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I found this mildly amusing. The BBC reports that Town planning blamed for obesity:

Poor town planning which limits opportunities for children to take exercise has been blamed for fuelling an increase in obesity.

I have an answer - more tower blocks with broken lifts!

Spot the odd one out in the image below. All four species coexist in large numbers. They all work together to defend the collective against predators and to provide for their mutual needs. They all look and behave as if they are being controlled by some mastermind at the top of a hierarchy.

But in fact it is only the humans (top right!), the one with the largest and most complex brains, the only one, so far as we know, to have developed some kind of moral sense, the only one to have created sophisticated communications technologies between each other, the better, one would have thought, to co-ordinate our actions when required, the one with free will, and the one that has devised fantastic markets that transmit information and resources around the world at blistering speeds. Only humanity seems to have collectively decided that they need some self-centred egoists at the top of an wholly artificial hierarchy to take instructions from.

Many will no doubt say that "our leaders" put themselves up for public approval, scrutiny and not infrequently ridicule in the name of "public service". But for me, whatever their supposed good intentions I cannot think of an example, at least in national politics, of someone who does not seem to want to accrete power to themselves, or, and this is even worse, to an amorphous blob called "their party".

Only "their party" (presumably with them in charge) can solve the nation's problems. Is it logical, for example, to say that only the Tories, if only they had power, can deliver "small government"? Isn't that an oxymoron? Only the people, reinventing power structures for themselves as required, can create "small government". A party in power trying to deliver "small government" is, well, a party in power, by whom we, the citizens who put them there, or not as the case may be, are ruled as absolutely as any ancient tyrant, or so it seems, between elections.

So, when Nick Clegg calls on the other party leaders at Westminster to join him in promoting a Constitutional Convention to look into the future of the British political landscape he risks the political equivalent of asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. He looks with some approval at the previous process in Scotland, yet that did not even look, it appears, at the question of whether government was even needed or not.

A friend of mine has a theory of the evolution of markets through human history:

• Market 1.0 - was decentralised but disconnected, and 'market presence' required the physical presence of buyer and seller, typically in local and regional exchanges.
• Market 2.0, which has now reached its zenith, is centralised but connected, with market presence through intermediaries such as Exchanges or proprietary Alternative Trading Systems (ATSs).
• Market 3.0 represents the final evolution of markets: decentralised but connected, with market presence being through a 'network presence' on a dedicated market network.

And, if this analysis is right, since the power dynamics of human society are closely related to the development of markets - with for example wars, metaphorical as well as actual, to corner markets or access to resources, still going on in "our name" - so politics, over and above any consideration of public disengagement with the current system, needs fundamental change to cope with Market 3.0. Indeed, one could argue that Market 3.0 is a state in which coercive political intervention is not only unnecessary, but counter-productive to the common good.

As ever, there are many vested interests in all this. Market 2.0 required the creation of huge, often now global, corporate behemoths and their political protectors, at first mercantilist and now corporatist. Market 3.0 offers the potential for real mass democratization of markets, the trading equivalent of devolution, and with it wealth creation and distribution. Where government once tried to ensure access to markets for their national corporate behemoths, it will in future have to try to ensure access for all of us. And in doing so, undermine its more familiar role of making decisions for us. Protecting our ability to participate rather than wielding power over us by them deciding who can participate.

There is certainly a core of liberalism in Clegg's invitation, but if we're going to have a "Constitutional Convention" - something for which the opportunity will come once in a generation at best - then it has to start with as close to a blank sheet as possible in respect of the future role and accountability of government. I'm afraid I for one don't have confidence that that insular political establishment can be open enough (even if you do add to the mix a few churchmen or "community leaders" - all self selecting beneficiaries of the current system to my mind). The political establishment exists currently in order to gain and hold power. They don't represent us, so much as persuade us with clever marketing that we agree with what they want to do. And if any such convention turns out not to produce the radical reform required now, it could go either way - popular rejection of government and politics and a vacuum in which real tyrants could wield power or ever more illiberal government trying to fight a rear-guard action in order to maintain their own relevancy. Neither are particularly appetising outcomes.

Why am I a member of a political party then if I hate them all so much? Well, for all my loathing of the power of government and its wielders, I hold out hope that there is one party whose history and core ideology can break that mold. Personally, I think Liberal Democrats would be better setting out our own stall - we have the closest to a blank sheet in terms of recent power wielding at least - of radical reform, and let the people decide. Asking the cosy consensus themselves to join in will, well, perpetuate that cosy consensus and risks persuading the rest of us that what comes out the other end is in our interests, or, again worse, the "best that can be agreed on". It won't be, if it is stitched up within the political establishment itself and its extended family of hangers on. A plague on both their houses - let us get on with it and set out to persuade the British public that our way is best for the future, to give us the power to implement such a radical shift of power away from politicians and back to the sovereign individual.

No doubt there'll be lots of Labour MPs muttering something about "none of my constituents lobbied me over 42 days" so I set about today just to write a quick note to my NuLabour MP Andrew Smith to ensure that he cannot in all honesty say that:

Jock Coats
OXFORD
OX3

Email: jock_nospam@jockcoats.org.uk

Tuesday 10 June 2008

Dear Andrew,

Whilst I expect it will actually make precious little difference -
shoring up a failing Labour leadership is more important than long
fought for civil liberties after all - but in case you currently find
yourself in the unlikely position of being able to say that nobody has
lobbied you to vote against the 42 day detention limit, let me rectify
that!

Despite polling claims that "65% of the population favours" the 42 day
limit, for myself, I do not know of a single person amongst my friends
in your constitutency that do agree with it. All regard it as an
unacceptable trampling over our ancient rights of habeas corpus and of
the very principle of innocent until proven guilty.

If I were being asked or told to vote in favour I would be examining
closely why people like the former Attorney General appears to be
against it. Wht British police require four times as long as other
countries' counterparts even before the extension to do similar work
(computers cannot be easier to crack just because they are in Italy
which maintains a 2 day charge or release regime).

Every change this government has imposed in the name of fighting
terrorism has been an erosion of existing liberties and protections.
Your job is to examine whether each proposal respects the balance
between liberties and the threat it is trying to counter-act. I
believe this one tips the balance and even if twenty eight days was
acceptable (it wasn't) extending it further requires extraordinary
justification that have not so far been forthcoming. Please vote
against 42 day detention, whatever "safeguards" you are offered by way
of "concessions".

Yours sincerely,

Jock Coats

I note with interest today a story that a company whose shareholders are 3000 dairy farmers accounting for primary production of 16% of the UK milk output is buying the cheese businesses of Dairy Crest.

What goes around comes around perhaps? Remember that company Associated Dairies, now known as ASDA. It was of course once upon a time a co-operative of dairy farmers. I hope they succeed in taking some market influence back from the supermarkets.