Paper Tigers Tamed

How fascinating, to see the real Cabinet entering and leaving Downing Street for a change.

Or perhaps not, after all.

They were in for less than an hour, and no one has contradicted Cameron's BBC interview in which he said that he laid down the law, with every threat of doing so literally. Interviewed themselves on the way out, they were resigned to the fact that whatever they proposed was subject to parliamentary approval. They have lost, they know it, and they are saying it openly.

There was a distinct "Who is the Prime Minister here?" feel to it all. I do not like the fact that David Cameron is the Prime Minister. But he is. None of them is. This is a great day for parliamentary sovereignty. Here's to many, many, many more.

Those who have waited 20 years in order to avenge the 1992 General Election result and everything that followed from it, not least the rise of Tony Blair, will not now be denied that vengeance by any power on earth. They massively predominate within one party, and they are still far more numerous than most people realised within the other party.

Or would they rather be given what they profess to want? The end of the distribution arrangements with the Post Office. And the abolition of the Lobby, so that they would all just have to watch BBC Parliament like everyone else. That is what independence of the State would mean.

Get Knotted

Why don't they join the Woodcraft Folk?

And if there were as many atheists as the likes of the National Secular Society claim that there are in rural England, then the Scouts, the Guides, the Boys' Brigade and the Girls' Brigade would all die out. No one would join them. That has not happened, and it is not happening.

However, and I write as an old Patrol Leader with the Chief Scout's Award, "we don't care which god it is, as long as it's a god" won't really do theologically, will it? There is a reason why Scouting and Guiding grew out of public school Broad Churchmanship while the BB grew out of the chapels in the days of their fire and brimstone appeals to men who put in 12-hour shifts of backbreaking work.

The Scouts are now using material prepared by the ghastly Brook operation. In February 1980, Helen Brook wrote in The Times that, "From birth till death it is now the privilege of the parental State to take major decisions - objective, unemotional, the State weighs up what is best for the child." In 1995, she was given the CBE. The Conservative Party was not at that time in coalition with the Lib Dems or anyone else.

I blame letting in girls, part of a general denial of boys their space these days. There was none of that in my day. But the decision of the Scouts to sign up to the grooming industry, otherwise known as Sex Education, raises serious questions about whether it should in so many places be sponsored by churches, in England usually C of E ones. The Evangelical wing would most obviously take the lead on this one. But out in the pews of Middle England, it would find plenty of comrades in arms if it did.

Not Satisfied

Cristina Odone writes:

The journalist who broke the story about Savita Halappananvar's tragic death now admits that the facts were "a little muddled". 

In an astonishing radio interview, Kitty Holland of The Irish Times admits that her report was based on the husband's version of events, but that in fact there may have been "no request for a termination". Her earlier account stated that Mrs Halappananvar, an Indian in Ireland who was expecting a baby, had begged for a termination when complications arose with the birth; hospital staff denied her the abortion, allegedly saying: "This is a Catholic country".

Holland's exclusive tale of the tragic death made headlines around the world. Pro-abortion groups seized upon the story to condemn any review of abortion laws. Protesters chanting "Never again!" marched in Irish cities. Holland's report ensured that abortion was hailed as a life-saving operation; that it should be cruelly denied a young woman was further proof (if any were needed) that the Catholic Church was backward and barbarian.

Except that none of this may be quite as it seems. "I'm not satisfied of anything," Holland says in her radio interview. She maintains, perhaps a tad disingenuously, that Savita Halappananvar's death would have received the same kind of media attention even if it had not been linked to a termination. Yet she admits that Savita was only healthy "as far as we know" before going into the Galway University Hospital. In other words, the young woman might have been suffering from a fatal condition even before her hospital admission. But in their rush to make a pro-abortion point, journalists and editors did not check their facts.

What a tragedy – twice over: a young pregnant woman's premature death; and an account of that death that, if the facts are indeed muddled, does no justice to her memory.

All-American

Moira Herbst writes:

Last week, retiring Minnesota grocery chain owner Joe Lueken did something unusual: he gave his business to his 400 employees. The story received widespread attention as a heartwarming, It's A Wonderful Life-esque act of beneficence. But Lueken's decision was no one-off Christmas fairytale. In fact, Bob Moore, owner of Oregon-based cereal producer Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, did exactly the same thing two years ago.

Their actions reflect the under-the-radar but growing trend of worker ownership in the United States. The surprising truth is that there are thousands of successful, majority worker-owned businesses in the United States. We're not just talking small-scale hippie co-ops: the largest majority employee-owned business is Florida-based Publix Super Markets, a $27bn company that employs 152,000 people. That's more workers than Costco (COST) and Whole Foods (WFM) combined. At a time of high unemployment, soaring corporate profits and diminishing job quality, employee ownership offers an appealing, viable alternative to mainstream corporate capitalism. It's a way for workers to own "the means of production" without overthrowing the system – and without asking a gridlocked Congress to create a jobs program.

Far from some communist ideal, employee ownership is an all-American third way that both left and right can embrace. Worker advocates can applaud the model's more democratic structure, while free marketeers can admire its entrepreneurial spirit. Workers who directly reap the fruits of their labor – rather than toil for higher returns for anonymous investors – are more motivated, productive, and creative. According to a study by Harvard and Rutgers researchers, companies with substantial employee ownership often outperform those without, because of lower staff turnover and stronger trust relationships at work.

Fortunately, the idea is catching on. Since 1975, the number of companies with partial employee ownership in the US has grown from 1,600 to more than 10,000 – about 10% of the American workforce. We sorely need these alternatives. For a nation fixated on the idea of individual liberty, Americans have a remarkable tolerance for undemocratic, top-down leadership at our workplaces, where, after all, we spend most of our waking hours. In recent decades, the playing field between employers and employees – that is, between capital and labor – has become severely warped. Especially at the lower end of the skills spectrum, workers often face a lack of respect by management, erratic schedules, and punishment for trying to form a union. The vast majority of American workers are "at-will" – meaning, you can be fired for any reason. Perhaps your performance has lagged, or perhaps the boss doesn't like your new shoes.

If more enterprises were employee-owned, fewer workers would face this daily exploitation. Labor's share of the national income – now at its lowest point in recorded history – would rise. The ratio of average of CEO pay to worker pay (currently, an astounding 380:1) would shrink. Inequality, which harms society and hampers economic growth, would lessen. Here's why. In publicly-traded corporations, the board of directors – nominated by a tiny number of outside investors – decides who runs the show and how profits are distributed. In employee-owned companies, workers themselves are the shareholders. Because stock does not trade publicly, the business is insulated from the pressures of the stock market and its obsession with short-term profit. Instead, the worker-owners can focus on long-term growth, sustainability, and fairness.

Part of that focus is executive pay. The base salary of the CEO of Publix, for example, was about $810,000 last year, far lower than than that of his grocery chain CEO counterparts. Publix isn't a slave to Wall Street's tendency to set bloated executive pay packages on expectations that share prices will magically balloon under new leadership. Another focus is creating and maintaining good jobs for the long haul. While publicly-traded firms slash workers in a downturn, for example, an employee-owned company might choose to cut hours or pay for everyone to avoid layoffs.

To be sure, employee ownership is no panacea. Publix, for example, has faced employment lawsuits, including one over overtime pay. That's why proponents call for workplaces to be not only employee-owned, but also employee-directed. This is a more robustly democratic model in which workers become the board of directors of a company, making all decisions about what it produces how the spoils are distributed. Economist Richard Wolff details these kinds of models in his book, Democracy at Work: he often cites Mondragon, a successful Spanish conglomerate, as an example.

And then, there are the worker-owned John Lewis department stores in Britain, a $13bn-plus business. The company grows at a faster rate than competitors as it defies the low-wage retail business model, and offers workers solid compensation and pensions. The company's purpose, according to its constitution, is "the happiness of all its members, through their worthwhile and satisfying employment in a successful business". Sounds utopian … but it's happening every day.

Another example is Der Spiegel, the leading German consumer magazine, which is part-owned and managed by its employees. As print media collapses elsewhere, Spiegel is still going strong. When I did a fellowship there, a writer told me he and his colleagues skimp on travel expenses because they know it's their bottom line, too. Academic studies show they're not alone. When you and your colleagues own the place, you're not going to steal a stapler or pad your hours. Trust and workplace ethics: isn't that what all those company retreats and office birthday celebrations have failed to accomplish?

If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem

Consider the much-vaunted destruction of the organic civilisation originating in the Christianisation and unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which began in earnest in the early seventh century AD. Of that destruction, people of East European extraction are often held to be in the vanguard. Although if it is bulwarks against Islamisation that you want, then you could not ask for surer than the Christian Slavs.

There is no argument that can be advanced against such a destruction which does not apply at least as strongly, and for the most part with vastly more basis in actual fact, to the destruction of the organic civilisation originating in the Muslim Conquest of Greater Syria which began in earnest in the early seventh century AD.  Nevertheless, that civilisation continues to include the oldest Christian communities in the word, communities that became Christian when the Roman Empire did or earlier, became Arab at exactly the same time as England was being created, and founded modern Arab nationalism and the revived concept of Filastin as explicit political expressions of Christianity, just as England and the United Kingdom were and are. Of the destruction of that civilisation, people of East European extraction are undeniably in the vanguard.

Everyone would know this axiomatically if we had a free press. Manifestly, as things stand, we have no such thing.

Controlling Interest

A great line has just been uttered by Jonathan Reynolds MP: "No one wants State control of the media, but what we have long had in this country has been closer to media control of the State."

Not before time, parliamentary sovereignty is being reasserted. More, please. Next up, the City.

Let the message go out loud and clear to the media moguls and the money men, to the EU and the US, to Israel and the Gulf monarchs, to China and the Russian oligarchs, to separatists and communalists, to the Executive and the Judiciary.

The Spectator ought to be delighted. Why isn't it?

Unavoidable

Just as any real Labour Movement must recognise and celebrate the role of business in providing employment, generating wealth, sustaining communities, supporting good causes, and so on, so any businessperson with an ounce of common sense must recognise and celebrate the importance to economic efficiency of decent healthcare, education, housing, transport infrastructure, wages, working conditions, and so on. Including legal recognition as a company at all.

Take out bailouts or the permanent promise of them, take out central and local government contracts, take out planning deals and other sweeteners, and take out the guarantee of customer bases by means of public sector pay and the benefits system, and what is there left? They are all as dependent on public money as any teacher, nurse or road sweeper. Everyone is.

And with public money come public responsibilities, including public accountability for how those responsibilities are or are not being met, accountability and responsibilities defined by classical, historic, mainstream Christianity as the basis of the British State and as the guiding inspiration of all three of this State’s authentic, indigenous, popular political traditions.

Privatisation, globalisation, deregulation and demutualisation have turned out, in the most spectacular fashion, to have been anything but fiscally responsible. The same is true of a generation of scorn for full employment, leading to the massively increased benefit dependency of the 1980s and the institutionalisation of that mass indolence down to the present day.

The transfer of huge sums of public money to ostensibly private, but entirely risk-free, companies in order to run schools, hospitals, railways, rubbish collections, and so many other things: is that fiscally responsible? Bailing out the City at all, never mind so that it can carry on paying the same salaries and bonuses as before: is that fiscally responsible? Even leaving aside more rarefied academic pursuits, is it fiscally responsible to allow primary education, or healthcare, or public transport, or social housing to fall apart? Is that good for business? Are wars of aggression fiscally responsible? Are military-industrial complexes?