Down and out in Davos

Has the World Economic Forum been taken over by pressure groups?

That's what Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), seems to think after this year's event. According to a report in today's Guardian, Jones is 'worried and frustrated' at the lack of celebration of risk-takers and wealth creators. 'Too many of the sessions have been an excuse to beat up on business, to say that business must do better', he said. 'Davos has been hijacked by those who want business to apologise for itself.'

The World Economic Forum (WEF) was once regarded as a private junket for big corporations and major governments - criticism led to the creation of an 'anti-Davos', the World Social Forum (WSF). Yet many of the discussions at Davos 2005, on subjects such as AIDS and climate change, would not have been out of place at its alter ego in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

But Jones is wrong to assume that this change of tack is all down to pressure from non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Mark Adams, the WEF's head of media, told the Guardian: 'Actually a lot of the things on the agenda were brought here by the current chair of the G8 (UK prime minister Tony Blair) and by president Chirac of France and chancellor Schröder of Germany. If that's what world leaders are talking about, it is only right that we give them a platform.'

Ironically, little more than a decade on from the apparent 'triumph of capitalism', world leaders are suffering a crisis of confidence in their own system - a crisis completely out of proportion to the problems they face. If NGOs have increased their influence in recent years, it's only because they have fed off this loss of purpose among the global elite.

CBI chief claims Davos hijacked by NGOs, Guardian, 31 January 2005

Tory gets bullet over guns

How did a party of sabre-rattlers like the Tories come to get so nervous about guns?

Prospective parliamentary candidate Robert Oulds visited a friend who owned a variety of guns. His crime was to be photographed holding them - and to have the photos splashed all over the Sun. There's no suggestion that Oulds was planning to go on a shooting spree, or thinks it would be a good thing for other people to be gunned down. He doesn't seem to have dressed up like Rambo, or hinted at survivalist tendencies. And the guns were all fully licensed.

So what's the big deal? 'He looked more like a terrorist than a prospective MP', one senior Tory told The Sun. Once upon a time, the idea that an 'Englishman's home is his castle' implied that it was entirely reasonable to defend yourself by any means necessary. So owning a gun was a very Tory thing to do. Now, the party of Winston Churchill, who was famously pictured holding a machine gun, is nervous that any association with guns will have its members branded as nutters - or even worse, Americans.

This won't make the world a safer place, but it does illustrate the narrow terrain of political debate today. However, in their efforts to be even more squeaky clean than New Labour, the Tories may be shooting themselves in the foot.

'Gun photo' candidate dismissed, BBC News, 20 January 2005

Superjumbo: bigger isn't always better

The launch of the A380 'superjumbo' suggests that planes are going to get bigger - but whatever happened to making them faster?

The new plane can carry up to 840 passengers, according to manufacturers Airbus, though it will typically be set up to carry around 555. That's over a hundred more than the current passenger giant, the Boeing 747. Airbus are also stressing the plane's green credentials, pointing out that it meets new noise standards and, being bigger, means fewer flights to carry the same number of passengers. Moreover, the plane does 95 miles to the gallon per passenger - comparable with a small diesel car. But the plane will actually be slightly slower than the 747.

The trend towards trying to make travel faster has come to a shuddering halt. This is not a case of reaching technological limits; after all, Concorde, a plane that travelled at roughly three times the speed of the A380 and 747, was flying in the Sixties, and technology has moved on since then. Rather, the limits today are cultural and economic - and entirely self-imposed.

Environmentalists would prefer we didn't travel at all, but if we must, it should be in as fuel-efficient a way as possible. Airlines are afraid that people will baulk at paying more for fast flights, so have gone down the road of piling 'em high (the A380 is a double-decker) and selling 'em cheap instead. While the prospect of more people being able to afford long-haul flights is a good thing, the A380 is a conservative step.

The dream of superfast journeys, like London to Sydney in two hours, is fast becoming pie in the sky. So, the world has stopped 'getting smaller' - but the number of people who will share the dubious pleasures of 'cattle class' for hours on end is going to keep on climbing.

Airbus unveils 'superjumbo' jet, BBC News, 18 January 2005

Rescue me, me, me

Self-help books are becoming increasingly popular - but the more we fret about 'self', the less it helps.

According to sales figures from Amazon UK, six of its 20 most popular books are self-help guides like Paul McKenna's 'I Can Make You Thin' and Gillian McKeith's 'You Are What You Eat'. While a boost in sales might be expected at New Year, with resolutions being made left, right and centre, sales of self-help books over the past year are up 40 per cent.

Part of this is due to the overblown panic about obesity which has cranked up our obsession with weight loss to greater heights. But it's not just our expanding waistlines that are weighing us down. There is clearly a general mood in which we are increasingly worried about our wellbeing - ironic, at a time when general health and life expectancy have never been better.

This obsession with ourselves is decidedly unhealthy, especially when even the humble diet book is being transformed into an all-encompassing guide-for-life. Instead of taking advantage of the myriad opportunities to improve our lives and our world, we are navel-gazing as never before. And the upshot is that we need some outside expert to save us from our personal failings - even if that is in the form of a book. So much for 'self help'.

The authors of these books are generally ill-qualified parasites who are getting rich off our fears. Worse, their prescriptions seldom work. Rather than buying any more of these books in the vain hope of self-improvement, the best New Year's resolution would be to bin the lot.

Public turning to self-help books, BBC News, 13 January 2005

24-hour party poopers

Judge Charles Harris has condemned the UK government's plans to liberalise licensing laws. But our illiberal government shares his dim view of most drinkers.

Harris was sentencing three men to prison after they went on a rampage through the Midlands town of Kettering following England's football defeat to France in June 2004. Condemning the 'substantial proportion of young people today who drink in excess, take drugs and if possible watch football', Harris said the problem was made worse by 'legislation to make alcohol available at all times of the day and night'. This was okay for 'reasonable people' but not for those turned into 'ugly, urban savages' by their excesses.

But far from disagreeing with Harris, the government shares his views. Launching the government's alcohol reduction strategy in March 2004, Home Office minister Hazel Blears condemned 'Young people, mainly between 18 and 25, who are going out specifically to get as drunk as they can'.

What both the judge and the politicians want is a 'café culture', with civilised people engaged in lively conversation while sipping wine - not people getting paralytic on alcopops and getting into fights. The difference is that New Labour will let you do what you like - even watch football - so long as you do it 'responsibly'. In other words, as long as you do it according to government guidelines.

But what's the point of drinking (or watching football, for that matter) if you have to be responsible?

Judge blasts pub plan, The Sun, 11 January 2005

Heavy metal banned

The UK government has announced it will act to stop the latest chemical menace to our health - the burning of dental fillings.

Apparently, crematoria are responsible for about a sixth of Britain's mercury pollution as fillings vapourise. The government now wants filters added to crematorium chimneys to prevent about half of this pollution escaping into the atmosphere. Environment minister Larry Whitty told the BBC, 'Something must be done. Our decision - on which we consulted widely - strikes a balance between the concerns about cost to crematoria and the need to control emissions of a substance which can damage human health and the environment.'

But crematorium operators are none too happy about all this. Duncan McCallum, secretary of the Federation of British Cremation Authorities, said: 'I think the industry feels it is a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.' The filters may not be suitable for many crematoria and won't be cheap.

But this apparent problem has only come about because pollution from mercury elsewhere has been cut so dramatically, making the tiny amount produced in cremation more significant. This presumably comes under the category of Big Problems We Didn't Know We Faced, with the government taking precautions even though there is little evidence that this particular source of mercury is causing any harm. Never mind that the trouble caused may outweigh the original problem - their sense of perspective went up in smoke quite some time ago.

BBC NEWS | Health | Crematoria warned over mercury

Hurried woman syndrome

Life was a cabaret. Now it's a syndrome.

According to a survey of 10,000 women carried out for women's magazine Prima, three-quarters showed at least five of the 'symptoms' of 'hurried woman syndrome' - which include weight gain, low self esteem, low sex drive and guilt. Prima editor Ruth Tierney said, 'This is a uniquely female condition because women today have the pressure of looking after the day-to-day running of the household, while many also have the pressure of going out to work.'

Now, it is true that trying to run a household, look after children and hold down a job can be knackering. But given that there are many ways in which life in general is much easier than in the past, can these feelings of depression have anything to do with the reality of life? How on earth did our grandparents cope?

In fact, if this survey reveals anything, it is the increasing turn inwards to navel-gaze that is novel. With women and men feeling more isolated than in the past, there is a widespread perception that the only thing we can have control over is ourselves. Our horizons are reduced to me, me, me. How do I feel? Am I happy? Am I the right weight? Is my sex life as good as it should be?

What a good thing that Prima magazine is there to help out, then. Alongside the revelations in their survey, this month's edition features the latest seven-day wonder diet, how to feed your family for less, finding time to tidy up, and how to get the hair you want. Perhaps a feature on getting out more would have been in order.

A woman's work is now a syndrome, Daily Telegraph, 6 January 2005

Michael Howard's 'forgotten majority'

Michael Howard yesterday launched the Tories' election manifesto with a promise to pursue the values of the 'forgotten majority'. Who they?

'Forgotten, neglected and taken for granted by this government. Is that how you feel at the start of 2005?' he asked. 'You're probably not part of the so-called liberal elite. You won't run our media or pressure groups. You're not a trade union boss, or the head of a quango', he added, namechecking a variety of public hate figures.

He has a point: most people feel alienated from government these days, even natural New Labour supporters. For example, when asked about their opposition to the Iraq war, many turned the question into one of whether they trust Tony Blair, rather than whether the war was right or wrong. Many feel a sense of exclusion from the operation of government - which increasingly consists of a set of personal cliques and networks, acting with diminishing reference to democratic institutions.

However, there is a limit to how much Howard, as the head of the erstwhile 'natural party of government', can succeed in playing along with today's anti-political mood. For starters, he is very much a part of the 'political establishment'; but worse, he has no alternative to New Labour. His 'forgotten majority' are hard-working, homeowning, pension-saving sort of people who don't want so many immigrants, favour law and order, and want a strong economy - just the kind of people New Labour spends all its time appealing to. The 'forgotten majority' are more of a stereotype than a reality, but they're far from forgotten.

In fact, the only forgotten majority is the last Conservative one in parliament.

Howard: Time to act for the forgotten majority, Conservative Party website, 4 January 2005