Today's public sector strike

A copy of a post I made on a forum, on today's strikes. It got a lot of endorsement there.

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xxxx wrote:

yyyy, to be honest its not about whats sustainable is it.  We are paying back the cash the bankers spunked and wasted and we bailed them out.

That's not really the whole truth, is it?

The previous government went on an accelerating spending spree from about 1999 to 2008, hiring like crazy (and of course, for each and every new hire, making promises it had no idea could be kept by future governments concerning pension "rights"). They stoked up an artificial boom by allowing the banks to create stupid amounts of credit, and raked in their share of the new money via taxes on the banks' profits (not profits in any normal sense of the word, just the proportion of their newly created money they kept for themselves). But that still wouldn't fund all the previous government's schemes, so they borrowed directly, piling debt upon debt. When the party came to its inevitable conclusion, the spending programmes were still in place but taxes on bankers' profits dried up. That effect was far greater than the direct bailouts of banks carried out by the previous government. zzzz and I (and a couple of others) actually bottomed out the figures and amazingly came to a measure of agreement, because the figures spoke for themselves.

This leaves us in a position where the government is spending more on debt interest that on defence. And they're not even planning to reduce the debt: only to lessen the rate at which extra debt is accumulated. If our government had to pay the same rate of interest as Spain or Italy (which is surely a possibility), then interest payments would be more than spending on education, and in all probability the debt could never be controlled without inflation destroying everybody's savings (eroding steadily already via 5% inflation).

So it IS about sustainability and NOT about bailing out the banks.

Now, workers in big companies have seen their final salary schemes vanish, or at the very least closed to new entrants. Workers in small companies never had such schemes. They've seen contributions they've already committed, under a set of assumptions about tax, being subject to ongoing tax raids. They've seen the stock market stagnate at best, so their pension pots are not growing at the rate they might have anticipated. They've accepted contribution holidays when their companies go through bad times (and sometimes when they're not). They've seen their companies and their pension schemes go bust. This has been the warp and weft of private sector existence for decades. And even if the government backs down now, the worst of this could happen to you: a future government, not very far down the line, might run out of money to pay your pension.

So while I don't regard everyone in the public sector as a waste of space, it's your turn for pruning and you need to realise that previous governments have made promises that cannot be kept, and suck it up like (nearly) everyone else. Meanwhile, you might google the sacrifices that have been made in the public sector in Ireland: without much complaint, because there's a sense of grim realism there.

It's just not cricket!

Can this be true?

We [the England and Wales Cricket Board] also have to comply in 2012 with the IOC’s requirement that no other international sport can be staged during the Olympics and Paralympics.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/8912828/Test-cricket-will-only-thrive-if-matches-remain-enthralling.html

Who says? Can the British Olympic Association, or any of the myriad quangos that seem to have been set up to run the London games, bind the ECB (and all other sporting bodies)? I don't see how. Or has Cast Iron Dave or Broon or Bliar before him passed a law while no-one was looking?

I call upon and any of my American, Australian or French friends or relatives to help me flout the decree of Count Jacques Rogge, by challenging me to a game of Real Tennis at Hampton Court Palace next August. I feel sure the ghost of King Henry VIII will protect me: he knew how to treat foreign potentates who would make laws in our sceptred isle; especially when it came to restricting his right to engage in fun and games with whomsoever he pleased.

The Leveson Inquiry…

…is explained here.

It consists of four "modules":

• Module 1: The relationship between the press and the public and looks at phone-hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour
• Module 2: The relationships between the press and police and the extent to which that has operated in the public interest
• Module 3: The relationship between press and politicians
• Module 4: Recommendations for a more effective policy and regulation that supports the integrity and freedom of the press while encouraging the highest ethical standards.

Confusingly, the terms of reference are in two parts; with no obvious mapping between the parts and the modules. Apparently, 'Cast Iron' Dave expects Part 1 of the inquiry to be completed within one year. It seems it's 'too soon' to provide an estimate for the inquiry's cost. Personally, I can't remember starting a project without an estimate for the cost. But then I'm either using my own money or persuading someone who takes a close interest to part with theirs. I don't suppose Lord Justice Leveson comes cheap; nor his six assessors nor his five counsels for the inquiry. It's a pretty nice website too.

So, I will make a submission to the inquiry, giving the following answers free, gratis, and for nothing:

• Module 1: The press writes anything that might interest readers and the public buys the papers. Or the canny ones read them on the web. Or the cannier still find out what's really happening from blogs. The press has hacked phones and has potentially engaged in sundry other potential crimes (allegedly).
• Module 2: The police treat phone hacking in much the same way as other crimes, such as burglary. That is, they might go through the motions. They'll tip the wink to the press if they come across anything juicy, in return for a spot of corporate entertainment, or a good word in an editorial. The public is not particularly interested.
• Module 3: Politicians will do anything to get a favourable mention from the press. The press will do anything to expose the hypocrisy of politicians (not a lot of effort is required there), which is its most useful function.
• Module 4: The press has very little integrity to support. 'Effective policy and regulation' and 'highest ethical standards' is code for stopping the press from snooping on politicians. Don't fall for it. We don't need any more laws or regulations; we've too many to enforce anyway and the police will always excuse laxity by saying they're too busy enforcing the laws on the curvature of suggestive fruit and vegetables, or something.

Finally, Leveson has granted himself the right to hold parts of the inquiry in private, at his discretion. Please, your honour, do so for the never-ending stream of people famous for being famous whining about being caught screwing someone they shouldn't. The papers made you rich and famous, but it's you who make yourself embarrassed. I don't care what the European Convention says, there's no natural right to privacy. In a state of nature, if someone turns up at your cave and tries to steal the deer you've just killed, you have the right to assail him with your cudgel. If you're spied behind the bushes with your neighbour's wife, that's just too bad.

 

A short-term memory lapse

According to reliable sources, the government has decided that I am to underwrite mortgages for people who can't afford to buy a home. Apparently, this will "give many more people the satisfaction and security that comes with stepping over their own threshold". Satisfaction? Has the government forgotten that borrowing in the cause of instant gratification has brought us to this pass? Security? Has it forgotten that it already has one trillion pounds of debt, growing at about £150 billion per year? That it has unfunded liabilities for public sector pensions of another trillion pounds? Of another quarter of a trillion in PFI liabilities? That countries whose underlying finances are in no worse shape than the UK's are paying 7% interest to fund their borrowings—which would blow the economy to kingdom come? That in a country called the United States of America, this ruse has already been tried, ending exceptionally badly for a couple called Fannie and Freddie?

But at least this won't bother some hard-pressed taxpayers—because the government has decided to outright gift £400 million from the rest to property developers (who prospered so well during the Blair/Brown years); a sort of inverse Robin Hood tax.

I have a simpler plan to help first-time buyers: why not allow house prices to fall to a new market level, from the preposterously inflated level caused by a decade of lax monetary policy? Then, in the unlikely event of taxpayers having any spare cash, they might invest it themselves to fund the growth of productive enterprises, which is the only hope for digging ourselves out of this mess.

Dear Bishop

An open letter to the Bishop of Guildford

Dear Bishop,

I write concerning the letter that you and sixteen fellow bishops had published in the Observer today.

It condemns, rather high-handedly in my opinion, the coalition government's Welfare Reform Bill, which would limit the amount any household might claim in state benefits to £500 per week (a figure that you omit from your letter). According to Wikipedia, this is some 65% above median UK household income.

This seems to be the latest in a series of pronouncements from senior Church of England clergy condemning the government's policy of bringing public spending under control after a decade in which it has grown sharply.

You invoke the church directly, and speak of a moral compulsion. Since I profoundly disagree with you, I wonder if my economic and political views are nowadays compatible with church membership. Perhaps you could let me know whether, in your opinion, the following views conflict with Christianity:

1. that welfare benefits should not be on a ratchet drive, only ever increasing, whatever the country's circumstances;
2. that above a certain level, spending on welfare will reduce incentives to work harder, or at all, diminishing the nation's total wealth, with the poor inevitably hardest hit;
3. that paying people who do not work more than the majority of people that do, is morally wrong;
4. That any family can live reasonably on £26,000 a year.

In the event that these views are not wholly incompatible with Christianity, I would ask you to consider that the barrage of political interventions by the bishops might alienate a large number of natural Anglicans. If you are comfortable with that, perhaps you might recommend a denomination in which people like me would feel more welcome.

I have published this letter on my blog; with your permission, I will also publish any reply.

Yours sincerely,

Neil McEvoy

Pyrford, Surrey

 

Basil d'Oliveira

Rest in peace.

d'Oliveira was a superb all-round cricketer for Worcestershire and England in the sixties and early seventies. In particular he was a brilliant player of fast bowling: like all great players of ball games, he seemed to have so much more time to play the ball than the merely good. I had forgotten that he had not been picked for England until past his athletic prime, at 35. Yet still he played 44 test matches with a batting average of 40.06. For those who are not in the know, a test career average of 40 or above marks out an outstanding international batsman from a very capable one. It would surely have been much higher if he'd been picked at 25 rather than 35. He batted with minimal back lift, but was able to punch the ball through the gaps with powerful, well-timed strokes. Although Dolly was a batsman who could bowl, rather than a genuine strike bowler, he was often called upon to winkle out batsmen who were set. He could swing the ball either way (at modest pace) and was extremely accurate and therefore economical.

I remember him too for being a sportsman in the fullest sense of the word, a fierce competitor but true gentleman, demonstrating grace under pressure on and off the field. Certainly, an example that modern professional sportsmen would do well to follow.

Of course, the reason he was not picked earlier was that, as a Cape Coloured, he was in essence an economic refugee from apartheid South Africa, where opportunities were denied to non-white sportsmen. The South African government's outrageous refusal to allow him to tour with the English team in 1968 led to more than twenty years of cricketing isolation for them—at a time when South Africa, with greats such as Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards and Mike Procter, would have been world beaters. So many careers wrecked in the name of politics. Conceivably, that shortened the life of the apartheid regime and led to a relatively bloodless transition.

I am slightly aggrieved that the BBC News bulletins today have only dealt with the impingement of politics on d'Oliveira's career. That is to dwell on the man's circumstances rather than his character and achievements, which were exemplary.

The most influential book in English

The Queen attended a service at Westminster Abbey today to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. Despite being written by a committee (of six subcommittees, two each at Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster) it is, of course, wonderfully poetic—certainly compared to the leaden prose, that might have been written by management consultants, in versions of the last 50 years. I think many of the more memorable turns of phrase were lifted from William Tyndale's earlier version (for which he paid with his life). What a monumental effort, for one man to translate all that Hebrew and Greek into accessible and beautiful English.

I seem to have followed around one of the King James authors—Archbishop of Canterbury George Abbot. He was Guildford born, raised, educated (at the still going strong Royal Grammar School) and buried; most days I walk by the statue of him at the top of the High Street. He was master of my college (University College) at Oxford. He was also chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin—where I've stayed right next door to, maybe two dozen times in the last five years. Finally, the conference convened by James I which initiated the production of his Bible was at Hampton Court Palace, where I play real tennis.

It has been argued, most recently by Melvyn Bragg (with whom I tend to agree), that the King James Bible inspired the liberal-democratic development of the English-speaking world, through the great internal struggles of the English Civil War, the American War of Independence and the American Civil War. Further, that it inspired free thought and free enquiry, unleashing the scientific revolution that has shaped today's world.

Whereas those points might be debated, the influence of the King James Bible on our every day discourse cannot be denied. I give you:

• the powers that be
• the apple of his eye
• signs of the times
• law unto themselves
• turned the world upside down
• God forbid
• take root
• filthy lucre
• no peace for the wicked
• a fly in the ointment
• wheels within wheels
• the blind leading the blind
• feet of clay
• put words in his mouth
• the writing on the wall
• salt of the earth
• go from strength to strength
• a thorn in the flesh
• broken-hearted
• sick unto death
• clear-eyed

The coups d'états in Southern Europe

Greek PM George Papandreou floats the idea of seeking his compatriots' permission for a so-called rescue deal (that would keep the country in hock forever, as far as I can tell) and is imperiously summoned for an audience with Merkel and Sarkozy; after which he drops the plan and announces his resignation. He is replaced by Lucas Papademos (does that mean 'father of the people' or am I imagining that?), a non-elected so-called technocrat. His qualifications are that he was Governor of the Greek Central Bank at the time it lied about Greece's finances, to qualify it for the nightmare of euro membership, and was subsequently Vice President of the ECB, complicit in running a monetary policy that made Greece hopelessly uncompetitive, forcing it into a downward spiral of debt and depression. I've not seen that he has admitted to any mistakes, so one must for fear for the Greeks' future.

On a parallel track, Silvio Berlusconi muses aloud that the euro may have made Italy and the Italians poorer. A week or so after that utterance, having survived umpteen scandals up to and including the accusation of paying for sex with underage girls, and he's history. He's to be replaced by Mario Monti, two-term European Commissioner and noted EU federalist—and again, never elected to anything.

In both cases, EU officials have made clear that their austerity plans must be enacted before elections are held and that the budgetary process must be supervised by teams of foreign officials. In the words of (non-elected) European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, delivered in Florence, "this country needs reforms, not elections".

Do Greece and Italy have legitimate governments? Is it the right, or perhaps the duty, of Greeks and Italians to undertake armed insurrections, against government by placemen of foreign powers?

Update: Has Daniel Hannan visited here?

What the papers say…

…or, at any rate, the Daily Telegraph.

As noted below, I read the DT from cover to cover today, something I seldom do with any newspaper these days. Consequently, I read a number of things I would usually miss which piqued my interest.

Firstly, the obituary of Major John Timothy, who I'd never heard of, and who died aged 97. He won the Military Cross…three times! First, in Tunisia, he captured an enemy machine gun post single-handed. Second, in Italy, he operated behind enemy lines to conduct escaped PoWs to safety. Third, at Arnhem, he led a platoon of six in a bayonet charge that captured entrenched positions within 1000 yards of the bridge. And there are plenty of other exploits in there that read just as heroically. It's hard to convey the admiration and gratitude with which everyone must feel for him; though the commenters on the online version have done their best.

Strangely, I found the last sentence most arresting. He never married. An educated, practical, leader of men and war hero, tall and handsome it would seem from the picture, and in an age when the ranks of young men were sadly depleted. It seems to me that it is at least a possibility that he was homosexual. Which would raise a question for those who oppose gays in the military. Who would you rather share a trench with: a man such as Major John Timothy or aged new father and noted lothario Hugh Grant?

Secondly, a story from Ledbury in Herefordshire. Ledbury is a small town with wonderful Tudor buildings that nestles under the Malvern Hills. A sublime place in a sublime setting. I lived for a couple of years on the Malvern Hills (when I was building systems for the Ministry of Defence), just on the Herefordshire side of the ridge line. That got me a vote in the referendum that ended the ludicrous fake county of Hereford and Worcester imposed on the people by Whitehall fiat (the same reorganisation that decided I hadn't been born in hard-as-nails Lancashire but effete Cheshire). Anyone standing atop the Malverns can see far below the flat, intensively farmed Worcestershire on one side, dotted with largish towns leading to the suburbs of Birmingham and, on the other side, the sparsely populated rolling hills of Herefordshire before the Black Mountains over the border in Wales. A magical vista—I'm humming Elgar even as I type.

Back to Ledbury. I used to play squash and sink pints with the local farmers at the Feathers. As the article notes, it's like all towns used to be, with plenty of local traders selling everything from game to cartridges to shoot your own. And, of course, Hereford beef! Now, Tescos and Sainsburys are angling to build superstores on the edge of town. I don't know what I think about that. On the one hand, it cannot fail to ruin the landscape and will likely destroy many local businesses. On the other hand, should the locals actually want to buy cheap produce 24/7 brought from all corners of the globe to their slice of heaven on earth, who am I to complain?

Plenty of other stuff of interest in the paper. The guilty verdicts on the Pakistani cricketers for instance (I would have read about that anyway, of course). They had what was coming. Already earning the kind of money 99.99% of their countrymen can only dream of, but wanting a little more. Imagine too being Stuart Broad: there will now always be a question mark over his brilliant 169 when the opposition were paid on certain prearranged outcomes. There are plenty of ways to get yourself out in cricket whatever the bowlers are doing, so for a non-recognised batsman to do so on 169 rather than 16 is still a tremendous feat in my opinion. I hope Amir is able to resume cricket at some stage. He was only 18, and one imagines easily bullied. He's also a wonderfully talented bowler who could have been way up there in the test cricketing pantheon. Finally, cricket is just about the only thing that keeps Pakistan connected to the rest of the Commonwealth. Already no teams will tour there, and England play them next in the UAE. It could have geopolitical implications if that link were severed.

The Greek stuff is changing too fast to keep up. I'll probably blog about that at the weekend.

Thoughts from 35,000 ft

Flying back from Dubai to London today. Seven hours all in daylight, which must be quite unusual in the northern hemisphere at this time of year. Great for someone like me who needs to look out of the window every so often -- today at the Burj Khalifa, Mesopotamia, the Anatolian highlands dusted with snow, the distant Alps (spectacularly close on the way out) and the Rhine.

A lady captain today; that's a first on a long haul flight for me. Like all BA flight crew, she sounded cool and authoritative (are you listening, Dad? Mine's a treble). Along with glancing outside at the Rolls Royce logo on the engine, that's very comforting - but perhaps I'm being irrationally patriotic.

I wonder if anyone else notices the same (apparent) effects as me when flying. I think that I think particularly clearly, attested to by finishing the Times and Telegraph crosswords, which I've fallen out of the habit of attempting, very quickly. I suppose it could be that there are fewer distractions. I'm also very productive working. That's usually on the way out, so that could be all to do with needing a report or presentation ready by the time I get there. The third thing is that I always think wine tastes better. Maybe one gets pleasantly intoxicated quicker which creates a better impression (like beer-goggles on the ground!) or maybe BA just choose good wines.

Listened to music courtesy of my iPhone and Bose headset after the meal. Picked geographically: Mozart (Prague Symphony) overhead Salzburg, Wagner (various) over Bavaria and Schumann (Rhenish Symphony) over the Rhine, of course. Incidentally, the latter is absolutely one of my favourite works by a lesser-played composer.

I also read the paper cover-to-cover, which is something else I hardly do with the internet being my primary source of news. I actually read a lot of interesting articles that I wouldn't normally; which may form the subject of another post in due course.

Plane arrived 25 minutes early - and the captain had absolutely no trouble parking!

[…runs and hides]