Understanding Al-Taqiyya

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Al-Taqiyya is an Islamic concept that allows Muslims to conceal their true beliefs or actions in certain situations, particularly when their safety or well-being is at risk. This practice is most commonly associated with Shia Islam but can also be found in some Sunni traditions. Al-Taqiyya is often misunderstood and misinterpreted, leading to misconceptions about its purpose and implications.

The primary idea behind al-Taqiyya is to protect oneself or others from harm, especially in situations where revealing one's true beliefs could lead to persecution, imprisonment, or even death. It's a strategy of self-preservation that doesn't necessarily involve deception for personal gain but rather for survival. Al-Taqiyya is not an obligation in Islam, but it becomes permissible when one's life or safety is threatened due to their religious beliefs.

Muslims practice al-Taqiyya primarily as a means of self-preservation in situations where their safety, well-being, or life is at risk due to their religious beliefs or identity. Al-Taqiyya allows individuals to conceal their true beliefs or practices temporarily in order to avoid harm, persecution, or danger. Here are some reasons why Muslims might practice al-Taqiyya:

1. Protection from Persecution: In certain historical and contemporary contexts, Muslims, particularly minority sects like Shia Muslims, have faced persecution and discrimination due to their beliefs. Al-Taqiyya enables them to protect themselves from harm by concealing their true religious affiliation or practices.

2. Maintaining Life and Safety: Al-Taqiyya can be used when an individual's life or physical safety is at stake. If openly identifying as a Muslim could lead to harm or danger, a person might choose to hide their religious identity temporarily until the threat subsides.

3. Preserving Harmony: In situations where revealing one's true beliefs could lead to conflict or tension within a community or family, al-Taqiyya might be practiced to maintain harmony and avoid unnecessary strife.

4. Living in Non-Muslim Societies: Muslims living in predominantly non-Muslim societies might choose to practice al-Taqiyya to avoid misunderstandings, discrimination, or potential backlash from the majority population.

5. Avoiding Extremist Threats: In some cases, Muslims might use al-Taqiyya to protect themselves from threats posed by extremist individuals or groups who target those they consider to be "heretical" or not adhering to their specific interpretation of Islam.

It's important to note that al-Taqiyya is not intended to promote deception or manipulation for personal gain. It is a practice rooted in the principle of protecting oneself or others from harm, particularly in situations where religious beliefs are under threat. Al-Taqiyya is not an obligation in Islam but is rather a concession allowed in cases of necessity. It is also a topic of debate among scholars, with differing opinions on when and how it should be applied.

Using the term "al-Taqiyya" to describe Pakistanis praising India or its economy would likely be an inappropriate and misleading application of the concept. Al-Taqiyya is primarily concerned with concealing one's true beliefs or practices in situations of danger or threat to protect oneself from harm. It is rooted in religious contexts and is not meant to describe casual behavior or actions.

When Pakistanis praise India or its economy, it can stem from a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with al-Taqiyya. People's opinions and behaviors are influenced by various factors, such as political considerations, personal experiences, economic analyses, diplomatic goals, or even genuine appreciation for certain aspects of another country.

It's important to avoid misusing or overgeneralizing concepts like al-Taqiyya to label behaviors that might have different motivations. Applying such terms inaccurately can perpetuate stereotypes and misunderstandings. Instead, it's better to approach people's actions and expressions with an open mind and seek to understand the complex factors that influence their perspectives.

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Returning to work in the coronavirus crisis: what are your rights?

Hilary Osborne in The Guardian 

 

Some people may be concerned about returning to work during the coronavirus crisis. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images


As the lockdown restrictions begin to be eased across the UK, more workers are being asked to return to the workplace.

The government has said that employees should only be asked to go back if they cannot do their job from home, so if you can, your employer should not be asking you to travel in to work.

If you do need to go to your workplace, your employer is obliged to make sure you will be safe there. Employment lawyer Matt Gingell says: “Employers have a general duty to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all of their employees.”

Here’s a guide to your rights if your employer wants you back in the workplace.

How much notice should I be given that I have to return?

“If employees are unable to work from home, employers can ask employees to return to work and, technically, no notice is required,” says Gingell.

Solicitor and consumer law expert Gary Rycroft says there is no notice period written into law “but giving at least 48 hours’ notice should allow either side to have discussions and air any concerns or even official ‘grievances’”.

The advisory group Acas says employers need to check if there are any arrangements in place with unions or similar about notice. It advises: “Employees and workers should be ready to return to work at short notice, but employers should be flexible where possible.”

So while your employer could ask you to return straight away, a good employer would understand if there were things you needed to put in place first, and give you chance to do so.

What if I was furloughed?

When you were furloughed your employer should have outlined what would happen when it wanted you to go back to work, and this may have a clause saying that you have to return as soon as you are asked.

“The termination of the furlough agreement and when an employee will be expected to return to work will depend on the provisions of the agreement,” says Gingell. Again, though, even if there is no notice period, a good employer should realise that you may need some time to prepare.

If you have been furloughed under the government’s job retention scheme, your employer can’t ask you to go in and do ad hoc days, or work part-time. They would need to take you off furlough and renegotiate your contract with you.

Can they ask me to go back in part-time?

Not, currently, if you have been furloughed and they are using the government scheme to pay you. It only allows companies to furlough people for all of their normal hours, and bans them from asking you to do any work while you are off.

But if your company has not claimed government money to cover your wages, it can ask you to resume work part-time. Make sure you understand the terms of the request – your employer cannot adjust your contract without your permission, so if it is asking you to change your hours you should get advice.

Can they ask me to take a pay cut?

“The law here is the same as it would be if an employer made the same request in the normal course of an employee’s employment. Reducing hours and/or pay are deemed to be such fundamental changes to an employee’s terms and conditions that the employee concerned should be consulted and then agree in writing,” says Rycroft.

He points out that for some employers “this may be the only economically viable option”, and the alternative, if people refuse, could be redundancies. To make more than 20 people redundant there will need to be collective consultation.

What if I am in a vulnerable group or live with someone who is?

No special rules have been put in place to protect people in these groups who are asked to go into work but some already exist – if you are disabled or pregnant, for example, your employer has extra obligations.

Rycroft says some employees may be able to argue that it will be discriminatory to force them to attend work outside the home. “It is all a question of degrees, in terms of how the employer can show that they have listened to legitimate concerns and made reasonable adjustments,” he says.

If you are pregnant your employer is obliged to make sure you can do your job safely. This can mean allowing you to do your job from home, or giving you a new role which can be done remotely. If your employer refuses either of these options, and you do not feel safe going into work you should take advice. Employmentsolicitor.com says that you could be able to argue for a medical suspension on full pay, which will allow you to stay at home.

Living with someone who is vulnerable or especially at risk is not necessarily a reason an employee can refuse to return to work, says Rycroft. “However, you can, as an employee raise a grievance and ask to be listened to and hopefully a compromise may be agreed, such as unpaid leave or using up annual holiday. But if an employer can show that a workplace is safe, the employer may insist on an employee attending.”
What if I have childcare to worry about?

Legally, you can take time off to look after any dependants – these could be children, or older relatives. This time is typically unpaid. If you are currently furloughed and your employer does not have enough work for everyone to go back full-time, they may agree to leave you on furlough so you can continue to earn 80% of your normal pay.

What information should they give me in advance?

Rycroft says there is no law saying that employers should provide information before you return, but the government guidance to employers recommends that they do. He says this information – written or verbal – should cover how they are making your workplace safe in light of the pandemic. So you should be told what is happening to ensure social distancing and hygiene. “This will allow employees to understand how their health and safety at work is being addressed.

Can I refuse to go back?

Yes, if you believe there is a real danger to going to work. “If an employee refuses to return to the workplace due to the employee reasonably believing imminent and serious danger and is then dismissed for that reason the employee could, depending on the circumstances, have a claim for unfair dismissal,” Gingell says.

“The requirement that the employee has to believe that there is imminent and serious danger, does limit the right.”

Otherwise, you cannot refuse. “If someone refuses to attend work without a valid reason, it could result in disciplinary action,” says Acas. But you may be able to make other arrangements with your employer – perhaps you can use holiday or take unpaid leave, or if you have concerns about something like travelling at peak time, they may be willing to accommodate different shifts. Your employer does not have to agree to this, but it is worth asking.

What if I am worried when I see my workplace?

Rycroft says that under section 100 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 employees may leave a place of work where there is an imminent health and safety danger. So if, for example, you return to find social distancing is impossible, you could argue that this is a reason to leave your workplace.

But in the first instance you should try to resolve the issue with your boss. Gingell says: “Employers ought to to listen to the concerns of individuals and be sympathetic and understanding.”

If you do not get anywhere with this, you should take advice. If you are in a union, it should have a helpline you can call if there is no rep to speak to on site. Acas is another port of call, as is Citizens Advice.

“If the employer has breached the implied obligation to provide a safe working environment and/or trust and confidence an employee could, again, depending on the circumstances, resign swiftly as a result and claim constructive unfair dismissal,” says Gingell. But he says you should get advice before taking this action.

“Another option for employees to consider is contactIng the Health and Safety Executive, which enforces health and safety legislation,” he says.

Boeing's travails show what's wrong with modern capitalism

Matt Stoller in The Guardian

The plight of Boeing shows the perils of modern capitalism. The corporation is a wounded giant. Much of its productive capacity has been mothballed following two crashes in six months of the 737 Max, the firm’s flagship product: the result of safety problems Boeing hid from regulators.

Just a year ago Boeing appeared unstoppable. In 2018, the company delivered more aircraft than its rival Airbus, with revenue hitting $100bn. It was also a cash machine, shedding 20% of its workforce since 2012 while funneling $43bn into stock buybacks in roughly the same period. Boeing’s board rewarded its CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, lavishly, paying him $23m in 2018, up 27% from the year before.

There was only one problem. The company was losing its ability to make safe airplanes. As Scott Hamilton, an aerospace analyst and editor of Leeham News and Analysis, puts it: “Boeing Commercial Airplanes clearly has a systemic problem in designing, producing and delivering airplanes.”

Something is wrong with today’s version of capitalism. It’s not just that it’s unfair. It’s that it’s no longer capable of delivering products that work. The root cause is the generation of high and persistent profits, to the exclusion of production. We have let financiers take over our corporations. They monopolize industries and then loot the corporations they run.

The executive team at Boeing is quite skilled – just at generating cash, rather than as engineers. Boeing’s competitive advantage centered on politics, not planes. The corporation is now a political machine with a side business making aerospace and defense products. Boeing’s general counsel, former judge Michael Luttig, is the former boss of the FBI director, Christopher Wray, whose agents are investigating potential criminal activity at the company. Luttig is so well connected in high-level legal circles he served as a groomsman for the supreme court chief justice, John Roberts.

The company’s board members also include Nikki Haley, until recently the United Nations ambassador, former Nato supreme allied commander Edmund PGiambastiani Jr, former AIG CEO Edward M Liddy, and a host of former political officials and private equity icons.

Boeing used its political connections to monopolize the American aerospace industry and corrupt its regulators. In the 1990s, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged, leaving America with just one major producer of civilian aircraft. Before this merger, when there was a competitive market, Boeing was a wonderful company. As journalist Jerry Useem put it just 20 years ago, “Boeing has always been less a business than an association of engineers devoted to building amazing flying machines.”


High profits masked the collapse in productive skill until the crashes of the 737 Max

But after the merger, the engineers lost power to the financiers. Boeing could increase prices, lay off workers, reduce quality and spend its cash buying back stock.

And no one could do anything about it. Customers and suppliers no longer had any alternative to Boeing, and Boeing corrupted officials in both parties who were supposed to regulate it. High profits masked the collapse in productive skill until the crashes of the 737 Max.

Boeing’s inability to make good safe airplanes is a clear weakness. It is, after all, an airplane aerospace company. But because Boeing is America’s only commercial airplane company, the crisis is rippling across the economy. Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, which ordered 58 737 Max planes, says his company cannot grow as planned until Boeing, “gets its shit together”. Contractors and subcontractors slowed production of parts for the airplane, and airline customers scrambled to address shortages of airplanes.

Far from being an anomaly, Boeing is the norm in the corporate world across the west. In 2016, the Economist noted that profits across the corporate sector were high and persistent, a function of a lack of competition across swaths of the economy. If corporations don’t have to compete, they can raise prices to buyers, lower what they pay to suppliers and workers, and reduce quality.

High profits result in sloth and corruption. Many of our industrial goliaths are now run in ways that are fundamentally destructive. General Electric, for instance, was once a jewel of American productive capacity, a corporation created out of George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison’s patents for electric systems. Edison helped invent the lightbulb itself, brightening the world. Today, as a result of decisions made by Jack Welch in the 1990s to juice profit returns, GE slaps its label on lightbulbs made in China. Even worse, if investigator Harry Markopoulos is right, General Electric may in fact be riddled with accounting fraud, a once great productive institution strip-mined by financiers.

These are not the natural, inevitable results of capitalism. Boeing and GE were once great companies, working in capitalist open markets.

So what went wrong? In short, the law. In the 1970s, a host of thinkers on the right and left – from Milton Friedman to George Stigler to Alfred Kahn to the current liberal supreme court justice Stephen Breyer – argued that policymakers should take restraints off capital and get rid of anti-monopoly rules. They used many terms to make this case, including deregulation, cost/benefit analysis, and the consumer welfare standard in antitrust law. They embraced the shareholder theory of capitalism, which emphasizes short-term profits. What followed was a radical consolidation of market power, and then systemic looting. 

Today, high profit margins are a pervasive and corrupting influence across the government and corporate sectors. Private equity firms moved capital from corporations and workers to themselves, destroying once healthy retailers like RadioShack, Toys R Us, Payless and K-Mart.

The disease of inefficiency and graft has spread to the government. In 1992, Harvard Professor Ash Carter, who later become the secretary of defense under Obama, wrote that the Pentagon was too difficult to do business with. “The most straightforward step” to address this, he wrote, “would be to raise the profit margins allowed on defense contracts.” The following year Prof Carter was appointed assistant secretary of defense for international security policy in the first Clinton administration, which followed his advice.

Earlier this year, the defense department found that one defense contractor run by private equity executives had profit margins of up to 4,451% on spare parts it sold to the military. Consulting giant McKinsey was recently caught trying to charge the government $3m a year for the services of a recent college graduate.

The ultimate result of concentrating wealth and corrupting government is to concentrate power in the hands of a few. We’ve been here before. In the 1930s, fascists in Italy and Germany were gaining strength, as were communists in the Russia. Meanwhile, leaders in liberal democracies were confronted by a frightened populace losing faith in democracy. American political leaders were able to take on domestic money lords with a radical antitrust campaign to break the power of the plutocrats. Today we are in a similar situation, with autocrats making an increasingly persuasive case that liberal democracy is weak.

The solution to this political crisis is fairly simple, and it involves two basic principles. One, policymakers have to increase competition for large powerful companies, to bring profits down. Executives should spend their time competing with each other to build quality products, not finding ways of attracting former generals, or administration officials to their board of directors. Two, policymakers should raise taxes on wealth and high incomes to radically reduce the concentration of wealth, which will make looting irrational.

Our system is no longer aligning rewards with productive skill. Despite the 737 Max crisis, Boeing’s stock price is still twice as high as in July 2015, when Muilenburg took over as CEO. That right there is what is broken about modern capitalism. We had better fix it fast.

The uncomfortable truth behind the mask

Suresh Menon in The Hindu

What do they know of air pollution who only air pollution know? Kipling didn’t say that, neither did C.L.R. James, nor let’s face it, did former England captain Ted Dexter. But Dexter was the first to connect air pollution in India and international cricket.

After England lost the first Test of the 1992-93 series in Kolkata, Dexter, then chairman of selectors announced grandly that he had “commissioned a report into the impact of air pollution in Indian cities.”

England lost all the Tests of that series, and the excuses varied from pollution to the players’ facial hair to prawn curry in a Chennai restaurant. But Dexter’s attempt at studying pollution is the best remembered a quarter century later.

In The Guardian, David Hopps wrote then: “Dexter will deservedly face accusations today that he is hiding behind a smogscreen, that the only air about last night was hot air, and that anybody seen choking was most likely choking with laughter.”

What innocent days those were!


No laughing matter

Pollution is no longer a laughing matter. It is real, measurable, and, in the case of Delhi, 12 to 15 times beyond safety limits.

To say that Indians handle pollution better than Sri Lankans is a foolish boast, and quite meaningless. To attach nationalism and patriotism to the manner in which Indian players don’t cough or vomit while their opponents do is ridiculous in the extreme.

The fact of the matter is, Sri Lankan players suffered, they deserve our sympathy and even an apology. Two First Class matches were called off in Delhi last year owing to the pollution; there is good reason for the Board of Control for Cricket in India to drop Delhi from its schedule during winter, especially when the pollution levels go from the merely dangerous to the hazardous.

The BCCI has been quoted as saying that next time they will check the pollution levels before giving Delhi a match. We’ll see.

Players selected for a Delhi Test in future might have to acclimatise themselves by revving a car engine in a locked garage. This is a terrible thing to say, but Delhi has been an embarrassment. Images of fielders in masks must rate as the most mortifying to emerge from an Indian sports field.

Such high levels of air pollution are dangerous; players and spectators who already have respiratory problems are badly hit. R. Ashwin, for example, suffered from asthma as a child. Bowling and fielding in these conditions could not have been ideal for him.

Yet, he carried on heroically. No Indian was likely to wear a mask on the field — they wore one off it, though — since that would have sent out a message no Indian wanted to hear. Patriotism before health is the safer option.

If Sri Lanka wore masks, that was a health statement; if the Indians had worn them, it would have been a political statement. That is not a burden cricket needs to carry.

Sri Lanka had every right to complain. The umpires and the match referee had to deal with a unique situation. The guiding principle in all such cases is simple: the health and safety of the players is paramount. Yet there were political considerations here too. Relationship between the countries, future tours, the financial implications of rubbing India the wrong way.

The BCCI president’s aggressive response was disingenuous — but then the governing body has not been known to use tact when belligerence is an alternative.


Not unintelligent

Players are grown men who are not unintelligent. Sri Lanka could not have been unaware of the strategic advantages of disrupting a game where they were being so thoroughly dominated. But we cannot assume that was their primary motivation. If Kohli missed a triple century, blame the politicians of Delhi or the farmers of Punjab. Further proof that no sport exists in isolation.

It has been argued that India play in extreme conditions in Dunedin or Manchester, so why can’t visiting teams play in polluted Delhi?

But climate is a natural phenomenon, pollution is manmade. Playing in England or New Zealand is not injurious to health.

It is true that international sportsmen must be prepared to play in all conditions — weather, pitch, outfield, audience — but you do not travel equipped to deal with pollution.

Pollution affects the Indian team too, brave front or not. If a players’ association existed (as mandated by the Supreme Court), here’s another area it might have made a difference. By definition, such an association would be focused on the players’ welfare (players, history has shown us, are not the top priority of the BCCI).

Perhaps the players and administrators lack specific knowledge of the long-term damage that air pollution can cause. That gap can be filled by a players’ association which focuses on educating the stakeholders in the game.

Sri Lankans will return to their country, the cricketing caravan will move on.

But what of those who continue to live in Delhi? Not for the first time, cricket has shone a light on man’s inhumanity to man.

With Grenfell Tower, we’ve seen what ‘ripping up red tape’ really looks like

George Monbiot in The Guardian

For years successive governments have built what they call a bonfire of regulations. They have argued that “red tape” impedes our freedom and damages productivity. Britain, they have assured us, would be a better place with fewer forms to fill in, fewer inspections and less enforcement.
But what they call red tape often consists of essential public protections that defend our lives, our futures and the rest of the living world. The freedom they celebrate is highly selective: in many cases it means the freedom of the rich to exploit the poor, of corporations to exploit their workers, landlords to exploit their tenants and industry of all kinds to use the planet as its dustbin. As RH Tawney remarked, “Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows.”

It will be a long time before we know exactly what caused the horrific fire in the Grenfell Tower, and why it was able to rage so freely, with such devastating loss of life. But it seems at this stage likely that the rapidity with which the fire spread was either caused or exacerbated by the cladding with which the tower was refurbished.

There have been plenty of warnings that cladding can present a severe fire risk. To give just one example, in 1999 the House of Commons select committee on environment, transport and rural affairs published a report entitled Potential Risk of Fire Spread in Buildings Via External Cladding Systems.

But both Conservative and New Labour governments have been highly reluctant to introduce new public protections, even when the need is pressing. They have been highly amenable to tearing down existing protections at the behest of trade associations and corporate lobbyists. Deregulation of this kind is a central theme of the neoliberal ideology to which both the Conservatives and Labour under Tony Blair succumbed.

In 2014, the then housing minister (who is now the immigration minister), Brandon Lewis, rejected calls to force construction companies to fit sprinklers in the homes they built on the following grounds:


Conservative MPs see Brexit as an excellent opportunity to strip back regulations

“In our commitment to be the first Government to reduce regulation, we have introduced the one in, two out rule for regulation … Under that rule, when the Government introduce a regulation, we will identify two existing ones to be removed. The Department for Communities and Local Government has gone further and removed an even higher proportion of regulations. In that context, Members will understand why we want to exhaust all non-regulatory options before we introduce any new regulations.”

In other words, though he accepted that sprinklers “are an effective way of controlling fires and of protecting lives and property”, to oblige builders to introduce them would conflict with the government’s deregulatory agenda. Instead, it would be left to the owners of buildings to decide how best to address the fire risk: “Those with responsibility for ensuring fire safety in their businesses, in their homes or as landlords, should and must make informed decisions on how best to manage the risks in their own properties,” Lewis said.

This calls to mind the Financial Times journalist Willem Buiter’s famous remark that “self-regulation stands in relation to regulation the way self-importance stands in relation to importance”. Case after case, across all sectors, demonstrates that self-regulation is no substitute for consistent rules laid down, monitored and enforced by government.

Crucial public protections have long been derided in the billionaire press as “elf ’n’ safety gone mad”. It’s not hard to see how ruthless businesses can cut costs by cutting corners, and how this gives them an advantage over their more scrupulous competitors.

Grenfell Tower fire is corporate manslaughter, says Labour MP



The “pollution paradox” (those corporations whose practices are most offensive to voters have to spend the most money on politics, with the result that their demands come to dominate political life) ensures that our protections are progressively dismantled by governments courting big donors.

Conservative MPs see Brexit as an excellent opportunity to strip back regulations. The speed with which the “great repeal bill” will have to pass through parliament (assuming that any of Theresa May’s programme can now be implemented) provides unprecedented scope to destroy the protections guaranteed by European regulations. The bill will rely heavily on statutory instruments, which permit far less parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation. Unnoticed and undebated, crucial elements of public health and safety, workers’ rights and environmental protection could be made to disappear.

Too many times we have seen what the bonfire of regulations, which might sound like common sense when issuing from the mouths of ministers, looks like in the real world. The public protections that governments describe as red tape are what make the difference between a good society and barbarism. It is time to bring the disastrous deregulatory agenda to an end, and put public safety and other basic decencies ahead of corner-cutting and greed.

A world without retirement

Amelia Hill in The Guardian


We are entering the age of no retirement. The journey into that chilling reality is not a long one: the first generation who will experience it are now in their 40s and 50s. They grew up assuming they could expect the kind of retirement their parents enjoyed – stopping work in their mid-60s on a generous income, with time and good health enough to fulfil long-held dreams. For them, it may already be too late to make the changes necessary to retire at all.

In 2010, British women got their state pension at 60 and men got theirs at 65. By October 2020, both sexes will have to wait until they are 66. By 2028, the age will rise again, to 67. And the creep will continue. By the early 2060s, people will still be working in their 70s, but according to research, we will all need to keep working into our 80s if we want to enjoy the same standard of retirement as our parents.

This is what a world without retirement looks like. Workers will be unable to down tools, even when they can barely hold them with hands gnarled by age-related arthritis. The raising of the state retirement age will create a new social inequality. Those living in areas in which the average life expectancy is lower than the state retirement age (south-east England has the highest average life expectancy, Scotland the lowest) will subsidise those better off by dying before they can claim the pension they have contributed to throughout their lives. In other words, wealthier people become beneficiaries of what remains of the welfare state.

Retirement is likely to be sustained in recognisable form in the short and medium term. Looming on the horizon, however, is a complete dismantling of this safety net.

For those of pensionable age who cannot afford to retire, but cannot continue working – because of poor health, or ageing parents who need care, or because potential employers would rather hire younger workers – the great progress Britain has made in tackling poverty among the elderly over the last two decades will be reversed. This group is liable to suffer the sort of widespread poverty not seen in Britain for 30 to 40 years.

Many now in their 20s will be unable to save throughout their youth and middle age because of increasingly casualised employment, student debt and rising property prices. By the time they are old, members of this new generation of poor pensioners are liable to be, on average, far worse off than the average poor pensioner today.

A series of factors has contributed to this situation: increased life expectancy, woeful pension planning by successive governments, the end of the final-salary pension scheme (in which people got two-thirds of their final salary as a pension) and our own failure to save.

For two months, as part of an experiment by the Guardian in collaborative reporting, I have been investigating what retirement looks like today – and what it might look like for the next wave of retirees, their children and grandchildren. The evidence reveals a sinkhole beneath the state’s provision of pensions. Under the weight of our vastly increased longevity, retirement – one of our most cherished institutions – is in danger of collapsing into it.

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Many of those contemplating retirement are alarmed by the new landscape. A 62-year-old woman, who is for the first time in her life struggling to pay her mortgage (and wishes to remain anonymous), told me: “I am more stressed now than I was in my 30s. I lived on a very tight budget then, but I was young and could cope emotionally. I don’t mean to sound bitter, but I never thought I would feel this scared of the future at my age. I’m not remotely materialistic and have never wanted a fancy lifestyle. But not knowing if I will be without a home in the next few months is a very scary place to be.”

And it is not just the older generation who fear old age. Adam Palfrey is 30, with three children and a disabled wife who cannot work. “I must confess, I am absolutely terrified of retirement,” he told me. “I have nothing stashed away. Savings are out of the question. I only just earn enough that, with housing benefit, disability living allowance and tax credits, I manage to keep our heads above water. I work every hour I can just to keep things afloat. There’s no way I could keep this up aged 70-plus, just so that my partner and I can live a basic life. As for my three children … God knows. I can scarcely bring myself to think about it.”

It is not news that the population is ageing. What is remarkable is that we have failed to prepare the ground for this inevitable change. Life expectancy in Britain is growing by a dramatic five hours a day. Thanks to a period of relative peace in the UK, low infant mortality and continual medical advances, over the past two decades the life expectancy of babies born here has increased by some five years. (A baby born at the end of my eight-week The new retirement series has a life expectancy almost 12 days longer than a baby born at the start of it.)

Dr Peter Jarvis and Sue Perkins at Bletchley Park. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

In 2014, the average age of the UK population exceeded 40 for the first time – up from 33.9 in 1974. In little more than a decade, half of the country’s population will be aged over 50. This will transform Britain – and it is no mere blip; the trend will continue as life expectancy increases. This year marked a demographic turning point in the UK. As the baby-boom generation (now aged between 53 and 71) entered retirement, for the first time since the early 1980s there were more people either too old or too young to work than there were of working age.

The number of people in the UK aged 85 or more is expected to more than double in the next 25 years. By 2040, nearly one in seven Britons will be over 75. Half of all children born in the UK are predicted to live to 103. Some 10 million of us currently alive in the UK (and 130 million throughout Europe) are likely to live past the age of 100.


Governments see raising the state retirement age as a way to cover the cost of an ageing population

The challenges are considerable. The tax imbalance that comes with an ageing population, whose tax contribution falls far short of their use of services, will rise to £15bn a year by 2060. Covering this gap will cost the equivalent of a 4p income tax rise for the working-age population.

It is easy to see why governments might regard raising the state retirement age as a way to cover the cost of an ageing population. A successful pursuit of full employment of people into their late 60s could maintain the ratio of workers to non-workers for many decades to come. And were the employment rate for older workers to match that of the 30-40 age group, the additional tax payments could be as much as £88.4bn. According to PwC’s Golden Age Index, had our employment rates for those aged 55 years and older been as high as those in Sweden between 2003 and 2013, UK national GDP would have been £105bn – or 5.8% – higher.

There are, of course, problems to this approach. Those who can happily work into their 70s and beyond are likely to be the privileged few: the highly educated elite who haven’t spent their working lives in jobs that negatively affect their health. If the state pension age is pushed further away, for those with failing health, family responsibilities or no jobs, life will become very difficult.

The new state pension, introduced on 6 April 2016, will be paid to men born on or after 6 April 1951, and women born on or after 6 April 1953. Assuming you have paid 35 years of National Insurance, it will pay out £155.65 a week. The old scheme (worth a basic sum of £119.30 per week, with more for those who paid into additional state pension schemes such as Serps or S2P) applies to those born before those dates.

Frank Field, Labour MP and chair of the work and pensions select committee, told me that the new figure of just over £8,000 a year is enough to guarantee all pensioners a decent standard of living: an “adequate minimum”, as he put it. Anything above that, he said, should be privately funded, without tax breaks or other government help.

“Once the minimum has been reached, it’s not the job of government to bribe people to save more,” he says. “To provide luxurious pension payments was never the aim of the state pension.”

Whether the new state pension can really be described as a “comfortable minimum” turns out to be a matter of opinion. Dr Ros Altmann, who was brought into government in April 2015 to work on pensions policy, is the UK government’s former older workers’ champion and a governor of the Pensions Policy Institute. When I relayed Field’s comments to her, she was left briefly speechless. Then she managed a “wow”. “Did he really say that? Would he be happy to live on just over £8,000 a year?” she asked, finally.

Tom McPhail, head of retirement policy at financial advisers Hargreaves Lansdown, is clear that the new state pension has not been set at a high-enough level to guarantee a dignified older age to those who have no other income. “How sufficient is the new state pension? That’s an easy one to answer: It’s not,” he said.

Field makes the assumption that people have enough additional private financial ballast to bolster their state pensions. But the reality is that many people have neither savings – nearly a third of all households would struggle to pay an unexpected £500 bill – nor sufficient private pension provision to bring their state pension entitlement up to a level to ensure a comfortable retirement by most people’s understanding of the term. In fact, savings are the great dividing line in retirement, and the scale of the so-called “pension gap” – the gap between what your pension pot will pay out and the amount you need to live comfortably in older age – is shocking.

Three in 10 Britons aged 55-64 do not have any pension savings at all. Almost half of those in their 30s and 40s are not saving adequately or at all. In part, that is because we underestimate the amount of money we need to save. According to research by Saga earlier this month, four in 10 of those aged over 40 have no idea of the cost of even a basic lifestyle in retirement. When it came to understanding the size of the total pension pot they would need to fund retirement, over 80% admitted they had no idea how big this would need to be.

Retirement is an ancient concept. It caused one of the worst military disasters ever faced by the Roman empire when, in AD14, the imperial power increased the retirement age and decreased the pensions of its legionaries, causing mutiny in Pannonia and Germany. The ringleaders were rounded up and disposed of, but the institution remains so highly prized that any threat to its continued existence is liable to cause mutiny. “Retirement has been stolen. You can pay in as much as you like. They will never pay back. Time for a grey revolution,” one reader emailed.

It was in 1881 that the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, made a radical speech to the Reichstag, calling for government-run financial support for those aged over 70 who were “disabled from work by age and invalidity”.

Roger Hall in Porlock Bay, Somerset. Photograph: Sam Frost for the Guardian

The scheme wasn’t the socialist ideal it is sometimes assumed to be: Bismarck was actually advocating a disability pension, not a retirement pension as we understand it today. Besides, the retirement age he recommended just about aligned with average life expectancy in Germany at that time. Bismarck did, however, have a further vision that was genuinely too radical for his era: he proposed a pension that could be drawn at any age, if the contributor was judged unfit for work. Those drawing it earlier would receive a lower amount.

This notion is surfacing again in various forms. The New Economics Foundation isarguing for a shorter working week, via a “slow retirement”, in which employees give up an hour of work per week every year from the age of 35. The idea is that older workers will release more of their work time to younger ones, which will allow a steady handover of retained wisdom. A universal basic income, whereby everyone receives a set sum from the state each year, regardless of how much they do or don’t work, might have a similar effect, enabling people to move to part-time work as they age.

Widespread poverty among the over-65s led to the 1946 National Insurance Act, which introduced the first contributory, flat-rate pension in the UK for women of 60 and men of 65. At first, pension rates were low and most pensioners did not have enough to get by. But by the late 1970s, the value of the state pension rose and an increasing number of people – mainly men – were able to benefit from occupational pension schemes. By 1967, more than 8 million employees working for private companies were entitled to a final-salary pension, along with 4 million state workers. In 1978, the Labour government introduced a fully fledged “earnings-linked” state top-up system for those without access to a company scheme.

With pension payments now at a rate that enabled older people to stop work without risking penury, older men (and to a lesser extent older women) began to enjoy a “third age”, which fell between the end of work and the start of old age. In 1970, the employment rate for men aged 60-64 was 81%; by 1985 it had fallen to 49.7%.

Access to a comfortable old age is a powerful political idea. John Macnicol, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and author of Neoliberalising Old Age, believes that when jobs were needed for younger men after the second world war, a “socially elegant mythology” was created in which retirement was a time for older workers to kick back and relax.

He believes that in the 1990s, however, the narrative was cynically changed and the image of pensioners was deliberately altered: from being poor, frail, dependent and deserving, to well off, hedonistic, politically powerful and selfish. The notion of “the prosperous pensioner was constructed in the face of evidence that showed exactly the opposite to be the case”, he said, “so that the right to retirement [could be] undermined: more coercive working practices, forcing older people to stay in employment, could be presented as providing new ‘opportunities’, removing barriers to working, bestowing greater inclusion and even achieving upward social mobility”.

This change in attitude towards pensioners helped the government bring in a hike in retirement age. In 1995, the Conservative government under John Major announced a steady increase from 60 to 65 in the state pension age for women, to come in between April 2010 and April 2020. Most agreed that equalising the state pension age was fair enough. What they objected to is that the government waited until 2009 – a year before the increases were set to begin – to start contacting those affected, leaving thousands of women without time to rearrange their finances or adjust their employment plans to fill the gaping hole in their income.

Then, in 2011 – when the state pension age for women had risen to 63 – the coalition government accelerated the timetable: the state pension age for women will now reach 65 in November 2018, at which point it will rise alongside men’s: to 66 by 2020 and to 67 by 2028.

When she retired from the ministry of work and pensions in 2016, Ros Altmann stated that she was “not convinced the government had adequately addressed the hardship facing women who have had their state pension age increased at short notice”.

After surviving cancer at 52, Jackie Harrison, now 62, looked over her savings and decided she could just about afford to take early retirement. “I had achieved 36 years of national insurance contributions,” she said. “I used to phone the Department for Work and Pensions every year to ensure that I had worked enough to get my full pension at 60.”

Then she was told her personal pension age was increasing from 60 to 63 years and six months. “I wasn’t eligible for any benefits because of my partner’s pension, but I could nevertheless still just about manage until the new state retirement age,” she said. But when she was 58, the goalposts moved again – this time to 66. “I’d been out of the workplace for so long that I didn’t have a hope of being able to get back into it,” she said. “But nor did it give me enough time to make other financial arrangements.”

Harrison made the agonising decision to raise money by selling her family home and moving to a different city, where she could live more cheaply. Her decisions had heavy implications for the rest of her family – and the state. When she moved, she left behind a vulnerable adult daughter and baby grandchild and octogenarian parents.

“This is not the retirement I had planned at all,” Harrison told me. “I had loads of savings once, but now I live in a constant state of worry due to financial pressures. It seems so unfair when I have worked all my life and planned for my retirement. I just don’t know how I am going to manage for another four years”. Women born in the 1950s are already living in their age of no retirement.

In 2006, it became legal for employers to force their workers to retire at the age of 65. A campaign led by Age Concern and Help the Aged was swift and effective in its argument that the new default retirement age law broke EU rules and gave employers too much leeway to justify direct discrimination on the grounds of age. On 1 October 2011, the law was overturned.

Since then, Britain’s workforce has greyed almost before our eyes: in the last 15 years, the number of working people aged 50-64 has increased by 60% to 8 million (far greater than the increase in the population of people over 50). The proportion of people aged 70-74 in employment, meanwhile, has almost doubled in the past 10 years. This trend will continue. By 2020, one-third of the workforce will be over 50.

A worker at Steelite International ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The proportional increase may be substantial, but it charts growth from a low level. In empirical terms, the impact is less positive: almost one-third of people in the UK aged 50-64 are not working. In fact, a greater number are becoming jobless than finding employment: almost 40% of employment and support allowance claimants are over 50, an indication that many older people are unable to easily find new and sustainable work.

This is unsustainable: by 2020, an estimated 12.5m jobs will become vacant as a result of older people leaving the workforce. Yet there will only be 7 million younger people to fill them. If we can no longer rely on immigration to fill the gaps, employers will have to shed their prejudices, workplaces will have to be adapted, and social services will have to step in to provide the care that ageing people can no longer give their grandchildren, ageing spouses or parents if they remain in the workforce.


Forcing older people to work longer if they cannot easily do so can cause more harm than good

But forcing older people to work longer if they cannot easily do so can cause more harm than good. Prof Debora Price, director of the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing, told me: “There is evidence to suggest that opportunities for people to work beyond state pension age might well be making inequalities worse, since those able to work into later life tend to be men who are highly educated and have been in higher-paid jobs.”

One answer is to return to Bismarck’s original plan, whereby the state pension can be accessed early by anyone who chooses to collect a smaller pension sum at an age lower than the state retirement age, perhaps because of poor health or other commitments.

This option, however, was rejected last week by John Cridland, the former head of the Confederation of British Industry’s business lobby group, who was appointed by the government in March 2016 to help cut the UK’s £100bn a year pension costs by reviewing the state pension age.

Instead, Cridland has recommended that the state pension age should rise from 67 to 68 by 2039, seven years earlier than currently timetabled. This will push the state retirement age back for a year for anyone in their early 40s. Cridland has rejected calls for early access to the state pension for those in poor health, but has left the door open for additional means-tested support to be made available one year before state pension age for those unable to work owing to ill health or caring responsibilities.

In spite of their anxieties about money, one of the things I have been most struck by, in my many conversations with older readers, is the pleasure they take in life.

One grandmother told me: “Last week, I swept across a crowded pub to pick up a raffle prize … with my dress tucked into my knickers! A few years ago I would have been mortified. Not any more. Told ’em they were lucky it was cold and I had knickers on!”

Monica Hartwell, 69, is part of the team at the volunteer-run Regal theatre in Minehead, as well as the film society and the museum. “The joy of getting older is much greater self-confidence,” she told me. “It’s the loss of angst about what people think of you: the size of your bum or whether others are judging you correctly. It’s not an arrogance, but you know who you are when you’re older and all those roles you played to fit in when you were younger are irrelevant.”

  Women in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, discuss retirement. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The data bears out these experiences: 65 to 79 is the happiest age group for adults, according to the Office for National Statistics. Recently, a report claimed that women in their 80s have more enjoyable sex than those up to 30 years younger. Other research has found that 75% of those aged 50 and over are less bothered about what people think of them and 61% enjoy life more than when they were younger.

So what is the secret to a successful retirement? Private companies run courses to help those on the verge of retirement plan for changes in income, time and relationships. I have spoken to those running such courses, as well as those who have retired. The consensus is that there are five pillars, all of which rest on the “money bit” – the basic level of financial security without which later life is hard. Once that foundation is in place, retirees can build up the second pillar: a social network to replace their former work community. The third pillar is having purpose and challenging one’s mind. Fourth is ongoing personal development – exploring, questioning and learning are an important part of what makes us human; this should never stop, I was told. The fifth and final pillar is having fun.

I tried explaining final-salary pensions to a 20-year-old recently. They looked at me quizzically, as though I was telling them that I had seen a unicorn. When that same 20-year-old, however, tries to explain the traditional concept of retirement to their own children, they might well be met with the same level of incomprehension.

For their children, life might well be more like the joke that Ali Seamer emailed to me during a recent Q&A I ran with readers as part of my investigation into what retirement means today: “I’m going to have to work up to 6pm on the day of my funeral just to be able to afford the coffin,” he said.

In examining the reality of this new age of no retirement, I have become aware of two pitfalls undermining constructive debate. The first is the prejudice that an ageing population will place a huge burden on society.

This is refuted by numerous studies: the volunteer charity WRVS has done the most work to quantify the economic role played by older generations. Taking together the tax payments, spending power, caring and volunteer efforts of people aged 65-plus, it calculates that they contribute almost £40bn more to the UK economy than they receive in state pensions, welfare and health services.

The research suggests that this benefit to the economy will increase in coming years as increasing numbers of baby-boomers enter retirement. By 2030, it projects that the net contribution of older people will be worth some £75bn.

Older people’s contribution to society is not just economic. An ICM poll for the WRVS study found that 65% of older people say they regularly help out elderly neighbours; they are the most likely of all adult age groups to do so.

The second pitfall is the conflict between generations that can be caused by the issue of retirement. The financial problems of the young have been blamed on baby boomers. But the truth is that the UK pension languishes far below that which is provided in most developed countries. And this contributory, taxed income – pensioners pay tax just like anyone else – is all that many old people have to live on.

Nearly 2 million of those aged 55-64 do not have any private pension savings and despite the commonly held belief that older people are all mortgage-free, fewer than 48% of those aged 55-64 own their own homes outright and nearly a quarter are still renting. It is true that some have benefitted greatly from rises in house prices, but the cost of lending was high – often 10% or more – during the 1970s and 1980s. One in 10 of those aged 65 and over still have a mortgage.

For all the recent talk of the average pensioner household being £20 a week better off than working households, the truth is that many are actually working to supplement their income. Still, to people just entering the workforce, the lives of today’s pensioners look impossibly privileged.

Rachael Ingram sums it up. At 19, working full-time and studying for an Open University degree, she is already putting 10% of her income aside for her pension. “I shouldn’t be worrying about saving for my pension at my age,” she told me. “I’m saving money that could go towards a deposit for my first house – I’m currently renting a flat in Liverpool – or out socialising. But I have no faith in government or the state pension. There will be no one to look after me when I’m old.”

Might cricket ban close-in fielders some day?

Michael Jeh in Cricinfo


Following Matt Renshaw's concussion injury, a respected cricket writer posed the question: will we ever get to the point where short leg, bat pad and silly mid-off are banned in international cricket?

In junior cricket in Australia that is already the case. I'm not sure if it is the same in places like India, where the art of spin bowling (and batting against it) will be poorer for such rules. More realistically, given the litigious climate we inhabit, can a fielder refuse the captain's instructions to field in a position that compromises his or her safety? Especially in professional cricket, where livelihoods are at stake, what are the health and safety implications of deliberately putting an employee in a dangerous position, knowing full well that serious injury is a possible outcome?

Barely 40 years on from when Tony Greig wore a motorcycle helmet while batting, it is almost as rare to now see a first-class cricketer batting in a hat or cap.

I have seen the helmet policy change radically - from wearing one being optional, to having to sign an indemnity form if you didn't wear one, to it now being a case of "no helmet, no play" at my local cricket club. This transformation has taken place in the time it has taken my son to progress from Under-8s to U-13s, accelerated no doubt by the Phillip Hughes accident (even though Hughes was wearing a helmet at the time).

In first-class cricket, the rules are so ridiculous that you are allowed to bat in a cap, but if you wear a helmet, it has to meet certain design specs.


Can a fielder refuse the captain's instructions to field in a position that compromises his or her safety?

I remain convinced that this blind faith in helmets is breeding a generation of cricketers who are sometimes technically inept, attempting to pull off the front foot instead of getting inside the line of the ball, or trying to play shots when ducking may have been wiser. In the last two weeks, at least four international batsmen have been hit in the head in Australia and New Zealand. Musfiqur Rahim was the most serious of these cases.

Even bizarre accidents can sometimes be predictable. Umpiring in an U-9 game recently, I refused to allow a batsman to face up because he was not wearing gloves. The opposition coach (also a parent) took exception to my decision, arguing that his son was prepared to take the risk. My counter-argument was that I was not prepared to put my fielders at risk if the bat flew from his hand on a hot, sweaty Brisbane morning. The acid burn of the wrath I incurred hurts less today as I view the replay of Peter Nevill's injury in the Big Bash.

A few years ago Queensland Cricket, in a noble but futile attempt to improve the "spirit of cricket" on the grade-cricket scene, ran a workshop where every captain of every club in every grade was forced to attend an event that tried to encourage a less abrasive, more sportsmanlike atmosphere. If a captain did not attend this workshop, his team lost points if he subsequently captained that season.

On the night in question, when each group was given a different hypothetical situation to mull over (for example: what do you do if an overnight not-out batsman turned up ten minutes late the next day because he was tending to his sick child?) I raised the issue of bowlers and fielders making threats against the batsman along the lines of "I'm going to f***ing kill you." My point was that even if it was not meant literally but taken to signal they were going to bowl aggressively at the batsman's body, once those words were said, if the batsman was actually killed (or badly injured), would there be a case to answer for premeditated assault occasioning bodily harm or worse? Would witnesses (fielders, umpires, non-striker) be asked to testify, under oath, as to whether they actually heard that threat being made, regardless of whether they thought it was meant literally or not?



Gautam Gambhir leaps to avoid getting hit by a shot from Michael Clarke in Delhi, 2008 © AFP


On hearing my question, the first-grade captain of another club stood up in disgust and said that if the evening was going to descend into complete farce with questions of this nature, he was taking leave forthwith. And that was the general consensus in the room: ridiculous question, it will never happen, can we move on to more realistic scenarios please? The hypothetical question I posed was never addressed. Many in the room thought I had pushed credibility too far.

Sadly, vindication is often a dish served cold, but it has a sour aftertaste. It wasn't long before we had the coronial inquest into the death of Hughes, and many of those same questions were posed by the coroner, Michael Barnes. We never quite got to the bottom of the matter, but the coroner was sufficiently unconvinced to note: "The repeated denials of any sledging having occurred in the game in which Phillip Hughes was injured were difficult to accept. Hopefully the focus on this unsavoury aspect of the incident may cause those who claim to love the game to reflect upon whether the practice of sledging is worthy of its participants. An outsider is left to wonder why such a beautiful game would need such an ugly underside."

So what's next? Players (employees) taking legal action against selectors for unfair recruitment policies? Suing your cricket board for making you play while injured? Been there, done that, thanks Nathan Bracken!

Can a batsman who has scored more runs in first-class cricket (Callum Ferguson, for example) make a case for unfair dismissal or discrimination if they jettison him after just one Test for an X-factor cricketer (Nic Maddinson) whose numbers don't quite match up and who is given three Tests? Ridiculous? Yes. Possible? Yes.

No bat pad? No leg slip? It might be a bridge too far. It will change the face of cricket forever, of course. But it won't be the first time that an outlandish suggestion morphs into an everyday reality.

Travelling to work 'is work', European court rules

BBC News

Time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers without a fixed office should be regarded as working time, the European Court of Justice has ruled.

This time has not previously been considered work by many employers.

It means firms including those employing care workers, gas fitters and sales reps may be in breach of EU working time regulations.

BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman said it could have a "huge effect".

"Thousands of employers could now find themselves in breach of working time regulations," he added.

'Falling below minimum wage'

Chris Tutton, from the solicitors Irwin Mitchell, agreed the ruling would be "very significant" and could have an impact on pay.

"People may now be working an additional 10 hours a week once you take into account their travel time, and that may mean employers are falling below the national minimum wage level when you look at the hourly rate that staff are paid," he said.

The court says its judgment is about protecting the "health and safety" of workers as set out in the European Union's working time directive.

The directive is designed to protect workers from exploitation by employers, and it lays down regulations on matters such as how long employees work, how many breaks they have, and how much holiday they are entitled to.

'Bear the burden'

One of its main goals is to ensure that no employee in the EU is obliged to work more than an average of 48 hours a week.

The ruling came about because of an ongoing legal case in Spain involving a company called Tyco, which installs security systems.

The company shut its regional offices down in 2011, resulting in employees travelling varying distances before arriving at their first appointment.

The court ruling said: "The fact that the workers begin and finish the journeys at their homes stems directly from the decision of their employer to abolish the regional offices and not from the desire of the workers themselves.

"Requiring them to bear the burden of their employer's choice would be contrary to the objective of protecting the safety and health of workers pursued by the directive, which includes the necessity of guaranteeing workers a minimum rest period."

Give and take in the EU-US trade deal? Sure. We give, the corporations take

 

I have three challenges for the architects of a proposed transatlantic trade deal. If they reject them, they reject democracy

• 
• • George Monbiot
  • The Guardian, Monday 10 March 2014 20.30 GMT

Illustration by Daniel Pudles

Nothing threatens democracy as much as corporate power. Nowhere do corporations operate with greater freedom than between nations, for here there is no competition. With the exception of the European parliament, there is no transnational democracy, anywhere. All other supranational bodies – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations, trade organisations and the rest – work on the principle of photocopy democracy (presumed consent is transferred, copy by copy, to ever-greyer and more remote institutions) or no democracy at all.

When everything has been globalised except our consent, corporations fill the void. In a system that governments have shown no interest in reforming, global power is often scarcely distinguishable from corporate power. It is exercised through backroom deals between bureaucrats and lobbyists.

This is how negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership(TTIP) began. The TTIP is a proposed single market between the United States and the European Union, described as "the biggest trade deal in the world". Corporate lobbyists secretly boasted that they would "essentially co-write regulation". But, after some of their plans were leaked and people responded with outrage, democracy campaigners have begun to extract a few concessions. The talks have just resumed, and there's a sense that we cannot remain shut out.

This trade deal has little to do with removing trade taxes (tariffs). As the EU's chief negotiator says, about 80% of it involves "discussions on regulations which protect people from risks to their health, safety, environment, financial and data security". Discussions on regulations means aligning the rules in the EU with those in the US. But Karel De Gucht, the European trade commissioner, maintains that European standards "are not up for negotiation. There is no 'give and take'." An international treaty without give and take? That is a novel concept. A treaty with the US without negotiation? That's not just novel, that's nuts.

You cannot align regulations on both sides of the Atlantic without negotiation. The idea that the rules governing the relationship between business, citizens and the natural world will be negotiated upwards, ensuring that the strongest protections anywhere in the trading bloc will be applied universally, is simply not credible when governments on both sides of the Atlantic have promised to shred what they dismissively call red tape. There will be negotiation. There will be give and take. The result is that regulations are likely to be levelled down. To believe otherwise is to live in fairyland.

Last month, the Financial Times reported that the US is using these negotiations "to push for a fundamental change in the way business regulations are drafted in the EU to allow business groups greater input earlier in the process". At first, De Gucht said that this was "impossible". Then he said he is "ready to work in that direction". So much for no give and take.

But this is not all that democracy must give so that corporations can take. The most dangerous aspect of the talks is the insistence on both sides on a mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). ISDS allows corporations to sue governments at offshore arbitration panels of corporate lawyers, bypassing domestic courts. Inserted into other trade treaties, it has been used by big business to strike down laws that impinge on its profits: the plain packaging of cigarettes; tougher financial rules; stronger standards on water pollution and public health; attempts to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

At first, De Gucht told us there was nothing to see here. But in January the man who doesn't do give and take performed a handbrake turn and promised that there would be a three-month public consultation on ISDS, beginning in "early March". The transatlantic talks resumed on Monday. So far there's no sign of the consultation.

And still there remains that howling absence: a credible explanation of why ISDS is necessary. As Kenneth Clarke, the British minister promoting the TTIP, admits: "It was designed to support businesses investing in countries where the rule of law is unpredictable, to say the least." So what is it doing in a US-EU treaty? A report commissioned by the UK government found that ISDS "is highly unlikely to encourage investment" and is "likely to provide the UK with few or no benefits". But it could allow corporations on both sides of the ocean to sue the living daylights out of governments that stand in their way.

Unlike Karel De Gucht, I believe in give and take. So instead of rejecting the whole idea, here are some basic tests which would determine whether or not the negotiators give a fig about democracy.

First, all negotiating positions, on both sides, would be released to the public as soon as they are tabled. Then, instead of being treated like patronised morons, we could debate these positions and consider their impacts.

Second, every chapter of the agreement would be subject to a separate vote in the European parliament. At present the parliament will be invited only to adopt or reject the whole package: when faced with such complexity, that's a meaningless choice.

Third, the TTIP would contain a sunset clause. After five years it would be reconsidered. If it has failed to live up to its promise of enhanced economic performance, or if it reduces public safety or public welfare, it could then be scrapped. I accept that this would be almost unprecedented: most such treaties, unlike elected governments, are "valid indefinitely". How democratic does that sound?

So here's my challenge to Mr De Gucht and Mr Clarke and the others who want us to shut up and take our medicine: why not make these changes? If you reject them, how does that square with your claims about safeguarding democracy and the public interest? How about a little give and take?