Peter Forbes

No one in Britain is really surprised at the rise in unemployment to over 2.5 million but reactions should go beyond a bald “I told you so”. The government’s rationale was that by cutting public sector jobs the private sector would make up the difference by some hitherto unknown “hidden hand”. But since a Tory government hollowed out the UK economy in the 1980s, almost obliterating the manufacturing sector, there has been no real private sector. Instead, governments have offered public sector industries to private companies as cash cows. First it was the utilities, then transport. Currently, it’s health and education being prepared for sacrifice.

   The reason the private sector can’t take up the slack is that much of it is really the old public sector in disguise or it lives by supplying the private sector. A country cannot suddenly start making TVs, refrigerators, cameras and bathroom fittings in the teeth of efficient German and Japanese competition, having give up these industries 30 years ago. Ah, but we’re told service industries are all these days. Perhaps I should start another high-street nail parlour? That might be the answer.

The obituary notices for the test pilot Peter Twiss brought back a lost world of British aviation. Twiss broke the world air speed record when he flew the Fairy Delta 2 at 1132 mph on 10 March 1956. British aviation, like British science and technology generally, had entered the post-WW2 era on a par with the USA in most departments but a series of catastrophic bungles reduced us to the condition we are in today. We no longer have the capacity to make a complete aircraft – we only do bits.

The FD2 saga is perhaps the most appalling. Not only were the Ministry of Defence not impressed by Twist’s feat, they were so incensed by the barrage of damage claims from sonic booms that they banned supersonic test flights. Twiss took the FD2 to the French Dassault airfield. The great plane maker Marcel Dassault was very impressed by the FD2 and the classic Mirage 3 shows clear signs of FD2 influence.

In 1957 the British Defence Minister, Duncan Sandys, cancelled all manned fighter projects other than the English Electric Lightning. Missiles would take over, he said. Only now are drones beginning to usurp manned planes. The last 50 years have been the age of the fighter bomber and few have been as successful as the Mirage 3. The whole story is beautifully told in James Hamilton-Paterson’s Empire of the Clouds.

Re the riots:  if you promote a cult of designer brands and an ethos of shop-till-you-drop to the exclusion of notions of work, good making and artistic expression you will die by them. The looters have no idea where this stuff comes from – they don’t see it as something to be invented, designed and made, it just flies in by ju-ju magic. The fact that the warehouse they burnt down in Enfield was Sony’s sole distribution point for the UK would be unknown to them. They know nothing of the world that builds and makes and sustains us. They would trash the entire world if they could and then sit there with a begging bowl saying that someone must feed them.

Just as the US promoted globalization in its own selfish interest and has been bankrupted by it, crass consumerism has created a monster that is devouring it.

On 27 Jul 2011 William Hague officially recognised the Libyan opposition as the legitimate government and pronounced upon” the national transitional council's increasing legitimacy, competence and success in reaching out to Libyans across the country.” Two day later Abdel Fatah Younis, the military chief in the rebel Transitional National Government, was shot dead in murky circumstances. Just what evidence was there for this “increasing legitimacy, competence and success”?

When John Reid, as Defence Secretary, sent British troops to Afghanistan in 2006, he said that “I hope not a shot is fired”. QED.

One aspect of the Murdoch crisis hasn’t yet been aired. The episode is the logical outcome of the monster Murdoch helped to create: Tabloidrealitysoapsvillesleaze.  In this subculture the unremittingly crude and incontinent story lines of soap operas become the fodder for news stories in the tabloids. Then the private lives of the actors in these dramas get the same treatment: reality and the storylines become deliberately confused in the papers. Add in footballers, instant reality TV stars, pop stars (now created through hysterical and gormless talent shows), politicians and celebrities with their pants down, real tragedies in which the victims must always be caught weeping on camera, hack into the phone messages of all of them, spread the whole filthy tableau across the media and rake in the money. When a certain critical mass was reached this hideous brew was bound to explode, drenching everyone in ordure. That moment has come.

One of the most revealing insights into Tabloidrealitysoapsvillesleaze emerged early in Rebekah Wade’s (as she then was) rise to fame. She married the soap star Ross Kemp of EastEnders. Kemp’s behaviour meant that besides his weekly TV slot he often made the front pages of the tabloids. Wade was once arrested for hitting Kemp and of course also made the front pages. Where in this was the dividing line between the soapworld, the tabloid press and reality? At the end of Animal Farm, the animals watching their drunken piggy masters with their new human friends could no longer tell which were pigs and which were men.

There seem to be two wars in Libya: the one you know about and another one between the USA and NATO. When the US handed over control to NATO and withdrew most of its active forces, Senator John McCain pointed out that NATO did not have the right hardware for the operation. They lacked ground attack planes such as the A10 tankbuster and the Hercules gunship.

Now, several months later, NATO is indeed struggling for lack of the right equipment. Robert Gates, in Brussels the retiring US Secretary of State for Defense was publicly derisive of NATO. He said that NATO was only delivering 150 sorties a day instead of the 300 planned for. The British forces have expressed their frustration with the Americans for withdrawing the A10 tankbusters.

So what is going on? The USA seems to be trying to make a point. By withdrawing and then publicly criticising the European efforts they seem to trying to press home an old political point: that Europe should shoulder more of the burden in Nato. But it seems a particularly distasteful way to do it: whilst the war is being prolonged and people are dying.

But Europe doesn’t come out of it much better. Why is their equipment so inadequate? It has been obvious for at least 20 years (since Gulf War I) that this kind of operation was the most likely combat European forces would see in future. But there is a severe lack of ground-attack capability. The Eurofighter Typhoon has had to be clumsily converted to a ground-attack role. All of the planes involved are firing expensive missiles such as the Paveway to destroy individual tanks, a ridiculously expensive overkill. As for the Navy’s Tomahawks cruise missiles at £½ million a wasted shot….So expensive is it that the operation cannot continue for much longer, according to the British forces (stat: the UK has the 4th largest defence budget in the world). When complete air superiority is obtained, cruder and less expensive anti-armour weapons can be used (if you’ve got any). The whole affair is an embarrassment to us and a tragedy for the Libyans.

There’s a stopped clock on my local tube station with a notice pasted over it, saying “This asset has been decommissioned”. It’s been there for months, waiting for the operative who hung this asinine notice to come and do the deed and put the dead clock out of its misery.

Then there was Senator John McCain saying of the US military’s backseat role in Libya: "It's too bad and I would love to see our assets back in the fight." He wasn’t talking about stopped clocks but from NATO’s pathetic performance since that US step-back he might as well have.

Why would anybody call an A10 tank buster plane an asset? Partly, for the same reason passengers on trains are now called “customers” or hospital patients “clients”. It is managerialism run riot. In military matters, the reason is creepier: it is to obscure the fact that these weapons kill people (“collateral damage” comes from the same stable). But what earthly purpose is served by a doctor calling an expectant mother by the dehumanizing appellation “client”?

Civilization progresses by way of finer and finer distinctions. If you start to reduce the distinctions between different things, there is a loss of sensitivity of understanding. There are perhaps 2-30 million living species on the plant but, hey, why bother with names, let’s just call them all “bioforms”.

Again, perhaps the rise of the “asset” reflects a society dominated by bean-counters. Whatever the reason, it should be resisted. These “assets” are dead liabilities.  

Christopher Lloyd is a historian for the big picture, believing that history should now include our relationship with the natural and material worlds. Now, he's followed his large illustrated books What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? with a Wallbook that opens out to tell the human story from the Big Bang to now. Cunningly arranged, with more information than you'd think possible in such a span, it's a great way of taking your bearings on how we got to this point. The text on the reverse of the chart also does a brilliant job of topic selection. It is particularly good on the emergence of our culture, picking up techniques along the way, especially domesticating crops and animals. The What on Earth? Wallbook is currently available at £15 from the What on Earth? website or call 01443 828811.