Notes to AM: Mors Janua Vitae

Posted on 7 July 2010 by Dominic Minghella

7 July, 2010

Hey mate, just a quick one to say, that I drove up to Golders Green Crematorium on Monday for Alan Plater’s funeral. Went more for you than for me, whatever that means. He said such lovely things about you and the Hull days.

My feet could hardly take me into that wretched place, the West Chapel, scene of agonising pain two years ago. I felt sick and faint and – the norm now – diminished.

But inside, the mood was altogether different from ‘yours’. Alan was nearly twenty years your senior, and had been unwell for a while, and in that context the shock must be different, the anguish less acute. Alan had asked for “music and the possibility of joy” and he got both. Incredible jazz and wonderful performances from his work. It is not for me to name names or give a review, but it was excellent. Nobody could have asked for a better send-off. Above all it was very writerly, both in its attendance and in its celebration of Alan’s prolific, terrific body of work.

It made me wish we had paid better tribute to your words, two years and three months ago. Which is of course to say, one second ago, one blink ago. Which is of course to say I am still there now and always will be, mate, beside you if I could, with you if I could, at that obscene grotesque portal, inscribed as if Latin made it better, as if Latin made sense out of nonsene, as if Death really were the Gateway to Life.

Dragging myself back into this world, this life, back across town, mouth dry at the wheel and eyes pathetically wet, the office, home… almost harder to carry on carrying on than not. Whatever that means.

Realised this morning that I had completely forgotten to pay the congestion charge for the trip and will now presumably be fined. Realised I’ve been congested myself and there is no one I can charge; I’ve been raging, raging, silently screaming for two days. Which is to say two years and three months. Which is to say forever.

Movie: Please Give

Posted on 4 July 2010 by Dominic Minghella

4 July, 2010

Nicole Holofcener’s slice-of-life movie, set in affluent NYC, is a real gem. She writes terrific dialogue – moving deftly between comedy and pathos – and elicits very fine performances from her cast (Catherine Keener, Rebecca Hall and others, all marvellous).

If CK Williams had been a film-maker…. In fact, it also made me think of my brother Anthony, because of its delight in well-observed, comic dialogue, its interest in contemporary relationships and its analysis of the guilt that goes with affluence. In some ways it could be the movie version of Anthony’s wonderful radio play, Cigarettes & Chocolate. They’re both about a middle-class woman in crisis, trying to understand inequality – and the impact of that central collapse on those around her.

Another movie I like in this terrain is the Italian film Caos Calma (aka Quiet Chaos, 2008), based on the lovely book by Sandro Veronesi, in which a bereaved man stops going to work….

There you go. Hot tips.

Shock report reveals truth on economy

Posted on 16 June 2010 by Dominic Minghella

16 June, 2010

I’m pleased to say that, pretty much, my prediction was wrong, and the press and broadcast media did not embarrass themselves by misrepresenting the OBR report. No shock horror headlines.

The front pages were varied, covering the imminent Bloody Sunday report and the BP debacle, alongside Nick Clegg’s ugly assault on public sector pensions.

The Daily Mail succumbed to a front page diatribe, screaming about the OBR’s “devastating analysis” but by and large, nobody was fooled by the spin. Indeed, some commentators were saying that the OBR’s figures were “too rosy”, which I think means they didn’t discredit Labour in the way that some had hoped.

None of which stopped George Osborne shaking his fists and saying, “never again will a government be allowed to fiddle the figures.”

Comments like that, in the teeth of the evidence, are going to seriously undermine Osborne’s credibility. They’re also old, old, old politics. There is still room for Labour to answer the public’s call for more decency in the way Westminster goes about its business.

Which is why we need a new Labour leader now, not in September.

Speaking of which, there was much complaint online about Newsnight’s poor production values, and Paxman’s chairmanship of the Labour leaders’ debate. Ed Balls was surprisingly winning. Andy Burnham was cruelly described online as looking like a Thunderbird puppet (Troy!). Diane is Diane, and if you like her, you’ll still like her after that performance – but if you don’t, you’ll be feeling unmoved. Ed M looked like somebody’s younger brother, and I know how that feels. David Miliband is the next leader, that is very clear. At one point he spoke, quite effortlessly, on behalf of the whole panel. He’s just got it.

The prospect of months of further hustings fills me with dread; there is no need for prolonged introspection. Look how fast the Coalition moved to get itself into No 10. With a new leader, Labour can move fast too. In these crucial months, while Labour wonders who said what to whom in Cabinet, and the candidates mess about on swings, the Coalition is getting away with murder.

The OBR report didn’t do it, but there IS a new report out which damns the Government. But it damns the new Government, not the old one. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) was forecasting unemployment of 2.65m this year. In the light of the Coalition’s emphasis on public sector cuts, they have revised their figure upwards to 2.95m.

Between friends, let’s call it 3m. Unemployed. This year.

It begins.

The cuts bandwagon

Posted on 14 June 2010 by Dominic Minghella

14 June, 2010

The excellent Larry Elliott – Economics Editor of The Guardian – warns that the ‘Deficit Hawks’ need their talons clipped.

It is clear to him, as it is to me, that the current clamour for cuts at all costs is either economically naive, or politically wilful. Is “the real agenda to finish the demolition job on the welfare state that began in the 1980s”?

Mr Elliott asks why the economic literates in government aren’t piping up to stop the madness. Where is Vince Cable? Where is Chris Huhne?

Good questions. We are sleep-walking with Europe and the rest of G20 into another recession, but this time it will be entirely self-inflicted.

Today, the newly-created Office for Budget Responsibility (sounds Pythonesque) produced some really quite boring figures. See for instance the summary by the BBC’s Stephanie Flanders.

I even bothered to look at the report itself. Interestingly, it is based on the old Goverment’s policies, not the Coalition’s. That makes it, already, hideously out of date. I wonder how much it cost to produce a document based on a reality which already did not pertain even when it was commissioned?

Given the report’s built-in obsolence, if I were George Osborne, I’d be hoping for some really juicy ammunition to come out of it. But sadly for him, it is lacking in tidbits.

Growth predictions are down a tiny bit from Alastair Darling’s numbers. Eg, he predicted 3.5% for 2011, and based his maths on a conservative 3%. OBR is now forecasting 2.5% growth. But many other figures are now predicted to turn out better than predicted under Darling. The net effect of these revised predictions is pretty much nil over the five years: OBR predicts a rise in the structural deficit by 2015 of only 0.3% of GDP – less than £5bn.

Stephanie Flanders reports that Sir Alan Budd and the authors have conceded, on questioning, that:

“that 2015 figure means that the OBR does think that Labour’s policies would have eliminated a large part of the structural deficit by the end of the next Parliament. The OBR expects it to go from 8.8% of GDP in 2009-10 to 2.8% in 2014-15.”

So, basically, no news in these figures at all.

Let’s see how tonight’s news reports the figures, then. Let’s see how tomorrow’s papers headline them.

Call me cynical, but I’m guessing: doom and portent.

Mr Osborne, predictably, claims: “It’s damning evidence that the mess the previous government left behind is even bigger than we thought”.

But elsewhere, I’m already seeing:

“The OBR report strengthens the case for cuts.”

“Britain’s debt levels rising faster than expected.”

“UK has bigger fiscal hole to fill.”

Some of that is of course to be expected. What worries me is it’s everywhere. Even The Guardian, in which Mr Elliott complains about the deficit hawks going unopposed, is on the band-wagon. Mr Elliott’s on page 27. Here, meanwhile, is the front page:

So whatever the press says tonight and tomorrow, don’t be fooled. The markets weren’t.

Following the report’s release today, the pound rose against the dollar.