No. Just No.

Today in The Guardian there is a piece about possible changes to entry requirements for the US.  Apparently, US authorities are considering compelling foreigners to hand over their social media passwords under a new ‘extreme vetting’ policy.  Non-US citizens could be compelled to give access to devices and personal data or risk being denied entry.  Click on the link above for further details.  It is quite legally technical.

I am more interested in the fact that this is even a conversation.  Even being considered.  If 'extreme vetting' begins to take hold, we will have the US denying entry to foreigners based on their digital presence.  We will have China which still censors/refuses so much internet content.  And we will have Russia where free speech is ever more dangerous.  What an example from the three biggest nations on the planet.  To say nothing of what goes on everywhere else or what other restrictions the Americans,Chinese and Russians are enforcing.

So how might this work for travel to America?  The article talks about the high level of discretion in the hands of border staff.  So will it just be a racist policy?  They will automatically ask to see your phone or laptop if you are black, Muslim etc.  Or will there be agents who pick on women?  And what about children - whose lives are conducted online far more than most of their parents?  Most under eighteens entering the States are on holiday.  Clutching their phones, tablets, laptops.

The process to enter the US is already tedious, even if you travel regularly.  They surely cannot inspect everyone’s devices as well?  And if, fearing refusal of entry, you meekly hand over your phone and show them your Facebook page or your Twitter feed, will it be based on what is on your timeline at that moment or will they trawl everything?  Would they keep lists of anti-Trump hashtags to use as markers?  Or lists of naughty bloggers (!)?

Other governments need to forcefully protest this.  The fact the Trump administration believes there is even a consideration for this to happen is extremely disturbing.

We and preceding generations have fought for freedom of speech.  Western governments have claimed for decades to be doing what they do national security-wise to protect our freedoms and our democracy (let's not get into that now.  Whole other nightmare).  

Where the US leads, we absolutely must not follow.  

Doing the Numbers

Here in the UK, we do not live in a poor country.  We have infrastructure, facilities, services.  We can cope if there is a huge flood or some other disaster.  (Granted we don't have - so far - natural disasters on the scale dealt with by many countries but you know what I mean.)

Yet our government consistently tells us that there is no more money for the National Health Service, for education, for decent pensions.  Services like provision of care for the elderly or mentally ill are at crisis point.  But we have money for defence spending, for high speed trains to tear up the countryside, for the Royal Family.

How have we reached a point where we willingly accept that this is how things are?  Is it because once ministers and the media start talking in amounts by the million, it is so far-fetched that none of us can relate to the figures being bandied about?

My son regularly reports the price of expensive footballers to me.  He talks of figures in the tens of millions as if it is normal to pay that for the services of one, easily-injured human being.  And he does so because it is normal to him.  He cannot relate to the figures he is being given.

Maybe we need to start reporting what schools and hospitals need in terms which modern society can understand.  Here are a few examples I have come up with:

1)  If you Google 'how does it cost to build a new hospital in the UK', you get an estimate of around £90 million.  Last year, Manchester United paid just over £15 million for Paul Pogba.  Or, on a list of the top twenty highest paid footballers in the world, Ronaldo earned approximately £80 million in 2014 alone.

6 x Pogba's fee = hospital.

1 x Ronaldo's 2014 = nearly a whole hospital.  If that was 2014, he will have made at least £50 million a year since then, presumably (see how easy it is to bandy these numbers about?).

2)  Ed Sheehan is currently estimated to be worth around £50 million.  And in 2016, despite having the year off, the band One Direction made £89.9 million.

2 x Ed Sheeran = 1 hospital 

or

1 x One Direction's 2016 = 1 hospital

Now, if you are in demand and you work hard, of course you are entitled to your earnings, however madly out of proportion they might be.  I am not suggesting Ed should cash it all in and buy half a hospital or the One Direction boys should club together to do likewise.  These and the football numbers are just 'fun' examples.

Except, it is not fun.  Because we are being conditioned into thinking our country cannot afford the basics that such a developed country should be providing for its citizens.  And we are also being conditioned to believe it is acceptable for relatively few people to have immense amounts of wealth.  

This is not about communism, about taking away from those who have earnt or inherited (although taxes on the so-called super rich should definitely be increased).  It is about recognising the stupidity of accepting sub-standard services for the majority whilst reading - for entertainment - about huge sums of money being spent on sport, fashion, yachts, homes.  Even films are mainly spoken of in 'financials'.  How many millions they cost to make and how many they have recouped.  (£876.3 million globally for the new Beauty and the Beast apparently...)

Last July, the UK parliament voted to renew the Trident nuclear deterrent at a cost of £31 billion.  And 'just in case', the government has set aside another £10 billion in case of extra costs or over spending.  

That is around 344 hospitals for the budget, let alone the 'extra' £10 billion.  

Or how about this:

Research conducted by the Alzheimer's Society in 2014 for its report Dementia UK: Update shows that there would be 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK by 2015. This will cost the UK £26 billion a year.

Two-thirds (£17.4 billion) of the cost of dementia is paid by people with dementia and their families, either in unpaid care (£11.6 billion) or in paying for private social care. This is in contrast to other conditions, such as heart disease and cancer, where the NHS provides care that is free at the point of use.  (source: Alzheimer's Society)

Now there are some numbers to think about.

No Minister

It is a strange week to be a UK blogger with pretensions to comment on current affairs.  There has been a terrorist attack in London and this Wednesday the process for Brexit will actually start.  I send all love and sympathy to those affected by the attack last week.  Any lives lost is too many.  However, I suppose we should be very thankful that it is twelve years since a major attack succeeded and very grateful for the professionalism and sacrifice of those who dealt with the events of last week.

And in a way that links to my thoughts about the Brexit 'triggering'.  I did not vote for Brexit and I greatly resent that such a momentous, complex decision has been made on the basis of one vote.  However, since our government are determined to stand by that one (very close) vote and exit the EU, I believe we now have to fight for the details of that exit.  

The British civil service is one of the major factors which has kept our country from stumbling into extremism.  With a big enough mandate, the elected government can push through what it wants in Parliament - as long as it keeps its own MPs happy.  But the detail of how things are actually implemented and what they mean further down the 'food chain' is very much influenced by what ministers are told is possible or by how civil servants interpret the demands of ministers.

Yes Minister, the 1980s sitcom about the civil service, runs very close to the bone.  (Sort of how I might prefer my husband think it was his idea to book a holiday - but on a much grander scale!)

I do not doubt there are civil servants at all levels who supported Brexit.  I should imagine dealing with EU law and institutions is very frustrating for a start.  And I myself did not vote Remain because I think the EU is perfect.  Far from it.  But I would have preferred to be working for change from within the grouping.  The loss of so many protections and freedoms in order to be free of bureaucracy was, in my opinion, too high a price to pay.  Especially for future generations.

The close protection officers who whisked Theresa May out of Parliament last week would have done so whoever was Prime Minister.  Our security services continue to perform their functions whichever party is in power.  In the same way, other civil servants keep government ticking over through elections, reshuffles, etc.  A short while ago, one of the newspapers saw fit to publish outlines of the plans for when the Queen dies.  They are drawn up according to past history and long experience.  To be implemented by the occupants of ministerial offices, regardless of party loyalties.

And now we desperately need our civil service to step up for the Brexit negotiations.  It is their job to be politically neutral and to do the best for our country.  Ministers are too driven by the big pictures, by election results, by social media.  What we need for the next two years is people who will focus not on their own concerns but on what is best for our future.  They may not have long experience of this issue.  There was apparently very little contingency work done before the vote.  But they do know how to get things done despite the politicos.

Some commentators have said the gates through which the attacker arrived at Parliament last week were a security weak spot.  In part because ministers and members insisted on to being able to get through quickly by car. 

The government's majority in Parliament means that 'No Minister' needs to be heard far more often and more firmly as we enter these talks.  Or who knows what will be let through in the interests of government supporters.  

Ninety Years of No Change

This weekend, Chuck Berry died at the age of ninety.  His music was not my era but of course we all generally know who he was and have danced to his music.  Without his emergence, popular music ever since would have been very different.  And no matter someone is very old when they die, their loss is deeply felt by their family and friends.

I must admit, I actually had no idea he was still alive.  The grand age of ninety is still quite rare even in these days of life-extending medicines and treatments.  But if you think about what has happened in the world since Chuck Berry was born in 1926, the mind truly does boggle.  (His own life was quite a rollercoaster too but that is another story.)

In 1926, it was less than ten years since the Great War (they didn't know it was the First World War, of course).  The Wall Street Crash and the Depression had not happened.  The Second World War was yet to come.  To say nothing of the Cold War, the end of the Cold War and everything in between and after those.  This is not the place for a massive timeline.  But if we think about technology - few phones, no television, primitive radio and don't even think about computers and all they have brought to the world - we can see just a tiny bit of what has changed so dramatically in less than a century.

And yet.  Once again in this last week, we are being told of catastrophic famine in African countries.  The Middle East is a battleground.  Russia is showing signs of aggression and empire building.  Resources are very definitely not shared equally.  Millions still live in relatively the same conditions as their 1926 ancestors and millions have little expectation of living anywhere near as long as Chuck Berry did.

For example, according to Oxfam:

Just 62 people, 53 of them men, own as much wealth as the poorest half of the entire world population - or 3.6 billion people - according to a report released by anti-poverty charity Oxfam. And the richest 1 percent own more than the other 99 percent put together.17 Jan 2016

This was the situation in 2015.  I can't imagine it has changed much.  Click here for the list, if you can face looking at it.  It is depressing reading.

Isn't it a terrible indictment of our world that actually so little of real importance has changed in ninety years?  Food, health, shelter and peace for all.  Fairly fundamental requirements for a race, wouldn't you say?  But precious little chance of any of them being achieved across the board in the near future.  We can only guess at the state of the world in another ninety years time but humans'  track record so far is appalling.

By the way, the President of the USA in 1926, Calvin Coolidge, seems to have been a tad more sensible than today's incumbent (not difficult but whatever).  He wrote:

The words of a President have an enormous weight and 

ought not to be used indiscriminately.

Imagine his horror at the tweetings of Trump....

Not Endangered Enough

This weekend, there was a furore over remarks made by John Allan, the chairman of Tesco - apparently the UK's biggest retailer.  At an event aimed at encouraging more women and ethnic minorities into the UK's boardrooms, he apparently said 

“For a thousand years, men have got most of these jobs, the pendulum has swung very significantly the other way now and will do for the foreseeable future. If you are a white male, tough – you are an endangered species and you are going to have to work twice as hard.”

The headlines which were drawn from this were 'Tesco Chairman says white men are an endangered species in the boardroom'.  Accompanying reports construed the remarks as complaints.  From a white man who is one of twelve Tesco board members - nine of whom are white men.  Mr Allan's reposte to the criticism was that in the context of his speech - to an audience he was trying to encourage to aim for board level - he was actually supporting women and ethnic minorities.

What puzzles me, though, is how in 2017, we are only just finding white men in board rooms to be an endangered species.  It is almost a century since women got the vote.  It is over forty years since feminism really began to ramp up the pressure.  And yet at the UK's biggest retailer, there are still only three women board members - despite what must be a huge female clientele.

Why are we not angrier?  Why are white men only now endangered?  Why are they, well, not extinct but still appallingly dominant?  And as for ethnic minority representation...  

It is over twenty years since I started a job at the House of Commons.  I worked for one of just sixty female MPs.  It was a rampantly male environment, despite the departure of Thatcher only four years before I arrived.  It is nearly twenty years since I worked for a very well known investment bank.  Which still has not had a female leader, to my knowledge.  We currently have only our second female Prime Minister.  Not exactly vocal about women's place in the world though, is she?

I have written before of the need to stay united.  The Women's March must not be a moment.  It must be the start of something new.  We should be furious about wages and job prospects as well as about our right to abortion, contraception, personal safety.  Until women have more political and financial power, campaigns for other rights will revolve around trying to convince white men to do what we want, behave how we want.

Our ancestors, near and far, would be horrified at the lack of progress.  

Mr Allan was, it seems to me, trying to make a poor joke about how men should be worried for their positions in the coming years.  Actually, the issue is how this this 'joke' is still even relevant when it comes to numbers and representation.  Thanks to his own high profile, he has (unwittingly) called attention to the disgrace of the last hundred years.  How did it come to 2017 and men are only just endangered in the boardroom...

Ageism and the Age of Racism

I am coming to the end of a fortnight with my mother in law.  I will not bore you with the details - believe me, we would be here a while - but it has certainly focussed my mind on the many issues with how we are dealing with our ageing population.

Last week, we were told that the average life expectancy in the developed world will soon be ninety.  Whilst this is amazing, it brings with it a whole new raft of problems.  When I was sixteen and studying A Level Economics, I remember being told that in thirty years time, we would have all sorts of issues with not enough revenue or working-age people, pension deficits, etc.  And here we are in the midst of what was clearly so predictable that our education system was teaching it as fact.

Why are we not putting more energy and resources into dealing with this problem?  Besides it, immigration pales into insignificance as a 'problem'.  By the time my kids are their dotage (unless Trump has blown us all to kingdom come by then), life expectancy may well be nearing a hundred for the lucky majority.  Who will look after them?  Robots?

We have a responsibility to those who have worked and put into the system so far.  And we have a responsibility to future generations.  Our care system is broken.  Our precious National Health Service is at breaking point.  Despite the best efforts of very devoted staff.  Despite quite frankly a huge number of hard working immigrants who keep it from grinding to a halt altogether.

None of the people who voted for Brexit in order to get rid of immigrants seem to have thought about the many people who undoubtedly keep their lives running at the moment.  They certainly have not joined the dots to think about the future.  This is not just happening in the UK either.  The part of the world which has been clever enough to develop medicines and technology with its disproportionate wealth is now trying to pull up the drawbridge to those who provide the nuts and bolts of its privileged existence.  It's not just health. As another example, on a recent UK hotel break I worked out that if only the British-origin staff were available, there would be just one waiter, a maintenance man and a deputy manager from what I could see and hear of the staff and their accents.  Of course, if Trump, Le Pen and others have their way, we will not be able to welcome people from other countries to help us plug these gaps.  

Mind you, if you look at Nazi history, it was a relatively short step from restricting the Jews and others to 'solving the Problem' with killings.  Maybe we should also be worrying about the threat of ageism as well as the rampant racism and sexism from these people.  

Marketing The Future

I took the above photo in a branch of Claire's Accessories last week.  [Bless Claire's for the service it provides to tweenies and teenagers everywhere.  All their favourite tat under one convenient roof.  And at twice the price of the nearby market stalls.]

The picture shows the cover of a notebook but there was a whole range of stationery and accessories bearing the same slogan.  And I was terribly struck by the juxtaposition of this marketing with the likely future facing the shop's target market.

British children are going to lose their rights as European citizens.  They may still Dress Italian but it will cost more to buy the stuff or to visit Italy.  To say nothing of the passport queue when they reach their destination, while the rest of Europe streams through to claim their baggage and hire their cars.

Speak French?  Well, my son has to choose GCSE options shortly.  I am encouraging the taking of a language but I begin to wonder whether Chinese or Russian might not be of more use - not that our school can offer either.  None of our children will have an automatic right to work in France, holidays there will be more expensive and if our government is to be believed (hhhmm), we will be striking deals with India, China, anywhere but Europe.

And Dream American?  They have spent their childhoods bombarded with American TV programmes and You Tube 'stars'.  But now they are being daily faced with Trump and all he has brought (!) to the world.  They see and hear the news.  (Real news, incidentally.)  My children also saw the downside of the American Dream in California last year.  Streets and streets of homeless people living in tents in San Diego.  The already tight security at the Tijuana Mexican-American border.  The sleazier side of LA.  And that was before Trump even took over.

So what should we be telling our children?  How should this marketing look, if we really have to have these sorts of slogans for children to aspire to?

Dress How You Like

Because It Is No-One Else's Business and You Don't Need to Look the Same as Everyone Else.

Speak Up For People Who Cannot Speak For Themselves

And Speak Kindly to Everyone

Dream Of A World Where Democracy Actually Works

And Where Everyone has An Equal Share of Our Planet's Resources

Not exactly catchy but far more realistic, don't you think?  I will be contacting Claire's forthwith...

[P.S.  I find that more and more I am blogging about current and possible future events.  I do still very much work on genealogy and family history.  However, I feel very strongly that our descendants' futures are now in the balance in a way which we have not seen for decades.  And sacrifices made by our ancestors are going to be torn up if we are not careful.]

No Time for Melt Downs

Last night, I had just sat down to watch the new BBC series SS:GB when I heard weeping from upstairs.  Somehow, in the space of twenty minutes, my daughter had worked herself into a complete meltdown about all manner of 'what if' scenarios.  Any of us dying or having accidents, grandparents dying, losing all our money, flooding, something happening to the dog.  Failure at SATs (don' get me started).  And Donald Trump starting World War Three.

Needless to say, I haven't yet managed to watch SS:GB.  But I was struck by the irony of dealing with such a stream of nameless but very real worries when I was supposed to watching a dramatisation of one of the ultimate 'what if's' of recent history.  What if the Germans had won World War Two?  According to this series, the British lost the Battle of Britain and things go from there - that much I saw.  Terrifying as we did come very close to this being the case.

Matt Haig, an amazing writer who I follow on Twitter, recently commented that his day now consisted of regular breaks to stop and worry about racism.  And I know what he means.  Despite the fact that in our day to day lives, we can do nothing to influence world politics, there is still a sense of worry hanging in the air.  What hideous thing will happen next?  What will the next newsflash bring?

I have been listening on Audible this week to The Romanovs by Simon Sebag-Montefiore (a history of the imperial family of Russia).  I have just reached the last chapters - an assessment of Russia's part in the World War One .  I did 'Causes of the First World War' at A Level.  It is an unbelievably complicated subject for historians and it has been fascinating to hear it from a Russian point of view.  But I have really had to stop myself from going into my own private meltdown.  So much of it still resonates today.  The machinations.  The awful influence of strange and difficult personalities.  The decades-long slide into war.  The national aims of the countries.

We 'ordinaries' are deluged with more information than our counterparts had a hundred years ago.  About people, organisations and possible outcomes.  There is a lot we still don't know but we are definitely exposed to more.  

We must try not to melt down in the face of this.  Yes, it is important to live our lives as best we can and to enjoy every day.  No, we don't know what will happen.  But we do need to use the resources available to make our views known.  All nations are still plagued with elites who wish to control our destinies.  History has many examples of ordinaries being used as cannon fodder.  Let's not let our generation or our children join that list.

Share, share, share

So what to write about in the face of seemingly endless new political crises?  And endless awards ceremonies too.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good look at the frocks for the Oscars but the build-up to that seems to be longer every year.  As do the arguments over the bias/winners/losers/participants.

Cinema is something I love.  One of the few things to survive parenthood too.  Initially, the cinema seemed a dreadful luxury - paying a sitter to go and see a film cost more than the actual tickets.  But then one of my pre-natal buddies and I struck a deal.  Take out membership of the local independent cinema (it serves alcohol - what's not to love).  Make a pact to go whenever possible.  All George Clooney and Brad Pitt films would be seen, regardless of reviews - this condition has since been amended to include Jamie Dornan and Ryan Gosling.

Once the children were old enough to go to the cinema, it was (eventually) bliss.  There were a few false starts ('Oh no! Dark, Mummy!  Really dark!').  But mainly, film has been something to share with both of them.  New films to look forward to.  Details to pick over afterwards.  (Although I have been known to nap during some of the more obscure Disney epics.)

And don't we all need things to bond over?  Whether it be a viral video from YouTube, a set of jokes, a book or a shared meal, film or outing.  I do always wonder what it must have been like in, say, Regency times.  when news travelled so slowly and books were not easy to come by.  I always love the Back In Time programmes which explore ordinary life in different ages.  I have posted about them before, in fact.

However, in these darkening times, commonalities are more important than ever.  The more people who see, for example, the US Saturday Night Live sketches of Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, the better.  Ridicule is a powerful weapon.  On Twitter, Right wing commentators are saying that such satire is simply being performed because 'the liberals' are angry at having lost the election.

But here's a thought.  Maybe if more people had laughed at Hitler's posturing, poked fun at Mussolini, been able to share videos of the ridiculous rallies with added comedic commentaries, possibly their vile messages would have been diffused.  If not diffused then at least had a light shone upon them sooner.

[And by the way, with reference to my post last week, I have just rematched another episode of The Nazis: A Warning From History.  It talked about Hitler's refusal to deal with paperwork, his lack of concentration or interest in policy and his indolent approach to government...]

A Warning From History

I am starting to rewatch a series which I first saw a while ago.  Called The Nazis: A Warning from History, it is an excellent, if horrifying survey of the roots of Nazism and its terrible consequences.  It was first shown twenty years ago.  I don't think it is any coincidence that it is back on BBC iPlayer but I am grateful it is, however it got there.  Frankly, it should be required viewing for all adults on the planet.  Do watch it if you can.  (It used to be available on DVD too, if you cannot access iPlayer.)

There have been many mentions of Hitler and Nazism in relation to what is happening in America and Europe at the moment.  And obviously, the exact conditions which led to the rise of the Nazi party were unique and could not be repeated action for action.  But the polarisation of politics is being repeated.    Just ask the French.  Scapegoats are once again being found - immigrants, immigrants and more immigrants.  Appeasement is hovering around.  Holding  hands with Trump, Theresa May.  Really???  Bad for our country and appalling for feminism.  And our judiciaries and democratic institutions are under attack - don't get me started on examples for this.

This blog is often about lessons to be learnt from our history.  Fifty four million people died as a result of the Second World War.  Scariest lesson ever, surely.  What about the following, if you need more:

• The Nazis, in their early days, promised to strip the Jews of their German citizenships and possibly expel them from the country.  Ringing any bells with 'it is not a ban'? 
• Their slogan included 'Germany First' and 'Germany Awake!'  
• Hitler Youth members talk, during the programme, of 'World Jewry' which wanted to 'rule the world'.  The message pumped at ordinary Germans was that it was morally okay to remove the Jews from public life because they were not innocent of any wrong doing.  They were part of a worldwide conspiracy.  Anyone thinking about the terror claims of the Trump government?

I have felt bizarrely proud to see the continuing protests at what is going on.  I can't help worrying though that things are going to have to escalate a whole lot more before any real changes can come about.  The quote below refers to America but is just as true when it comes to Brexit or to the ambitions of someone like Marine Le Pen.

Keep up the pressure.  Protest as much as possible in as many ways as possible.