From Putin With Love

Maria Alyokhina took this photograph of herself and
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in the back of a police van

  Vladimir Putin has done it again. Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, two members of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot have been arrested in Sochi. Their crime? Well, in this case, the nefarious deed of walking down a street.


  The two women had planned to shoot a music video for a new song, Putin Will Teach You to Love Your Motherland in a local Church. Given the vast and entirely unwarranted overreaction to the punk collective's now-famous protest at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, it would perhaps not have been much of a surprise if they had been arrested during such an action. But they never made it. Instead, they were picked up by police whilst on their way to the planned protest. They have been accused of robbery, but as yet no charges have been filed. 

  Clearly, though, this accusation is pure nonsense. Perhaps, were the incident isolated, we might be persuaded to reluctantly swallow the official story. But it is not. At least nine people are in police custody for clearly political motives, among them former Italian MP and LGBT rights campaigner Vladimir Luxuria, with an unidentified number of others having been picked up but subsequently released. This assault on the rights and freedoms of both the Russian people and international visitors to the Winter Olympics host city is characteristic of the heavy-handed and oppressive Putin regime, but that the authorities have carried on their campaign of repression when the city is in the full glare of the international spotlight demonstrates both the cavalier ease with which they can carry out such actions and the security Putin feels in his control of the country. It is a fresh reminder, if any were needed, that this is a man and a government willing to do anything to maintain its iron grip.

  But has Putin made a mistake? By re-arresting Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova, so soon after their two-year internment in separate Siberian concentration camps was cut short by the politically-motivated Amnesty Bill last December, huge publicity will surely be drawn to the political skirmishes around Sochi which, thus far, the media has been too blinded by the glittering spectacle of the games themselves to focus on. By making two women who have already been identified as targets of the Putin regime once more into martyrs for the cause, Putin will perhaps find the small but growing number of voices raised against his corrupt leadership become louder. 

  Whilst most Russians have sadly been sufficiently taken in by the conspiracy of Church and State to mutilate their morality that they are ambivalent towards, or even support, the persecution of minorities in their native country, there are enough who refuse to bow to Putin's warped image of the world to cause problems for his administration. The international community, meanwhile, whilst as ever slow to react has - in general - been a supporter both of Pussy Riot and the wider human rights campaign. As this news hits the headlines, perhaps it will start to filter through to the collective world consciousness that the problems in Russia remain as great now as they ever were - and perhaps now, finally, we might start to do something about it.

  One thing is for certain - the neo-fascism of Vladimir Putin and his allies in the Orthodox Church is just as corrupt, just as damaging as the Stalinist perversion of Marxism in the old Soviet Union was. The rest of the world has a duty to respond to the plight of those people trapped by Putin's barbaric, coercive laws into a life of lies and violence and to do our best to rescue them from the clutches of what is, now more than ever, an evil empire.

Where There's Smoke...

  The House of Commons has just passed a resolution allowing the government to impose a blanket ban on smoking in cars containing children. Just to be clear, this emphatically does not mean that a ban has been created - it merely enables the government, at any point in the future, to do so. This is quite likely to occur in the fairly near future, as failure to do so would be highly damaging politically, but as of yet, no. Just to be clear: you may continue to poison your children's lungs for a little while to come. 

  Now, it would be fair to say that I broadly support this move. I do think that children need to be protected from dangerous chemicals, of which tobacco smoke is one, and government's major responsibility is to prevent harm to the citizens of the country which is governs. It is a sad, sad thing that legislation is even necessary in this area - seriously, why the Hell is anyone smoking in front of their kids anyway? - but NHS statistics suggest that 430,000 children are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke in their family cars. So yes, this move was an unfortunate necessity.

  But...

  There's always a but, isn't there? And in this case it's a big one, because this move DOES impinge on civil liberties - there's no question of that. You can argue the toss one way or the other as to whether this particular impingement is justifiable - and as I say, I would consider that it is - but it represents what is a creeping attempt to curtail the freedoms of the people. Now, as a once radical anti-smoker, it will likely come as a shock to many who know me when I say I think the ban on smoking in pubs should be overturned. I agree that in restaurants, shops etc. it is reasonable but pubs are traditionally places where people go for their leisure time - and if they want to smoke, why legislate to stop them? There might be those who don't wish to breath in the smoke, of course, but it would be a fairly simple matter to put a screen of some kind up to create a smoking area if a pub wants to attract both smokers and non-smokers. In any case, this kind of decision should rest with the landlord - not the government.

  The reason I support the new move is because the protection of children has to be legally enforced. Simply put, children should not be exposed to dangerous chemicals until they are old enough to take that decision for themselves. Adults, though, should be free to do what they wish provided it does not cause undue harm to non-consenting persons. So yes, legalise marijuana. Yes, allow smoking in designated smokers' pubs. Yes, allow people to continue gorging themselves on fast food if that is their choice. If health problems result from this, then they should be made to pick up the tab, but it is firmly not government's job to tell adults what they can and can't do in situations where it hurts no-one else. Civil liberties are important, and we must begin the process of clawing them back from the state.

  Otherwise, when they come for the really important ones - freedom of expression, assembly, religion etc. - we'll be so used to it no-one will think twice.

Where Have All the Rockers Gone?

  Check the BBC's official charts. Go on. I dare you.

  Depressing, isn't it? When the most rock 'n' roll track in the Top 40 is by Imagine Dragons, of all people, you know something is deeply, deeply wrong. Radio stations consistently ignore rock music in favour of the latest teenage pop ballads, hip-hop of a standard that would make MCA turn in his grave and that most terrible of all noises - I won't call  it music - DUBSTEP.......

  Oh dear....

  That being the case, your average listener could be forgiven for thinking that rock 'n' roll was, indeed, dead - or at the very least, on its way out. Nothing, though, could be further from the truth. One only has to look at the Top 40 albums chart to see that the odd rock band is still managing serious commercial success. British pop punks You Me At Six have claimed the top spot with their latest offering, Cavalier Youth, and other rock artists are scattered down the length of the list. This is all well and good - but where's the airplay? Non-existent, for the most part - unless, like me, you only listen to Planet Rock and the occasional lapse into Absolute Radio for those areas where digital cannot be had. We need more of this already-popular rock 'n' roll on the radio - if only to counterbalance the mindless warbling of Taylor Swift and her army of clones.

  And another thing: Where's all the metal gone? Encouraging though the presence of You Me At Six and the Killers in the Top 40 Albums chart is, both bands fall decidedly into the poppier end of the rock spectrum. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course - I'm fond of both bands - but this ignores the legions of hard rock and heavy metal bands out there, many struggling to make a name for themselves. I see Of Mice and Men have managed to creep onto the charts, but that's about your lot - and I was never a fan of theirs anyway, if I'm honest. The popular explosion of Heaven's Basement's Filthy Empire this time last year shows there is a demand for the heavier brands of rock music, but - that phenomenon aside - the presence of such hard rockers is next to nothing on any kind of mainstream radio. Not good enough.

  You might say: Who cares? After all, rockers like myself can just listen to specialist radio stations, and let everyone else get by with their own music. To this I say: No! Simply put, rock music is one of the most powerful forms of expression available to people today - particularly the young. Whilst I'm certainly not going to say that the likes of One Direction don't occasionally strike an emotional chord with their fans, the basic reality is that they are corporate shells, propped up by the massed power of the record companies and with limited actual talent. They've done very well for themselves, and good luck to them, but think about it - in thirty years' time, will anyone know their names? Hell, I don't know them now!

  Rock music is an art form quite unlike any other, and whilst I would not like to say that rock is objectively a better genre than any other (okay, that's a lie - I would like to, but I won't, because music is inherently subjective) it cannot be denied that it has artistic merit at least equivalent to anything else on the radio. So, why is it mysteriously absent? Again, it's that damned massed corporate power behind Rihanna, Justin Bieber, the Black Eyed Peas and the like. The big companies push them, because that kind of music is easy to produce, factory-line style, and distribute to the masses in record  numbers (pun intended). I'm not denying that there is some artistic merit in some chart music, some of the time. I just think we deserve better than the same repackaged, plastic singers with their radio-friendly unit shifters, day in, day out. It doesn't necessarily have to be rock 'n' roll, but a little wouldn't hurt, now would it?

  I will not rest until I see toddlers in Slayer T-Shirts and ten-year-old girls buying Metallica represses on vinyl from HMV. Rock 'n roll will never die!

Ours is Good Terror

  The above is a quote from Australian comedian Steve Hughes. If you're not familiar with him, I urge you to rectify that as soon as possible. As a political satirist, virtually no-one dares go as far. In the particular routine I reference, he points out the hypocrisy of the US-led 'War on Terror' - an exercise which, its futility aside, creates just as much terror as it eradicates. If not far more. Nevertheless, George Bush's ill-omened attempt to wipe out global terrorism, regardless of the cost, has been with us more than twelve years and counting. And the consequences for individual freedoms have been huge.

  The most well-publicised example of the erosion of our liberty has been the mass surveillance undertaken by the NSA - the USA's National Security Agency - and its UK equivalent, GCHQ. These agencies are a subsection of the two nations' security services but, unlike MI5, MI6, the CIA or the FBI, they do not participate actively in maintaining national 'security'. Instead, they monitor public communications and feed this information to the other services. The amount of information these agencies have access to is astonishing. Between them, they can access the online and telecommunications of every US and UK citizen, as well as any foreign national using US- or UK-based websites and many international telecommunication lines into the bargain. Although GCHQ is checked to a degree by UK privacy laws, the NSA is under no such burdens - and as the two agencies share most of their data, this means that UK as well as US security services have access to YOUR personal data. The scale of this information-gathering is equally astounding - Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, has revealed that the NSA acquired over 97 billion internet data items and nearly 125 billion telephone data items in just one month (8th Feb-8th March 2013). This represents an unacceptable intrusion into what is, in both the USA and the UK, legally protected privacy.

  The security agencies claim that this information is necessary to protect us from terror threats. However, since this information in obtained indiscriminately, without warrants, and can be stored indefinitely and passed to third parties as the agencies see fit, it represents a far greater threat to individual freedom than any terrorist organisation the world over. At least al-Qaeda have the good grace to admit that they intend to deprive the world of its civil liberties. The UK and US governments do so on a daily basis, in secret, whilst pretending to uphold democracy.

  And the surveillance state is not the limit of human rights abuses by Western governments. Not by a long way. The continued existence of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, proven to play host to scenes of torture and other human rights breaches and illegal under international law, is perhaps the single greatest affront to the pretense of liberal democracy in the Western world. Despite Barack Obama's stated commitment to abolish the camp by the end of 2010, it still exists today - along with its 155 detainees, at least 18 of whom are children and against none of whom any kind of legally prosecutable case exists. It is a disgrace, for which no justification has or can be made.

  Here in the UK, too, the government is far from innocent. Anti-terror legislation in the wake of 9/11 became quickly and increasingly hysterical, as Blair and his successors used the golden opportunity of mass tragedy to tighten their grip on the country. Having been told their original plan to lock up all terror suspects indefinitely without trial was a breach of their own human rights act, the Blair administration instead created control orders which allow them to place foreign terror suspects under 16-hour-a-day house arrest, relocate them tens or even hundreds of miles from their family and friends and place them under electronic tagging, for two full years. All this without a shred of evidence that would be admitted to any court. And now Theresa May, as Home Secretary, has begun the practise of stripping British terror suspects of their citizenship - without any kind of trial, of course. 37 individuals have suffered this fate since the government came to power, twenty of these in the last two months.

  All of this is set against a backdrop of the continuing US-led Western occupation of Afghanistan and accompanying operations across the Middle East and North Africa. The governments involved don't seem to realise that their actions have helped cause the current crisis, and are certainly unlikely to alleviate it. Aggressive Western neo-imperialism is one of the main reasons behind the growing wave of Islamic fundamentalism, and ending such unwanted interference in the internal affairs of foreign countries is the only way to bring about an end to the chaos that has engulfed the region. The UK and USA should by all means support democracy, but illegal wars and secretive military strikes on the sovereign territory of other nations is hardly conducive to such an aim.

  The simple fact of the matter is this - the War on Terror is doomed to fail, if we take as its objective the eradication of all major terrorist organisations worldwide. It simply cannot be achieved, not by Western military aggression at any rate. If, however, the objective of the exercise is to give the political and administrative leaders of our countries unprecedented control of the populace, then it has already succeeded. And that is something we should be profoundly concerned about.

  As ex-Liberal Democrat minister Chris Huhne ironically once said, 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint.

The Death of Liberal England?

  Those who recognised the reference to George Dangerfield's 1935 treatise on the decline of the Liberal Party, 'The Strange Death of Liberal England', take a house point. Shame on the rest of you...

  The Liberal Democrats are going through what even the most optimistic Cleggite would be forced to describe as a rocky patch. The party leadership's seeming inability to deal with the scandal brewing around former CEO Chris Rennard is but the latest nail in what is already looking like a fairly well-sealed coffin. Having claimed in 2010 that they were creating three-party politics in the UK, they seem to have succeeded admirably - the problem is, they're not one of the three.

  Yes, the spectre of UKIP would appear to have manifested itself in all its betentacled glory. The latest poll, which happens to be the ComRes/Independent on Sunday, puts voting intention for UKIP at 19% - more than twice the Lib Dems' 8%. UK Polling Report, a website which publishes - among other things - a weighted rolling average of the most recent polls, puts the figures closer (UKIP 13%:11% Lib Dem) but even this is a worry for a party savouring its first taste of power in eighty years. If the Lib Dems don't want to end up cast back into the political wilderness, they need to show that they are a stronger party than the upstart UKIP. If an organisation which started out as little more than a single-issue pressure group should manage to overtake the inheritors of a political tradition which stretches back to before the reign of Queen Victoria, it would spell the end of any Lib Dem hopes of further experience of government for the foreseeable future.

  Most likely the UKIP threat will fade somewhat after the European elections this year, and the Liberal Democrats will find themselves back in third place, if only barely. But even that is just not good enough. If Clegg and his party want to be taken seriously as an alternative to the Labour and Conservative Parties, they will have to do much, much better. At the last general election, the party took 23% of the vote. The chances of them matching that feat this time around seem slim to say the least, and - due to the admittedly unfair first-past-the-post electoral system - they will have to increase that by at least another 10% to pose a serious challenge to the entrenched parties. On their current course, this is simply not going to happen.

  The reasons for the Lib Dems' paltry performance in the polls are many. The betrayal over the tuition fees issue early on in the Parliament is still a wound fresh and raw in the minds of many students, traditionally one of the party's core target demographics. The number of students voting Liberal Democrat in 2015 is likely to be small. Then there is the simple 'guilty by association' effect of being in government with the Tories. With every right-wing policy Cameron or Osborne announces, the Liberal Democrat brand becomes further and further toxified. Meanwhile, those government policies that are the Lib Dems' own - raising the tax threshold, the recent announcement of support for a higher minimum wage, etc. - and would likely prove popular with voters are effortlessly hijacked by the Tories. It seems the poor boys in yellow can do nothing right.

  Put simply, Nick Clegg's strategy of 'aggressive differentiation' is failing. The long years of coalition have alienated many of the Lib Dems' traditional supporters, whilst those who would otherwise have used the party as a protest vote against the government are now forced by their participation to defect to UKIP, or even the Greens. Sad though it may be to see it happen, the Liberal Democrat party seems fated to crash and burn in 2015.

  And with scarcely a hair's breadth of difference on most policy areas between Labour and the Conservatives, that cannot be good for British democracy

The State of the Union

  Michael Fabricant yesterday put forward the latest in a small but growing number of calls for an English Parliament. Whilst his suggested location of Lichfield (his own constituency) may have been slightly tongue-in-cheek, the remainder of his proposals actually make a good deal of sense.

  The time of the UK as a unitary state has long passed. Since the devolution binge of the late 90s, when Tony Blair's administration established national assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there has remained something of an elephant in the room. That elephant's name is England. Blair's plan for English sub-national assemblies was stymied when the North-East region rejected theirs, and ever since no real action has been taken to reconcile the position of England within the Union. 

  Opposition to an English Parliament of any kind is founded on the principle that the UK is and should remain a united, homogenous nation-state, but this ideal is patently false. We must accept that there is a significant cultural difference between the UK's four constituent countries (as well as within them, particularly in different regions of England) and take this into consideration when planning for the future. Assuming that Scotland does not elect to leave the Union, a relatively safe bet, we have a perfect opportunity in these turbulent times to reshape the constitutional arrangement of the state. 

  The current situation is one of imbalance, with Scotland having more significant powers than Wales, whilst Wales has more than Northern Ireland, and in all of it England has no control over its own affairs at all. This gives rise to significant problems. The West Lothian Question, the issue that Scottish MPs sit in the Westminster Parliament and make decisions which affect only England, whilst Scottish MSPs have sole control over similar decisions made in Scotland, has been a sticking point for more than fifteen years. It led, amongst other things, to the introduction of tuition fees for English Universities only passing Parliament due to the votes of Scottish Labour MPs, whilst Scottish students receive their higher education for free. This is a serious problem, and in the face of high levels of Scottish nationalism is likely to remain so. The same issues could theoretically occur between England and Wales, or England and Northern Ireland, although these countries - having less MPs - will have a reduced impact.

  We have, in short, an odd, quasi-federal system which favours certain areas of the UK over others, often - but not always - to the detriment of England in particular. It would be better, therefore, to create a separate English Parliament with responsibility for specifically English affairs. The Westminster Parliament could then have the number of MPs reduced, saving on political bureaucracy, and would oversee the national assemblies, whilst at the same time retaining responsibility for Foreign Affairs, security and other UK-wide areas. Powers between the four national assemblies should also be equalised, giving each country the same opportunities to administrate their own affairs. This will settle the West Lothian Question, along with other problems that the status quo causes, and prevent resentment of English people towards their Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish counterparts. Let us not forget that, if the Scottish Independence referendum were to be held in England, polls show that the Yes campaign would almost certainly win.

  As for location, there is indeed a real issue with an over-focus on London, and I agree with Fabricant that a prospective English Parliament and government offices should not be located in the capital. Whilst this may seem a little odd, it is vital that greater support is given to the regions of the UK and that London does not race too far ahead. It will also be important to differentiate between the English and UK Parliaments, and having both located in the same city will muddy the waters and prevent a clear distinction being drawn in the minds of most people. Specific location matters less - historically, Winchester makes sense, as the capital of England before the Norman invasion, but economically somewhere in the midlands would perhaps be better, and would also be more central. 

  Wherever the new Parliament is located, though, it will stand as a concrete example of a UK which is not complacent; not afraid to make changes if the status quo is unfair or otherwise damaging. And that is the UK we need to build if we are to succeed in the future.

I Agree With Nigel Farage

  Well, that's a sentence I don't utter very often. As a general rule, I respect Mr. Farage for being one of the few politicians in modern Britain willing to speak his mind, but I rarely agree with those impassioned outbursts that he does so well. On the issue of Syrian refugees, however, some surprising common ground has at last emerged.

  Such a rare event, I thought it justified a blog.

  Because, like it or not, Nigel is making some considerable sense. UKIP grassroots members have lambasted him for allegedly 'giving in to the liberal media' and abandoning his anti-immigration stance by joining the growing voice putting pressure on the government to accept some of the exodus from the terrible Civil War that has torn Syria apart. They argue that it is madness to oppose the influx of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants which many on the right have predicted (but which doesn't seem to have materialised just yet) and at the same time open the UK's arms to thousands of Syrian refugees. On the face of it, this does seem a little hypocritical, but when you think about it it's actually entirely justified.

  Farage and his party oppose economic migration. They are the respectable voice of the significant minority of the British working and lower-middle classes who see immigration as a mechanism by which foreigners come to the country and steal jobs from British workers. But, as the man himself has pointed out, Farage's latest plea is not at all at odds with his main objective, because the Syrian refugees are emphatically NOT economic immigrants. They are desperate people fleeing for their lives from a brutal conflict which has engulfed their homes. 2.4 million desperate people - and the government stance is that not a single one may pass the UK borders.

  Clearly, we cannot take them all - that WOULD be madness. As much as we may wish it were otherwise, the UK does not have the economic infrastructure to accept such a large number of destitute people so quickly. If they were economic migrants, it might be different, but that's another matter entirely. These people will be starting in this country from nothing, and the level of support they will require to survive and thrive here will be too great to admit such large numbers.

  But not to take any? That seems callous in the extreme.

  The EU as a whole has spectacularly failed in its moral duty under the 1951 Covention on the Status of Refugees to help the people of Syria survive this war. 28 member states, covering almost 1.7 million square miles of territory, and we have collectively welcomed just 12,340 refugees. This is a pitiful amount by any standard, and yet even Spain's paltry contribution of 30 places is generous compared to the UK. We are offering nothing. Precisely no places at all. Those UKIPpers who have derided Farage for his humanitarian stance on this issue would probably be the first to revel in the nostalgia of the 'good old days' of 'Great' Britain. But when the UK has failed to match even Germany's modest intake of 10,000, how can this country possibly claim to be anything more than a second-rate backwater power falling rapidly behind the front runners in the race for the twenty-first century?

  If we want to prove that the UK still has the capacity to affect the world around it, and for the better for a change, then the best thing to do is to agree to take in a portion of the persecuted diaspora of humanity that the cruelty of the Assad regime has caused to be exiled from their homes. 

  And what of Farage's suggestion that those we do take be limited to Christian Syrians, a persecuted minority composing about 10% of the population? This is a more difficult topic. We should be instinctively wary of favouring any one religious (or, for that matter, non-religious) group over another in the allocation of asylum places. Certainly, the days when the UK was a Christian-dominated society have long since passed. However, Farage's argument that Sunni and Shia refugees have a number of far more local countries whose official religions follow those faiths, whereas Christians living in Syria have nowhere nearby to go does have some merit. It is true that the persecution of the Christian minority in many parts of the Middle East means that local asylum is not necessarily an option. In such a case, shouldn't western nations whose attitude towards faith is more liberal offer them succour?

  One solution to the problem would be an international organisation for resettling displaced people, which could then ensure that the refugees are distributed fairly among nations and only relocated to countries where they will not face further persecution. In the meantime, the political dangers and moral difficulties over restricting asylum to Syrian Christians means that the best option is to take the refugees as they come, perhaps giving priority to those not of the Islamic faith but not ruling out Muslim refugees. 

  One thing is clear though - however we choose to progress, the UK must do more to help the Syrian people, as must those other Western countries whose governments opted not to offer any asylum places at all. If not, we risk sacrificing what little credibility we have on an international stage, particularly in the Middle East itself. The West has already begun two destructive wars in the region, and is responsible in no small part for the instability that now plagues it. We have now a chance to redeem ourselves, if only partially. Fail to take it, and the diplomatic consequences will be dire.

  The human cost of failure is simply too awful to contemplate.

Energy Wars - The Return of Green Conservatism?

   

And it's your move, Mr. Miliband.

  Yes, that's right, Messrs Cameron and Clegg have struck back against the Labour onslaught with their latest shiny policy - £1,000 for homebuyers to spend on energy-saving measures. This comes, of course, in the wake of several weeks' vicious fighting on the subject of energy prices - a subject which has become the key battleground in the war for cost of living. Since the Labour Party Conference, when Miliband revealed his flagship energy price freeze policy, the conflict has seemingly been going his way. Will the Coalition's latest offering sufficiently bedazzle the public into rushing headlong into the encircling blue-and-yellow arms? 

  Energy policy is a dangerous area for the major political parties. They must strike a delicate balance between keeping costs down for consumers, many of whom are struggling to keep pace with the rising cost of fuel, and appearing to be 'green' in the face of a growing minority of climate change sceptics. The Conservative Party in particular, having rebranded itself with its stylish tree logo under David Cameron, has a very thin line to toe - it cannot afford to forget entirely its pledge to be the 'greenest government ever', but neither can it risk the wrath of the mass media which any kind of environment-linked tax increase would surely bring upon it. Osborne has toyed with the idea of abolishing the so-called 'Green Tax' (a levy on energy bills accounting for roughly 14% of your annual cost) in a bid to reduce energy costs and keep pace with Labour, but the UK as a whole has its own targets to meet - an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, based on 1990 levels. It will be difficult, if not nigh-on impossible, for the Coalition to make the necessary improvements towards this target and still cut the levy.

  So in that case, surely the new handouts are, politically, a massive triumph for the government? A thousand pounds isn't a lot of money on a macroeconomic scale, but to individual households it can be the difference between being in fuel poverty and not. It will be popular with the poorer sections of society that the government has previously had a rocky relationship with and the fact that these grants are being given to spend on energy-saving measures means the government looks 'green' into the bargain. Success!

  Well, perhaps. But I think it is much more likely that the policy will be lost into the general melee surrounding energy prices and the wider cost-of-living debate. The thing is, a similar policy already exists - the 'Green Deal'. This initiative is designed to allow businesses and households to become more eco-friendly and pay back the costs of the necessary modifications over time rather than up front. In principle, the Green Deal is a commendable idea, but there's a snag: no-one wants it. In total, by the end of August - a full nine months after the scheme launched - only 677 households had asked to proceed with the scheme. Of these, just twelve had had the energy-saving measures actually installed. Twelve. Take the UK average of 2.3 persons per household and that means an uninspiring 0.00004% of the population have felt the benefits of the scheme. Now that's a figure that even Alastair Campbell would find it difficult to put a positive spin on.

  The new policy, being as it is a straightforward grant rather than a cunningly-disguised loan, is likely to prove more popular but still there is no fire in it. The Coalition simply doesn't have the drive that Labour - long stuck drifting in the doldrums of politics - seems to have finally regained. Miliband's energy price freeze may have been reckless and arguably irresponsible - given its timing - but it has certainly been popular, and has generated much comment in both mainstream and social media. By contrast, the triumvirate of Cameron, Osborne and Clegg have made a number of comments and announced several new policies, but have failed to make much impact at all. The winds of political fortune are still blowing very much Mr Miliband's way - the question is, can he keep it that way? On the subject of green conservatism meanwhile, the jury is out. The Energy Wars will likely rage on for some time to come.

The Social Security Debate - and why it completely misses the point

  Persistent debate rages around the issue of social security benefits. The Tories and their Lib Dem collaborators seem intent on slashing the welfare bill as much as physically possible, whilst activists on the left argue for a more generous settlement as a safety net to support the UK’s poorest people. Labour, meanwhile, stands to one side looking at the floor and trying not to upset either side too much – it doesn’t know where its next vote is going to come from, after all.

  The sharp rightwards lurch of the post-recession political landscape of the UK is understandable in light of the recklessness of the previous, supposedly left-wing government, but its consequences have been highly damaging. The social security bill is indeed high, there is no denying it – 28% of government spending, some £200 billion a year – but crippling reductions to benefit payments, disguised as ‘reorganisations’, are not the answer.

  I understand the concerns that many people have. There is a perceived unfairness that some workers earn a paltry wage, barely enough to sustain themselves and their families, and that their taxes contribute to the benefits payments of individuals who do not work. I understand because I have been in a situation where every penny was having to be counted as it came in the door, and double-checked again on the way out. I am sure many of us have, and we can therefore feel some sympathy with working-class people who feel this way. But the Daily Mail-fuelled frenzy of recriminations and punishment for uncommitted crimes has to stop.

  The fiercest conflict, over the payment of unemployment benefits, is particularly damaging, demonising and vilifying an entire section of society. 7.7% of the UK working-age population are out of work, and though there is of course the odd fraudulent claimant, the numbers are relatively minute. Less than 1% of total benefits claimed are fraudulent (according to government estimates) and the total wasted in this way is less than the excess paid out due to bureaucratic error, yet if one were to believe the right-wing media an entire horde of lazy, good-for-nothing scroungers should be found lurking behind the front door of every council house in Britain. The fact that these people patently do not exist seems to be of little import to the media moguls and their extortionately overpaid editors – as long as it sells papers, who cares if it happens to be untrue?

  Quite apart from being damaging, the furore over unemployment benefit also misses the real point entirely. Jobseeker’s allowance cost the UK £4.91 billion in the financial year 2011-12, just 2.46% of the social security total. Whilst a not insignificant sum of money, this is comparatively small when compared to other forms of social security. By far the biggest drain on the Department for Work and Pensions’ budget is the state pension – around 50% - but there are other significant areas where savings can far more easily, and more fairly, be made.

  Tax credits and income support allowance – benefits given to people whose incomes are not high enough to support their existence – cost more than seven times as much as Jobseeker’s Allowance, and yet these make almost no ripples in the press. Whilst the unemployed are demonised for an economic situation that is no fault of their own another, larger sector of society is kept from sinking to join them only by the annual injection of £36.83 billion. These are people, do not forget, who are actually in work but whose employers choose to pay them such a miniscule wage that they are unable to live without constant help from the state.

  And instead of objecting to this deeply immoral state of affairs; instead of rectifying the wrongs of a capitalist system run rampant; instead, in short, of forcing those unscrupulous companies paying what they know full well is an impossibly low salary to clean up their act and pay a living wage, the government simply stand back, nod and smile whilst international corporate conglomerations treat their staff like serfs, and then run along afterwards to plug the gap with taxpayers’ money.

  Taxpayers’ money which, as they themselves delight in telling us, is running rather low.

  The answer is simple: raise the minimum wage to the ‘living wage’ standard arrived at by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation - £8.80 in London and £7.65 in the rest of the UK. This will force the businesses benefitting from the labour of working people to actually pay for it, rather than expecting the public to subsidise their companies’ operation. We will cut nearly £40 billion from the welfare bill at a stroke, and without cutting a single benefit. From both a practical and political standpoint, it makes absolute sense.

  Except, that is, if you happen to be a member of the established political class. Because, let’s face it, the majority of the Parliamentary branches of all three major parties in the UK have succumbed to the lure of big business. Industrial giants donate vast sums of cash to the political elite and provide favours and introductions wherever they are needed. In return, they expect certain benefits – and a subsidised labour force is part of that. Tax credits are just one part of this corrupt covenant – others include the Workfare Programme and the distribution of honours to government business partners – but they are a significant part, and cost the taxpayer huge amounts every year. We are paying through the nose to support capitalist interests perfectly capable of looking after themselves, only to be told the country doesn’t have any money.

  It’s time to end this. Call on Parliament to vote through the requisite legislation and end the foolishness of taxpayers being forced to fund the excesses of corporations who make their money by exploiting the populace. We can save billions without slashing benefits for the poorest members of society, and we can do it tomorrow. All we need to do is put aside our petty differences and push for a fairer society, together.