting to see English figures in the media –through websites and twitter- express their opinions on the referendum. This is a good move. The conversation needs to widen. Although the vote is only for people who live in Scotland, there will still need to be strong working relationships between all the countries of the current UK after independence, so it’s vital that we raise the level of debate across the UK as a whole.

Many of these voices mean well. They are comedians, writers, musicians and artists who have started to realise that the No campaign is all about negativity, and they want to engage and make an argument for why they feel Scotland should stay in the UK. The problem is that many people in England don’t really have a frame of reference for the conversation, and so their comments can come across as ignorant.

And I do not mean ignorance as we often use it, as a wilful lack of understanding or a choice to be either stupid or rude. It’s a loaded term but I mean it in a very unloaded way. They just don’t get to see the other side. South of the border (though this may be different in the borders and areas closer to Scotland) there simply hasn’t been the same levels of conversation and debate that have been growing up here.

To grow up in England is really to only get one side of the debate given to you on the issues of self-rule for the other countries of the UK. It’s to be told that all of the UK (including the rest of England) is subsidized by London. It’s to have any alternative voices, such as Alex Salmond, become figures for ridicule and lampoon. More than either of those, it’s to be presented with the emotive ideas that countries who want to break away and manage their own affairs are somehow motivated by a love for historic battles and hate everything English.

Some people simply accept that version as the truth. Others, such as the more questioning or progressive members of the population, can feel that there is something amiss, bit still have no frame of reference for knowing what it is. People in Scotland get angry at this, and say, well why don’t they read up on it more? I might then ask those people to stand on the spot and give me a detailed analysis of the political issues of the West Midlands over the last fifty years. A region that has it’s own long history and has a larger population than Scotland. Then do the same for Yorkshire. Stand and talk to me about Wales. Or Cornwall. Even the dreaded London which, much as many of us use it as a scapegoat, has a much wider and richer history and culture than simply Westminster and bankers. Without having any frame of reference it can be very difficult to even know where to start, and we all need to remember that people down in England haven’t been having the same level of debate that we’ve had up here.

The issue of the referendum, and Scottish Independence in general, comes up sometimes in my conversations in Glasgow. But it comes up every time that I speak to someone down in England. That speaks to people who are being starved of information. People who could engage fully with the debate once given more than one side of the conversation.

I can understand why people in the Yes camp have not been all that bothered with engaging south of the border. It’s up here that the vote will be cast. It’s the people up here who really need to be up to speed with all of the issues come polling day. But after independence, Scotland and England will still need to be working together, so it’s important that people down there are engaged in the debate and aware of the issues. If we stand back and just let the No camp dictate the message that England gets, then we are allowing them to create a division, to stir up a large nation of people who will be thinking they’ve just been told to ‘fuck off’ by Scotland.

I know this because it used to be me. The first 26 years of my life –give or take a few adventures across the border into Wales- were spent living in England. When I came north I came loaded with only one side of the debate. And this is as someone who prides himself as a progressive, left wing (when not anarchist) thinker. I like to ask questions and I never trust authority, and yet, somehow, by osmosis, I only had one side of the independence conversation in my head.

And the first couple of years in Glasgow actually helped to enforce that. Because there are people up here who hate the English. There are people who will say stupid, insensitive things to me when they hear my accent. They do exist. But they’re also a tiny idiot minority, one that I had to learn to look beyond and ignore. And, let’s be fair England, there are also plenty of people south of the border who say stupid ignorant things about the Scots and think it’s acceptable to use the terms “Jock” or “Scotch” to describe them.

It took me time –years- to get some of that programming out of my system and to stop being an English idiot, even though I was trying hard not to be that very thing. So, to people north of the border I would plead patience. When you see people down in England saying some loaded or ignorant things, take a deep breath and engage with them in a conversation. Give them the other side of the story, not a shouting match. I promise you it’s worth it. And it will be even more worth it once the countries go their separate ways.

And to people south of the border? Read on.

The version of events you are being given isn’t the only one. I’m not going to cross the line into telling you it’s the wrong version, because that is something to be decided over the coming months. But there are other voices you need to be aware of. Voices like National Collective, Radical Independence and Women For Independence.

First let’s talk currency and assets. My own personal (and therefore unimportant) view is that Scotland should have it’s own currency and peg it to Sterling for the first few years, see how things go from there. I think attempting to do anything else is just a needless complication in the debate. But the position of the Scottish Government is to use the much talked about ‘Sterling Zone’ currency union, and it’s a view that is backed by many experts and would keep transactions costs down for people on both sides. The UK Government is saying they will not allow this –even though the people of the UK have not yet democratically elected a Government to be in charge by 2016 when Scotland would go independent- and are making crass comments about currency not being “an asset to be divided like a CD collection.”

The version of this story that you are getting in England is that Alex Salmond is on some personal campaign to be unreasonable and expects that he can still use the currency of the UK even after telling the UK to ‘get lost.’ You’re also being told that he is ‘threatening’ to default on Scotland’s share of the UK debt if he doesn’t get everything his own way. You are being given a story about a very unreasonable man making stupid demands.

In truth the only party being unreasonable in this is the UK Government. They are refusing to pre-negotiate on any aspect of the break-up, and so they are the ones creating all the “questions” that they then demand the SNP must “answer.”

The simple fact is that Scotland is currently part of the UK. As such, it has a proportional stake in all of the assets of the UK. It has a stake in the BBC, it has a stake in the military, in the civil service and, yes, in both Sterling and the Bank Of England (which, despite it’s name, was nationalised to become an asset of the UK in the previous century.)

So if and when Scotland (or any other country or region) of the UK decides to leave the union, it is reasonable to take with it a share of the assets from that union. That new state would also, reasonably, take part of the liabilities of the union. The Scottish Government are proposing to do just that. The UK Government are refusing. If the logic of Holyrood is followed through, Scotland takes away a shared use of Sterling and the other assets that it has helped to build, as well as a portion of the current UK debt. If the logic of Westminster is followed through, Scotland suddenly becomes an oil-rich country with zero debt and its own currency, while the people of the remaining UK are left to foot the bill for all the failings of the union. Think that through, and you’ll see which side is causing the problem.

I mentioned oil. Yes. Oil. I don’t like talking about it. I look to the future and would rather discuss an economy based around green energy. But if we have to talk about the black stuff, let’s talk about it honestly. There are 30-40 years of oil left in the north sea. One comment that a fellow Englishman made to me last year was, “of course, whether Scotland keeps the oil depends on how the UK Government agrees to break up the territory.” I get the feeling that’s a genuine belief. Let’s dispense with it now as patronising English nonsense. The oil is in Scottish waters now as part of the UK, and will be in Scottish waters after independence. The reason it’s ‘owned’ by the UK at the moment is because Scotland is in the UK, not because the UK deems to allow Scotland to have some land and water.

One of the reasons it becomes important to labour the point over oil is to help puncture another myth. “London subsidises the rest of the UK,” or “Scotland can’t afford to be independent.” Both are wrong. It could actually be argued that the rest of the UK subsidises London, since more tax money is spent there than anywhere else, but that’s beside the point. The real issue is that Scotland can afford to go it alone. Hell, any country can afford to go it alone, it’s just down to a decision about what it means to ‘afford’ it. What that looks like, and what model of social security and governance is affordable, is a decision to be made by that independent country. You will often hear that Scotland has free prescriptions and free universities, and be told that more ‘per head’ is spent in Scotland than in England, and you will be told this in a way that suggests Scotland is getting more out of the UK than it puts in.

The truth is that Scotland get’s slightly less back than it puts in –once oil is taken into account- but that the Scottish Government has different priorities with it’s budget than their UK counterparts. The people of England don’t get less money spent on education and health because Scotland is stealing the money, they get less spent because the UK Government chooses to spend less.

And all of this leads onto my final points. And the most important points for people south of the border to realise in this whole thing; What it’s actually about.

This whole referendum is being framed to the English as “Alex Salmond VS England.” That’s rubbish. More than that, it’s a lie. You are being lied to by your government and your media, and they are getting away with it.

Alex Salmond is a democratically elected First Minister, and he leads the also democratically elected SNP. They deserve more respect than to be painted as troublemakers and upstarts (though I tend to like troublemakers and upstarts.) But even then, they are not the issue. The independence referendum is about five million people choosing how they want the country they live in to be run. Salmond and the SNP represent one aspect of that (and deserve credit for being the ones who have put the referendum on the table,) but they are just part of a larger issue.

I’m proof, if you want it. I’m English. I don’t like nationalism. I don’t like the SNP and would be highly unlikely to vote for them as the first government of an independent Scotland. I’m not even a great fan of Alex Salmond.

And yet, I’m voting ‘yes.’ As many other people will. As will writers and artists and musicians and office workers. Shop keepers, civil servants, business owners. As will Labour voters, Green voters, anarchists, immigrants and even some Tories. As will people born in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Because this referendum is not a one-man show and it’s not a one party ticket. It’s a chance to do something different, and to show that we are sick of being lied to and spun. You can join in. You can start to demand the same. You deserve the same. But first you’ve got to start demanding it. Because don’t listen to the spin of the No camp, nor to some of the empty arguments of the Yes camp- You are not all Tory. England, the real England, has a proud history of radicals, troublemakers and progressives. The founder of the modern Labour party may have been a Scot, but it was in England (and Wales) that he found people who would stand with him. It was from England that the world took Thomas Paine, one of the most important troublemakers in history. It was in England that ‘The Battle Of Cable Street‘ happened, even if it’s hard to imagine the Left having that kind of guts now. And don’t just take my word for it, here’s Mark Thomas, in his book Extreme Rambling;

What could be more English than rambling? In 1932, over 400 ramblers took part in a mass trespass in Derbyshire at Kinder Scout: in defiance of the police, they walked onto the mooreland to, ‘take action to open up the fine country at present denied to us.’ According to the Guardian, the walkers sang ‘The Red Flag’  and the ‘Internationale’ on the way………..It is, for me at least, a perfect example of an event that defines Englishness, where hundreds of working people risked arrest in order to enjoy the view.

England, this is your chance just as much as it is Scotland’s. You’re occupied at the moment by a minority group who control and dictate their agenda to you. You are represented by politicians who ignore your real spirit and voice. It’s time to take it all back.

And with that, I’ll shut up about the whole issue now and go back to writing books.

Scottish Independence; Voting ‘Yes’ is a very English thing to do.

 

“I don’t wan’t to change the world, I’m not looking for a new England….”

-Billy Bragg

I’ve been living in Glasgow for seven years, but I’m very much a Midlander. I make regular visits back for football, family and balti. All of my novels so far have been love letters to the Black Country, and I’m drawn into many debates up here in which I defend people south of the border. I think Scots have just as many easily debunked myths about the English as the English have about the Scots,

So how have I come to support Scottish independence?

If you were to read the news of the last week, you would think that the case for -and belief in- Scottish independence has come from nowhere. The politicians and commentators of London are now starting to admit that maybe there’s something in it, and the only surprising thing about this is that anybody is surprised.

Nobody was expecting the Westminster politicians to stay silent on the issue for long. Many people were expecting them to step in sooner. It was inevitable that the ‘big guns’ would be wheeled in at some point, and the threats and scare-mongering of the past couple of weeks were nothing new.

The real novelty factor has been in seeing just how shocked the London media are by the strength of feeling on the issue. They talk as if it has only just occurred to them that people north of Watford may be fed up. The way they talk about the Scots in their opinion pieces is enough to make this Englishman walk around Glasgow feeling the need to say, “we are not all that ignorant, honest.” They alternate between patting Scotland on the head to stay in the union, and saying that the independence referendum is all about Bannockburn and tin-pot nationalism.

I’m living proof that none of that is the case. I show that the English, once given more than one side of the story, could engage and understand fully with the issues at play in the referendum.

The difficult truth is that London’s relationship with the United Kingdom is comparable to Britain’s relationship with the empire, right before it crumbled. As I watched David Cameron make his speech from the site of the Olympics, I realised that for a whole class of people, that really was the best thing they could think of. I was still living in the West Midlands when London was granted the Olympics, and I saw how quickly the public funding dried up in favour of the development in the capital. The voluntary sector closed down overnight and community projects across the region vanished. David Cameron’s first instinct for saving the union was to deliver a speech from a site that represents all that is broken about it. I can well believe that the Prime Minister’s version of ‘Britishness’ includes some of the prized assets of Scotland, far less convincing is the idea that it includes the other regions of England.

People in the London media want to talk on behalf of the whole of England on this, without seeming to grasp that this very attitude is part of the problem. The West Midlands and Yorkshire don’t really need to hear of the collapse of mining and industry. People in Middlesborough or Hull don’t need to be told about being ignored by an economic superpower to the south. To say nothing of Wales and Northern Ireland, two countries who seem to be constantly left out of this conversation by both sides.

A common feeling among Scots is that they have been ruled over for too long by a party they don’t vote for. I not only agree, I go further. The UK as a whole has for too long been ruled over by a party it doesn’t vote for.

At every single election since 1955 (when Scotland also voted conservative) the majority of voters have opted for somebody else. If we ignore ‘first past the post’ and the current system of parliamentary seats, and look at the actual number of votes, the Conservatives never win a majority. This includes the height of Thatcherism. More people vote against them. They get in because of the way the electoral system is rigged, and because the left wing of Britain splits into different factions that steal each other’s votes. Year after year, election after election, the people are voting for something different and not getting it.

Is it any wonder that young voters in England are drifting away from the political system? If you express your voice through the correct means at every election, to no avail, where do you go next? These frustrated progressive voters start to look for a home in Anarchism, or Libertarianism, or Stay-At-Homeism. Politicians want to blame the electorate for not turning up -a move that you couldn’t get away with in any other job- rather than engaging with them. In a decade that has seen the largest mass demonstrations in British history, we are told that the public suffer from apathy.

The 2010 general election made the point as clearly as any other. The majority of people voted for policies that were –if not actually left wing- slightly left of centre. If the electorate had been listened to, then we would either have had a coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, or a minority Conservative government. If Nick Clegg was really interested in curbing the excess of the Tories, he would have allowed them to govern on their own and then blocked their policies in parliament. The fact that he made a deal with them shows the very drive for power in London that is bringing the union to the end of it’s days.

And if we set aside the Scottish issue for a moment, this broken union is destroying England. I visited my hometown at Christmas, and it proved to be a turning point in pushing me over to a ‘yes’ vote. The only real emotion I felt as I looked around the streets that had formed me was grief. The town is dead. Shops are empty. The bus station looks deserted. Even the pubs have gone. There are whole communities across the north of England on the verge of disappearing, and they may never come back. UKIP and the BNP see these towns as fodder, they try and draw on people’s fears and make them think it’s all about immigration and not about an economic policy that’s been pursued for two generations. What does Westminster offer as a solution? An over-priced rail project that is sold purely on the grounds that it will make everywhere feel a bit closer to London.

The regions of England, Wales and Northern Ireland need no more patronisation and no more attempts to bring them closer to the capital. They need investment and autonomy. And I don’t blame the right wing of politics for this. They do what they do. They appeal very strongly and very loudly to a minority of people who vote for the politics of self-interest. The real culprits for this mess are the left. The parties who have been turning a blind eye to their roots in a grab for centre-right voters. They seem ignorant to the idea that they wouldn’t need those voters if they tried to engage with the millions of ignored and struggling people to the north. This is the same mainstream left that, right now, is siding with the Tories on the side of Better Together. They stand with a Chancellor who this week stepped in to scold Scotland and try to tell it what to do. Labour argues week in and week out that George Osbourne isn’t to be trusted with the UK economy, but they’ll stand sniggering behind his coat tails in telling Scotland he knows best.

People may talk of federalism, and of a dream for a better union, but the silence from Better Together on that notion is revealing. I’ve been waiting for that argument, but it’s not forthcoming. They don’t believe it will happen, and neither should we. Scottish independence is the only feasible route I can see to save the West Midlands, and the other abandoned regions. A ‘yes’ vote will challenge the left on both sides of the border. In Scotland it will have to wake out of its complacency. There is an assumption up here that independence will rid them of Tories, but the politics of greed and self-interest will be alive and well. Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith are both Scottish, and though they may not find a home for themselves in the new politics of an independent Scotland, they show that people like them exist north of the border. They are proof that the struggle will go on. South of the border, the left will have to start listening to the people it has for so long ignored. Regional devolution can come back onto the agenda, and a new political landscape can be formed. By making room for a rebirth of the left in both England and Scotland, we could have the kind of international working class politics that hasn’t been seen for generations.

I have no worries for the political soul of the English. I’m not looking for a new England, I’m looking for the old one to wake up and roar. The country of radicals and trouble-makers. The country of John Thelwall, George Orwell and Thomas Paine. There will be massive challenges ahead for both England and Scotland, but since when did we ever run away simply because something was going to be difficult? We can change the political system on both sides of the border. And in what remains of the UK, London will need to listen to everybody else and, maybe next time, they won’t be so surprised at what they hear.

The Blame Game

When the economy collapsed there was a bit of a problem. Not for us. Not most of us. Those with normal jobs -or no jobs- and real world worries. The actual collapse had been largely to do with things that didn’t exist. Gambles and debts being called in on speculation and futures. The initial wounded animals of the banking crisis were the bankers* and rich people. Bankers because they’d lost all of that fictional money, and with it their livelihoods and reputations, and rich people because they were about to lose investments.

Of course, that’s not how history played out. Because quite quickly the fictional money was turned into real money, and the debts were passed off onto other people. A banking crisis soon became a financial crisis, which then became a financial meltdown. You don’t need me to tell you where this story ends, you just need to count how many food banks and soup kitchens there are within five miles of where you’re sat.

They key thing for today’s post though was the blame. The blame was passed off first, loudest and longest. The poor people. They’re where all the money was hidden. They’re the people who needed to pay.

I can’t speak for America, but one thing I’ve seen over here is the demonisation of the unemployed. People on benefits are being made out to be the cause of all of life’s evils. The reason this is important, the reason people want us to focus on blaming the ‘scroungers’ on benefits is because it stops us looking at the amount of reparations that banks haven’t paid. It stops us from looking at uncollected taxes from corporations and individuals living in tax havens.

We’re led to believe the greatest drain on our nations finances is unemployed people claiming benefits, when the actual statistics show that only 3% of the total welfare budget is being spent on unemployed people. We’re led to believe that people on benefits are all cheating, whereas the official stats show that only 0.7% of the welfare budget can be found to be fraudulent.

There is a television show over here right now called Benefit Street. It’s filmed in a street that I know, from near where I grew up back home in the English Midlands. The show paints a picture of a street in which every inhabitant is living a life of ease and luxury on benefits, and some of the people featured in the show have received death threats from the British public, a public that is being stirred up to boiling point with hatred of ‘scroungers.’ Never mind that the real stats show that 75% of people living in that street are employed, and that those who are not would then fall under the stats I’ve already quoted. And never mind that in Birmingham, where the show is filmed, 1-in-3 children are living in poverty. That’s 1-in-3 children in the second largest city in the UK who are more likely to die young, to have ill health, to have long term educational problems and to be both prey to -and the cause of- crime. Why try and help any of those children, when we can just blame them instead?

And it’s also a view that ignores a much more revealing aspect of the welfare bill; the majority of people receiving benefits are employed. They are families who have jobs and still can’t afford to live. The ‘working poor’ as we currently call them. To ignore these people makes it easy to paint the picture that benefits and poor people are the real reason everyone is struggling (to be honest, even the phrase, ‘benefits’ helps to do that. It’s a loaded term.)

It makes it easier to overlook those that caused the problem -and those who could fix the problem simply by living up to their end of the deal- and to shift the blame onto those who are already desperate.

And that’s where I get to my point;

We write and read crime fiction. We write about murder, violence, drugs, gangs and poverty. By definition, we are writing about the 1 out of every 3 children in these stats. I’ve asked before whether we do enough in crime fiction to live up to responsibility and I’m asking again now.

Are we tourists? Are we standing and pointing or, worse, are we standing and victimising. I like to preach about my little corner of the crime fiction world, where people talk of ‘social fiction’ and of addressing issues, but sometimes I wonder if even that is an excuse. Is it a way of making ourselves feel good about about exploitation?

Do we do enough, or are we just another part of the blame game?

*I know, I know, not all of them. Just the evil ones.

Lost City Soundtrack

Lost City is out NOW . It’s the final book in the Eoin Miller Trilogy and, may I say, it’s really good. For the first two books I posted a spotify playlist. Why break with tradition?

 

 

Lost City, out now.

Lost City Soundtrack- A Track A Day- This Year

Lost City comes out on January 14th. It’s the final book in the Eoin Miller Trilogy and, may I say, it’s really good. For the first two books I posted a spotify playlist. For Lost City I’ve decided to release it one track at a time. Check back each day between now and publication day to see another track. Hopefully you’ll find a few artists that you like, and check out their work.

 

 

Lost City, January 14th.

The final track on the soundtrack is This Year by The Mountain Goats.It’s a song that I’ve come to love by osmosis, as the band/writer are important to my wife.  As with the previous track, giving details as to why I’ve chosen it would spoil the story. There’s a spirit in the song that fits the final scene of the book. You could imagine the track starting to play as the final lines of dialogue are spoken, and then building to the chorus as the camera pulls back, showing the story continuing on even after our stay in the fictional world ends. I wrote the final scene with a big grin on my face, and the feeling that somehow- somehow- I’d managed to actually hit the spot I’d been aiming at for three books. I knew all along that I wanted to end on that scene, but there were times along the way when I wasn’t sure I’d get to it.

Lost City Soundtrack- A Track A Day- Start A War

Lost City comes out on January 14th. It’s the final book in the Eoin Miller Trilogy and, may I say, it’s really good. For the first two books I posted a spotify playlist. For Lost City I’ve decided to release it one track at a time. Check back each day between now and publication day to see another track. Hopefully you’ll find a few artists that you like, and check out their work.

 

 

Lost City, January 14th.

The penultimate song of the soundtrack is Start A War by The National. This is one of those moments -as with the next track- where to give away too much detail about why I’ve picked it would be to give away massive spoilers. But suffice it to say I could hear this song playing in the scene as Miller leaves a restaurant in chapter sixty-one and heads into the next conversation in chapter sixty-three. Bear that in mind when you get there, it might add to the experience.

Lost City Soundtrack- A Track A Day- My Criminal Uncle

Lost City comes out on January 14th. It’s the final book in the Eoin Miller Trilogy and, may I say, it’s really good. For the first two books I posted a spotify playlist. For Lost City I’ve decided to release it one track at a time. Check back each day between now and publication day to see another track. Hopefully you’ll find a few artists that you like, and check out their work.

 

 

Lost City, January 14th.

I’m not sure I have anything new to say about Franz Nicolay. He’s been on the soundtracks to all three books in the trilogy. He provided the epigraph to Old Gold with the great lines; “If the choice is cynicism, rage or giving in; Which world would you rather live in?” In many ways that’s a question that the trilogy has been exploring, even when I didn’t realise it. There are a great many things about Lost City that surprised me. Most of all, it was the I didn’t realise what the trilogy was really about until I finished this third book. There is a message buried away in there, even from me, that couldn’t help but win out at the end. And it feels somehow fitting that Franz’s question preceded the whole story, when it could be said to finally be answered with the final pages. 

I’ve picked My Criminal Uncle as track 10 for two reasons. Well, for three reasons, but the third -”because it’s great”- is a given. The first reason is that it’s fun. It’s infectious and loud and makes you want dance. Secondly, and more importantly, it’s something of a theme song for Aaron Miller, Eoin’s father, who finally makes an appearance. His presence has loomed over the trilogy, always eating away at Miller from the past, but in Lost City he finally gets to meet the reader. Does he live up to the legend? Find out.

You can pre-order Franz’s next album here.

Lost City Soundtrack- A Track A Day- Bad Girls

Lost City comes out on January 14th. It’s the final book in the Eoin Miller Trilogy and, may I say, it’s really good. For the first two books I posted a spotify playlist. For Lost City I’ve decided to release it one track at a time. Check back each day between now and publication day to see another track. Hopefully you’ll find a few artists that you like, and check out their work.

 

 

Lost City, January 14th.

Track 9, and we get a theme song for two characters in the book. When talking about the book, or reading reviews, you’ll usually see it referred to as an Eoin Miller novel, and the series is the Eoin Miller Trilogy. That’s accurate, as it goes. But not completely. The trilogy has three main characters, it just happens to be narrated by only one of them. Laura Miller and Veronica Gaines both deserve equal billing with Eoin Miller. They’ve been on journeys that matter just as much as his. This was always the plan for Laura, she was always going to be crucial to the story and the place we leave her in the trilogy is where she was headed all along. Veronica surprised me at every step. I’ll save the why and how for later, to give people a chance to read it, but for now just now that she’s the character that wasn’t going to stand for any of my shit, she was the one who decided to rewrite her own story.

Bad Girls by M.I.A,off the album Matangi. Checkit out.

Lost City Soundtrack- A Track A Day- Assume The Position

Lost City comes out on January 14th. It’s the final book in the Eoin Miller Trilogy and, may I say, it’s really good. For the first two books I posted a spotify playlist. For Lost City I’ve decided to release it one track at a time. Check back each day between now and publication day to see another track. Hopefully you’ll find a few artists that you like, and check out their work.

 

 

Lost City, January 14th.

Never to cool to admit when I’ve taken the easy route, I discovered this track because of the much shorter version that featured in The Wire. There’s no moment in the trilogy where Eoin Miller could be said to have reached the Peter Gunn level of cool, that perfect spot where you deserve a kick ass theme-tune that can pump away in the background while you drive around the city at night. Miller is just not that cool. Just not that collected or tough. But there is a part of him that wants to be. There is a part of him that would love to be that cool. In in those moments, those moments we all have if we’re honest, when he closes his life and imagines his life is trailed by a rhythm section, he would also throw in an amazing piano track and get somewhere near Assume The Position by Lafayette Gilchrist.

Add into that the idea that the very phrase ‘assume the position,’ one which has many meanings, fits just about everybody in the book. Each waiting for something to happen. And it feels most appropriate for the people of Hobs Ford, the fictional Romani settlement that features in the book. Whole families there are used to being messed about and done over by the authorities, and they are primed and ready for another attack, they are expecting it, and they know nobody will stand with them.