Salisbury Democracy Alliance

Category: Salisbury

  • Chalk and Cheese, and Save our Salisbury

    February 2021

    In this month’s Democracy Café we debated the question of a land tax a proposal which has appeared from time to time – most recently in the 2019 Labour Party manifesto – but it never lives to see the light of day.  Part of our discussion was taken up with how the Normans established the pattern of ownership in England following the invasion.  Some families who own estates, can trace their lineage back to the Normans even today.

    I was reminded during the discussion of a book published in 1979 by J Martin Shaw (not the actor) entitled Rural Deprivation and Planning, who used to be the County Planning Officer for Norfolk (where coincidentally the actor comes from) who wrote a book about shire county councils and how they worked up until quite recently.  Unfortunately, I lent the book to someone and I cannot find it or its title on the internet.  He described how shire counties like Norfolk used to be run essentially by its landed interests.  For them, a rural county was an ideal form of life.  They had the time and money to be able to take part in local politics and from their ranks, many county and district councillors were elected.  Those who worked the land could not get, or afford, the time off and so the whole issue of rural poverty and disadvantage never got a hearing.

    Wiltshire was similar in many respects.  Wiltshire is unique in that it is the only county not to have a university except for tiny Rutland.  What is now the University of Bath was intended for Wiltshire.   Someone close to the negotiations at the time said the idea of a university was not universally welcomed by those in power in County Hall.  Likewise, the dire state of roads in the county was also as a result of the landowning interests not wanting or needing to improve communications.  They believed in small government, long before the phrase became popular, and county council meetings started at 2pm with the intention of ending by 3pm at the latest.  After a good lunch of course.  As the main aim was to do little and invest even less, this was not difficult.  A senior highways engineer told me they did not want improved communications or roads because it would encourage their workers to look elsewhere.  I have no way of knowing if this was true but it was said with feeling.

    I can see echoes of this thinking in the decisions of county hall even today.  A kind of remoteness and an approach based on ‘we know best’.  When a group of us met the leader of the County Council at the beginning of austerity, their easy acceptance – relish even – for cutting funds in the county was very evident.  There were words of regret but the readiness to cut funding was easy to see.  They talk ‘consultation’ but this is more ‘this is what we plan to do, do you like it?  No?  Tough, that’s what’s been decided.’  When the idea of citizens’ assemblies is put to them, the idea is politely received then during a public meeting in the Guildhall, it is nowhere to be seen.

    There is now a move to get more independents elected onto the City Council.  I suspect this is born of a frustration with continued mismanagement, not especially by the City Council itself, but by their paymasters in Trowbridge.  Will this succeed?  As a Scottish colleague of mine used to say ‘I ha’ ma’ douts.’  One problem is a collection of independents is not a party almost by definition.  Will they be able to collaborate sufficiently to counter the established parties?  Maybe, maybe not.

    Secondly, the City Council is a parish council.  This is really an absurd state of affairs.  I was never a fan of the district council but at least it was local.  A city whose administration is a parish council: bizarre.

    Chalk and Cheese?  This is probably a Wiltshire saying coming from when, in the immediate area of Salisbury, they could only rear sheep on the chalk.  West and north they could raise cattle and produce cheese.  Hence in Salisbury market there were two parts and the cheese was sold outside what is now HSBC bank.  It seems to be a metaphor for the state of affairs we have in the county today with decisions taken in the north of the county and often seem divorced and irrelevant to the south.

    Perhaps we need to think differently and divide Wiltshire into two counties: North Wiltshire and South Wiltshire?  North would continue to run from Trowbridge – after all they seem to have spent millions on the building there.  The south would need to be decided and not necessarily Salisbury.  Save our Salisbury could perhaps direct part of their efforts to this endeavour.  It is likely to reap better dividends and more locally based local government than we have now.

    It leaves the baleful influence of the landed interests still quietly evident.  They can continue, behind the scenes, to select their own.  The only way to counter this is to enliven local democracy.  More independents in a South Wiltshire County Council which has the powers of a county, could make a real difference.

    Peter Curbishley

    Updated 10 March

  • Democracy Café – February

    Two very interesting debates at this month’s Democracy Café meeting held via Zoom

    Two topics won through this month: one on privacy and the other on whether we should have a land tax.  At first sight unrelated but, read on …

    Privacy and the news this week of a legal victory by Megan Markle against the Mail on Sunday who had published letters she wrote to her father.  It raised the question of how much should be in the public domain for us all to see.  There was a lot of interest by the public of things to do with the Royals (as in the Royal family not the TV family of the same name!).  More openness in politics however is a feature of Open Democracy.

    There was general agreement that it depended on what the content was.  Letters between individuals should remain private but if the content was about matters of public concern, then there might be a case for publication. The fundamental distinction was between ‘in the public interest’ and ‘of interest to the public’.  It was noted that we have some of the most restrictive set of rules preventing publication in comparison to other democracies.  Things like Cabinet minutes were kept secret for 30 years when many of the participants would be dead and the matters discussed long since over with.  It was pointed out that SAGE minutes are now published without, it seems, the ceiling falling in.

    Would we risk being overloaded someone asked?  If all sorts of government papers were published, could we be drowned by it all?  Another point: would publication inhibit civil servants, experts and others giving frank advice to ministers?  The problem – which seems to be increasing – is that many decisions are being made behind closed doors without either the public or parliament knowing what is going on or being able to discuss them.  Was the Windrush decision for example ever discussed in Cabinet?  Who said what in the lead up to the Iraq war?  This increasing secrecy has almost certainly led to the rise of the ‘chumocracy’ with hundreds of millions of pounds in contracts being issued to friends, cronies and party supporters without proper oversight.  Good old fashioned corruption in other words.  The opposite of public interest is private interest it was noted.

    A fundamental assumption was that decisions were made competently after a careful assembly and consideration of the facts and opinions sought from  those who know.  The reality is that decision making is chaotic with the actual decisions made in private rooms and the Cabinet simply assembled to rubber stamp what has already been decided elsewhere.  Decisions were made on the basis of political expediency.  If there was more openness, the likelihood was that actual decisions would shift elsewhere.  A film of the G7 summit was mentioned, attended by President Trump, showing him casually deciding whether to pull out of NATO and subsequently pulling out of the Paris climate accord.

    The whole concept of privacy has been questioned recently in a book Life after Privacy.  We have been willing to give away our privacy for the benefits of shopping on line.  Sites like Amazon and Google collect huge quantities of data about us which we seem willing to give. Does it matter? 

    In the Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt discusses loneliness and distinguishes it from isolation.  We chose our privacy she claims. 

    The second half moved onto a discussion of land tax a topic we have discussed before.  The topic arose from a recently published book, The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes.  There was firstly, an economic argument since a major slice of the price of a house is the land it sits on.  The supply of land and hence its price was a key factor in the economy.  Yet land itself is largely untaxed.  Thomas Picketty argues in his book Capital in the 21st Century, that there should be a shift away from taxing earnings to taxing wealth which was in many respects unproductive.  It would also enable the elimination of other taxes such as the community charge.  Developers for example, had collectively around 5 years supply of land with planning permission, and they were able to build as an when it was profitable for them, not when houses were needed.  Taxing the land would act as an incentive to build. 

    However, could such a tax act as a disincentive to develop?  It was indeed one of the problems of the Betterment Levy – one of the attempts to tax land and development – that landowners simply declined to sell and waited for the tax to be abandoned which ultimately it was.  This led onto the question of taxing land which was for the benefit of the community or was not earning income, for example, wildlife habitats.  This need not be a problem since there was already a system of grants to encourage this activity and such uses could be zero rated.  The tax could also be used to incentivise the use of land for solar energy or wind farms for example.  

    Letchworth Garden City was mentioned which is managed by the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation the income from which is invested in the community.  This could readily serve as a model elsewhere. 

    It was noted that all land is owned by the Crown which introduced the notion of stewardship.  The second point was that we have got used to the pattern of land ownership a system introduced by the Normans.  William the Conqueror simply handed out parcels of land to his barons and dispossessed the English.  This pattern of ‘land grabs’ has been the case through history and fuelled the Empire.  In this connection, the lack of footpaths in Ireland was noted and almost certainly this arose because the country was once part of the Empire and there would have been little interest in the needs of Irish peasants.   One participant found the signs put up by local landowners – saying PRIVATE, KEEP OUT – to be needlessly aggressive.  Should we rethink the whole basis of the ownership of land?  We have somehow accepted the current pattern established by the Normans and have never really challenged it.  

    How will it benefit society?  A difficult question but at least it will make things a little fairer with wealth paying its share.  Tax based on land would be very easy to collect since it cannot be concealed that easily (although perhaps it should be noted that what Britain’s largest landowner – the Duke of Buccleuch – owns is unknown even to some of his tenants.)  One of the most efficient taxes however is Stamp Duty: easy to collect and hard to avoid.  

    There was a brief discussion about criminal trespass which was an act introduced to protect ancient monuments.  This was about the time of the infamous ‘Beanfield Massacre‘ incident near Stonehenge in 1985.   

    Will it change?  The idea of a land tax was suggested in the Labour Party manifesto in 2019 and was successfully characterised as a garden tax by the Conservatives.  Politically, it seems a toxic idea that will need a lot of work to sell and to explain the benefits of to the voters.  Another point is it was revealed this week that the Queen sees all bills for vetting before they come to Parliament and has amended or squashed a number of them before they have seen the light of day.  A land tax will hit her estates and those of other royalty with higher taxes so such a proposal would find difficulty getting debated.  Then of course there is the House of Lords …  Hence we came full circle with privacy and secrecy linked to the taxing of land.

    An excellent debate and our next is in March.

    ***

    Unconnected with the discussion it was noted that there is an attempt to recruit more independents onto the council in the forthcoming elections.  How Salisbury is managed (or is it mismanaged?) politically has been the subject of several of our debates in the Café over the years and if there were more independents on the council perhaps this would help.   

    Peter Curbishley

     

  • Lib Dem organised meeting

    If you attended the meeting yesterday evening (27 Jan) with 30 others organised by the Lib Dems, you may have seen reference to the SDA. The speaker spoke of citizens’ assemblies mentioning the Northern Ireland example in particular.

    We are keen to support this idea so anybody keen to support it is welcome to keep in touch. We want to establish the principle in Wiltshire. The meeting expressed considerable dissatisfaction with politics both local and national and the speaker, Dr Ian Kearns was encouraging us to get active. He mentioned the Frome Flat Pack project which has been written up here.

    A report by Dr Kearns can be read by following this link.

     

     

  • Stonehenge

    Letter in the Salisbury Journal

    It seems that the proposal to build some kind of bypass or tunnel around or under the Stonehenge monument has been going on since time began.  Governments come and governments go; wars come and wars go; ministers come and ministers go and still the thing does not happen.

    One factor is that whatever is proposed, there will be objections.  Almost certainly, there is no perfect solution but then, almost any solution would be better than the mess we have now next to one of the nation’s most precious monuments.

    A letter from Mark Potts in today’s Journal is of interest therefore:

    Instead of a referendum on the Stonehenge Tunnel, there ought to be a Citizens Assembly on the issue. The problem with referenda, as we saw with the Brexit referendum, is that he are subject to manipulation by the media and other influencers.

    They can only ask a simple question e.g. Do you or don’t you support …?

    They do not allow for exploration of other options.  Also the outcome of a referendum is polarising as the losing side do not feel that their voices have been heard.

    Many voters in a referendum do not have the opportunity or inclination to study the evidence in order to make an informed decision.

    For these reasons, it would be far better to have a Citizens Assembly to deliberate on the issue.  A representative  sample of citizens from the area would be chosen randomly to hear the evidence  from experts, given time to discuss and deliberate on it and be guided by the trained facilitators to come up with a set of recommendations for how to proceed.

    This allows the outcome to be informed by evidence and the participants can suggest other options.  The recommendations can go to the decision making body.

    This is a far more unfiying approach.  Citizens Assemblies are increasingly being used as a means of engaging citizens in the democratic process.  Salisbury Journal, 21 January 2021.

    Salisbury Democracy Alliance has proposed Citizens’ Assemblies as a process for these sorts of decisions to be made.  Mark Potts is chair of SDA.

  • January Democracy Café

    The January Democracy Café (2021) kicked off the new year with a debate about whether violence was ever justified.  This was very much inspired by the events of the previous Wednesday when a mob of Trump supporters had stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC and rampaged around the offices and corridors before being expelled.

    There have been many protest movements in history and the majority of them have been peaceful.  It was noted that the suffragists, who formed in 1866* (not 1881 as I said erroneously at the debate) campaigned peaceably for half a century and got nowhere.  The suffragettes were formed at the start of the twentieth century and believed in more violent action – which is now well known – and women finally did get the vote in 1928.  So is it necessary to be violent to achieve change?  That example may suggest so.

    We debated the important distinction that violence may be justified if it is not against an individual.  In relation to the Washington violence, this was whipped up by the president himself who was the law so in effect, it was violence against himself.  Chairman Mao and the cultural revolution was an example of a leader stirring up violence against the state when he was in effect, the state.

    Was there a distinction between violence by a megalomaniac and violence in pursuit of the greater good?  This prompted the immediate question, who defines the common good?  It was also noted that within these protests, there are people pursuing their own ends.  Historically, it seemed that peaceful protests may achieve little.  We were reminded in fact of the considerable violence which took place in our history as described in a book by Sir Ian Gilmore: Riot, Risings and Revolution which details the many civil disturbances which took place in the eighteenth century.

    We were also reminded of Germany in the ’30s and that Hitler was voted in because he represented what many German people wanted following the humiliations and privations after the Great War.  The protests in Hong Kong were another more recent example of people reacting to profound changes in their way of life and freedoms.  Whether they represented the majority was questioned however.

    Back to America and it was claimed that the founders of the state did not want a full democracy.  This did not just mean the lack of votes or representation for slaves and indigenous Americans, but seeking to maintain the franchise among the educated white elite.  Perhaps, it was suggested, one of the problems in America is that the ‘whites’ – so long used to a natural monopoly of power – were increasingly becoming concerned at being outnumbered by people of colour.  The year 2044 looms quite large in the American psyche as it will be when white people are projected to become the minority.  Trump has been successful in appealing to this growing sense of white victimhood.  It was noted that the vast majority of protestors at the Capitol were white and the police action was relatively mild with reports of some police taking part in ‘selfies’ with protestors.  This contrasted with the violent police actions during peaceful Black Lives Matter marches. 

    There was some discussion about the violence used by government to taint otherwise peaceful protests.  The enquiry into police infiltration is currently continuing which concerns systematic abuse by police officers over a number of years.  The Grosvenor Square march was mentioned (by someone who was there but not at the end!) and how police tactics were used to compress people into small spaces resulting in inevitable tension.  There was also some discussion about ‘kettling’.  Violence in demonstrations was often an excuse by politicians to take the high moral ground.  The demolition of the Colston statue in Bristol and its dumping into the harbour was a case in point – never mind the concerns about a statue of a slaver, look at the violent actions of the protestors instead. 

    The discussion – inevitably perhaps – moved onto social and other media and the powerful influence they have over people’s opinions.  One participant said their son only looked at social media and never read a newspaper, or looked at broadcast news, which are seen as the ‘enemy’ they said.  Facebook has ‘published’ claims recently about hospitals being empty and that Covid is some kind of hoax.   But what is ‘truth’ we pondered?  President Trump’s Facebook and Twitter pages have been taken down for instigating violence but who decides?  Is it right that one man – Mark Zuckerberg (in the case of Facebook) – possesses this power but is accountable to no one?  And what about free speech?  It was pointed out that his decision was unlikely to be for some moral position but more to do with worries about advertisers boycotting the platform.  

    The debate moved onto Charlie Hebdo, the attack in Paris which occurred six years ago.  The attack happened because of outrage by some Muslims concerning content they regarded defamatory to Mohammed.  This prompted the suggestion that we should be mindful of not causing offence.  The problem was that people are offended by so many things that free speech would become quite difficult.  There was no right not to be offended it was said.  However, we do not always have to exercise that right.  We were reminded of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, and not harming other people.  The distinction was made about criticising the person and criticising their views.  In this context it was noted that actions can be evil but not the person. 

    Back to social media platforms and the exposure by Carol Cadwalladr of the attempts by organisations to influence people behind the scenes in the Brexit debate and in particular, those regarded as the ‘persuadables’ [video link].  It was noted that Facebook had huge quantities of data about individuals but they (the individuals) have no access to what was held: there was a clear lack of transparency.  The information was not for us but for sale to corporations.  Was it ever going to be possible to have free and fair elections again?

    Still on social media platforms and their promotion of antivax conspiracies which are leading some people to eschew getting vaccinated or to be frightened of having one.  It was noted that the broadcast media are not making any mention of adverse reactions to the vaccine.  We seem to be stuck between conspiracy theories and stony silence.  

    A really interesting debate which once again focused on social media and the effects it is having on our politics, on what people believe and, more dangerously, how they act as we saw in Washington DC.  The days when we thought that the platforms would be a means for meaningful debate and promoting free speech seem long gone.  They have morphed into a means for promoting conspiracies, aggressive language and trolling.  

    Books mentioned:

    1. Riot, Risings and Revolution, 1992, Ian Gilmour, Pimlico
    2. Truth, a Guide for the Perplexed, 2005, Simon Blackburn, Allen Lane
    3. Philosophical Writings, Simone de Beauvoir, 2014, University of Illinois Press
    4. [not mentioned but relevant to the discussion on the use of Facebook to influence the Referendum] Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics, Peter Geoghegan, 2020, Head of Zeus Ltd.

    *The Society was founded by Millicent Fawcett and her husband’s statue is in the Market Square in Salisbury.

    Peter Curbishley

    12/01/21

  • People Friendly Salisbury

    A case for a Citizens' Assembly?

    The last few weeks have seen an outpouring of discontent concerning the People Friendly Scheme in Salisbury and it is going to be abandoned if temporarily.  Last week’s Salisbury Journal letters pages were almost entirely taken up with criticisms and negative comment about the scheme.  This week’s Journal has seen several comments in favour of it with comments such as ‘once again, Salisbury has managed to lead the way backwards into an era of continued traffic confusion and commercial decay …’

    How have we arrived at this state of affairs?  How come that the scheme is launched and has to be abandoned after such a short period?  In defence of Wiltshire Council, they were unlucky (perhaps) with their timing coming as it did in the middle of the pandemic.  It could be argued, on the other hand, that faced with the pandemic, they might have decided to postpone the experiment until steadier times. This is the substance of Mr Glen’s comments.

    However, if you look at the WC site and read the PFS pages, you can easily spot straight away a major problem: it is all about traffic.  And nothing but traffic.  If all you think about is traffic, it is hardly surprising that the other elements of the scheme get forgotten.  One of the problems with an organisation like the county council, is that they consist of large departments of which highways is one of the biggest.  It is staffed by highway engineers.  There is a danger of myopic thinking and the web site is replete with traffic orders, technical stuff about traffic management and suchlike.  I could find little to explain non technical benefits.

    PFS is more than tarmac however and is about people, the environment, amenity and businesses.  A scheme of this nature has to be sold and explained properly.  The human aspects have to be taken into account.  I suggest it was technically led added to which ‘consultation’ simply meant submitting comments after the big decisions have already been made.

    So if your timing is wrong, the project is technically based and highways led, and managed remotely from Trowbridge, it is perhaps not surprising it results in a giant raspberry.

    Could it be done better?

    Dickie Bellringer (of this parish) writing in today’s Journal (26 November 2020) says:

    “If ever there was  a case for having a Citizens’ Assembly, the debacle of the PFS has surely got to be a contender…

    He goes on to recommend the use of Citizens’ Assemblies to tackle just this sort of project.  It would bring together a properly random selection of people to discuss this topic, informed by expert witnesses.  Which brings me to a further point: an examination of the web reveals study after study, research and other reports, on the implementation of similar schemes around the world.  All these studies – without fail that I could find – spoke of the benefits.  These included environmental, safer streets and better spend in the shops and restaurants etc. indeed, quite the opposite of what the letter writers wrote the previous week.

    Another key problem for Salisbury is that the City Council is a parish council with few powers and little money.  Power resides in Trowbridge and many Salisbury people will know from long experience that something mysterious happens on Salisbury Plain that seems to affect the thinking of Trowbridge folk when it comes to matters Salisbury.

    So, in summary, we have a highways led project devised with little sign of any consideration of the human aspects of what they proposed, with little sign of previous experience of such schemes being used to ‘sell’ the project, followed by a consultation exercise consisting of asking people to comment on what’s largely been decided already, launched in the middle of a pandemic and run from Trowbridge.  Apart from that, it was OK.

    Better would be to involve a random selection of citizens, informed by experts and made aware of how such projects have been implemented elsewhere, and paying due attention to the human aspects involved (as well as environmental etc.).

    Peter Curbishley

  • Virtual Democracy Café

    On Saturday 27 June 2020, a small group of us had a go at a virtual democracy café courtesy of Skype. Not altogether successful because of technical issues and the occasional drop out. Nevertheless, we did manage a discussion of various topics and it was good to meet up during this time of forced isolation.

    The conversation started with the future of Salisbury and in particular the ill-fated library scheme. It was always a scheme which looked particularly precarious before the current Covid-19 problems with retail. The idea of shifting the library away from its current central position was not widely popular. Converting the tunnel into an arcade of shops also seemed a dubious proposition. The decline in retail activity during the forced lockdown was probably the final kiss of death for the scheme although the Salisbury Journal reported that it had been paused. In the last few days, Wiltshire Council is one of the authorities which are effectively bankrupt if they were a commercial concern. It was questioned whether the planning application had been withdrawn.

    We spent a little time discussing the TV programme on the Salisbury poisonings which were mostly thought to be a good piece of drama. One of the scenes showed an angry meeting of residents and the person who was at the meeting said this was not how it was. There were angry questions but this was not the general tone of the meeting. Well, that’s drama I suppose.

    We got onto discussing the future of Salisbury and it was suggested that it was an opportunity to rethink the city and how it will be in the future. Climate was one consideration and would the City take the opportunity to make it more green and do things like pedestrianisation and making it more people friendly?

    Against this was the increasing use of cars with people less inclined to use public transport. People have also got used to on-line shopping in a big way and some may not wish to go back to physically visiting the city. More were working from home and this trend was going to increase as will more automation of work.

    The effects of pandemics in history on politics was discussed. It sometimes had the effect of forcing political change: shortage of manpower after the plagues for example improved wages for the poorest if only because there were fewer of them. But, it was noted, inequality increased post the 2008 crash so disasters did not always result in improvements. It was noted that the [Overton?] window had moved a little in terms of things like government expenditure. The government had borrowed heavily during the crisis, a policy inconceivable in the recent past. The current government was committed to ‘balancing the books’ and it was likely that the ‘book balancers’ would emerge at some time in the not too distant future, indeed, George Osborne was busy opining to this effect on BBC’s Start the Week recently.

    We hope to repeat this next month on 11 July but which medium we will use is currently being looked at. Those on the email list will receive an invitation to join so we hope to see some more people then if you care to join in.

    Peter Curbishley

  • Democracy Café, February 2020

    The February 2020 Democracy Cafe saw discussion of two topics:

    1. Can we trust things that come out of China?

    The latest thing to come out of China is of course the coronavirus and it was this that was discussed first. Given levels of secrecy in China, are we getting the full picture of the seriousness of the situation? Reports seem to suggest that the Government is being more open about the spread of the virus and is taking serious measures to try to contain it.  It was suggested that this was perhaps due to concerns from the Chinese Government that if they don’t deal with the situation it may present a threat to their authority.  This is the view of Richard McGregor writing in the Observer this week. The coronavirus, along with the protests in Hong Kong, may be seen as undermining the authority of the ruling party.

    There was discussion of trust in relation to Chinese trade and their economic strategy.  It was suggested that historically the Chinese have expanded their political influence through trade, rather than through military endeavours.  Are we seeing this today in Africa and South America, where Chinese economic expansion is extensive? Does the way that the economic expansion is carried out amount to exploitation, or are there mutual benefits for the countries concerned?  It was generally agreed that the goods that China is exporting are now more trustworthy than they used to be because they are higher quality.  They used to be known as ‘junk’ and tat but know we routinely buy high tech goods from China.  It was suggested that the Chinese economic strategy of government intervention to improve living standards and reduce absolute poverty has been successful in building the trust of Chinese people in their Government but the slowing of economic growth may represent a threat to the consent that they have been given.

    It was suggested that whilst discussing this topic we might need to be mindful of how our perceptions of China are shaped by our own media and by opinions coming out of the USA.  Trump’s trade war with China has generated a rhetoric of mistrust, as has the discussion over Huawei.  It was pointed out that trust in governments and the operation of states is an issue in other countries as well, including our own and the US.  Examples were given of how authorities in the UK and the US routinely track transatlantic messages.  It was suggested that “information is the new oil” in terms of its’ value.  The Chinese authorities recognise this value and exert control over social media.

    Trust is an issue for China over its’ treatment of minorities and reference was made to the Uighur people and the appalling way that they are being treated.  Perhaps there is a need to take the Chinese authorities to the International Court over this issue, but which country would be bold enough to do so?  Is it a case that the Chinese regard this as their century and are willing to override the wishes of others in order to become the dominant world power?  This lead to a more general discussion about when do we reach a point that the actions of the state are so bad that we stop trading with them bearing in mind that multinational corporations are so influential.

    One thing is for sure, China’s behaviour will continue to be a major talking point in the coming decades.

    2. Is positive discrimination a help or a hindrance?

    The assertion was made that if someone is appointed to a post due to positive discrimination and they perform badly this reflects negatively on the process of positive discrimination.  Some comments were made suggesting that the best person for the job should be hired and reference to various strategies, such as the anonymising of applications, was made as a way of reducing negative discrimination in the recruitment process.  It was pointed out that appointing the best person for the job often meant appointing someone who fitted in with the predominant culture in the work place and not “rocking the boat” which would preserve the dominance of white middle class male culture.  It was suggested that there will often be more than one candidate who seems suitable and in those circumstances it may be sensible to positively discriminate in favour of a member of a minority group.

    The discussion moved on to the importance of creating a more level playing field through a more equitable education system and by raising the aspirations of members of minority groups so that they are more likely to apply for high powered jobs.  Reference was made to the predominance of private school alumni in positions of power.

    It was mentioned that there are an increasing number of women heads of state around the world, examples being Finland and New Zealand and Angela Merkel in Germany.  It was noted however, that even when a woman is the head of state they do not necessarily advance the cause of women, as with Margaret Thatcher who did not appoint a single woman to her Cabinet.   

    Our next session is on Saturday 14th March at 10am at Salisbury Playhouse. This will not be the same as our usual Democracy Cafe. Instead it will be a TalkShop activity on how we in Salisbury can tackle the climate emergency.

  • Talkshop event

    Talkshop climate event planned

    We are planning – on Saturday 14 March – to hold an event called a ‘Talkshop‘. This will focus on what the City might be able to do the mitigate climate change.  Some of you may recall that we were hoping to run Citizen’s Assembly but we were unable to secure funding for what would have been a much more expensive event.

    Talkshop is a much shorter exercise and involves people, in groups, looking at various ideas to help reduce global warming in the City.  There are suggested ideas which will be issued on the day but you are free to suggest your own of course.  To give you a taste of the ideas, one is from Todmorden called ‘Incredible Edible’ and where a handful of people starting growing food to share and there are now 70 sites around the town.  Oxford has set up Climate Cafés to enable people to drop in and chat about how to improve the climate.  Successful apparently. 

    This is in place of the normal Democracy Café which would have happened on that day but otherwise, the time, 10:00 am and the place, the Playhouse are the same.  It is free.

    We are hoping for a good turnout but it is just possible we will have too many in which case you will be invited to stay as an observer.  If you do decide to come, please be prompt!  It is run to a tight timetable and latecomers will find it difficult to catch up.  

    Don’t forget it’s the normal Democracy Café tomorrow, Saturday 9th February 2020 at 10:00

     

     

  • Democracy Café, January 2020

    Two topics engendered a lively interchange of views: the assassination of Qassem Suleimani by an American drone was an obvious topic and in the second half we discussed why there was so little debate about the rising levels of inequality.

    A lot of the early debate was about whether it was legal under international law. Article 51 of the UN Charter was referred to which is:

    Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

    Legal UN Repertory

    The point was made by several that this was not the first assassination, either recently or in history. Russia has often assassinated individuals (as we know only too well in Salisbury*) and as far as the near east is concerned, President Obama authorised a number assassinations by drone in the area. The issue with the USA someone said is that no state was above them. They chose whether to follow the UN or not according to their own perceived interests. This could only change if the veto system was done away with.

    A significant area of debate was around the certainty or otherwise of outcomes. By assassinating Suleimani what did it solve? The outcome, especially in such a volatile region, was unpredictable. A replacement would quickly be found and whoever it was could even be worse. It rather assumed that problems were present in one person and so by removing them from the scene, the problems were solved: a dubious proposition. It was about culture not an individual.