Pigeage

Palazzo della Greca Orvieto Classico 2009

2010-08-17T03:41:00.000-07:00

Car insurance is big business in the UK as, I guess, in most other places that make it a legal requirement when driving a car. A simple search on the web or a price comparison website (such as Compare the Market) shows that there are myriad different companies offering to save you money. The TV ads are getting more and more bizarre, from the dog who looks wasted most of the time to that annoying Tenor and the lovable Meerkat (OK, the last two are price comparison sites, but they market mainly their car insurance service). Nearly all of these "insurance companies" are intermediaries, ie, they don't actually insure the risk. So, for example, RAC Insurance is underwritten by Aviva and Elephant.co.uk is part of Admiral, which uses several insurers. HSBC Insurance don't underwrite car insurance at all, depsite being an insurance company.

Nevertheless, they are all competing for our business and, as far as I can tell, price is the main route to competitive advantage. Oh sure, there are lots of related products and services that they offer, sometimes for free, such as courtesy cars and roadside assistance; but Aleksandr is principally out to save us money (or not, as he keeps trying to tell us, apparently with poor results). A higher premium? That better come with dancing girls and a free case of wine, thank you very much. And yet, I suspect that most of us are paying too much for our car insurance, due to simple inertia. I'll explain.

Last year, when my insurance was up for renewal, HSBC sent me a renewal notice with a ludicrous increase in the premium. Why? I had not had any accidents, I was not getting younger, the rate of inflation was low...what justification was there for a significantly higher premium? So I jumped on the web and found a better quote from Admiral, who duly took my money. This year, same story: suddenly Admiral are miles higher than the most competitive quote I can find. They all use the same tactic: a low initial premium to attract your business and a higher renewal once you are on board. Banks use the same tactic as do other service providers; however, switching your car insurance is so easy, it's difficult to see how this strategy works. The differential between the initial and the renewal quotes is often so large (I could save over £200 by switching from Admiral) that you would be daft not to switch.

In effect, they have turned car insurance (or, more precisely, the distribution thereof) into a commodity. We don't care who the underwriters are; we seem unconcerned about whether the risk-takers will be solvent in six months time; we are happy to give money to a company called Elephant. The only thing stopping us from paying over the odds is a lack of motivation to switch. Still, if your premiums are low and you are happy with the service, then that's fair enough...

One product which is not a commodity is wine, despite the bewildering range of choice on offer in even the smallest independent stores or supermarket displays. Perhaps this range of options turns people off: there are thousands of grape varieties around the world. Everyone has heard of Chardonnay, but even that grape gives you a staggering number of options. I put to you that, unlike car insurance, the lowest price should not be your main aim. Paying just a bit more than rock bottom can dramatically increase the quality. This is a function of the fixed costs of a bottle of wine: production, bottling, shipping, taxes, etc. Once these are covered (say £3 or £4 a bottle) the rest of the price is all about the product.

That's not say that you shouldn't look for a good deal, which brings me on to the real subject of these blog: the amazing Palazzo della Greca 2009. I came across this wine in a leaflet from Laithwaites. I'll be honest: I liked the label and I have a soft spot for Italian food and wine. Also, it won a Decanter award and was "crafted" by Maurilio Chioccia - named Italian Winemaker of the Year in leading wine guide Luca Maroni. And at £5.99 a bottle, it seemed like a good bet.

Orvieto is a city in Umbria, a region of central Italy. Orvieto DOC is the wine from the region around the commune of Orvieto (DOC, or "Controlled origin denomination" in English, is a quality assurance label similar to Appellation). According to EncycloWine, the term "Classico" is reserved for wines produced in the region where a particular type of wine has been produced "traditionally". In my experience Classico means the wine is better (and commands a higher price).

PdG'09 is made from the Trebbiano grape variety, which apparently is the second most planted grape in the world, perhaps due to its resilience, high yields and neutral taste. It is a common element of many blends and also in table wine. The word that seems to come up most in my research is "undistinguished"...not exactly a word that encourages you to part with your money.

Well balderdash to that, I say. I enjoyed this wine immensely, from the first sip one summer evening over dinner. The wine is deep yellow, almost golden. The taste is dry, but not tart; smooth and light enough to be drunk all day, yet with enough flavour to be memorable. The leaflet describes "crisp lemon and line flavours" and I agree; I would drink this with any dish, it is so versatile.

This wine helped to rediscover my faith in white wines after a long (cold) winter of drinking red. It is the perfect accompaniment to a warm, sunny afternoon. Buy a case (though Laithwaites will sell you six) and save it for special occasions. No, scratch that - buy a case and enjoy it right now. While we still have some summer left!

Tacking!!

2010-08-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

From today this blog will make a tack and focus not only only current affairs and the musings of my own meandering expatriate life, but also wine. Despite being a hard-core rum drinker while I was in Barbados, I have come to love this sweet nectar of the gods. And so, to justify my ever-increasing investment in said nectar, I will pass on my (completely random) experiences to anyone with an internet connection.

Pigeage is a French winemaking term for the traditional stomping of grapes in open fermentation tanks, in order to keep the liquid in contact with the skins. This can be done by foot (Pigeage à pied), which to me evokes visions of people emptying freshly-picked grapes into vats, doffing footwear and rolling up trousers and dancing around on the crop. Sounds like a fun day out...

For Sale

2009-12-01T11:53:00.000-08:00

The Bank of England has, for the last several months, been attempting to increase the amount of lending and spending in the UK by increasing the amount of money in circulation. So-called "Quantitative Easing" sounds more like an advanced Physics lesson. Or the solution to a bout of constipation.

The Bank has done this by buying up government debt from banks using money that it has "created", electronically. However, it seems that the banks are doing what economists would describe as "rational" - using the money to shore up their balance sheets. The result: less impact on lending and spending than Mervyn King would like. Some of the cash has even gone overseas. Also rational.

Well, I am no expert in macroeconomics, but I would like to suggest a simple solution. The BoE is wasting its time targeting banks and investors. It should target ordinary consumers. After all, we are much less likely to have the willpower to act rationally. When faced with extra cash, we will buy the latest fashion, games console or smash 'em up DVD by Clarkson. There is no better way to kickstart the economy than to give unexpected cash to ordinary consumers. In this vein, I would like to announce that my mortgage is up for sale.

It is a simple solution: buy my mortgage from the lender, cancel it and save me a shedload of cash each month. I may use that money to bolster my reserves, as have the banks, but more likely I will spend it on consumption, especially at this time of year. Businesses benefit from increased sales and cash flow, reducing the need for emergency credit from the banks, which is hard to come by. My lender benefits from increased cash reserves, which it may use to lend or it may not; even if the money goes to capital-building that is no worse than the current situation. In addition, increased traffic through the doors on the High Street increases confidence and improves the overall mood of retailers (it couldn't get much worse than one year ago, can it?).

I am surprised that Mr. King has not thought of this, as it is such a simple concept: put the money in the hands of the people who are most likely to spend it the way you want them to. Of course, there is the issue of moral hazard, but then again, Mr. King has not exactly won that argument, has he?

Bar stool economics

2009-11-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

Janice Turner thinks that the rich in this country should bugger off to Zurich or Hong Kong if they dislike the proposed 50% tax band. In her article last April, aptly subtitled "How dare the rich whine at paying more tax", she suggests that the rich are "merely being asked to help to clear up a mess that is more theirs than ours". (Because, of course, none of us had any credit card debt at all.)

Turner appears to be a class warrior, but in fact she is not so narrow-minded: her envy is much broader. When she's not slagging off the rich, it's the middle classes (those pushy parents), beauty (cheerleading is a totty-fest), women who want to be full-time mothers (all men's fault) and, of course, Tories (increase tax on super-strong cider will you..uncaring bastards!). Honestly, I think the Times only employs her to balance out Clarkson.

Yet she is not alone on this one: 57% of people polled were in favour of the new tax band. Perhaps because less than 1% of the population will have to pay it. People are always in favour of taxes that don't affect them. Except this one will, as Fraser Nelson pointed out in the weeks following the budget. It's up to the Tories to make this case, but they have decided that this argument is too hard. I suppose they could be right; after all, it's difficult to work "Laffer Curve" into a sentence that the average voter will find interesting.

So, Call me Dave, let me help you out. Here is a simple parable that nearly everyone will be able to relate to:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."

Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Before urging the people who pay the most tax to bugger off, Janice Turner should ask herself if she could afford to drink at the bloated bar that is our public services if her wish came true.

Finally

2009-11-09T12:50:00.000-08:00

At last, Allister Heath has said what most other people are too afraid or too stupid to admit: that bankers, and specifically their bonuses, had but a supporting role in the financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn. Bashing then is not just pointless, it is counterproductive and does not address the true reasons for the crash - which means it may happen again.

The seeds of the crash were sown years ago, with an oversupply of cheap money from China and the East. This funded our addiction to debt in the West. More than. Hence the continued downward pressure on interest rates despite the increasing debt levels. Add to this the central bankers' focus on price inflation, rather than asset values (despite the efforts of William R White), which encouraged a housing boom of epic proportions. Low inflation, rising personal wealth (on paper) and access to easy credit along with changing attitudes towards debt made us believe that the good times would never end.

The banks had their role, of course. Collateralized debt is a sensible way of spreading risk, not an investment opportunity itself, but in world of cheap money and a relentless search for higher returns, the latter was always going to be the case. Irrational exuberance took hold and the financial system collapsed. Being the the lifeblood of the economy, it took it down as well.

However, the instability was already there, in the form of assets bubbles and unsustainable personal and corporate debt. Think of all the leveraged buy-outs and sizes of the numbers involved. Think of all how many people had multiple credit cards, using new ones to pay off old ones. Remember that it was sub-prime losses that triggered the loss of confidence in asset-backed securities. In this sense, CDOs were not the problem, just the messenger.

The moralistic finger-wagging by politicians of all stripes in the direction of the financiers is all about deflecting blame. They know that, as overseers of the economy, they could have prevented much of the pain. As individuals it is easier to march on London and kick in a bank shop window than to admit that we are in debt because we lived beyond our means, spending money (credit) on crap and not saving nearly enough.

It feels good to make jokes about The Shred, or to call everyone in a suit a bastard. Hypocritical politicians had fun grilling bankers in public, ignoring the campaign contributions or other benefits received in the past. But by ignoring our own culpability we lose sight of the changes we need to make: save more, consume less; encourage the banks to hold more reserve capital, make it possible for even the biggest to fail without taking the whole system with it. And politicians must address the global macroeconomic imbalances that precipitated all of this...and still exist today.

Boris the Badass

2009-11-05T06:31:00.000-08:00

In the criminal justice system of London, the people are represented by three separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders, and the Boris Johnson, who personally beats up the offenders.

This is their story...

'Knight on shining bicycle'

Power of free speech

2009-10-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

It is still an hour and 45 minutes until Question Time airs, but I have just had a thought. I have said, in my previous post, that the oxygen of publicity will suffocate Nick Griffin with his own bigotry. However, this presumes that he will answer questions fully and honestly. Hmmm....but he is a politician - whether he is a good or a bad one depends on your view of what "good" or "bad" means for a politician.

I suspect that he is average at the game of dancing around the ugly truth. And I have listened to enough Radio 4 to know that even the most incompetent politician is adept at batting away difficult questions.

As a result, far from suffocating, Griffin might simply stall. Picture this:

Audience: "Mr. Griffin, what is your view on the Holocaust?"

Griffin: "I believe that Labour has failed to protect the heritage of the working class".

Straw: "Does the BNP wish to expel foreign-born nationals from British shores?"

Griffin: "The Establishment has spent much time decrying the democratic rise of the downtrodden BNP, when we have only sought fairness and a better life for the repressed working class."

Baroness Warsi: "Do you love Hitler?"

Griffin: "It is alarming that trusted Westminster representatives could have been allowed to spend so much money on moats and duck houses, when the average working class voter was struggling to make ends meet".

Etc...

Freedom to insult

2009-10-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

So the freaky deaky Dutchman Geert Wilders was finally allowed entry into Britain, following a legal fight against his ban. His welcoming party consisted of 30 placard-bearing Muslims who dislike his views. So far, so good for freedom of speech. The placard-making industry, after seeing a huge surge in the demand for its products around April, was more recently warning that redundancies would be necessary unless some more controversy was rustled up. So maybe the decision to let Wilders in was more Mandy than Johnson.

I say some not-so-favourable things about people who happen to be Muslim further down, so let’s get some balance to the debate first. Wilders does not rate highly on my List of People Whose Rantings I Should Read. He claims that his entry to Britain is a victory for free speech (true) but on the other hand he wants the Koran banned in the Netherlands because he does not like some of its content. So he is a hypocrite. He clearly dislikes Islam as a religion along with all its followers, and one can therefore assume that anything he writes is biased and misleading.

So, score one for the placard-bearing crowd outside Heathrow? Unfortunately these men let themselves down with slogans such as “Sharia is the solution, freedom go to hell”. They had every right to express themselves in a non-violent way – that is the principle on which this society is based – but did they not see the irony in the fact that they were expressing views as ridiculous as Wilders, just from a different angle?

This is the crux of the matter. Freedom of expression allows Wilders to denounce the Koran (though he must be walking a fine line with the race-hate laws in Britain) and Muslims to protest against him. If freedom went “to hell”, as they were suggesting, one or both of these groups would be silenced. How many Shi'ites were silenced during Saddam Hussain’s brutal reign? How many Sunni Muslims are repressed in Iran? Black Muslims in Sudan? (You can stop snickering, you Hindus and Christians in the back, you have no better track record in the past two millennia.)

The minor point is that Muslims will never get the public on their side by calling for Sharia law in a country that is predominantly Christian and values liberty above all else. Mohammed Shafiq, from the Ramadhan Foundation, took a much more reasonable approach to Wilders' entry: “The right decision was made to let him in because we believe in freedom of speech in this country, no matter how abhorrent someone’s views are."

The major point is that we should ban neither the well-connected and outspoken far-right politician, nor the quiet man who’s religious views are at odds with our society. As long as they remain non-violent, let them both express views without persecution. I am confident that they will be let down by they own arguments. That goes too for Nick Griffin. And Abu Muaz from Islam For UK (an organisation that wants to replace "man-made" laws in Britain with Sharia law), who said "The future is bright, it is not orange, it is Islam."

Quite.

Rained out

2009-07-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

The over-optimistic and much-hyped prediction that this summer was going to be a “barbeque summer” was always likely to come back and bite the weathermen in their collective ass. It only had to rain for one day and the tabloids would have been all over the Met Office. In fact, it seems to have rained nearly every day for the whole month of July – just ask the ground team at Edgbaston. Fleet Street is having a field day.

This is a shame, because April, May and June were marvelous. In late May/early June it was so hot that we actually bought a tent for the garden, so that our barbeque guests would not expire from the effects of sunstroke combined with sangria. Last month the Mirror reported that London was hotter than Africa (although, on closer inspection, it turned out they were referring to Durban, where it was winter) and the nanny state kicked into overdrive, warning us to (1) lather up with sun block, (2) put on a hat and (3) stay in the shade (rendering the first two actions redundant).

The idea of a “barbeque summer” is redundant as well, since most Brits will grill meat all summer long, regardless of the weather (unlike in Barbados, where we scurry for shelter at the very sight of a rain cloud). But the main point is that the weather in Britain is fairly predictable, overall. There is good reason for this, as the nation was brilliantly reminded by the weather editor of the Royal Meteorological Society's house magazine half a century ago.

After a particularly bad summer in 1954, he wrote: "At the end of a summer whose coolness and wetness have provided subject matter for cartoonists and newspaper editorials, it is now possible to recall that there have been such summers before. Situated as we are at the downwind end of the Atlantic, the summer's weather is not so unlikely that atomic explosions, flying saucers and condensation trails from jet aeroplanes need to be invoked in explanation."

Left overs

2009-07-27T07:10:00.001-07:00

Demos has launched a project called Open Left, asking people to express their opinions of what it means to be left-wing. This is probably a timely debate for lefties, given that support for their parties seems to have plummeted across Europe, precisely at the time when it should, in their opinion be growing, ie, an economic downturn.

The responses make for interesting reading, but there is a common theme: the Left believe that they occupy the moral upper ground. Brian Brivati says that the left is defined by ideas of "universalism, decency, security and freedom". Jon Cruddas says that he is left-wing because he "was brought up to believe in the biblical command that we should love others as we love ourselves". Peter Hyman believes that the Right "however much they try" can never be supportive of a Somali boy he teaches, and that he is on the Left because he wants "no barrier of snobbery, race, or class that stands in the way" of this boy's chances.

This should hardly be surprising: it is human nature to believe that if we are right, anyone with a dissenting view must be wrong. If a similar debate focussed on the political right, there would be many such indignant and self-serving platitudes. I am sure that such phrases as “Israel hating”, “gay marriage supporting” and maybe even "unholy" would be attached to Lefties. Maybe even a dig at the BBC's "left-liberal bias" that we hear so much about.

However, it was Polly Toynbee’s contribution that most piqued my interest. She said that she is on the Left because she trusts in “the better side of human nature to prevail against selfishness and greed”. I was amused by this and, call me cynical, but I don’t agree, and examples from real life tend to support my position. Recent financial turmoil is an excellent case in point (oh wait, that was the fault of capitalism..right?). Every major experiment in a society based on socialist principles, from the Soviet Union to China (before the current closet capitalists took over) to Guyana in the ‘60s and 70s, has failed the very people that they purported to represent: the poor. And this was due to greed, self-interest and corruption at the top. Were they just all very unlucky?

Of course, it is unfair to suggest that Toynbee is a commie; she espouses social democracy, which apparently works quite well in Scandinavia. But nevertheless the Left do have a habit of lionizing leaders that were quite nasty people. As a perfect example of this, I recently learned that Tony Benn believes Chairman Mao was “the greatest man of the twentieth century”. This is the same Mao who is responsible for the deaths of millions of his countrymen.

How did Benn look at that record and come to that conclusion? What about the other 20th century leaders he overlooked? Did Mikhail Gorbachev, who helped dismantled the Soviet Union and communism with it, make the shortlist? How about King Juan Carlos of Spain, who brought democracy to Spain after four decades of authoritarian rule? Or Mahatma Gandhi, whose non-violent struggle for democracy in India inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world? Or Nelson Mandela, or Martin Luther King Jr, neither of whom needs any introduction?

Recently Bernie Ecclestone made some ill-judged remarks that Hitler, for all his other faults, got things done. He was pilloried around the world and with good reason. We rightly see Hitler is an incarnation of the Prince of Darkness himself. Yet his rap sheet pales in comparison to Mao.

Is that what it means to be on the Left: really nasty role models?

Single issues

2009-07-16T12:51:00.000-07:00

In his article in the Guardian yesterday, Gerry Adams gets right to the point: "The single most important issue facing the people of Ireland and Britain is..." What do you think? Some would say unemployment, as both countries are reeling from the recession. Others might suggest immigration, which surged in both nations during the boom years. Many citizens would see the EU as an important issue common to both Dublin and London governments. And, of course, climate change is a hot topic for many people.

Nope. All wrong, according to GA. The "single issue" is "the achievement of Irish unity". No, I didn't get it either. Such an ambitious opening statement succeeds in setting the tone for the article, but is unlikely to engender much support from most readers.

I don't think I am being unkind here: I imagine that most people in Britain are only slightly worried about Northern Ireland, now that they have stopped shooting each other and formed a unity government. I would also imagine that most people in Ireland are much more concerned with the state of their economy, their ability to remain in the Euro and the impending referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. With unemployment in Britain marching toward 2.4 million, I'd bet that the biggest issue even among Adams' countrymen is not Irish unity.

The rest of the article just seems hopelessly optimistic to the point of trivialising tensions that have existed for centuries. He seems to believe that Unionists will be happy to accept a united Ireland, as long as "we" (Sinn Féin? The Irish? The people in charge..?) are "open to listening to unionism" and "willing to explore and to be open to new concepts". Of course, that's all they ever wanted...to be heard.

Adams goes on to say that "The shape and structure of that new Ireland must be a matter of agreement." Yet at the moment that two groups that inhabit this small bit of territory in the north east of the Emerald Isle have agreed to disagree, in order to keep peace. Recent violence suggests that agreement is a long way off.

Sheesh

2009-07-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

A member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), who is also a member of the Scottish National Party (a "left leaning nationalist party advocating secession from the United Kingdom") has complained about the coverage of the Ashes on TV. It seems that Sandra White believes that this most English of sports has no place clogging out the screens of Scotland.

This is odd, considering that Scotland played in the last World Cup and the recent Twenty20 World Cup. OK, they are not exactly top of the table, but they are one of only 16 nations in the whole world who hold One Day International Status. Naturally, the head of Cricket Scotland thinks the coverage is top notch.

However, the point that most perturbs me is that Ms White was so annoyed by the whole situation that she lodged a motion in the Scottish parliament. What? Surely the government of a country has better things to do than consider a complaint about cricket?! Sheesh.

Mind you, they are on recess, so maybe there's not much else going on. Go on holiday Sandra! I can think of great little holiday destination, just north of Venezuela. They don't play much cricket there...

Building Gordon's Pension

2009-07-03T04:22:00.000-07:00

One of the more interesting tasks I performed during the six months that I worked for the Audit Commission was the audit of key performance indicators of a local council in the south west. Councils are required to report various measures of their performance to the central government, particularly relating to the provision of services to the taxpayer. One of these targets has to do with how accessible the pavements around the council are to disabled persons. So I was out on the streets with my tape, measuring the “upstand” of the pavements at pedestrian crossings, for example, or ensuring that the little knob under the control panel was turning, so that deaf persons would know when to cross. I also learned the difference between a pelican and a toucan crossing, and it’s nothing to do with the noise they make.

Another key measure for councils is how quickly they can find accommodation (temporary, usually) for “vulnerable” households, defined as those families with young children or a pregnant woman. They don’t want anyone sleeping on the streets, the but those who we most at risk if they were homeless are given priority. It makes sense: you don’t want pregnant women sleeping in the cold just because their parents kicked them out. My job was, among other things, to ensure that the council had sufficient evidence that the families did indeed meet the definition of vulnerable. Such evidence usually came in the form of a letter from the parents of a pregnant teenaged girl (of which there were many) to the effect that they did not have room for another child. (I was astonished that people could be so callous, until my colleague informed me that they were just playing the system.)

That was my first introduction to social housing in Britain, and I was impressed that the Welfare State ensured that no one should be forced to sleep on the streets. That’s worth paying for, right? Good on the government. Then I moved onto another KPI: the length of time families spend in temporary accommodation. With vulnerable families usually needing housing on short notice, most go to council-run or privately-owned hostels. These are much more expensive per family than permanent accommodation, ie, houses owned by the council or housing associations, so the council is encouraged to get families into free or subsidised accommodation as soon as possible. So this KPI should be a measure of how quickly the administration can get it organised. In my experience, that was more or less the story.

Not so in other parts of the country, because there is a severe shortage of social housing, due mainly to a lack of investment. Whether or not you blame Margaret Thatcher for encouraging people to buy their rented council houses, or New Labour for twelve years of under-investment, the fact is that waiting lists in many parts of the country are as long as your arm. This has a knock-on effect: more families housed in temporary accommodation, less space for the newly homeless, more focus on the most vulnerable, no doubt at the expense of the less vulnerable. Basically, if you are a couple with no children, a single man, or a woman who is not pregnant, you are up shit creek. Phone a friend. Or if you are already in a council house, but need a new one (perhaps due to dilapidation or your growing family) then don’t hold your breath.

Now, you might think that the anger of all of those people on waiting lists, sleeping in someone’s garage or in a cramped studio, would be directed at the government and its failure to invest in social housing during the boom years. And you would be right, partly. However, it seems that a large portion of the people on the waiting lists, and those who champion their cause, have also been blaming the situation on some of the “vulnerable” families: immigrants, who swoop in an take up valuable housing. They are probably right, after all, once the council has established that the immigrants have a right to be here (maybe they are from the EU, or have applied for asylum) they should be treated like anyone else: pregnant, or have small children? Then come on in. That’s called fairness and equality. It’s the law. And it’s unpopular.

So unpopular, in fact, that Gordon Brown recently announced that he would change the system to give more priority to “local” people. (“Local” was the safe word to use, one which is sufficiently ambiguous as to describe a variety of people from just about anywhere, but he couldn’t very well have said “English”, or “British”, or “white”, or, heaven forbid, “indigenous”). The right-wing press immediately saw this as the populist sound bite that it is, a move designed to wrong-foot the BNP. They have sarcastically branded it “British houses for British people”, which is a dig at GB’s failure to ensure “British jobs for British workers”. "Building Britain's Future", of which this proposal is part, is really just an attempt to mount a Labour/GB comeback that would leave even Take That looking on in envy.

Beneath all the pandering and rhetoric, the apparent reality is that GB cannot follow through on this promise, because fairness and equality are enshrined in law. Rod Liddle provides a good explanation, in his usual witty way. GB either needs to reverse existing legislation or get the builders on the case, fast. Maybe he plans to do both, we don’t know, and that is the crux of the matter. The public needs more honesty from the government on this issue. Instead of being bombarded by conspiracy theories from the tabloids, pandered to by national and local politicians and then let down, GB needs to explain the laws that apply, which are tying his hands. He needs to be upfront about the shortage of affordable housing and present a viable plan for bridging the gap. He needs to confront the rumours in the press and dispel them, or admit to them, where appropriate. He needs to remind people that the system is designed to help the most needy and, sometimes, those people are foreign. That’s what makes us a great nation.

The credibility required to so this may be beyond someone who is essentially a lame duck leader. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try – this issue is crying out for some honesty and clarity. Those who depend on the welfare state deserve it.

Regional Disintegration

2009-06-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

I am deeply disturbed by what is coming out of Barbados regarding David Thompson's approach to illegal immigration, not just by the rumours on the blogs which may or may not be entirely true, but also reports in the traditional press.

For those of you who have not be following, in May the PM (pictured) announced that “With effect from 1st June 2009, all undocumented CARICOM nationals who entered Barbados prior to the 31st December, 2005 and remained undocumented for a period of eight years or more, are required to come forward and have their status regularised”. So far, so logical, apart from the obvious arithmetical anomaly in that statement. Apparently this was a campaign promise in the 2008 elections (though in Barbados manifesto items are less promises and more...suggestions, to be performed if the winning party feels so inclined).

Yet things seem to have got out of hand, with a reasonable stance on immigration turning into early morning raids on the residences of suspected "undocumented" nationals which results in their forced deportation, without any of their belongings. That doesn't sound much like an amnesty...that sounds like a witch hunt. It seems that the immigration department did not get the PM's memo, or have decided to get rid of us many of the evil "undocumented"s as possible before the deadline. Yet is this really a case of the left and right hands of government not communicating? Unlikely: after all, someone has to pay for the planes to takes the "aliens" back home.

So is the PM unreasonable and undiplomatic? Or is he simply a realist who understands the limitations of his tiny state in providing for an ever-increasing population. Well, he certainly seems to be in touch with public opinion, to judge from the comments left on internet pages. The following comments were taken from the Nation Newspaper website article linked in the preceding paragraph and the Barbados Free Press blog:

- "Please stop the complaining, at no time can anyone being deported from another country will be treated like royalty. Anyway you go to live illegal,you should expect this sort of treatment when caught."
- "This LANDLORD should be charge for housing ILLEGAL ALIENS"
- "Thank you for enforcing the law...I hope the officers catch this person because it seems that they are issuing a direct challenge to the sovereignty of Barbados"

- "My understanding is that ILLEGAL immigrants have no rights other than the right to be treated humanely during the deportation process."

- "Turn in your illegal neighbours and the police come and take them away. You get whatever the police leave. That sounds about right."
- "It was them who made that decision. Babadus sweet bajan women went and get children for a lot of the pretty hair ones. Why?" [sic]
- "My friend when you are on the run living like a fugitive you don’t have rights"
- "...go home and go somewhere else and make that country miserable."

- "...take back the jobs that were so ruthlessly taken by the illegals."
- "...is how lucky and proud I am to be BAJAN"
- "You can run but you cannot hide my friend."

This is a difficult issue that many countries struggle with and many will argue that the law is the law and while mis-treatment of "illegals" is shameful, it should not distract from the wider issue of scarce resources in a small island state. However, there are several points I would make on this matter.

The first is that the immigration department has to accept that is played a part in getting the country into this situation. Its policies are opaque and inconsistently applied, while its speed of doing business can be mostly kindly described as leisurely. Why is it that people who have been here for eight years remain "undocumented"? It is not as though our borders are difficult to control...we are an island!

Secondly, governments often use immigration as a scapegoat for social problems. So instead of saying, "we neglected to invest in vital infrastructure and social services but instead spent the money on pet projects that were horrible wastes of money", they say "illegal immigrants are to blame, they have overwhelmed our society", which is unlikely.

And no-one seems to be complaining about the contributions that these undocumented workers have made to our National Insurance Scheme, which is about to fall over and from which they will almost certainly never draw a pension.

More important than any of this is the broader issue of regional integration, which has been controversial since even before the fall of the Federation of the West Indies in 1962. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the peoples of the Caricom nations share a common history, culture, racial background, language, religion and very similar challenges, we still view matters along strictly nationalistic lines.

Despite the fact that we have had a West Indies cricket team for nearly a century, we are still a long way away from seeing our neighbours as brothers, or even as cousins. Thus a Bajan of African descent, whose forefathers were slaves, look at a Vincentian of African descent, whose forefathers were slaves, and who lives 100 miles away and call him an illegal alien. Analogies to the EU are rubbish; this is literally the same as Southampton kicking out all of the people who are from Portsmouth. And this is not an African issue: black, white, indian, Chinese, we all share a common identity.

I believe that immigration controls are essentially a form of discrimination, on the basis of place of birth, that is largely unnecessary. We have so much to gain from regional integration (economic cooperation, free movement of labour and capital, etc.) and so much to lose by remaining locked into our narrow, nationalist mindsets. Many say that the real reason some people dislike foreign workers is that they work harder for less. I wish that David Thompson would spend more time trying to advance the Caricom agenda rather than pandering to xenophobia.

However, the news is not all bad. There seem to be nearly as many comments on the websites deploring the actions of the authorities, as there are in praise. For example:

- "Come on treat them like brothers. The way you are treating the guyanese is the same usa treat does everyone." - Andy-G BKLYN NY
- "It relly amazes me. Guyanese or Bajan, we are all human beings above everything." - bajan abroad
- "I believe that we should be offering these deportees a resettlement bounty,after all , illegal or not they did a lot of work here."

Finally, the immortal words of Stedson Wiltshire, AKA Red Plastic Bag:
"to call a Caricom Brother,
illegal, that's out of order."

Dems on the back foot

2009-05-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." The words of Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff in Barack Obama's White House. Now the joke is on him, as the Republicans seem to have taken up his offer...and beat him at his own game.

It was an odd headline, given that the Democrats are in control of both Congress and the White House, but last week the NY Times carried this new story: "Advocates of Gun Rights Are Poised for a Victory". Despite the fact that the US had a Republican president for eight years (and a Republican majority in Congress for six of those years) a reduction in gun control has come on Barack Obama's watch.

The law is relatively minor: it would allow people to carry a loaded and concealed weapon into a national park. However, any victory for the gun lobby is hard-fought. How did this happen? Simple: the Republicans added a provision onto one of the Dems' pet projects, a bill to make credit cards a bit more fair.

What have guns to do with credit cards, you may ask? Nothing...why should they? The provision need have nothing to do with the underlying measure to which it is attached. This is a popular way of getting through legislation that is not without merit. Certainly, there are efficiencies to be gained by passing one bill which achieves many aims. Yet, in cases like this, it's dishonest.

Obama has railed against earmarks, but surely this is a bigger problem? At best, it makes ruling politicians look silly ("Obama lets loaded guns into national parks"), but often it allows the opposition party to derail legislation.

One could argue that this is the will of the people, as the provision was supported by a number of Democrats from states where gun ownership is popular. I think that if the provision has the support of the people, let it stand on its own. Tacking it onto an unrelated bill is legislating by the back door.

So, score one for the NRA. Let's hope the transparency and fairness that this brings to the credit card market is worth it.

Tempest in a teacup?

2009-05-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

The current crisis is a testament to the transparency of British politics

Jacuzzis, fictitious mortgages, furniture, moat cleaning, capital gains tax...these are just some of the expenses that British politicians see as essential to the law-making process. One MP explained that he had to claim back the expense of having his pool cleaned because it came with the house. The whole affair has the country in upheaval, with details of MPs' jiggery-pokery (that's actually a phrase!) keeping the 24 news channels busy and the papers thick, completely distracting us from Swine Flu and even the marital breakdown of two famous losers. But is this whole affair overblown?

Certainly in comparison to global corruption, a little expenses j-p is small beer. The UK ranked 16th on Transparency International's CP Index in 2008. The British public expect honesty and transparency from their elected officials and, with a few exceptions, that is what they generally get. The current debacle is not the end of democracy, but rather an indication of how comparatively clean British politics is. The intense media scrutiny, which enriched the likes of Jade and Jordan, also keeps our politicians honest (every cloud, and all that).

By contrast, in Barbados we have no Freedom of Information or Intergrity Legislation, apparently no rules against conflicts of interest or nepotism and little transparency. Of course, I am not saying that Barbados is corrupt. We rank 22nd on the CPI (out of 180, BTW). There are rumours that a little cash can grease the bureaucratic wheels, but that's not so rare. There are rumours of racism and special interests, but where is there not? To be honest, a little bribery or expense-fiddling would probably be welcome in places such as Myanmar (178th), Venezuela (158th) or Zimbabwe (166th), if it replaced systematic violent repression and broken justice systems.

So are the British entitled to their Tempest? After all, we should not judge ourselves by the standards of the lowest common denominator. Surely the controversy can only improve an already respectable system. Perhaps, but right now the people are mad and, as any banker or witch knows, when the populace gets mad, bricks start flying. The masses are under the ludicrous notion that every MP in Westminster is a crook. People have lost faith in all the major political parties, to the point where we might be represented at the EU by racists or tree huggers.

As for me, I am intensly relaxed about an MP claiming for his bath plug, porm film, or wisteria. I am not enraged by the pad in London, which made a large capital gain last year, tax-free. Because there is still freedom of the press, a vibrant opposition, equal rights for all classes, religions and ethnicities (though that, I am sure, is up for debate). The civil service works far better, in my experience, than it does in the Caribbean and the justice system is respectable. The expenses system needs fixing, but does not warrant the current hysteria.

The maximum my MP can receive in salary and expenses is £90K. If abusing the expenses system is the extent of their wrongdoing, then they are worth every penny.

Swamped nets

2009-05-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

According to Anne Wollenberg, state schools are not a safety net. What??!! That's exactly what a taxpayer-funded public service is, just like welfare benefits or the NHS. The fact that a national health service and a national education system are available to all residents does not negate the fact that the poor would be hardest hit if they were taken away.

Ms. Wollenberg is frustrated that suddenly hard-up middle class parents, no longer able to afford to send their children to private school, are swamping the state system. She believes that we need to "abolish private schools", as if that were possible. She is honest enough to admit that she went to private school for a while, so perhaps she is qualified to discuss both points of view.

Strangely for a journalist, she does not make her point very well. She notes that those hard-up parents will have paid higher than average taxes and have every right to send their children to state school. She says that it would be unfair to deny their children a place. She says that education is a fundamental right. Then she makes the bizzare claim that "everyone should have the right to a school place, but they should not have the right to pay for it".

Guardian readers and other socialists seem to have a vendetta against fee-paying schools, presumably for boring reasons such as equality and jealousy. However, they are missing the point; there is one main factor when it comes to education for your children, one which will guide our decisions for Sam: quality. You send your children to the best school possible. If that is a state school, then go for it. If that is a private school, then find the money. And if you cannot afford a private school and the state school you children go to is crap, then pressure the school to improve but be prepared to work hard with them in the evenings.

I am not saying that all state schools are crap (though Ms Wollenberg alludes to this by saying that private schools give the rich "a potential leg-up in higher education and the jobs market"). Probably there are a few bad apples which give the whole system a bad name. Neither am I saying that the fee-paying schools are free from bad apples. Personally I see no point in paying a lot of money for education if the same quality can be obtained for free. When Sam is old enough, we will be guided by Ofsted reports, not school fees and certainly not idealistic Guardian columnists.

But in case Ms. Wollenberg gets into a position of power beware: those of you who have not taken up a public service will not be allowed to "muscle back into the free provision, creating sudden high levels of demand that the state sector is ill-equipped to cope with". So better not suddenly become unemployed...

Spare no expense - exception

2009-05-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I suggest that the MPs allowances system is not in need of radical overhaul, just more sensible and stringent application of existing rules, perhaps by an independent body and a good dose of honesty. However, there is one story among the many which is more galling than Brian Cohen's caravan or Jacqui Smith's bath plug. This is that Sinn Fein MPs claim allowances from the central government in Westminster, ie, from you and I, for "second homes" in London despite the fact that they refuse to take their seats on the House of Commons. The amounts are really not important. The fact that they appear to be paying way above the market rate for their housing is not the point.

The point is that it is patently dishonest to claim that an allowance is necessary to perform a job that you have no intention of performing. It seems that, while they will not accept the Queen's rule, the Queen's cash will do just fine.

Update - The worst of both worlds

2009-05-08T02:53:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports today that President Obama's Task Force, which is trying to find solutions for GM and Chrysler, has a tough decision to make in the restructuring of GM: to keep American jobs or not. Given the union influence, you would have thought that they had no choice, but life is not so simple.

As the Post article reports, the Task Force "can either require General Motors to keep more jobs at home, potentially raising labor costs at a company already beset with financial woes, or it can risk political fury by allowing the automaker to expand operations at lower-cost manufacturing locations".

President Obama, who many pointed out during his run for the White House has no previous executive experience, is about to find out that running a business is very different to running a campaign.

The worst of both worlds

2009-05-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

Don’t vote for a Democrat and then be surprised when he implements “liberal” (to quote the much-misused American term – “socialist” in Euro-speak) policies. This is an important lesson for the thousands of young (or otherwise) people who voted for Obama in 2008. Other lessons include taking the campaign manifesto with a pinch (or more) of salt and, most important: beware of any challenger promising “change”.

Just how far to the Left of the political divide Obama is was the cause of much speculation during his campaign, but perhaps now his true colours are showing. It may be irrelevant anyway, as the Democratic Party is about to gain absolute power in Washington. Nevertheless, recent speeches and actions have suggested Obama is firmly on the side of big government, social safety nets and workers’ rights.

Putting aside the Stimulus package (which, it is rumoured, he only rubber-stamped anyway), his Keynesian approach to the recession (in which he is not alone) and the AIG debacle (which was mostly rhetoric for opinion polls) the best example of this is the government’s handling of GM and Chrysler. In my view the proposed restructuring, apart from being unfair and unbalanced, represents the worst of both worlds. I’ll explain.

I don’t always support bankruptcy: it is much abused by the more powerful participants, which is almost never those who stand to lose the most (usually the workers and communities) and should therefore be a last resort. Yet at times there is greater danger in keeping a dying company on life support and Chapter 11, for example, provides the cover to restructure and pull a viable company from the ashes. And companies, and their business models, must be viable. Otherwise the stakeholders are only fooling themselves.

So initially I didn’t support bankruptcy for Detroit’s terminal patients, despite the debilitating legacy costs that impact their competitiveness. The pain that would be felt if one or more of these firms was to collapse would be too widespread and damaging to allow this to happen. Entire communities would lose their raison d’être. And then I learned about “Jobs Banks”.

There are so many words that can be used to describe a system that pays workers to do nothing: wasteful, uncompetitive, demeaning, unfair, socialist. How about this for irony: the world’s pre-eminent capitalist society is home to a policy of which Soviet-era bosses would be proud. This policy shows the power wielded by the unions, and while collective bargaining for individually powerless workers is a good thing, when unions undermine the business model they are in danger of killing the proverbial golden egg-laying goose.

The Detroit Three have higher wage costs than foreign-owned plants and huge pension liabilities. Clearly, these burdens needed to be reduced in order to create viable business models for the future. It is unfortunate to cut workers’ pay, unfair to retirees who depend on their pensions, but everyone stands to lose more if the company ceases to exist. The power of the unions needed to be curbed and Chapter 11 could have provided that.

Instead we have the worst of both worlds. Chrysler has entered bankruptcy but Obama’s proposal hands the unions 55% of the company in a debt for equity swap. That’s control of the company to people who brought you the Jobs Bank. Meanwhile, supposedly “secured” creditors are being offered 29 cents in the dollar. Over at GM, Obama has pledged to limit private investors (mostly pension funds), who are owed $27 billion, to a 10% shareholding in the company, while the UAW will get 39% for the $20bn in healthcare liabilities it is owed.

Almost as bad are Obama’s statements on this issue. Much of it is designed to appeal to voters of all different stripes who are facing economic hardship. Yet in the Chrysler affair, he has promised to punish “rogue” lenders who refused to accept the proposed deal. The fact that a lawyer would feel the need to “punish” investors who were simply seeking to enforce their legal rights is deeply troubling and surely indicative of Obama’s leftist leanings.

Or is it? The prime beneficiaries of these deals are the workers, current and retired. That may seem morally beneficial, but remember that the losers – the shareholders of the car companies, the shareholders of the banks that lent money and the pensioners whose money is invested in Chrysler’s bonds – also include ordinary workers. The non-TARP lenders manage pension funds for teachers and others. So is President Obama favouring one constituency over another?

No, he is paying back one of his big financial backers, the UAW. As in Britain, any Democratic candidate will obtain huge support from the unions and be expected to pay it back in kind when the time comes. How is this any different from the Republican Party granting favours to Big Business that funds their campaigns? When President Obama talked about “change”, did he mean that the special interest groups that have been sidelined for the last eight years will get their turn at the trough?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Light entertainment

2009-04-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

Real news is often more entertaining than fiction; maybe it's the way it's reported in the tabloids and the comments left by readers. As an example, I give you the latest benefit criminals: a septuagenarian couple who won the lottery but continued to claim benefits from the council. The amount was only £5,358.27, small fry compared with most of the headlines these day, but I guess if no good deed goes unpunished, neither should the minor offenses. The couple were fined £7,000 in total. But the entertaining part was the response from our illustrious public.

The Daily Mail described the couple as " 'Mean' ", hinting at the views of the editors. One reader said that it was a "scandal" that these two should be criminalised for trying to hang on to some security for their "old age". Another thinks it wrong that they should have to live off of their savings just to save the council a few quid which - wait for it - "would be thrown at immigrants". (This last fellow was particularly entertaining because he obviously does not realise where the council's "few quid" comes from.)

To add balance to the debate, another reader suggested that pensioners are always on the take (whatever that means). However, most entertaining was the lady who suggested that it was criminal for the council to force the elderly couple to repay money that they were "entitled to". With such sentiment, we should hardly be surprised by the profligacy of our elected representatives. The likes Harry Cohen could almost take heart.

Spare no expense

2009-04-25T00:45:00.000-07:00

There are times when the tabloids do not need to work very hard for their rhetoric (though I am not convinced they work very hard at any time) and recently they must have thought it was Christmas. Between Damian McBride, Jacqui Smith and Tony McNulty, not to mention the G20, Budget and GB's ludicrous proposal to pay MPs for turning up, Spin Doctors at the likes of the Sun, Daily Mail and Mirror have had it pretty easy of late. But as usual a little balance is missing, nowhere moreso than in the MP's Expenses affair, where the lack of perspective extends beyond the daily Bog Rolls to the Broadsheets, which should know better. The media have whipped this issue up into such a frenzy that we now seem unable to distinguish between claims that blatantly abuse the system and arrangements that are not only fair, but standard practice in the corporate world.

In theory, there is nothing wrong with being reimbursed for legitimate business expenses, regardless of how small or large the amount. So it is fair that MPs should be able to claim back the costs of accommodation in London, if it is necessary and helps them to do their job more effectively. On the other hand, Jacqui Smith's claim that her "main home" is a room in her sister's house and her "second home" is where her family live is just plain dishonest. Likewise Tony McNulty should not be able to claim for staying in his parents' house. If the rules do indeed allow such arrangements, they are dead wrong. Meanwhile, those MPs that live a commutable distance from London should follow the example of Sarah Teather.

It is fine and reasonable that there is public outcry over these arrangements. Yet there have also been headlines which suggest that those MPs in "grace and favour" houses (how dodgy does that sound?!) in London should not be renting out any other properties that they may own, that they are, in effect, making money off of the tax payer. But what else are they supposed to do with the house(s) they own, but do not live in? Gordon Brown, who is required (I think) to live at No. 10 Downing St., keeps his London property vacant, to avoid controversy. However, this means that he makes a loss on the property and surely we do not expect MPs to do that? Alistair Darling also has a second property but lives in No.11 and he rents his property out. His options are to take a loss or sell the property, but neither of those are reasonable.

For sure, Darling's second home arrangements smell a bit funny, and it would seem wrong for an MP to claim for a second home and live in a grace and favour property. But they could be out of (cabinet) job at short notice and so must maintain a second home. Instead, MPs should make every effort to rent out the second homes that they temporarily do not need, and be reimbursed for only the net cost to them (if any).

The point is that I doubt that the current MP expense system is in need of radical overhaul, certainly not the crackpot idea that GB recently proposed. Instead, ludicrous loopholes that are exploited in the cases noted above need closing. Perhaps the system should be set and managed by an independent body, which need only look to the nearest multinational for a blueprint on which to build. Maybe Sir Christopher Kelly will suggest such a simple and straighforward solution. In the meantime, the anger of the "Court of Public Opinion", which no doubt was responsible for GB's proposal, is working overtime. Sir Christopher would do well to ignore it.

Update, 27/04/09:
Stop the presses! I actually agree with something written in the Guardian! Jackie Ashley's article today was spot on, suggesting that the answer to this problem is not radical overhaul, it's for MPs to stop stealing.

Tell Hattie I said no

2009-04-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

Apparently Commons leader Harriet Harman plans to ask the taxpayer for an extra £800,000 a year for MPs' Ponzi, sorry, pension scheme. It's probably grossly underfunded now that stock markets are in the gutter and most investment portfolios have made losses.

I can't make it to Westminster this week, so can someone who is going please tell her I said "No"?

The only way is forward

2009-03-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Capitalism is not dead. Unfortunately plenty of other -isms are on the rise.

This recession has brought, and will continue to bring, much suffering on people from all walks of life. Unemployment, eviction, divorce, bankruptcy are just a few of the tragic costs of the boom years. Politicians may not all agree on the way out of this mess, but none disagree that the consequences will continue to be felt for some time.

One of the less tragic but still worrying features of the current crisis is that it has given a voice to groups who had been largely smothered during the good times. Anti-capitalists have renewed their chant against the evils of the free market. Anti-globalisationists are presenting the current suffering as evidence that an integrated world is unfair and unjust. Across the world, parties on the Left have found new confidence, especially those in opposition or only recently in power.

A new People's Charter has been launched, calling for such crowd-pleasers as fairness and justice, jobs and homes for all. In the detail it calls for are large-scale nationalisation, 'no interest' loans, free education, an end to war, more taxes for the wealthy and a ban on pension funds (though I am not sure they have thought that last one through). I naively expected the "detail" to tell us all how this could possibly work in the real world. It did not.

I will not be too scathing, though, because the Charter does contain some good stuff. An end to child poverty, an end to discrimination, equal pay for women, investment in young people, no scape-goating of immigrants (thank you). A better future. That's what we all want. Yet a brief listen to the call-in programmes or a perusal of the opinion columns of certain newspapers will tell how the groups I identified above think this can be achieved. But they are in reverse gear.

Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva is not just a world leader with a really long name, but President of one of the largest "developing" economies in the world. Today he said that white, blue-eyed bankers are entirely to blame for the world financial crisis. He went on to note that "this crisis was caused by no black man or woman or by no indigenous person or by no poor person". Now, while I applaud the fact that in Brazil someone can make such a blatantly prejudicial statement in public and not get locked up (better not try that in London next week, Lula) his words are, at best, unhelpful in solving the crisis. In any case, even if you agree that the bankers are solely to blame, he can't possibly know for sure that there were no black or female bankers in the trading teams of AIG, for example.

Across the world, people are rejoicing the death of capitalism. Yet capitalism is not dead, it's more alive now than ever. This is how capitalism works: you party for a while and then you get a hangover. Then you do it again. It's not perfect, but countless national experiments in the last 160 years have shown us that it's the best we've got. Globalisation is not evil, it has lifted millions of people out of poverty. What, did Lula think that the "white" (or otherwise) people who are facing foreclosure in the rich countries that have supported the current account surpluses of much of the developing world for the last decade would continue to buy his shoes and aircraft during the worst economic downturn in 80 years?

No, the whole world (OK, most of it) was at the party and everyone must suffer the hangover. I agree that it is unfair that many of the people suffering the worst hangovers did not enjoy the party. I fully support the idea put forward by many of the Anti- groups that we must ensure a better social partnership next time. I agree that everyone must be given the chance to benefit from future economic growth. I agree with learning lessons from this crisis in order to ensure that the next hangover is much less brutal.

What I do not agree with is the backward-looking methods that the Antis suggest. A return to the tax regime of 1970s Britain. A return to barriers to international trade and free movement of labour and capital. A return to punishment of the wealthy and successful. Back to class warfare and the politics of envy. These methods are achievable only in reverse gear.

Yet the most dangerous of all of the recently resuscitated groups are the Anarchists. They are the worst because they have no ideology...or, at least, no constructive ideology. While we may scorn the protests in Paris, they are evidence of democracy at work. On the other hand, vandalism of private property has no legal or just basis and deserves no place in our society. The fact that the actions of a depraved few yesterday at The Shred's house seem to have broad support is more worrying than any of the ideas of the Antis.

Britishness

2009-03-25T04:06:00.000-07:00

Terrorists are welcome - it’s arrogance and queue-jumping that we really hate

What does it mean to be British? Must one have a strong belief in democracy and the rule of law, or a fondness for boiled leaves? Is it remaining calm and organised in the face of adversity, or a desire to overanalyse atmospheric activity? Perhaps recent stories in the media provide an insight into the psyche of the British. On the one hand we have Binyam Muhammad, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was welcomed back to Britain last month, despite the fact that intelligence experts consider him a threat and he is not actually a British citizen. On the other, we have the disturbing case of a man who was atacked and killed for alleged queue-jumping. Top it off with the depressingly vile attacks on the comments pages and message boards directed at Gail Trimble, the ultra-intelligent star of University Challenge. Do we have our priorities wrong in this society? Yes and no.

Binyam Muhammad is no saint. He came to this country from Ethiopia illegally, was refused asylum but granted limited leave to remain, then left the country to go to Pakistan where he was eventually picked up on a false passport. The CIA was convinced he was a threat and held him for more than four years at Gitmo, but failed to make a case and all charges have been dropped. However, the crucial point is that in that time he claims to have been tortured and says the British government was complicit. No one seems to be jumping up and down to rubbish his claims. All this makes it easy for those such as the Daily Mail to berate the government for accommodating him, extending the same benefits as law-abiding patriots. But they are wrong.

Personally, I struggle to see how he is our responsibility, simply because he had permission to be here when he was picked up. We could have said that he was Ethiopia’s problem, and washed our hands of it. Yet this misses the point. Britain has a reputation for fairness, equality and the rule of law that dates back to the Magna Carta and the birth of parliamentary democracy. Britons are rightly proud that their nation is founded on such strong principles – I am proud to be associated with such a society. However, we can’t have it both ways: all the charges against Muhammad have been dropped and he is a free man. There is also an unspoken obligation for Britain to atone for its part in his mistreatment: regardless of the truth behind his more sinister claims, detention without trail is bad enough. That is why he must remain here – for now.

So although on the face of it we seem to be welcoming terrorists, the full picture is rather different. The same can be said of the second story, in which a man was killed for alleged queue-jumping. Kevin Tripp, an ME sufferer, was attacked by the boyfriend of a heroin addict, over a previous disagreement involving who was next in the queue. Even more tragic was the fact that he was the wrong man, an innocent bystander. Queuing is religion in this country and there is no easier way to piss off a room full of people than to queue-jump, whether accidental or intentional. This is mostly admirable: indeed, the ability of the British to form order out of chaos is another quality to be proud of, one which is sadly not replicated in other parts of the world. And it’s driven by the fairness and equality on which the society is based.

So is queue-jumping a capital offense? No, of course not. The killer was a petty thief and a thug, his accomplice a shoplifter and heroin addict. They belong to a criminal minority present in every country in the world. Despite being motivated by a quintessential British bugbear, they no more represent the values of the average Briton than does a suicide bomber and have been rightly condemned from all sides.

Even though British society was built on fairness and equality, that does not stop us from enjoying a good dose of mud slinging now and them, a point demonstrated by the rise of quiz genius Gail Trimble, who dazzled viewers of University Challenge with her seemingly endless supply of knowledge. At a time when the country’s education system is coming under increasing attack from all sides, you might expect the general public to be proud that we can still foster great intelligence. Alas, Gail was vilified on internet message boards for being irritating and vicious, to name just a few of the kinder charges. Is this evidence of gender bias or good old-fashioned envy?

It turns out that many people thought she was smug, full of herself and basically a bit up her own arse. Along with murderers and queue-jumpers, the British hate arrogance. Maybe this also has its roots in fairness and equality, in so far as arrogance could breed a sense that everyone else is wrong. Perhaps it’s just that self deprecation is an inalienable part of being British. In any case, it doesn’t matter how smart or pretty you are, if you display more than a little arrogance, smugness or superiority, you will soon be unpopular. Nevertheless, I should mention that I never saw Gail in action, but many other commentators have denied claims of smugness and suggested that Gail was picked on for being a smart and ambitious woman.

In that respect, Britain is no different from many other countries in the world.

Robin Hood was wrong

2009-03-23T02:51:00.001-07:00

There is a disturbing trend in the way that inequities in our society are tackled. When middle class children dominate the best state schools, the Government introduces a lottery. Faced with the reality that fee-paying schools often provide a much better education, many suggest banning these schools. In sought-after country villages, where the locals are being priced out of the property market by rich city types, people protest outside the houses and the Councils are encouraged to confiscate the empty properties. And to tackle the age-old divide between rich and poor: higher taxes for the rich.

A caller on a recent Radio 4 programme suggested that the current recession could be traced to the reduction of the top rate of tax in 1979. His assertion was that reducing taxes for the better-off has somehow caused the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Unfortunately, he did not explain how he reached that conclusion, but he did have an extremely complicated solution involving a progressive tax regime which would increase the marginal tax rate of the very wealthy to 90%. Again, no explanation as to how this might help.

One of the worrying by-products of the Credit Crunch is that it has given a new voice to a variety of groups that were less popular during the boom years, and whose ideology is suspect, notably those against globalisation, capitalism, free trade and private wealth. In the Independent today, one writer described herself as “viscerally…repulsed by the super-affluent and their show-off lifestyles”. She also hinted at the glory days of 1974-1978, and she and the Radio 4 caller are likely to find many a sympathetic ear. Those greedy rich and middle classes, with their flashy cars and independent schools, stealing from the mouths of working class babes: they need to be taken down a peg or six and that will solve our economic woes. Yet this is all symptomatic of something I call Robin Hood thinking.

Steal from the rich and give to the poor is a romantic idea, which is probably why Robin Hood and his band of Merrymen are such an enduring brand. What politician would not want to be seen as the hero who robs Sir Fred the Villain of his millions? Thus Robin Hood’s criminal activities were justified because he was bridging the gap of income inequality. He was, in a sense, practising a medieval form of socialism, in which a selfless hero of the proletariat empowers his peers through redistribution of wealth, with no desire for his own enrichment. Unfortunately, human nature is not so heroic and the proletariat in subsequent socialist societies found themselves let down by their benevolent heroes, who were only interested in enriching their narrow band of Merrymen.

The Independent writer was right to turn our attention to the social cost of an unequal society (although she let herself down by failing to reign in her contemptuous jealousy of the wealthy, who have apparently “ripped off their companies and the state” for decades). We cannot accept massive social inequities, even if we are on the right side of the tracks. Yet idealisation of the 1970s suggests a desire only to impoverish the rich, not empower the poor. When the top rate of tax was increased to 83% in 1974, it applied to incomes over £20,000 and just 750,000 people were affected. Yet the last three decades of lower income tax rates have coincided with an expansion of the middle class and a more affluent society. Do we really want to reverse these trends in the name of income equality?

Similarly, when faced with the need to bridge a social gap, our government doggedly insists on pulling down the successful, instead of trying to improve the plight of those who are disadvantaged. By seeking to rob those who can pay of a better education, exclude students from higher education on the basis of where they went to school or impoverish the rich with punitive taxes the government succeeds only in alienating the better-off and satisfying the envy of people who despise the rich or successful.

This Government needs to get off its lazy ass find real solutions to poverty, underachievement, poorly-performing state schools, benefits dependence and a shortage of affordable housing. Going back to the 1970s is not the solution: it's the nightmare.

Crazy world

2009-03-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

I am sure that for generations people have been using the phrase “You know the world is going crazy when…”. In 2003 the conventional wisdom (and with apologies to Chris Rock) went something like this: “You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper in the world is white, the best golfer is black, the tallest man in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold sailing’s biggest trophy, the French are calling the Americans arrogant and the Germans don’t want to go to war.”

Well, fast forward 6 years and it seems that the world is going crazy once again. This time it’s the Americans who, it seems, can teach the Europeans a thing or two about Socialism. In Britain the general public raised hell every time a bank announced bonuses for their staff, even if the bank had not been bailed out by the taxpayer and regardless of the comparative size of the award. There is a special place on bowling pins and dartboards around the country for Sir Fred the Shred’s face.

Yet while politicians of all hues lined up to kick the Shred’s ass (and those of all the other Sirs and Lords involved) the government remained impotent to provide the vigilantes with some blood. Hurricane Harriet’s “alarming” suggestion that they would get the Shred’s money back somehow, because Gordon Brown said so, was treated with disdain, not just by the usual red-topped suspects but those in her own party.

Oh, how naïve we are! And how we lack imagination and passion, more concerned with the rule of law and the setting of precedents! It has taken the US government less than a week to table not one, but two bills which would claw back nearly all of the bonuses that AIG plans to pay out, through a special tax on bonuses paid to employees of banks that have been bailed out. Nevermind that the bonus payout is 0.1% of the size of the AIG bailout (so far), politicians from both parties have sprung into action faster than Sarah Palin on a moose hunt, and in a manner that makes our politicians look not only lazy but totally devoid of ideas.

Add to that the fact that President Obama has capped executive pay, plans a big increase in the deficit, seems intent on removing secret ballot from union votes, has proposed greening up the government’s fleet of cars and will push a massive expansion of public healthcare, and it is hard to see what our illustrious leaders will find to argue about the at the G20 jolly next month. I expect they’ll find something…

Perhaps there’s a much more fundamental principle that the US politicians have demonstrated: where there’s a vote, there’s a way.

Lessons in value destruction...and blame

2009-03-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

The Lloyds TSB Board, its (now minority) Shareholders and Gordon Brown have only themselves to blame

It’s almost never a good sign when a Prime Minister gets involved in merger talks between private companies. Despite any indirect benefits which may conceivably accrue to shareholders, employees and other stakeholders, it is almost certain that the PM has political motives, and government politics and private enterprise rarely mix well. Politicians of all hues have been railing against the “short-term” thinking that apparently lead to the excessive risk-taking that caused the credit crunch, but politics is the ultimate example of nearsighted thinking: get elected next time (which, in this case, was in less than 2 years).

So it was with the shotgun wedding of Lloyds TSB and HBOS last year. Gordon Brown, keen to avoid an embarrassing sequel to the tragicomedy of "The Rock", arranged for one of his friends to buy the “troubled” (ie, insolvent) HBOS, steamrollering the competition authorities at the same time. I disliked the plan from the beginning on the grounds that Britain’s banking market was already oligopolistic (better than Barbados, by far, but miles behind the hyper-competitive US market).

There was little resistance to this at the time: the Lehman catastrophe was fresh in the minds of politicians and the public, GB still had the moral upper hand to preach fiscal responsibility and the size of the numbers coming out of the US regarding AIG were mind boggling. As a result, most people seemed to be happy to overlook the inevitable concentration of the banking market and competition concerns were trumped by the severity of the situation. This was the first mistake. We should not compromise on a competitive market. The government could have bought HBOS and any cost to the tax payer would have been worth it to preserve consumer choice. I would have been much easier to sell off a nationalised but independent HBOS when the economy rebounded than to break up the Lloyds Banking Group.

With the benefit of hindsight, there was another reason for opposing the deal: the wholescale destruction of shareholder value. From what I can gather (I am no expert on the background of British banks) the merger was an odd-couple marriage, combing a conservative and well-run Lloyds with an aggressive and risk-taking HBOS. Given the fear and panic prevalent in the financial sector last September, what on earth made Sir Victor Blank think that taking on unknown liabilities was “good value for shareholders”? HBOS’ share of the LBG toxic debt insured by the government is more than £200,000,000,000 (all twelve digits are used to underline the enormity of the sum). If we give Sir Victor the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did not know about most of this exposure, that points to a failure to perform basic due diligence, which is highly irresponsible in the good times, much more so during a crisis.

The likely reason that Sir Victor, the rest of the Board and the shareholders (who had the ability to vote against the deal) agreed to this arranged marriage is that they jumped at the chance to dramatically increase market share, knowing that the Competition Commission would be impotent to veto the deal. This must have been particularly enticing, given that an earlier deal with Abbey had been blocked. Brown probably agreed to help Blank out if the deal turned sour (a good assumption anyway), talked up the commercial advantages of creating this mega bank and maybe even had a few sticks to brandish at his old chum, alongside the carrots. Blank saw the opportunity to grow his empire with little risk to his own reputation, as he could say that the mistakes made at HBOS were not his fault. The Board and shareholders would have been onside for the same reasons, and all that was left was for the PM to proclaim himself savior of the world.
The result, as we know, is a loss of circa £11,000,000,000, even though the Lloyds TSB part of the group made a “modest” profit of £870M, and a government stake of 65%, no doubt soon to increase. This is the very definition of destruction of shareholder value. Perhaps there is still hope that, in five or ten years, the deal will prove to be beneficial, but the odds are stacked against it. The (now impoverished) LBG shareholders are taking the bank to court in an attempt to block further government ownership. They may be disappointed, and rightly so. They took a punt on the prospect of stellar returns and have ended up with massive losses.

That’s how the free market works.

A blight on our society

2009-03-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

I normally don't go in for the role model argument: that by excelling at sports, music, acting or generally being photographed a lot, ordinary people become examples of how we should live our lives. And hence should they behave in a manner befitting their status. By our actions we set examples regarding what we deem acceptable, and we should remember that, but everyone most be allowed to live their life as they see fit (within the law, of course). Parents who complain that their children are being poorly influenced by strangers are looking for excuses (though I might change my mind in 15 years!). However, there is one area in which I will break my rule: domestic violence.

It is never right to hit anyone, regardless of the situation (though I am more flexible on self-defense), but to be abusive (physically or psychologically) towards a weaker human being a particularly cowardly act. So much of the problem is caused by socialisation: violence against women (and children, and probably a minuscule percentage of men) is endemic in the societies from which I, my wife and half of my family hail.

I did not think that it was such a problem in the society which I have adopted, but a recent survey by the Home Office has produced some startling results. As many as one fifth of respondents believed that it is OK to hit a women in certain circumstances and an unsettlingly large proportion of those respondents were women. While we should be wary of attributing to much weight to a poll of such a small number of people (915), it surprised me.

Domestic violence has a profound impact on the whole family: children lose respect for either or both parents; boys grow up believing that it is a necessary part of being a man, girls that it is an unavoidable part of married life. Many of those who cry "she deserved it" after a case hits the press are themselves victims or potential victims.

All the more reason, then, for those persons who have become role models to millions of impressionable boys and girls to play their part in stamping out this blight on our society. Cue Hip hop's hottest couple..until recently, anyway, when Chris Brown became public enemy #1 in Barbados (and now doubt many other countries). The details of that attack last month were galling enough; now the press is awash with rumours that this was only the latest and worst incident of many.

Rihanna has made some difficult choices in the last month, the most important of which was to testify if called in the case against Brown. A not so good (in my opinion) decision was to apparently reconcile with Brown. There are many arguments for and against reconciliation in difficult circumstances and no doubt there are many more theories on why women who have been abused go back to their agressors. In this case, I don't care about any of that.

By reconciling, Rihanna would send a message to cowards that their actions are acceptable. She would send a message to victims that they have no choice but to submit. Like it or not, she is a role model to children everywhere and the message she would be sending to all children in abusive households is that violence is acceptable.

That would be a tragedy.

Envy and smokescreens

2009-03-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

To be a successful politician requires many qualities: good oration, ambition, a desire to fight. One must also be able to tow the line when necessary, to know when to stand up for your own principles and when to acquiesce to the desires of your constituents. Most importantly, when you really screw things up, you must always find a good scapegoat to take the rap. Good old GB has found one, and it seems to be working better than even he could have imagined, helped along by a good dose of public envy.

When will someone admit that the reason why the whole country is after Sir Fred "the Shred" Goodwin's modest pension is not because he has a wicked nickname but because he was wickedly successful? There is no other logical reason for it. Yes, it turns out that he was a colossal failure as a CEO, driven by greed and ambition. And his annual pension is more than twice the value of my house (especially these days). And that he signed off some sponsorship deals with his childhood heroes that surely cannot be earning a good return.

However, he has not (yet) been charged with any crime. Instead, he has lost his job and become pretty much unemployable (in the short term). And show me a successful leader who was not driven by ambition and a certain amount of greed? You think Jack Welch did it for the free flights? Did Tony Blair do it for the convenient location of #10? Was Churchill just trying to pay off his mortgage?

The Shred was a product of his time and environment, he was just more successful than most. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. His poor judgment destroyed shareholder value, but who among us would have traded places with him, making the judgment calls he had to make? And how many people out there, having ballsed it up in a job and facing unemployment, would have the benevolence to refuse a pension worth half of their basic pay?

The sums involved make it easier to hate him, but The Shred is public enemy #1 because the public is naturally jealous of people who are successful. David Beckham: ridiculed for his being too pretty; Gail Trimble: taunted for being brainy; Lewis Hamilton: shunned for the careless crime of strutting his stuff. The media battle against Heather Mills was particularly entertaining, and it's always the same: we espouse benevolence and humility, but I'll bet most people secretly admire Mucca.

Psychologists can debate the cause of this public envy, but the immediate effect is to distract people from the real issues. The relentless pursuit of The Shred's millions can only serve to distract UKFI from the job of turning around RBS, which has gobbled up £45.5 billion of taxpayers' money (which, by the way, is 2,844 times the size of The Shred's alleged pension pot of £16m). Any idiot should be able to see that clawing back £16m on moral grounds, at the expense of £45Bn, is a fool's errand.

The focus and vilification of this year's bonus payouts and calls to sack those earning them, or let them walk if they are unhappy, ignores a basic busines principle that a business will almost certainly fail without proper continuity. Firing all the "greedy and arrogant bankers" and replacing them with fresh (presumably more benevolent) blood, regardless of their qualifications, is a recipe for disaster. And as much as everyone hates the bankers who (apparently) got us into this mess, they are best-placed to get us back out.

Most importantly, and tragically, this envy and public outcry gives excellent cover for the Government, who deserve at least as much credit for the disaster as the banks. You may think that GB is under fire for not showing some remorse, but imagine if all of the cloumn inches and blogs devoted to The Shred were directed at Labour's failings over the last 12 years. Or the last three months: the fact is GB's fire fighting is not working. Businesses are not getting the funding that is so vital to stay alive. Banks are ultra-conservative with their lending, which should surprise no one. The economy is bleeding jobs and local councils are straining to support the unemployed. Thousands face bankruptcy and eviction. The Inflation fears of just a few months ago have turned to deflation warnings and the D-word has come out of it's box. And the most useful activity our illustrious leaders can do is spend more money fighting to get 1/2,844th of it back.

And in true vigilante fashion, the public falls for this smokescreen. It's shameful.

Of pots and kettle

2009-01-29T00:37:00.000-08:00

Days into his presidency, Barack Obama overturned the "Mexico City Policy", which bans US state aid to charities around the world which sponsor or provide information on abortion. The response from pro-lifers, catholics and the Right was predictable: Pro-life groups in the US spoke of their disappointment after Obama's promises to help reduce abortions. Newspapers reported that Obama had hurt his chances at building cross-party relations by acting so quickly with this explosive issue, and confirmed that the US culture wars are alive and well. With unintended irony, the Vatican pot spoke of kettle Obama's "arrogance", and that he is sanctioning the "destruction of human life".

If their response was predictable, so was Obama's move. Indeed, concerned groups probably started drafting their responses on 5th November 2008, or perhaps much earlier in the year. Obama was reversing the ban that George W Bush (R) imposed on his first day in office, which in turn reinstated the ban that was Bill Clinton (D) threw out on his first days in office, which was itself a reversal of the policy introduced by Ronald Reagan (R) in 1984. It's a bit like political ping pong. Yet this issue has infinitely more importance than the US culture wars or a game which uses an over sized dinner table.

Abortion is legal in the US and many other countries around the world (including Italy, no doubt to the Vatican's disdain). Many family planning groups see it as an integral part in helping poor families. Yet this issue goes beyond abortion: it resulted in a halt in funding to international groups that might have had abortion lurking in their wider activities. In addition, when George W brought back the ban on 2000 he included provisions to discourage the use of any contraception other than promoting abstinence. This resulted in USAID restricting the distribution of condoms to groups that did not sign an antiabortion pledge. Because USAID is the largest supplier of condoms in the developing world, condom supplies were reduced at the same time that HIV/AIDS was spreading.

It is difficult for a reasonable, dispassionate observer (if there are any of us left) to see the "global gag rule", as it is called, as anything other than arrogance on the part of a powerful political machine that is unable to ban abortion in its own country and seems intent on forcing its ideology on sovereign nations. The "lives" that the rule has saved are surely outnumbered by the lives lost to HIV/AIDS and problems blighting poor, overpopulated communities (such as malnutrition and other diseases). Religious groups have a right to show their displeasure, but calling Obama's move arrogant is just start of what I imagine will be a long period of kettle-bashing.

It's not about flying, stupid

2009-01-17T02:38:00.000-08:00

I am not in favour of the third runway at Heathrow, for a few reasons. The site is not suitable for a major hub airport, hemmed in as it is by densely populated areas, which has had a profound impact on air traffic management: they could double traffic simply by using both existing runways at the same time, instead of the current system where each one is used for only half the day. What a waste of capacity...how will they address this with #3? I also think that the government's decision was not based on reasoned and independent discussion, but a result of a powerful BA/BAA lobby and a desire to snub the Conservatives. Plus, recent efforts at expansion have been disastrous. It seems to make much more sense to increase capacity at one of the other airports in London. I also like the idea of a new one in the Thames estuary.

However, I'm certainly not going to take to the streets in protest, partially because I don't feel that strongly about it, but mostly because of the company I would be keeping. The coalition of groups opposed to the third runway include the village of Sipson (fair enough), Boris Johnson (well..OK), Richard Branson (self-interest) and the Opposition (who oppose almost everything the government do in hopes of being elected). But the groups that annoy me the most are the woolly-headed eco-mentalists who, if they had their way, would ensure that we all go back to using horse and carts and sailing ships to get around the world.

My beef with the eco-mentalists is two-fold. Firstly, while their concerns are valid (I agree that global warming must be tackled) their proposed solutions are, at best, impractical and destined to fail. Most of them seem uninterested in the practical problems of tackling global warming and instead live in dreamland where the world can be changed to emit no carbon at all. This is blatantly unachievable. Britain's energy needs will never be met exclusively by wind, water or solar power, not in our lifetime and not at the same price as provided by fossil fuels. Solutions to a problem of this size require ideas on many fronts: alternative energy, cleaner coal- and oil-fired power stations, gas power, carbon capture, reduction of energy needs through more efficient engines, etc. and, yes, nuclear power. In addition, people must remember that energy security and economics play a big part.

So when climate change campaigners tell us that we must stop flying in order to save the northern rockhopper penguins, I groan that people can be so narrow-minded. Not only because air travel contributes less than 5% of global emissions, but the idea that we will all stop flying and transporting goods by air is about as useful to anyone and the concept of flying pigs.

The second reason why I will not be caught dead within a mile of a Heathrow rally is the methods used many of these groups to impose their beliefs on the rest of the population. Peaceful protest is one thing, but that is not enough for the more fanatical groups such as Plane Stupid and the Climate Suffragettes (a group which apparently takes its inspiration from the early-20th Century struggle by women for the vote and hence unwittingly represent the definition of delusions of grandeur). These groups seems intent on breaking the law, destroying public property and disrupting the lives of as many people as possible, in order to get their message across. That's not democracy; quite the opposite.

This is the crux of my argument: it's easy to oppose everything that pollutes. It is easy (apparently) to chain yourself to a fence at Stansted; it's easy to berate famous people for flying, because even though air travel is not the largest of polluters, no one wants to chain themselves to a coal-fired generator in China. However, it takes real courage to put aside your beliefs and compromise, in order to find practical solutions that will benefit everyone. Such courage seems sadly lacking among the most vocal eco-mentalists.

The final group of eco-supporters that I will not marching along side are the hypocritical stars that support protest against air travel, while at the same time jet setting all over the world. Geoff Hoon, Transport Secretary, recently accused Emma Thompson, who is a leading figure in the fight against a third runway, of being a hypocrite. She had flown in from attending the Golden Globes in LA to an announcement that she had helped Greenpeace buy land hear Heathrow. Her response: "This is not a campaign against flying - we're trying to stop the expansion of Heathrow in the face of climate change."

So there you have it: it's not about flying, it's about airports. And their...er...non-air-travel-related effect on climate change. Be chastened, Geoff.

Might I suggest that Greenpeace find a new pretty face?

Chaos...but why?

2009-01-07T06:12:00.001-08:00

Arctic weather has caased chaos across Britain, with schools closed, water pipes freezing and lots of work for the AA. The picture you see here is of the forzen fountains in Trafalgar Square. There are equally-impressive photos of frozen waterfalls, lakes and rivers. But the real tragedy is that apparently 12 pensions will die every hour because of the cold weather. What??!!

I can understand how heavy snow in areas that are not used to it can cause chaos. I can understand that icy roads are dangerous even to those who are experienced in their use. I can even accept that engineers may not have expected -12C when they laid the water pipes (how ever may years ago). What I don't understand is how Britain seems to be so unprepared for what many countries with a temperate climate would regard as normal winter weather. It's January, for Pete's sake: why are people dying?!!

In the past few years - maybe even the decade - the winters have been quite mild. Global warming, I guess. Yet Britain has been having winters for thousands of years (millennia, maybe) and most of the housing stock is decades, if not centuries old. How can they not be designed to cope with more than a mild winter? People blame the older houses which are not insulated or double-glazed, but the oldest houses were built in time when there was no gas, piped or otherwise, central heating did not exist and transport systems were not nearly as advanced. Surely this meant that they were designed to be warm?

This country's inability to deal with weather that most Canadians would scoff at is puzzling to someone from the Caribbean. We design our houses to cope with tropical conditions - heat, humidity, hurricanes - because it what we expect. If we had cold (or even cool) weather, chaos and illness would be understandable. But I don't expect this from a country whore people spend much of their time complaining about the weather.

The chaos is inconvenient. The fact that old people are dying is a damning indictment on successive governments and, frankly, the entire country.

Winter

2008-12-19T12:18:00.001-08:00

Isn't this little critter one of the cutest you've ever seen? They normally have brown fur but they turn white in the winter to camouflage themselves against the snow. Needless to say, we don't see many of the white ones down here in the South. But as cute as this one looks (photo credit Mauritius-Images) stoats are fierce creatures, best known for raiding penguin nests and eating the young. Ouch.

As usual, the good British optimism shines through at this time of year, with everyone hoping for a white Christmas. Actually, it has been the coldest December for many years (it's warmed up now) and we already had snow in the north, but the odds are 5-1 against it snowing on Christmas day....and probably much higher for Southampton.

Nevertheless, I am once again caught up in the winter feeling. Christmas is so much different when it's cold outside, with frosty windshields, short days and (best of all) a German market in the city centre. I've had numerous helpings of bratwurst and gluwein. To have a fireplace around which to hang stockings is a novelty that never wears off. And mulled wine is a tradition that I can get used to.

Yet there is a darker side to winter, one that is truly shameful. In 2007, over 20,000 pensioners died of cold-related illnesses. These "excess winter deaths" should be entirely preventable. All pensioner households receive a fuel subsidy of between £250 and £400 at this time of year. Is it not enough? Is it being mis-spent? Or is the solution about more than just money (a concept that Labour finds difficult to grasp)?

So this Christmas, find a pensioner and invite them over for mulled wine and bratwurst. It may just save their life.

P.S. For those of you who thought "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" sounds romantic, Giles Coren provides a different view: they are a "disappointment, what with the burnt fingers and choking smoke and then indigestion from chomping on partially charred but otherwise raw nuts".

Merry Christmas!

Less is more, pitbull

2008-11-18T12:57:00.001-08:00

I'm glad that John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his VP, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it made Barack Obama's job a lot easier, and he was clearly the better choice for President. Secondly, she provided a huge amount of entertainment value and, let's face it, politics of all shapes and colours could use more of that. She also provided feminists with a valuable lesson: voting for a female candidate purely on the basis of her gender is just as bad as not voting for her because she is a woman. Some of Mrs. Palin's more informed critics were, after all, women from her own party.

In her post-election interview, Palin said that there was nothing unfair about the Katie Couric interview (“Oh, you know, sure, I loved New York, that goofy evolution museum, the 20 false alarms when I saw Osama bin Laden driving a taxi."). She also said that she wished she had done more interviews, and in this regard I have a simple message: not necessary. Because Saturday Night Live is only on once a week.

Never has a policitician provided so much fodder for satirists from so few public appearances. And never have the comedy writers had to use so little imagination when coming up with the sketches, parodying Palin almost verbatim. There is only so much comedy we can take, Pitbull.

Palin has not ruled out another shot at the White House in "12" (apparently four digits are too many for her). I have spoken to several people (women) over the last couple of weeks who are excited about her prospects for the future. This puzzles me: I understand how Palin easily got her message accross to the Hockey mom-Joe Six-pack-Redneck segment of the American population, who would feel as out of place in a foreign country as they would a library. But why would my friends believe that she has a snowball's chance in hell? Why have these intelligent, well-educated women forsaken the meritocracy, with its focus on skill, intellect, substance and achievements, in favour of dumb populism and Yoda-esque syntax?

Is gender that much of an issue for women?

No Place like Bimshire

2008-10-28T05:32:00.000-07:00

12.5 hours after leaving Hampshire I touched down in Bimshire…or Barbados, to all wunnuh foreigners. My first impression was that the Island was green: I guess a lot of rain has fallen in the last few months. Which is good for the farmers. Also the sea was quite calm (not unusual, I guess, for October). I landed in the ever-changing Grantley Adams International Airport (which apparently is in Bridgetown, if the pilot announcements and plane tickets are to be believed. But I can tell you all, beyond a shadow of a doubt: GAI is as far from Bridgetown as Kingston is from Mo' Bay, Miami from Orlando, or Manchester from London, relative to Barbados' size). But I digress...

I was amazed to be greated by a pleasant Immigration officer who wasked me how my day was! Holy crap: an immigration officer in a good mood, and a woman, no less! Hooray for the new management, did they increase the salaries? I had my Bajan passport with me so I went in the Caricom line - which was empty: I guess the few Bajans on the flight were not in quite so much of a rush as I - while the touristses piled into a huge queue. Oh well, the English love a good queue. It took another 15 minutes for the luggage to come anyway.

So I am impressed with the improvements to our busy little airport. But I had four hours to kill before my flight to Trinidad, and there was no better way to spend these precious Bimshire minutes than in Frankie's Rumshop, drinking a smooth and refreshing Banks beer(s) and munching on a ham cutter(s). (Yumm....that sweet, sweet ham cutter...it is delicacy the likes of which the Limeys have no clue, with their greasy bacon buttys and sausage baps. The closest thing I can get in England is slices of ham that are so thin that a good strong wind would blow them away. And try to find a leg of ham in the supermarket? Every Christmas I have horrors, and then give up and buy Gammon, which is not quite the same....)

So Frankie's ham cutters were going down a treat and Andrew and Kim filled me in on all the gossip...which is not much. Things change slowly in Bimshire, and that's the way we like it. Not for us the fast-paced, high-flying world of digital progress and exotic finances...we are happy with a good ham cutter and a cold Banks. Once the Government doesn't balls things up too much, de buses run every day, we can get pudding and souse once a week, and an annual dose of Alison Hinds' bumper, life is sweet.

Because there is no place like Bimshire.

Changing Times

2008-10-28T05:31:00.001-07:00

This business of turning the clocks forward in October and back in March, so-called “Daylight Saving Time” has been going on for ages in this country…for as long as most people I speak to can remember. Yet there still seems to be a certain amount of confusion every year, twice a year. I am invariably on my way to sailing on the last Sunday of October, and the radio is littered with stories of people who forgot, and turned up an hour early for an appointment. Smart phones seem not to have solved the problem, with people changing the time manually an ending up two hours adrift.

At least worst that can happen in October is that you turn up an hour early (or two, apparently). By contrast, when the clocks are turned back in March, you could end up being an hour late for a flight, train or race. Which would be catastrophic. But is this seemingly archaic practice still relevant in 2008? To answer this question we must agree on the reasons for the change…and these vary depending on whom you ask. “The farmers”, say one group, because presumably those in rural communities have not yet discovered the wonders of electricity and florescent lighting. “The school children”, chimes another, although I challenge you to find a school where lessons have not already begun by the time day breaks in the depth of winter.

In any case the idea that an hour change in the rising and setting of the sun will make much of a difference to our lives, in an age of Sunday shopping, universal broadband coverage and 24-hour drinking, is laughable. And so, as is often the case, such traditions are perpetuated not by any real need, but by a resistance to change. Apparently a Labour government attempted to scrap Summertime some years ago. The resulting confusion and outcry caused such a fuss that the move was shelved. Progress: 0, Status Quo: 1.

Big boy food

2008-10-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

Uhhh...son, you've got a little...something on your..chin..right under your...no, on the left...I think it's carrot.

what are you saying? quit stallin and gimme more!!!

The other Berlusconi

2008-10-08T01:20:00.001-07:00

Barbara Berlusconi - goes her own way

This bomshell you see in the picture is none other than the second daughter of one of the most notorious political leaders this side of the Med. And with little help from her father, she is managing to be controversial in her own right, or "provocative", as this article in the Times puts it. She has banded together with other uber-rich young Italians to "demand an injection of idealism into a corrupt and greedy world". Well, Lord knows Italy could do with such a jab, according to the press, of course.

Being the daughter of a man accused of corruption and greed, she faces an uphill battle for credibility. And Barbara herself was on the board of Fininvest when she was 19 (can you imagine those meetings: a bunch of pot-bellied suits sitting next to a 19-year old goddess). But that's not corruption...it's nepotism. Completely different. Babs believes in Authoritarianism...as long as it's not dictatorship. Good luck with that - even the mighty Berlusconi Snr does his fair share of pandering.

She is my dream girl: biblically gorgeous, rich daddy, intelligent (studying philosophy) ...and she's Italian, which means she knows how make a good pasta. Or at least where to find a good Chianti. So I'll give her a chance. After all, you could say that her father is abusing his power...or you could say that he using all avenues available to him to save his ass. And if Babs has inherited any of his ingenuity and she can put it to good use, then more power to her. We can use a little more of that in the world.

And next time you're in the UK, Babs, give me a shout. Alessandro can play with Samuel. Or something like that.

It started with a chair...

2008-10-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

I was not expecting very much from this movie, even though James King from Radio 1 was smitten by it. After all, Michael Cera's claim to fame is Superbad, a mildly entertaining but overrated teen flick about alcohol and testosterone. And American teen comedies tend to follow a depressing trend of bargain basement humour and gratuitous use of the words such as "like" and "totally" (pronounced with a "d"). American Pie, with its combination of teenage naiveté but also ingeneous humour and realistic depiction of serious issues should be seen as the exception, rather than the Superbad/Road Trip norm. Not that there is anything wrong with bargain basement humour; it's just not for me.

Indeed, Juno is guilty of this on some counts: the alliteration of the convenience store scene, for example ("your eggo is preggo"); the barf urn; the cheerleader best friend, whose first major contribution to the film is the suggestion that Juno has a "food baby"; the banal, Pheobe-esque lyrics of the soundtrack ("I like to be gone most of the time, you like to be home most of the time. I never met a Toby that I didn't like"); the name of the little sister ("Liberty Bell"...?).

However, not long into the film something happened that changed my opinion: I fell in love with the main character. Not physically, of course: Juno is an average-looking teenager. Yet she displays a maturity and intelligence that is so rare in these types of films. I was hooked from the time she used "cavalier" and "for shizz" in the same scene. She could have freaked out and the storyline been about her meltdown, her immature handling of an adult situation, her parents' disappointment and public ridicule.

Instead Juno took a serious issue (teenage pregnancy) and showed a mature, intelligent and decidedly un-cavalier approach to the situation. I was hooked by her calmness and reasoning (even if I did think for a while that the depiction of the pregnancy was a bit unrealistic). I was hooked by her mixture of humour both simple (such as the hamburger phone) and clever ("I'm here for the big show!"), her combination of adult maturity ("quick and dirty") and tennage innocence ("I'm a junior"), and her ability to express herself using a coherent sentence. As Mrs. Bleeker says: she's different. And that makes this film different to all the rest.

In reality the cheerleader is not airheaded and shallow, as might have been expected, Michael Cera comes over as a nerd but is actually just as mature as Juno, and the simplicity of the soundtrack helps ensure that the film is not too serious. The adoption mother character is developed in a way that keeps that viewer wondering about her intentions until the very end. And, of course, I love the guitar scenes.

Ellen Page is my new favourite actress.

Izola

2008-10-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Izola is a small town in the middle of the postage stamp-sized piece of the Adriatic coast that belongs to Slovenia. Its name derives from the Italian for island and indeed it was an island until the early 1800s when it was joined with the mainland. The town was ruled by the Republic of Venice for centuries and by the Kingdom of Italy for a quarter of the 20th Century and, given that it is a stone's throw from Trieste, it is not surprising that the town is officially bilingual.

This was good for me, because while my Italian is rubbish, I know not a single word in Slovenian. Fortunately I was in the company of both an Italian and a Slovenian, for although the town's tourism industry can be traced back to 1820, this hamlet is best known as the birthplace of one Vasilij Zbogar, two-time Olympic medallist in the Laser class (and long-time client of SailCoach). What better place to film the next LaserCoach video?

There are two things that make or break a place for me...no matter how good the surroundings are: the food and the beer (or more recently, the wine). I am happy to report that Slovenia passes with flying colours on all three counts. On the first night we rocked up to a sailing party and drank several bottles of a beer called Lasko, which is most notable for being, um, quite nondescript. It's one of those beers that you can drink all night and not get tired of it, but you will never fall in love with. A thirst quencher, it is the kind of beer that the people from the Campaign for Real Ale would spit on. I quite liked it.

The food was also good, but since I am happy with most of the offerings from this area - Germany, Austria, Italy, Croatia - I was bound to find something that I liked. One night we had sausages...not very outrageous, you might say, but I am sure that these bangers had never even heard of a pig. However, it was on the last night that I was treated to a culinary experience of nirvanic proportions. My main course was described as Colt which, for those of you who were not brought up with a stable in your back garden, is a young horse. With mushroom sauce. Yum.

Afterwards we still felt peckish (actually we needed an excuse to have another bottle of wine) so we managed to get ourselves talked into a cheese plate (how posh). Only this dish consisted of cheese from a sheep (very, very nice), olives and prosciutto, not from a pig, but from a horse. It seems that the Slovenes are as equine-loving as the British Olympic team, but for very different reasons.

However, the pièce de résistance, the icing on the cake, the part of this meal which tipped it out the frying pan of excellence and into the fiery utopia, was the wine. I wish, I wish, I wish that I could remember the name of it, because then I would implore you all to go out and find a bottle and I would not need to describe its smooth flavour and the deep, rich colour. It would be unnecessary to relate how it stuck to the sides of the enormous glasses they brought us, or warn you not to look at the bottom of the glass when you were finished drinking. But alas, the second bottle (not to mention the language barrier) more or less ensured that the name of this nectar of the gods has been relegated to that part of my brain that I am sure still holds most of my O-level Spanish, the names of half of the women I've slept with and the date of my Wife's birth. I just can't remember.

But that might just be the hallmark of a good meal!

Who's in charge?

2008-09-30T04:37:00.001-07:00

In these uncertain financial times, who is leading the world out of the darkness? The US congress?

It could just as well be these guys:

Strawberry fields

2008-09-23T12:29:00.001-07:00

With mere days left in the September planting window, I finally got my butt down to the local nursery and bought some strawberry plants. As you can see, they will be ornamental as well as functional, adding some colour to the wall outside our back door. Hopefully they will do better than the flowers that previously inhabited those baskets. Despite frequent watering, or perhaps because of this, they whithered and died. Now, you might say that summer is over and soon all things green will be turning brown (and all sorts of other amazing colours), but the flowers in the hanging basket out front are doing just fine.

We don't eat a lot of strawberries, but I have been inspired to grow something from watching Jamie Oliver. Since I'm not really turned on by potatoes or lettuce, and I'm essentially lazy anyway, when it comes to the garden, this seemed like the perfect start. Then there's the ornamental value. But the best thing is that, next April when they bear fruit, I will be able to make some of the best jam. I have made some a few times now, after seeing it on Jamie Oliver, and the results are fantastic. If I do say so myself!

Strawberry Jam
1 kg of strawberries
150g of white sugar

Remove the stems and leaves and wash the strawberries. Place in a bowl (still wet) and add the sugar. Crush lightly with your hands ("scrunch", as Jamie puts it) and then add to a pot. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 2-3 hours, until thick. Skim as necessary.

Don't add too much sugar. Some is necessary to make it set, and once I used a bit of brown sugar (being Bajan!) which made the jam nice and dark. But don't let the sweetness drown out the flavour of the fruit. You should enjoy the fresh taste of the jam, free from the preservatives and artificial flavours of the store-bought stuff. It takes a bit of practice to know when the mixture is thick enough (it will thicken as it cools) but even if you get it wrong, the jam will still taste great!

Thank you!

2008-09-23T02:34:00.000-07:00

When I say "Thank you", I am saying it the way that Stewie Guy says it when, in the episode where Brian is on a reality show and Chris gets his first zit, the teenager complains that they have to look at Brian's anus all day. As in, why the hell has it taken someone so long to say this? As in, stop pussyfooting around Politcal Correctness and tell it like it is!

The inpsiration for this post is a fictional conversation between Barack Obama and Jed Bartlett, the former POTUS from the West Wing, America's (less comical, more dramatic) answer to Yes Prime Minister. After a few minutes of Bartlett banter, the Nobel Laurette launches into this rant:

BARTLET: GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence.

While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now.

Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too?

It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too?

I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Thank you.