Nothing to fear but fear itself .........

At the conclusion of his novel The Unnameable, Samuel Beckett, writes, 'I can't go on, I'll go on' there is disillusion, there is a sense of hopelessness, there is a sense of the human condition just making do.

Afraid of what has passed, afraid of what is to come.

In the Financial Times, January 29th 2018, Rana Foorahr described the "back story' of Davos in this financial year, as 'the fragility of nation states in a time of technological change.

The comment arose from a reported speech by Justin Trudeau, 'The pace of change has never been this fast, and yet it will never be this slow again'.

The article resonated with my reading of the book, Society of Fear by Heinz Bude.

Of what are we afraid?

Technological change, which is speeding up rapidly and leading us forward into the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution'?

In this revolution, where data is collected on each citizen either through the eavesdropping that happens, whether through our TV's, our Telephone calls, our Location Sensors, our buying habits, or most importantly through our use of social media. Our spending, our recreational choices and employment status are known.

This data is collected, analysed, bought and sold, to the extent that wherever we are, whatever we choose to do, the people who know us better than ourselves can quite literally monetise our data.

If you google, buy from Amazon or iTunes or eBay, you will be sure to be approached with very specific advertisements linked to purchases, your likes and most scarily your on line searches.

Of course we are, more often than not, quite happy with this state of affairs, however intrusive it might seem, we continue to shop on line, use search engines sign up to such as Netflix or Sky TV.

Yet, underlying our relatively relaxed use of social media, there lies a more worrying theme, described by the Prime Minister of Canada in his Davos address, as the 'fragility of nations'.

What makes nations fragile?

A recent event, the cyber attack on the NHS, provides an insight into how vulnerable, or fragile, our networked society can be. The current investigation into the alleged Russian interference in the American elections, echoed it seems by similar levels of cyber interference in referendums and elections in Britain is another example of the fragility of our democracies.

The outcome of the recent referendum asking the British people to vote on staying in or leaving the European Union it has been suggested was achieved by a combination of media influence, wealthy individuals donations to the leave campaign and an outflow of what has been called 'fake news' through social media.

Leaving the European Union, some suggest will make Britain strong again, whilst others argue that it will make our society even more fragile and certainly poorer.

Technological change is impacting on all our lives, whether it is jobs being robotised, and these robots aren't just making cars, increasingly self service checkouts at supermarkets are making staff dispensable whilst literally outsourcing the staff role to the customers who work for  free.

The richest amongst are fearful that their earnings and bonuses and share prices might not increase year on year as past performance might indicate they should. The poorest among us are fearful that there is more month or week at the end of the money and that they cannot pay the rent or feed the children. The working family is fearful that work will end. The retired, that the pension fund whether public or private, will no longer be able to afford to pay their pension.

We live in a time of rapid change, this is not altogether a bad thing, as Heinz Buder remarks quoting Paul Tillich, 'Fear debunks the lies of happiness, glamour and fame, but for Tillich it also preserves the hope - however trembling and tentative - that nothing must stay the way it is'.

For whom the bell tolls .......

A Carillon is a set of twenty three bells arranged in a chromatic sequence so that they can play a melody or struck together they play a chord.

Carillion is possibly a misspelling of carillon, it is possibly a play on words, it is possibly intended to have some significant meaning.

According to Construction News in July 1999, reporting on the change of name from Tarmac, a London based image consultant came up with the name, and a 'company insider was quoted as saying that, rather being a misspelling of Marillion, it was meant to reflect the harmonious ringing of a Carillon.

Well the bells are ringing now.

The basic stratagem of capitalist companies is always to 'privatise profit and socialise risk'. So there is no doubt that senior executives have pocketed some very large sums of money, whilst the shareholders have been well rewarded also, but despite the company racking up debt levels that went beyond risky and burning money to service the debts, the bonuses continued to be paid,

Apres Moi la deluge so to say and now the deluge has arrived, not just a deluge a Tsunami of debt that has wiped out the company and left a maelstrom of damage in its wake, from employees left relying on the state, the pensions fund left relying on the state and suppliers left relying on nobody but themselves.

Hospitals unbuilt, ring roads left as bike tracks for local kids and Carillons HS2 partners picking up the pieces.

So the bells are ringing:

Certainly this must announce the end of PFI. It was never a good idea to start with but when the market gains precedence over common sense and public ownership is discredited then the idea that private sector operators, disciplined by the market, can invest to build and the public sector then leases the output, whether it is a hospital, a road or railway, is sold a a 'win win'.

Except it never was a win because the profits are privatised and the risks are socialised, ergo the East Coast Franchise.

It might mean the end of the market as king and queen and moderator and play maker. As be all and end all of all things. The neo-liberal market consensus which emerged in the Thatcher Reagan years allowed that the market could be thought of as weather. It was something that existed in a self regulating and benign way.

Carillon's demise surely now should require a sensible and grown up conversation and especially around the privatisation of profit and the socialisation risk?

Sadly government's don't do grown up. Mrs Thatcher, I am told on reasonably good authority and as it was possible to read in the newspapers and watch on TV, always sought simple answers to complex questions. Well, PFI was a simple answer as was, the market knows best, but we can now see that the question of how we invest in and build infrastructure was a much more complex question.

It might, but almost certainly will not mean, the end of capitalism.

Bernie Sanders writing in the Guardian this week described how the richest 1% own more than the other 99%. That 1% hides its bounty in Tax Havens, doesn't pay its fair share in Tax, and as Sanders points out these are not secret people we know there names, we even know where they live.

In medieval times, carillons were first used as a way of notifying people of church, services, and as a warning for such secular events as fires, storms and wars.

Again the bells are ringing.

In the Celtic Eucharist at Carlisle Cathedral (but not only there) the bell is rung three times to signify the real presence of Christ at the Eucharist, it is rung twice, at the elevation of the cup and of the host. As it rings we are reminded that in response to Christ's presence there must  be change, in our lives, in our communities, in our societies and in our politics.

The prophets are ringing the bells of change, it is their job under God to do so, it is our job to heed their warnings.

All the news is old news .....

Apart from the crossword I am finding very little to challenge me when I read the newspapers.

Headline after headline tells me again and again about Trump, Brexit and the woes of this woeful Government.

Trump is of course doing what he has always done. He does deals and on his reality TV show he fires people so there is little new there.

The question of whether he will be impeached is constantly debated.

The links with Russia are implied but whether there are ghosts in the machine only Mr Mueller is placed to discover.

Brexit continues to tease the public mind.

Eurosceptics continue in their attempts to run the debate and therefore the show.

The europhiles continue to argue their case in the hope that the show will stall and a new referendum will ensure that Brexit is kicked into the long grass.

We have it seems a Government which can do nothing well, from the NHS to the Railways and beyond, led by a hapless leader, who, having surrendered a majority continues to Govern, almost but not quite, in absentia.

The BBC clearly has issues also.

The news is not news, neither is it 'fake' news, it is partial reporting of some of the events, filed under Trump. Brexit and a Government which has it in its sights.

So I continue to read fiction.

And currently theology.

The Gods are silent.

The Gods have no view at all on Trump, Brexit or the Government.

So they remain silent, leaving us to ponder as best we can on the meaning of their silence, of course within the churches there are those who claim that they know the mind of God, according to whichever strand of faith the belong to or emerge from, S/HE is for or against Trump, for or against Brexit/ for or against the governments treatment of the poor, the disabled or the homeless, but I am no longer convinced by these arguments.

If the Gods are silent it is because they, S/HE, chooses to remain silent probably thinking to him or herself, another fine mess you got yourselves into!

So the difficult challenge of calling to confession, both proclaiming a word into the mess as well as acknowledging responsibility for the mess, remains.

Somewhere in amongst all the messiness I find myself reflecting that Trump, Brexit and this woeful Government are themselves signs of the times.

It is as though we have moved beyond hope to hopelessness.

The virtues of character were somehow not thought to be so important after all.

The ability of capitalism to deliver a fair and just society was challenged.

The need for a Government to govern with justice and equity was downgraded.

The surging ahead felt little or no need to be concerned about the falling behind.

So we are left with a profound sense of despair.

In America Steve Bannon speaks of a 'global existential war', which will be a fourth turning point and a crisis of huge significance for the nations.

In Europe Brexit has become a symbol for creating a new independence from an institution that is led by unelected eurocrats and technicians who have no genuine political mandate. As Tony Benn said, of anyone in power, the question to be asked is who gave you the power and how can you have that power withdrawn?

So we  muddle on amidst the silence of the Gods.

We assume that things will get better. That in three years time Trump will b e trumped by a 'democrat'? The campaign has already started!

That after Brexit the M20 will not become a giant lorry park. That planes will continue to fly and that (for the writer at least) pensions will continue to be paid.