Review: Mark Steel's In Town

Mark Steel’s In Town is a rallying call against the commercialisation and homogenisation of Britain’s towns. It is a celebration of regional quirks and local traditions that rejects the corporate desire to build identi-kit urban spaces.

Steel leads a rip-roaring tour of the British Isles – from Penzance to Wigan, from Exeter to Merthyr Tydfil – and reinforces his reputation as one of the finest and most compelling political comedians on the circuit.

The ostensible hook is that each show is tailored to the locality – and this show was about Highgate. Its first half is a tight anthology of various British towns and allows for a looser second period which – although laced with tested material – looks more closely at Highgate’s peculiarities.

Steel adopts a number of classic comedy techniques – such as observational humour, anecdotes and reading amusing quotes from obscure books – but the subject matter and his enthusiasm for history give it a unique twist. There aren’t many stand-ups who do a gag about ordering a Subway sandwich and later segue into a routine on Marx’s theory of alienation.

The ranty delivery and firebrand performance provide real appeal. Steel's passion is infectious and his range of voices and characters is impressive - take-offs of left-wing stalwarts Tony Benn and George Galloway are truly inspired.

Although some of the routines threaten to become hack – such as reflections on growing old and difficulties in finding the television remote – Steel’s expert delivery provides an original twist.

And his unique retelling of history - including the story of George Formby as an anti-apartheid protester - elevates the show to brilliance as he combines obscure detail with funny gags to create a genuinely insightful few hours.

Mark Steel’s In Town is much more than a polemic against the growth of corporate institutions, it is a meticulously researched and hilarious exploration of the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of Britain’s towns. Part-comedy and part-lecture, each show is a melting pot of bespoke material, fail-safe routines and unusual factoids. Who needs Wikipedia when you’ve got Mark Steel?

This review originally appeared in the Morning Star. The show tours nationally until September.

A Bad State of Affairs

In today’s Daily Telegraph David Cameron set out his vision for “tearing down the big state”, a vision first revealed last year in the government’s Open Public Services White Paper.

The Prime Minister states that he wants “to end once and for all the closed state monopoly where central government decides what you get and how you get it”, ignoring the inherent contradictions this highlights in his own government’s polices and the cataclysmic problems this will cause in trying to fight poverty, create inequality and strengthen Britain’s vast democratic deficit.

Since the ConDem coalition came into being education in Britain has seen the most top down, central government changes in modern history in defiance of the Prime Minister’s statement. Local councils, unions and teachers have been usurped with power held solely in the hands of the education secretary who decides which schools can become academies and free schools, who can fund 10% or all of these respectively, who can teach in them and what they can teach. This is the bypassing of democracy.

The greatest choice of all, voting in a secret ballot, has been relegated by the choice of proprietor, fitting for a government that didn’t gain a majority and received only one-fifth of the possible public vote, fitting for a party that seek to challenge proportional representation and for a party that stands in the way of workers appearing on company rumination boards.

Power is ceded from the voter and the professional, in this case the teacher, to profit making bodies and charitable institutions that lie predominantly in the hands of the wealthiest in society. Follow the money and the freedom lies with them not with the majority of individuals. You are free to be a buyer but you must work for the seller. This may make “the user feel truly empowered” as Cameron argues but clearly they are not. For the public, and thus the individual, doesn’t have a say regarding services or industry.

No encouragement of unionization or collective power is asserted in a country with the strongest anti-union legislation in the EU. The desire it seems is for the false illusion of individual consumer power in a society where the vast majority have no say or hold in its foundations.

This eradication of democracy can be seen in the anti-state, “unashamedly pro-business” mandate pushed by the government since 2010 and strengthened in last week’s budget. These advocates of further privatization argue that as 45% of Britain’s GDP is generated by the private sector the state is still too large even after over 30 years of neo-liberal policy. This belies the fact that so much of the former publicly owned institutions are subsided by the state in league with the private sector who then cipher away the profits- the rail network being a particularly poignant example of this.

Factor in the example of the big six electric companies now operating in Britain and you find the appearance of choice masked in an oligargy that pushes prices up with society and the individual clearly being seen to suffer. Prisons, elderly care and unemployment are all recent examples of this failed ideology.

However, society still pays big business to run trains. It pays big business high prices as they run their electric supply and they have no say over either. Big business rather than the democratic state is therefore the predominant withdrawer of liberty, freedom and choice. You have no vote in it and all small business is suffocated by them.

Thus, as the public sector is opened up to multi-nationals under this bravado of choice the idea of strengthening the power of society and its individuals is weakened. With the availability of social media technology there has never been a greater chance to implement the nationalization, regionalization and co-operative community approach to public services absent in some of the top-down civil serviced structure that has existed in the past.

But it seems this is absent in the mind of the Prime Minister as he looks to force greater 'choice' and dismantle the public's hold on it' assets in the most unequal Britain since 1918. Where 20% of children are still brought up in poverty. Facts that lead effortlessly to the words of one of the creators of the public services structure the government is attacking, Nye Bevan: “If freedom is to be saved and enlarged, poverty must be ended. There is no other solution.”

It seems the Prime Minister’s main concern is to remove publicly-owned services “brick by brick, edifice by edifice” into the hands of those with the most rather than tackle the rampant inequality in Britain today. To create socialism for the rich and a laissez faire society for the poor.

But there is an alternative. To cite Bevan again we can create services run by society for society that exist ‘In Place of Fear’.

Murdoch teaches toffs a lesson

Rupert Murdoch – an unlikely champion of media plurality – took to Twitter today to declare: 

Enemies (have) many different agendas, but worst (of all are) old toffs and right wingers who still want last century's status quo with their monoplies [sic]

The statement is profoundly hypocritical considering the concentration of mass media in the hands of Rupert Murdoch – but the target couldn’t be clearer.

According to Independent Australia, “Murdoch bestrides the Australian media landscape like a colossus”. NewsCorp owns 8 of Australia’s 12 major newspapers and “dominates the regional suburban newspapers publishing industry”. Those newspapers not owned by Murdoch are usually produced by Murdoch-controlled printers, giving him ubiquitous influence over Australia’s entire print industry.  That’s not to mention his command of Australian television and News International’s dominance of media in the UK and United States.

But the Hackgate revelations and Leveson Inquiry have shaken the Murdoch Empire to the core. Whilst celebrities such as Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant and journalists such as Nick Davies have brought phone-hacking to public attention, it is the government – or “old toffs and right wingers” – which can cause Murdoch irreparable damage.  The Tweet – along with the behaviour of News International’s two flagship newspapers this week – serve as a stark warning to the Conservative government.

Firstly, a Sunday Times exclusive revealed footage of Tory Party Chairman Peter ‘Cash for Access’ Cruddas canvassing for generous donations in exchange for policy influence:



And whilst the controversy of the “pasty tax” rumbles on – exposing government toffs as out-of-touch – the Sun took to Parliament Square to hand out pasties like delicious confetti

Photo via Matt Zarb

The delivery couldn’t be more different, but the message is clear: Don’t mess with Murdoch because he’ll fuck you up.

By rallying against “monopolies”  and frightening the government into acquiescence, it is precisely his own monopoly he wishes to preserve. Furthermore, it was the structural inevitability of the concentration of media in the hands of one mogul which encouraged the routine practise of phone-hacking.  The only free press which Murdoch believes in is a press that gives him free rein.

The Tories' transparent agenda

As Budget Day looms, George Osborne has laid out plans to give taxpayers a detailed breakdown of how their taxes are spent in the name of transparency and accountability. According to Exchequer Secretary David Gauke, "We want to make tax more transparent and we want people to be more engaged with their own tax affairs".

Let's not kid ourselves that the initiative has anything to do with transparency or openness – it is instead about re-enforcing a neo-liberal assault on public spending.

The cognitive linguist George Lakoff – in his fascinating book Don’t Think of An Elephant – explores how conservatives consistently win political debates through their control and manipulation of language. Lakoff’s basic idea is “framing”, the idea that appropriate language can create a framework evoking a set of concepts supporting your point of view. Just as our natural reaction when someone says “don’t think of an elephant” is to think of an elephant, our natural reaction when someone says “look how much you’re spending in tax towards health” is to think we’re spending too much.

The mainstream media has neatly mimicked and echoed this discourse. BBC Breakfast News, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail – with varying degrees of vitriol – have focused on specific fields – particularly welfare, health and education – where the government are making the most brutal cuts. The fact that the political and media establishment have focused on these areas – rather than, say, Defence spending – demonstrates the real target of this policy.

The "frame" for Osborne's idea is not about increasing accountability, engagement or transparency. The implication is that social spending – on health, education or welfare – is inherently wasteful. If people can physically see where their taxes go, they are more likely to support the Conservatives’ austerity measures.

Labour cannot oppose the move – based as it is on 'progressive' values such as openness and accountability – but it can change the field of debate in three ways:

Firstly, in terms of value for money. According to the Treasury, someone earning £25,000pa contributes £743.26 towards education. As someone who received free education until the age of 18, it seems like a bargain – especially when you consider any children I have are entitled to free education too. Under £1,000 for full medical cover on the NHS also looks like a snip – especially when you compare it to the cost of private health insurance.

Secondly, in terms of real transparency. Osborne’s proposal will show us which areas our taxes are going to, but it won’t show us who they are going to. Where is the breakdown of how public taxes are being used to subsidise big business? Whether it’s bailing banks out during the financial crisis; subsiding multinationals such as Tesco through Workfare; or bankrolling private companies like A4e in the Work Programme – the Left must shape the debate to show the real abuse of taxpayers’ money.   

And finally, how about publishing a register of how taxpayers benefit from public spending – from museums, galleries and libraries to parks, roads and hospitals? As the Con Dem attack on public institutions continues unabated, it might prove a valuable historical document.

The End of History?

Last year, 159 secondary schools failed to enter a single pupil for GCSE History. Academic debate has focussed on how best to stem the decline of history teaching and a chorus of critics – including Chris Skidmore, David Starkey and Niall Ferguson– have sought to discredit the National Curriculum. “We are facing a situation,” warns Skidmore, Tory MP and historian, “where history is at risk of dying out.”

The chief cheerleader of reform has been Education Secretary, Michael Gove, who contends that the National Curriculum neglects our national history and “most parents would rather their children had a traditional education, with children sitting in rows, learning the kings and queens of England.” 

Critics essentially want a history of nationalistic masturbation that ignores awkward truths and reflects the Tory tradition of Euro-scepticism rather than the academic tradition of critical analysis. Yet as Richard J.Evans has demonstrated, the decline of history is not due to a shift in teaching methods, but instead due to the introduction of league tables in the 1990s. Both primary and secondary schools are focussed on compulsory subjects – such as English, maths and science – at the cost of subjects such as history. Whilst primary schools dedicate only 4% of class time to history, secondary schools would rather concentrate on subjects where better GCSE results can be achieved. 

According to Evans, the biggest threat to history teaching doesn’t come from the curriculum, “it comes from the academies ... which are free from local authority control and don't have to follow the National Curriculum”. Last year, just 20% of academy students took GCSE history and “as academies spread further ... the teaching of history really will be in crisis.”

It is not simply the case that history is being dropped to gerrymander league tables and placate the demanding parents of academy school pupils – the problem runs much deeper than that. As Mehdi Hasan wrote in the New Statesman: 

Michael Gove is quietly presiding over the biggest shake-up of England's schools since the Second World War - there are now 1,529 academy schools, outside local government control, compared to 200 when the coalition came to power. They've been joined by 24 so-called free schools, set up by parents, charities and other unelected groups    

The education sector in the UK is worth an estimated £2bn – so no wonder corporations are eager to have a piece of the pie. Earlier this year, the Swedish company IES UK was awarded a £21m contract to manage a free school in Suffolk to be known as IES Breckland (I eagerly await Stelios Haji-Ioannou opening the first EasySchool). Furthermore, David Bell – former top civil servant in the Department of Education – says “he sees "no principled objection" to profit-making companies taking over state schools and believes they will "probably" be allowed to do so eventually.”

As Seumas Milne wrote recently, “schools are being bribed or bullied into becoming freestanding academies outside local democratic control, many sponsored or run by private companies.”  The problem with academies is not just the profit-motive – or the creation of a postcode lottery – it is the influence corporations and businesses have over the syllabus.

“Academies are less accountable, less transparent, less locally integrated and less open to parental involvement than local authority schools,” argues Milne, “companies that run them can bend the curriculum to their whim.”

But why shouldn’t we want businesses determining the history syllabus? Well, like the historians and academics arguing for a return to “children sitting in rows, learning the kings and queens”, their dispute is saturated with self-interest and a need to re-write inconvenient truths. History is riddled with corporate collusion in totalitarianism and oppression. From IBM’s implication in the Holocaust to Coke Cola and Apple’s violation of workers’ rights in Latin America and China – these are the lessons you won’t learn in a corporate academy.  

Academies are not designed to empower communities, they are designed to empower corporations. The chief threat to history teaching – and education as a whole – is not simply how the subject is taught but who controls the curriculum. As George Orwell wrote in 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”. The rise of academies deepens the reach of corporations in our cultural and educational milieu and opens to door to unprecedented historical revisionism.  This is a lesson we have to learn, before it’s too late.

This article was originally written for Next Generation Labour

The Inequality of Choice

Following the major industrial action called last year, and with further industrial action being planned to disrupt the Olympics this year, the debate over the size and continuation of public institutions has, and looks set to continue to be, at the forefront of all policies and actions of the Con-Dem coalition.

With the shift to greater forms of privatisation continuing to run ever onwards the unions are now, in the words of the New Statesman’s Mehdi Hassan, left as “the last defence for maintaining Britain’s public institutions”.

With the forming of free schools outside of Council remits and the selling off of parts of the NHS to private entities the last remaining bastions of socially democratic Britain are currently under threat. They have been targeted as a weight around the neck of the individual in an increasingly technological and individualistic society. Any form of higher taxation, lack of choice of payment or lack of choice of proprietor is seen in the same light as a lack of choice socially, a viewpoint supported by one of Britain’s self-appointed ‘New Progressives’ Nick Clegg. The two are seen as one and same when they clearly fall into two separate spheres of reason that are united by the desire for liberty.

There is no doubt that there has been a positive recent shift in Britain’s social viewpoint. The challenging of racism, sexism and homophobia is now common place in society with choice and diversity seen as the key element to the betterment of the individual. The choice to be what you want to be is paramount. These positive social changes however have occurred at a time of major economic individualism. Education, healthcare and housing to name a few, are now often seen as issues which fall to the choice of the individual without any form of collective conscience holding sway.

Thus taxes have been sold as an irritating necessity, rather than a contribution to betterment, that can be tolerated as long as they are low and offer choice with money rather than more equality without. The ‘freedom of the market’ ideal of the last thirty years encourages the idea of greater cash flow in all areas and for all services with the individual alone responsible for their actions. You pay your money you take your choice. The individual Taxpayer, rather than society, deserves value for their money.

No more is society referred to in a political sense yet one cannot escape the constant media barrage regarding issues surrounding ‘the Taxpayer’. Private companies offer and the individuals compete for their services with cash and credit; boom and bust possibilities for all. Individuals take on huge debts themselves hence private debt is now around four times higher than public debt. Each individual is morphed into a limited company of the self.

As a result, those with ideals stepped in equality, liberty and collectivism need to come up with an economically reasoned alternative to this if they wish to buck the trend of the rise in economic individualism. Highlighting how democratic public institutions in key service areas, rather than private bodies, improve the liberty and choice for all individuals - akin to the social choices they demand and enjoy today - is the key place to start. This liberty can be achieved by helping form greater power equality through democratic involvement in output which in turn creates freedom from the oppression of powerful, undemocratic economic bodies and gives individuals a greater and fairer stake in the system they work in and/or vote upon. Also, with these institutions the individual spends less on key services and thus has more hard cash to spend on goods, maintaining a healthy market economy in key areas.

Akin to how the 18^th century philosopher Thomas Paine talked of the need for individuals to be free from feudal landlords, individuals in modern society find their liberty restricted by large, undemocratic, often trans-national, corporations of which in 2002, 29 where part of the richest 100 entities in the world. As this total was found in a UN report published ten years ago one can assume the current total to be higher. Furthermore, the figures do not include non-limited companies described by writer Peter Wilby as being “equity funds that take over businesses such as MG Rover, the care home provider Southern Cross and Manchester United so that they cease to be public limited companies with shares traded on the stock exchange under strict rules. They do not...have to abide by rules of corporate governance, announce financial results or publish senior executives' remuneration”.

The fear of the big state and its control has led to the now unspoken dominance of these corporate bodies and the individuals who run them. The News International scandal allowed a small peak into the dimensions of this unrestricted power and influence that now strangles the liberty of individuals on a grand scale.

When highlighting these ideals critics of improving and increasing public institutions often stress the lie that as Britain is a developed state, and allows all the chance to try and gain a plethora of material goods, enough equality has arisen. Of course it hasn’t. Inequality of wealth in Britain is now at it’s highest since 1918 causing a glut of social problems as highlighted in Wilkinson and Pickett’s ‘The Spirit Level’ (2009).

With the rise of UK Uncut and the Occupy movement, support for the Robin Hood tax and strong vocal opposition regarding the cuts exemplified by the recent victory against the government’s workfare policy, the economic dissent at neoliberal policies is growing. Now real progressives have a chance to react to this and cement the facts into the mainstream about how economic choice espoused by neo-liberals gives powers to some individuals but also weakens the power of many individuals, as well as numerous groups, in society drastically. If an essential service sector allows all in an unequal society to do as they please in terms of choice and compete in a market environment then those with the most have the greater power to succeed as seen so chillingly in Britain’s education system of economic apartheid.

The best alternative to this is strong public institutions free and available to all where possible, supported by an extension of democracy through changes in the electoral system with greater proportional representation and greater power to councils and regions. As devolution has indicated, greater regional powers are appreciated when gained, opening up the possibility of elements of regionalisation of nationalisation and a change to the “civil-serviceised” nationalisation that was predominant during the post-war consensus.

As the unions prepare to defend public institutions they have a chance to push this new political path and speak to those in society who are outside of their remit, to those in society without any cooperative protection. Those in the corporations and companies who have no stake in the output of their labour. Those who have no power over the decisions that affect their everyday working lives. Those who need public institutions to increase their restricted liberty. Those like the one million people now working in call centre jobs, more than worked in the mining industry at its peak.

For without these public institutions, services will not exist for all but exist for the benefit of a minority - the minority with the most. Without them the poor do not benefit, society does not benefit and the individual does not benefit for society is split. The individual is alone. The indivual is economically powerless. He is without freedom. The choice of the freedom to choose is no choice at all in an unequal Britain. Society has to espouse greater economic equality to gain the freedom the individual so desires and strong public service institutions are one of the ways, if not the key way, to heightening this liberty for they help make one and all truly free.

Free-time suddenly got a lot more expensive

It was announced yesterday that the Scottish government had awarded a £250,000 contract to First ScotRail to pilot a free Wi-Fi service on trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The hope is that the technology will eventually be available on trains across the country and will help stimulate economic recovery by lubricating the creaking wheels of commerce.

As someone who's spent a large proportion of the last year commuting (approx. 4.5hrs per day or 44 full days - not that I'm counting) the move promises a welcome technological luxury. More concerning, however, is that the scheme is vulnerable to corporate exploitation and is likely to further erode the thin line between 'work' and 'free-time'.

The initiative has unsurprisingly been welcomed by business leaders. According to Liz Cameron, chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce: 

Wi-fi connectivity is essential to doing business in the 21st Century and its introduction to our trains is vital to making public transport a productive business experience.

The question, therefore, is why do trains need to be a ‘productive business experience’? Will workers be paid for working during their commute? Will this be included as part of their normal working week and enshrined in their contract? Almost certainly not.

According to the TUC, workers gave bosses over 2 billion hours of unpaid overtime in 2011. That's roughly equivalent to one million full-time jobs and contributed £29.2bn to the economy. Staggeringly, if employees who regularly put in unpaid overtime worked all their hours at the start of the year, the first day they would get paid would be February 24.

Modern technology such as smart phones and Wi-Fi – rather than being liberating and empowering – have been hijacked by commercial interest. People are not obliged to work in their free-time – because if they were employers would be compelled to pay them – but they are expected to do so. This expectation – exacerbated by the fear of unemployment – creates a culture of anxiety and encourages people to sacrifice their free-time. It effectively means the wage you earn is worth less because you're working more hours and fits rather snugly with Marx's theory of alienation. The phenomena itself is part of an increasing capitalist monopolisation of free-time (on which I will return later).

One thing’s for certain. We now know why they call it ‘free’ time – because people end up working for nothing.