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From little issues, great oaks of people power can grow
ANY form of people power is to be welcomed.
If there had been some form of control over Britain’s greedy bankers we would never have sunk into the mess we are in today.
Two episodes highlight this week how public involvement in public issues can influence events.
They’re miles apart in importance, of course. Ludicrously apart, some might think.
One, the banking crisis –
or crisis of the working of capitalism – is, naturally, of national significance.
The other, far more parochial, is all about the future of a little pub, the Torriano (see page 10).
But a link can be found.
At the Torriano, local residents feared that a developer’s proposal to build flats above the pub might, as time went by, spell the end of the popular hostelry.
Arguments waged to and fro about the scheme.
The developers vehemently deny their plan threatens the pub.
Right or wrong, residents decided to make sure decision-makers knew how they felt.
It could be argued that the issue became embroiled with a by-election in Kentish Town; that political parties stirred things up in the hunt for votes.
Perhaps, they did.
But what’s more important is that people left their homes and took to the streets.
Nationally, we were heading for the abyss, owing to the greed of bankers, the impotence of the Bank of England and the paralysis exhibited by New Labour.
Before Thatcherism, a fairly tight control of the City kept the bankers and brokers in check.
Once this came to an end in the 1980s, the seeds of today’s crisis were sown.
Gordon Brown dithered for weeks before he intervened to take over Northern Rock, partly shamed by the sharper politics of the Lib-Dem “chancellor” Vince Cable.
Then, when the other banks began to collapse last week, he moved in to nationalise them – that is, to save the whole financial system. He didn’t have much choice.
Life has gone on normally during these extraordinary times. It often does, even in revolutions and wars.
But there is little doubt Gordon Brown caught a mood among the people when he decided to sweep away the corrupt bankers.
More needs to be done. Representatives of trade unions and small businesses should sit on the boards of banks, as should Treasury officials. All this begins the process of people power.
Otherwise we shall see the return of the dead hand of the old state-nationalised industries and public utilities. |
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