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When the Equal Pay Act in Britain came into force in 1975, the pay gap between men and women was 30%. Today is it 18% (says the Equal Opportunities Commission). These statistics may help you to understand the significance of the animal at the beginning of this post (continuing my wildlife theme). Thankfully, the Labour government is doing something right, in introducing the gender equality duty for public bodies as of April, whereby public bodies are obliged to demonstrate that they are promoting equality for men and women. Anyone who disputes that this is necessary need only contemplate the 37 years it has taken to reduce the gap by just over a third.

I was inspired to write on this topic by the Guardian’s reporting that America’s (Equal Pay Act 1963) largest ever class action is about to go ahead against Wal-Mart (who own Asda), whereby up to 2 million women employees since 1998 may win lost pay and damages. Even though I’m horrified that change has taken this long to come about, it’s exciting that it might finally be happening. While two thirds of Wal-Mart’s employees are women, only one third of their managers are. Wal-Mart argue that women don’t want managerial positions. Well, if they’re being taken to court over it, then maybe they misjudged that one.

I left school last year, having learnt about the Second World War (where the British are the plucky good guys) over and over, but never once having a lesson on the British Empire, nor indeed on any country outside of Europe other than the U.S.A. The government’s belated acknowledgement that slavery is an aspect of British history that might be worth teaching is welcome, though even that comes wrapped in this year’s celebration that we were the first European power to ban the slave trade (rather like congratulating a mass murderer for no longer killing people, in my view). The biggest lacuna in the story of British history presented in schools is what British colonisers did abroad. As Sisodia in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses says, “The trouble with the Engenglish is that their hiss-hiss-history happened overseas so they do-do-don’t know what it means.” It will not teach any child the values the government would like them to have, but if that is the point of history then they may as well make it up entirely.

Now if Bill were allowed to run, a President Clinton might well seem the inevitable result. Further to the Google Trends I posted the other day, it’s interesting to note that Bill Clinton is still more searched for than any of the major Democratic candidates.

Alan Johnson proclaims that we are ”a nation built from and by people from other countries.”  A new GCSE combining History and Citizenship should thus be built on this premises ”emphasising respect for other cultures and tolerance of religious and sexual differences – and would debate such concepts as freedom of speech and justice.” 

 As admirable as such initiatives at first appear, has Alan Johnson actually bothered to read British History? Such trendy contemporary values as “respect for other cultures, tolerance of religious and sexual differences, which sound like they’ve been lifted out of an equal opportunities manual, smack of contemporary values being imposed on the past to suite the political agendas of the present.   

“We are a nation built from and by people from other countries,” is a fantastic description if one were to describe New World countries such as the U.S.A or even my mother’s country Colombia, in which generations of wholesale immigration have created entirely new countries over the last three centuries.  To describe Britain in such terms, when this island last experienced an invasion in 1066 and has only received like the rest of Western Europe any sizeable amount of immigration in the last fifty years, is a gross misrepresentation of this country’s history and of the nature of European cultural identities.  The truth of our history is that we are not built on multi-culturally diverse notions that ministers like Alan Johnson would have us believe. 

By all means teach British history and its component parts in England,Wales,Scotland and Ireland but please can the ministers read their history books first! The teaching of our own island’s history will give us a better sense of what it really means to be British, including such notions as freedom of speech and the evolution of parliamentary democracy, than a trumped up citizenship class contrived to embrace purely today’s political agendas.

This statement was so earth-shattering that Women’s Hour had to interview her about it.  After being initially appalled that this was a newsworthy item, I realised that what was bothering me was the fact that it is newsworthy.  It is still socially unacceptable for women to display hair on their legs, underarms or (euphemistically) bikini lines.  Yes, yes, I know men spend a lot of time shaving too, and for some jobs it might be unacceptable to have a beard, but you wouldn’t be socially ostracised if you appeared on the beach with it all straggling out, would you? 

I notice that most of the people who hang out on these talkboards are men, apart from me and Liz, so if there are any other women out there, give us your vote on whether hairy is the new black. 

So obviously this got me thinking (well, discussing Bernard Matthews’ sandwich meat will do that for anyone). This connects quite well to stories in the papers today about the education curriculum being overhauled (and also links nicely to the theme of Emmanuel’s bar extension last Saturday, God Save The Queen, not that anyone else cares). What with all this debate about what being British means, what does it actually mean? What do we associate with being British? I’m not looking for a lengthy political debate here about Gordon Brown and whether it’s possible to define Britishness as opposed to Englishness/Scottishness etc. Lots of blogs/newspapers have already done this kind of thing, but I’m just interested to see what people come up with. Aside from that, it’s an ingenious scheme for some ‘audience participation’, since we know people are reading this. You just don’t show your faces very often.

So here’s my plan. I’m going to put down the first things that come into my head, be they sensible or not (and most of them won’t be). Anyone who reads, please just comment with something. It’s not like anyone’s going to judge you. We are bloggers, after all.

The list:

Bernard Matthews (clearly)

Branston (remember the panic?)

Red post boxes

Red telephone booths

Shakespeare

The Famous Five

Fish and chips

Toad in the hole

The Queen (like it or not, it’s probably true)

Parliamentary reform (which, as soon as I say it, prompts me to shout out ’1872 Secret Ballot Act!’ and then look around in an embarrassed fashion)

The Beano

The Beatles

Talking/complaining about the weather

Queuing

Yes, Minister

Not the world’s most cerebral list, but it’s been a long day. I may add more as they occur to me…but please comment with your own. Otherwise I just look like a very sad and lonely person.

Experts hunt for bird flu source [BBC News]

Pupils to learn ‘Britishness’ in history [The Independent]

True, a lot of things would have to fall into place before we had a Jed Bartlett: Gore would have to win the Nobel, announce his candidacy, win the nomination and win the election. All of which seems very unlikely, but not impossible. The betting markets suggest he has around a 10% chance of winning the nomination – not bad for someone who hasn’t declared – and he remains more googled than any of his Democratic rivals. Don’t rule him out yet.

People may recall I mocked John Kerry for having a tendency to let his mouth run away with him…and it looks as if Joe Biden may suffer from the same affliction. Earlier this week he told the New York Observer that, with Barack Obama in the race, “you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy…that’s a storybook, man.”, a comment which has caused such a storm his fledgling campaign may well be dead on arrival.

Democracy in America has helpfully pointed out that Senator Biden may have been mis-transcribed, and a comma could have made all the difference. Unfortunately, this hardly helps him now. And, as Slate’s Political Gabfest (or, as it’s appropriately titled this week – ‘Political Gaffe-fest’ – get it?) identifies, things like this make a huge difference if they confirm the image the electorate and media have of you, however inaccurate it may be. In short: this is not the first (or the second) stupid thing Joe Biden has said that makes him look like a racist idiot.

Obama is the darling of the Presidential race at the moment as well; not necessarily in poll numbers, but in media attention. With him reportedly refusing to talk to Biden, a Senator who I thought had possible potential to climb up the ladder at least part-way is probably out of the race.

Yes, I do admit, part of me feels sorry for Senator Biden. But only a tiny part. We’ve had to endure the linguistic efforts of Dubya for going on seven years now, and, while they’re admittedly amusing (and on this topic, there was a particular gem this week when the President promised to do his best to ‘elevate’ distrust in Washington), is it too much to hope for a President whose attempts at conversation aren’t a laughing stock the world over? Or maybe I’ve been watching too much West Wing (and before a fellow obsessive trumps me, yes, I know President Bartlet was admonished by his staff for saying stupid things, but I hardly think offending the Ryder Cup team is on a par with this).

Biden chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position that, even if you don’t agree with the label ‘influential’, certainly garners lots of headlines. Other candidates may talk about Iraq, but Biden has the ability to do/say something about it that will end up in the front pages of the Washington Post. And I thought this was an asset. But perhaps not. The other candidates are so well-known anything they say is likely to overshadow his statements anyway, and he has the distinct disadvantage in that he never comes across as particularly likeable. He’s too long-winded, and it’s almost as if he tries too hard.

Maybe I’m making too much out of this. After all, it was one statement at the beginning of a long campaign. However, Biden’s already going to have problems raising money, and there are so many candidates in the race anything that can be held against him, however small, is going to constantly resurface. He won’t be President. But he’s the kind of respected politician for whom a Cabinet position is a much more viable option.

Feeling disillusioned with the Presidential race already? Don’t fret – you, too, can join the hordes clamouring to be leader of the free world. All you have to do is go to u4Prez.com.

Joe Biden: Moron racist, or poorly transcribed? [Democracy in America]

Biden Unbound: Lays into Clinton, Obama, Edwards [New York Observer]

Biden Stumbles at the Starting Gate [Washington Post]

Biden’s Blunder [Political Wire]

  While there may be a baby European elephant in the room (see Owen’s article below), the real, rampaging, galumphing, trumpeting elephant is climate change.

But don’t worry; this isn’t a post on climate change, it’s on electoral reform. My premise is that the adversarial, first-past-the-post (FPP) system of election in the UK is completely inadequate for dealing with big, longterm issues and how it has(n’t) dealt with climate change has shown us this in stark relief. Let me tell you why.

While proportional representation (PR), my suggested alternative for FPP, doesn’t solve the problem of short-termism in government dictated by the necessarily brief election cycle, it does at least encourage parties to accentuate their similarities rather than their differences. By allowing smaller parties to gain seats in parliament (for example, any party which gains more than 5% of the vote nationwide), coalitions are usually inevitable, avoiding to some extent the dictatorship of the majority which we have so often seen in British politics, and so often depends only on a few thousand votes in a few marginal seats.

In New Zealand, which has PR, the Green Party held the balance of power at the last election and formed a governing coalition with Labour. As a result, New Zealand is well on target to meeting its Kyoto targets (meagre though they are in contrast to what is required) despite its unique position of producing nearly 50% of its carbon emissions in the form of methane from farm animals (usually from belching not farting, despite the infamous ‘fart tax’).

In the UK we desperately need a new kind of politics that can think beyond the next election or two. In the current system it would be political suicide to introduce the enormous measures that are needed to set an example on the world stage for making the 90% cut in carbon emissions by 2030 that environmental journalist George Monbiot thinks is necessary to avoid the end of civilisation as we know it. I don’t think PR alone can achieve this, but at least it would start to allow a less partisan, more inclusive kind of politics, which I think the country is ready for.