I’ll stick with bureaucracy and red tape; it keeps me and society going!

In the rabble rousing politics of the right that now threaten our country, and indeed the wider world, great chunks of the population are keen to show their resentment and rage that the world does not revolve around them by believing in, and voting for, policies and actions that will harm both them and others. Millions of wilfully ignorant voters in America support Donald Trump even though his promises and actions are causing them and America self harm: his incursions in the middle east, for example are costing the American tax payer billions of dollars and his zero sum game of tariffs with other nations has put up the cost of living in America hugely. In our own country, the "great unthinking" in our electorate ensured that we committed the greatest act of national self harm ever in 2016 when, following pressure from the right in the Tory party and the political manoeuvring of snake oil salesmen like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson we chose Brexit as the way forward for our country. We all now know how that went. Since then the growing populist rabble have highlighted the need to, amongst other things, cut back on our own human rights laws, leave the EU Human Rights Convention, withdraw from the EU Court of Justice, cut back on “red tape” in our government and local councils, reduce the many planning laws that relate to things like the green belt, slash much of our health and safety legislation, cut “waste” and “bureaucracy” in our public bodies like the health service. The list is endless; a national “throwing out of the toys from the pram” by an increasingly resentful and grotesquely immature electorate venting its spleen on the very things that our fathers and grandfathers fought for. They, we, have forgotten why these institutions, initiatives, laws and rules were demanded and fought for by our forefathers and are still needed today by our generation.

In saying this, I am reminded of the comment by the late Lord Bingham, the country’s most eminent judge and former President of the UK Supreme Court, when asked about what he thought about those who despise these basic rights, laws and policies so much that they wish us in the UK to remove them from the statute books. His rhetorical response was: “Which of these rights would we wish to discard? Are any of them trivial, superfluous, unnecessary? Are any of them un-British? There may be those who would like to live in a country where these rights are not enacted and protected, but I am not one of them” Exactly, M’lud!

I have thought much about this in the last day or two.

On Wednesday I went to The Park hospital here in Nottingham for my 4 monthly spinal injection. I have been having this for many years. The NHS provide it and I go to a private hospital to receive it. It doesn’t cure my painful back condition – that is a combination of old age, wear and tear, and slipped discs - but it helps, and keeps me a little more mobile than I would otherwise be. I arrived at the hospital, they were expecting me, I waited about half an hour and then was quietly and efficiently taken through for my injection. The consultant, Dr Hobbs, who always performs the task reviewed my records on his lap top and asked me, on arrival, how my sciatica had recovered following a visit he had organised for me to visit a physiotherapist just after Christmas. All of this was the result of “bureaucracy” at work. It is bureaucracy and red tape that keeps the country and our personal and civic life on course, working, ticking over. It is defined in my Oxford English Dictionary as ”a hierarchical system of organization designed to manage large institutions, whether in government, healthcare, or corporate business. It relies on a chain of command, a strict division of labour, and formal rules to ensure efficiency, fairness, and accountability” – and I’m pleased that we have it, otherwise my injection and my consultant’s awareness of my condition would not have happened. In today’s mad world England’s Reform Party and its unthinking supporters, much of the Conservative Party and even (to their shame) some of the Labour Party when they speak of bureaucracy use it as a pejorative, a thing to despise, a waste of money and the “bureaucrats” who administer it on our behalf – the clerks, the computer operators, the administrators etc. – as some kind of spongers who should get themselves a “proper job”. But without them and the work they do the whole system would grind to a halt in chaos. I like bureaucracy, it helps me make sense of my

world and, in this case, helps to keep me mobile!

And, to end this little tale, on Thursday – the day after my injection – I received an email from the NHS to advise me of the date and time of my next appointment in four months time; bureaucracy at work again! As I read the email I reflected how lucky we are in this country. No-one suggests that all is perfect but billions across the world would die (literally) for a health administration and bureaucracy like this; ask the mother in sub-Sahara Africa who has to walk miles with her ailing child, or the family living in destroyed Gaza where hospitals and basic systems lie in ruins. It is a sobering thought – or at least it should be. The email I received about my next jab, as always, explained the procedure that I was going to have and highlighted what I should do by way of preparation for the appointment – specifically not take the blood thinner medication that I take daily for five days prior to the injection. In other words, it gave me important information to help me be as well prepared and informed as possible, and as I look at the mail now I wonder what bit of this bureaucracy the numpties in the Reform Party of the right wing media would like to slash in their bonfire of red tape, bureaucracy, rules and policies. I suspect that if I asked Nigel Farage and his his rag tag followers exactly which things can we do without and still be safe and well informed he/they would not be able to give me a specific example, that we would all agree on; like all of Reform and other right wing suggestions, they are merely resentful protests rather than thought through plans and ideas.

But the story doesn’t end there, my wife has had a similar experience. Having suffered with a troubling condition for a year or two she went to her GP some weeks ago. He immediately referred her for various scans and these came through within a few days. As with me, the bureaucracy worked perfectly, the scans were completed and the problem discovered - a gallstone. The GP referred her to the hospital and the very next day she received a phone call from the NHS to arrange an appointment with a consultant to sort the issue out. What’s not to like? As Lord Bingham hinted why would you want to get rid of a system like this that protects, supports, and provides for the safety and support each and every one of us.

And finally, my App. On my phone I have an App – it’s called “Airmid”. It gives me instant access at the press of my finger print to all my health records, to my upcoming appointments with the GP, at the pain clinic, or at the hospital. It enables me to order my monthly medication from the chemist, and to see the results of any blood tests or other medical examinations that I undergo within a day or two of them occurring. I can see graphs and charts displaying how my health and test results vary or stay stable over the months and years and I can read my full medical record. I have all my injections such as for Covid listed and can read the notes that my GP makes following any visits I make to his surgery, and the letters he writes on my behalf to hospital consultants and the like………...and so it goes on, and all at the press of my finger tip. This doesn’t just happen – it is part of that same administrative bureaucracy that underpins the other things that my wife and I have enjoyed this week; it relies upon thousands of nameless people who I will never meet or know, or be able to thank, each of them using computers and administrative systems in offices far from where I live out my little life but all of them making that life a bit more enjoyable, understandable and perhaps a little better protected against what the world throws at me.

The Reform Party’s strategy (I use the term very loosely for my OED defines “strategy” as “a clearly defined high level plan or integrated set of choices designed to achieve a specific goal….” - all things that the Reform Party’s strategies are not) is amongst other things to: “….cut UK bureaucracy focusing on radically shrinking the Civil Service, slashing non-essential public sector roles, and reducing the regulatory burden on businesses….” Mmmm! I read this and Lord Bingham’s words come back to me in a slightly altered format: “Which parts of the Civil Service and of these non-essential public service roles and business regulations would we wish to discard" Lord Bingham might ask. And he might continue: "Are any of them trivial, superfluous, unnecessary? Are any of them un-British? There may be those who would like to live in a country where these services, roles and regulations are not provided protected – indeed there are, in places like sub-Sahara Africa, strife torn Gaza, or even Donald Trump’s America where there is no cohesive, free at point of use, national administrative and clinical service (resulting in people not seeking medical help, mass bankruptcies and millions with little or no provision) but I am not one of them” . Again, I would say,

Quite M'Lud!

In the febrile and chaotic political climate of our times where more and more are jumping on the band wagon of resentment, protest and the rejection of previously valued, and hard won, rights, services, rules and systems all in the name of cutting red tape, or stopping bureaucratic waste we are in danger of losing the very things that bind us as a nation together together. As another Lord, Lord Hailsham said some years ago. "We create institutions [such as the NHS, or the education service, or Health & Safety legislation] and those institutions in response create us - make us what we are". This profound idea, initially voiced in Berger and Luckman's seminal and society changing book "The social construction of reality" - a work that I have returned to again and again since reading it in the 1960s for guidance and understanding of the world in which we live - captures perfectly the reciprocal relationship between humanity and society. All of these "institutions" and their associated bureaucracies and administrative systems: the legal system, schools, NHS, local and central government, planning laws and a host of others are critical in enabling us as individuals and wider society as a whole to function; they enable the chaos of daily life to be made predictable, ordered and successful while protecting the individual and enabling society to provide effective structures on our behalf; they mould our beliefs, inform our actions and impact profoundly upon our daily life - in short they make us what we are and what we understand.

A “bonfire" of red tape, bureaucracy and regulations to break this profound and critical relationship will not “save” the nation nor is it a sustainable and thought out policy. It is, like all the other baseless ideas from Reform and other right wing media forums simply a form of propaganda. It fulfils one function and one function only, namely to give unthinking people something to hate and to reject and thus to vote against; it influences weak, unquestioning minds. “Get rid of government red tape” is an easy mantra, a cheap sound bite to use as a headline for a tabloid newspaper and displays to perfection the truth of the comment made almost a century ago by Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail: when asked for the winning formula of his newspaper Lord Northcliffe replied: 'I give my readers a daily hate.”

Lord Northcliffe was at least being honest about the worryingly dubious morals that underpin his newspaper, but he knew how to influence unthinking people: give them something to shout about, to hate. For me I’ll stick with the bureaucracy and the red tape, it helps to keep me (and my family) alive, well, supported, protected from things or businesses that might do me harm, and informed about things that might impact upon me or my life. It provides a framework of things that my parents and grandparents could often only dream of and which millions now want to take away. As with Brexit, we will learn of the folly of this act of national self harm.

The Great Game & its Tragic Consequences

 

In Southwell Minster, here in Nottinghamshire, positioned high in the wall of the transept there is a small, unremarkable memorial stone to commemorate the life and death of a young Nottinghamshire soldier in one of the three 19th century wars fought in Afghanistan. The three conflicts (1839–1842, 1878–1880, 1919) between the British Empire (based in India) and Afghanistan. Driven by the so called "Great Game", the strategic rivalry between the British and Russian empires for supremacy in Central Asia, Afghanistan was crucially positioned between these two empires. It was in 1898 that Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, wrote to Queen Victoria saying “I confess that countries are pieces on a chessboard, upon which is played out a great game for the domination of the world.” Curzon's private words to the Queen were brought to the popular consciousness in 1901 with the publication of Rudyard Kipling's novel "Kim" and with it a rise in patriotic jingoism to fuel the geopolitical atmosphere of the time. The young son of Southwell commemorated in the Minster was one of Lord Curzon’s pawns in this macabre geopolitical game in which Britain was seeking to protect its Indian empire, while Russia was bent on expanding southward leading to diplomatic manoeuvrers, espionage, and much bloodshed. While Britain initially achieved military victories, they faced intense local resistance, leading to a disastrous retreat in the first war, partial control of Afghanistan in the second, and finally, Afghan independence in the third.

Each time I visit the lovely Southwell Minster I look at the memorial stone and shake my head – a young man, like so many others, who lost his life far from home in a conflict that was in no way of his making or of any possible importance to him or his family. And as I look I think of 17th century French philosopher Blase Pascal’s comment “Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the river and his ruler has a quarrel with my ruler, though I have not quarrelled with him”. It is a damning indictment of mankind and of great powers such as Britain that 150 years after that young man died and in the 21st century these “great games” of geopolitics leading to unwarranted invasion, bloodshed and sorrow are still being played out by great powers across the world; in recent years in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, and now Iran and a thousand other places ordinary men and women have felt the terrible impact of the “great games” of our age. "Zar, Zan, u Zameen" goes an ancient Afghani aphorism which roughly translated means "Gold, women and land - that's why men go to war - that and God." It explains in a nutshell, the British Empire's actions, Russia's excursions into foreign lands and the USA's foreign policies; whether it is the British army protecting India the Empire's "jewel in the crown", or Russian designs on Ukrainian land and mineral riches or America's desire for unlimited oil in the middle east the result is the same - innocents get hurt and nations plundered.

I have thought much on this in recent weeks having just read a book which is both uplifting and deeply distressing in equal measure about that blighted country Afghanistan. The book is by the chief foreign correspondent for the BBC, Lyse Doucet and titled “The Finest Hotel in Kabul”. It is beautifully written, heart warming yet tells a terrible tale. Doucet has spent much of her working life covering the continuing narrative of Afghanistan during the last 40 years of conflict, she knows the country and the people well and her book operates at a number of levels. It is the story of ordinary Afghans caught up in their daily lives, with the politics, the invasions and the wars raging around them and their country but it is also a history of social and political upheaval as various power players: Russia, USA, Britain, the Mujahideen, al-Qaeda, the Taliban and a host of others have vied for power and influence to suit their own ends. Just as in the 19th century, Russia, America and we Brits have played devious games to exert influence by, for example, funding and arming groups like the Mujahideen to fight proxy wars on our behalf. From 1979 to 1992, the U.S. CIA ran Operation Cyclone, a major covert program arming and financing Afghan mujahideen providing funding and weaponry to support Islamic resistance groups, aiming to disrupt Soviet influence. And then, when this all backfires and something like 9/11 occurs as an indirect consequence of these devious and often illegal interventions then Afghan suffers again with invasions or massive withdrawals by the world’s big players, leaving the country and the ordinary Afghanis flailing in a political, economic and cultural vacuum subject to the ravages of extremism. And in the midst of the turmoil ordinary Afghans try to live out some kind of normal, decent life but are too often swept along and overwhelmed by the terrible course of events, little of it of their making; to quote Lord Curzon, they are innocent pieces on a chessboard in the great game.

The book centres upon the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and its story through the turbulent and tragic years since the 1970s as the country has staggered from one crisis, one invasion and one regime to another. The hotel, a five star place when first constructed (with British money) has been the venue of royalty, politicians, journalists (like Doucet), war loads, religious extremists and terrorists. From a glamorous venue it undergoes change after change to become a hollow shell ravaged by war but still open for business and proudly striving to keep up its status and high quality service. As I read the book it occurred to me that the hotel was almost a metaphor for Afghanistan and the Afghani people – struggling bravely on, striving to keep its culture and raison d’etre despite what the world throws at it. Doucet, a master story teller (as one would expect of a high ranking journalist whose trade is in the use of words), tells us the story of the hotel, of Kabul, of Afghanistan and of the ordinary people who work in the hotel and how they, their lives and their families are impacted by the great and tragic events going on around them each and every day. These are real people; it is not a work of fiction: Abida the middle aged lady chef, Sadeq the hotel front desk manager, Mohammad Aqa the restaurant manager, Hazrat the housekeeper and many more all of them, striving to keep their lives, their families, the career afloat, and their world together while at the mercy of powerful men in far away capitals: Washington, Moscow, London and in the remote mountains where religious extremists plan the next invasion as soon as the American marines and GIs, the Russian Spetsnaz and British squaddies leave when their respective governments get bored with the great game or count the cost, and move on. It is a story of the resilience and pride of ordinary Afghanis, who keep the hotel and their lives going despite the shelling, the rockets, the suicide bombs and occasional massacres of both staff and guests; it is both heartbreaking and heart warming in equal measure. Lyse Doucet is probably one of the world’s authorities on the life and the rich culture and heritage of Afghanistan; she has witnessed its history unfold on a daily basis. She understands the great issues at play and encapsulates it all in this wonderful memoir which despite the terrible events of the past half century in that land finds so much to inspire, applaud and empathise with. It is a book filled with compassion, love and hope, a paean to a proud but ill used people; a people who, just like us, want no more than to be safe, to educate and give a good life to their children, have food on the table, be cared for when they or their family are old, worship their God if they have one – all the things that speak of our humanity and make us human beings.

It is a book that deserves to be read. Not because it is a good story or because it is true or because it

is about real people, or even because it is so beautifully crafted and written. It should be read because it is a reminder of how easily great evil and injustice is done in the name of politics or political “games” played by powerful people and nations for their own ends. It should be read because it gives a context to our times. It allows us to remember that when we see the events in a place like Afghanistan taking place on our TV screen, or we read of Afghan people arriving on our shores seeking refuge that these are real people who have endured things that we in Britain – or anywhere else in the “comfortable” west - could not begin to comprehend and most of it rooted in the “great game” being played in our name by those we have elected. These refugees arrive on our shores often as a direct or certainly an indirect result of our actions over a century and a half until today and many in our country abuse them on social media, in the tabloid press and in our mindless and wilfully ignorant Reform party, and on our flag emblazoned, jingoistic streets while in the same breath lauding the "virtues" of the British Empire whose obscene “great game” was at the root of all this. It is a game still, 150 years after Lord Curzon first used the term, being played out at the behest and whim of politicians in Washington, Moscow – and yes, here in London. It is the story of man’s great humanity and man’s great inhumanity; it is the story of a nation rich in culture and wisdom that has been successively used and abused by others – including, unforgivably, by our own British government – for their own ends. That is why the book is important and should be read.