The Obscurer

I didn’t get that worked up at first when I heard the allegation that Bush and Blair had discussed bombing Aljazeera. First, the story broke at The Mirror, which is hardly my most trusted news source. Secondly, it was the sort of thing that I expected to be flatly denied by the governments involved and for the story to just fizzle out (although I thought much same about the Andrew Gilligan / “sexing up” report, which shows how much I know).

But then things got a bit interesting. Frank Gaffney of The Center for Security Policy, and someone with strong links to the Bush administration, went on Newsnight and said that he was “not sure it is outrageous” to attack Aljazeera, that it is “appropriate to talk about what you do to neutralise” them and that they are “fair game” to be dealt with by “bombs or other means”. Then as a response to this ultimate story of journalistic freedom (ie. the freedom not to be blown up) it was revealed that two civil servants had been charged and journalists threatened with the Official Secrets Act if they revealed the contents of the memo detailing the conversation (Richard Norton-Taylor of The Guardian told Newsnight it is the first time the government has threatened him with the act, rather than a civil injunction) which inevitably leads one to think there must be some truth in the story, and indeed that there may be further revelations to come.

The White House of course has denied the story as “outlandish”, but unfortunately it isn’t all that bizarre an idea. Aljazeera offices have been hit my US missiles in Iraq and Afghanistan (although it is claimed accidentally), and during the war in Kosovo NATO deliberately attacked the (albeit state controlled) Serbian TV station.

There are though “two” Aljazeeras; there is the terrorists’ friend that promotes al-Qaeda though its pro-jihadist propaganda, and then there is the fiercely independent news organisation which is one of the few outlets for free speech in the middle east. I tend to the latter view; I have read their English website which on the whole seems fairly balanced (in particular I remember a fine opinion piece strongly critical of the London bombings, and indeed terrorism in general). No doubt they will report certain stories in a manner that I may balk at, but I could say the same about Fox News (Tony Parsons compared the two news organisations when discussing two films, Outfoxed about Fox, and Control Room concerning Aljazeera; “On one side,” he said, “you have these crazed religious fundamentalists and on the other side you have al-Jazeera”).

There will be those who say Aljazeera is a legitimate target as it issues al-Qaeda propaganda, and I am not going to “sign off” everything they have broadcast; but the main complaint, that they show videos of Bin Laden and associates in their cavernous hideaways is a curious one when those same videos are subsequently re-shown across the rest of the world’s media. In this instance Aljazeera is just Bin Laden’s chosen outlet; I doubt CNN, Sky or anyone else would just bin the recordings if they were the ones to receive them. As for broadcasting propaganda, from the other side of the fence the whole idea of news organisations embedding journalists with coalition forces during the Iraq war could well look like an example of colluding with one side against the other, and perhaps it is, while even to my British eyes the editorialising and commentary you often see on American news programmes can be jarring, and can have the look and feel of propaganda; does this make western news organisations legitimate targets?

If the Mirror’s allegations are true then I do think it is disgraceful, but perhaps not too surprising. There is a crevasse between what the Bush administration says and does. They speak at times as if they alone understand freedom, as if they have a monopoly on liberty; but in abandoning the norms of due legal process, through their ambivalence towards torture, and in now reportedly considering literally attacking free speech, it is not freedom and liberty as I understand the terms.

PostScript: I would have written this post earlier and so given the vague impression of being a topical blogger; but I couldn’t find the time yesterday during the day, and after a bottle of Guinness Original (not draught!) in the evening, I couldn’t be arsed. Oh well, perhaps next time.

When people moan about their council tax, the usual complaint goes something like “£1000 a year for emptying my fucking bins”, as if that is the only function the local authorities perform. Expect more of these comments with the annual warning that council tax is expected to rise sharply next year.

But I feel sorry for councils (and incidentally, no, I don’t work for one). They have to take responsibility for doing numerous jobs that need to be done, even though some people would rather they were not done at all (and which they certainly don’t want to pay for). That is a fairly thankless task. Take social services; many resent paying council tax for a service that sticks its nannying nose into other peoples’ business, and which helps people who can’t be bothered to help themselves. Why should the state assist authors of their own destruction such as gym-slip mums and their many squealing offspring when we don’t receive (or need) such help? If social services must exist then let it be a shoestring, skeleton sort of organisation, receiving just the minimum funding from local authority revenue. But then we hear of a horror story, such as the case of Victoria Climbie, and we suddenly expect social services to do anything and everything, to have limitless resources and to spare no effort in saving an innocent and deserving life.

And it seems to be getting worse. Every bright idea that central government comes up with appears to involve the local council doing the actual running of the scheme, and all without any extra funding. While power and decision making get more centralised, the responsibility for enacting these decisions is dumped at the door of local government. And so it goes on. Are the police too busy to respond to calls regarding noise nuisance? Well, rather than increase police resources let’s just move responsibility for envirionmental health onto the council. These new licensing laws could mean a lot of extra work for the magistrates’ courts to deal with; why not shift the duty onto the town hall mandarins? The examples are so numerous that I can’t remember them all now; phrases like “new legislation means that responsibility for enforcement now lies with the local authority” are issued so often that I barely notice.

Our council tax is paying for a lot more than just our bins being emptied, and it is having to pay for still more with each new central government decree; ironic, then, that increasingly the local council itself is being used as the dustbin for the country, taking on all the roles that no one else can be bothered with anymore.

So, before we really got reacquainted, David Blunkett has had to resign again. I can’t say I have been following the to-ings and fro-ings of this one very closely, so I can’t offer an opinion on whether his going is justified; although it is probably common sense. The media had clearly scented blood and just weren’t going to let it lie, and I had the feeling that there would be a drip-drip of further stories being released, either real or imagined, until he finally went. Better to spare us all and just go early.

But why did I assume there would be further revelations in the press? Why didn’t I just think that what has been revealed so far would be the end of it, and that having ridden the storm Blunkett would be allowed to continue in his job?

Perhaps because whenever the media do scent blood it always seems that more and more stories do come out until the situation is resolved in the inevitable way. Has there ever been a case where the press have got themselves into a feeding frenzy over a politician, continually featured him or her on their front pages, detailed further twists and turns in the tale, only for the story itself to blow itself out without a sacking or resignation?

I can’t think of one. There always seems an endless stream of scandals once a politician’s credit has been used up and the press decide to bring someone down; which makes you wonder what the other politicians are up to, the ones the media choose not to write about…until perhaps they feel it is worth their while.

“We are the change makers”, thundered Tony Blair last week, giving it the big “I am” before the Labour Party conference. A very odd sounding phrase, I thought, but one that got me thinking about change, and our attitudes towards change.

If you were to take a look at our common sayings and phrases then change is universally regarded as being positive; it “will do you good”, it is “as good as a rest”. Certainly, I can’t think of a phrase along the lines of “change will make you look like a right twat when you return to work after a fortnight off”. But in real life change is not always seen in such rosy terms; how often, for example, do we hear teachers complain that what the profession needs most of all is a period of stability after endless reforms?

I imagine that it was a recognition of such everyday resistance to change (along with a desire to make a shed load of money) that led Spencer Johnson to write Who Moved My Cheese?, a management parable of how to deal with change in the workplace. Now I haven’t read the book, so I may be off course here, but I know people who have, and opinion seems sharply divided on its merits. The partners at the firm where my friend works think it is a great book, so much so that they bought a copy each for all their staff. The staff think it is a patronising load of shite, and if they are to be believed than I can see why. The moral of Who Moved My Cheese? seems to be that change is always for the good, always to be welcomed, it cannot be avoided, so just get on with it and do as you are told (as I say, I haven’t read it myself, so if I have misunderstood its message then I am happy to be corrected).

Why such a divergence of opinion about the book, and indeed about change in the workplace in general? I suppose it depends on your position within the firm. At work I am far more of a change taker than a change maker. I wouldn’t say that my colleagues and I are resistant to change, indeed we will often suggest changes and improvements to our line managers; it is just that we are rarely listened to. Usually the changes that we do have to deal with are top-down, made by people who have never done our job, and who often appear to be making change for change’s sake; indeed at times it seems as if some peoples’ jobs depend upon tinkering with the parts of the system that appear to be working just fine, while leaving the myriad problems in place. Moreover, somethimes what the change makers announce as a vital new development for the business is recognised by the rest of us as a way of just reverting to how things used to be done 5 years ago; and for those with longer memories, to that way things were done 5 years before that.

What of the change makers themselves? Well, often (although by no means exclusively) their position in a firm is a purely transitory one; perhaps they don’t hang around long enough to develop the same cynicism towards change. They may well be on a promotion fast track, barely in one job for any length of time before they are moved on further up the corporate ladder and away from the consequences of their actions. They may be parachuted in from a private equity company to make swift, short-term changes before they sell up and move on. Or they may be from a management consultancy, whose only responsibility at times can appear to be to make changes, get paid and then bugger off; they don’t seem to have any obvious incentive or vested interest in actually improving their clients’ business. Who do these management consultants actually consult with anyway? They have never consulted me; we just get their reforms handed to us as a fait accompli. Has a consultant ever come into a company and said, “D’you know what, things here are working really well, we can’t improve on your current system. Goodbye”. I very much doubt it; they have to get paid for doing something, so they will move things around a bit, even if all they actually do is to change things back to the way they were before the last load of management consultants got called in. It is a bit like the interior designers on Changing Rooms; if they see an old Georgian fireplace in a room they feel the need to cover it up, but if the fireplace is already covered up they just have to dig it out and restore it. There may be some very good management consultants knocking around, but I haven’t yet knowingly stumbled upon one.

And so back to Blair; how does he fit into this pattern? He has always been fascinated by his place in history, and his renewed zeal is perhaps because he knows he is running out of time, and that his current spot in the history books is deep down in a lengthy chapter entitled Iraq-The Quagmire. So with extra verve he wants to make reforms, to be the change maker; but rather like the transitory manager he knows full well that he will be off in a couple of years time, and that if things do go tits-up they will likely land on Gordon Brown’s toes. No wonder he wants to push for change, while Brown is considered the more cautious; Blair is acting like a bad management consultant.

But at least we know that Blair will soon be on his way; and that is at least one change that I am looking forward to.