WHAT FLASHMAN DID NEXT...............

"Flashman, be it said, was big and strong of his age. He played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted, and managed generally to keep appearances where it was; and having a bluff off-hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in general for a good fellow enough. Even in the School-house, by dint of his command of money, the constant supply of good things which he kept up, and his adroit toadyism, he had managed to make himself not only tolerated but rather popular amongst his own contemporaries; although Young Clegg scarcely spoke to him, and one or two others of the right sort like old Binner's showed their opinions of him whenever a chance offered. But the wrong sort happened to be in the ascendant just now, and so Flashman was a formidable enemy for small boys. This soon became plain enough. Flashman left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone, which could in any way hurt his victims, or isolate them from the rest of the house. One by one most of the other rebels fell away from them, while Flashman's cause prospered, and several other fifth-form boys began to look black at them and ill-treat them as they passed about the house. By keeping out of bounds, or at all events out of the house and quadrangle, all day, and carefully barring themselves in at night, the poorest boys managed to hold on without feeling very miserable; but it was as much as they could do. Greatly were they drawn then towards Old Labour, who, in an uncouth way, began to take a good deal of notice of them, and once or twice came to their study when Flashman was there, who immediately decamped in consequence. The boys thought that Old Labour must have been watching.

David Cameron's apparent uneasiness with comparisons between one public schoolboy and another (him and flashy) have I am told led to some angry exchanges in the House and it is it seems a charactonym far too close to the truth for him to bear. But if this is really so, then why does he continue to try so hard to live up to his Tom Brown Schoolboy soul mate so much in his actions and deeds?

Cameron in recent weeks in an attempt to rid himself of the omnigaffe and u-turn blues has taken once more to the open mouth before engaging brain persona that had troubled him so when first entering number 10, do you still remember his grovelling speech in the States when he referred to the UK being the USA's "Junior Partner" in the Second World war? or his assertion in Turkey that "Iran has a nuclear weapon"?

Well this time he chose his home ground on which to make a fool of himself. Jimmy Carr's Tax avoidance is of course morally repugnant, and I for one have lost a tremendous amount of respect for the comedian now I know how little he cares for paying his taxes, but was it really David Cameron who was preaching to all who would listen as to how wrong all this was? It was a TV spectacle equivalent to watching Dot Cotton launch an anti smoking campaign for the NHS or listening to Jeremy Clarkson in praise of women only shortlists. We just couldn't take it in as believable.

Here was a man whose father and father in law have both been exposed as tax dodgers engaged in siphoning off money overseas, a man whose party is kept afloat by deputy chairman,  Lord Ashcroft who it is reported has avoided paying over £127m in taxes over a ten year period during which he himself donated £11m to the Tory party! And what about his fellow cabinet members who are also allegedly involved in tax avoidance? Just why oh why the PM started throwing rocks and boulders about in such a home owned greenhouse is anybody's guess. Perhaps like Flashman he is simply happy to preach to his fags as to what they should and shouldn't do whilst privately refusing to acknowledge even to himself that his own position as head boy has been bought completely by outside privilege and favour from a wealthy family.

And so having been caught out and found out by an electorate far more astute than Dr Arnold, the schoolmaster from Thomas Hughes's novel,  Flashman "Call me Dave" reverts to type and starts bullying the oiks. And so it is today that we witness another attack on the young and vulnerable,  labeling them all as workshy benefit scroungers undeserving of our care and thus proposing to cut Housing Benefit to all under 25 years olds.

He of course is talking to a specific audience of voters when he speaks, those who want any safety net completely pulled from underneath the have nots, but it is his knee jerk "nasty party" commentary thats leads sensible people to question whether or not his rantings are even partly sensible?

In one fell swoop he is saying that all parents must keep their young at home until they are 25 unless they can afford to move out, and don't think for one minute that his target is just the workshy, of the 210,000 under 25's claiming Housing Benefit a very high number are already in work and claim benefit as a top up to satisfy the ridiculous levels of private rent to private landlords, creaming it in (and probably avoiding paying tax on the profit) due to the failure of successive Governments to provide decent social housing for our young.

Even within the coalition the questions on what is dodgy policy are stacking up

Tim Leunig, chief economist at the Liberal Democrat Centre Forum think tank, poses five questions for Cameron:

• Does this mean all parents have a legal obligation to house their children until they are 25? What sanctions will be placed on parents who refuse to do this?

• If there is no such obligation, where are low income and unemployed under 25s supposed to live? Will the state provide "young adult homes" akin to children's homes for people whose parents refuse? What about those who have no parents? How much will this cost taxpayers?

• Will parents of people aged under 25 be able to claim housing benefit on a bedroom for their under 25, even if the under 25 has moved out, in case they need to move back? How much will this cost taxpayers? Or will there be a legal obligation on social and private renters to move to a different sized house every time their adult children need to move in, or choose to move out?

• Which parents have a legal obligation to house a married couple aged under 25 in low income work? Do the young couple have to split up and live with their own parents? Can they choose? Do they have to alternate?

• Who has a legal obligation to house a couple under 25 with children?

"I say Flashy" said Osbourne the upper fifths swag carrier "Do you not you think the young pups have had enough" "We have taken all their jobs and wages, without having to crash them out of the dorm" "Nonsense" said Flashman "lets roast them, teach them a damn good lesson once and for all, GROWTH and JOBS they ask for, how dare they, they can fag for the rich and have their privileges docked and if they as much as whimper we will thrash them"

Cameron's proposed cut to Housing Benefit for the under 25's will do nothing to slow down the ever growing rise in the welfare bill. only growth and employment will do that. It is a cut which will punish all under 25's even those who are working and put added pressure on the poorest families to keep them at home. It will add as a break to growing up for our young and make them more dependent not less. It will discourage work if the state is not prepared to reward those making an effort. It will disrupt the lives of thousands of young couples with children who if the wage earner is made redundant are then forced to up and move house  and school to return to live with parents.

Like his comments on taxation Cameron's schoolboy recent rants on Housing Benefit were best left unsaid as they are borne out of indifference, insensitivity and class ignorance.

"Well done Flashman old boy" said Boris, "Lets smash the oiks"

VOTE PENGUIN YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE

"Hi my name is Professor Pongoo, I am a six foot tall penguin, the cousin of Pingu and I have come from another planet to warn people about Climate Change. I am standing as your candidate for Edinburgh Council and if elected I pledge myself to attend every council meeting as your elected penguin"

An unusual, but not altogether bad platform to fight an election campaign on I guess, and it so nearly worked. Pongoo with 444 votes was well ahead of the Lib Dem candidate 370 and also the Green Party candidate  on first preference votes but in a seat determined by the alternative vote he eventually lost out to the big three in Scotland (well big two and a tiny bit) The SNP, The Labour Party and the Tories.

It was brave attempt for the Independent candidate, and the man inside the suit Mike Ferrigan, and a warning to us all that apathy and a total loss of faith with our current political system is still a leading issue even amongst the minority 30% of the population who can still be bothered to vote.

Pongoo's near miss was for me the highlight of a Local Election night that overall was a predictable and completely mind numbingly boring affair all round. OK the Labour Party won a whole shed load of seats lost in previous elections and in fairness they won more seats than even the Tories who were talking their chances up, had predicted, The Tories lost seats and the Lib Dems flat lined.  And as the local government pendulum swings against the government in situ we should by now be used to such changing fortunes.

Meanwhile down in the smoke Boris held off Ken on a "We know he is a Tory, but we quite like having a Mayor who is as mad as a goose" vote.

Proof positive if you like that even the big three revert to farce when their core vote abandons them. In fact I dare say if Boris had himself taken advise from Pongoo and dressed up in a penguin suit then his vote would have been even higher, but then if Ken had donned a Salamander Lizard outfit? who knows the Labour Party might have took the mayoralty as well?
But a 30% turnout! just where are we all heading? I recently researched party membership of the big three in Britain over the last 60 years and found that the Tory Party can lay claim to the highest ever party membership figures of the three main parties (2.9m in the 1950's) followed by Labour (1.1m again in the 50's) The Lib Dems of course are a modern phenomenon but in their various guises they always struggled to reach such dizzy heights (highest found figure 145,000 1980 SDP)

So how does that all fare against today's party membership statistics, surely given the massive rise in population since the 1950's the number of our citizens actively involved in political life must still be quite high? Not a chance, the last estimated  figures in 2010 have the three party memberships as follows;

                     Conservative: 210,000 Labour: 190,000 Lib Dems: 45,000
That's less than 500,000 members between the lot of them! or an even more alarming way of presenting it just 1.5% of the UK population between all three of them. And if you really want a sense of the size of the decline then look no further than a comparison with UK membership of the three biggest Conservation and Wildlife charities. The National Trust alone has more members than all three of the political parties combined total, and when added to memberships of the Wildlife Trusts and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds then the Big Three nature lovers at 5.5m members trump the party hacks by more than 5m paid up subscriptions. Maybe the RSPB vote explains Professor Pongoo's success?

Coming back to local politics, you also have to remember that we currently have 469 local councils in the UK as well as two parliaments (England and Scotland) and an two Assemblies (Wales and Northern Ireland) so given that you have to be a party member to stand for election then roughly around 30% of those combined party members would be current candidates and 10% (1 in 10) will end up being elected. You should also worry that all three of the parties amongst their membership include a proportionately high number of eccentric individuals (best written about in another blog)

New parties are also not making any in roads into the public interest. Of the most successful in recent years and also the most vile UKIP have only ever reached membership high figure of 26,000 in 2003 (now down to 16,000) and the BNP a high of 9800 in 2008 which most believe has now fallen to well below 4000

So to put it bluntly we have one of the lowest political participation rates in Europe, our political system and its parties are tired, irrelevant to most peoples everyday lives and less attractive to most voters than a six foot man dressed up in a penguin costume. One in ten of those in a party will be elected and three in ten stand for election. These are chosen by the other seven in ten who inevitably include amongst their number the politically naive, the retired and inactive and a small bunch who it is best to simply describe as socially odd, nice to be with but frankly as mad as a box of frogs

I am a socialist, those are my political ideals, I am now after 5 years out in the cold able to rejoin the Labour Party if I so wished, they along with the Greens are currently the only parties I could ever entertain signing any membership form for in the future. But before I took such a massive step I would need to know, what were their parties plans for re-engaging with a British public who are currently completely turned off to UK politics.

I don't want a debate with the 30% of the 30% who bother to vote in Local elections, I want to engage with the 70% who don't bother to vote at Local Elections and or say they never will or never have voted.

And fun as it may seem, I don't want to have to dress up in a penguin suit in order to do it.

FOOL AND THE GANG

Yesterdays debate in Parliament over England's week of unrest saw Tory speaker after Tory speaker trying to create as much distance as they could between there being any political dimension to the events of the week and the behaviour of young people on our streets.

Yes, I agree  it was blatant criminality, Yes I also agree that this was also a case of crass opportunism and greed, an element within our society that thinks it can just take what it wants, how it wants without any consequence or moral conscience.

It was also I agree "Gang culture" that orchestrated and conducted the proceedings, and lets take David Cameron at his word when he said

"For too long there has been a lack of focus on the complete lack of respect shown by these groups of thugs, For me the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing I have spoken about for years - it is the complete lack of responsibility in parts of society"

And he is right! some in our society have no respect for property or a sense of right from wrong, some feel as if they have a divine right to do whatever they please and to hell with the consequences, they gang together, drink themselves into a near stupor and then commit mindless acts of wanton vandalism and arson, just for the sheer hell of it.

He is also right that he has been speaking about this for years, lets look for example what he was allegedly reported as saying back in 1986 explaining away a gang led vandalism and arson attack in Oxford.

"Things got out of hand and we'd had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets"

Bullingdon Club D C, top 2nd left. B J, bottom far right

Of course the "gang" involved in that particular act of mindless and wanton vandalism was the Bullingdon Club of which he, Boris Johnson and George Osbourne amongst many others were members. But they were never held to account for their actions, no court appearances for them, no criminal record to prevent them climbing the ladder in years to come and Daddy probably picked up the bill for any damage. The quote above has since been challenged, but what remains are story after story about the antics of this particular gang including Boris or should we give him his proper name Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson  being involved in an incident where a pot plant was thrown through a restaurant window after which he freely admits to spending a night in the cells. There rather basic chant belloowed out in local restuarants which usually ended up being trashed was:


"Buller, Buller, Buller! Buller, Buller, Buller! We are the famous Bullingdon Club, and we don't give a f*ck!"

And if you have got the time this is worth a view: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNVEhMCshD0&list=SL&feature=sh_e_top

So what separates their crass and reckless behaviour from that witnessed on the streets this week? and should we draw any parallels? Well for a start Gang membership is a more potent attraction, and recruitment far more easy when youngsters are away from any influence of parental control. For the PM and Boris et al it was because their parents sent them away from home to Oxford as the latest expedition on their boarding school/university careers, whereas in the inner cities there is often no parental control because in too many cases there are no parents, and in others the parents have little or no control of their own lives let alone their children's.

So in the absence of parental control these kids look to role models or diversion to keep them out of trouble, but when the local council has withdrawn all the funding for youth provision and all the local sports and social clubs have long since closed then they are easy prey for the gangs looking for fresh blood to carry out their drug running and other criminally based dirty work.

The rise in gang culture, and gang membership can be correlated directly with recent rises in youth unemployment and social deprivation, these factors are underpinned by economic and fiscal cut backs in public service. Jobless youths simply become more detached from mainstream life and quickly learn to disrespect its rules. In the first quarter of 2011 the unemployment rate amongst 16 - 24 year olds rose to 20% compared to a UK overall unemployment rate of 7.7%. As a result the numbers involved in street gang activity continue to rise.

Yes our kids are out of control, yes their behaviour is sickening, and yes whenever they commit an offence then they should be punished, you will not find many people leaping to their defence, that is understandable, but government and parliament have a duty to do more than simply be outraged, they have a duty to identify the causal link between the unacceptable behaviour young people engage in and social environment they live in.

I despair for the future of our estates in coming months and years, and I worry what sort of children these children will raise! but I can understand far more how they have got the place they are in  than I can explain how those who have every privilege in life show the same lack of respect for property and public order.

And cutting back on youth services on those very same estates is not a good start.