Milk snatching

Sometimes I lose the will to write anything. A full and demanding diary doesn't exactly help, but then a pile of events coincide to leave me wondering if anything is worth saying. Say something – anything – and you get a shedload of stuff back for which there is little time to respond properly or appropriately. Read on and you'll probably wish I'd heeded my own caution.

Welfare cuts bite harder in the north than the south of England. Not exactly a surprise. But, the north doesn't really count, does it? The City counts… because the destruction of our manufacturing base, the lack of job opportunities, the creation of a service economy and our complete dependence on financial services and banking means that nothing else can take priority. The market economy has led to the market society in which people serve money and not the other way round.

The Church of England publishes a report on marriage which provokes scorn from all sides. And again we find ourselves reacting to the agenda rather than setting it. It is well nigh impossible to have a rational and respectful conversation about marriage, etc. when positions are polarised. It probably doesn't help when the Church pronounces in a context where everybody else is conversing. Culture change needed.

But, back to big news. Margaret Thatcher is dead. Is there anything further to be said? Why she is being given special treatment in death is beyond me. Does this now set a precedent for other dying former Prime Ministers: Tony Blair, David Cameron, Gordon Brown? There is something worrying about this whole phenomenon – and a million other commentators have speculated on what that might be.

However, my problem has not to do with whether or not we should speak ill of the dead, nor about whether public figures should expect a criticism-free ride on their demise. My problem is two-fold: the selective lionisation of her (and the demonisation of anyone who disagrees) by the right, and the angry demonisation of her (and anyone who disagrees) by the left. Let me explain.

I grew up in Liverpool. I am no stranger to the damage Thatcher did to the lives and communities of millions of people in this country. I was not surprised that members of her Cabinet suggested simply abandoning Liverpool and walking away. I still cannot understand how later governments can penalise people for not having jobs where jobs are not to be had – 7 people to every 1 job in Bradford, for example. One reason jobs are not to be had is because Thatcher's destruction of manufacturing and her ideologically-driven war against unions (not without some justification – although I was a union member at GCHQ when she banned the unions and removed our employment rights as a gift to Ronald Reagan) devastated communities in the north without laying the ground for anything to take their place. Obsessive and ideological deregulation of the City has led us directly to where we are today and that link should never be lost.

In other words, I am no fan of Margaret Thatcher's politics or most of what her governments did. Yet, I fear the response of some to her death says more about them than about her. If you argue that she created a nasty, impersonal and unjust society, you don't have to prove it by being nasty, impersonal and unjust. Seeing some of the vitriol aimed at this dead woman, you have to wonder at the character of the vitriol-aimers. Sure, people can protest (even if they weren't even born when she was in power; we still live with the consequences of her change to British politics, economics, society and culture). But, I do wonder what protest is expected to achieve. He time for this was when she left power, not when she dies at 87.

I started to write: “Wouldn't a more appropriate response be for her opponents simply to respect her demise by silently ignoring all the ceremony and debate, the put their efforts into opposing the pernicious policies of her political children today? Or donating a day to filling food banks, etc.?” But, then I remembered that public figures are subject in death as in life to public comment and scrutiny. That said, however, the evidence that she created a nasty, vitriolic, dehumanising and utterly divided culture and society is to be seen in the response her death has provoked.

I wish her family well as they mourn the loss of a mother, etc. But, I will put my energies into sorting out the present human mess rather than wasting it in pointless protest about someone who by definition cannot do anything about it. The appropriate response to her policies is to work to ensure we create a better, kinder, more just society for our children and grandchildren – and that will involve a rejection of divisiveness, commodification of people, nastiness and misplaced vitriol.

(And I think Jonathan Freedland has probably got it about right.)

 

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1000 days to go

Today a letter has been published in the Financial Times and, probably, other newspapers around the world, signed by 80 of the world's religious leaders and urging G8 governments not to drop the Millennium Development Goal ball with 1000 days to go. Here is the text of the press release:

Religious leaders from across the G8 countries have called on Heads of Government to follow the UK in fulfilling existing commitments to spend 0.7% of national income on aid, in a letter to the Financial Times. From today, the 79 signatories including the Archbishop of Canterbury, point out, 1000 days remain to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline.

With a focus on tax, trade and transparency, the religious leaders argue, the UK Presidency of the G8 has the potential to advance the MDG agenda in ways that strike at the underlying causes of poverty, in particular by ensuring the wealth created by developing countries is not lost through unfair tax practices, a lack of transparency or a failure to secure the benefits of trade for developing countries.

“Meeting the remaining targets, while challenging, is possible – but only if governments do not waver from the moral and political commitments made over a decade ago,” the letter stresses.

The Rt Rev Nick Baines, Bishop of Bradford said: “With only 1000 days left to achieve the Millennium Development Goals set by the UN, it is imperative that the G8 Heads of Government set the pace and do not allow this to fail. I shall be tweeting my support using #1000DaysToGo and hoping the flood of comments encourages governments not to waver.”

They argue for a G8 Convention on Tax Transparency committing signatory countries to prevent individuals and companies from hiding wealth so that it is untraceable. Further, they call on the G8 to press for greater financial transparency from governments of developing countries so citizens can hold their governments to account for the money they spend.

“Development is working but challenges remain,” the letter points out. “The number of people living in extreme poverty has been halved ahead of time and 14,000 fewer children die each day than in 1990. Yet one in eight people still go to bed hungry every night and more than 2 million die of malnutrition each year.”

The financial crisis may be a reason but is not an excuse for hesitation or deferral, the letter states. “Reaching a purposeful consensus on these areas won't be easy. But, if the political will and moral leadership is forthcoming, this year's G8 could help to create an environment that encourages the conditions for inclusive, equitable and sustainable economic growth – conditions that are desperately needed if we are to realise the MDGs and even greater things beyond.”

And here is the text of the letter itself:

To G8 Heads of Government,

Today marks the start of the 1000 day countdown to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline. It is an appropriate moment to pause and to reflect on progress to date.

Development is working. But challenges remain. The number of people living in extreme poverty has been halved ahead of time and 14,000 fewer children die each day than in 1990. Yet 1 in 8 people still go to bed hungry every night and over 2 million die of malnutrition each year.

Even as conversations accelerate as to what ought to replace the MDGs, we should not slacken our efforts towards realising existing goals. Meeting the remaining targets, while challenging, is possible – but only if governments do not waiver from the moral and political commitments made over a decade ago.

Thirteen years on from the start of the Millennium the values and principles that drive these goals are as imperative as ever. The financial crisis may be a reason but is not an excuse for hesitation or deferral. The MDGs remind us that in addition to providing for the well being of our own societies, we have a collective responsibility to uphold human dignity and the common good at the global level. Each individual has a value that can never be lost and must never be ignored.

With a focus on tax, trade and transparency, the UK Presidency of the G8 this year has the potential to advance the MDG agenda in ways that strike at the underlying causes of poverty, in particular by ensuring the wealth created by developing countries is not lost through unfair tax practices, a lack of transparency or a failure to secure the benefits of trade for developing countries.

As religious leaders from across the G8 we recommend that our Heads of Government take the following actions when they meet in June. First, fulfil existing commitments to spend 0.7% of national income on aid. Secondly, launch a G8 Convention on Tax Transparency committing signatory countries to prevent individuals and companies from hiding wealth so that it’s untraceable. Thirdly, press for greater financial transparency from governments of developing countries so that the citizens of these countries can hold their governments to account for the money they spend.

Reaching a purposeful consensus on these areas won’t be easy. But, if the political will and moral leadership is forthcoming, this year’s G8 could help to create an environment that encourages the conditions for inclusive, equitable and sustainable economic growth – conditions that are desperately needed if we are to realise the MDGs and even greater things beyond.

Anyone can join in the associated Twitter campaign.

Since 2005 the has been a religious leaders' summit held immediately prior to each G8 meeting in the host country. This year we have decided to try a different approach to raise consciousness and make representation to governments.

 

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Missing the point (again)

This is the text of an article in Public Servant magazine. I would like to have written something more substantial, but the word limit (which was perfectly reasonable) was limited. As it were.

Paying excessive attention to 'efficiency' and function militates against good overall care. The values that are supposed to ensure people are well-treated get subsumed.

We live in an age of fundamental suspicion. One could argue that fifty years ago the default position of most citizens was to trust unless given evidence that trust should be withheld; now the default is to suspect everyone, trust no one and deny everyone’s integrity.

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that this is reflected in the culture developed in our public institutions. Couple this with a media that hears a politician sneeze and accuses him of deliberately trying to infect the vulnerable, and you have got a vicious circle of suspicion.

But, if that isn't enough, we then create a culture of competitiveness and 'efficiency' that uncritically assumes that the only measurement of 'the good' is financial. Hence, the NHS, for example, bounces from centralisation to localisation and back, education abandons local accountability and cedes power to the Secretary of State in Westminster (whilst thinking it is gaining greater autonomy – but see what happens if an academy struggles or the said Minister changes his fancy), and vast sums of money are spent in ideologically-driven yo-yo re-engineering.

If only there was a basic understanding of the difference between 'efficiency' and 'effectiveness', we might be in a better place.

In other words, we now have a deep cultural problem across our society – a functionalism that compromises public service. The cultural associations run deep and to question them is not easy to do – not least because they quickly assume the status of 'orthodoxy', from which heretics find themselves dismissed with ridicule.

Changing this situation cannot be easy and, by definition, solutions will necessarily be long-term and complex. It is possible that some of our systems might have to collapse before the construction of something more coherent and effective becomes possible.

For example, is it any surprise that health visitors find themselves hot-desking in an attempt to reduce rental costs for offices, but then lose the very context that allows for ready exchange of information, informal mutual encouragement or advice, joined-up consultation on particular cases or issues? The 'human' stuff always finds less value than what can appear on a balance sheet.

And, of course, this sort of thinking derives from a confusion of ends and means. If the end is to reduce costs (finance-driven), then the exercise becomes merely functional. If, however, the end is to enhance service to real people – to which end finance is a means – then different values might apply and priorities be set. This is not to deny the need for financial probity and wisdom, but it is to ask what the end is to which the finance becomes the means of getting there.

Somehow this situation requires a rejection of the sort of box-ticking mentality that leads to hospitals losing the plot. If the Francis report exposes anything, it is that paying obsessive attention to the engineering (form filling, box ticking, time accounting) militates against good overall care because the means become the end. The people get lost. The values that are supposed to ensure that people are well treated as dignified human beings get subsumed – not deliberately, but at the level of assumption in the complex dynamics of making sense out of chaos) – into something different. And when this happens bad practice becomes inevitable.

Naturally, recovering a culture of trust, integrity and clarity about what constitute ends and means is no easy task. It requires the political will to change the vocabulary of public rhetoric. It demands an open and constructive public debate about what is the end to which we aspire and for which the money we pay is intended to be a means. And this will need a re-articulation of what might untrendily be called 'anthropology': how to enable people to flourish.

 

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Taxing questions

A few days away last week coincided with IT trouble back home. I pay tribute to my wonderful colleagues who had to deal with major hassle while I was enjoying a relaxing break. Fantastic live music has been replaced this week by some great recorded stuff: Silbermond from Germany in particular. More anon (when I get time).

However, a busy return to work has taken place in the context of the finale of the US presidential election and debates in the UK about banks, taxation and services. Fundamental to both is the choices we face in every western country as to how much tax we are willing to pay in order to get the services we demand. It is almost boring to note now the silliness of laudatory observations on (for example) Scandinavian welfare and infrastructure provisions without reference to the high levels of taxation that enable the provision in the first place. We get what we pay for.

(Do Mitt Romney's fans not question his promises that the 'American Dream' that produces winners also presupposes that there will be losers?)

A meeting with Christian Aid recently reinforced some of the thinking going into plans for world religious leaders to hold G8 political leaders to account for their commitments to the Millennium Development Goals. These goals are supposed to have been realised by 2015. The G8 leaders meet in the UK in (probably) May or June 2013. The following observations offer a basis for wider thinking on the issues and challenges:

• Tax is key: it provides long term finance for health, education and welfare and makes governments more accountable to their people.
• Tax is lost: Christian Aid estimates that tax dodging by some unscrupulous multinational companies costs developing countries at least US$160 billion a year. That’s more than 1.5x the entire global aid budget. (A Kenyan school costs about $10,000 to build. $160 billion could be the equivalent of 16 million schools.)
• The problem: These companies are able to do this by artificially shifting their profits into tax havens. Tax secrecy makes trade mispricing possible allowing companies to shift profits out of a country and pay less tax. (Examples of trade mispricing from 2005: 36,000 kilos of Nigerian coffee were exported to the US for 69p per kilo at a time when the world coffee price was $2.35. A consignment of hairdryers was exported to Nigeria at a cost of US$3,800 per hairdryer when the market price of that model was US$25.)
• A solution: Call for greater transparency and accountability by requiring tax havens to share information with developing countries and companies to report on their profits in each and every country they work in.

Christian Aid suggests that those bothered by this issue (and see recent comment on Starbucks, Facebook, Apple, etc.) might write to the Prime Minister and call on him to use his Presidency of the G8 in 2013 to put the issue of tax transparency at the centre of the global agenda. This can quickly be done here.

This is the beginning of some thinking as we look towards 2013.

 

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This and that

The last three weeks have seen me in Kazakhstan (interfaith conference), Brussels (round-table with Herman van Rompuy), then Dresden (preaching at the Frauenkirche). All good gigs, but all it does is build a backlog of work at home. It has also squeezed out any blogging – or any creative thought, for that matter. And I’ve missed almost all the football in Euro 2012. And I forgot to change my fantasy team in time and am now doing rubbish.

Of course, had I had the space to do so, I would have blogged about women bishops, Church of England PR, the Telegraph’s useless commenting on the C of E’s input to a consultation on Europe (don’t these guys bother to read the originals before launching their self-important second-hand opinions), Euro 2012, the poignancy of preaching in Dresden’s Frauenkirche (especially when the tourists leave in droves before the sermon), the Euro-crisis and Angela Merkel, the Greek elections, developments in Egypt, destruction of a church in Sudan, the future of the Diocese of Bradford (in the light of proposals to dissolve it), lots of other stuff, and the price of milk.

Actually, I really did want to write about the price of milk. I was shocked to hear further evidence recently of how the power of the supermarkets to control milk prices now makes a bottle of water more expensive than a pint of milk. And who gets screwed? The farmers. What do you make of this:

• Currently dairy contracts allow milk purchasers to make significant changes to the terms and conditions in the contract and lower the milk price paid, often with less than 30 days’ notice, whilst the producer is often locked in to the contract for the next 12 to 24 months. No wonder the National Farmers Union (NFU) is calling for (a) clear price determination, and (b) shorter break clauses / right to terminate. (The NFU believes this is not solely about milk price – it is about establishing a functional market place which has true liquidity and therefore incentivises milk purchasers to offer a competitive milk price.)
• The farmer should know at any time what their milk price is. Isn’t it rather shocking that they don’t? Shouldn’t the price be specified in the contract between purchaser and provider? Isn’t that rather obvious? At the moment many milk buyers have the ‘discretion’ to change the price a farmer receives at will and potentially retrospectively.
• Recently farmers in my neck of the woods were informed that the price they received for each litre of milk would be reduced by 2p. The average farmer around here works that out around a staggering sum of £20,000 per annum. One farmer in my diocese stands to lose £10,000 this year – from a small farm.

What I find amazing is that (a) this can happen without the farmer having any recourse to negotiation and (b) that most of us drink the white stuff without any recognition of where it comes from or who pays the real price for it.

I’m no expert, but I now understand why the General Synod of the Churhc of England has so often banged on about the power of supermarkets. I’m not against them – after all, I use them. But, there is an issue of economic and social justice here. And we can’t blame the cows.

 

Who rules the world?

Abba thought it was all about money. The MC in Cabaret sang that ‘money makes the world go around’. And Der Spiegel poses the key question on its front page this week: money rules the world… but who rules money?

At least this question reminds us that, despite the technology that now drives financial transactions across the world, it is still real people who are responsible (a) for the system we accept, and (b) the values that shape our acceptance of that system.
 
It seems to me that this is actually the bit of reconnection that needs to be made today. Politicians seem to think that more of the same systems that have created our current distress will get us out of the mess we are now in. Where, we ask, is the political or economic imagination – the vision of an economic system that puts people back at the heart of the enterprise? Where is the vision that re-grasps the only dynamic that can ever have integrity: that money exists for people and not people for money? Which is subject and which is object?

These questions might be inevitable and acute right now, but they are not new. Jesus quietly slipped in the notion that if we want to know where your values really lie (and what really drives you and your choices, etc) we’ll need to see your bank statement. Heart and money lie closely together – at least for those who have money to love.
 
So, Spiegel‘s front-cover question is a deeper one than it appears. Markets do not drive the world, money does not behave as if personified, the economy cannot be ascribed personality or moral competence. People make systems, people are driven by values and assumptions about what (and who) matters (even if there is a discrepancy between what they think and what the evidence suggests), and people decide on the ends the systems are intended to achieve – and in whose interests.

 

That language thing (again)

I know I bang on a bit about the linguistic incompetence of the English, but toady I read something on the train to London that pushed all my prejudice buttons.

In today’s Guardian Jonathan Freedland has a good go at the (usually untested) arguments for the massive pay differentials in some of our businesses. The usual rationale has something to do with the assumption that our ‘best’ talent would go abroad if we brought what the boss of Barclays called the ‘compensation’ levels down to something that resembled ‘earnings’. In other words, we would be left with second-division executives who lack the ambition or the hunger to up sticks and emigrate.

He responds to this by recognising that rare skills can legitimately demand rare salaries – but also that the skills of those who earn huge amounts are not exactly rare.

?… Our objection to telephone-number salaries goes deeper. What it comes down to is desert – a notion so deeply ingrained that, yes, even a seven-year-old can grasp it: the belief that people should deserve the rewards they get.

… Most people have long accepted that there will be a differential in pay that, in the hoary example, the brain surgeon will earn more than the dustman. People understand that some skills are rare and therefore command a greater premium. They even accept that this can result in extreme outcomes, with the likes of Wayne Rooney trousering £250,000 a week. But none of that logic applies to the current state of corporate pay.

Rooney is truly a one in a hundred million talent; there might be just two dozen people in the world who could match his skills. But with all due respect to Bob Stack, that is not true of him. Nor can it possibly be true of the 2,800 staff in 27 UK-based banks who, according to the Financial Services Authority, received more than £1m each in 2009. Whatever these people are able to do, it’s clearly not rare.

Ah, comes the reply, but these are the cream of the international crop, among the very best bankers in the world. The commission report blows a hole in that tired argument, revealing there’s hardly any cross-border poaching of corporate talent. Not many of our monolingual high earners could work abroad and even fewer would want to. They like it here and do not have to be paid lottery jackpot money to stay.

Notice the (almost) aside? ‘Monolingual’ high earners? We consistently underestimate the economic cost of our linguistic incompetence – to say nothing of the cultural and experiential deficit.

So, those are the buttons Freedland pressed for me: critique of the absurd and unjustifiable differentials, a sideswipe at our linguistic incompetence, and some myth-busting about the ‘market’.

And beneath all the fun a serious question about how we value people, what they do, why it matters, and how we need to recover some connection between work and reward.

 

Democratic deficit

We live in interesting times (again). Italy now has a government without a single elected politician in it. And Italy might not be the last.

Europe has considered itself to be the cradle of democracy – systems of government in which elected politicians set the policy direction and the technocrats do the economic plumbing. Now the impotence of elected politicians has led to the technocrats running the show while the elected representatives watch from the sidelines. Maybe they are relieved. The hard decisions needed in tough times are better taken by people who don’t have to worry about constituencies or getting re-elected by people who are upset with you for spoiling their life.

However, it also calls into question the competence of elected ‘lay’ people to direct highly technically complex financial and governmental organisations. At what point will the technocrats decide that their job is done and power can be handed back to the politicians? It’s an intriguing question.

If the same move was made in the UK, I wonder who might form the government of the technocrats?

 

The Conversion of St Paul’s

It looks like the conversion of St Paul’s wasn’t exactly a Damascus Road experience after all.

The delayed publication of the latest report by the St Paul’s Institute shows that, even if the City was unaware of it and the Occupy protesters ended up on the cathedral steps more by accident than design, the Church was already well underway with serious questioning of the values that drove City culture in the 25 years since Big Bang. The Value and Values report (subtitled Perceptions of Ethics in the City Today) was published yesterday.

Contrary to the press accusation that this report had been ‘suppressed’ for a couple of weeks, it should by now be blindingly obvious what criticism (of naff timing and incoherent process) would have been levelled at the Church if it had gone ahead and published according to the schedule. Given that the report is fronted by both Dean Graeme Knowles and Canon Dr Giles Fraser, it would have been kind of hard to put it out with both of them in the process of resignation.

Of course, that inconvenient truth won’t satisfy those who revel in selective amnesia – the same condition that slates the Archbishop of Canterbury for questioning the values of our dominant economic and political culture, then forgets he had done so when the later story breaks and they can’t get him to feed the hungry media machine with further repetition.

Anyway, the report makes clear that there are some good people in the City – people who are already sensitised to the disconnect between the Square Mile and the real world. Indeed, the report makes clear that many of those who work in the City do understand the reasons behind the rage against perceived injustice. It highlights the way technology has dehumanised financial transactions. It recognises that reward has become divorced from work and that the Big Bang created a failure to drive value with values that assumed a common humanity. Money has become an end instead of a means to a greater end that we choose.

I was once asked to give an after-dinner speech at London’s famous Mansion House to a company of insurers and financiers. These people, among whom there was a plethora of motivations, had raised enormous amounts of money for a range of charitable causes and I wanted to recognise this and thank them for it. But I also wanted to reconnect this generosity with a humane appraisal of the transaction. I think I said something like:

this is not a case of the strong giving to the weak, but of the ‘weak who have’ giving to the ‘weak who have not’.

(I finished by quoting Jesus who said “it is easier to get a needle through your eye than for a rich man to pass a camel”… or something like that, anyway.

The point is that wealth can create a security that hides basic human frailty. We all weep and bleed and feel lonely in the universe on a dark night when our relationships have failed or we find ourselves wondering what it is all about. What unites us is the common humanity that has somehow got lost in the scrap for money.

Perhaps the Church is in a good place to stand between the City and the rest of the world. We ‘do’ people and we ‘get’ the people who live in both worlds. It is our business – confusing and compromising though it sometimes feels – and a church that follows Jesus Christ (who opted into this compromising and material world) can do no other than stand where the fault lines fall and try to hold it all together.

Read the report and the critique that concludes it. This wasn’t a craven cathedral at all – it had opened itself up to judgement. The tragedy is that the protestors didn’t turn up just a few days later, once the report had been published.

 

Morality and the market

I have just taken part in a rather frustrating remote discussion on BBC Radio 4′s Sunday programme. Frustrating only because (I think) Ed Stourton was in Manchester, Eric Lonergan was in London, Professor John Milbank was in Nottingham and I was in Bradford – so, none of us could see each other… which makes interruption, eye contact and real engagement rather difficult.

Naturally, the theme arose from the events in London and elsewhere and the questions raised by the Occupy movement. Away from the heat of the particular (how St Paul’s Cathedral was handling the ‘crisis’, for example), it was possible to take a step back and ask some of the important questions about money, markets and morality. The programme can be located here, the particular discussion coming over half-way in.

It seems to me that the key to discussing these issues lies in nobbling the assumptions behind the language we use. Markets are never ‘free’ in the sense that they are neutral: they are shaped by human choices, values and priorities. The question is: which choices, according to which priorities, derived from which values, shaped by which assumptions about who we are and how the world should be?

John Milbank spoke of the ‘disconnect between the City and real people’, but this disconnect also exposes the vacuum in identifying and shaping the moral framework within (and from) which our financial business should be done. This is not anti-capitalist. Rather, it is a recognition that capitalism needs effective regulation, a shared set of moral values, a framework of mutual accountability and honest language.

City workers were asked if there is a moral framework within which the City or the markets operate. Odd question. Of course, there is – there is no neutral space shaped by value-free (or self-evidently noble) morality. The question simply has to do with the questions I cited above. I was a little unnerved to hear City workers saying things like, “We work incredibly hard” and “We are just doing a job”. I can think of other (incomparable) circumstances in history where such disclaimers are disallowed.

Anyway, I have to go to work on the sabbath. There clearly needs to be a more general debate within society about who shapes the moral framework for our business and economic life and how we better engage wider society in ownership of those choices. But, for this there has to be a growing experience of mutual responsibility at every level, reduced abstraction of economic life, a rehumanising of business, and a re-definition or re-articulation of public economic morality.

And we need to re-examine the connection between individual moral choosing and the common moral framing of our common life. After all, the economy exists not for the sake of the market, but in order better to shape our common life for the common good.