Barometer

The first bureaucrat David Cameron described bureaucrats in the Civil Service as ‘the enemy within’ and vowed to get their backs off business. It has been a very long battle. The term ‘bureaucracy’ was coined by the French economist Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay (1712–1759). Son of a wealthy merchant in St Malo, Vincent spent many years as a bureaucrat himself, as intendent of commerce and honorary adviser to the grand conseil. It was in his work that he became appalled by the regulations concerning the sale of cloth, which ran to four volumes, and took new entrants to the trade several years to learn. State offices were not created, he observed, to serve the public interest; rather the public interest was created to justify the offices.

University challenge An analysis of university applications has suggested that 30,000 students had committed plagiarism when writing personal statements on their forms. An earlier trawl through applications found: 175 applicants were inspired to apply for medicine by an infirm grandfather 234 had developed an interest in medicine after ‘burning a hole in my pyjamas aged 8’ 370 professed ‘a fascination for the way the human body works’. Source:  UCAS Top guns The government has said it will review arms exports to Bahrain after the suppression of peaceful protests there. Who are the biggest arms exporters and importers? Arms exported in 2009 USA: $10.3bn Russia: $6.8bn Germany: $3.8bn France: $2.8bn UK: $1.6bn Arms imported in 2009 India: $3.

Gay marriage The government has proposed to allow gay couples the full rights of marriage. The first country to do this was the Netherlands in 2001, but the world’s first gay ‘wedding’ is often reported as that between 74-year-old Axel Lundahl-Madsen and 67-year-old Eigil Eskildsen in Copenhagen City Hall on 1 October 1989, the day on which the Danish Registered Partnership Act came into force. —While hailed by gay activists around the world at the time, registered partnerships would now be regarded by many as illiberal. Gay couples were banned from adopting children and, in the case of women, from undergoing artificial insemination.

Whose cultures? David Cameron declared multiculturalism a failure last week. But where does the idea come from? — In the late 1960s the Canadian government set up a Royal Commission into ‘Bilingualism and Biculturalism’ to unite the English- and French-speaking parts of the country. It suggested a policy to champion other ethnic groups, too. Prime minister Pierre Trudeau welcomed this as ‘the most suitable means of assuring the cultural freedom of Canadians’. — Canada set up a Multicultural Directorate in 1972, then a Ministry of Multiculturalism in 1973. — One of the fundamental themes was that Canadians of all ethnic backgrounds should learn at least one of English or French.

No such thing as society The government’s ‘Big Society’ project is partly inspired by a desire to undo the damage created by a remark made by Mrs Thatcher in an interview with Woman’s Own on 31 October 1987. Here are some extracts from the transcript: ‘I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the government’s job to cope with it!”… If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society.

Prison regimes A riot at Ford Open Prison in Sussex raised questions as to the regime in jails. This is some of what prisoners can expect: — Category A (Whitemoor, Cambs): work opportunities in recycling, laundry and restoring computers for schools in Africa. Courses in thinking skills and anger management. Gym, sports hall and Astroturf. Prisoners may apply for two PE sessions within a working week, one in the evening and two at the weekends. Acupuncture for staff and prisoners. Visits Thur-Mon 1400-1600, must be booked 24 hours in advance. — Category B (Wandsworth): courses include bricklaying/plastering, industrial cleaning. Multi-choice pre-select menu with halal and vegetarian options. Visits every morning and afternoon.

Happy talk David Cameron wants to measure our happiness alongside GDP. The first measure of happiness — the Gross National Happiness index — was instigated by the former king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in 1972. — Heavily influenced by Buddhist teachings, it contained questions which might not strike many Britons as being important to their happiness. One asked:  ‘Do you know the names of species and plants and animals in the local area?’ Another asked:  ‘How would you rate your knowledge of the mask and other dances performed during national/local tshechu?

Having it so good Lord Young was forced to resign as an adviser to David Cameron after claiming that people in Britain ‘had never had it so good’. The phrase is associated with Harold Macmillan, who used it in 1957, but he was echoing the 1952 US presidential election slogan of the Democrat Adlai Stevenson: ‘You never had it so good.’ —The Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, attacked Stevenson’s claim in a powerful TV commercial: ‘Can that be true, when America’s billions in debt, when prices have doubled, when taxes break our backs and when we’re still fighting in Korea?’ —Stevenson lost the popular vote 45 per cent to 55 per cent.

Trouble with stags In addition to next year’s royal wedding, Prince William will have to organise the royal stag party. William got into trouble in 2008 for flying a Chinook helicopter from Lincolnshire to his cousin Peter Phillips’s stag party on the Isle of Wight — at a cost of £8,716 to the public purse. In 1981 Prince Charles announced that he would hold a fireworks party in Hyde Park in lieu of a stag do — but he slipped off to meet friends at White’s. Prince Andrew was less successful at setting a decoy for his stag party in 1986: the press tracked him down, thwarting a plan by Sarah Ferguson and Princess Diana to crash the party dressed as policewomen.

Secret history John Sawers, head of MI6, defended the organisation by saying ‘secrecy is not a dirty word’. Secret history John Sawers, head of MI6, defended the organisation by saying ‘secrecy is not a dirty word’. Here are a few things which the organisation does not attempt to keep secret: — MI6 still does not officially exist. It was once known by that name but is now called the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in government circles. — There were once 17 ‘MIs’. The original MI6 dealt with legal and financial affairs. It spent much of the first world war housed in a single flat in Whitehall Court.

Exit stage right A new far-right movement, the English Defence League, held protests in Leicester and London. Postwar British history is full of the corpses of failed far-right parties. — The League of Empire Loyalists was a neo-Nazi party which split in 1957 over whether to allow Jews to join. Why any would want to was a mystery. — The National Socialist Movement was founded in 1962 but split two years later after two of its leaders, Colin Jordan and John Tyndall, fought over the same woman. — The British Movement was formed from the remains of the National Socialist Movement in 1968. It won 2.

Party conferences • Public-sector pay • Who we blame for the deficit • British mammals Party conferences When the Liberal party and SDP merged in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats, diehards of both parties went on alone. — Not even David Owen’s attempt finally to wind up the SDP in 1990 prevented some carrying on: 20 years later it has two councillors in Bridlington and three in Aberavon, South Wales. Its 2010 conference will be held at the Community Centre, Victoria Road, Bridlington, on Sunday 26 September at 10 a.m. sharp. — The Liberal party boasts 24 councillors and put up five parliamentary candidates in the 2010 election.

Papal visit Pope Benedict XVI visits Britain this week, only the second pope to do so. The first was John Paul II in 1982. Some facts and figures from his visit: — John Paul II’s native Poland was still behind the Iron Curtain and it was to be another 22 years before it joined the EU. Nevertheless, 24,000 Poles then living in Britain attended a mass at Crystal Palace. — As the media coverage intensified, 350,000 people attended open-air mass at Coventry Cathedral, a million lined the streets in Liverpool and 180,000 attended mass at York racecourse. —By the time the Pope reached Manchester, interest had waned. Only 200,000, compared with an estimate of 1 million, attended mass in the city.