Salisbury Democracy Alliance

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  • Hugh Grant and our media

    April 2024

    Many of our Democracy Café debates often come back to the role of the media in shaping ideas, informing or concealing information from its readers, bias and generally influencing what we know and believe of the world around us.  The important titles are courted by government politicians and during Tony Blair’s time as prime minister for example, Rupert Murdoch slipped in and out of the back door of 10 Downing Street 28 times.  No notes or minutes of these meetings have been released. 

    The settlement by Hugh Grant of his phone hacking case is therefore of wider importance than just what was published about him and the means of getting the information by journalists.  

    The Daily Mail has enormous influence and again, Paul Dacre when editor was regularly courted, not to say fawned over, in the hope of favourable coverage.  They do not just report the news but seek to control the narrative and to shape policy.  Since the owners are for the most part foreign based, we have a disturbing situation where a handful of foreign oligarchs exert huge influence over policy.  We might imagine that the public votes in a government to carry out our wishes but the reality is that this small handful of men set the tone and decide what we read and what we should know about. 

    Hugh Grant was one of a large number of celebrities, sports people and royalty, who were subject to a wide range of tactics to get private information, who they were seeing, their medical problems and other matters in their private lives. Tactics included breaking into their homes, tapping their phones, blagging their medical records and bank accounts, and buying information from police officers.  Most of this activity was illegal but since the police themselves were compromised, no action was ever taken.  

    As an aside, you might wonder how a person’s medical records can be obtained without their consent.  One way was to employ a recently struck-off doctor say, who knew the language and jargon, who could phone a surgery to pretend to be an A&E surgeon and was treating X and therefore needed to know their medical history.  

    An important aspect of this is the scale of it.  One individual was paying the Metropolitan Police around £150,000 pa for information.  There have been 1,600 claims so far against NGN, publishers of the Sun and the now defunct News of the World.  A staggering £1bn has been paid to settle claims.  For reasons that are not at all clear, the Murdochs are desperate to prevent this ever coming to court.  Some may think that if all this surveillance and hacking had been to track down drug dealers, arms traders and people traffickers then the end might justify the means.  It wasn’t.  The people targeted were pop stars, actors, sportsmen and politicians.  

    Hugh Grant had to agree to end his action because of the legal process where a payment is made into court to settle the matter and if the judge awards damages less than this then the person complaining – even though they have won their case – will be responsible for both side’s costs. 

    This activity of paying off those whose lives were penetrated in this way simply to sell more papers is hugely significant for our legal process and our democracy.  Here we have a group of individuals who committed crimes over more than a decade, and who corrupted the police and the political process, who are allowed, in effect, to buy their way out of any kind of reckoning.  “Justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done” a famous judge opined.  What we have is a flagrant avoidance of justice, simply a series of large payoffs to keep it all under wraps.   

    Yet there is very little outrage from politicians about this.  Imagine if a professional burglar went around Salisbury stealing from people’s homes.  When caught, he was able – from the fruits of his criminal activities – to pay into court a sum likely to equal the fine he might receive from the magistrates.  The CPS drops the case because they decide on the balance of probabilities that, even if they win the case and get a prosecution, they will end up paying both side’s costs.  There will be a non-disclosure agreement so the burglar walks away to do the same thing again and again.  People would be outraged if this were to happen (it cannot of course because a burglar cannot avail himself of this procedure).  

    The Fourth Estate as it’s sometimes known, is a key part of our political process.  It works by finding out what is happening and informing its readers accordingly by reportage and commentary.  If however, they become a power in their own right, able to control the narrative, and, by engaging in a variety of illegal activities, to find out the private details of anyone they wish, this becomes damaging to our society.  Who is there to report on them? If the politicians themselves are frightened to discuss this and to propose actions to control it, then this becomes a serious problem for all of us.  Effectively, voting in someone at a general election ostensibly to represent our interests becomes a nonsense: they dare not if it risks offending the beliefs or prejudices of our media proprietors. 

    An example is the prison system.  The system is in crisis.  Rotten and infested gaols; people locked up for 23 hours a day; overcrowding; rampant drug abuse and almost non-existent rehabilitation are just some of the problems.  Yet attempts by ministers to reform the system hampered – no, not hampered, stopped – by a handful of editors who believe that prisons are holiday camps, full of hardened criminals and murderers and vigorously attack any proposals to bring the system into the twentieth century let alone the twenty first.  So instead of a reasoned debate on our prison system and how we might learn from the Dutch for example who are closing and selling off many of theirs, we have paralysis (indeed, how many of their readers even know of the Dutch experience?).  Prison reform is a debate we do not have.  It is unlikely to appear in the general election debates both parties being obsessed with ‘law and order’ and terrified (of the media?) describing them as ‘soft on crime’.  

    Some have a cosy belief in the BBC but this organisation has been systematically attacked, its funding cut and right wing board members appointed to control its reporting.  Although there are some brave journalists, it has been seriously and deliberately weakened.  Members of the various Tufton Street organisations for example, appear regularly on our screens, in radio interviews and as panellists on political shows. One such organisation, the so-called ‘Institute’ of Economic Affairs, is a front organisation for mostly American right wing organisations yet never is one of their people asked ‘who funds you?’ They are allowed to pose as some kind of respectable ‘institute’ without the BBC interviewers ever asking this fundamental question (who funds them is never revealed).

    It may seem a long way from Hugh Grant to prisons.   But they both reflect in their different ways, how a handful of overseas media barons can manipulate the law to their own benefit, control the political process and who used a variety of illegal activities to set about any politician who dared to threaten their hegemony.  The claim now is that times have changed.  They no longer use illegal means to blag, burgle, bribe or steal to get their stories they say.  Then why spend north of £1bn to prevent it ever coming to court?  

    In all fairness to the tabloids, it has to be noted that these publications are read by millions and are piled up in supermarkets and on newsstands. Perhaps ‘piled up’ is an exaggeration, just a handful of copies these days. The public has known of these intrusions but continues to buy and read the results. The proprietors might fairly say ‘we are providing what the public wants to read’. If the public is not repelled by what we do, why should we be concerned?

    What we read and what we see on our screens, substantially shapes what we know of the world.  In Israel for example, the average Israeli knows very little of the destruction in Gaza.  In Russia, few Russians know of the enormous death toll of their men on the front line in Ukraine.  Perhaps in the UK we should be a little more concerned about how we, and our famed legal process, are so easily manipulated by a handful of overseas individuals? Shouldn’t we be a lot more concerned about the integrity and honesty of the media world and their owners?

    Peter Curbishley

  • Democracy Café, April

    April 2024

    UPDATE: 16 April. The Humanists are planning a rally on 29th April concerning assisted dying, the second topic discussed last Saturday.

    A good attendance for two interesting and lively debates. Looking at my notes, I think this will be a long post if I am to cover all the interesting points made. The first topic was Is democracy inherently unstable? The question was posed following recent events in countries which are nominally democracies but where autocrats have been voted in, Poland was given as an instance. There was also a rise in populism and the far right. Other factors included people feeling entitled (to hold power was the sense I think) and the rise of social media.

    The first fundamental point to be made was that empires were ‘stable’. Those who had power ensured they kept it and that meant change was restricted. Democracy allowed differing views which inevitably led to instability – was this a bad thing? Democracy was a good thing it was noted if people who got in were those we agreed with. What about when fascists and populists won power? People weren’t so keen on democracy then. One speaker was pessimistic about the future which he thought more Hobbesian citing the events in America by Trump and his supporters on Capitol hill. The point was made that Arab countries had ‘stable government’ but the Arab Spring showed that it masked deep problems i.e. stability did not necessarily deliver good government.

    Another argument was that nations went through cycles so sometimes things worked and sometimes they did not work so well.

    An interesting point about psychology was made concerning choice. A survey (it was claimed) showed that 30% were comfortable with a single system and the presence of too much choice (of candidates and policies) was too much to take in. People became confused.

    Another key point was that when economies are improving and the overall wellbeing of the nation is getting better, democracy is accepted. Once the ‘good times’ are over – a situation we are arguably in today – then people become dissatisfied with the political system. The period of prosperity was largely dependent on the developed world’s extraction from the less developed world of raw materials and resources. They will probably be unhappy with any system in these present day circumstances.

    It was suggested democracy was under threat internationally and that freedom has been reduced globally speaking. The lack of strong democratic input was why the Salisbury Democracy Alliance was promoting citizen’s juries precisely to improve both the quality of decision making and getting more people involved in how decisions are made.

    There was a shift in the argument with the assertion that people wanted to come to the UK because of our democratic institutions. This assertion did not meet universal agreement and most felt people came for the opportunities, jobs and so forth. They had little concern for democracy (they would not be able to vote in any event).

    The tone of the discussion changed at this point and we began to discuss the process itself and the MPs who are running it. Was it the democratic process which was important or the quality of decisions said one? Someone with US experience spoke of the rigidity of a constitution which is extremely difficult to change as times and circumstances change. The UK does not have a constitution and relies on decent behaviour by decent men – the ‘good chaps’ theory of government. The influence of public schools was mentioned – a subject of Simon Kuper’s book Chums which discusses the undue and malign influence of a narrow coterie of Eton and Oxford men

    Although it was true that we can ‘get the scoundrels out’ as Rush Limbaugh almost said it was noted that, although we have a choice at election, once a government is formed, that was it as far as the public having a say over affairs was concerned. Quintin Hogg’s ‘elective dictatorship’ was mentioned which was another reason SDA was keen on citizen’s assemblies. The curtailment of protest and dissent was great concern. Recent acts of parliament were designed to make protest harder and police now had enhanced powers to arrest protestors for a wide variety of infringements. Access to judicial review has also been curtailed.

    The recent issue of legal advice to government concerning arms sales to Israel was mentioned. Why was this not published?

    A positive note was struck concerning the select committee system which was working well. It was an opportunity for MPs to interrogate policy decisions and, now that the whips no longer appointed committee members, they had become assertive in questioning the executive. Members left their politics at the door and there was secret voting. In this vein it was noted that most MPs went in to politics with the best of intentions but quickly became lobby fodder as described in Isabel Hardman’s book Why we Get the Wrong Politicians. Was there a perception problem in fact? that is, a belief that politicians can’t be trusted which was not in fact fair nor accurate.

    Why are so many angry at the current situation someone asked? We are more critical of those in authority now perhaps spurred on by mainstream and social media. Deference of yesteryear has now gone. The threats and personal abuse MPs now endure was unacceptable we all felt. Polarised views and division was generating this anger it was thought.

    An interesting debate where we explored the system of democracy and how it works in practice. The point that however perfect a system might be, it ultimately depended on the honesty, competence and integrity of those who occupied it. A conclusion reached was that instability per se was not necessarily a bad thing if stability meant oppression or the stifling of opposing views. One said that democracy has to be unstable if freedom of expression is to be allowed.

    The second debate was around assisted dying: Should MPs be allowed to decide if assisted dying is the right thing for the country? This concerned the bill being promoted by Esther Rantzen. The introducer – who is a hospital chaplain – was worried that orders might be signed for the wrong reason. Her particular concern was those people with disabilities. Concern was expressed about giving MPs the choice citing their stewardship of prisons as an example.

    It was first pointed out that we had to distinguish between euthanasia and assisted dying – they were quite different. A second point quickly made was that this was not a minority issue since all of us will die – with taxes being the two certainties of life. The importance of having power of attorney organised was stressed. Another key point was that it is no longer illegal to takes one’s own life. Choosing your own death was in a sense a natural progression. The key issue was involving someone else in that decision.

    Several mentioned the DNR, (do not resuscitate) notices in people’s homes and which used to be on hospital beds. It was claimed that medical staff ignore these as they are not allowed to withhold medical assistance. Doctors are under an obligation to prolong life.

    Since we were talking about MPs deciding this, it was noted that MPs have already decided since it was the law at present. We were in effect talking about changing the law.

    Someone of mature years, shall I say, came up with the quote of the day – “If I wake in the morning, I think, it’s another day”. We should accept life as it is he said.

    But back to the basic question of whether MPs should decide issues of an ethical nature such as this. An echo of our first discussion, MPs have to be involved since it is they who change the law. As we have noted, the law had to be changed to allow this to happen.

    One worry was that could be have another Brexit? Could we see the same level of lack of information and disinformation that we saw in the debate about leaving the EU? Most thought not. Essentially, there was no push for a particular answer and the issues were already being widely aired, the opposite of the Brexit debate.

    It was pointed out in MP’s favour that they had wide access to expertise and the House of Commons Library which should help both to be informed and come to a reasonable conclusion. It was also noted that other laws which had a moral component – one thinks of homosexuality, the death penalty and same sex marriages – had been changed. In MP’s favour, we were reminded that they were often ahead of public opinion, the death penalty was mentioned.

    Another aspect was that we were living longer now and in effect, the medical profession had ”hijacked’ old age’. Medical intervention meant people lived on sometimes with poor quality of life whereas in times gone by they would have met their maker. Death was now a medical decision it was said.

    Taking the decision away from the professionals was a concern however and the problem of the ‘slippery slope’ that is, elderly people in hospital feeling unwanted and a burden. They would feel under a kind of obligation to end their lives because of these feelings. On the other hand it was noted that both Switzerland and the Netherlands had forms of assisted dying yet there did not seem to be a string of scandals or the ‘bumping off of relatives’ as it was expressed.

    There was a feeling, expressed by several during the debate, that people should have the choice. Those suffering from motor neuron disease was given as an example.

    A surprising omission in the debate was that religion and religious views did not get an airing.

    These were two fascinating debates and both turned in different ways on our trust of the political class. This loss of trust is clearly a problem since major aspects of our lives depend on the decisions they make. The way members of parliament are chosen, as discussed in Rory Stewart’s book Politics on the Edge for example was depressing. How MPs are treated once elected is also unsatisfactory as described in Isabel Hardman’s book. Should you wish to get further depressed then Ian Dunt’s book How Westminster Works and Why it Doesn’t might finish you off completely. All three books point to a thoroughly dysfunctional system of selection, appointment and treatment of a group of people who are crucial to the decision making of our country. Whichever party gets to form a government, if the system itself is creaking, good results cannot be expected. Allowing such people to decide on life or death is clearly a worry for many.

    Peter Curbishley

    Books mentioned:

    Isabel Hardman, Why we Get the Wrong Politicians, 2019, Atlantic Books

    Ian Dunt, How Westminster Works … and Why it Doesn’t, 2023, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

    Simon Kuper, Chums, How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, 2023, Profile Books

  • Democracy Café

    April 2024

    There was a Democracy Café today as usual starting at 10:00 in the Library. If you haven’t been before – and we do get a number of new people coming each time – you can read some of our previous debates on this site to get an idea. You can suggest a topic if you wish and if it’s voted on, it will be debated (be prepared just to say a few words to introduce it if the topic is not obvious). Finishes at noon with a break at half-time. Free but if you can spare a groat or two it would be appreciated.

    PC

  • Potholes and democracy

    Democracy depends on an informed public

    April 2024

    It is widely believed that democracy is a desirable state of affairs for the running of a country. Churchill’s famous quote is often wheeled out suggesting that, despite its flaws, there isn’t any superior method of doing things. That may be true but democracy depends on those with the vote being sufficiently aware of life around them such that their vote is a meaningful expression of their informed beliefs. Listening or watching ‘vox pops’ one sometimes has to wonder.

    Readers of Private Eye and watchers of Newsnight (and possibly other outlets) will be aware of the scandal that is the freeport in Teesside. The story is complex and involves many factors including huge potential losses for public authorities and the taxpayer; procurement rules being waved; windfall profits of £60m; environmental risks being loaded onto public authorities; appointments made without advertising them first and appointments of friends and relatives to lucrative contracts; tax evasion schemes and a pall of secrecy over what is going on so that finding out details is extremely difficult.

    The scheme known as Teesworks, is rapidly becoming a major scandal. An independent report was damning but despite the considerable evidence produced by Private Eye and others said there was ‘no evidence of corruption’.

    There is an election in Tees Side and when reporters canvassed opinions in Darlington, no one raised it as an issue. Instead it was potholes, potholes and more potholes. It is something of a problem with our complex society that major issues such as the continuing and long running scandal of the post office, can rumble on for many years with little interest or anger from the public. Labour are proposing to try and close the tax gap – estimated by HMRC at £36bn – but is more likely to be double or treble that. One wishes them well and I suppose hope does spring eternal. But there is little anger from the public about this huge activity. These sums disappear and result in long waiting lists, lack of care for the elderly, rotting schools and … yes, potholes. I very much doubt that someone stopped in the street by some media outlet and asked what they would like to see changed, would say ‘close the tax gap’ or ‘what about Teesworks’ despite their massive potential benefit to the nation’s purse.

    I suspect that politicians know this and realise that whingeing on about the tax gap or the various goings on in the City will have little traction with the public. Teesworks is just too complex to understand without a lot of study. A hole in the road on the other hand is simple, visible, seen everywhere and generates an obvious statement that ‘they should do something about it’. It can be argued that potholes act as a kind of metaphor for the state the country is in and there is something in that argument.

    Is the problem solvable? I am not sure that it is. It’s a commonplace to say that politics has become trivialised and is largely about personalities. The recent scandal of an MP sending personal details via WhatsApp generates huge interest and many column inches for example. But massive corruption, tax evasion and other goings on are difficult to uncover, hard to explain and carry great risks under our draconian libel laws and Slapp actions which mean wealthy individuals can use the courts to silence critics. News outlets find it harder to justify the extensive work needed to bring these damaging activities to public notice.

    The nation faces some momentous decisions about its future. Climate, poor investment, continuing poor productivity, and an economy weakened by Brexit are just some of the major issues facing us. Massive issues around care of the elderly, the mental health of our young people are two other problems – expensive problems – in need of attention. Are they receiving the attention they deserve? Do sufficient people know enough about these and other problems to make a difference to the political narrative? I wonder.

    Or are we trapped into the endlessly repeated cycle of promises about lowering taxation with no mention of the billions lost overseas. Is the population fixated on potholes to the exclusion of all else? And even if we do fixate ourselves on potholes, is there a true realisation of why we have them? Do people understand that over two decades have gone by since houses were revalued for Community Charge purposes and hence local authorities have less to spend on their sacred potholes? Have they forgotten that local authorities lost huge sums of central support grant following the 2008 banking crash – around 40% over the decade?

    Democracy, to work properly, does need an electorate with some grasp of the key issues and events which have led to our present position. It does need some thinking beyond just ‘what about the potholes?’

    P Curbishley

  • Democracy Café

    There will be a Democracy Café this Saturday, 13th April starting at 10:00 as usual in Salisbury Library (upstairs). All welcome. Finishes at noon and there is a break at 11:00. Come with a suggested topic if you wish or just join in what is voted on.

    See you there.

  • Democracy Café: March

    March 2024

    A dozen members of the group attended this meeting and, after a slightly faltering start, two topics were, as usual, chosen for discussion.

    The most popular choice was consideration of the implications of a Trump win in the American presidential election in November. Concerns were expressed about his possible foreign policy (with regard to Ukraine, trade and Taiwan among other issues) and domestically, particularly his hostility to green matters, and the question of his willingness to leave office.

    The fossil fuels issue was brought up more than once, as was Trump’s attitude to women and worries about how his policies on immigration might turn out. On the other side, it was pointed out that Trump had ejected fewer people than Obama, presided over the lowest inflation for 45 years and the highest employment levels ever. Insofar as there was a debate on his merits or demerits, the prevailing view was that his unpredictability was a problem (a surprising link to Jeremy Corbyn). There was discussion of the polarisation of U.S. society that Trump embodied, notably the weaponisation of general disaffection (that Biden had not managed to utilise) and the fear of the white population of becoming a minority. Observations were made about the possible causes of Trump’s behaviour, as well as disappointment that he had not controlled big business when in power.

    The second topic of the day was “What are British values?” It was generally agreed that there was no answer to the question that would be meaningful, but rather there was an implication that our values are by definition better than anyone else’s. This could be attributed to having had an empire (or mere snobbishness). Our island history meant that we were less affected by neighbours (though it was noted that we were “perfidious Albion”) and more likely to want to be different. It was suggested that one of our virtues was an ability to fix things (notably when in Europe) and a pragmatic approach. We take the emotion out of things. This led on, though, to a debate on the post-imperial development of the UK as a financial centre (with questionable activities) – secrecy became a value along with duplicity. We were brought back to a consideration of the Enlightenment ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity as a code of values, if not specifically British.

    Andrew Hemming

    The next meeting is on Saturday 13th April starting at 10:00 in Salisbury Library. We are grateful to the Library for allowing us to use the space for our meetings.

  • March Democracy Café

    March 2024

    The March edition of the Democracy Café will take place on Saturday, 9th March starting at 10am upstairs in Salisbury Library. Come along for a drink and some stimulating conversation about issues that you deem to be important. A summary of the conversations from the February Café are available to read on our website – Democracy Café – Salisbury Democracy Alliance

    As a postscript to the first topic that we discussed at the February café, Mark Potts, the chair of SDA, is expecting the Salisbury Journal to publish a letter regarding the issues around John Glen in next week’s paper, or on their website. Discussions with the editor have been ongoing.

    Just a reminder that our partner organisation, the RSA, are holding an event in Salisbury Library this coming Thursday, 7th March, to mark World Book Day. Details of the event and registration can be found here – RSA Salisbury: World Book Day – RSA (thersa.org)

  • Democracy Café

    February 2024

    A good turnout for two debates as usual the first being a bit of a surprise. The New Statesman in its 2 – 8th February edition had made two serious allegations concerning the MP for Salisbury, Mr John Glen, in a piece entitled: The Rotten State: How corruption and chumocracy are pulling the British Nation apart (subscription needed). The first debate centred on these allegations and what it meant for the future of the MP and the constituency in the forthcoming general election. 

    The two allegations were as follows: ’[…] the Future Fund, established in 2020 by the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, at a cost of £1.1bn to support British start-ups. The taxpayer has lost almost £300m on the Future Fund, which has given money to the businesses of centimillionaire wife, Ashata Murty, [and] the cabinet office minister John Glen […]’. Mr Glen has shares in a sub-Saharan African mining firm. The second allegation was that Mr Glen attended meetings (which he probably chaired as the City Minister) with the banks to arrange £71bn in loans as part of the Covid recovery. The article suggests that £17bn of this has gone missing according to the Public Accounts Committee. When attempts were made to provide details the journalist was told by the Treasury ‘we do not hold minutes of the meeting’. 

    The proposer of the topic has written to Mr Glen but his answers were somewhat vague. It was up to the Treasury to keep minutes he said. It was quickly noted that this was becoming part of a pattern with large numbers of WhatsApp messages being deleted both in Scotland and in England in connection with the Covid enquiry. It was simply not satisfactory for the business of the country to be run this way with politicians able to delete the records at will or, in the case of Mr Glen, for their to be no record in the first place.

    It was suggested that Covid was an event to enable a large sum of money to be transferred to a small number of people. It was not clear if everyone agreed with this point. The same speaker mentioned Walter Lippmann who spoke about how people were deliberately distracted from the main issue. 

    The fact that there was no mention of these allegations in the Salisbury Journal was a surprise it was suggested. They do not seem to have asked any questions of him or sought a response. Maybe we should all write to the Journal and ask ‘why not?!’ Did it matter who was the MP? someone said. Yes it did and we right to expect a certain standard of honesty and integrity from those who represented us. 

    One speaker said she always got a response when she wrote but many others said they did not. They only got a reply if it was a ‘standard’ one they said. One member had written to him about matters in the Maldives for example which Mr Glen has said he has a special interest in since there was a group of Maldivians who lived in the City. No reply has been received**. Another response was to say as a minister he was unable to interfere in another department. 

    Back to the Journal and it was asked how influential was it? Difficult to answer but it did have a much lower readership which was true of all newspapers it was noted. However, it did give Mr Glen a column each week in which he can tell us what he is doing and as such was a ‘mouthpiece’ for him. 

    There was a brief discussion about the need to improve local journalism and the Trust News Initiative was mentioned.

    The second debate centred on Palestine and ideas around creating a state. The war in Gaza was in full spate at present with a reported 27,000 dead and many thousands missing. The proposer noted that Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, had mooted the idea of a separate Palestinian state. But who would fix the boundaries especially as the Israelis wanted to take more land? Would not be better if the countries of the Middle East held centre stage rather than ‘outside’ countries such as the US?

    One speaker noted that Palestine had been offered statehood in 1948, again after the Yom Kippur war and also after Camp David talks. Each time they have refused. At elections they have voted for Hamas who murdered the opposition and who’s only motive is the extinction of the Jewish State. It was also noted the leadership lived in Qatar. While this may be true, it was noted that Hamas had also been supported by Mr Netanyahu partly to destabilise the Palestinian leadership. 

    This narrative overlooked the significant role played by the US in the region and the powerful influence they had on Middle Eastern politics. The real issue is the relationship between the US and Iran which was a key driver of the politics of the area.

    Several speakers referred to outside influences over history – one even went back to the Romans! Perhaps they might ask in the area ‘what have the Romans ever done for us?’ More recently, Britain took a keen interest because we wanted a secure route for Persian oil through the Suez Canal. Mention was also made of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the role of Lloyd George in seeking Jewish support to get the US into WWI. We played a role in the UN Mandate in what was then called Palestine. There was also the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement between France and Britain concerning post-war and post Ottoman spheres of influence in the area. One comment was from someone who served with Army in the area in 1948 in an attempt to keep the peace. He referred to the 900 or so British soldiers who were murdered during this time. Wounds run deep. 

    Latterly, the Americans have held sway. A solution can only come it was said if there was a regional deal. To achieve this some of the Palestinian leadership needed to be released from Israeli gaols. 

    But the overriding series of comments centred on the role of outside influence of one kind or another. The selling of arms by several western countries particularly the US and Britain although Russian and China are involved, can only inflame the situation. The Abrahamic Accords in 2020 were mentioned and the commitment to recognise both sides diplomatically. They were called ‘Abrahamic’ because they recognised Abraham as a common link between the two religions.

    South Africa was mentioned who had launched the case against Israel in the International Criminal Court accusing them of genocide in Gaza which Israel has denied. Could they be mediators? The crucial point someone said was what was needed was a country which didn’t have history in the area. This would rule out USA, Britain, France and some others, all of whom have meddled or had a role in pursuing their interests over the interests of the people who live there. A related factor is possibly a sense of collective and almost atavistic guilt in some of the powers involved especially their bad treatment of Jews over the centuries: their expulsion from York in the twelfth century for example, their expulsion from Spain and so on, not to mention the Holocaust itself. 

    Northern Ireland was mentioned and the decades of the ‘Troubles’. It was eventually resolved by negotiation, pressure on the UK from the US, and a Canadian negotiator. These things can be resolved. In this connection, António Guterres*, the UN General Secretary was suggested as a possible mediator.

    As a final note, the practice of calling someone ‘anti-Semitic’ when they criticised Israel was deprecated. 

    For once, two unrelated debates as different as chalk and cheese (a good Wiltshire based expression). The next meeting is on Saturday 9th March, same place, same time.

    Peter Curbishley

    *Guterres is Portuguese.

    ** Correction 16 February: a reply has now been received and Mr Glen said he will raise the matter with the FCO.

    Books:

    The Palestine – Israel Conflict, 2015, Dan Cohen-Sherbok and Dawoud El-Alami, Oneworld.

    The Balfour Declaration. 2018, Bernard Regan, Verso.

  • Democracy Café

    February 2024

    The next meeting of the café is this Saturday, 10 February at 10:00 as usual in the Library (upstairs) and all are welcome. If you haven’t been before, have a look at the write-ups of previous cafés to get a feel of what we talk about. The meetings last 2 hours with a short break in the middle. We look forward to seeing you there.

    PC

  • Meeting report

    Notes following a committee meeting

    January 2024

    Members of the committee met on 30 January to review progress and discuss future plans. These are notes (not minutes) of that meeting for general interest. 

    We reviewed the Democracy Café which has been running successfully now for several years and is now in its new home in the Library. Attendance is a regular 20 or so with the occasional new member. We were pleased with the venue and how it was going and one decision was to nominate the facilitator ahead of the meeting itself.

    There was a report from a democracy group in Stroud (Glocs) who are investigating a permanent Citizens’ Jury system along side the council. They are trying to develop a ‘low cost’ solution and one idea is to do the sortition element themselves: this is the process of selecting a representative selection of people for the jury. We discussed this and there are problems in ensuring it is not self-selecting. There are also problems with data protection. Further investigation is to take place and we may consider observing their next meeting.

    We briefly discussed Citizens UK and we will investigate further and in particular about training courses. 

    Citizens’ Juries was then discussed with particular reference to SCC and WC. We need a topic to focus on and one problem is that so many projects are decided elsewhere with little local involvement. For example the Fisherton Street works – where we await the benefits to be revealed – are a government funded scheme. We still have to convince councillors and others of their merit. Too many of them seem to see them as a threat it was noted. WC has a citizen’s panel for the climate but how that worked and the degree of genuine influence was not known.

    We went on to discuss the idea of citizen’s involvement in the planning process and this followed correspondence with the director of planning at County Hall following an article on the subject in the Planner, the journal of the Royal Town Planning Institute. The response had not been entirely negative but the process was too far advanced for immediate involvement they noted. After our meeting, we made fresh contact and the following response was received by return:

    The timetable we have relates to our existing (emerging) Local Plan. We expect this Plan to be adopted in 2025. The next round of plan-making will be likely to begin a year or two later as we are required to update the Plan every five years. The timetable (Local Development Scheme) for the next plan is likely to be updated shortly after we have adopted the emerging Local Plan. That will be the right stage to consider different ways of engaging with local communities to inform the new Plan.

    This looks to be some way off i.e. sometime in 2026 or ’27. 

    We are due to have a presence in the People in the Park event on 18 May. We needed to agree a theme and the materials we need etc and a meeting will be convened to discuss this. 

    We had a brief report on web statistics. The number of visits to the site are steadily improving: 3,115 (2021); 2,715 (2022) and 3,628 (2023). The number of visitors has also improved: from 1,061 (2021) to 1,795 last year (2023). Note we are on Facebook. 

    We are always looking for new members who are interested in trying to improve the workings of our democracy and achieve better governance. If you think you might be interested get in touch. One way would be to come to a Democracy Café the next one of which is on Saturday 10 February starting at 10:00 upstairs in the Library. Or come to the People in the Park event on 18 May in Elizabeth Gardens. Or drop a line here. 

    PC