Migration is part of English life

Communities large and small require a constant supply of labour if they are to be sustainable. Even ever-growing London needs not only the much-vaunted higher skilled workers who may grudgingly be allowed in from overseas to refresh the talent pool but also its hidden army of low-paid, less-qualified workers who oil the wheels of service, healthcare, cleaning and transport. As people migrate into the capital in search of economic betterment, the demand they create for accommodation drives up property prices, out of the reach of these workers who lived there before and need to live there still, creating a sort of ethnic cleansing of the unqualified. What is not so evident is the parallel to this picture being experienced in thousands of rural and coastal communities.

At the start of the 20^th century, there were some 1m agricultural workers populating the towns and villages of rural England. As these were deprived of their living by automation and changes in farming and fishing practices, many left the country for industrial employment, denuding their former communities. Smaller, less influential populations were further deprived of transport links, and public services.  In recent decades, city-wards migration has been replaced to some extent by a reverse flow, as members of the new, affluent, urban middle class themselves experience the effects of property inflation. These have been two-fold: they too have been squeezed to pay for their homes; but they have been able to take profits by relocating and sometimes starting businesses in more attractive, often rural or seaside, environments, with lower costs and better quality of life. For such incomers, lack of public services may be of less importance than to long-term residents, being typically more mobile and able to pay for services privately. But life-style businesses in rural towns have limited growth, employment and wages. As more of the static number of available houses are acquired by the wealthy incomers, fewer are available or affordable to the less skilled, lower paid inhabitants of these communities. The younger generation is forced away from the countryside to find employment, leaving villages as micro versions of London: communities of the affluent with no local supply of unskilled labour, to lift the seasonal crops, to care for the ageing, to drive the non-existent buses. Is it any wonder that there is demand for workers from overseas who are prepared to tolerate multi-occupation housing and unsocial hours?

Ministers make the assumption that the public will accept skilled foreign workers into the country, because they are presumably nice middle-class people and relatively few in number. The reality is that in London and in leafy and seaside towns, there is still a need for lower-paid, less qualified workers to keep services going; but they are unable to live there , thanks to the inflationary effect of ignoring house-building for so long. In a market economy, only higher supply will mollify price inflation. If villages are to remain multi-generational or evolve into retirement communities, they will need not only a supply of labour but a supply of housing which can be afforded by first-time buyers, young families and lower-paid workers; and effective transport services to connect them to the services they need for health, education and employment. Until then, we need to think carefully about our  attitudes towards migrants and which ones we really need in our communities. Too may affluent house-buyers is no solution.

Accentuate the positive

Back from sunny Cadiz, where we happily marched alongside the Podemos banner in support of safe passage for refugees.

Is it any wonder that engagement in politics in this country is so low? The messages put out to inspire the public are about reducing services on which we all rely, mean-spirited attitudes towards both citizens and needy foreigners, blame for everything and personalised attacks. Anger at "what the hell is going on" is a strong motivator but hardly affirmative. Fear of change seems to have become a mainstream tactic which works.

Yet so much of what makes communities work is so much more positive. Mutual help is everywhere. Volunteers help to welcome refugees; refugees in turn come out to help flood victims.  Communities provide allotments; allotment holders offer produce to the needy. This sort of behaviour shames our political class, with its eye so permanently on the balance sheet rather than on human needs and kindness.

In this country we are so fortunate in our climate and our history. Most people can work now in decent conditions, with good health and relative comfort at home. Life expectancy is growing and mental ill-health and discrimination are increasingly addressed, albeit from unacceptable levels. At grass roots, society works fairly, belying the inequalities accepted and even perpetuated by the Establishment oligarchy. People of all persuasions, ethnicities and gender are accepted within society and the law.

True, none of this happened overnight nor without leadership and often legislation. Governments and Oppositions have played an important part in directing societal changes. If the needs of the people and of communities are to drive legislation in future, we need to have politicians and electoral processes which pay heed to these needs and make positive changes more likely, rather than more fear, blame and focus on mere money. This is why it was a pleasure to march with Podemos, which links intellectual head with community heart in its very structure.

Tom Serpell

Awol

Your correspondent will be uncharacteristically silent for a while. Off to the land of Podemus. All in the name of research, of course.

Mass Movement

In her pitch to become Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Stella Creasy spoke much of the need to create a movement as opposed to just an organisation. It is unclear whether she regarded what happened as achieving that aim, for a Corbynista tsunami was clearly not what she had in mind. Nonetheless, this raises the question as to how a movement comes about; and whether it can ever be deliberately created.

Charismatic leaders can lead a movement, it seems; though timing may be equally important in achieving buy-in. Where people feel excluded, a leader who speaks to their needs will attract a following more than a similarly beguiling personality might when life was comfortable and fair. Perhaps, therefore, it is the response to a need that makes a movement come about.

Take as a example how the people of this and other countries have responded to the plight of the myriad refugees fleeing their homes with nothing, to escape bombs and persecution. There has been a thunderous absence of leadership from those we put there to provide it. Indeed it may be that what has happened is a direct result of this vacuum. All over the country individuals have decided that doing nothing is not good enough; that it is unacceptable to leave so many to die or fall ill from exposure, especially small children, as politicians vie to "protect our borders" or save money rather than show common humanity. The people have decided. A movement has happened, unled.

Volunteers have simply gone, to Calais, to Lesbos, to Serbia, to take human warmth and generosity to others in need. Tonnes of clothes and food have been collected in communities all over the country. Others have collated these offerings and transported them to the destination of need, where yet others sort and distribute them to the cold and hungry. There is no Disasters Emergency Committee arranging all this; it is just happening. People use social media to find other people who can complement what they are doing. There are countless tiny groups and soloists acting because they feel an imperative. This is a movement.  It is unlikely that anything like it can be constructed to order, no matter who takes a lead, unless there is a true need which motivates the willing. The Labour Party was originally a movement responding to the need for rights for workers. What need it should fulfil now is the key question.

The poverty of wealth in Market-World

I need money. I like to have enough of it. I am lucky enough to have enough, though I am not rich. I can live a comfortable life, without excess. Lucky me, when many cannot be so fortunate. I also hate money, for what it can do to people, myself included. It can make you spend more than you want on crap you do not need. It can make one simply want more of it, which in turn makes one greedier, selfish, grasping. And greed is both unbecoming and leads to regrettable behaviours.

In our Market-World, you are supposed to want more of both money and possessions, as the manifestation of success. If you have lots, you may be placed on a pedestal, given honours, lauded, whether it was earned or unearned. Above a certain level of income, it becomes impossible to spend it all, but this does not seem to inhibit the desire for more, always at the expense of someone else. To make more, you may have to do down someone less grasping, less competitive, less entrepreneurial. If you run a small business, you are supposed to want to make it bigger, no matter that it may satisfy you need to feed and clothe yourself, your family and staff. Oh no, you must be entrepreneurial to be successful. It is not enough to be happy or content. Satisfaction is failure in Market-World. Poverty is unthinkable shame.

Irony is lost on politicians, it seems. For those propounding light-touch, low-interference government, business support is only on offer for those businesses aspiring to high growth, not to those who want a sustainable, long-term income. Greed and growth, consumption, conspicuous and vacuous wealth are today's gods, with churches called "Westfield" or "Dubai". Are these churches worth attending, when all you can do there is spend more or envy those who do? What do they offer in the way of comfort, culture or happiness?

I do not want to do without money, nor what it can do for me, my family and my interests but I see every reason to try to find ways of reducing society's emphasis on lucre as the main measure of success, for individuals or for governments. There are other values for humanity which should surely be given their chance as yard-sticks of success: peace; fairness; well-being; generosity.... How successful is this country in these?

Small State for a Small Future

Political parties are defined by their view of the role of the State. States' expenditure principally concerns the security and well-being of its citizens. How there are supported depends on the flavour of those in the ascendency at any time. Those governing parties accepting responsibility for the greater burden of the people's needs perforce raise the largest funds with which to pay for these, usually via taxes as the principal repeatable source. Governments deeming taxation to be theft of citizens' hard-earned income; and believing that individuals should shoulder the burden of their own well-being, regardless of circumstance, typically tax less - though frequently with little similar compunction when it comes to paying for those outgoings they favour. It seems that Small State believers will pare back ruthlessly services for well-being whilst lavishing tax receipts on arms used to assault citizens of other States.

Small Staters take a harsh view of needy citizens, so intent are they on allowing the economically successful to keep hold of their wealth. Healthcare, education, housing, and retirement are matters for personal decision, even for those who for any reason are unable to afford to pay. Impecuniousness is a sin in a market economy - or a disaster. It is clear that in a Big State citizens want for less, insofar as services are provided for them, paid for by tax receipts; but those earning most must share more of their income accordingly. In some States the payment of taxes for such common benefit is accepted as a right and proper part of citizenship.

How politicians explain their preferences for the type of State they would create is instrumental in how the public takes sides. Small Staters tend to demonise terms regarded as anodyne by others, like "tax", "borrowing", "poverty" and "entitlement", in attempts to persuade the general public that any party suggesting increases in tax or welfare is unpatriotic. Citizens undergoing temporary shortage of income, long-term disability or simply old age are contemptuously treated in media as second-class, while those riding high on commercial success are placed on a pedestal. But in such a climate, what do we, the people, lose? Once the State has shrunk such that only the rich can afford hospital care or education, how can Big State ever be restored, no matter how desirable to the majority; and how are the ordinary people to achieve well-being?

First, the country loses the capacity to provide universal education and care of a reasonable quality. Society then polarises into haves and have-nots, with a growing risk to cohesion. Second, the failure of the State to invest for the long-term in basis science, technology and infrastructure on which depend jobs, decent pay and commerce may deprive enterprise of the platform for their future success. Third, lack of capability in meeting the needs of ordinary people within the public sector may place the country at grave risk as under-paid private sector providers fall away, leaving the State in crisis with responsibility but no means to fulfil it. The Small State will lead to a small future.

Instead of shying away from those things demonised by the Right, believers in public services and State investment must reclaim or rewrite the lexicon and ruthlessly describe the benefits of the Big State, and publicise just how they spend money for the citizens.

Naked politics

Perhaps all politicians should study life drawing.

Drawing nude people may not seem the most obvious training for the cut and thrust of the world they aspire to - nor for any other job except artist. So what am I saying?  I am a long-time life artist. Every body, every pose is different, and complex. Merely outlining the shape with any realistic proportions is hard enough; but to portray the 3-dimensional object is more so. Then there is a person there too, alive and with a personality.

Artists like life drawing both because of the endless variety and challenge on which to apply their skill and creativity and because it demands a degree of concentration which is rarely possible in everyday life. This in itself is quite stimulating.

This is not to say that other interests are not equally absorbing, so why should I single out politicians for this particular hobby-horse of my own? What have I learned from it which makes it so relevant?

It is because to have the opportunity to draw a nude person is a privilege, demanding of respect. Models are people - extraordinary or ordinary, just like everybody. They may arrive in fine cars or on foot,  dressed up in finery or wearing jeans but when they remove their clothes, they are simply human beings. We ask no questions as to where they went to school, what their job is, how much they earn, where they live. We focus on just them. Stripped of all trappings by which assumptions can be made about them, we can only draw what we see. Every body is as interesting and as complex as every other one. We can only treat each model as an individual, unique and of equal value, with equal respect, doing our best to repay their generosity in exposing themselves for our scrutiny.

Now would it not be good for our leaders to see everyone as of equal worth, deserving of equal respect? It might even do them good to expose themselves to the scrutiny of others, without hiding behind the usual carapace of image and uniform.

Tom Serpell