Martin Meenagh blog

A Modest Municipal Proposal Why not abolish every second local councillor and make parish councils conditional upon non-party independent membership? That would be one way to stop the infiltration of hacks and careerists into politics. It may also be a spur to whatever the opposite of apathy is. At the minute, we have a valuable variety of local government systems. Some places have mayors; some have 'executive cabinets'; some have committees and all have a vast number of councilmen and councilwomen. These days, such people tend to be different from local magistrates and much more organised by party than one might expect. They sit atop vast bureacracies run by unelected chief executives and management theorists, and they do not even have the self-respect to want to raise and spend their own money. Instead they are tax-raisers for the central state. Local voting figures are dire. I have seen people elected, in deprived wards in some cities, on a couple of hundred votes. Out of 50...

We need a referendum on membership of the European Union and on the new Treaty The metropolitan middle classes, with some justice, think that they own this country. Their cultural behaviours therefore dominate decision making. The tendency to call someone 'mad' or a scheme 'impractical' if it in any ways carries risks or threatens their position is very pronounced. I understand that the tuscany classes, and those who aspire to such holiday spots, feel the way they do. They 'sacrifice' for school fees in the south of england, or house prices where there are good comprehensives. They pay huge mortgages. Contracted professional or semi-professional office jobs are some of the worst in terms of job security and satisfaction. And commuting for such people is a draining terrible thing. People may wish to feel that 'Europe' in general has things better than Britain and that the EU in particular is some sort of guarantee of an alternative to the westminster madh...

German Unity and the end of the British Empire Now there's a mad midnight headline for you. I was very struck today, though, by the news that Germany has spent several trillion consistently and with sacrifice these past eighteen years to reunite. The spending is now complete. An entire political generation marked by a determination, at some level, to complete the work of 1848 and make Germany a modern, free nation has seen its work come near frution. To do this, Germany has sacrificed fast growth. It has borne a huge burden with stability, and barring accidents it will now be able to tun to a central role in the European economy with its state intact and not sold off, and its people not overmortgaged and not in vast personal debt. It may even see taxes lowered and interest rates falling over time as it comes to pay off its debt. The work begun by big, solid, tedious Helmut Kohl will be finished by quiet, devastatingly effective Angela merkel. She'll open borders to necessary im...

The Lost candidates To read journalists on American politics, you would think that Mitt Romney is the first serious candidate for President from the Mormon Church. When forced to furrow their brows, many of H.L.Mencken's devolved successors come up with Mitt's dad, George, and stop there. After all, everyone knows the mormons were right-wingers and nutters don't they, humourless western cultists? I promise I bear them no candle, but HANG ON. What about Mo Udall? The nearly man of 1976? The funniest of the candidates on the Democratic side in that election, and before you think it, a liberal candidate. He nearly stopped Carter in Wisconsin, came second in all the other crucial early primaries, and but for the threat of the slightly silly Hubert Humphrey jumping into the race would have got the support of the Unions and maybe the nomination. Imagine that; a Reagan-Udall fight in 1976--rather than the Ford-Carter one that actually happened. What a counterfactual that makes! Mo...

Romney-Rice vs Obama-Warner? I have always been more than a little in love with America, and I suppose that the night hours are moments for wishful thinking. When I was a student, and to an extent as a tutor, I was defined by my interest in the United States. Not pretending to be excited by Canada and ignorant of Mexico and Cuba because of my languages, I was very taken by the history of that country, the elan of its intellectuals and the bravery I'd heard of. So American elections and their endless sport are a kind of narcotic for me. I have been told off about this tendency to see the competition for the Presidency as some sort of game, and lectured on how it should properly be seen as a serious contest, but really, I have no more intention of offering anything more than lip service to that. This plural, fantasy country in all its catholic lunacy and logic and intensity and indulgence wouldn't let anyone of any sense do that without looking like a humourless twit anyway. One ...

Neoconservatives and appeasers It is an odd thought to have, but the neoconservatives and appeasers of the 1930s have a great deal socially in common, as a sort of post-script to my last post. People forget who the appeasers were; members and want-to-be members of the establishment who thought of themselves as practical men with a love of the less hateful option who dismissed their opponents in the most personal of terms. The appeasers drew people in for the best and worst of reasons. Churchill, for instance, let racism get the better of him in 1926. As chancellor, he knew that the Japanese could not be opposed. He knew the money was not there. He knew they were "better than the other asians". He knew that appeasing them was right. And he was praised. And he grew, and grew, and saw them for what they were. His opponents stayed stuck in their realism, and demonised him as a drunk and a madman because everyone knew that appeasement was right. Imagine what Harry's Place ...

Who were the Neoconservatives? Neoconservatism now seems to have run its course as an ideology, but in its brief life it was enormously influential. It has been often criticised and critiqued, but very few people seem to move beyond a caricature of its intellectual origins. At the same time, it is worth asking if the term ever referred to any clear idea or was merely expressive of a congeries of aggression, fear, post-soviet confidence in liberal democracy, and liberal theories of human perfectibility mixed with a mad distrust of human groups. There were several other elements to it too. One was a justified anxiety on the part of corporate elites and those who sympathise with them that oil may be running out and climate shifting in ways that, when coupled with population explosion, society could not cope with. Another was the rise of moral relativism; many who viewed themselves as exclusively moral were appalled by this development. Some became neocons. Many of the neocons were, if not...