Joined-Up Government

This was a much-vaunted phrase in government circles a while ago. Personally, I suspect that it was probably a product of the Blair spin machine, and therefore suspect even then, and its current parlous state is yet another indicator, if one were needed, of how far off track Broon and his cohorts have been blown by the hurricanes of economic mayhem. Not that there was ever much mileage in the idea anyway.

It was always possible, if you looked carefully, to find examples of the type of mismatch between two conflicting areas of government policy, although these used to be relatively minor, and more amusing than harmful.

These days, there are so many examples of huge gaping yawning chasms between the aims of conflicting parts of government, or sometimes within the same department, that it’s hard to find a single example of coordinated action.

Take the car industry. Everyone agrees (with the possible exception of Jeremy Clarkson) that it can only be a good thing, from the point of view of the planet as a whole and the fight against climate change, that we use our cars less, and generally that public transport should be joined up, integrated and more freely available.

Yet at the same time we are dishing out money like a drunk in a casino to the motor industry, which is apparently teetering on the brink of collapse. To make more cars that no one can afford to buy, while there are already unsold acres of them parked up on every available airfield and storage space up and down the land. Oh, and they have also given the go ahead to Heathrow’s new runway. Yet a genuinely useful public transport project such as Crossrail still languishes in the doldrums.

It would be a start of course, if Broon and his band of merry men acknowledged that this largesse to the British motor industry ("British" in name only by virtue of it being located here, yet owned by multinationals) was the result of the unhappy coincidence whereby most of these plants which are threatened with closure, with catastrophic unemployment levels resulting, are situated in Labour constituencies.

I am editing this posting to record my complete flabbergastedness, if that is a word, at the news this morning (23 Feb 09) that LDV is now going to the government asking for a loan of several millions. While I have every sympathy for the LDV workforce and suppliers, the company is owned by a Russian gas billionaire. Can I just say, as someone who has been paying extraordinarily high gas bills for the last winter, as a result of proifteering by the likes of LDV's owner, that I already gave on this one. No, you cannot take it out of my taxes. Let Mr Gasovitch put his roubles in, since he appears to have gazillions of them. It's what I would have to do if my company got into difficulties.

Take home ownership. Another example. The government announced packages of help for people struggling with their mortgages, back in November, but omitted to mention that it won’t start until April. While my own experience of dealing with government does tend to confirm Andy Burnham’s recent comment that getting something like this up and running in six months counts as fast-tracking it, in government terms, this will not be much comfort to those whose homes are repossessed in March. And again, have they thought it through? What counts as “struggling”? And this bountiful gift is brought to you by the same government that wants to means-test disabled people to try and get them off incapacity benefit and into (non-existent) work! The same government that encourages people to phone the DWP hotline and shop a benefit cheat, while its senior members are indulging in questionable practices with second home allowances.

And now, two hours since I posted this originally, Broon has popped up on Channel 4 news calling for an end to 100% mortgages - and Northern Rock has started lending again, using taxpayer's money: you could not make it up.

Take justice. We stand up there at the UN, supporting the ideas of international justice (what's left of it anyway, post GW Bush) and we freely participate in allowing a relatively harmless hacker from London to be extradited to the USA, because he managed to penetrate the computer system of the Department of Defense, looking for stuff on UFOs, whereas we allow the US administration to meddle in British Justice by telling our law lords what they can and can't say about the treatment of a British subject at Guantanamo, and when the USA refuses to allow two of its pilots to appear in front of a properly convened coroners' court in Oxfordshire, in the case of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, we roll over and let them stick two fingers up (well, one finger, since they are American) to the English legal system.

It is the fundamental dishonesty of it that really sticks in my craw. When Gordon Broon said “British Jobs for British Workers” he knew that there was no way he could deliver on that statement without the UK withdrawing from the EU. Which of course is about as likely as the devil going past the window on a skateboard. At least that particular piece of doublethink came back to bite him on the bum in the form of the actions of the Lindsey Oil Refinery pickets. But of course what they meant when they parroted the phrase back at him, was British jobs for white British workers.

And it is on that issue, free movement between countries and who we do and don’t allow in and out of the UK, that we’ve just seen the most breathtaking recent examples of facing both ways at once.

I am taking this from the Indymedia web site, though it was brought to my attention independently of them. It is just that their account provides a ready-made background to the case and saves me acres of re-typing...

A family of Algerian asylum seekers were taken from their home in Hove to Yarl’s Wood detention centre at 6.30am on the morning of Wednesday 11th February pending deportation. The Home Office plan to remove them to Algeria.

Assia Souhalia and her husband Athmane have been in the UK since 2002. Their 2 year old daughter Nouha was born in Brighton in 2006 and has lived here all her life. The family has made a life here and has many links in the local community. Assia Souhalia fled Algeria in fear for her life in 2002 after her family had suffered years of violence. Two of her brothers, Rachid and Brahim, both policemen, were murdered in two separate and premeditated shootings in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Neither brother was involved in political action. Upon hearing of the death of Assia’s eldest brother Rachid, their mother, Cherifa, suffered a heart attack and died. Since then Assia’s family have repeatedly received death threats and in 1994 Assia’s brother, Brahim, was murdered. Two of Assia’s remaining brothers and sisters both fled Algiers.

In 2002 Assia travelled to the UK with the help of members of her family. Since Assia arrived in the UK only one man has been arrested in relation to the murders of her family members. In 2007 Assia’s sister was badly wounded in a bomb attack. Assia is afraid for her safety should she be deported to Algeria.

The latest on this case is that Assia passed a message from Heathrow last Tuesday that they were not flying that day because there was a 'problem with the ticket'. From 5.30am that morning, campaigners had been talking to BA flight crew and passengers on BA 894 to Algiers (the flight Assia, Athmane and Nouha were scheduled to fly on). The staff and passengers had been told of the Souhalia family's situation, that they feared for their lives if deported to Algeria and that the deportation was depriving Nouha of the right to live in the country where she was born. The passengers were asked not to stand by and let the family be forcibly deported. They were asked to speak to the pilot of BA 895 and request that the plane did not fly with the Souhalia family on board.

Indymedia believes that the real reason that the Souhalia family were not deported on BA 895 was because of pressure from the staff and passengers. The Souhalia family are currently in transit back to Yarl's Wood.

Contrast this with the sanctimonious twaddle coming from all sides of the political spectrum over the case of Abu Quatada. Personally, I don’t think it’s a disgrace that the European Court of Human Rights awarded him compensation. I think that human rights are universal, even for the likes of people who probably don’t deserve them, and you have to apply the law universally without fear nor favour, for justice to be done, and if someone has been wrongfully detained under the law, they are entitled to compensation, whoever they are. That is what makes us the good guys.

But I do contrast the effort being put into deporting Assia Souhalia and her family with the fact that Abu Quatada has been going through the deportation process since 2002. How come we are doing dawn raids and bundling innocent children onto planes to send them to God knows what uncertain fate, yet this man, who was apparently such a threat to our national security that he had to be illegally detained without trial, is still languishing in Belmarsh. If he’s that bad, put him on trial, and stop pissing about.

Another week dawns tomorrow. Is it too much to hope that sometime soon we might see someone come along in Government who can recognise these glaring mismatches and put them right in a just and statesmanlike manner?

Did I just hear a skateboard go past the window?