Cameron in Afghanistan was no Lawrence of Arabia

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, armed forces, British, bullingdon, chaos, controversy, corrupt, credit, David Cameron, democracy, drug, educate, educating, education, follower, George W Bush, girl, government, Hamid Karzai, heroin, Iraq, Koran, Lawrence of Arabia, Leader, mission accomplished, Peter O'Toole, poppy, soldier, terrorism, terrorist, troops

How does one mark the passing of Peter O’Toole, if not by watching Lawrence of Arabia? It was his first film role and, some say, his greatest.

I’m sure I cannot be the only one to have drawn comparisons between T.E. Lawrence, as played by the great O’Toole on the silver screen, and David Cameron – who behaved like a tool when he said of British forces in Afghanistan, “Misson accomplished”.

In the film, Lawrence is shunned by his colleagues in the British military because of his unconventional ways, but accepted by the Arabs – firstly because he is able to quote the Koran to them, secondly because he goes out of his way to accomplish feats that seem impossible (like rescuing one of his Arab friends from The Sun’s Anvil) in order to give them hope of military success, and thirdly because he achieves these things for their good, not his own.

David Cameron is a different matter. Unlike Lawrence, he is not an original thinker – or indeed any other kind of leader. He is a follower. British military policy in Afghanistan was not his policy, and he made no effort to take control of it. He has made no effort to understand the admittedly-complicated history and culture of a country that has rightly been described as “troubled”, although few people bother to remember that much of that trouble has been caused by invaders including the British. And if he has gone out of his way, it was to avoid actions of distinction. But he’s happy to take the credit for everything that has been done.

This is why, when Cameron said the mission in Afghanistan will have been accomplished by the time the last British troops leave in 2014, so many commentators jeered.

Cameron is currently saying that the mission was to build up security in Afghanistan, to ensure it cannot become a haven for terrorists again, after our forces leave. This might seem reasonable if it were not merely the latest in a long list of mission statements provided for Afghanistan over the incredible 12 years since we arrived there in 2001.

Others, according to The Guardian, include “removing Al Qaida’s bases, eradicating poppy cultivation, educating girls and helping forge a form of democracy”. While we cannot comment on the first of these, the others either failed abjectly or have become the subjects of fierce controversy. The government of Hamid Karzai has long been criticised as corrupt.

Cameron’s choice of words also creates an unhealthy comparison with Iraq, which fell into chaos for a considerable period after then-US President George W Bush declared “mission accomplished” there.

Even the comedy Prime Minister’s attempt to put the soundbite across to the media seemed hesitant. “The purpose of our mission was always to build an Afghanistan and Afghan security forces that were capable of maintaining a basic level of security so this country never again became a haven for terrorist training camps,” he said.

“That has been the most important part of the mission… The absolute driving part of the mission is the basic level of security so that it doesn’t become a haven for terror. That is the mission, that was the mission and I think we will have accomplished that mission,” he added, unravelling completely by the end. He mentioned security three times, “haven for terror” twice, and the mission no less than six times!

And the experts disagreed. The British ambassador to Kabul from 2010-12, William Paytey, said: “Afghanistan has got a long way to go and it could be many decades before we see real peace there.”

So Cameron cuts a poor figure in comparison with Lawrence – and even, returning to our starting point, in comparison with Peter O’Toole. In his hellraising days, Cameron and his Bullingdon friends used to smash up restaurants; Peter O’Toole and his buddies would have tried to buy them.

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Mr ‘Political’ goes to Westminster, looking for justice

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assessment, Backbench Business, benefit, benefits, Coalition, committee, Conservative, cumulative, Democrat, Department, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, disabled, DWP, Employment and Support Allowance, ESA, evidence, government, Grahame Morris, health, House of Commons, Iain Duncan Smith, John McDonnell, joseph rowntree foundation, Labour, Liberal, Liberal Democrat, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Monitoring Poverty, Mr Smith Goes To Washington, Parliament, Pensions, people, politics, Reform, sick, Social Exclusion, social security, statistic, Tories, Tory, unemployment, Vox Political, WCA, welfare, work, work capability, work capability assessment, wow petition

“I’m not licked. And I’m gonna stay right here and fight for this lost cause. Even if this room gets filled with lies.” – James Stewart as Jefferson Smith in Mr Smith Goes To Washington

Congratulations are due to Labour MPs John McDonnell and Grahame Morris, who have persuaded Parliament’s Backbench Business Committee to agree that a debate on the ‘WoW’ petition will take place in the House of Commons, early in the New Year.

Responsibility now falls back on the British people to make sure our elected representatives do not squander the opportunity, as the Commons Work and Pensions Committee squandered its chance to hold Iain Duncan Smith to account for his own, and his department’s, statisticial inaccuracies.

The petition, on the government’s website, passed its target of 100,000 signatures at the beginning of the month, meaning the Backbench Business committee had to consider whether a Commons debate should take place.

Those who oppose it will be trying to find any reason – no matter how small – to avoid having to consider the changes it demands, so its supporters need to go through it, line by line, making sure they can justify every claim and every demand with hard facts.

We cannot rely on our MPs to do this. Even those who are sympathetic may not have the time or the resources to research the issues properly; and we have seen from the woeful Work and Pensions meeting on Monday that it is best not to leave Parliamentarians to phrase their own questions.

To use an angling metaphor – which seems appropriate – we must allow no opportunity for these worms to wriggle off the hook.

So, for example, the petition demands “a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform”. The government has denied that this is possible, saying it would be too complicated to carry out and that “external organisations have not produced this either”.

But the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report, Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2013, states: “There is a … growing number of people … in very deep poverty. They are being hit by … overlapping measures from welfare reform”. We can expect some Conservative MPs to demur over the differences between “cumulative” and “overlapping” (probably down to their respective spellings) but it seems clear that the Foundation not only has the evidence needed to provide a cumulative assessment, but has already carried it out.

It should also be noted that the Foundation has said the effects of this year’s changes cannot be quantified yet, and we must wait until next year to learn what further damage may have been caused; this is just the beginning.

The petition also calls for “a New Deal for sick and disabled people based on their needs, abilities and ambitions” – meaning evidence would need to be available to show that the Coalition system does not adequately cater for those needs, abilities and ambitions.

It demands an immediate end to the work capability assessment, and strong evidence will be required to show that this is necessary. Individual cases are fine on an anecdotal level – for example the single-question medical assessment (“Did you get here by bus?”) that led to the refusal of benefit for the poor lady from Kingswood who then took her own life; it seems clear that there was no attempt to understand the state of her mental health.

But these stories must be supported by the weight of numbers. We know that 3,500 people in the work-related activity group of ESA claimants died between January and November 2011. How many ESA claimants have died since then, and how many of them were in the group where they were expected to be working again within a year? We don’t know, because the statistics have been suppressed. Why have they been withheld? Is it because the number of deaths has risen to an even more horrifying level?

If the government wants to deny that this is the case, then it must provide proof. The Coalition has had more than a year to produce these figures; if it is unable – or unwilling – to do so then they must be damning indeed.

This article’s headline is based on the title of the film Mr Smith Goes To Washington (the ‘Political’ refers to the fact that some commenters, here and on Facebook, refer to me as if ‘Vox Political’ was my real name). It is a statement of my intent to go to London and watch the ‘WoW’ debate in person, just as Jefferson Smith attends the US Senate to seek justice in the film.

Of course I won’t be able to speak in the debate. If I could, though, I might pick a few words from that old movie, because they are just as relevant today:

“Take a look at this country if you really want to see something. You’ll see the whole parade of what Man’s carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so’s he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, colour, or creed. That’s what you’d see. There’s no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties.

“Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light. They’re right here; you just have to see them again! I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.”

Or how about this one? “I guess this is just another lost cause. All you people don’t know about lost causes. They were the only causes worth fighting for – for the only reason any man ever fights for them. Because of just one plain simple rule. Love thy neighbour. And in this world today of great hatred a man who knows that rule has a great trust. And you know that you fight harder for the lost causes than for any others. Yes you’d even die for them.”

People have died for this cause.

Those of us who remain have a duty not to lose it.

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Should movie stars keep their politics to themselves?

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"greenhorn", Barack Obama, California, Carmel, celeb, celebrity, Clint Eastwood, Coalition, Conservative, Democrat, endorsement, government, Kate Moss, Kenny Everett, Labour, Margaret Thatcher, Medicare, Michael Caine, Michael Foot, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Mitt Romney, Parliament, people, politics, Republican, social security, sponsorship, Tiger Woods, Tories, Tory

Would it be better if celebrities like Clint Eastwood and Michael Caine kept quiet about their political views, leaving voters to make up their own minds about which political party to support?

Celebrity endorsement is always a bit “hit and miss”, isn’t it?

How many times have you seen a big name pimping themselves out in a sponsorship deal that has left you cringing with embarrassment for them? How many times have the deals gone sour because of events in the celeb’s personal life (think of Tiger Woods, or Kate Moss, for example).

The unpredictability of the endorsement effect is magnified in politics. Will you still respect a celeb if they are exhorting you to vote for a party you despise? What if it’s a person you don’t like, asking you to support your own choice? What if it’s someone you do actually rate, but they’re soliciting your vote in an unpalatable, tasteless way?

I remember my 13-year-old self turning his nose up at the late Kenny Everett when, supporting the Thatcher government in 1983, he said “We’re going to kick Michael Foot’s walking stick away!” (Mr Foot, also now deceased, was the leader of the Labour Party at the time).

On the other hand, when Sir Michael Caine supported the Conservatives in 2010, it didn’t bother me at all. I’m a fan of this prolific actor and will continue to enjoy his work, despite his unfortunate choice of allegiance. But then, I was never persuaded by Sir Michael to vote for the worst government in living memory. I wonder how many moviegoers were.

All of the above brings me to the announcement by Clint Eastwood that he is backing Mitt Romney’s US presidential election campaign.

Mr Romney’s plans involve tax cuts for the very rich, but he won’t offset their effect by closing other tax loopholes or creating other revenue streams. He’ll use the increased debt this creates as an excuse to strip social security and medicare down to nothing.

Put yourself in Mr Eastwood’s position. He’s a very rich man, and would probably benefit from Romney’s planned tax cuts. He has served as Republican mayor of the town of Carmel, in California. Also, he’s on record as saying that Barack Obama is a “greenhorn”, without the necessary experience to run the US government.

That’s fine for him. Now ask yourself: What effect will his endorsement of Romney have on an Eastwood fan of meagre means, whose life is enhanced by social security and medicare and who would suffer if these were dismantled?

They’d probably vote for Romney because their idol told them to do it – and then, if he gets in, repent at leisure.

Dead weight doesn’t pay – why firms should take the less-travelled way

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austerity, break even, business, consultants, John Goodman, Kevin Smith, marketing, Melissa Leo, Red State, Road Not Taken, Robert Frost, Smodcast, Sundance Film Festival, Tough Sh*t

‘Two paths diverged in a wood and I

‘I took the one less travelled by

‘And that has made all the difference.’ – Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken.

I have a lot of time for Kevin Smith, the film director and co-creator of the Smodcast podcast network. Not only does he know the difference between the media and a medium, but he worked out what is wrong with the modern business model, and is pointing the way towards changing it so that people can make a decent living again.

The fact is that there are too many people in the business world who charge far more than they are worth, in order to provide a service that is either very small or irrelevant – and get away with it because they have conned everybody who does the actual work into thinking they’re necessary.

These people suck cash away from businesses and push the break-even point up and up until it becomes nigh-on impossible to reach.

Kevin Smith is one of the first people I’ve seen standing up and saying it’s time to get rid of this dead weight. And he’s absolutely right.

The way he tells it, he came to this realisation on the set of his most recent movie, Red State, a satirical horror flick shining a light on the atrocities committed in the name of religion along with those committed in the name of law and order (more or less; I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. Go see it). The film had a budget of four or five million dollars and most of the people working on it, including stars John Goodman and Oscar-winner Melissa Leo, were doing it for a lot less pay than they would normally take.

I’ll let Mr Smith narrate his story from here for a while (quoted from passages in his book Tough Sh*t):

“On day four on the set of Red State, while watching all the beautiful people in my cast and on my crew pull together to make this ugly little story, I started thinking about how the marketing dollars spent to open this film eventually would be four or five times the amount that all the generous filmmakers on my cast and crew (who took drastic cuts in salary to work on the flick) ever had to work with in their departments to actually make the flick. I was asking the cast and crew to eat gristle when, postpurchase, the choice cuts would go elsewhere.

“We all hoped someone would eventually buy the film when it was finished, but how much would they buy it for? And if it got bought, what would happen then? Let’s say Lionsgate picked up Red State. Lionsgate spends an almost-standard $20 mil to open any flick (which is lower than the industry norm; LG is actually one of the more frugal studios, spending less on marketing than the majors). So now, my flick doesn’t cost $4 million anymore, it costs $24 million. It’s gotta make $24 million to break even and start seeing profit. But the studio/distributor doesn’t get all that box office, so assume the studio only gets back half of that announced box-office figure. Suddenly my little four-million-dollar movie has to make $50 million JUST TO BREAK EVEN. Like… what happened? Instead of spending all that money trying to make the movie, the money is spent on trying to convince people to come see your shit.

“It just started to gnaw at me. Many cats were breaking their backs to see us hit an ambitiously low budget cap, but whoever bought the flick would then give people who never worked on the movie way more money to simply sell it to an audience that didn’t care about or want it. Four million bucks? We could make that make, without all the crazy marketing spending.”

So he took Red State to the Sundance Film Festival where, “stick in hand, I gave a barn-burner of a speech in which I advocated for art and said the business half of the show-business equation was out of control – particularly marketing spending.

“Then came the moment of truth. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, when I came here seventeen years ago, all I wanted to do was sell my movie. And I can’t think of anything worse, seventeen years later, than selling my movie to people who just don’t get it.’”

He retained the distribution rights for himself and took the movie on a tour of selected cinemas, with the screenings accompanied by talks and question-and-answer sessions. “Over the course of the fifteen shows of the Red State USA Tour, we made almost one million dollars from ticket and merchandise sales. You take the million we made on the tour, you add that to the two million we pulled in from foreign sales, and you add to that two million more from Lionsgate for the VOD and home video rights, and another million from NetFlix for the streaming rights, and you’ll notice our gains were higher than our spending. And without any dopey marketing figures to have to recoup, simple math dictates Red State is in the black.”

Now. I don’t know whether Mr Smith intends – or intended – to give any of that profit to the cast and crew who tightened their belts and took lower salaries to make the film in the first place. To be honest, it’s none of my business. I would – for me, that would be the point of the operation.

But the message is perfectly clear and blatantly obvious if you just stop to think about it: If you want to get by in the world – especially a world in financial crisis as it has been over the past few years – you get rid of the dead weight. For Kevin Smith, that meant ditching a bunch of disinterested marketers who would have provided a bog-standard service on his work while demanding five times as much money as it cost to make the movie in the first place.

I live in Powys, Wales, where during the last financial year the county council spent £6 million – SIX MILLION POUNDS – on consultancy fees. They paid big bucks to people in smart jackets and denim trousers for PowerPoint presentations that provided the kind of – and quality of – information that I could have written on the back of an old envelope and offered to them for nothing.

In fact, my advice would probably have been better.

During the same financial year, the Welsh Assembly Government provided more than £1 million to the county council in the hope that it would not raise taxes on local residents. This proved futile, and council tax rose by 2.5 per cent. The money from the Assembly, coupled with that provided by the tax rise, more or less equals the amount paid to the consultants – for information that was either obvious, unnecessary or inaccurate (in my opinion). The people of this county were forced to forfeit this cash at a time of massively increased austerity, when every household in the UK is having to, as Mr Smith put it, “eat gristle”.

It seems to me that there are similar disinterested third parties in many aspects of business and that now is the time to get rid of them and offer services direct. Ditch the middle person and go straight to the buyer. With the internet and all that, it shouldn’t be too hard to do, in many cases.

My bet is that, in many cases, this would turn a loss-maker into a profitable concern – or at least, as with Powys County Council, make the burden on the investor (the council taxpayer in this case) a little more bearable.

And that – in this day and age – might make all the difference.