Whither free market? Carillion the Government's preferred private contractor maybe bailed out.

Aditya Chakrabortty in The Guardian



You may never have heard of Carillion. There’s no reason you should have. Its lack of glamour is neatly summed up by the name it sported in the 90s: Tarmac. But since then it has grown and grown to become the UK’s second-largest building firm – and one of the biggest contractors to the British government. Name an infrastructure pie in the UK and the chances are Carillion has its fingers in it: the HS2 rail link, broadband rollout, the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, the Library of Birmingham. It maintains army barracks, builds PFI schools, lays down roads in Aberdeen. The lot.

There’s just one snag. For over a year now, Carillion has been in meltdown. Its shares have dropped 90%, it’s issued profit warnings, and it’s on to its third chief executive within six months. And this week, the government moved into emergency mode. A group of ministers held a crisis meeting on Thursday to discuss the firm. Around the table, reports the FT, were business secretary Greg Clark, as well as ministers from the Cabinet Office, health, transport, justice, education and local government. Even the Foreign Office sent a representative.


Why did Chris Grayling give the HS2 contract to a company that was already in existential difficulties?

That roll call says all you need to know about the public significance of what happens next at Carillion. This is a firm that employs just under 20,000 workers in Britain – and the same again abroad. It has a huge chain of suppliers – and its habit of going in for joint ventures with other construction businesses means that a collapse at Carillion would send shockwaves through the industry and through the government’s public works programme.

To see what this means, take the HS2 rail link, where Carillion this summer was part of a consortium that won a £1.4bn contract to knock tunnels through the Chilterns. If Carillion goes under, what happens to the largest infrastructure project in Europe? What happens to its partners on the deal, British firm Kier, and France’s Eiffage? The project will need to be put back and the taxpayer will almost certainly have to step in.

Imagine that same catastrophe befalling dozens of other projects across the UK and you get a sense of what’s at stake. Jobs will be cut, schools will go unbuilt (just a couple of months ago, Oxfordshire county council pulled the plug on a 10-year schools project) – and the government’s entire private finance initiative (PFI) model for building this country’s essential services will be shaken to the core. The dirty secret of PFI and all government attempts to pass public services into the private realm is that the shareholders make profits while the taxpayers remain on the hook for any losses.

After all, this isn’t the only case where the public sector’s reliance on one giant private-sector player endangers the provision of basic services. As my colleague Rob Davies reports in today’s paper, crisis-hit Four Seasons Health Care has run into yet another roadblock in its rescue talks. If those negotiations fail, then the big question will be who will look after the 17,000 elderly and vulnerable people in its care.

Carillion crisis: fears major government contractor is on the verge of collapse



Or look at rail, where as I wrote this week, transport secretary Chris Grayling has come to a disastrous deal (sorry, “pragmatic solution”) to allow Virgin Trains to get out of their contract to run the East Coast mainline three years early. The public will have to step into the breach with some makeshift arrangements and will forego hundreds of millions in lost franchise payments. The train operators will be able to go about their business and even take on new franchises.

Should Carillion go down, there will be another truckload of questions for Grayling. He awarded the firm its £1.4bn HS2 contract last July – by which time the writing was already on the wall. That job from the Department of Transport may have helped tide Carillion over for a bit – but why did the transport secretary give the work to a company that was already in existential difficulties? A firm known to have grown too quickly by borrowing hundreds of millions. A firm that just a few months later came under investigation of the Financial Conduct Authority. I have long thought that Grayling is less serious minister and more an unexploded landmine. I just wonder what the trigger will be.

But what happens to that minister is just one debacle of many as far as Carillion is concerned. Today you may never have heard of Carillion. Soon you may wish it had remained that way.

Public Benefit Company to replace Public Limited Company

Three-quarters of British voters want our rail, gas and water renationalised but it’s expensive – there is a business model that offers the best of both worlds


Will Hutton in The Guardian

Public ownership is fashionable again. Turning over Britain’s public assets, lock, stock and barrel into private ownership and relying only on light-touch regulation to ensure they were managed to deliver a wider public interest was always a risky bet. And that bet has not paid off.

Recent polls show an astonishing 83% in favour of nationalising water, 77% in favour of electricity and gas and 76% in favour of rail. It is not just that this represents a general fall in trust in business. The privatised utilities are felt to be in a different category: they are public services. But there is a widespread view that demanding profit targets have overridden public service obligations. And the public is right. 

Thames Water, under private equity ownership, has been the most egregious example, building up sky-high debts as it distributed excessive dividends to its private-equity owners via a holding company in Luxembourg, a move designed to minimise UK tax obligations. As the Cuttill report highlighted, at current rates of investment it will take Thames 357 years to renew the London’s water mains: it takes 10 years in Japan.

Equally, BT’s investment in universal national high-speed broadband coverage has been slow and inadequate, while few would argue that the first target of the rail operators has been quality passenger service – culminating in the most recent scandal of Stagecoach and Virgin escaping their contractual commitments. Most commuters, crowded into expensive trains, have become increasing fans of public ownership. Jeremy Corbyn’s commitment to renationalisation surprised everyone with its popularity.

The trouble is, it’s expensive: at least £170bn on most estimates. Of course the proposed increase in public debt by around 10% of GDP will be matched by the state owning assets of 10% of GDP, but British public accounting is not so rational. The emphasis will be on the debt, not the assets, and in any case there are better causes – infrastructure spending – for which to raise public debt levels.

And once owned publicly, the newly nationalised industries will once again be subject to the Treasury’s borrowing limits. If there are spending cuts, their capital investment programmes will be cut. What voters want is the best of both worlds. Public services run as public services, but with all the dynamism and autonomy of being in the private sector, not least being able to borrow for vital investment. It seems impossible, but building on the proposals of the Big Innovation Centre’s Purposeful Company Taskforce, there is a way to pull off these apparently irreconcilable objectives – and without spending any money.

The government should create a new category of company – the public benefit company (PBC) – which would write into its constitution that its purpose is the delivery of public benefit to which profit-making is subordinate. For instance, a water company’s purpose would be to deliver the best water as cheaply as possible and not siphon off excessive dividends through a tax haven. The next step would be to take a foundation share in each privatised utility as a condition of its licence to operate, requiring the utility to reincorporate as a public-benefit company.


Regulators, however good their intentions, too easily see the world from the view of the industry they regulate

The foundation share would give the government the right to appoint independent non-executive directors whose role would be see that the public interest purposes of the PBC were being discharged as promised.

This would include ensuring the company remained domiciled in the UK for tax purposes and guaranteeing that consumers, social and public benefit interests came first.

The non-executive directors would engage directly with consumer challenge groups whose mandate is to be a sounding board for consumer interests but at present are little more than talking shops, and deliver an independent report to an office of public services each year, giving an account of how the public interest was being achieved. It is important to have an independent third party: regulators, however good their intentions, too easily see the world from the view of the industry they regulate.

Because the companies would remain owned by private shareholders, their borrowing would not be classed as public debt. The existing shareholders in the utility would remain shareholders, and their rights to votes and dividends would remain unimpaired. So there would be no need to compensate them – no need, in short to pay £170bn buying the assets back. Indeed, the scope to borrow could be used to fund a wave of new investment in our utilities.

But the new company’s obligation would be to its users first and foremost, and would be free to borrow free from any Treasury constraint. Nor would any secretary of state get drawn into the operational running of the industries – one of the major reasons Attlee-style nationalisation failed. Inevitably decisions get politicised. 

The aim would be to combine the best of both the public and private sectors. If companies do not deliver what they have promised, there should be a well-defined system of escalating penalties, starting with the right to sue companies and ending with taking all the assets into public ownership if a company persistently neglected its obligations. But the cost would be very much lower, because the share price would fall as it became clear it was operating illegally.

Britain would have created a new class of company. Indeed, there is the opportunity to start now. If Virgin and Stagecoach are unable to fulfil their contractual obligations on the East Coast line, the company should be reincorporated as a public benefit company. The shareholders would remain, but the newly constituted board would take every decision in the interests of the travelling public guaranteed by the independent directors, empowered consumer challenge groups and the office of public services – so that the taxpayer can trust her or his money is spent properly. Corbyn and John McDonnell have a way of delivering what the electorate want – and still keeping the industries off the public balance sheet. The circle can be squared.

Tea and sympathy won't suffice as England face up to another drubbing

George Dobell in Cricinfo


There's a pattern of behaviour prevalent in England which dictates that, in times of extreme stress or emotion, we should do almost anything but acknowledge the truth.

So we sit around the hospital beds of the dying, telling them they'll soon be back on their feet. We tell doctors we hardly drink, never smoke and go the gym almost every night. We go to funerals and tell each other the wife-beating alcoholic had a heart of gold. Her bottom never looks big in that and there's almost nothing - not nuclear war or zombie apocalypse - that can't be overcome with a nice cup of tea.

It is, in some ways, a wonderful quality. It was that stoic refusal to acknowledge reality that enabled a previous generation to win a war that, in cricket terms, had them following on in gloomy light and on a pitch showing signs of uneven bounce. And the band on Titanic - just like the Barmy Army - played all the way down.

But there are moments when it is also an incredibly irritating characteristic. And damaging. So, just as you really should get that mole checked out, just as that lump probably won't go away, England really should acknowledge that this Ashes series really wasn't close.

There were moments - flashes might be a better word - when it looked as if England could compete. When James Vince reached 83 in Brisbane; when Australia were reduced to 76 for 4 in the same match; when Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan took England to 368 for 4 in Perth. On these occasions, it appeared England were working their way into a good position.

But they only made 302 in that first innings in Brisbane. They trailed by 215 on first innings in Adelaide (even though Australia declared their own first innings with eight wickets down). Only three men passed 25 in England's first innings in Perth, and only two men in the top seven managed more than 22 on the flattest Melbourne pitch you ever will wish you hadn't seen.

This was a team trying to snatch a goal on the break. This was Frank Bruno catching Mike Tyson with his left hook; Greg Thomas dislodging Viv Richards' cap; England's openers enjoying a good start (they were 101 without loss) against West Indies at Lord's in 1984; Graham Dilley reducing them to 54 for 5 at Lord's in 1988. Looking back now, they were far from reflective of the general balance of power. They were the cat hissing at the dog; the condemned man cursing his firing squad. To suggest they represent squandered opportunities is largely delusional.

So, while it's true that Steve Smith was a difference between the teams, he wasn't the only difference. The same could equally be said about Nathan Lyon and the Australian pace attack. So that's the batting, pace bowling and spin bowling covered, then. England were out-gunned from the start. They haven't squandered moments of great promise. They've occasionally caught sight of them in the distance when the clouds parted for a moment. But, actually, now they look again, it may have been a cow.

You can't really blame players for buying into the narrative - a narrative repeated several times by Joe Root and most recently by James Anderson - that the series was decided by a few key moments. It comes with the territory in top-level sport that the protagonists have to maintain high levels of self-belief. They have to believe they can win. It's part of the make-up of a champion.

But you would hope that none of those in positions of power fall for such nonsense. You would hope they reflect on this Ashes series - a series in which Australia scored in excess of 600 twice, won by an innings twice (despite losing the toss on both occasions), had the three highest run-scorers and four highest wicket-takers - and understand that it was a rout.

Nor should it be dismissed as an aberration. England have now lost nine of their most recent 11 overseas Tests. Sure, playing in Australia and India is tough. But England didn't win in the Caribbean, either. Or Bangladesh. Or New Zealand, the UAE or Sri Lanka. Living off their success against South Africa in 2015 - excellent result though it was - is a car driving on fumes.

It'll keep happening, too. Sure, they may snatch the odd series - perhaps in New Zealand in a couple of months, perhaps in the Caribbean at the start of 2019 - because they have, in Ben Stokes and Root and Anderson, a few top-quality players. But generally, such wins will come very much against the norm while England prioritise their white-ball development at the expense of their red-ball team. Until they can develop more spin and fast bowlers, until they stop hiding behind wins on home surfaces, they will remain also-rans in Test cricket.

Some will say this tour went wrong in September. And it is true England lost a key player - and just a bit of their energy and equilibrium - when Stokes was arrested that night in Bristol. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the affair (and the proper authorities can decide that) there are lessons to be learned about the level of sacrifice inherent in the life of an international sportsperson. There might well be some justification for some of Stokes' actions that night. But should he have been there in the first place?

But it went wrong long before that. It went wrong when the ECB continued their exclusive relationship with a subscription broadcaster long after it had become clear it was damaging the long-term health of the game. As a result, cricket lost relevance in the public consciousness. The talent pool on which the game relies has grown shallow and is absurdly over-reliant upon the private schools, Asian and ex-pat communities.

It went wrong when the Championship was shoved into the margins of the season, when counties were incentivised for fielding teams of young, England-qualified players, when the ECB stopped believing in their own domestic competitions and allowed them to be diluted and devalued.

While the suspicion lingers that Root caught the bug that laid him low on the final day of the series while eating jelly and ice-cream at a kid's birthday party (it was his son's birthday on the fourth day of the game), that will do nothing to derail the narrative that he lacks the maturity or gravitas of a leader, even though there is no evidence for that save his boyish face.

To see Root in the field, coaxing and cajoling his side into another effort, was to see a born leader. To see him behind the scenes, handling each crisis with calm good humour and ensuring this tour did not sink to the levels of the 2013-14 debacle, was to see a young man with strength, energy and integrity. He simply wasn't dealt a handful of aces. He's not the problem here.

And nor is Trevor Bayliss. Sure, he's not a technical coach. And nor is he a selector in the sense that he has the knowledge of county cricket to offer much there. His job, in essence, is to keep the first-team environment positive and focussed. And he's good at that. It's not his fault that England can't produce pace or spin bowlers. He's not an alchemist.

No, the trouble is much higher up the pyramid than that. The problem is the ECB chief executive, Tom Harrison, trying to kid us that English cricket is in good health, and Andrew Strauss who has achieved little in his time as director of England cricket other than settling a couple of old scores: getting rid of Peter Moores and Kevin Pietersen. If teams are judged by their success in global events - as Strauss has always said - it is worth remembering they did worse in the 2017 Champions Trophy than the 2013 Champions Trophy.

Blaming Stokes or Bayliss or Root for this loss will solve nothing. It's more fundamental change - and an acknowledgement of their problems - that England require. And a nice cup of tea. Obviously.

Cleaning is a good meditation practice

Shoukei Matsumoto in The Guardian

Mental health counsellors often recommend that clients clean their home environments every day. Dirt and squalor can be symptoms of unhappiness or illness. But cleanliness is not only about mental health. It is the most basic practice that all forms of Japanese Buddhism have in common. In Japanese Buddhism, it is said that what you must do in the pursuit of your spirituality is clean, clean, clean. This is because the practice of cleaning is powerful.

Of course, as a monk who is dedicated to spiritual life, I recommend Buddhist concepts and practices. But you don’t have to convert to a new religion to learn from it. Many people’s associations with the word “religion” may include a set of rules to regulate people’s values and actions; the creation of an irrational transcendent entity; or the idea of a crutch for people who cannot think for themselves. In my view, though, a respectable religion does not exist to bind one’s values or actions. It is there to free people from the systems and standards that order society. In Japanese characters, the word “freedom” is written as “caused by oneself”.


Cleaning practice is not a tool but a purpose in itself

Cleaning practice, by which I mean the routines whereby we sweep, wipe, polish, wash and tidy, is one step on this path towards inner peace. In Japanese Buddhism, we don’t separate a self from its environment, and cleaning expresses our respect for and sense of wholeness with the world that surrounds us.

You can see the presence of nature in the Japanese traditions of sado (tea ceremonies) or kado (flower arranging), which were both originally born from Buddhism. But the idea of “nature” in Japan has been strongly influenced by western culture. Pronounced “shizen”, the characters reflect a human-centred version of the world in which humans stand at the top of a hierarchy as the agent or messenger of the creator.

But there is another sense of “nature” derived from ancient Japanese. Pronounced “jinen”, the same characters once meant “let it go” or “it is as it is” – a definition much closer to Buddhist philosophy, with its links to animism and the worship of nature.

After Buddhism and the other philosophies were introduced to the Japanese people, they began to see nature not only in humans, but also in all sentient beings, and even in mountains, rivers, plants and trees. This view of nature persists in modern Japanese culture – for example in Pokémon’s characters or Studio Ghibli films such as Arrietty, with their environmentalist messages. As a result, even when we pronounce the characters for nature as “shizen”, the term still carries with it the Japanese idea that humans are not excluded from nature, but are part of it.

Buddhism says the notion that you have your own personality is an illusion that your ego creates – and cleaning is a means to let go of this. The characters for “human being” in Japanese mean “person” and “between”. Human being is “a person in between”. Thus, you as a human being only exist through your relations with others – people such as friends, colleagues and family. You as a person have some particular words, facial expressions and behaviours, but these arise only through your interaction and connections with other people. This is the Buddhist concept “en” or interdependence.

Buddhist cleaning practice provides each of us with an opportunity to understand this concept. You don’t have to acquire special techniques, hire a professional cleaning consultant, or perform the special rituals used by senior monks.

The basics are very simple. Sweep from the top to the bottom of your home, wipe along the stream of objects and handle everything with care. After you start cleaning your home, you can extend cleaning practice to other things, including your body. How you can apply cleaning practice to your mind is a question I want to leave unanswered, but if you practise cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning, you will eventually know that you have been cleaning your inner world along with the outer one. 

Of course Japanese temples sometimes employ cleaners when they are short of hands. But Buddhist monks also clean by themselves. This is because the cleaning practice is not a tool but a purpose in itself. Would you outsource your meditation practice to others?

As with meditation practice, there is no endpoint of the cleaning practice. Right after I am satisfied with the cleanliness of the garden I have swept, fallen leaves and dust begin to accumulate. Similarly, right after I feel peaceful with my ego-less mindfulness, anger or anxiety begin once again to emerge in my mind. The ego endlessly arises in my mind, so I keep cleaning for my inner peace. No cleaning, no life.

Cosmetic changes won't mask England's deep structural flaws

George Dobell in Cricinfo

Having carried the drinks for most of the Ashes tour, Gary Ballance now looks set to carry the can for it.

Ballance, despite not having played a first-class game on the tour, is one of the few involved in this campaign who appears to find his place in jeopardy ahead of the two-Test series in New Zealand in March. A couple of others - notably Jake Ball and James Vince - might be waiting nervously for a tap on the shoulder, too.

But most of the main protagonists in the series - the batsmen who have averaged in the 20s, the bowlers who have averaged over 100 - look set to keep their places. And most of those behind the scenes - the administrators who make the policies that have held England back, as well as the development coaches who have failed to develop a player for years - appear to be immune from consequence.

Nobody is advocating a return to the days when England used 29 players in a series (as they did in the 1989 Ashes). And nobody is advocating an adoption of the culture prevalent in football where managers - well, managers anywhere but in north London - are never more than a bad fortnight away from the sack.

But there has to be a balance. And the problem England - and the ECB - have at present is that they are in danger of breeding and encouraging mediocrity. And, while what appears to be a cosy life goes on for many of those involved, nobody is taking any responsibility.

The ECB have, you know, a pace bowling programme. It is designed to identify the most talented young bowlers and provide them with the best coaching and support to ensure they avoid injury as much as possible. It is designed to optimise their ability and ensure England get the best out of them.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

But let's look at the results: their first change in this Test is a medium-fast bowler who was born in South Africa and invited to England as a 17-year-old. And hard though Tom Curran has worked - and his efforts have been faultless - he has not looked likely to take a wicket. Meanwhile the fast bowlers who have developed in county cricket - the likes of Jamie Overton, Olly Stone, Mark Wood, Atif Sheikh, George Garton, Stuart Meaker and Zak Chappell - are either injured or not deemed consistent enough for selection.

The poverty of the programme has, to some extent, been masked by the enduring excellence of James Anderson and Stuart Broad. That's the same Anderson who went through the Loughborough experience, sustained a stress fracture, lost his ability to swing the ball and reverted to bowling how he did originally. Take them out of this attack - and time will eventually defeat even the apparently indefatigable Anderson - and you have real trouble for England. You have an attack that will struggle to keep them in the top six of the Test rankings.Mason Crane saw a chance fall between him and short leg Getty Images

The ECB have a spin bowling programme, too. A programme that has delivered so little that, here in Sydney, they have taken a punt on a talented kid who, in a more sympathetic domestic system, would be learning his trade bowling over after over for his county. But, as it is, with the Championship squeezed into the margins of the season, Mason Crane (who did fine here after a nervous start; Shane Warne took 1 for 150 on Test debut, remember) has struggled to warrant selection for Hampshire (he played half their Championship games in 2017 and claimed 16 wickets). Other promising young spinners - the likes of Ravi Patel and Josh Poysden - could tell a similar tale.

Meanwhile Adam Riley, who not so long ago was viewed as the most talented young spinner in England - some well-known pundits recommended him for Test selection - didn't play a Championship game for his county, Kent, last season having previously been identified for inclusion in the ECB's spin programme. Does that sound like a success story?

It is not just those at Loughborough to blame. The county system is ever more marginalised by those who set the policies in English cricket - the likes of Tom Harrison and Andrew Strauss - so the development of Test quality cricketers has been arrested. The struggle to develop red-ball players will only be accentuated by the decision to have a window for white-ball cricket in the middle of the season. With so many games played either before the end of May or after the start of September (when the start time is brought forward to 10.30am), the need for quality spin and pace has been diminished. Why bother to invest in the time and effort of developing such players or fast bowler when the likes of Darren Stevens can hit the seam at 65 mph, nibble the ball about, and prove highly effective?

But will anyone be held accountable for this Ashes defeat? Will the director of England cricket take responsibility? Will the development coaches? Will the executives who prioritise T20 over the success of the Test side? Judging by recent events - Harrison telling us that, actually, England cricket has had a fine year, that the pace bowling programme is delivering "excellent results" (he namechecked Mark Footitt as an example of its success) and that changes to the governance of the sport somehow represent an "exciting moment" - the answer is a resounding no.

In the longer term, there is talk around the camp of the creation of a new position. A manager might be appointed - particularly on tours - who would be responsible for discipline within the squad and act as a sort of big brother for players who may be struggling. It would be no surprise if that new appointment - no doubt a recently retired player with experience of such tours - was in place by the time England depart for Sri Lanka in October.

There's probably some sense in such an idea. But it does grate a little that England's response to this latest series loss abroad is the appointment of another layer of middle management.
It's not as if they don't have a fair few figures on tour already. There's already a coach, an assistant coach, a batting coach and, in normal circumstances, a bowling coach. That's before we even consider the doctor, physio, masseuse, selector, strength & conditioning coach, topiarist and women who makes balloon animals. OK, those last two were made up, but you get the point. Does another manager on tour really answer the questions England are facing? Or does such an appointment further obfuscate who takes responsibility when things go wrong?

The fact is this: England have lost eight out of their last 10 away Tests and won none of them. The only away series they have won since the end of 2012 was the one in South Africa in 2015. Despite being awash with money (relatively speaking), England are about to slip to fifth in the Test rankings.

They really shouldn't be satisfied with that.

Ashes defeats used to hurt. They should hurt. If the ECB have in any way become inured to such pain, if they are in any way content with that away record and anything other than entirely focused on improving it, they are not just accepting mediocrity, they are bathing and swilling in it.

The Myth of Bhima Koregaon Reinforces the Identities It Seeks to Transcend

BY ANAND TELTUMBDE  in The Wire

The resolve to fight Hindutva forces is certainly laudable, but the myth used for the purpose may be grossly counterproductive.

Bhima Koregaon victory pillar. Credit: Wikipedia

Two hundred years ago, the last battle of the Anglo-Maratha war was fought at Koregaon village on the banks of Bhima river near Pune. The battle marked the firm hold of the British Empire in India. The British erected an obelisk at the battle ground in the memory of the dead. It has 49 names, 22 of them are identified by their ‘nak’ suffix as Mahars. It was construed as the testimony to the gallantry of Mahar soldiers, and was rightly used by the first batch of Mahar leaders such as Gopal Baba Walangkar, Shivram Janba Kamble and even Ramji Ambedkar, B.R. Ambedkar’s father, when pleading the British for the restoration of Mahar recruitment in the British army when it was stopped in 1893. The stoppage of Mahar recruitment was a consequence of the Indian uprising of 1857, after which the British reassessed their recruiting strategies to include only those from ‘martial races’ in the army.

But when Babasaheb Ambedkar painted the Battle of Bhima Koregaon as the battle of Mahar soldiers against their caste oppression in Peshwa rule, he was creating a pure myth. As myths are required to build movements, he perhaps saw its necessity then. But after a century, when it solidifies into a quasi-history and tends to push Dalits deeper into an identitarian marshland, it should become a worrisome matter. Many Dalit organisations recently formed a joint front to observe the 200th anniversary of this battle as a campaign to launch an attack on the new Peshwai, the rising Brahmanic rule of the Hindutva forces. Their long marches culminated into an Elgar Parishad (conference) at the Shaniwarwada at Pune on December 31. While the resolve to fight the Hindutva forces is certainly laudable, the myth used for the purpose may be grossly counterproductive insofar as it reinforces identitarian tendencies whereas the necessity is to transcend them.

As regards history, it is a fact that when the East India Company developed its military aspirations, it recruited Dalits in disproportionately large numbers, perhaps for their unflinching loyalty and faithfulness and also because they were cheaply available. One finds disproportionate numbers of the Namshudras in Bengal, the Parayas in Madras and the Mahars in Maharashtra in its army. If the Dalits wanted to claim significant contribution to the establishment of the British Raj in India, it may not be as such incorrect. But to attribute motive of fighting caste oppression to their soldiery shall be far-fetched and unhistorical.

The East India Company fought and won several battles from the first one in Plassey in 1757 before the last battle of the Anglo-Maratha war. Obviously, all of them were not against the Peshwas. Most of them were not even against the Hindus. They were simply wars between the two ruling powers, which their soldiers fought just as their duty. To make them appear as anti-caste or anti-religion will not only be factually incorrect, but also an erroneous understanding of historical caste. Caste, until after the late 19th century when there was a substantial spread of education among the Dalits, has been the life-world of people. They took caste as a natural order and their oppression as the fate that they had to meekly endure. Therefore, there was no question of any resistance to caste, leave apart physical war against them. Contrary to such myths of bravery, there is no evidence of any militant resistance the Dalits ever posed against the Brahmanic oppression.

With regard to formation of warring armies, they were not purely composed on communal lines. While the Dalit soldiers may be relatively in large numbers in British army, it is not that they did not exist in Muslim or Maratha armies. As with communities, all castes existed in all the armies. In the Battle of Koregaon, one of the three wings of the Peshawa infantry was Arabs, which had reportedly fought most fiercely and had most casualties. What could be their motivation? Did they want the Peshwa’s Brahmanic rule to triumph? The fact is that they simply fought as soldiers for their masters, as the Dalits did for theirs. It would be grossly erroneous to attribute loftier motives to them than this.

Anglo-Maratha war. Credit: Wikipedia

Before the battle of Koregaon on January 1, 1818, the Peshwas had been reduced to weaklings by the earlier two Anglo-Maratha wars. As a matter of fact, the Peshwa Bajirao II had fled Pune and was attempting to attack Pune from outside. Peshwa’s army comprised 20,000 cavalry and 8,000 infantry, out of which around 2,000 men, divided into three infantry parties each comprising 600 Arabs, Gosains and soldiers, mounted the attack. The majority of the attackers were Arabs, reputed to be the finest among the Peshwa soldiers. The Company troops comprised 834 men, including around 500 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Regiment of Bombay Native Infantry, which was manned predominantly by Mahar soldiers. Although there is no record of their exact number, it is obvious that all of them were not Mahars. Even going by the casualties, the majority of those died in the battle (27 out of 49) were not Mahars. The Peshwa army ultimately withdrew, fearing the arrival of a larger British force led by General Joseph Smith. In view of these factual details, it may be misleading to portray the battle as Mahars’ vengeance against the Peshwas’ Brahmanic rule.

There is no evidence that after the defeat of Peshwai, there was any relief that accrued to Mahars. As a matter of fact, their caste oppression continued unabated. Rather, as hinted earlier, the ungrateful British stopped their recruitment to the army, refusing to acknowledge their past bravery. They ignored their pleas to restore recruitment until threatened by the First World War, in the wake of which they restarted their recruitment. There is no dispute that the British colonial rule brought Dalits numerous benefits, to the extent that the very birth of the Dalit movement may be attributable to it. But it must simultaneously be understood that it was unintended and primarily dictated by their colonial logic. It is unfortunate that Dalits blind themselves to this reality with their identity blinkers.

It is equally incorrect to say that since the Peshwa forces belonged to the Maratha confederacy, they were the nationalist forces, and the defeating British forces were the imperialists. To see historical facts through the spectacles of a non-existent nation is equally condemnable. There was no concept of an Indian nation; as a matter of fact, this concept eludes us even to this day. Paradoxically, India itself is by and large a gift of British rule, having forged a political unity of vast landmass of the subcontinent. Those who have been driving it as a nation for their selfish gains are indeed debauched like Peshwas and are the biggest anti-nationals.

The Dalits do need to fight this new Peshwai recreated by the Hindutva marauders. For that, they better open their eyes to see the reality, rather than an ostrich-like look into the mythical past and imagine their greatness.

Tony Blair on Brexit

Tony Blair


2018 will be the year when the fate of Brexit and thus of Britain will be decided. 2017 was too early in the negotiation. By 2019, it will be too late.

Realistically, 2018 will be the last chance to secure a say on whether the new relationship proposed with Europe is better than the existing one. And to insist that the ‘deal’ contains the necessary detail to make the say meaningful.

Today we publish ‘What We Now Know’, what we have learnt about Brexit since 23rd June 2016.

I make no secret of my desire that Britain stays in the European Union. This is the most important decision we have taken as a nation since the Second World War. It decides the destiny and fortunes of our children for years to come. And I believe passionately that by exiting the powerful regional bloc of countries on our doorstep, to whom we are linked physically by the Channel Tunnel, commercially by the Single Market, historically by myriad ancient ties of culture and civilisation, and politically by the necessity of alliance in an era which will be dominated by the USA in the West and China and India in the East, we are making an error the contemporary world cannot understand and the generations of the future will not forgive.

But the campaign in the first instance is not to reverse the decision; but to claim the right to change our minds once we see the terms of the new relationship.

No one disputes the 2016 vote. And no one disputes that if it stands as the expression of British opinion, we will leave.

The issue is whether as facts emerge, as the negotiation proceeds and we have clarity over the alternative to present membership of the EU, we have the right to change our mind; whether the ‘will of the people’ – this much abused phrase - is deemed immutable or is permitted to mutate as our perception of reality becomes better informed. 

When we voted in 2016, we knew we were voting against our present membership of the European Union, but not what the future relationship with Europe would be.

It was like having a General Election in which the question is ‘Do You Like the Government’? If that were the question, few incumbent Governments would be re-elected.

Once we know the alternative, we should be entitled to think again, either through Parliament or an election or through a fresh referendum, which will, of course, not be a re-run of the first because it will involve this time a choice based on knowledge of the alternative to existing EU membership.

Over the past months the Brexit landscape – hitherto obscured in the fog of claim and counter claim – is being illuminated.

We have now had the Budget prediction that, due to Brexit, economic growth is going to be below expectation not just this year but averaging 1.5% for the next 5 years in a row. This has not happened for over 30 years. This is in addition to the fall in our currency, fall in living standards and now the first falls in employment.

Concomitant with that was the admission that we would have less and not more to spend on the NHS and that, for the next years at least, we will not be getting money back from Europe but, rather, giving a large sum to it.

Then there was the Northern Ireland negotiation. The claim the issue is now ‘resolved’ is risible. It is merely postponed. Instead, the negotiation revealed the nature of the real choices we face and the tension at the heart of the Government’s negotiating position.

In essence, there are 4 options in approaching the Brexit negotiation:

To re-think and stay, best done in a reformed Europe, where we use the Brexit vote as leverage to achieve reform.

To exit the political structures of the EU, but stay in the economic structures ie the Single Market and Customs Union.

To exit both the political and the economic structures of Europe but try to negotiate a bespoke deal which recreates the existing economic benefits and keeps us close to Europe politically.

To exit both structures, to make a virtue of leaving, to negotiate a basic Free Trade Agreement and market ourselves as ‘Not Europe’.

Here is the rub: all the last three options are Brexit. But they have vastly different impacts and outcomes.

The Government has ruled out option 2, is seeking to negotiate option 3, but a substantial part of the Tory Party is prepared to go for option 4.

The problem with option 3 is that this is simply not negotiable without major concessions which make a mockery of the case for leaving.

The problem with option 4 is that it would involve significant economic pain as we adjust our economy to the new terms of trade.

It is absurd to say that it is undemocratic to demand that the people be free to have a say on what the final deal is, given the wide disparity in the forms of Brexit and their consequences.

How can we assess the true ‘will of the people’ before we know what the alternative to present EU membership looks like given that the alternatives have such different effects?

Northern Ireland is a metaphor for the central Dilemma of this negotiation: we are either in the Single Market and Customs Union; or we will have a Hard Border and Hard Brexit.

It is the difference between the status of Norway and that of Canada. In the Norway case, there is full access to the Single Market but with its obligations, including freedom of movement.

In the case of Canada, there is a standard FTA with considerable easing of trade in goods but with border checks and without anything like the services access of the Single Market.

This really is a zero sum game: the nearer the Norway option, the more the obligations; the nearer the Canada option, the less the access.

It is not a matter of who is the toughest negotiator. The Dilemma flows naturally from the way the Single Market was created. It is a unique trading area with a single system of regulation and a single system of arbitration namely the ECJ.

The whole point of it is that it is not a FTA. It is qualitatively different.

So there is no way you can say I want to be out of its rules, but in its advantages.

The Single Market is one game; a FTA is another.

Think of it in this way. Suppose the English FA wants to arrange a football match with France. There are many things to negotiate about: the venue, the timing, the price of the tickets etc.

But suppose the FA then said to their French counterparts, we also want to negotiate whether we have 15 players on our team not 11. The French would say sorry but you have the wrong address, talk to the Rugby Federation.

Yet this seems to be the negotiating position of the Government.

David Davis asserts we will leave the Single Market and Customs Union but replicate ‘the exact same benefits’ in a new FTA.

Boris Johnson talks of diverging from Europe’s regulation but having frictionless border trade and full access to Europe’s services market.

The PM insists we will have the most comprehensive trade deal ever, weirdly forgetting we already have it.

Philip Hammond is arguing for close alignment to Europe after Brexit.

Meanwhile Liam Fox is cheerfully talking up the trade deals we will make once we are out of the Customs Union and away from that alignment.

Of course the FTA can be far reaching, though the more it covers the more complicated the negotiation and the greater the regulatory alignment.

But it can never replicate the ‘exact same benefits’ of the Single Market; not without obedience to its obligations and regulation.

The concessions we were rightly forced to make in respect of Northern Ireland express and expose the Dilemma.

If we want freedom of movement of people across the border on the island of Ireland, we can do it but only by effectively abandoning border controls on migration. So someone could move from mainland Europe to Dublin to Belfast to Liverpool without any check.

It is often said by Brexiteers that Norway and Sweden don't have a hard border for the movement of people. It is true. But that is because Norway is part of the Single Market; and so accepts freedom of movement.

In any event, it is now virtually conceded that Britain needs the majority of the European migrant workers and as our study shows, Brexit is already seriously harming recruitment in vital sectors, including the NHS.

If we want free movement of goods, then Northern Ireland will have to be in a relationship with the EU where the rules of the Customs Union still apply.

But if we do that, then how can the UK be out of it?

This is the conundrum we will face across the board. How will financial services and other sectors be able to trade freely in Europe without regulatory alignment?

Suppose Europe even agrees to do this on a ‘pick and choose’ basis, the ‘alignment’ they will demand will be alignment with Europe’s rules.

And how will disputes in these circumstances be arbitrated other than through the involvement of the ECJ?

Once this central Dilemma becomes manifest during the negotiation, the split in the Government will re-emerge.

The PM will still be in favour of Option 3, making the concessions and trying to present them as consistent with ‘taking back control’.

The true-believer Leavers will recognise the concessions contradict the essential reasons for leaving and will be in favour of then moving to option 4.

The British Civil Service is – or at least was in my time- probably the best in Europe. The problem isn't with the negotiators but with the negotiation.

The risk is that we end up with the worst of all worlds. We muddle along, alternating between options 3 and 4, depending on what part of the Tory Party is in the ascendency, try to ‘leave’ without really leaving, with a patchwork of arrangements which allows the Government to claim Brexit has been done; but which in reality only mean we have lost our seat at the table of rule-making.

This would be a grim outcome for the country.

And it is where the Labour Party faces its own challenge.

I would like the Labour Party to be on the high ground of progressive politics, explaining why membership of the European Union is right as a matter of principle, for profound political as well as economic reasons.

I disagree with our present position strategically.

But even tactically, it is mistaken.

First, because the Labour Party is saying that we too would do Brexit, we cannot attack its vast distractive impact. Labour could mount such a powerful assault on the Government’s record from the appalling state of the NHS to crime, which through neglect and failure to support the police is on the rise again, if we were saying to the country: here's the agenda which could be delivered for the people were not for the fact that all the energies of Government and substantial amounts of cash are devoted to Brexit.

And, second, it puts us in a vulnerable position when the Government concludes ‘the deal’ some time in 2018.

My bet is that the Government will try to negotiate an agreement which leaves much detail still to negotiate, because there is no way round the Dilemma. They will bank some low hanging fruit possibly e.g. tariff free access for goods (leaving for later non tariff issues). For Europe since they have a whacking great surplus with Britain on goods, this is a no-brainer.

But on access for services, which have driven most of our export growth over the last 20 years, are 70% of our economy, and where we have the surplus, we will be blocked without major concessions. Unless the Government has found some miraculous way round the Dilemma, they will probably try to emulate the December Northern Ireland ‘agreement’ and have some general headings – more aspiration than detail - with a lot to negotiate after March 2019 during the transitional period where Britain will continue to abide by the rules of the Single Market.

The Government will then say it is this deal or no deal and Labour will be left arguing that they would be better negotiators. This isn't credible.

And here Labour has its own ‘cake and eat it’ phrases. The Shadow Chancellor says we will not be in ‘the’ Single Market but ‘a’ Single Market.

The Shadow Industry Minister talks of keeping the benefits of the Customs Union agreements but still being free to negotiate our own trade deals.

This is confusing terrain on which to fight.

Far better to fight for the right for the country to re-think, demand that we know the full details of the new relationship before we quit the old one, go to the high ground on opposing Brexit and go after the Tories for their failures to tackle the country’s real challenges.

Make Brexit the Tory Brexit.

Make them own it 100%.

Show people why Brexit isn't and never was the answer.

Open up the dialogue with European leaders about reforming Europe, a dialogue they're more than willing to have now because they realise Brexit also damages Europe economically and politically.

At every PMQs nail each myth of the Brexit campaign, say why the Tory divisions are weakening our country - something only credible if we are opposed to Brexit not advocating a different Brexit, and challenge the whole farce head on of a Prime Minister leading our nation in a direction which even today she can't bring herself to say she would vote for.

If we do leave Europe, the governing mind will have been that of the Tory right. But, if Labour continues to go along with Brexit and insists on leaving the Single Market, the handmaiden of Brexit will have been the timidity of Labour.