What fine words there were from Laura Bush when she took over her hubby's weekly address to the American nation last weekend. Quite rightly, she highlighted the Taleban's monstrous record on women's rights.

'Only the terrorists and the Taleban forbid education to women,'

said Laura.
'Only the terrorists and the Taleban threaten to pull out women's fingernails for wearing nail polish. The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of deliberate human cruelty carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control.'

Well, maybe. Arguably, the unrestrained free-market system so robustly defended by Laura's spouse effectively denies further education to a lot of impoverished young women and young men. It does so by making it an economic necessity for them to get jobs, any jobs, rather than continue their education when they reach the minimum school-leaving age.

But certainly, there's nothing in the Western world quite so nakedly discriminatory and oppressive as the Taleban's ban on education for girls over the age of eight. It is absolutely tragic that a whole generation of Afghan women has had its potential thwarted in this way.

Britain's own First Lady, Cherie Blair, thinks so too. On Monday, at 10 Downing Street, she spoke at the launch of a campaign to improve Afghan women's rights. She was joined at the launch by a group of Afghan women who now live in the UK, as well as senior female UK government ministers including International Development Secretary Clare Short and Education Secretary Estelle Morris.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with two female teachers from Afghanistan who had left the country to escape from the Taleban regime, Mrs Blair commendably refused to cast Afghan women as eternal victims. Instead, she said:
'The women here today prove that the women of Afghanistan still have a spirit that belies their unfair, downtrodden image. We need to help them free that spirit and give them their voice back, so they can create the better Afghanistan we all want to see.'

Quite so. Interestingly, though, it fell to Ms. Short to highlight the awkward fact that there are nations that the USA and other western nations regard as invaluable business partners whose human rights record is appalling. She drew attention to the way that Saudi Arabia denies the vote to women; just one aspect of the denial of their basic human rights, in a nation where women are also denied the right to drive or to leave the country unless accompanied by a male relative.

Well done to Ms. Short for pointing out that it's not just poor countries that oppress women. Everything the two First Ladies said about Afghanistan made sense, but it's strange how, even now, we don't tend to hear much about human rights abuses in countries with which America and Europe have important trading arrangements. Then again, before September 11 we didn't hear many speeches from First Ladies about the evil deeds of the Taleban, though the Afghan regime's treatment of women was no less harsh back then.

The day after the meeting at Downing Street, Clare Short spoke out again: this time, to a House of Commons select committee. This time, her message was even more sharply pointed, and its target was American foreign policy: specifically, the American government's reluctance to accept that there might be a link between poverty and terrorism.

Ms Short pointed out that the USA gives only 0.1 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product in foreign aid, and sadly observed:
'The only great power in the world almost turns its back on the rest of the world. It is not that the US is ungenerous. It is just that it is not sharing the insight that other countries have got and it is very important that we try to get them there.'

As Ms. Short admitted, Britain doesn't have too much cause for smugness on this issue. We donate only 0.3 per cent of our GDP to overseas aid.

But it does seem strange and sad that the USA is willing to spend vast fortunes on the War On Terrorism, yet remains reluctant to do more to alleviate the poverty that, surely, makes it easier for the terrorists to find willing martyrs. When people have seen their compatriots trapped in desperate poverty, they're surely going to be more likely to resort to desperate measures.

As Ms Short put it:
'The suicide bombers of September 11 appeared not to come from poor countries. They came from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But the conditions which bred their bitterness and hatred are linked to poverty and injustice, there is no doubt.


'It is not something that excuses September 11, but it is part of the breeding ground for September 11.'

You don't have to be some sort of commie to agree with this view. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are hardly socialist institutions, but both have come to support the view that alleviating poverty in a deprived country greatly lessens the danger of that country becoming a breeding ground for terrorism.

Despite its self-evident good sense, I doubt if Laura Bush will be echoing that view in any future broadcasts she might make. But her new-found willingness to make high-profile public statements on women's rights is still welcome. I trust that we'll be hearing from her again should her husband attempt to install any more judges with hard-line anti-abortion views in the US Supreme Court.

The executives of Levi Strauss, the world-famous jeans manufacturers, are celebrating this week. The European Union's highest court has backed its fight to try to prevent a UK supermarket chain, Tesco, from selling its famous product at a cost that consumers on low incomes might be able to afford.

The recommended UK retail price for a pair of Levi's jeans is £50. But Tesco have been importing their Levi's from outside the European Union, and selling them for £27.99, much to the jeans manufacturer's dismay. They preferred to keep the price artificially high - and, to be fair to Levi
Strauss, they were far from being the only brand owner to engage is this sort of scam.

Prices for branded goods are generally higher in Western Europe than elsewhere in the world, because brand-owners have restricted supplies of their goods to retailers who sell their products at inflated prices. The legal row has dragged on for three years, with the UK government taking the side of Tesco and other retailers in a similar position, while the French and Italian administrations have sided with the brand-owners.

And now, the European Court of Justice has also backed the brand owners, in what is being seen as a landmark case. It's likely to inflate the price of a wide range of branded goods being sold in European supermarkets, from electrical goods to champagne.

A key part of the brand-owners' argument to the court has been that they have invested large sums of money in building up the mystique of their brands. Having spent small fortunes on advertising to try to convince us all that their products are exclusive luxury goods, they don't want them on sale next to the baked beans on supermarket shelves.

It's instructive, I think, to pause for a minute and consider exactly what this really means.

Essentially, the manufacturers aren't even pretending that they're charging a reasonable price for their goods. You're not buying jeans, or sunglasses, or drinks. You're buying 'mystique' and exclusivity.

Snob value, in other words.

Of course, this is no surprise; children in playgrounds these days discover the social stigma that can come from not having the 'right' name on their trainers, and parents are pressured into shelling out silly sums to remove that stigma from their offspring. But it is interesting to see how
shameless the manufacturers are these days, in admitting to the mind-games they play on we mere consumers.

'Branding' is the great dark art of our times. People pay absurd prices in order to have names on their clothes that will, they hope, make a statement about the kind of person they are. They're persuaded to believe that certain brands label them as consumers of wealth and taste.

Actually, as far as I'm concerned, the statement that the ostentatious wearing of designer labels makes is: 'Hello. I don't really believe that my personality and looks are good enough to attract people. But look! Look! I've got money to waste on overpriced tat. Will that do instead?' But there are enough insecure mugs out there to make branding highly lucrative, so companies will doubtless continue to pursue the modern unholy grail of becoming a 'must-have' brand name.

Meanwhile, Tesco and other UK supermarket chains have vowed to contest the court ruling, and to continue selling their cheap branded goods for the time being, despite the fact that they now know that they face the possible legal action for doing so. Tesco also plan to write to the European Commission urging them to review the law, and to UK Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt to ask for her continued support. Having already backed Tesco's stance, the UK government may now decide to back pressure for a change in the law. I hope they do so.

For now, we're left with the triumphant words of Joe Middleton, president of Levi Strauss Europe, Middle East and Africa:
'We have always maintained that we have the right to decide the way in which we distribute our products to best serve our customers, and the court has confirmed that right.'

That's how much contempt these people have for us all. It isn't enough for them to fight lengthy court battles to protect their artificially swollen profit margins. They also feel the need to tell us that they're doing it in order to serve us better.

Frankly, anyone who's gullible enough to believe that probably deserves to pay £50 for a pair of jeans.

It's rare these days that industrial action makes much of an impact on British life. During the Eighties, Margaret Thatcher's government made radical changes to employment laws, and greatly reduced the powers of trade unions. There are no more great, epic strikes like the ones that we older Brits remember from the 1970s and early 1980s.

But now, a proposed strike is threatening to hit at the very heart of English cultural life. We face a withdrawal of labour by England's professional footballers. Unless a solution can be found by December 1, the players plan to refuse to appear in any match where TV cameras are present. As there are now usually cameras at just about all professional soccer matches in England, that would mean either no matches or the enforced absence of the cameras - it's not entirely clear which. Either way, an English fan's time-honoured right to slump in front of the box, open a can of lager and hurl abuse at the screen is in serious jeopardy.

The move for strike action comes as a result of a dispute over the share of television rights money that the players' union, the Professional Footballers' Association, gets from the FA Premier League and the Nationwide League. The PFA say that their share of the money from football TV rights has stood at 5 per cent since the 1950s, although this has never been put in writing. That percentage of the latest TV deal signed by the English soccer authorities would bring the union around £27 million per year - but the union has only been offered around £16.6 million per year. They've balloted their members to ask for their support for strike action, and the result of the ballot showed extraordinary solidarity. 2,496 ballot papers were sent out to PFA members. 2,315 of them were returned, with an amazing 2,290 votes being cast in favour of the strike.

Given the huge incomes of some top players, the talk of strike action has been ridiculed in some quarters. Many have wondered whether millionaires like David Beckham would be seen on picket lines.

But that misses the point. The PFA spends much of its income on helping the many footballers who dedicate years of their lives to trying to become professional players and then don't quite make the grade. The union also helps those who have to retire through injury, and those who fall on hard times at the end of their playing careers - which can easily happen to a player who's spent his career in the lower leagues. The union has also helped clubs who've found themselves in financial trouble - again, a fairly common scenario in the less glamorous areas of the English professional football. Money that goes to the PFA is likely to help the game.

True, people who fail in other walks of life don't get the sort of after-care that the PFA provides. But if a union is able to negotiate a deal that will enable it to help out its unluckier members, then why on earth shouldn't it do so? The PFA has the kind of economic muscle that can get the best for its members. Would that the same could be said for more trade unions in the frequently merciless modern employment market.

So I say more power to the players. And if they need someone to represent them in any last-minute negotiations, I'd suggest Manchester United's Roy Keane. Having seen him express his opinions to referees on many occasions, I know for sure that he is capable of stating his case clearly and forcefully.

Ormondroyd

22.11.01. Front Page

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