Kieran Lawrence looks at autonomous weapons and the effect they could have on modern warfare
Continuing a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Angela Merkel
Ben Bland examines the fallout from the Iowa caucuses and looks forward to the New Hampshire primaries.
In the first of a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Nicholas Sarkozy
It’s Christmas, and inevitably religion is near the top of the political agenda. David Cameron, the angel of austerity, has made sure of that this year with a speech declaring the importance of religion in the good fight against moral collapse.
Perhaps even more inevitably the reaction over the past few days has largely come down to two positions; traditionalist admiration, and atheist/secular outrage. This is both a predictable and useful reaction because, for a Tory leadership engaging in the biggest re-structuring of society in years, it helps to paint the argument in terms of simple dualities; Judeo-Christian heritage (and let’s be honest, the reference to ‘other’ religions was little more than lip service) versus leftie modernist decadence, British lions versus the Merkel-Sarkozy leviathan, David versus Goliath.
A typical example of this strategy would be the ‘Big Society’ idea. We are asked to conceive of a society where ‘the people’ are in charge of their communities and where charity and community spirit triumph over the cold welfare state. The choice is presented to us as big or little government, weak or strong neighbourhoods. What this masks is just how unbalanced society still is, and just how uncomfortably close we still are to Victorian Britain.
Imagine a country where working class women are forced to tie themselves into marriage to get the full array of social security, where children’s services are removed (such as Sure Start) and families (read: mothers) are supposed to make up the difference, and to add insult to injury domestic violence services were amongst the first to feel the blade of Blue butchery.
This all amounts to the feminisation of poverty and most rational people agree that it is best left out of the blueprint. The Big Society idea allows for the most radical regression in working class rights by blinding us with the holy light of upper class morality.
In reality we are experiencing a programme of austerity that would put Ebenezer to shame. Perhaps Mr Scrooge himself will visit Cameron, as he slumbers in his nightgown and cap, to lead him on a ghostly tour of all those homes hit hardest by these cuts. Not that it would change his mind, for we mustn’t fall into that dual-thinking trap.
This is not about morality versus decadence; this is an ideological battle to claim ownership of morality. In the Red Corner the Occupy anti-cuts movement, sparking this whole debate with their choice to camp at St Paul’s, is backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (who has long spoken out against Prime Ministers who damage the progress of social justice). In the Blue Corner is Cameron and co., perhaps inspired somewhat by the conservative religious across The Pond.
What we have to do, religious and irreligious alike, is beat them at their own game. What does a sudden appeal to traditional values mask in real terms? Do the Tories practice what they preach? I maintain that Cameron would be deported from the Kingdom of God, for gross misuse and manipulation of Jesus’ mission – a radical egalitarian one if ever there was one...
You win headline of the year 2011!
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