Category Archives: Politics, Policies And Process
Sustainability: Where Private And Public Interests Meet
Sustainability is a huge challenge. Solutions won’t come cheap, but come they must. The imperative for meeting the huge challenge of global warming is now recognised by people across the economic and political spectrum, from Al Gore to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Sometimes there is a commonality of interest between sectors of the economy which is probably larger than the differences. The active involvement of no less a person than former US Vice President Al Gore at the 2006 Cannes film festival suggests that one place where this commonality now applies is sustainability. An Inconvenient Truth in some ways says it all.
It seems now everyone is agreed that sustainability is The Issue, and that Something Must Be Done. From the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) to the various ‘Green’ not-for-profits, via vast organisations such as the National Health Service (NHS), there is a determination to address the issues – or at least some of them.
Same problem, different perspectives
There’s certainly no denying that the issue is pressing. Politicians of all the major parties have been keen to present their green credentials, and they even sometimes offer similar ‘solutions’; and the same applies across the private – public sectos of the economy. Everyone knows they must conserve energy, look for more sustainable ways to travel, reduce manufacturing and distribution transport requirements, save water and the like.
But there’s another way too in which these problems are often shared. To paraphrase a poltician who was recently challenged about his local authoritiy’s poor record on sustainabilty, that’s OK as long as no-one has to put up the rates or local taxes. Just as it does for commercial business people, increased expenditure frightens the politicos.
Where business meets politics
So here’s the crux of the matter. We know we need to change, as even some politicians such as Arnold Schwarzenegger who are far to the right the politics of Al Gore acknowledge, but for some the change may happen only if there are few or no costs involved. The temptation to ignore the longer term is sometimes great. It won’t be the same people in charge then; it will be someone else’s problem.
But we also all know in our hearts that’s balony. Sustainability and environmental challenges are increasing by the day. Tomorrow will be here all too soon.
And that’s where business comes in. Large amounts of money will accrue to anyone who can crack these enormous challenges in commercially and / or publicly ‘acceptable’ ways, so there’s a great deal of interest now in energy futures and sustainabilty. The nuclear energy debate continues, but there’s gold in them there tidal waves, wind turbines, biomasses and all the rest, if they can be exploited quickly enough.
Sometimes Adam Smith’s invisible hand is hovering right where it needs to be, ready to guide the market as soon as the political and public climate makes this possible. Sustainability is an issue bigger than any special interest or perspective.
Early Intervention In The Early Years
Critics of Sure Start, the U.K. government’s early years programme, have been vocal of late. Yes, there is evidence that benefit has not always as yet reached those small children and families who need it most. But this is work in progress, and it must be continued.
Sure Start, the huge government-led programme for 0 – 4 year olds, has been subject to quite a lot of criticism of late. It’s understandable that senior polticians, the Prime Minister himself amongst them, should want to see progress before the next general election. The problem however is that small children don’t become achieving teenagers in the same time-span.
This was never going to be easy. Sure Start is at present specifically focused on the least advantaged families, where take-up, especially for those parents who find themselves most challenged, is variable. But it’s essential that those with the governmental cheque book hold their nerve.
Evidence that it works
One thing which stands out in the Sure Start programme is its emphasis on activities such as reading aloud for parents (and that includes fathers) and children to share. There is a dedicated theme in all this about bedtime stories, and indeed about just simple conversation between little ones and their carers. This is a difficult activity to measure with any degree of accuracy, but we know from longitudinal studies that, over years rather than just months, it works.
Sure Start is not the first programme of this sort. There’s plenty of evidence from previous programmes here and in the U.S.A. that early intervention is really beneficial for those who become involved. But we’re still learning how to reach the least advantaged and those who feel most marginalised.
Adapt, perhaps; abandon? No
Workers in Sure Start have had to find the way forward for themselves. Inevitably in such a situation some have had more success than others – not least because some local contexts provide greater challenges or fewer already established resources than do areas elsewhere.
The move towards Children’s Centres, whilst unsettling for many of the professionals concerned, is if handled sensitively probably the right way to go. It would be a tragedy if critics determinedly take a short-term view which makes it difficult for the Government to continue with this work.
Dismissing the idea behind the initiative would result in damage to the futures of many thousands of children who deserve the better start in life.
Downtown Liverpool Week
Downtown Week (11-18 June 2006) is unique in the U.K. to Liverpool. Perhaps it’s a sign of a new independence of mind in our citizens that people in the city are developing this entrepreneurial event for themselves, and not because of some outside or official imperative?
‘Downtown’ is, in the words of the organisers of Liverpool’s Downtown Week 2006, ‘the beating heart of our great city, a celebration of the culture, the creativeity, the business, the new downtown living renaissance; indeed all the activities that are bringing our downtown back to life…. and, what’s more, it’s unique to Liverpool! There’s only one downtown in the UK and it’s at the heart our great metropolis!’
With enthusiasm like that, how could I deny myself the opportunity to be a part of this imaginative enterprise?
We all know about the entrepreneurial drive which moves some of the great downtown cities of the USA; here’s one Stateside bug which I really don’t mind reaching British shores.
Enthusiasm begets energy; energy begets engagement
There is a fundamental truth in the claims of downtowners:- there’s much more going on than we can ever know, but it’s both essential and fun to explore and find out as much as we possibly can. It’s a lesson also being learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, by other communities in other places.
This rich diversity, the result of centuries of ebb and flow, of enterprise and migration, is both a challenge and an enormous opportunity. It’s what Downtown Week is really about.
Scheduled events for Downtown Week include guided walks, visits to special places, commercial and retail opportunities, cultural events and whatever more various people can come up with. In the end, however, what we’re being offered is a chance to open our eyes and see what’s right before us.
Social glue
As ever, it boils down to finding ways to get people to communicate and, from that, to collaborate to mutually beneficial ends. It’s an engaging and enterprising technique which many of us find valuable (c.f. Arts Based Community Development), not least because it encourages people to explore areas of possible mutual interest.
Perhaps the point is that we need Downtown Week (and other civic and cultural celebrations) precisely because otherwise, in the concrete jungle, it’s difficult to find occasions to share and jointly to develop the sorts of relationships which make life better for everyone. This is recognised in one way or another by, amongst others, the Civic Trust and my own organisation, HOPES: The Hope Street Association.
A commonality of meaning
The old-style village way of life most surely had its shortcomings, but it also had established cycles of events with meanings common to all. It is perhaps a sign of a maturing metropolis that, after many years of invisibility, Downtown is now once more coming to the fore through community programmes and celebrations.
There’s so much still to be done, but at last there are signs it’s understood people have to do it for themselves.
Liverpool’s Downtown Week is still in its infancy. Before long however the infant will be a teenager and, like all teenagers, will doubtless seek to spread its wings elsewhere. As other parts of the UK also take up the idea of celebrating the heart of their civic communities, just remember where you heard about it first – from the real thing, the cutting edge of Liverpool’s city centre, from people who actually live, work and play in Downtown Liverpool.
Flowers In Pots For All
The inner city is not an easy place to indulge green fingers, but there are many reasons why we all need to think about this. It’s not even just about fresh, healthy produce; there’s a really important issue of sustainability in all this. Let’s start with the hesitant late-night gardener in Tesco.
Late night shopping (feeling very virtuous because we’d just been to a dance and inter-active media event at Unity Theatre and had even stayed for the discussion afterwards)… so it had to be Tesco Old Swan if we wanted bread and coffee for the morning.
Inevitably, I gravitate to the plants and flowers stall – where else but the supermarket would you be tempted to buy seeds for weekend gardening at 11 p.m. on Friday night? A woman already there is eyeing a packet of French marigold seeds uneasily. Do I know anything about gardening?, she asks. She is thinking she might grow some flowers in a pot in the back yard
My ‘advice’ is limited by my own inexpertise. Perhaps it’s a good idea to use water-holding gel to guard against neglect of the seedlings (my own major misdeed) and, if a dry patch is likely, nasturtiums are both delightful and very forgiving. We chat on such things for a while and the woman moves on, clutching the marigold seeds doubtfully.
Shops, jobs and flowers for everyone?
Old Swan is a part of town which faces many challenges. Much of the housing stock is derelict Victorian, doubtless magnificent in its prime but now ‘student’ flats, or else back-to-back terrace. The unemployment rate remains high and the educational attainment is well below average. Tesco is the only major store on the area, and a very significant local employer; and it stocks gardening products which, if my late-night encounter is anything to go by, tempt first time green fingers.
None of this justifies the particular business strategies which some say the superstores adopt. But perhaps it does point to a few important considerations about economic development of a run-down area, and it also tells us that people still hope for better – why else buy flower seeds?
And why is there so little that grows in the lives of people in Old Swan? There’s nearby Newsham Park, curently a topic of hot debate amongst those who value green space, and the Edge Lane (Wavertree) Botanic Garden – would that it had the same recognition and status as its contemporaries in e.g. Birmingham! But not much else.
Green fingers from the start
When then can we expect that inner-city chidlren will learn routinely how to grow things at school? When will we start to think carefully about more allotments and other community growing space for grown-ups? In what ways can we help with the active use of gardens and allotments in the city? When will we start to teach children (and their mums and dads) about seasonal, lcaol prodcue? And how can we link the urge to see things grow with wider matters of health, diet and environment?
These are matters of sustainability in the long-term; and if they start from marigolds in a pot from Tesco, that’s an interesting conjunction too.
Anti-mother Discrimination And Reluctant Parenting: A Solution?
A recent survey suggests young people prefer material benefits to babies. But maybe hesitation about starting a family is more about uncertainty whether one’s parenting will be good enough, than in wanting ‘more’ materially. And there is hope for the future of young families, not least in the support which Sure Start programmes are now beginning to deliver across the country.
The Guardian / ICM poll on attitudes to having children, reported today (2.5.06), demands careful reading.
The Guardian editorial on this important survey identifies some critical issues about contemporary attitudes to families and parenting. Now that young women and men feel equally free to pursue serious careers it is unsurprising that both should be cautious about producing babies; though this does not self-evidently suggest that babies are not valued of themselves. Perhaps rather it’s concern about whether potential parents can provide ‘good enough’ care for their intended offspring which holds them back….. That, and the certainty that mothers still can’t win when it comes to combining work and parenthood.
It is true that, as the Guardian leader says, there is a role here for government in supporting families and parenting, but it’s less than accurate in suggest that this nettle has not been grasped. Amongst a range of initiatives is the national Sure Start programme, now developing across the country.
Sure Start programmes support parenting
Local Sure Start programmes in many places are working on the issues which underlie current concerns of parents and potential parents. By 2008-10 there will be Children’s Centres all around the country, catering not ‘just’ (as Sure Start programmes currently do) for less advantaged young families, but for everyone. They will aim to accommodate the crucial fact that, as one parent commented, it ‘costs a lot’ financially and personally to go out to work when one has children.
Sure Start and the anticipated Children’s Centres still face many challenges, but they are genuinely good news….. look out for National Sure Start Month, in June.
Ironically, because Sure Start and Children’s Centres have so far focused on less advantaged families, they have not yet reached the chattering classes; so no-one’s noticing them. Soon however these programmes will be at a place near you, and to everyone’s benefit.
Acknowledge it or lose it?
It would be a sad irony if, in having started where it matters most of all, the government were not now to be given the credit for what will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity really to make a difference to the prospects of families of every sort – including those of hardworking professionals of both genders – right across the nation.
May Day
May Day has been with us for centuries. Its overt meanings, and even the actual date, may change, but the sense of taking a day to do something different and more personal remains. People in every age and every part of the world have welcomed the onset of Summer and the chance to throw a party.
It’s May Day today. The first of May, that unequivocal date which, unlike the contested first day of Spring (is it the vernal equinox on 20/21 March, or the newer BBC version on 1 March?), is firmly set in the European calendar.
When I was small I genuinely thought that May Day was about Morris Dancers and Maypoles. We lived in villages in Hampshire, Wiltshire and then Gloucestershire, and my father was a rural science teacher who took his local community involvement seriously – so we all enjoyed a flavour of the festive rituals of many centuries, and are none the worse for that.
Holding on to traditions and ideas
I suppose that in some ways that was the end of a very long period in history, already mostly shattered by global stife and the increasing grip of technology. Looking back, it might be seen as idyllic, though that it certainly wasn’t; give me double glazing, wider horizons and lots of running hot water any day.
But there are vestiges of the ‘old’ May Day way of life which still resonate. The festivals (May Day, Harvest and what have you) were unselfconscious and for everyone. Our understanding of the seasons and cycles of the earth – I learned about crop rotation at a very early age, and about its history back to mediaeval times not much later – is something which still informs my perceptions, albeit now in terms of eco-systems. And the things we did were family inclusive; sometimes overly so, but at least everyone was there.
New meaning for old ideas
Only after I came to the city did I learn that there was also another ‘meaning’ to May Day – its use, on the first Monday of May, as a celebration of workers’ rights. Thus, 1 May 1886 in the United States saw the very first International Workers’ Day…. not to be confused with 1 September, which after historical debate is now set in America as Labor Day.
Such reinvention of celebratory events is not however confined to the U.S.A. In Liverpool since 1978, when the date first became a Bank Holiday, we have seen the first Monday in May used to underpin general festivities, to recognise Trade Unions and, occasionally, to celebrate shire horses. The scope is huge in a place with such long historical links to labour, but also with wide-open spaces such as Sefton Park right by the city centre.
Modern May Day
Activities this year for May Day are a million miles away from my hazy childhood recollections. There range from a demonstration in London to promote a Trade Union Freedom Bill, to a grass-roots Labor Arts Festival in Edmonton, Canada and a Maypole event at Liverpool’s Tudor half-timbered Speke Hall and Morris dancers (yes!) outside our wonderful St. George’s Hall, via big marches and strikes across the U.S.A. in favour of regularising the status of illegal workers.
Thus morphs the traditional May Day in a more politically conscious era, whether the objective be workers’ rights or a determiniation to see celebration through the arts of community in a more fragmented world. We can only be glad, whatever the detailed argument about the causes espoused, that people still see fit to make the effort.
We have lost much of the original understanding of May Day, and I’d guess that many people active today are not even aware of its historical roots. But things change only in some ways. For every person involved in worthy trade union activity today, there are probably still hundreds carrying on the original idea behind May Day, taking a day off work and getting out their lawnmower or barbecue set, as they prepare for some family’n’friends time in the garden.
Let’s hope the sun shines for everyone, demonstrators, gardeners and revellers alike.
Creationism Is An Attack On Rationality: The Scientists Rally At Last
It has taken the scientists quite a while to wake up to the serious dangers for science and its rational underpinnings of creationism and the ‘theory’ of intelligent design. But now at last this danger – to the scientific community and far beyond – is beginning to be understood and confronted.
It’s taken a long time, but the scientists are at last beginning in numbers to fight back vocally against the attack from the Creationists, those mainly right-wing religious followers who believe despite the evidence that the story of the Old Testament is somehow literally true – and, even more worryingly, that it should be taught in schools. And in this rebuttal the scientists have been joined also by most mainstream churches and religious people – the large majority of whom in the case of both science and religion have until recently mainatined it is enough simply to ignore the creationists’ exotic claims.
But now scientists are seeking the active support of the churches to back evolutionary theory, especially in America, where Creationism and the related ‘theory’ of Intelligent Design have made the most headway.
Disputing creationism is not enough
It is not however enough simply to say that scientists should dispute creationism and intelligent design.
Far more is at stake than ‘just’ the challenge to an explanation of the origin of life on earth – vastly significant though this is.
The ideas of the creationists are, as some have recognised for decades, an affront to rationality. It is said that the President of the United States is a prominent supporter of creationism, or at least a proponent of intelligent design, but we must ask how this can be so when he is also a lawyer.
Lawyers may indeed sustain the view that ‘both sides’ of an argument should be aired, but rarely do they believe this even when one of those ‘sides’ has barely any evidence to uphold it. So what else is going on?
Economics and authority
The position of those who support creationism is usually authoritarian, and often anti-intellectual. This is in many respects evident in the current enthusiasm of some to promote such beliefs in Britain. In the USA, perhaps, this stance is even more established.
Many on the right of politics and religion like certainty. They do not feel comfortable with complex debates about evidence; and they are happier when intellectual challenge is replaced by the logic of big business. In other words, there is a deterministic preference here for authority and authoritarianiam to come together so that all is right with the world. God has pre-ordained the universe and our place in it, and this place is evidenced by our wealth (or not) and our religious observance. It’s an old-established way of thinking. Let there be no more debate!
A chasm between world views
For the vast majority of scientists there is a vast chasm between the exploration of the evolutionary paradigm and the determinism of the religious right. Small wonder then that scientists have been ill-prepared for the creationist onslaught.
And sadly small wonder too that many who might challenge the attack on science have not done so, perhaps for fear that in so doing they might also put at risk the funding of their research. There are significant numbers of wealthy benefactors out there who are comfortable with the idea of a creationist world and their hypothecated place in it.
Perhaps the scientists have failed to appreciate how precarious is the wider understanding of their work. Perhaps they have continued in their research mostly oblivious of the threat to their way of interpreting the world.
Fundamental issues
Neither of these positions can be seen as any more than innocent or at worst naive. But what is at stake is fundamental. Few people would wish to dispute the entitlement of individuals to perceive the world and all that is in it in their own way. Many however, the scientists amongst them, must now challenge more overtly and vigorously the view that we can dispense with informed debate and rationality. At last this is beginning visibly to happen.
London’s Theatre Museum Gets A Boost From Its Musical Neighbour
Covent Garden’s Theatre Museum is the National Museum of the Performing Arts, a unique and special place. But it is currently under threat of closure. An urgent rescue bid is being considered by the Museum’s nearby neighbour, the Royal Opera House. Success in this venture is not only essential for the greater good of both parties, but also offers encouragement to those who see that to survive the arts must work together.
The national Theatre Museum in Covent Garden has been under serious threat for a while now. If anything, my conviction – shared, of course, by many others – that this would be a disaster, grows by the day.
But it seems that a way may now be found to put things right. The Museum Theatre’s nearest neighbour, the Royal Opera House, is looking to see if it can take over the running of the Museum, before it is closed and its contents get mothballed in the V & A in South Kensington.
Performing arts working together
We must hope this ‘rescue bid’ between close neighbours, and in a fantastic setting, is successful. Not only does it make huge sense in terms of synergy in a given locality – with perhaps the greater push towards full use of this unique set of resources which could follow – but it is also a story which needs to be shared, with a big message… Together the arts, and especially the performing arts, can flourish. Set apart, this isn’t so easy.
It’s a lesson we almost learnt the hard way in Liverpool’s Hope Street a decade ago, when we had to lauch the CAMPAM slogan – Once lost, we will not get it back! CAMPAM was the Campaign to Promote the Arts on Merseyside. In the early 1990s we fought and won a long and weary battle to make sure that Liverpool didn’t lose its Everyman and Playhouse Theatres, or indeed the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
History doesn’t need to repeat itself. The Theatre Museum and the Royal Opera House, side by side in Covent Garden, were surely made for each other. I really hope the matchmaking drama we now see before us has a happy ending, soon.
The Theatre Museum, London
Covent Garden: The Untold Story – Dispatches from the English Culture War, 1945-2000
Read more articles on the National Theatre Museum.
Wirral’s Ness Gardens: A Place To Learn Whilst You Enjoy
Ness Botanic Gardens, owned by the University of Liverpool, are a delightful example of how learning and enjoyment can come together. They are the creation of a cotton merchant who wanted to share his absorbing interest in plants from across the world (and especially from the Himalayas) with the people of his hometown, Liverpool. This work, begun in 1898, continues to prosper to the present time.
Ness Botanic Gardens are on the Wirral near Chester, away from the River Mersey facing the splendid windswept views of the Dee Estuary which overlook the North Wales coast. They offer delightful views which take one back to more pastoral times, and include the habitats of many species of birds and wildlife.
This apparent tranquility and timelessness has not however prevented some very forward-looking management on the part of those responsible for the site. Just this week (14 April 2006) saw the opening of the new Horsfall Rushby Visitor Centre, designed alongside a wider programme of development to encourage year-round enjoyment of this special location.
Where academic excellence meets family fun
The story of the Gardens is both unusual and enlightening. They were created by a Liverpool cotton merchant, the Fabian Arthur Kilpin Bulley, who wanted to establish in Britain the ‘new’ Himalayan and Chinese mountain plants he had funded the plant explorers George Forrest and Frank Kingdom Ward to discover . And so in 1898 began the adventure which was to become Ness Gardens, a place of elegance and education, as it welcomed vistors from near and far.
In 1942 Arthur Bulley died and left his ever-expanding Gardens to his daughter Lois (1901-1995), who presented them to the University of Liverpool in 1948, with an endowment of £75,000 per annum on the understanding that they be kept open for the public. Her intention that this beautiful place continue to fascinate and inform both young and older people is reflected in the current Visitor Centre, scientific programme and educational developments.
Journey of discovery
Our own involvement in Ness Gardens began back in the 1970s, when a reseach student friend at Liverpool University experienced what, at that time, seemed like a cruel blow. He had been assiduously observing a derelict site in the city centre to find out what sort of road-side plants and grasses best grew on such unpromising terrain when, because of a misunderstanding by a Council employee about location, a ton of topsoil was dumped on his experimental venue. The anguish was terrible – should there be an official complaint because the experiment was ruined; or should there be celebration of the act of reclaiming the derelict site for better use, albeit by mistake?
Resolution of this dilemma arrived in the form of an offer to recreate the dereliction by transporting a huge load of rubble to a fenced-off location at the edge of the University’s Ness Gardens. Our humble role in this adventure was occasionally to give our friend a lift over to the site to continue his work. The experiment was repeated, the results brought forth much in the way of understanding how to use grasses to reclaim land, the young scientist’s career was launched to great acclaim – and we became regulars at Ness Gardens.
The research and development continues
The striking thing about Ness Gardens is that, not only does it change dramatically with the seasons, but it has consistently expanded and grown over the years. The Gardens have spread across much more of the site, with a growing number of areas of specialist interest (the latest is the ‘Prehistoric Garden’ just created from an existing clay marl pit); and the world-class science has similarly developed over time.
Here is a place always worth the journey, where there is a conscious intention to deliver first-class research in the context of a welcome for everyone. Support the Friends of Ness Gardens if you can – and be sure to visit their new Centre and see the Gardens for yourself.
World Health Day
‘Working together for health’ is this year’s slogan for World Health Day (today).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) quite rightly asks that we take time just for one day in the year to think about what ‘Health’ actually means. So today, 7 April 2006, is World Health Day.
This year’s strapline is ‘working together for health’. Reduction in child mortality, improvements in maternal health and combatting HIV / AIDS, malaria and other diseases are amongst the Millennium Development Goals ** which all Member States are signed up to meet by the year 2015.
[** The other five goals are eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, environmental sustainability and a global parnership for development.]
A time to reflect?
But here we are in Britain, one of the half-dozen most wealthy countries in the world, and even we don’t get it right on all counts. There is plenty to worry about in the health of our nation; but it cannot be said, as of some other countries, that anyone ‘has’ to starve or die of cold, lack of clean water or because of any of the other horrendous experiences of people in other parts of the world. In the U.K. we have choices, and we have resources, which really do mean this never has to happen.
I say this neither (I hope) to make inappropriate comparisons – poverty in health or anything else in the U.K. is relative; poverty elsewhere is grimly absolute – nor to offer bland pronouncements about what we ‘ought’ to do to reduce such awful suffering in other areas of the globe.
What I seek to understand more clearly is how we can think in a more joined-up way.
Only connect…
We in Britain, like those in other first world countries, mostly know that how we treat our bodies and what we do to promote sustainability are critical both for ourselves and to what happens to people elsewhere, as well as people here. We know too that responsibility for this lies with us personally and as parents, as well as with ‘the government’, or ‘them’.
There’s a message here. It’s at base very simple. The fundamental question is, how do we deliver action?
If World Health Day does nothing else, perhaps it encourages us to reflect how, across the globe, we are all interconnected and interdependent. The ‘links’ are there, on the internet and, even more importantly, in our hearts and minds.
Dreaming Realist 