FOREIGN POLICY NOVEMBER 11, 2010
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This morning my wife and I listened to BBC Radio’s “Today” program—required fare for members of the media looking to tap the nation’s pulse via broadcasts from Prime Minister David Cameron and other senior politicians. Two historians, in what was clearly a pre-recorded program, were discussing Churchill's bleak mood after the fall of France and prior to his making one of his most historic speeches to the House of Commons in June 1940. The speech was rousing both for Britons and for Americans, to whom it was also addressed. We then heard a recording: ”If the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will say this was their finest hour.”
By this point my wife and I had realized that there was no unfolding national calamity. The BBC had not been blown off the air by a terrorist bomb or subject to a massive power outage in central London. In fact, BBC journalists had gone on a 48-hour strike, forcing many programs like “Today” off the air, to be replaced by prerecorded filler shows, like the one we were listening to.
The BBC has been severely hit by the U.K. government’s recently announced austerity program, which is making the biggest cuts to public spending here in 60 years. Along with “Today,” the BBC World Service—ironically, a last surviving vestige of Churchill's beloved empire—will also face cuts. The World Service has long been funded by the U.K. Foreign Office, and broadcasts in dozens of languages to millions of listeners across the globe. As its funding is withdrawn, the head of the World Service said this week, 300 journalists could lose their jobs, and several language services be cut.
The BBC is hardly alone in all this. Many government departments will be trimming budgets by 15 percent or more, with only education and health being ring fenced to some degree. This week there was also a strike by the London underground rail workers, and my part of town resembled a university campus, with shoals of cyclists weaving between traffic and pavements thronged with people marching to work.
This is not yet France, nor Greece. No barricades or Molotov cocktails here. But there is a weary mood of national belt-tightening and not a little uncertainty. The full impact of the cuts is not yet clear to most people, and the economic news is confusing to say the least. One of Britain’s largest banks, the Bank of Scotland, 84 percent of which has been owned by the British taxpayer since the banking crisis, just announced losses for the most recent quarter of more than 1 billion pounds, having reported profits of roughly the same amount for the previous quarter. The explanation for this strange reversal is frankly baffling to most folk, and doesn’t inspire confidence. RBS has blamed changes to the “fair value” of its debt, and stressed that highly volatile accounting charges are obscuring its underlying health. Whatever.
The bad news is spreading by word of mouth. A good friend who is head teacher at a state secondary school says she and her colleagues are convinced the government will soon announce a reduction in their state pension provision. Another acquaintance, a judge in Europe’s largest criminal court complex, in East London, confides that fellow judges are concerned the courts will not be able to function if they have to make the cuts in personnel set forth in the government’s austerity package.
Also this week, British parents learned that the cost of university education, which has been heavily state subsidized, could triple within three years, while new banking requirements for larger down payments by first time homebuyers will also mean our educated offspring, like many of their American counterparts, may be living at home longer, as they work to pay off student loans. This week, thousands of students and teachers marched to protest education cuts, clashing with police outside conservative party headquarters near the Houses of Parliament.
Even in Downing Street, thrift is the order of the day. An intimate friend of the prime minister’s wife tells us that while her husband was away, Samantha Cameron recently entertained some women at the Downing street flat with a home cooked curry, and discussed ways in which she wanted to cut back, including making less use of her official drivers.
We have of course been here before, and several times. I recall doing my school homework by candlelight in the 1970’s, during the three day workweek, with attendant power cuts, brought in by the then Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath in his battles with striking miners and other unions.
After World War II, Britain had universal rationing and the nation really did pull together, rich and poor alike, or so our collective memory would have it. Today, I suspect, is different in two ways: Everyone knows cuts will have to be made but many are suspicious that they will not be borne equally. And, looking back—as far back even as Churchill's era—most here recall a history marked by steady increases in prosperity for most of the population. Very few now are confident in predicting that for their children's future.
But hardship is relative. I met up with an Athens-based Greek friend recently for lunch (no food rationing here yet). A shrewd and wealthy businessman who went to school here in London and later to Harvard, he told me Athens is only getting worse. It isn’t just rubbish not being collected and transit strikes. There is, he claimed, a growing criminal underworld feeding on the economic crisis there. He was not going to sell his parents flat in London, but keep it as a bolthole in case he needed to bring his wife and children there for safety reasons. Putting Britain’s troubles into perspective, it became clear that, for him at least, London is still a haven.
5 comments
Anyone who was around in the early nineteen-eighties, during the initial onslaught of Thatcherism, will suspect two things: that Conservative cuts are highly unlikely to be 'borne equally'; and that we probably have a few riotous years ahead of us. The highlight of the eighties was the miners' strike of 1984, the culmination of which was a pitched battle between miners and police at a place called Orgreave. The miners have, of course, since been abolished, and it's not clear who will take their place this time around. But the miners' strike (unlike, briefly, the poll tax riots of 1990) never really affected London. Not to worry, then. The city will almost certainly remain a viable bolt-hole for wealthy foreigners. Real estate prices are much higher than in the eighties or nineties. And the Con-Lib government is actively trying to 'cleanse' the poor from the central zone by taking away housing subsidies.
- roryharden
November 11, 2010 at 6:26am
Cuts in the BBC World Service? Never fear. Al-Jazeera will still be there to carry the torch of anti-Israel propaganda.
- mgorvine
November 11, 2010 at 12:33pm
"First They Came for the Students, Then They Came for the BBC" Are we supposed to weep because the self righteous and antisemitic BBC will have less money?
- jdyer
November 11, 2010 at 5:14pm
"First They Came for the Students, Then They Came for the BBC" Are we supposed to weep because the self righteous and antisemitic BBC will have less money?
- jdyer
November 11, 2010 at 5:14pm
Notice the attacks on Sharon even while he is still in a coma. Compare this to their treatment of Arafat at the time of his death. “Comatose Ariel Sharon 'could be home in days'” “Mr Sharon was born in Palestine in 1928, when it was under British administration Continue reading the main story Related storiesProfile: Ariel SharonComatose Sharon's influence still feltAriel Sharon reaches 80 in coma The family of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is preparing to bring him home from hospital "within days", Israeli sources say. The 82-year-old has been in a coma since 2006, when he suffered a massive stroke. Sources told the BBC he could be moved to his farm in the Negev "as early as Friday" from his hospital in Tel Aviv. Nicknamed "the bulldozer", the former general was seen as a strong leader by Israelis, but reviled by Palestinians. 'Trial basis' Last month, medics at Sheba Medical Centre in Tel Aviv said the former leader remained in a vegetative state but that his condition was stable. "He does have periods of sleep and in the daytime he opens his eyes. Sometimes the family believes there is recognition," his long-time personal physician and friend Dr Shlomo Segev told the BBC. The hospital has confirmed that it is making arrangements to move Mr Sharon to his beloved farm - Sycamore Ranch - in southern Israel, where his late wife is buried. "Initially, Mr Sharon will go for several holidays," it said in a statement earlier this week. Short visits would be supervised by hospital staff, to make sure that private carers hired by the family were able to keep him in a stable condition, the statement said. "These attempts... will pave the way for his full return home to his family and the environment he loved so much," it added. Mr Sharon was elected prime minister in 2001, pledging to achieve "security and true peace". He was a keen promoter of the expansion of the state and initiated the construction of the security barrier around the West Bank. But despite fierce opposition in Israel, he ordered Jewish settlers to leave Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank. As defence minister, Mr Sharon masterminded Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. During the invasion, Lebanese Christian militiamen allied to Israel massacred hundreds of Palestinians.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11736948?print=true Here is the saintly Arafat. The fact that he masterminded hundreds of bloody murders of children, women and old people goes unmentioned. “Tributes to Arafat led by Blair” “Prime Minister Tony Blair has led UK tributes to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in the early hours of Thursday in a French hospital. Giving his condolences to Mr Arafat's family, the prime minister renewed his commitment to peace in the Middle East. "President Arafat came to symbolise the Palestinian national movement," he said in a statement. Conservative leader Michael Howard said: "There will be a deep sense of loss among the Palestinian people." Mr Arafat, 75, had been in a coma since 3 November and on Tuesday suffered a brain haemorrhage. In his final hours, he had brain damage and kidney and liver failure. It has not been made clear what illness the Palestinian leader was suffering from, although doctors ruled out cancer and poisoning. 'International awareness' Jack Straw said it would be "hard to imagine the Middle East without" Mr Arafat. He said: "I want to express my deep sympathy and condolences to the Palestinian people on the death of Yasser Arafat." He said the Palestinian president had "created an international awareness" of the plight of his people and was a "towering figure" in the Arab world. And he made clear the British Government would work with Mr Arafat's successor. The foreign secretary said he would be attending Mr Arafat's funeral on behalf of the British Government. Mr Blair said: "President Arafat... won the Nobel peace prize in 1994 jointly with Yitzhak Rabin in recognition of their efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. "He led his people to an historic acceptance of the need for a two-state solution. "That goal of a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel is one that we must continue to work tirelessly to achieve. Peace in the Middle East must be the international community's highest priority. "We will do whatever we can, working with the US and the EU to help the parties reach a fair and durable settlement." Mr Howard said that Mr Arafat had "sought to stand up for [Palestinians'] interests". "But will be for history to judge whether the failure to achieve a Palestinian state existing alongside Israel... was the failure of circumstance or of will," Mr Howard added. 'Opportunity' Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said Mr Arafat had been "a remarkable figure on the international stage for decades and helped achieve great strides for the Palestinian cause". But he added: "History will judge it as tragic that he was unable or unwilling to go the extra mile at a crucial time. "It is to be hoped that a new generation of leaders can now seriously advance the Middle East peace process." Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the "opportunity has got to be taken" by the international community "to press ahead to try and reach some settlement". He added: "For the last two years both Israel and the US have refused to deal with Arafat. "To a large extent he has suffered political impotence, and that has inevitably had consequences for the extent to which the Palestinian cause has been seen to be of importance."” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4001715.stm As far as I am concerned they can take all their money and shut this obscenity down for good.
- jdyer
November 11, 2010 at 5:29pm