EDITORIAL : THE GUARDIAN, UK

        

 

In praise of … civil parishes

They come in strange apparel which lends the magic of longevity to greater but more controversial institutions

Old Englande has bequeathed quaint heirlooms which lack much in the way of logic for staying in being, and yet work rather well. One is the civil parish, the most local form of local government, which is the privilege of 37.5% of England's population. It comes in strange apparel which lends the magic of longevity to greater but more controversial institutions such as the monarchy and House of Lords. Civil parishes have ducked the brickbats of reformers; indeed they have been re-energised in modern times. Dating back to the Norman manorial system, they were given extra powers in the great town hall upheaval in 1972. More areas became eligible. Oxford has set up four in the last 30 years. Even Londoners, except in the City, have been able to create them since 2008, and only last week the initial community petition was submitted for a council in Queen's Park, Westminster. Especially noteworthy in today's referendum-rich times, a mere 10 electors can force a local poll on anything at all in a civil parish; a remarkable piece of direct democracy when you consider that qualifying areas include Hereford, Salisbury and Weston-super-Mare, the largest with a population of over 70,000. There does not have to be a formal parish council; a properly called public meeting suffices. And yet this power is little-known and less used. That is understandable in Chester Castle, and the six other parishes which have no inhabitants, but not elsewhere. Which is why we hope to see them flex more muscle and spread.

Palliative care: The way we die now

A major survey, which we report on this morning, explores attitudes around the full arc of the grim reaper's scythe

For Larkin, unresting death twitched at blackened curtains, and in Britain dying has often been the stuff of private nocturnal anxieties, as opposed to conversation lit by day. A major survey, which we report on this morning, explores attitudes around the full arc of the grim reaper's scythe. Despite signs of some mortal taboos losing their grip, when it comes to chewing over the practicalities of breathing our own last, most of us are as inhibited as ever.

Even business-like issues are often passed over in silence. More than a third of us say we have never asked any relative whether they have written a will. And the reticence is of another order entirely when it comes to more intimate expectations, concerning funeral arrangements, the final form of care we will want or where we would prefer to die. The six in 10 people who say they have never spoken to another soul about the last of these is striking, since this is one area where bottled up wishes reliably end up being wishes frustrated. Across the whole population, fully 70% tell strangers with clipboards they would rather die at home, and yet the official figures record that more than one death in every two ends up being in a hospital bed.

Some of this great gulf between what is wanted and what ends up happening, one might imagine, reflects a failure on the part of the healthy to think through where they will truly want to be when they are in an incomparably frailer condition. Perhaps. But the fear of leaving the world in an alien and medical environment runs deep – almost as many told the Dying Matters study that they fear a hospital death as said the same of dying alone or falling prey to violent crime. And indeed, more report a particular shudder at this particular prospect than the idea of the grave itself.

This government, like the last, agrees things ought to change. Whitehall strategies have aimed to make sure they do. The chance to die at home, after all, is one meaningful way to fulfil the politicians' well-worn rhetoric about patient choice. It could spare relatives the worry of back-and-forth travel to the ward at a fraught and typically miserable time. And here, for once, is a social problem whose principle solution is not money. A review before the summer will identify certain priority investments required in order to make dying at home more comfortable, but freeing health service beds from people who are never going to be serviced back into health would save resources in the end. No, the chief obstacle to dying better is nothing as worldly as cash. The real trick is finding the courage to face up to the inevitable, and then opening up as well. If we could only do that, then we could plan – before it is too late.

IMF chief on rape charges: From vroom to bust

Within hours of the news breaking that Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been charged, France began to talk about the him in the past tense

The presumption of innocence is a legal principle, but not, alas, a political reality. Within hours of the news breaking that Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been charged with sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a room maid in a New York hotel, France began to talk about the IMF chief and possible presidential candidate in the past tense. There was at least one immutable political reality guiding this. Presidential candidates for the Socialist party have two weeks from the end of June to the middle of July, to put their name down. Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer said yesterday his client denied all the facts on the charge sheet. But he would have to do much more than this in a very short space of time to declare his candidacy and salvage his political career, and the wheels of criminal justice do not turn that fast. The assumption is that both his candidacy and his political career are over.

In the maelstrom of comment that his arrest generated, the plight of the alleged victim was soon forgotten. It should never be. This is about justice not the careers of high fliers in politics and finance. The scandal deals a grievous blow both to the IMF and to French politics. Mr Strauss-Kahn, the fourth Frenchmen to run the IMF, is regarded both as a competent and progressive head of an organisation at a crucial time in attempts to stabilise the world economy. He struck out against the high priests of neoliberalism by focusing on employment and recognising that countries facing speculative pressure could use capital controls as a defence. But this was work in progress and the tough conditions imposed on Greece and Ireland have caused many to question how much of the old thinking has really changed. With interest rates on Greek bonds continuing to soar, Mr Strauss-Kahn's removal could not have come at a more vital time for Greece and the IMF. The flurry of official statements yesterday reflected that concern. The IMF put one out saying it was fully functioning.

French politics are plainly not. As Nicolas Sarkozy has sunk further in the opinion polls, DSK, as he is known, was looked upon (not just by the right wing of the Socialist party) as the only man who could unseat the French president. He had yet to throw his name into the hat, but had he done so, he would have been regarded as the leading Socialist candidate. There could not have been a better moment for him politically. The outgoing president was discredited, the Socialist party in disarray – unable to overcome the turf wars of its warring barons. With a stint at the IMF behind him, he would have been the ideal man to lead France out of the financial storm. He was not without a history. There had been a string of sexual indiscretions, and a well-documented taste for the good life. In Britain he would have been called a champagne socialist. A photograph of him and his wife climbing into a Porsche in Paris was enough to stir controversy, even though the car turned out not to be his. But a bling-bling president challenged by a vroom-vroom socialist? None of this would have been enough to stop him roaring down the road that led to the Élysée, not so much a grand chemin as a six-lane autoroute.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's removal leaves the Socialist party in shock – not, it has to be said, for the first time in the party's recent history. The man who will inherit Strauss-Kahn's mantle as a moderate is François Hollande, who prefers scooters to Porsches. His former partner, Ségolène Royal, refuses to rule herself out, learning nothing from her last ego-fuelled attempt on the presidency. Emergency conclaves of the socialist baronry are, however, meat and drink to the far right, particularly Marine Le Pen. She will have little difficulty claiming that Mr Strauss-Kahn's fall from grace sullies not just one individual's career, but a whole elite. Whether justified or not, the far right could well make hay with it.