Tuesday 28 June 2011

At a price.

Once again it appears that the poorest in society are about to take kicking. This week the British justice secretary, Ken Clarke, will, at the second attempt, try to push through his justice reforms. This is the same bill that took a battering about its plans to give up to 50% off prison sentences when the accused enters a guilty plea. This proposal had the curtain twitching readers of the Daily Mail, the conservatives heartbeat, in convulsions. This is one of the problems with the marriage of conservatism and neo-liberalism, the conservatives claim to be the law and order party but the neo-liberals don't want to pay for it.

So now we have this second attempt to get the bill through parliament and one of the most worrying articles within it is the plan to remove funding for legal aid. To quote Lady Hale, the only woman on the supreme court, this would "have a disproportionate effect on the poorest and most vulnerable in society". Access to justice in British society will now be restricted to those who can afford it. Find yourself evicted by an unscrupulous landlord ? Tough luck. Need to question the withdrawal of services from social services? Sorry you are on your own. If you find yourself the victim of medical negligence, good luck trying to take on their team of lawyers, on your own.

This is a clear and pernicious erosion of the most basic of human rights. From the Magna Carta, to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and on the the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the cornerstones of advanced societies is the right to unfettered access to the legal system. It is the word "right" which is the most pertinent here, access to the justice system can not be a privilege, to be enjoyed or rather exploited, by those who can afford it. The consequences of this bill being carried, will reek havoc on society as a whole. As I have alluded to in previous posts, there has been an alarming shift in how the public policies, enacted since the late 70's, view society and the ability of said policies to effect change in society.The ideals of altruism and solidarity have been abandoned and in their place we have policies shaped by personal responsibility and rampant individualism. It is very easy to say that, it is up to you to look out for yourself and your needs when you are perched at the privileged end of the spectrum. When the odds and structures are stacked against you from the very start, it is next to impossible to operate on a level playing field. This government has priced a huge section of their population out of higher education and now out of the legal system. The NHS reforms of GP practices will have the effect of, GP centers cherry-picking the most profitable procedures and leaving the less well off at the mercy of an inferior service with dwindling funding. People need to speak with their feet to stop these policies, as it will snowball into a very unjust society unless something is done. Stand up for your rights as citizens not consumers.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Seeking Shelter

Myself and my good lady have recently been on the hunt for an new apartment. The decision has been made to end our exile on the wrong side of town and we are now enthused with the prospect of living with a buzzing metropolis on our doorstep. It is not only the prospect of moving back into town which has us excited but also the return to having a home of our own. Don't get me wrong we've been pretty lucky with the housemate we have had for the last year but their comes a time in your life, and in particular when you are in a long term relationship, when you just need your own space. The knowledge that once you shut the door behind yourself in the evening that nobody else is going to walk in is reason enough to salivate at the idea of having our own place again, not to mention being able to break wind at will.

Now as we are both out of our 20s, handsome and charming to boot we are pretty confident that if we get our foot in the door we could have any landlord falling over themselves to get us to rent their property but alas we are not perfect. Only today I was told that an apartment was too good for me over the phone, shocked and incredulous, I didn't quite know what to say. Moments later I had more snappy comebacks then I care to remember such as "Yeah well ... you smell". I wondered if it was the fact that I mentioned that we were both going to do a post grad in the coming year or was it the question about his openness to the prospect of rent allowance that set off the alarm bells normally reserved for the prospect of renting to a faeces flinging primate. Either way it was a shock to the system to be told we didn't measure up and got me thinking what was this apartment like and what in particular ruled us out. Was it the solid gold bread bin or perhaps it was the coffee table legs carved from the remains of a dwarf blue sheep?
These are the joys of being students at our age and not being able to buy our own place, but this has also worked in our favour.

There are a lot of people our age who have either been working since school or went to college straight out of school and have been eligible for a mortgage are now home owners. A lack of foresight by our political leaders and their economic advisers,"Yes we know every other property bubble burst with disastrous consequences but this time it'll be different", irresponsible lending by our bankers and a world wide economic downturn has left a lot of these people in negative equity. Property bought at inflated price with 100% mortgages is worth a fraction of what they paid and is in all honesty much closer to it's actual value. Now there are people all over the country whose hearts quicken with every interest rate announcement from the European central bank, terrified with the knowledge that an adjustment of one percentage point could mean default and ruination. What can be done by the state to alleviate the worst of these problems? Does the state even have a role to play? There are those who would say, no of course not, these people knew the risks that they were taking when they bought at inflated prices with mortgages that they couldn't afford. Why should I who saved carefully and budgeted responsibility now have to subsidize those who borrowed and bought irresponsibility.

I for one believe that it is in our interest to help these people through mortgage relief, moratoriums or some sort loss sharing between mortgage holders and the banks that the citizens of these state have bailed out and shall continue to bail out for a few years to come. The social cost of the failure to meet repayments will filter through and effect every strata of society. Immigration, deserted homes and the break up of families not to mention the very real risk in a spike in the suicide rate from men facing up the to failure to provide for their families are the very real consequences facing these people. There has since the mid seventies been a pervasive move towards a society which is more comfortable with abandoning people to the worst repercussions of the free market, you are now a consumer of risks rather than a citizen who deserves protection. If the state continues to withdraw from the provision of services and support for the worst off in society the affects will be felt by everybody. In saying that I will still do my best to shave as much as I can from landlord rent demands as they choke back the tears while telling me that the bought at the peak of the market with a huge mortgage.

Friday 10 June 2011

Rotten Apples

The continuing political machinations across Europe with regard to interest rates for the bailout of nations and the seemingly endless u-turns in policy by our own government and that of the Conservative- Liberal Democrat government across the water stand in stark contrast to the recent developments in Iceland (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/09/iceland-crowdsourcing-constitution-facebook). These events raise the question as to how long we can continue in a system of democracy which involves us once every 5 years and even then with policies are pitched as soundbites of what politicians think will win them the most votes. Across Europe politicians with one eye on upcoming elections promise to make the Irish give up their corporate tax rate, It is the one thing that is bringing in jobs which help us pay off the massive debt we are kindly paying off for the European bond holders, if the situation gets any more absurd it will become hard to tell the difference between reality and a Wildean farce

"Tough on crime" or "No more Taxes" maybe "Education Education Education" floats your boat. Sounds good to me, I like the cut of his gib that means more money in my pocket and I knew his father, he gets my vote. That's it my job is done, off he heads now to do his best in parliament. Ok so he/she's only a backbencher in the junior party of Government but he/she has a conscience and a wealth of campaign material which would leave you in doubt as to the character and the ideology of the man/woman.
(I should really continue to cover both genders, but who are we kidding, women are hopelessly under represented and the ones that are present, talented and suited to key positions are relegated to junior posts. A once off parachuting of women, akin to what happened in Sweden, into parliament is required to even up the gender split.)

This of course is not the case, the party whip system ensures that the high ideals and promises made in the village halls and on the door steps fall by the wayside in the name of party unity. So we have a government which has total control over the parliament and a government which is under the control of the cabinet who in turn fall in line behind the Taoiseach. What can we do about it? Well to be honest it would seem there isn't a whole lot even our government can do at the moment. Due to the deals struck by the previous government, the most unpopular in the history of the state, with the IMF, EU and ECB, or the unholy trinity as they should now be known, mean that it appears that we have little or no choice but to suck it up and take one for the team. In the dying days of the previous government there was no term which made my skin crawl more than "we have a mandate from the people".Trotted out at regular intervals it felt in the end that it was being delivered with an almost accusing tone, as if it was our own fault and to an extent it was. We allowed a system of patronage and clientalism develop in this country which would have made the acien regime blush. We have now been lumbered with a system ruled by a democratic aristocracy operating within a constitution written in 1937 that just doesn't work in the modern world and a population apathetic and indifferent to the political system. Resign your seat if you take a cabinet position, maintain an open and responsive discourse with your electorate so that policies are realistic, reasonable and dynamic. Force our politicians to take real note of what we want but this of course requires us to be more active in our democracy.

So look across the water, not to Britain or the United States, to Iceland a country that said enough is enough, to hell with the "Markets" lets take control of our democracy, lets hold our politicians accountable in real time and lets take an active role in creating a more equitable and democratic system which is creating a sense of ownership amongst the electorate. If it isn't working fix it, there can be no sacred cows just because it has been done in a certain manner does not be it should continue to be done in that manner. Perhaps it is some post-colonial emasculation which has made the Irish people so willing to do what we are told whether it is the Catholic Church our government or the IMF it is time that we shook it off. Adaptation is the key to survival and our democracy needs to evolve, it no longer serves the people and so is failing in its most basic of aims.