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In Praise of The Simultaneous Policy
Sir Richard Body

First published as an editorial rejoinder entitled 'Is Our Editor Right?' in Fourth World Review #115
(read also The Fallacy of The Simultaneous Policy by John Papworth)

OUR INDEFATIGABLE EDITOR, suspecting I would demur at his grandiloquence, sent me a copy of the above editorial, suggesting I contribute a rejoinder. I agreed (more or less) with his objective as most readers will, but his means to that end seems hopelessly impractical.

His rhetoric ought to give way to two realities.

First, there are not enough people who believe the human race has become a herd of Gadarene Swine about to hurtle into the abyss. In the parliamentary constituency I represented for many years, there were 72,000 adults. All lived below sea level, yet none raised a voice about the threat of the North Sea reclaiming every acre of the constituency, as global warming will do, although there were several single-issue groups such as agricultural pollution, farm animal welfare, and Amnesty International.

On the other hand there were massive lobbies for bigger and faster roads, as well as a powerful coalition in favour of the M11 being extended through the length of the constituency. For them, mass motoring was necessary and a pleasure! Of the sixty million in the UK, or the one billion in the developed world, we must doubt whether one tenth of one percent agree with the doomladen scenario, then act as the Editor urges.

More serious is the second reality. We can agree it is about power (incidentally Lord Acton’s dictum was not that power corrupts but ‘power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’). Power, we are told, is to be wrested from the so-called power elite with a head-on confrontation by the massed ranks of all sorts of people in a grand alliance. The elite will capitulate and hand over to lots of neighbourhood councils, which will run most of the nation’s affairs. We might ask how this will actually come about. A million marching feet setting off for Downing Street, with the Editor up in front in step with the Purton Village Brass Band (to the beat of We Will Overcome) may not be quite enough.

A caveat ought to be added to this idealistic view of neighbourhood councils. In my constituency there were some seventy parish councils; more than half of them were dominated by petty tyrants. Some were just busybodies who liked to strut about, telling others what to do; many were plain bullies; while a large number were seeking solace from a nagging spouse or cantankerous boss. There were also plenty of life’s failures recovering their self-esteem. Blighted egos find comfort in politics even at the very lowest levels. So let’s not be too starry-eyed about local democracy. Still, we can say wholeheartedly that it is better that petty tyrants should have a little power than their national counterparts have too much.

But confrontation is not necessary. The so-called elite is not absolutely corrupted by power, for its power is not absolute. What is more, they are beginning to understand the Kohr-Schumacher-Papworth message. There are civil servants in Whitehall struggling to see how the National Health Service can be managed efficiently, knowing that the thing is too big and must be broken down into manageable units. If County Councils or Regional Assemblies were to take over the role, what happens to our teaching hospitals? Do medical students pay the cost, as they used to, or the Lottery, or the tax payer? If the latter, who exercises control? Some countries and regions are poorer than others, so do they provide worse healthcare? These are the sort of practical questions that FWR ought to answer in articles –they would be avidly read.

Then the message needs to be applied to our educational system. Won’t Purton School have more money than those in Stepney? Again, FWR could be the forum. And again there would be many interested in the answers.

As for mass motoring and the whole mad system of transport, nothing is achieved by bleating about it. Just how do we get from A to B? We must doubt whether neighbourhood councils will achieve the transition. In other words, there is an urgent need for some hard thinking and serious research. FWR could play a major part in this. Surely many thousands want to know the answers; and the journal’s circulation would soar upwards.

However, the really big issues today now cross national frontiers and individual governments cannot cope with them in isolation. This is where Simultaneous Policy comes in. John Bunzl’s book of that name was reviewed in the last issue: he is opposed to the EUro plot as much as the Editor; instead, he argues that many of the ecological problems are now worldwide. To overcome them, the governments of the world should agree on common policies to be put into effect simultaneously. He argues that there does now need to be a kind of grand coalition that our Editor advocates. But it is not necessary for it to be confrontational, but persuade with sensible reasons that a Simultaneous Policy is the only way a host of problems can now be solved. John Bunzl’s strategy is the alternative.

The author evidently believes that the global crisis is going to be resolved by acts of Parliament. Click here for John Papworth response.
Readers are urged to join the debate. Ed.

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