What’s a leader for?

The Green Party has only had a leader for the last four years. Before that, it had two principal speakers (one male, one female), who were the main spokespeople. My knowledge of the change is limited by the fact that I only joined the party shortly after the first leadership election. My understanding is that the change was accompanied by a big discussion about what the role of a party leader would be. This discussion was ended, probably prematurely, after the decision was made, although we did discuss some of these issues during 2010s contested Deputy Leader election.

Leadership of a political party is a combination of several things. The most obvious one is that it provides a focus for the media. It’s certainly been a big part of Caroline Lucas’s leadership. However, the leader is not always the media’s go-to person. Respect’s leader, Salma Yaqoob, gets a lot less media time than George Galloway. The expectation is that Caroline will continue to have a strong media presence after she steps down. The new leader will, presumably, get some share of that media profile, but it’s likely that the press will still prefer Caroline.

The leader’s role within the party is rather less clear. Greens have traditionally been very suspicious of the concept of hierarchical leadership, preferring to be led by the grassroots. Policy is decided by party conference, rather than the leadership. And Caroline Lucas has had very little role to play in the policy process since she became leader. Internal governance and strategy is the role primarily of the executive committee. The leader has a seat on the executive, but the executive is supposed to be “led” by its chair.

Regardless of the technicalities of whether it’s the leader’s responsibility or not, there are voices within the party calling for the leader to provide a new strategic direction for the party. We’ve made some real breakthroughs in the last couple of years – we’ve gained our first seat in Westminster and (minority) control of our first council. But beyond that, it feels like we are, to some degree stagnating. Outside of the West Midlands, we’re not breaking much new ground in council elections. Our national councillor numbers are increasing at a snail’s pace. We are holding our own in a tough political climate. But we really need to be making substantial advances if we are to have much impact. Picking the right leader might prove the key to moving forwards more quickly.

Who might stand?

There are a number of prominent party members who can be expected to do well if they stand for the post. If you’ve been an active member of the party for a while, you’re probably familiar to some degree with all of the people I’m about to mention. If you think my (very quick) summaries of any potential candidates is off, please correct me in the comments.

As I write, nobody has yet put their name forward. But two leading candidates have already ruled themselves out of the race – Jenny Jones (the London Assembly member who came third in the Mayoral elections) and Jason Kitcat (leader of Brighton and Hove Council). Like Caroline, they feel that the leadership role would take valuable time away from what they are doing in their current elected offices. So, apart from those two, who are the serious candidates?

Adrian Ramsay – Deputy Leader of the party, and prospective Parliamentary candidate for Norwich South (our second strongest seat). The presumed front-runner, Adrian is well-liked by pretty much everybody in the party, and the leadership role would give him an added national profile, that would be to our advantage. His main weakness in the contest is that he might have trouble outlining a new strategic direction. Adrian is the sort of person who likes to avoid taking sides in internal party disputes, he’ll try to maintain good relationships with everybody involved. Whilst that makes him a unifying figure, it also means nobody’s expecting him to try to lead the party in a new direction.

Peter Cranie – top of the European list in the North West region in 2009 and 2014. In 2014, he came a couple of thousand votes behind Nick Griffin – a very narrow margin across the region. He’s the only likely candidate to come from the North or West of the country, and is likely to offer quite strong ideas about our future strategy.

Derek Wall – the last Male Principle Speaker of the party. Derek is absolutely loved by Green Left (the ecosocialist wing of the party), though he has relatively little support outside that group. I very much doubt he has much chance of winning but if he does, expect a stronger alignment between the Greens and leftist anti-cuts protest groups.

Darren Johnson – our other London Assembly Member, who is also a local councillor in Lewisham. I doubt he will put himself forward, for much the same reasons as Jenny Jones. Like Derek Wall, he has a relatively narrow section of the party who really like him. Unlike Derek, he also has quite a few members who really don’t like him. If he does stand and win, I expect he would be a more media-focused leader, rather than a strategic one.

Jean Lambert – MEP for London since 1999. With Jenny Jones declining to stand, Jean is the only female party member who I think could be a serious contender. My instinct is that she’s unlikely to stand. A Jean Lambert leadership would be heavily influenced by other European Green Parties, as Jean has been working closely with them for a very long time.

Keith Taylor – took over as MEP for the South East when Caroline was elected MP in 2010. Keith is another person I think unlikely to stand. Since he took over his current role, he’s always struck me as being focused primarily on doing the job well. He’s doing a lot of good work in Brussels, and probably wouldn’t want to take over two jobs from Caroline in as many years.

Dark Horse Candidates – whilst I’ve mentioned the people who are obvious contenders, should they be interested, there is always the possibility of an unexpected candidate. I’ve come across a couple of blogs suggesting that Oxford-based member Adam Ramsay (no relation to Adrian) might be a good choice, and it’s always possible that some of our more prominent local councillors might stand (Alex Phillips from Hove is sometimes talked about as a rising star in the party and her area). Alternatively, there might be somebody who is not that well-known. This kind of candidate is going to have to outline a strong strategic direction for the party that moves us forward faster than we are currently going.

RON – lastly, there is one “candidate” who is guaranteed to be on the ballot. RON (Re-Open Nominations) is always an option in internal party elections. To my knowledge, RON has never come close to winning any Green Party internal election, but in any discussion of who will get the job, it is wise to acknowledge that we do have the option of voting for none of the above.

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So, if you live in an area with elections, I’d encourage you to vote. Whilst I’m probably supposed to tell you to vote Green, I’d actually encourage you to vote based on the local issues in your area. And vote informed. If you haven’t read whatever leaflets that have come through your door, find them and read them. Look at your council’s website to find who the candidates are in your ward (or London Assembly constituency), and have a quick look at their party’s local website to see what their local policies are.

Remember that these elections are not a referendum on how the government is doing, or about national issues. They are about who runs your local government (and, in those cities with referendums, how your local authority should be run).

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Democracy and accountability

Supporters of elected mayors claim that they are more accountable than councillors. They base this on the claim that most people will know who the mayor is, whereas they don’t know who the leaders of the council are under existing systems. On the other hand, a directly elected mayor can only be held accountable every four years at election time. Councillors would be able to override his (or, in theory, her*) budget with a two thirds majority, but would not be able to hold him to account on anything else. By contrast, the current system allows councillors to hold the council leader to account at any point. And he or she can be replaced quite easily if things go pear-shaped. And if the electorate changes their mind about which party they want in charge, all of the councils with such referendums elect their councillors by thirds – there is an election almost every year. Furthermore, having decisions made by a group of councillors who represent different parties and political philosophies is probably more democratic than having them made by a single person and his hand-picked cabinet.

Policy vs Personality

Although the Mayor of London is not directly comparable to elected mayors in other UK cities (his role is as regional government, rather than being the head of a council), it demonstrates one of the dangers of a mayoral system. Even a casual look at the current Mayoral election campaign in London shows that it has become primarily the Boris and Ken show. Policy issues that affect the lives of ordinary Londoners have been sidelined in favour of the personality of the two leading contenders. Whilst council elections often get sidetracked from discussing real issues of policy, this rarely happens because of big personality clashes, and the kind of egos apparent in London. When the personalities are not centre stage, it is a lot easier to discuss the substance.

Being Effective

One major claim of yes campaigners is that a mayoral system is simply better at getting things done for the city. This, of course, depends entirely on who is elected. If you get a good mayor, who makes good decisions and makes very few mistakes, this is probably true. But if you get a bad mayor, there is no way of recovering until his term is up. And it’s not as if councils run by councillors have not been able to get things done. Coventry was perfectly able to rebuild itself after the war without having an elected mayor.

Apolitical?

Yes campaigners argue that, with a directly elected mayor, you can get somebody who is outside of the normal political parties elected. An independent, they argue, can get things done that politicians might not. And they claim that he could make up his cabinet from the best members of all political parties. This argument strikes me as being somewhat naive. In an election across a large town or city you need a party machine of some kind to get elected. Very well known people might be able to buck the trend occasionally, but independents face enormous problems being taken seriously. And even when people outside the major parties get elected, they will often be partisan. In Doncaster, a member of the English Democrats got elected as mayor. He took his cabinet from all parties on the council except Labour. Who had a majority of councillors. Doncaster is now having a referendum on getting rid of the mayoral system. You might get apolitical mayors in countries where local government is traditionally apolitical, but in the UK – where local politics is entirely dominated by national political parties – it simply isn’t going to happen.

Whilst I don’t see that either way of running councils is necessarily better in principle, I don’t see any evidence that elected mayors will improve an area, I think that they are less democratic than the system which they would be replacing, and there is a greater danger of things going badly wrong with the new system.

*I say “in theory”, because it seems very unlikely – at least here in Coventry – that a female candidate would win the election.

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Political campaigning should always present a positive case for your candidate or party, rather than rely on attacking the opposition. And it should always be focused on the election in hand. If parties run their local election campaigns on national issues, then they are sending the message that what happens in local government doesn’t matter. If we, the electorate, buy into that message, then we don’t deserve hard-working councillors who act as public servants. Instead, we’ll get what we do deserve – councillors who do whatever their party’s head office tells them, regardless of the needs of the area. Or we’ll get councillors who do absolutely nothing, and are there only because we want to give whoever is in government a bloody nose.

In case you think I’m just ranting for the sake of it, here’s a quick summary at the election broadcasts so far for the English local elections (I don’t have time to look at London, Scotland, or Wales) by party:

Labour are attacking the Tories on the NHS, saying that a vote for them is a vote to protect it. This claim is complete nonsense. These elections are for local councillors, who have absolutely no power over the NHS. And there’s not even a hint of positive vision. “Labour values” (whatever that means) are mentioned, but nobody says what they are. There’s no alternative vision being offered. And there’s also no recognition that there are options outside the big two parties.

The Tories are attacking Labour for high salaries given to council executives, and for high levels of council tax. These are at least local issues. However, in addition to being negative, they are clearly only telling partial truths. They say that Conservative run councils will have lower council tax. But they don’t mention that this is because Conservative councils tend to be in rich areas with fewer social needs (and, hence, council spending). Or that Conservative and Liberal Democrat councils are being spared the worst of the cuts being made to local government budgets by central government. And, like Labour, they come across as ignorant of the fact that we are now living in a multi-party democracy, rather than a two-party one.

The Lib Dems, who used to understand that local elections are about local issues, are talking exclusively about the things they claim they have achieved in the coalition. They mention tax cuts for most people, tax rises for the super-rich (but wasn’t the top rate of tax cut in the budget?), and a pension rise. The problem here is that no matter how much or little they have achieved in government, it has no relevance to what their council candidates will do if elected. Council elections should be about issues that can be dealt with by councils. And this broadcast simply isn’t.

UKIP basically attack both Labour and the Tories for the first half of their broadcast. But they do at least go on to talk about local councils, and how they hope to improve things if elected. They say that UKIP-controlled Ramsey Town Council has put some more police on the street (which is something I thought would be beyond the control of a town council – which has very little actual power) and made the place cleaner. It’s not much, but it is at least the kind of thing that’s relevant to the kind of election that is actually happening.

There is, however, one election broadcast which is entirely positive, and is also focused on local issues, rather than Parliamentary ones. The Green Party’s election broadcast focuses entirely on the positive things we hope to achieve on local councils. We’re using the same broadcast for our English, Welsh, and London election broadcasts. And we’re also continuing our tradition of giving you something which is innovative in the way it puts the message across. Here it is. Enjoy:

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There are several different things a political party can be about. Single issue parties (like the pro-life party) exist primarily to bring attention to a particular political issue. They stand candidates and campaign to raise awareness, and bring the issue to the attention of the public. If, like Dr Richard Taylor of Kidderminster Health Concern, they get elected to office, then they concentrate on that issue and vote on unrelated issues as if they were independents. But even a quick look at these Christian parties’ websites and manifestos makes it clear that they are not single-issue parties.

Some parties exist primarily to gain power (nowadays, this is probably the case with both the Conservatives and Labour). What ideology they have is either flexible – easily changed to match public opinion in swing seats – or hidden away. This is clearly not the case for these parties either, as between them they have had a small handful of local councillors elected.

Then there are parties that exist to represent a group that is marginalised within the political mainstream, or which have a unique status within national life. Plaid Cymru has its origins as a party representing Welsh speakers, whilst New Zealand’s Maori party represent a group with unique status in that nation. Whilst this could be the thinking behind these parties, it would indicate that they are out of touch with reality. Christians are, statistically speaking, far more likely to be involved in mainstream political parties than our non-Christian neighbours. Whilst many Christians do feel that their faith has been marginalised in this country, we are nowhere near the point of needing a separate political party to speak up for us – the time and effort invested in these parties would be better spent helping Christians involved in secular parties to be more effective and influential. And, in any case, none of these parties have a political platform that majors on the kind of concerns usually expressed by such parties.

Finally, there are parties there to advocate a particular ideology or set of principles. The Greens are a great example of this. Growing from a single-issue party (albeit an issue that directly affects most other issues), there is now a clear set of political beliefs that drive Green policies (and we have policies for almost everything), as set out in the party’s philosophical basis.

This last purpose is presumably how the various Christian parties see themselves. Which is something I find worrying. If you’ve been following my series blogging through Wayne Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible, then you’ll be well aware that Christians can easily take opposite viewpoints on a wide variety of political issues. And that both sides can honestly believe that their side of the issue is more consistent with the Bible. There are few, if any, political issues on which you can say that a particular policy is unquestionably the Christian view. Which leads to the question of just what these parties are standing for. Yes, some parts of their policy platforms (e.g. being pro-life) are issues that would generally be considered Christian positions. But others (the wheel-clamping thing, or policies on the NHS – the Christian Party wants to privatise it, the Christian Movement for Great Britain wants to go back to a more nationalised system) look like they are trying to co-opt God’s (or at least the church’s) blessing for policies where both the Bible and Christian tradition are either silent or ambiguous.

These parties are, for the most part, not taken seriously. Their main impact is to keep their members from engaging in secular parties where they could potentially have a genuine influence. But if they ever were taken seriously, then they could be a real problem for Christians involved in more mainstream politics. If the public and the media associated their policies with the Christian faith, then any Christian who expresses a different view to them would be seen as having a conflict between their faith and their politics. Even if their faith played a big role in the position they take. Furthermore, by representing Christianity as a political ideology, these parties risk placing an unnecessary stumbling block in the way of people becoming Christians. If somebody sees Christianity as, in part, a political ideology which they don’t share, then that’s going to give them a negative view of our faith before they even think about looking into it.

In summary, the reasons for these parties to exist in the first place seem somewhat spurious, and their main effect seems to be to divert Christians from engaging more constructively in the political process. But if they were ever to be taken seriously as the political voice of Christianity, then they would make life more difficult for Christians involved in secular parties. In such circumstances, they would also make it more difficult some for people to come to Christ.

Finally, I’d have no problem with such groups existing if their names didn’t suggest that they spoke for all Christians. Groups like the Christian Socialist Movement (a faction within the Labour Party) are a group of political Christians whose politics can be described as socialist (with the caveat that – being part of the Labour party – the word socialist is a less accurate description of them than it used to be) are not a problem at all. They don’t cause any confusion between the gospel message and their brand of politics. And they certainly aren’t a stumbling block in the way of people coming to Christ. In fact, such groups can probably break down barriers to salvation, as people who share a similar brand of politics will be aware that their politics would not conflict with Christian belief.

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Firstly, we repaired some damage to our projector screen. Over the years of putting it up and down every week, some of the poppers that attach the fabric to to the frame had become distorted. I’d assumed that this was eventually going to mean that we’d have to buy a new one, but it turns out that we could repair it. Which made me wonder how often I’ll fall into the same trap of replacing something that could easily be repaired. Although I rarely watch commercials and have adblockers on my web browser, I’m still exposed to the message they all send (buy more stuff and you’ll be happier/better off). Have I swallowed the lie more than I thought?

And then, the issue came up again in the sermon, which brought up some of the verses dealing with our attitude to possessions – Matthew 6:19-21. Our culture tells us to lay up treasures on Earth, whilst Jesus tells us to do the opposite. It’s something I know intellectually, but it’s an attitude that I hold intermittently. Most days I won’t care about my possessions, but some days I’ll find myself earnestly wishing that I could buy a house, or have certain luxuries. Or I’ll take pride in my collection of Doctor Who stuff. But because every aspect of our culture is saturated with these attitudes, I’ll often fail to realise that I’m wanting these things not because they’ll be a useful tool to do the things God has called me to (although some of them will be), but instead because I’m prone to the sin of consumerism.

Getting rid of consumerism is not primarily about modifying our behaviour, but in modifying our hearts. For a Christian, it’s about learning to align our thinking about money and possessions with God’s. We don’t necessarily have to buy into alternative ways of living to shake it off, we just have to find ways of learning to treat possessions as lightly as Jesus did. I’m a long way from learning to consistently reject the central idol of the Western world. But thankfully God is teaching me to be more aware of the times I slip into that particular form of idolatry.

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The answer is both incredibly simple, and something that can exhaust an entire lifetime of study. The simple answer is that Jesus’ death (combined with his resurrection) dealt with the sin that separates us from God. It allowed fallen human beings to come into a right relationship with God. There is, of course, at least a lifetime’s worth of theological study to be had investigating this in more depth. I expect that I’ll still be marvelling at it throughout eternity. If you want a good introduction to the topic, have a look for John Piper’s book Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die – available from good Christian bookshops everywhere (or from Amazon if you must).

Today, I thought I’d outline some of the reasons behind the cross. Bear in mind as you read this that some of these are highly offensive to 21st Century Western culture. The God of the Bible is not the nice fluffy “loving God” of popular culture (He is loving, but not in the way that our society often imagines). CS Lewis coined the phrase “He’s not a tame lion” to put across this truth.

The Wrath of God

One Biblical truth that is offensive to Western culture is that sin – all sin – is deadly serious. God is holy – set apart from the world – and righteous. Sin is highly offensive to Him. God has the same reaction to our sins that most parents would have on hearing that their daughter has been gang raped and then brutally murdered. Sin demands a punishment, and the proper punishment is death. But, as well as being a God of wrath, He is also patient and loving. He provides a way out. In the Old Testament, God gave the Jews a practice that pointed to this way out. When you sinned, you could have your guilt expunged by sacrificing an animal. The animal died the death you deserved. The cross was the ultimate fulfilment of this. God came to Earth as a human, and then suffered and died in our place. The Son took the wrath of the Father on Himself, bearing the punishment we deserved.

Buying us back

The New Testament often uses the word redemption to describe what happened on the cross. The analogy is one of buying a slave out of slavery and into freedom. One of the effects of sin is to bind us up and trap us. Once you start sinning, it is incredibly difficult to stop. Without God’s help, the best we can manage is to replace one sin with another which we find less disagreeable. The cross represents the price paid to free us from this bondage. We are free from the chains of sin. Yes, Christians still sin, but we have a way to replace slavery to sin with the joy of knowing God as our Dad.

Conquering Death

Including this one here is almost cheating, because it’s not until Easter Sunday (the other one of those two most important dates) that we get to celebrate it. But at the cross, Jesus triumphed over death. By being raised to life again, He made a way for Christians to enjoy eternal life. Yes, we will still die (unless we are the generation that will see Him return), but because of this we will experience eternal life in relationship with God – who is the most awesomely awesome being imaginable.

In this post, I’ve not even scratched the surface of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. If you’re a Christian reading this, I hope I’ve helped remind you of how amazing the cross is. If you’re not a Christian and you’re reading this, then have a look into it. If Jesus’ death really did do what we believe it did, then you really need to find out more.

I’ll leave you with a reminder of what Jesus went through:

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This section starts by talking about the state of the US economy around the time President Obama took office. At that point, the economy was crashing because of a financial crisis. Banks had lent lots of money in mortgages to people who couldn’t afford to repay them. They had then packaged up the loans and sold them (or, technically, the income from them) on to other financial institutions. These investments had been certified as top quality by the credit ratings agencies. However, enough people had now started to default that that rating was clearly wrong. However, because it was impossible to tell which set of packaged loans contained the risky investments, that the entire system was in crisis. If nothing had been done, then the financial system would have completely collapsed, and the rest of the economy with it. Grudem doesn’t mention the selling on of the loans, but it’s a detail worth bearing in mind.

Grudem then gives a brief introduction to the two different approaches to dealing with recessions in a capitalist economy. The first is Keynsianism. This view recommends increasing government spending in order to keep the economy going. The second view, which Grudem calls the “free market” approach (but which is more commonly called monetarism) is to cut taxes and trust that the free market will sort everything out.

He notes that Obama’s approach was Keynsian, and claims that the spending programs in question were far beyond anything that any government has ever spent in the history of the world. Although this is probably true in terms of the absolute number of dollars spent, it may not be the case in real terms (i.e. adjusting for inflation), or in relative terms (measuring as a proportion of the nation’s economy). I haven’t done the sums, but I suspect that World War Two was significantly more expensive in both real terms and proportional terms. Either way, the US national debt increased significantly.

Grudem has two strands of criticism of this approach. The first is the question of where the money comes from. If it’s debt, he wonders what happens if the creditors see increasing deficits and then demand a higher interest rate. In such a case, he imagines that such a situation would require vastly higher tax rates to ensure the debt is repaid (even though he believes that lower tax rates bring in more revenue). He also worries that printing more money means that you are increasing the size of the economy without bringing in any extra value, hence causing inflation.

His second strand of criticism is that he believes that the specific programs funded by the stimulus are designed to promote the Democrat party’s ideal of society, rather than economic growth. He repeats his belief that the private sector is always better than the government when it comes to growing the economy, and that a permanent decrease in tax revenues would have been a better solution.

The Benefit of Hindsight

Because I’m writing this a couple of years later than Grudem, I have an unfair advantage – I can see some of the results of the policies that both the US and other nations have pursued to deal with this economic crisis. So let’s look at his analysis and see how well it has fared.

Governments around the world have taken different approaches to the financial crisis. The Western nations that have gone furthest down Grudem’s austerity route are Greece and Portugal. If you’ve been following economic news, you’ll be aware that their constantly increasing financial problems are dragging the Eurozone down with them. This has lead to some major demands from their creditors and several bail-outs. The US, which has taken a much more Keynsian approach than other countries, has weathered the storm a lot better. The main problems with the nation’s creditors have come not as a result of stimulus spending, but by the threat of the (Republican-controlled) congress refusing to raise the debt ceiling (the total amount borrowed), which would have amounted to a de facto default.

When it comes to the question of creating money out of nothing and causing inflation, this is arguably what the financial institutions whose actions caused the crash had been doing. Their growth had been a major part of the world economy (here in the UK, it was the main driver of our national economic growth). Most of this growth was as illusory as any growth caused by governments doing “quantitative easing”. It’s worth nothing here that Grudem blames the crisis on 1070s legislation which made American financial institutions lend in poor non-white neighbourhoods, rather than on the banks who repackaged those loans as dodgy securities, or on the relaxation of regulation that allowed them to do so.

On the question of what the purpose of the US government’s stimulus plan was, Grudem is – once again – guilty of drawing a dodgy picture of his opponents’ motivations. The initial spending was simply to keep the financial system from collapsing. Subsequent spending included projects that would create jobs in the middle of rising unemployment, and bailing out companies like General Motors (and, therefore, keeping an awful lot of people in jobs). Gordon Brown’s stimulus package in the UK was broadly similar. The aim was to keep the economy afloat, and to prevent as many job losses as possible.

As for the question of which approach (government spending or tax cuts) works better, it’s worth noting that the financial crisis is the worst since the Wall Street Crash in 1929, and the decade of depression which followed it. Whilst economics rarely provides provable results (it’s very difficult to isolate the effect of any one variable), it is generally accepted that the Depression was ended by massive government spending. Initially this was the likes of Roosevelt’s New Deal program, but eventually it was the massive spending on waging World War Two. Earlier responses to the Depression had been much more along the lines of monetarism, and are generally believed to have had little effect.

Whilst Grudem believes that lowering taxes (and, as a result, putting people in public sector jobs out of work) would lead to more jobs being created than were destroyed, there is no evidence to support this assertion. Since the 2010 election, this is the approach that has been tried in the UK. Unemployment has not fallen. This suggests that, whilst Grudem’s approach may be the better one in some circumstances, it would not have been a very effective approach in the current crisis.

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Those familiar with government consultations know that they frequently have significant flaws and inbuilt biases. However, Thirsty Gargoyle has had a look at the new consultation on gay marriage, and the consultation is particularly badly flawed (h/t Peter Ould).

Rowan Williams has resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury, and Peter Ould has some thoughts about who might replace him

There’s apparently a scientific paper that provides solid evidence that God heals through prayer. However, according to the Advertising Standards Authority my last sentence was illegal.

Meanwhile, Gillan at God and Politics in the UK has done an excellent summary of a recent Christians in Politics review.

And you may remember that a year ago 145 people were arrested for holding a peaceful sit-in protest against tax avoidance and evasion in Fortnum and Masons. 30 of them have been brought to trial (in three batches of 10), and it’s highlighted some of the failings of our justice system – most notably that three different trials for the same crime (and with the same actual evidence) have had three completely different verdicts. Trials B and C have been happening over the last few weeks, and I’ve been reading accounts of trial B part 1 trial B part 2, the trial B defendants’ statement, the first part of trial C, and the final report from trial C.

Finally, it’s always good to bring up an old link, and I’ve found one which highlights how much we pay for our TV channels. Which gives me an excuse to post the following video, which points out some of the good things about having the BBC.

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