Nov 9 2011

Taxi for Ms May

You would think, after 18 months in government that the Tories would have another song to sing rather than the inheritance they got from Labour. It is as obvious as the nose on your face that Teresa May is done. Even the demise of Liam Fox was not as obvious as this. The plain and simple truth is Teresa that you are the Colonel of this particular regiment and if one of your company commanders makes a hash of things its usually the Colonel who gets canned. Why – because you have the accountability – to Parliament and to the British People. The old Forces saying, “Big Boys games Big Boys rules”, always applies to ministers – that’s why they are Ministers. You get to take all the decisions but then have to account for them

May’s sanctimonious slamming of Beverly Hughes, in 2004, after Hughes attempted to blame civil servants in Sheffield for allowing a backlog of immigrants to build up, resulting in some being admitted to the UK without the correct checks, has been quickly unearthed and used. May told Ms Hughes at that time that she was sick and tired of ministers in the Labour government who blamed other people for their mistakes. That May had the expectation that she should be be treated any way different to Ms Hughes speaks volumes about the arrogance of this coalition.

The missed fact in all this wind and fury is that if you are in charge as a minister the buck stops on your desk. The very least Teresa May should have done was to accept that she had failed to supervise her department properly and as a result, whether Brodie Clark had overstepped the mark or not, the Border Agency failed in its main task – the security of our borders, on her watch! If she had told Parliament that then she might, just might, hope to survive. But she didn’t, and anything from now on that disproves even the smallest point her statement to the house on Monday and today is now magnified tenfold.

Additionally, she seems to have taken a leaf out of the Ed Balls handbook of personnel practice and castigated Brodie Clerk in public before the outcome of any proper disciplinary process. Any junior manager would have been able to tell her that one is a recipe for an Industrial Tribunal or has she forgotten the name of Sharon Shoesmith? The question will now be being asked in the corridors of Tory Central office is ” Two mistakes in as many days is this going to be a running sore for us and is she no longer the safe pair of hands that she seemed a month ago” When you add the Border Agency to the countrywide rioting of the summer and the laughable present concentration on “Gang Culture”, it would seem that in comparison to Liam Fox, Ms May is living a charmed life.

Her tactical ineptitude so far is in sharp contrast to the actions of Brodie Clerk, who astutely resigned his position and is looking at constructive dismissal. He can now fight his corner without hindrance to the disciplinary process of his employers and exercise his right of free speech whenever he wants. I am certain that there are a few skeletons in his cupboard that Ministers thought they could lock up and now realise he has already left the building with them.

The wider repercussions for the coalition are obvious. The Euro zone let down is what should be concerning government together with an obvious downward revision of any UK growth figures in Osborne’s Annual Statement. I always thought it would be the Tories who would break this coalition because of the lightweight nature of their press ganged Lib Dem allies. I was wrong, there seems to be slightly more bottom about the Party of Clegg. That makes me really worried about the Party of Cameron. Still Taxi’s are allowable as expenses for MP’s so after DC’s resounding backing for the erstwhile Home Secretary, I wonder how long it will be before we get the shout “Taxi for Ms May”

Nov 3 2011

Do we ever learn?

The whirligig in Cannes is better than the final episode of Spooks. What will happen next ? Does Greece need Harry Pearce and his gang to save them from perdition? Papandreaou soldiers on carrying burning resentment against Mrs Merkel and Nicholarse. There have been so many “seminal ” moments so far in the European Debt Crisis that I am giddy with trying to sort out what might happen next.

However, I am puzzled. I was under the impression that the major cause of the banking crisis in 2008 was caused by greedy and amoral bankers lending to people in a sector of the economy that could not afford to pay back their borrowings and defaulted. The fact that this lending was mainly in the housing sector is immaterial, the moot point was that, given a reasonable amount of scrutiny, most of the loans should not have been made. The only way the banks could mitigate their risk was to bundle them up in a modern smoke and mirrors act and flog them on with the net result that the possibility of default was far higher than would have been individually acceptable. This led to huge short term profit bubbles as Fanny Mae’s and Freddy Mac’s of the American sub prime market fuelled the financial crash. The history of the world since then is well documented and given time I would suppose even Baldric at the Treasury has now grasped that it wasn’t really Labour who killed the world – rather the opposite.

But here’s the conundrum, the banks almost bankrupted themselves and because Governments would not see runs on banks and bank failures with all the attendant misery that would have caused ordinary folk, they bailed out the banks. We had Lloyd’s and RBS and (almost ) Barclays needing huge Treasury input. So at the end of that all the governments were broke or in reality having to service a bigger borrowing requirement than they would have had if the banks had not failed. The banks were bailed out and were undergoing “difficult trading conditions”, bad enough to start paying big bonuses again though.

Well the banks and the subsequent credit crunch tipped the world into a recession and we all know what happened next. Consumer confidence went and therefore did demand for goods and services. Companies responded by cutting costs and therefore margins. The usual way to cut costs is to cut manpower – thus unemployment rises and this means the governmental benefit bill rises as well. Company profits dropped and so did purchases so tax income is less. This is the governments perfect storm and it is forced to borrow more. This costs more because of the credit crunch and its ability to repay.

So here is my problem, any help these governments get, from the EU or the IMF, is subject to them repaying the loans. So if the whole she-bang was triggered by lending unrealistic amounts of money to individuals in the sub prime market, who they knew would never repay the debt and inevitably, default, how come we are now back into another sub prime market situation only this time in sovereign debts. Greece is never going to be able to repay the debts, but last week Sarkozy and Merkel were looking more like a couple of bullying mortgage sellers than leaders of a monetary union. They knew Greece would default or if they didn’t then we really are in trouble. Then another deal for Italy which by 2020 will still owe 20% more than it earns. Is there any resonance here. Are we really proposing to lend people money which their taxpayers are putting into the IMF to bail out countries who have no chance to repay. On top of this the conditions that the Lenders are demanding these countries fulfil are based simply on cost cutting. Public sector jobs to go, pensions chopped, pay freezes et al – further unemployment and bigger government borrowing costs – sound familiar? Yes its the Baldric Strategy as devised by the brains in the Treasury.

Are we really serious in repeating another sub prime mistake – this time at country level? For what? So Sarkozy can protect the French banks? Or because Merkel shares the German reluctance of having anybody else’s control of the German Piggy Bank? I am secretly sure that Angel Face would love to leave the Euro and revert to the Mark in response to the less pan – European stance of younger German voters. Whichever way it goes – this will rumble along and postpone any recovery for years if we continue to throw money at the IMF to bail out sub prime countries. Isn’t it strange that the Big Forehead and Baldric announced today that they are going to up Britain’s contribution to the IMF. Wonder how he will justify this to the Tory grandees?

Nov 2 2011

My country ….right ..or …wrong…?

I have to admit that some days assaults on Hat Hill are more painful, in aftermath, than others. Today was one of the more painful ones – the lurking arthritis savaging not only knees but ankles and thumbs as well. Pity, as it was a glorious autumn day with a kaleidoscope of colours amongst the trees – native beech, oak and horse chestnut, sprinkled with latter-day firs of a variety of origins, a brisk southerly wind and Mediterranean sunshine – a morning when you just feel lucky to be alive. Spaniel and Border were lustily rampaging amongst the rusting ferns and the remnants of the blackberry bushes lending a joy to the spirit.

Home again and a look at the papers and BBC “all day, every day 24 hour” news filled with Trades Unions trying to make a reasonable point and Government Ministers going through the ritual of hoping against hope that the Trade Unions will have forgotten that if something quacks and waddles with a large brown beak then it probably is the same rehashed deal put on the table. The pursed faces of (dare you say it because someone did on BBC) Mrs Merkel and the newt faced Sarkozy winding up thier collective electorates before the deciding to mallet Papendreuou was all so predictable. But the match fixing trial of the Pakistani cricketers has saddened me immeasurably. Firstly because I love cricket. I always have, I skivved off school when I was a lad, when we had the only TV in the street and watched the greats – Benaud bowling and batting, Trueman and “George” Statham the doyens of English fast bowling, and of course the great spinners Johnny Wardle, Jim Laker and Tony Locke. I got used to climbing out onto the roof to avoid my father on the rare occasions when he returned home for his lunch. We played cricket incessantly in the school yard and I developed into a useful batsman and not so useful spin bowler. It was always a joy – the rules were the rules; none of this football stuff and arguing with the ref – moan afterwards about the umpires cataracts or his family history of selective blindness but get on with it. I even managed to educate intelligent females to the merits of the great game(although a hot summer in Hereford and Botham’s Ashes probably helped). I even had a match called off because of incoming mortar fire in Cyprus. The point is I know how much cricket is revered in the sub continent and the players they have produced. I reckoned if cricket means as much to the population of Pakistan as it means to me then I would be a very unhappy and shamed guy tonight.

A lot of stuff is written about racism and multiculturalism in this country. The particular slant being from whichever side of the political divide you come from. Here is a sport that has demonstrably crossed the divide and become truly multi cultural. And now they cheat at it – for a few tawdry pennies at least 3 young men will never ever play for their country again. One of them made an impassioned speech of apology to the judge after he pleaded guilty, describing how proud he had been to pull on his Pakistan jersey and how he had wanted to sleep in it. Just a laddie from a remote village in the Punjab. But he cheated! And so did the others – and the ones who were not caught – this time! And they know the rules!

There have been 14 players caught match fixing or consorting with Bookies since 2000. 3 South Africans, 4 Indians, 1 Kenyan, 1 West Indian and 5 Pakistanis. And some of those have had their bans overturned in local or district courts. I have to believe that there is something not quite right there. It brings the scandal of Bob Woolmers death flooding back and the allegations of ball tampering, while the pervasive odour of bookmakers and fixing lingers everywhere.

I could at this point simply say, as most commentators, that the IOC has a mammoth job to do, bearing in mind this was brought to a head by the News of the Screws. But this is the second reason for my sadness this afternoon, I see a darkness around the Pakistan, with allegations of involvement in Afghanistan against the American led coalition of forces. The geography of Osama Bin Laden’s apprehension and death can scarcely be a coincidence and rumours of government collusion with terrorists in the death of Benazir Bhutto, remind us that Pakistan’s heritage is a bloody one. The involvement of British born Pakistanis in terrorist attacks in this country and the constant assault on the institutions of the British people are now turning even the most tolerant of Britons into the arms of the fascists. Our successive governments have allowed this to drift under a banner of multiculturalism. Well I am a Brit and proud of it and I have to tell you guys in Government that it ain’t working – not one little bit.

It would appear to me that far from being us, the Great Christian Fundamentalist Crusade, that has lost our way, it is Pakistan desperately searching for its soul. Cabals within cliques ruled by the need for power or money or some other materialism hold sway over a diaspora that stretches from Islamabad to Bradford The values of the Islamic religion are being despoiled and held up for ridicule deliberately by manipulative mendacious people in an attempt to warp British tolerance, and they are winning.

And in my sadness, there is an anger at the inability of my government and politicians to understand that I simply want to live lawfully under the common law of our country, which has been built up over a thousand years. Britain is a Christian country which allows universal worship without persecution. I have no choice in being British – I was born here and so were my ancestors going back to 1215, when they came across from Ireland to Scotland. I conform to the laws and to the mores of my native land. Why can’t my Government understand that there is a difference between wanting to live according to my culture and being a racist. Why does everything that does not smack of even handedness and political correctness have an racist or fascist label slapped on it? I am neither a racist or fascist but what I want to know is why cannot my Government give me what I want – the confidence to live out the rest of my life knowing that my British culture will be recognised and valued – that our institutions will be maintained, that we will be free to parade with our poppy’s without having to run a gauntlet of braying fundamentalists, burning a symbol of our beliefs with impunity. Those poppy’s remind us of the men who carried rifles to defend the liberties that I would like to uphold. The sacrifice and the effort they gave, my own family members amongst them, gain them honour. I carried a rifle for Her Majesty as well and, like most, I believed in what I did when we heard the odd angry shot. My sadness and anger this afternoon was caused not by some laddies cheating at cricket – it was about the deafening inability of our elected leaders in both Pakistan and in Britain to call spades spades and understand that despite our differences all we really want is to live in peace and harmony together.