More pedantry please!

Don't knock pedantry.

Bertrand Russell said that a pedant is simply someone who prefers their opinions to be right not wrong.

I'll add to that: a good pedant will be as prepared to challenge their own views as they are to challenge others'. This virtue is rare in the non-pedantic community, many of whose members are indifferent towards the quest for truth as well as being dogmatic about their relativism, which they fail to find an odd place to stand.

Edukashun, Eddukation, Edcutation

In the 19th century, extending schooling to those considered the scum of the earth was seen by many of their betters as threatening to general social wellbeing. But on the whole it was rightly embraced and valued by those who got it.

Today it's the reverse: unless we have a political purpose that requires us to lie about it, we lament and feel threatened by their lack of education despite pushing what passes for it at them at every opportunity.

Cameron is right in the wrong way

David Cameron is right to criticise the ideology behind multiculturalism and, in particular, the de facto segregation that has too often been the result of it. That a political leader in a position of power should do so is long overdue. Perhaps too long overdue.

But he is wrong to focus almost entirely on Muslims and Islamism. Firstly, it would be cheap and potentially dangerous political bandstanding even if he hadn't said it the day before the English Defence League march through Luton. Secondly, it encourages us to take our eye off the ball. The problem is much wider than Islamism.

Multiculturalism is a product of a broader - and, by the way, very Eurocentric - culture that makes a fetish of individuality, places often dubious notions of human rights over our core duty to the society that sustains us, and encourages social relations to amount to little more than a series of self-serving claims against people and institutions. These characteristics are deeply corrosive and entirely consistent with discourses from which, even now, no major party is able to free itself.

Governments of both left and right have encouraged this social atomisation over the past 40 or so years. Margaret Thatcher merely extended a selfishly individualistic economic version of Labour's social reforms of the 1960s to her own class; the post-socialist left then replaced whatever social vision it once had with a servile and attenuated individual that was only good for ever-increasing therapeutic manipulation by the state.

Multiculturalism is entirely at home when those two agendas meet, as they have for too long.

I hope that's glib enough for a Saturday morning. Shoot me down. Please.

The Rich will always be with us, so let them pay for the privilege.

This is an edited and slightly adapted version of part of my response to Buckinghamshore County Council's consultation paper on its new budget, which I sent in today. The Council has to make big savings (this I acknowledge and understand) and has set out how it will do it and where the savings will come from.

I don't intend this post to cover all aspects of the consultation paper, but just two:

• A couple of general points about saving money spent on bureaucracy and reducing funding for youth provision (this is because it is my line of work)
• A critique of the decision to freeze Council Tax, the means by which local councils raise money from local people (this is because it pisses me right off).

What follows is a little more colourful than my response to the Council, but the argument is the same. What do you think?


1. Do you agree with the priorities in our Budget Strategy?

No.

If you disagree, can you tell us what you would do differently?

You could save money by reducing costly, time-consuming and onerous bureaucratic impositions on Council employees. These include many health & safety and risk assessment requirements, cumbersome recruitment, employment and staff management (including disciplinary) procedures, and an excessive preoccupation with micro-managing not just activity but also - I'm sad to say - inactivity at all levels. I acknowledge that there is little chance of reducing some of these burdens, because the fear of litigation that pervades government at all levels emerges as responsibilities you can't often dodge. However, as a Council employee I am horrified daily by the financial cost of them and the drain they impose on both what we do and the morale of the staff who do it (or, increasingly, and in part as a result, don't do it). There is certainly room for manoeuvre. Some button-pressers and lever-pullers will have to go as a result of purging these often pointless procedures, but some of the savings will allow you to create new jobs at the point of service delivery and in the administrative functions that directly support them, which are too often, and mistakenly, the first to go.

With regard to my speciality, rather than requiring all but two youth centres to close if community groups can't be found to run them within a few months, you should either fund and sustain a youth centre in each of the larger towns in the county (this would be fewer than half the number you run at present) or whole- or part-finance someone else to do it for you. These won't just be places where kids can go to play pool and table tennis, but centres offering a whole range of services for young people, so there will be cost savings and outcome benefits through integrating our work with partners'. It is already done in parts of the USA and the Scandinavian countries. This will give the opportunity to offer informal and developmental social education to those often most in need of it, and will reduce expenditure on more costly and long-term remedial work later on.


2. Do you agree with the proposal to freeze Council Tax?

No.

This decision is poor, unfair and shows weak leadership. The issue is not that poorer people can't afford a rise, but that richer people can. Buckinghamshire is one of the wealthiest counties in Britain. Sadly, it's also a good example of one of the most embarrassing things about Britain, which is the close and visible conjunction of private wealth and public squalor. Nothing shows this better than driving or (heaven help me) cycling along Burke's Road or Burgess Wood Road in Beaconsfield, crashing over potholes and slapdash road repairs past gated, 8-bedroom Hollywood mansions with four cars in the driveway, a nanny in every room and a gardener in every bed (or is it the other way round?).

Therefore you need to increase Council Tax on properties above a certain band. It will raise money, and you'll get away with it.

OK, higher income tax and reduced bankers' bonuses may or may not drive the wealthy abroad, but the citizens of Beaconsfield or Bledlow Ridge are hardly likely to move to Slough, are they? Nor are they likely to erode the Conservative Party's Ozymandian majority on the County Council, at least for the time being. So let them sell one of the Astons and, when they complain, make a gesture by fixing their roads first; but don't give in on the cash. Reinvest it in the more viable of the services you will otherwise be cutting. Who stands to lose? Maybe The Crazy Bear in Beaconsfield Old Town, BeetleBonnets Waxing Emporium and a few shoe shops, but that's about it.

If you really believe in 'the Big Society' - which is a noble idea with a longer heritage than many think, despite its present appearance of faddishness - then the fact that Buckinghamshire County Council raises more money locally and receives less in the form of government grants than almost any other should not just be celebrated, but extended.

Envy? Nah.

Here's your chance.

Gray Sky thinking

If what Andy Gray said off air was so heinous (rather than just rude, unpleasant and boorish - which it was) that it merits dismissal regardless of his eminent public position, then the fact that his private comments were later leaked is irrelevant and we should at all times and relentlessly pursue all who say (or believe) anything like it - and not just about women - right down to the man who wipes Murdoch's arse for him. (Spend a second or two to think of the possible consequences of that, by the way. The effects on the number of people hounded from employment, I mean; not those of wiping Murdoch's arse, though they are doubtless preferable to those of not wiping it.)

If, however, the problem is just that Gray's comments were, by whatever means, broadcast to the public, then those who believe this actually demean the case against his kind of casual sexism, since his only offence was being found out.

The trouble is, many of those I have heard on the radio tend to hold both views at the same time. I'm not sure that you can.

As for Murdoch and his companies, they are a morally neutral zone whose sole purpose is the generation of profit. We shouldn't forget that, less still congratulate Sky for their supposed backbone.

Great quotations, ancient and modern.

“From the crooked timber of humanity nothing straight was ever made” - that was Kant.

“Men make history but not in circumstances of their choosing” - that was Marx.

"The best is the enemy of the good" - that was Voltaire.

“We will make this the best place in the world for children and [sic] young people to grow up” - that was Balls.

Christmas newsletter

Well it’s time for our annual update on life chez nous and we hope you’re all keeping well, so...

MERRY XMAS EVERYONE, or should I say “Merry X-FactorMas” ;-)!!!!! (And here are the football results: ITV Blockbusters 20 million, Yuletide Logs nil LOL!) I just can’t believe it’s all come around so fast, and with the Easter eggs in the shops already it’s Go Go Go all the way!!!!!

But seriously we love this time of year. The pitter-patter of tiny reindeer feet, turkey and all the trimmings and snow on the way (so they say!)! And who says no one goes to church anymore? Our new vicar is really throwing himself into the spirit of things and attendances are up, what with the nightly topless carol concerts under our new Jack Vettriano-inspired nativity ceiling: OK, it’s not the Sistine Chapel but we like it, and that’s good enough for us - and I’m sure it’s good enough for Jack too, which is even more important after his Desert Island Discs fiasco ;-D!! So what’s Santa bringing you then?

It’s been a funny old year. On the plus side, Charlotte’s pregnant again and it beats me how she does it quite frankly. More of a bummer is that I only went and got diagnosed as having Chlamydia, didn’t I? :-( Sometimes I really wonder what the world’s coming to: I mean, you can’t even trust your own kids these days ;-P. But that aside we mustn’t grumble and are soldiering on.

Despite slipping on ice and breaking his leg in two places at about the 14km mark, Barry came a very creditable fourth in the school marathon last week, narrowly missing out on a medal position and anyway the first three were all Kenyans, which I thought was a bit odd at the time but didn’t want to make a fuss. I don’t know where that boy gets it from!

Georgie is still on her travels before going to Uni. Doesn’t time fly: she’ll have been gone twelve years on 7th January but it doesn’t seem a day since she left! She reports that the bungee jumping Down Under is definately not to be missed (do they ever do anything else down there, I ask?! Sure as hell can’t play cricket ;-D – mind you, as you may have read in the papers, she and a friend were arrested for jumping off ... the Sydney Harbour Bridge no less! Georgie got fingered by the good cop (fnaaar fnaaar lol, I said “LOL”!!!) and got away with a suspended sentence but her mate was less fortunate and ... wait for it! ... went inside for a long stretch!LOYAL ORANGE LODGE!!!!!!

Back here on planet Earth, work’s looking up at last, which is the only direction you can look if you’re flat on the floor already ;-(. Still, “if you can keep your head while all around are losing theirs” and all that! Fortunately in these tough times I have a caring employer and we’ve all been told to make sure that we take regular breaks away from the computer so I recently started going home in the evenings, which lets me snatch a bit of time for family bonding and even some to write this to you all! Word has it that we’ll get even more time at home in the near future! What’s that? “More kids on the way?” you ask? You cheeky bugger: slap for that man please! Speaking of futures, I remember my Uncle Podger telling me again and again when I was a kid that the future was in banking, but did I listen??? Ho hum!

Can’t complain though: the house is looking a treat with the decorations up and blinking for all the world to see (SSHHHH!!: no planning permission – WHOOPS!!!:-0 and we’re all as snug as a bug in a rug and waiting for the snow!

Do leave the turkey on a low grill or whatever and pop in for some jingle bells and egg nog on Christmas morning! We’d love to catch up with you and yours LoL! Know what I mean? Well DO. YOU. KNOW. WHAT. I. MEAN??? lol LOL!!!!!

... etc. etc. etc.