UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
from John Lloyd:
England’s inevitable gay union
Earlier this week the British Parliament housed a restrained, sometimes mawkish and at times moving debate on gay marriage – and the bill passed the House of Commons, 400 to 175. The story was not that it passed, which had been expected. Instead, it was the split in the major governing party, the Conservatives, more of whose 303 MPs voted against the bill than for it. (Conservatives voted 136 in favor of the bill, with 127 voting no, five abstentions and 35 not registering a vote.) Prime Minister David Cameron, still intent on ensuring that his party is liberal as well as conservative, was emollient and understanding of those against the measure but presented his support in the context of a “strong belief in marriage. … It’s about equality but also about making our society stronger.”
His remarks signal that while there is division on the right over gay marriage – at least in Europe –and that while prejudice and bigotry still exist, the serious debate is between contending notions of conservatism. For liberals like Cameron and many in his party, gay marriage extends the benediction of an ancient rite upon modern couples, drawing them into the rituals of homebuilding and long-term affection that have so far been claimed as a heterosexual monopoly. For opponents, marriage must be just such a monopoly, since it is a union of one man and one woman for the purpose (if not always the practice) of procreation, of continuing society’s values in particular and the human race in general.
On values, Britain – in this case, England – is an anomaly: The Church of England is established, the Queen is its head, bishops sit in Parliament’s second chamber, the House of Lords, and the country’s canon law is part of the law of the land. Yet the country is largely irreligious as far as observance goes – the churches are mostly empty – priests and bishops are largely unattended and polls show a sizable majority in support of gay unions of any kind. Indeed, it is only if religion is put in a subaltern position to secular values like equality, fairness, inclusion and the right to pursue happiness that gay marriage could be approved.
That the approval has happened is seismic – not just because it extends rights to a large group of men and women who have suffered discrimination and worse for centuries but also because it signals yet again the primacy of values that are not just secular but are the fruit of the cultural struggles that began in the 1960s. At the time, those causes were viewed with horror by conservatives of every stripe. Today their acceptance is seen as a mark of civilized behavior.
from The Great Debate:
Britain’s austerity experiment is faltering
It was the Welsh sage Alan Watkins who remarked that a budget that looked good the day it was delivered to the British Parliament was sure to look terrible a week later, and vice versa. The avalanche of new information dumped by the Treasury is simply too much to grasp at a single sitting, and governments tend to bury bad news in a welter of statistics. And so it proved with finance minister George Osborne’s budget served up last week.
The immediate headlines stressed that rich Brits would pay less income tax – down from 50 percent to 45 percent – but it only took a day before even traditional Conservative cheerleaders like the Daily Mail were condemning Osborne for funding tax breaks for bankers and billionaires by stealing from those living in retirement. The paper’s cover screamed: “Osborne picks the pockets of pensioners.”
from The Great Debate:
Should Obama mimic David Cameron’s austerity?
By Nicholas Wapshott
The opinions expressed are his own.
In medieval times, a key member of a monarch’s retinue was the food taster, a hapless fellow who ate what his master was about to eat. If the taster survived, the food was deemed safe for the king’s consumption. President Obama has a taster of sorts in David Cameron, the British prime minister, who has embarked upon an economic experiment that echoes the recipe of wholesale public spending cuts and tax hikes needed if both sides in Congress are to agree to raising the federal government debt ceiling. How the British economy is faring offers Obama an idea of what a similarly radical policy of cutting and taxing here would mean to the American economy.
Cameron’s election in May 2010 coincided with the start of the Greek debt crisis. The Bank of England governor Mervyn King warned him that the public debt in the UK was so large that Britain, too, might see its lending become impossibly expensive, so Cameron decided that there was no time to lose in putting the fiscal books in order. He decided to slash public spending by 25 per cent over four years and immediately raise value added tax on goods and services from 17.5 to 20 per cent. Such a radical remedy found favor with the rump of British Conservatives who felt that Margaret Thatcher’s free-market, small government, “sound money” policies of the Eighties had not been pressed to their limit. In turn, Thatcher’s prescription to reduce the size of the state derived from her favorite thinker Friedrich Hayek, the author of “The Road to Serfdom,” who believed like many Tea Party supporters that government intervention inevitably leads to tyranny.
from Blogs Dashboard:
Claws out
Russia and Britain are rowing over how to respond to Iran's
nuclear programme, MPs are scurrying to push through legislation
for a referendum on changing the UK voting system and inflation
is twice the Bank of England's target.
But one yarn towers over them all on this miserable, wet
Tuesday.
David Cameron has got a new cat.
The Westminster bubble ran through the whole range of gags
when it was discovered that Cameron's Downing Street residence
in central London was infested with rats.
from The Great Debate UK:
Taking power from the powerless
-Clive Stafford Smith is the founder and director of Reprieve. The opinions expressed are his own.-
It may be the most mean-spirited thing that David Cameron has yet said since he assumed the mantle of Prime Minister: “It makes me physically ill even to contemplate having to give the vote to anyone who is in prison.” It makes me physically ill to hear an elected official say such a thing.
from FaithWorld:
British police avert clashes at Luton anti-Islamist rally
(An English Defence League supporter with effigy of Osama Bin Laden mask during a rally in Luton, February 5, 2011/Paul Hackett)
About 1,500 far-right protesters marched through the centre of the British city of Luton Saturday to rally against "militant Islam," requiring a heavy police presence to avert clashes with 1,000 anti-fascist demonstrators. A sixth of Luton's population is Muslim, and past marches by the English Defence League have led to conflict with their opponents. The city centre turned into a virtual ghost town before the rally, with shops boarded up and pubs closed.
The private sector vs. definitions of fairness
– Ingrid Smith is Business Planning Editor, Reuters Consumer Television –
Sitting in the auditorium of the London School of Economic’s Old Theatre earlier this month, I listened to Lord Turner pose the question – in rich societies is there a clear correlation between increased wealth and human well being?
from Breakingviews:
Britain’s unkind cuts may help growth sprout
It was billed as a bloodbath, and it is. By slashing public spending by 81 billion pounds over five years, Britain's coalition government is reversing the big increases of previous years. The plan is billed as necessary pain to secure the country's financial future, but it is also ideological. The aim is to move from unaffordable levels of public employment and welfare to private employment and a balanced budget. The danger, however, is that the economy stalls.
The cuts to the civil service are drastic and will cause distress, even though most departments' budgets over the life of the parliament have been reduced by a fifth, not the threatened quarter. The BBC, the foreign office, the police, even the royal family: none have been spared. The government wants services to be delivered more cheaply -- which means by fewer people.
Best of Britain: Power players
Whether they’re pumping up the crowd, or getting ready to cut people down, this week’s Best of Britain photos are about power players. Whether it’s bodybuilder-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joking with David Cameron, Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton greeting excited fans, or defending WBA heavyweight champion David Haye training for his next bout, these are people that mean business.
Also included are photos of a re-enactor at Hastings posing as if to cleave off the photographer’s head, smoke bombs at a demonstration, a soldier’s homecoming, and the Queen looking at a painting of her likeness as she tours a new liner, also bearing her name.
Best of Britain: In the lead
This week’s Best of Britain photos are about people in, or trying to take the lead, whether it’s David Cameron laughing during the Conservative party conference or a streaker proudly strutting through the greens of Celtic Manor. There’s also photos of former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf talking about his potential return to Pakistani politics as well as European team captain Colin Montgomerie proudly displaying the Ryder Cup after his team’s win.
Also included are photos of a paper Buckingham Palace model, tourists watching the changing of the guard at Clarence House, and the tragic suspected arson fire which destroyed much of Hastings Pier.
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The Wall
