Class war on fat people is too much to stomach

Obesity is increasing rapidly in the Western world. In the 1980s, approximately 40% of the UK population were overweight and less than 10% were obese. Now two-thirds of adults are overweight and more than a fifth are obese.

In the monumental book Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett dedicate a fascinating chapter to exploring the causes behind this “obesity epidemic” and conclude that obesity levels tend to be lower in countries where income differences are smaller.

This plague of portliness has caused a major health crisis in the developed world as higher obesity levels has seen the ballooning of those suffering from heart disease, diabetes and various cancers. Increasing numbers of obese children will lead to lower life expectancy and place additional strain on an already underfunded and undervalued NHS. Furthermore, obesity further erodes psychological and mental well-being.

Historically, being fat has been associated with being rich. Rich people didn’t need to engage in manual labour and they could afford to gorge on various decadent delights. Conversely, the poor would work long, strenuous days and could afford, if anything, only the most basic food. Whilst the rich were often fat cats; the poor were more likely to be malnourished and suffer from debilitating disease.

As the Western world has moved to a post-industrial economy, however, obesity has changed its social distribution. For a variety of reasons – as laid out in Spirit Level – working-class people are now far more likely to be overweight than middle-class people.

This phenomena has been coupled with an overt and covert media assault on the corpulent classes. We have seen an explosion of voyeuristic television programmes laughing at a variety of (usually working-class) overweight subjects – Too Fat Too Young, The 34 Stone Teenager, Fat Club, Big Meets Bigger, The Biggest Loser, Can Fat Teens Hunt? – in a grotesque echo of the Victorian freak show. Tabloid newspapers, trashy magazines, the fashion industry and celeb culture fortify the maxim that thin is beautiful and fat is horrible. The ubiquitous media tells us that fat is wrong but, at the same time, the omnipresent advertising industry tells us to devour more and more unwholesome junk. Well you can't have your cake and eat it! Or maybe you can...

As Polly Toynbee notes, “fat is a class issue” – but this pervasive demonisation is much more subtle than overt class war and is compounded by the media’s desire to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. Like an exquisite meal, everything the media regurgitates has to be easily digestible.

A prime example of this is the clever satire of Have I Got News For You relentlessly attacking John Prescott – one of the few working class members of Blair’s government – for being overweight. Prescott was never overtly mocked for being working class, but that was the underlying subtext – especially when scoffing at Prescott’s lack of lingual dexterity. The implicit implication is that politics is no place for people who haven’t had a public school or Oxbridge education. Indeed, the whole media feeding frenzy around fat people is thinly veiled class war and represents another way for the establishment to both profit from and undermine the working-class.

On the campaign trail #1

Campaigning starts early for the May local elections; the Tories and Labour are on local doorsteps every Sunday, and I’m supplementing the Labour cause by posting leaflets in local streets.

I first became aware of the Conservative effort at the beginning of January, when I received a ‘sorry to have missed you’ leaflet through the door. What fun I could have had if I’d been at home... I also ran into a local Conservative candidate on my way back from the train station, targeting London commuters no doubt. The absence of any Conservative leaflets could reflect the fact that they’d prefer to actually speak to people to try and frame their policies as benefitting the poor and poor areas. What would the Conservative leaflet contain? News on NHS reform, savage cuts on jobs and local budgets, affecting everything from housing to schools to libraries? When I receive something from them, I’ll let you know.

My local Labour party are also using traditional means of getting the word out about Conservative plans to cut budgets and increase housing rents. I live in an area that is traditionally Labour, but somehow we’ve ended up with a Tory MP. So the leaflets are being distributed as often and as widely as possible. In local campaigning, there are four basic ways to help:

1) Stuff envelopes with locally produced letters
2) Deliver the envelopes, or deliver leaflets
3) Telephone members and non-members for support
4) Go door-knocking with local councillors

As an active member, I’m ripe for telephoning members and delivering envelopes. I’ve previously blogged about my good experience telephoning members, and I thought delivering envelopes would be easy too so signed up to do some deliveries last week.

It turned out a lonely task, and my first attempt to deliver failed. I walked out with my Tesco bag of leaflets, and returned with then 20 minutes later. It is daunting if you haven’t done it before, especially if you’re on your own. My main concerns were getting flak from the houses I was posting to, and silly as it sounds, getting chased or bitten by dogs. After the first failed attempt during the day, I thought it would be better to deliver under the cover of darkness. A few hours later, I set out again with my plastic bag, and soon got into my stride. In fact, I was secretly hoping to get asked about the leaflets! It wasn’t a particularly fulfilling experience, more relief when I’d finished. In all honesty, I feel I may be ready for the more social and effective option of campaigning: door-knocking.

Have you been campaigning for a political party? Are you actively campaigning for the May elections too? What is your experience door-knocking? I’d be interested to know your thoughts to see if it’s right for me.

The UN, ‘big society’ and UK forests

2011 has been proclaimed international year of forests by the UN, with its tagline ‘celebrating forests for people’. Did you know forests are home to 300 million people around the world, and the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people depend on forests?

Whilst there’s a distinct global feel to the UN’s message, we must keep an eye on our own woodland and public spaces to ensure they are kept public, and out of the hands of the private sector, which will inevitably lead to their destruction.

In October last year, it was widely reported that the Government confirmed plans to sell off Forestry Commission woodland. The move showed that even inanimate trees cannot be saved from the Government’s idea for a ‘big society’, where there will be a reduced role for the state and a growing role for the private sector.

Despite Government insistence that privatisation would not mean a compromise on conservation, many people are sceptical, in the way they were 20 years ago when the previous Tory government proposed something similar. Last week, words turned into action when more than 3,000 people protested at the Forest of Dean against the proposed sale of the Forestry Commission.

The bill to decide the future of Forestry Commission land (all 650,000 hectares of it) will be debated in Parliament within the next few weeks. If turned into law, land including the New Forest and Sherwood Forest may be sold to the highest bidder, who protesters fear will be energy companies and developers, looking to limit public access and make a quick buck.

Watch this (green) space...

'Cablegate' is political reprieve for Lib Dems

Unless Vince Cable is forced to resign due to the media furore surrounding the 'Cablegate' controversy, it will prove a victory for the Lib Dem propaganda machine.

The Telegraph's revelations are superbly timed for a party at a historical low in terms of public relations. The tuition fee fiasco threatened to blow the Lib Dems apart and seriously eroded their credibility, but recent controversy surrounding Vince Cable and other senior Lib Dems - such as Norman Baker, Michael Moore, Ed Davey and Steve Webb - acts, in a bizarre way, to rehabilitate their sullied image. They may be stooges, but at least they're not complete stooges - or so the journalistic stings would have us believe.

Call me cynical, but I think it's highly unlikely that all these senior Lib Dem figures could be duped by undercover journalists. Surely, as experienced public figures, they have more political nous. Instead, it smells like a co-ordinated media ploy to resurrect their reputation as an unsilent partner which is curtailing the Conservative right and championing progressive politics. The sidelining of Cable also has the convenient side-effect of removing senior Lib Dem officials from the firing line of front line government. For now, the Lib Dems have shifted the focus. Instead of spineless political chameleons, they look like spineless political martyrs too enamoured with power to stand up for their crumbling beliefs.

If the Lib Dems had any backbone at all then they wouldn't boast to undercover journalists, they would resign. All Cablegate has shown is that the Lib Dems lack all sense of political principle. Let's hope in the local elections next May - and future General Elections - the electorate doesn't forget the Lib Dem betrayal or their continuing love of 'old' politics.

Working towards the Führer

Tory MP Nicholas Boles recently criticised central planning and called for local government planning to be replaced by ‘chaos’. Bole’s revelations draw alarming parallels with the power structures of Nazi Germany.



There are obvious conceptual obstacles to comparing Nazi Germany to our contemporary democracy – namely the Holocaust – but it does provide a useful analytical framework for understanding modern bureaucracy. Structuralist historians such as Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen view Nazi Germany as a polycratic shambles of rival bureaucracies in perpetual power struggles. This doesn’t seem far removed from what Boles is suggesting – albeit the polycratic structures will encompass voluntary and private sector bodies too. Either way, it leads to convoluted and divided government.

Structuralists argue that Nazi bureaucracy was sophisticated and complex but, rather than emanating from detailed central authority, Hitler governed through suggestion rather than directive. Ian Kershaw developed the theory of “working toward the Führer”. This theory maintains that subordinates were charged with anticipating and interpreting Hitler’s wishes rather than formulating policy from detailed protocols. The role of the bureaucracy was to interpret perceived wishes, or to create policy from Hitler’s often loose and indistinctly phrased wishes.

A key parallel here is Cameron’s ‘big society’ which defined his General Election campaign and continues to underwrite government policy. Yet most Tories – not to mention the public – seem confused as to what the ‘big society’ actually means. Cameron has created an indistinct phrase which he now expects ministers to formulate into coherent policy.

In the case of Nazi Germany, the result of constant competition between different power structures saw the radicalisation of the regime. This is seen most obviously in the evolution of anti-Semitism. Now, it would be dangerous to equate modern democratic structures with those of Nazi Germany, but there are similarities with the interaction of power. David Cameron has created a vague but powerful idea that the whole of government needs to save money and reduce the size of the state. As a result, departments compete to find bigger savings and reduce more services.

Structuralist historians hold that the competition between departments fostered egotism. This is also echoed in the current situation and has been amplified by the presence of the Lib Dems within government. Over recent months, Lib Dem ministers have been given far more airtime than their government numbers warrant. Usually the government minister defending cuts or tuition fees has been a Lib Dem – either Danny Alexander or Vince Cable – and high profile Tories – such as Cameron and Osborne – have been relatively quiet. The reason Lib Dems have such a high profile is multi-layered. Firstly, they are competing for profile. They have to justify undermining party policy by being perceived to be driving government policy. Secondly, as the focal point for announcements they become the focal point for dissent. Responsibility is displaced from the Tories to the Lib Dems. Indeed, the whole ‘big society’ can be seen as an attempt to devolve responsibility from the state to the individual. Cameron still sets the tone of debate and change, but he won’t be blamed if anything goes wrong.

2+2=5

You know when you get that feeling that things are just not adding up? I’ve been feeling that about a few things recently, and today’s announcement on unemployment was the final straw...

1) Higher university fees, higher unemployment

The Government has passed a bill for universities to start charging fees of up to £9,000 per year. The fact some Lib Dems voted for this increase after getting students' votes on exactly the opposite pledge doesn’t add up in itself, but I want to focus on the argument that people won’t start paying back the debt until they earn above £21,000. With today’s announcement that UK unemployment rose by 35,000 to 2.5 million in the three months to October, the task of finding a job, let alone one that will allow you to start paying off your student debt, seems all the more difficult. And let’s make no mistake – the reason for the rise in unemployment is down to the Government’s cuts, because 33,000 of those affected are from the public sector, which has suffered and will continue to suffer spending cuts. So the Government has truly shafted young people by increasing tuition fees, and reducing employment prospects when they graduate.

2) Julian Assange

There are a number of problems with Julian Assange. He’s wanted in Sweden for sex offences, has been granted a £200,000 bail, but remains behind bars after Swedish authorities appealed against the bail. We will have to let the courts decide whether he’s guilty of the alleged crimes, but many people around the world think this is a cover for the fact that Assange is the founder of Wikileaks. The website and Assange have been the focus of widespread criticism (and support) for leaking classified US documents and an ABC News poll claims 6 in 10 people believe Assange should face criminal charges. To top it all off, today, TIME magazine named Facebook founder and CEO Zuckerberg its person of the year, despite Assange winning the reader’s choice (Zuckerberg came 10th in this poll). Today’s announcement is widely conceived as another snub against Assange, and joins the list of other businesses boycotting Wikileaks.

3) New Labour government, Thatcherite opinions

It may come as no surprise to those who felt New Labour largely continued many Conservative policies when they came into power in 1997, but yesterday’s opinion poll by the British Social Attitudes shows we are more Thatcherite than we were in the 1980s! After 13 years of New Labour in power, how is it possible that as a nation we have less sympathy for benefit claimants, less support of redistributing wealth and harsher attitudes towards the poor? There was some good news, with larger support for education and health, but there’s no denying that Labour must take responsibility for the fact that they didn’t try hard enough with redistributive taxation. Must try harder next time...

Latin America 2010 – Beating the blockade of Cuba

I recently wrote a seminar report on the illegal US blockade of Cuba at the Latin America 2010 conference. The article has been reproduced below or you can read it here on the Cuba Solidarity Campaign website.

Cuba: Beating the blockade – advancing the Revolution

In a lively discussion on the US blockade of Cuba, Steve Ludlam, lecturer at the University of Sheffield, denounced the embargo as the “relentless strangulation of Cuba”. As Ludlam contended, the blockade of Cuba constitutes just one facet of a dirty war against the island which includes US-sponsored terrorist groups attacking the Cuban government and the persecution and imprisonment of those defending Cuba’s right to self-determination, such as the Miami 5.

Bob Oram, Unison NEC, affirmed that the US blockade has been tightened and intensified since 1962 to “asphyxiate the economy and wear down the Cuban people”. The blockade and associated legislation has been expanded extraterritorially to adversely affect other countries trading with Cuba. As Oram postulated, US-initiated restrictions on banks, companies and shipping mean that it is practically impossible for most businesses to trade with Cuba, whilst those that do often face penalties from the US.

US pretext for the blockade asserts that Cuba fails to promote human rights but, as both the United Nations and Amnesty International have testified, the blockade disproportionately affects the most vulnerable people in Cuba. Luis Marron, Political Counsellor at the Cuban Embassy, described how a two year-old girl was denied medical treatment because the required medication was only available in the US. As Marron concluded, “the little girl wasn’t a communist and didn’t know who Castro was, she just happened to be born in Cuba”. Marron and Oram both rejected the US declaration that Cuba requires the blockade to justify internal economic conditions and referenced the Cuban Foreign Minister’s challenge to lift the embargo and normalise relations.

Both Ludlam and Luis Marron cited three obstacles to the removal of the blockade. Firstly, there is a lack of political will within the US to end the blockade as the political establishment seeks to demonstrate to Latin America and the developing world that “resistance is futile”. Secondly, the authority to remove the embargo is no longer held by the President and instead has to be passed by Congress. This further entrenches reactionary legislation and makes it harder to revoke. And finally, the influence of Cuban nationals in Miami prevents any repeal of the blockade. Florida is a key state in presidential elections and Barack Obama is the first President since 1959 to not have the electoral support of the ex-patriate Cuban lobby within Miami.

As a result, any policy change will not come from within the US political system. It requires solidarity across Latin America and real pressure from Europe. Ludlam heralded the work of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign working with the trade union movement within the UK to champion the Cuban cause whilst Luis Marron acclaimed the amazing support which Cuba has received – both politically and materially – and declared all solidarity as victory over a blockade which seeks to isolate Cuba. As Marron affirmed, “Cuba has survived 50 years without the US and will continue to exist and advance with or without the US”. Despite constant harassment and persecution, Cuba has met Millennium Development Goals in education and health - just think what would be possible without the blockade.