Spend less – live longer

The good life may well be our only hope if we are survive to humanity’s assault on our planet according to the  Sustainable Development Commission’s Prof Tim Jackson who’s report ‘Prosperity without Growth?’is taking him to the UN next month and had him in Belfast last night to debate a local panel including myself.

His message is a simple one. We are living beyond our means and our planet’s resources are running out. We are on a self destruction path and the only way out of this quagmire is by radically changing the way we run our economies and manage our resources.  The economy is geared, above all, to economic growth. Economic policy in the current recession is all about returning to growth – but an economic crisis can be an opportunity for some basic rethinking and restructuring.

Professor Jackson argues that two objectives other than growth – sustainability and well being – have moved up the political and policy-making agenda in recent years, challenging the overriding priority traditionally given to economic growth.

His solution is much more complex.  Too complex to cover in 400 words and to be honest beyond my powers of summary. But the challenge is clear – macro economics needs to cease its pursuit of growth and that means all of us have to change our behaviour as consumers.

Prosperity without growth? analyses the relationship between growth and the growing environmental crisis and ’social recession’. In the last quarter of a century, while the global economy has doubled, the increased in resource consumption has degraded an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems. The benefits of growth have been distributed very unequally, with a fifth of the world’s population sharing just 2% of global income. Even in developed countries, huge gaps remain in wealth and well-being between rich and poor.

While modernising production and reducing the impact of certain goods and services have led to greater resource efficiency in recent decades, Professor Jackson’s report finds that current aspirations for ‘decoupling’ environmental impacts from economic growth are unrealistic. The report finds no evidence as yet of decoupling taking place on anything like the scale or speed which would be required to avoid increasing environmental devastation.

He argues that this is a global problem which requires global solutions, but is there anything that can be done locally?

Joanne Stuart from the IoD, Eleanor Gill and myself responded. I asked why we import every last drop of gas we need to generate electricity in this region, why our executive is showing no interest in putting sustainability at the heart of its economic strategies even though they have the power to do this.

Economic report

An expert body set up to review the Executive’s economic performance has raised serious questions about the existing policies and structures. Their report also calls on MLA’s to pay more attention to economic policy and move away from short term, quick fix solutions.

The Independent Review of Economic Policy (IREP), launched today calls for a significant realignment of the Invest NI budget to provide greater support for Innovation, R&D and Exports throughout the local business base. Other recommendations include:

• Core economic functions (covering DETI and DEL areas of responsibility) should be brought under a single ‘Department of the Economy’

• The Executive should establish a permanent sub-committee, chaired by the ETI Minister, to prioritise action on the economy. The committee should oversee the development and implementation of an economic strategy, building on the findings of the IREP, as a matter of urgency

• More emphasis needs to be placed on developing a portfolio of policies to promote Innovation and R&D, and there are a number of specific recommendations in this regard

• Invest NI should have a more focused, dedicated and professional approach to strengthening export performance in both manufacturing and tradable services

• Invest NI should be allowed more freedom to operate, enabling the organisation to be more responsive to business needs

• A small business unit to be created within Invest NI, and the approach of working only with ‘clients’ should cease

Time to vote Yes

I wrote this essalisbon referendum, y for Slugger on why I think a Yes vote strengthens Irish independence.

Ireland is at a cross roads again. Dev’s comely maidens are gone but this referendum, campaign is exposing the limits of Ireland’s own sense of independence and sovereignty.

Voting yes is the most patriotic thing an Irish person can on Referendum Day. There will be no greater assertion of Irish sovereignty then a resounding yes. Anything else is a betrayal of our potential as a nation and a denial of the changing context within which independence and sovereignty are defined in the 21st century.

Like most other things we inherited our sense of sovereignty from the British. Yes we adopted a French republican model of government but everything else was done the way the old masters did it. Our civil service is based on the British one, we adopted their legal system and pegged our currency against theirs.

To assert our independence we declared ourselves neutral in all matters of global affairs. Neutral, that was, unless the Royal Navy needed a fill up of diesel in Skerries and because we could not bring ourselves to side with the old enemy, no matter what.

Our relationship with Britain has seriously affected our ability to explore our sovereignty, and with good reason. Until the 10th April 1998 we still existed in a state of permanent dispute with the UK over Northern Ireland. There was no way we could look at a New Ireland when the original one was not even complete!

This is not the case today. Ireland is at peace and the old enemy is not the glorious old power she once was. She may have determined when and how we both entered the EEC back in the early seventies but as soon as we got settled in Europe we began to grow.

Over time the currency link was broken, the tax regimes diverged and our economy slowly became a European one. Many of our public servants went on to become Eurocrats in the most positive sense of the word.

In Brussels and Strasbourg Ireland has a new role, putting its talent to work inside the Commission and helping to fulfil its statehood.  Such was our success that after the fall of the Berlin wall the small states of the old soviet block queued up to join the growing European Union, citing Ireland as their new benchmark for success.
The definition of freedom at last meant more than simply independence from Britain. And Europe was good to us in return. 

So, having got this far, why would we want to put the brakes on our nation’s march?

- Is it that we are nervous that we can no longer hold our own in the European corridors of power?

- That we are too small to matter and unable to defend ourselves?

- Is Lisbon such a threat to our sovereignty that we need now to fall back under Britannia’s protection against the creeping Europeanization of our island?

A yes vote can lead to a better Ireland, a proud nation newly committed to playing a strong role in the building of a multilateral Europe in which human rights are the bedrock of a new dispensation. 

A social Europe where life is valued and difference in cherished, built on quality foreign investment to bring in a new generation of jobs in green collar manufacturing.

It’s a Europe that will bring great public services but also the courage and the wherewithal to stand up to genocide and famine. A powerful trading block working in partnership with the United States and China or Ireland.

A no vote to Lisbon is a vote for the way things were back in the sixties, a step back in time to a place that both Britain and Ireland have consigned to the history books.

It’s a vote for a European Parliament where the Conservatives, UKIP and the BNP will be wearing the green and patting Sinn Fein MEPs on the back like they did last year.

We have spent three decades building and positively pursuing Irish independence inside the EU.  Three decades which has revolutionised Ireland’s relationship with the UK; for the better and to the benefit of both nations.

Why would we want to turn the clock back now?

Nuclear news management

The decision about when to go public and how with the news that Iran has a second nuclear test facility was one which tested the Obama Administration and the other members of the UN Security Council last week. Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti at the New York Times have pieced together the diplomatic machinations which led to Sarkozy and Brown flanking Obama on Friday morning to tell the world of the worryingdevelopment. They also recount how Russia and China are being kept in the diplomatic consensus and how.

The article will be of great interest to anyone interested in international affairs.

Green is the new black

Eco fashion is in and brands are out according to trenders.

Real history of the perfect pint

Arthur’s Day has passed. The signing of a lease 250 years ago in Dublin was converted into a global marketing moment and with some success.

Today in the Irish Times Cormac O’Grada, has a fascinating article chronicling the quarter of a millennium search for the perfect pint. Turns out it was invented in London, developed in Belfast and make special in Dublin……

A further irony, since “Arthur’s Day” merges marketing and history, is that for a long time after Arthur’s death, Guinness was far from being our “national” drink. Only after the Great Famine did it begin to make inroads into rural Ireland. Its conquest of the remoter west and southwest came quite late, a century or more after the foundation of the brewery.

A survey prompted by Guinness’s bicentennial, carried out by the then Irish Folklore Commission in 1956 (and now housed in the National Folklore Collection in UCD), highlighted the novelty of the pint of plain in many places as recently as the late 19th century.According to a Longford informant, “all the old men I’ve talked to agree on this, that porter and stout are comparatively new drinks . . . In their young days there was no such thing as porter, and. . . their fathers before them drank nothing but whiskey”.

From Fair Head in north Antrim came a report that McCaffreys, a Belfast brewery, had been the first to produce a black beer in the North, and that Guinness did not appear on the scene until early in the 1900s.

11 plus petition launched

Parents wishing to express their outrage at the Executive’s failure to agree a solution to the selection crisis can now sign up to a petition being backed by the Belfast Telegraph.

The petition does not call for selection to be scrapped or retained. It simply calls for our politicians to sit down and work this one out together.

You can find out more about the petition and sign up here.

Six opportunities for new SDLP Leader

The following article appears in today’s Irish News.

The issues which will shape the contest for Mark Durkan’s successor are obvious.  The question is will the candidates see them as opportunities or threats?

Making the new North work

The DUP – SF coalition isn’t working. There is no respect between the two parties and this is reflected by their failure to address the rising youth unemployment crisis, the education fiasco or the looming public finance squeeze. Not to mention the standoff over the big elephant in the room of Northern politics, sectarianism.

 Power-sharing is based on equality and respect. Equality means a Bill of Rights, another outstanding issue on the DUP – SF agenda. An agreed Shared Future policy would signal that our politicians are serious about nurturing respect. The new SDLP leader needs to be a loud and confident advocate for both standing up to the DUP in a way SF has failed to.

 Cooperating across the divide

Opposing those who want to undermine powersharing does not mean you should not work with parties which support it.  There is an opportunity to cooperate across the community divide on issues which matter. Jobs, education, and the looming public finance crisis are opportunities for the SDLP, the UUP and Alliance. The electorate needs an alternative to the DUP-SF coalition. Cooperating in the interests of this region is not a denial of community identity; it is an expression of confidence and ambition for the North and this island. 

 A New Ireland

The Forum on Unity proposed by Mark Durkan needs to be seriously discussed with the southern parties and made a reality. This is not some SDLP talking shop but a much needed debate across this island about what unity actually means. If we are serious about a united Ireland then we need to move beyond the slogans and the rhetoric and agree as Irish people what it is we would like the unionist people of Ireland to become part of. Sinn Fein has failed to bring forward serious proposals on unity. This should not hold the rest of Ireland back from doing so.

Renewal

The acid test of a good leader is her/his ability to build a talented and ambitious team. This means having people on board who are going to challenge and bring new ideas and energy to the top team. It means having the courage to recruit people who might someday do your job. 

There is an urgent need for new blood at Assembly level. Mark Durkan was successful at local government level bringing forward new councillors. The next leader will have to do the same for the Assembly. New youth, talent and experience is needed.

Organisation

The truth is less people are joining political parties today than twenty years ago. Everyone’s membership base is shrinking as many opt to support from the outside. Finding new ways of building organisation and bringing in funds will be a major challenge for the new leader.

21^st century coalitions

The SDLP can see Fianna Fail and Irish Labour support groups in the North as a threat but given neither are contesting elections why not convert them into allies.  The new leader can walk alone or seek to broaden the party’s support base from within democratic nationalism and the non aligned middle ground without diluting the party’s independence or integrity.

Smyth’s economic warning

One of the island’s most senior economists has accused the Northern Ireland Executive of sitting on its hands whilst the economic situation worsens.

The Belfast Telegraph reports Mike Smyth’s views today.

In comparison to the local Scottish administration’s response to the global economic crisis, Northern Ireland’s policymakers have been much less proactive,” said Mike Smyth, head of the School of Economics at the University of Ulster in the review.

He said that while in Scotland the Executive produced a National Recovery Plan in August 2008, which had since been revised as national and international economic conditions altered, local policy makers had been less proactive.

“The Programme for Government and Budget remain largely unchanged since their publication in January 2008, with only some limited responses from individual departments.

“In the context of increased pressures on the NI Executive’s budget at this time, with future public sector funding pressures still pending, it would seem prudent for the Northern Ireland Executive to finally start the ball rolling by initiating a review of the Programme for Government and Budget,”

Can SDLP become catalyst for new nationalism?

The biggest question on my mind today is whether the SDLP can become the catalyst for a new nationalism in Ireland.

No major political party is seeking to recast the old nationalism’s which have shaped 20th century Irish politics into relevant expressions of identity and ambition fit for the 21st century.

As Belfast academic Richard English notes in his recent tome, nationalism remains one of the most successful forms of political expression around the globe for good reason. It transcends, class and generation. It has the capacity to bridge creed and often provides a shared space for those of differing (left-right) ideological outlooks. Whilst Connolly said the cause of Labour is the Cause of Ireland, it is also true for the very many of a ‘nationalist’ outlook on this island the cause of business or indeed the cause of science are also the cause of Ireland.

Unity is the central objective of Irish nationalism. The lack of agreement between the large nationalist parties on this island about what a united Ireland might look like is arguably the greatest threat to it ever achieving its central objective. Because of the absence of an agreed vision of unity, it has become a party political issue with different nationalist parties seeking to ‘out green’ each other on an issue which should really unite them.

There is a constituency looking for a new Ireland. Younger generations are disinterested in re-running the old battles of the past. Old ideologues are looking increasingly out of touch and old ideologies feel more and more irrelevant to the lives and challenges facing ordinary working people and families across this island.

The time has come for some positive and progressive nationalism. Credible on unity but not solely defined by it. Capable of speaking to working families, business people and international investors in language they understand. Strong on conversation and not confrontation, with sustainability at its heart and innovation in its DNA. A modern politics for a 21st century Ireland, a politics that can ignite conversations and unlock ambition in every county at the same time as being respectful and credible to unionism.

Before we can develop a strategy forunity we need a vision for this island not just in 2016 but in 2026 and beyond. This is the great opportunity for a new generation of Irish politicians and civic leaders. The big challenge facing the next leader of the SDLP is making the party a central player in it.

Mark Durkan took the first step when he called for the establishment of a Forum on Unity two weeks ago. Strong policies in NI on Education, on the economy and on sectarianism will help also, as will organisational renewal and new faces.

Lots to do. Who’s up for the job?