I Did Not See It Coming

Driving around normally, there are times when for all the care and awareness there are things you just miss or do not see until late.  Experience tells you when this is more likely, the half light of early morning or evening, rain, patchy mist, busy conditions, dark clothed pedestrians, cyclists, motor cycles in the blind spot, trucks with far away number plates and those too close (the bumper stickers I call them) among others.

On another level, experience and history tells me that there are governments and many in public affairs, who may be educated, knowledgeable about many things, in the most senior positions and the rest who simply neither see nor understand what is coming and the effects it might have.

This may happen because the mindset they have, the job they are in and the ideas current at the time make them either blind to or unwilling to accept either events or information that are in conflict.  This is especially if there are notable unwelcome downsides.

As for those in any senior or professional position, if they discern something coming along that is bad news for others, especially those senior to them or on whom they depend, it can be very difficult.  If they warn, they can finish up being blamed for anything adverse or be shunned, sacked or singled out for some rough treatment.

In the world of politics, economics and government there are certainly a few things down the decades which I missed, did not fully understand or failed to recognise certain features that should have indicated that things were not going to plan or as they were supposed to be.

What can be especially difficult is that if it dawns on you that the people in charge and who are calling the shots simply do not know what they are talking about or do not have the relevant expertise to make an informed judgement.  I have met rather too many of these in the past. 

All too often they have blagged or blustered their way upwards and are determined both to be the deciders and will brook no questioning or opposition.  So they are just as likely to take us all down a lot faster than they took themselves up.  One feature is that they make promises impossible to fulfil but ensure others will take the blame.

Is all of this sounding very familiar and are names and current issues of one sort or another coming to mind?  One horror that comes to mind is whether any of our current crop of political leaders are competent to run any form of government or are even half aware of what is really going on or what might or must happen.

Another is given the nature of the media and its’ interests is whether the people that elect them are any better placed.  Worse is that many of the people who are elected and who they appoint to crucial offices are neither expert and too often with their own agendas, usually related to immediate financial interests.

So politically and internationally what is round the next corner, why apparently did nobody see it coming and was it the fault of those who predicted it?

The BBC And All That

The first time I watched TV was on Saturday, 29^th April 1950.  A small number of us were gathered together by special invitation in the living room of our corner newsagent in front of his new very expensive TV set.  When the band struck up the national anthem, some of us stood so the rest felt obliged to.

It did seem odd to me, a Mr. Awkward teenager to do this in a domestic place when the band was just on screen, but these were the days when in a cinema at the end of the evening the anthem also would be played.  You had to be out fast because if stuck you would be at the back of the tram queue going home.

But it was the Cup Final, then an event which the media and the BBC had accorded being of the first importance in that the King was there, probably bored stiff, and sitting in an old garden chair in the Royal Box (been there done that rather later) watching Arsenal and Liverpool fight it out in the fullest sense of the term.

This was when my mistrust of TV was first born.  Having been to quite a few football matches in several stadia already it seemed that the relentlessly bossy commentator was mostly talking nonsense.  Things that were obvious he shouted at us, things that were not obvious or subtle were wholly lost to him.

Between then and the mid 1980’s not a lot of TV was watched and there were long periods when TV was just not there.  I can barely remember what was being screened apart from a very small number.  It is not surprising because having thumbed through a few old Radio Times for the period a lot of it was drivel and much of little interest. 

Sport was the main one. The rugby internationals were a must, mercifully mostly done by Bill Mclaren and the soccer that did find its way onto the screen.  For the soccer, the commentators were the usual again bossy superficial presenters in the way that characterised so much of BBC output.

Of the rest, there was a feeling that the news might be watched and some of the political programmes.  In the context of the questions arising about Jimmy Savile and the BBC, before he lurched onto the radio waves and screen we had Lord Boothby.

Amongst the many gruesome specimens offered to us by the BBC as people to be admired and listened to he was one of the foremost.  He was presented to us as a man of discernment and culture who might guide us in our thinking about higher things. 

When he fervently recommended the Red Army Choir and Dancers to us all, this made me suspect that he was a bit of a Red.  Rather later, I realised that there may have been other attractions. 

Boothby, now famously revealed, ran with the Kray Brothers East End gangsters, was provided with rent boys by them and cuckolded Harold Macmillan, the then Prime Minister.

He was just the man for the BBC to advise us on the ethics and morals of modern life at the time.  Another man favoured by the BBC as a potential leader of the Labour Party was someone called John Stonehouse, 1925 to 1988, see Wikipedia for his strange tale. 

In 1958, in company with a few others, I saw him talk in a private meeting and we concluded without disagreement that he was a “wrong ‘un”.  Quite how he then went through a spell of being a man of the future is baffling. 

But then we had Edward Heath presented to us a man of decision who could be trusted.  Harold Wilson, doing his latter day JB Priestley political tribute act was supposed to be the intellectual expert who really knew his economics.

That was the BBC and given its craven attitude to and unquestioning support for bossy exhibitionist arrogant shysters over decades the Savile business is simply par for the course only we now know a great deal nastier.

But we all paid our licence fees and many watched and believed.  In the 1950’s the Labour Party was almost all opposed to any commercial TV or choice of channels other than the BBC.  Later, there was strong Left Wing opposition to Sky and the much wider choice of channels.

Amongst the “what if’s” of UK media history is what might have happened if Lord Home had won the 1964 election and his government then opted for multi-channel competitive TV while scrapping the license fee for the BBC. 

But the BBC was largely responsible for scuppering Lord Home’s chances by running programmes which were not simply critical but mocking in a way that showed flagrant bias. 

It had become too big to fail.

Big Bangs And Bigger Bangs

This post is longer and more complicated than most.  The preference is to keep them simple but sometimes it is not always possible.

One blog that often has things of deeper interest as well as some technical discussion on how it is all done, is Bruce Schneier, whose expertise is in security and its management and governance.

He picked up on a post by Jacobin (see below) about the essential policy and idea of security and how it is governed.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/01/the_politics_of_2.html

Quote:

What do these three implications -- states have a great deal of freedom to determine what threatens a people and how to respond to those threats, and in making those determinations, they are influenced by the interests and ideologies of their primary constituencies. 

States have strong incentives and have been given strong justifications for exaggerating threats; and while states aspire, rhetorically, to a unity of will and judgment, they seldom achieve it in practice -- tell us about the relationship between security and freedom?

What light do they shed on the question of why security is such a potent argument for the suppression of rights and liberties?

Security is an ideal language for suppressing rights because it combines a universality and neutrality in rhetoric with a particularity and partiality in practice. Security is a good that everyone needs, and, we assume, that everyone needs in the same way and to the same degree.

It is "the most vital of all interests," John Stuart Mill wrote, which no one can "possibly do without." Though Mill was referring here to the security of persons rather than of nations or states, his argument about personal security is often extended to nations and states, which are conceived to be persons writ large.

Unlike other values -- say justice or equality -- the need for and definition of security is not supposed to be dependent upon our beliefs or other interests and it is not supposed to favor any one set of beliefs or interests. It is the necessary condition for the pursuit of any belief or interest, regardless of who holds that belief or has that interest. It is a good, as I've said, that is universal and neutral. That's the theory.

The reality, as we have seen, is altogether different. The practice of security involves a state that is rife with diverse and competing ideologies and interests, and these ideologies and interests fundamentally help determine whether threats become a focus of attention, and how they are perceived and mobilized against.

The provision of security requires resources, which are not limitless. They must be distributed according to some calculus, which, like the distribution calculus of any other resource (say income or education), will reflect controversial and contested assumption about justice and will be the subject of debate.

National security is as political as Social Security, and just as we argue about the latter, so do we argue about the former.

Unquote

The above derives from a long post which is an analysis of the State and Security in terms suggested by the philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (see Wikipedia) by Jacobin, link below.  What it is driving at is that states tend to want to keep security as a “non political” function when in reality it is just as political as any other aspect of government.  It is a serious piece and not for skip reading.

http://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/yours-mine-but-not-ours/

Although it might seem unrelated the question of Cyprus banking, its perilous state, and the need for major European bail outs to survive do not look at first sight to be a security matter.  Unluckily it is just that.

Because the banks in real trouble in Cyprus have been central to extensive massive money laundering activities of funny money, allegedly these are substantially Russian interests.  Whether these are the same Russians who are being welcomed into the UK to prop up our financial system is not clear.

This subject has been picked up by Zero Hedge, link below, setting out the severe risks that this entails for Europe.  The Slog has also commented on the issue.  If Europe bails out Cyprus it is paying off the hoods. 

If it does not bail out Cyprus then fuses may start to blow and who knows what the hoods might do?  Suddenly, a lot of places could find themselves with major internal and security problems that they are not prepared for.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-09/russian-%E2%80%9Cblack-money%E2%80%9D-threatens-boot-cyprus-out-eurozone

Cyprus, in the Eastern Mediterranean, is adjacent to Crete and Santorini. At a date now suggested as 1628 BC a major magma chamber blew under Santorini, an island of modest size.  It did for the advanced Minoan civilization in Crete and had catastrophic effects around the Med’.  Wikipedia lists it under Minoan Eruption.

Beyond, it is alleged to have impacted with serious effects on both Northern Europe and across the Northern Hemisphere.  How far its reach was world wide is a subject of debate.

So if the Cyprus issue leads to all sorts of difficulties and other problems, it would not be the first time that a big bang in that vicinity led to bigger bangs of another sort.  One suggestion is that it might affect the German elections coming up soon.

One awkward question which might become an election issue in the UK is if we find ourselves faced with demands for Russian bail outs via Europe on security grounds.  It is possible that the US State Department hasn’t got round to that one.  If they have then this might explain their desire for the UK and The City to be in Europe. 

Because someone is going to have to pay and neither Moscow nor Washington DC will want to.

Mad Dogs And Englishmen

In the Benefit Basher Bill currently going through the motions in Parliament few people have noticed that in Schedule 632, page 3241, related to Clause 527 Section 764, Sub Section 87 of the main bill there is a wording that allows the government to call on anyone receiving any benefit, including old age pensions, to be asked to contribute to society in any way they have done so at any time before.

What is not realised that amongst other things this means that anyone who has served in the military in the past and has any money coming from government is now recalled as part of a permanent reserve and can be mobilised as and when required.

In a way it is a return to the days when the Militia formed an important part of our security and policing services together with groups such as the Fencibles and the Yeomanry. 

This, the government feels, is an expression of the idea of the Big Society and enables community devolvement in a way that reinstates British tradition.

The crime reporter of the Wapping Chronicle (formerly The Sun), Dandy Burdoch, has been in touch with Mad Dog Demetrius who lives in social housing in Cheltenham for his response to this. 

Mad Dog did two years National Service between 1952 and 1978, taking longer than most because of periods for respite and counselling at various secure military establishments.

Having gone straight from the Army into early retirement Mad Dog has recently become an environmental and community activist whose web site “Hanging Is Not Good Enough” attracts a wide readership.  The poll on who should be burned at the stake each week is widely reported.

Locally, Mad Dog hopes to take advantage of the new legislation to set up a network of machine gun emplacements to cover the pathways between the crack houses and substance retailers on his estate.  He hopes this could become a model for others. 

In addition he is demanding that the many cannabis farms in his area in homes, sheds and some industrial estates should be classified as businesses and therefore liable to local and national taxes.  Their present classification as agricultural with EU subsidies he feels is wrong.

Unluckily, his naming of the local councillors who have invested heavily in these trades has led to threats of legal action and worse from the Cheltenham Cosa Nostra, a private limited liability company that does not submit accounts and does not need to undertake compliance because of current Company House facilities.

Mad Dog intends to found a local community regiment from ex-servicemen in the style of the old landowners of the past who created so many of the Army’s previous and now lost regiments of the Horse and Line. 

If the new legislation allows people to forgo their benefits in return for service in an organisation which will reward itself from local activity, it will mean real community initiative will replace government agencies.

When asked about how such groups might enforce their vision of the future, he thinks there will be no real problem because there is a lot of experience to draw on. 

But there are real concerns that the impact on the night time economies of many towns may be detrimental to the GDP figures and inward foreign capital flows into the UK which at present depend on the continuing rapid expansion of gambling, drink and sex services.

When asked about how such an organisation might deal with hard line bodies active in this field, such as the Bullingdon Club in Oxford Mad Dog made it clear that he felt they were all chick pea and mange tout.

The community militia would take their pants off and throw them over the parapet of Magdalen Bridge into the River Cherwell before you could say Edward Miliband.

A spokesperson for the Home Office, when asked about Mad Dog’s suggestions said that guidance would be needed on Human Rights issues.

Confessions Of A Serial Tax Avoider

With the debate raging about tax avoidance, tax evasion there are two basic propositions.  One is that no tax is “fair” but some taxes are more unfair than others.  The other is that we are all tax avoiders either by accident or design.  The distinction between them will not be clear.

Also, the nature of present tax avoidance etc. is nothing new.  In the 1950’s I knew students who, in the grants system at that time, were on full grants despite their parents being evidently people of means. 

One I knew dressed very smartly; ran a sports car and whose father owned a chain of profitable shops.  This continued as long as the old grants system did, those whose accountants could sort the figures had full grants, most of the rest did not.

Down the decades, I have come across many a person, notably in certain trades who lived in some style but were either forever bankrupt or rarely involved with the Inland Revenue.  Tax havens were made use of by those in the know or rich enough to for certain private banks to welcome their custom.

This was all very discrete and whilst it was recognised that it occurred it was thought that the scale of it was marginal and did not impact substantially on the tax take by the Revenue.  A few more flagrant or unwise were caught but not many.

At the same time, however, in a lot of the private sector but a then limited part of the public amongst management and others all sorts of “perks” were common that were tax free at the time and an essential part of the salary and conditions of service.

When first into taking on a mortgage, I chose the “tax efficient” method at the time, involving endowment insurance rather than the basic form.  Luckily I got out of this just before the system began to fail.  Also, in a period of rapid inflation I was gaming the car loan facility to avoid any cash loss or tax.

More recently our tax avoidance has become more subtle.  With coming of the EU and value added tax one way to achieve both economy and reduced tax loading has been simply not to spend on a variety of goods or services.  Applying the test of real need as opposed to want rigorously has some interesting results.

If something can be done another way or it is possible to do without a consumer product then by definition both consumption spending and related tax do not occur.  I will not go through the household list but simply say that almost none of the heavily advertised consumer products are in use.

This does put us in a minority and a very small one at that.  If the majority of people were simply to stop buying the things we have then consumer spending would collapse, GDP go into a tail spin, the advertising industry atrophy, companies fail and VAT returns decline significantly.  The knock on effects across the whole tax system would be immense.

Recently, we may have been involved in evasion by accident.  A particular product, low value so tax was not an issue was bought by post because of its precise specification.  Initially, it came from a large distribution shed in the Midlands but then appeared to be from Guernsey.  It didn’t, the Channel Island was simply an address and a bank account for the money.

A good deal of our national revenue at present occurs from spending which is not necessary in the last analysis for life or living.  We eat well, are warm, do a few things and skip those that people think they “ought” to do or want.  It is still a great deal better than the 1940’s.

The other half of the problem is that government spending is high with state debt that incurs added charges, however much it tries to damp it down with “low interest” monetary devices.  This cannot last much longer and any real upward shift will hurt and hurt badly.  The promises and commitments made in the past make this situation dangerous.

Over the last two decades the changes in the banking industry, the global reach, the applications of computer technologies have offered tax avoidance on a large scale to both companies and individuals.  This applies to many beyond the very rich or a few insiders, it reaches down into those of middling incomes.

Across the board, no longer in the more select private parts of the private sector but in the higher reaches of the public sector extensive payment and reward systems that avoid tax have become common.  To a great extent this was once covered by the boosting of debt driven consumer spending and other forms of outlays.

This has now come under severe strain and there is both rancour and division.  Also, other factors may stress it further.  If food prices do go up sharply and this occurs in parallel with significant interest rate rises there will not be a “consumer strike” after our fashion.

It will be that people already on a tight budget and under debt stress will no longer be able to spend as they have done.

Anyone for some nice left overs?

The Falklands - The Forgotten Agreements

George Canning, Foreign Secretary and for a short time, Prime Minister, in the 1820’s claimed he had brought The New World into existence to redress the balance of the old.  The Foreign Office had done one of its major gear shifts again. 

Having rescued Spain from Napoleon just over a decade before, Britain was now allowing the Spanish Empire in South America to fall apart into a number of independent states; Argentina included, rather than assist it further.

This was the politics of reality, if Spain could not hold on to these territories, who would then be the chief influence?  France was certainly in the hunt and worse our former enemy the USA had its own ambitions, signalled by The Monroe Doctrine.

Britain had three advantages.  One was the power of the British Navy at the time, giving protection.  Another was the opportunities created by Britain’s desire to expand its trade across the world and the third was that the City of London at that time was the key source of capital for developing states.

Britain could offer diplomatic support for an emerging nation and access to goods and services unobtainable from elsewhere.  The logic for Argentina to be close to Britain was inescapable.  In return, Britain would be a prime buyer of anything it had to offer.

One price was that Britain needed naval bases which a generation later would be coaling stations in order to cover the route around Cape Horne for both its trade with the West Coast of the Americas and parts of the East. 

The Falklands, or Malvinas were a barren and unfriendly spot but a good shelter in a storm and there were a lot of storms in the South Atlantic.  In time a few people came and some remained.  They had little to offer except grazing and a very quiet life, at least when the wind wasn’t blowing.

In the century that followed the importance of Argentina to Britain is shown by the appointment of Ministers Plenipotentiary to Buenos Aires shortly after independence was gained.  This office late in the 19^th Century became Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary.

Looking down the list of names of these men they were top draw civil servants, people who were very well connected and who had direct access to the highest in the land.  Argentina was seen as a key and important post.  This must mean that that it was very important to trade, finance and influence.

During this time there was constant negotiation and work dealing with a range of matters at the highest level.  What, therefore was going on in relation to The Falklands, if it ever figured much in the continuing relationships?

Were anyone to “sweat” the Foreign Office files for all of this there will be a range of treaties, agreements, negotiations and understandings that will be substantial.  This needs an expertise probably lost to the present commercial managers at the Foreign Office.

But there is likely to be a lot there and some of it critical to the present issue.  My purely amateur guess is that the 1881 to 1884 period of office of Sir George Glynn Petre may be a key period.  It was a time when the new Liberal Government headed by Gladstone was trying to sweep up the extensive mess left by Disraeli who was not a man for detail and who had a cavalier attitude to foreign and imperial affairs.

Today, we have a Prime Minister who is not a man for detail and jumps in and out of issues to suit the mood of the moment.  He will need to get a grip on this because it has a nasty potential.  Hague The Vague, the present Foraging Secretary will not be much help.

Nor can we hope for anything from the USA where the President sees the UK as much as an opponent as anything else.  All that human rights stuff for the existing population of The Falklands will be colonial garbage to him.

What will matter will be the opinions of the substantial Latino component of the support for the Democrat’s at present.  This is likely to favour Argentina because it is “Latin”, whatever that is.  Also The President is another who does not do “detail”, either historical or legal, if it conflicts will any latest opinion poll.

Europe will be even less help.  The Spanish with their eyes on Gibraltar will have a “Latin” view, in 1982 during The Falklands Campaign, France would have been happy to sell rockets to Argentina and the Germans do not see The Falklands as a good property investment.

It is odd that The Falklands dispute is not really about the Islands.  As a land investment they are almost worthless.  It is what is in and under the sea in what might be defined as its territorial waters that matters, for those who can afford to put their hands on it. 

This is not the nation states involved. Argentina is broke, the UK is broke, the USA is broke and Europe is broke.  So the real future lies with the major corporations who do have the money and the will. 

Who are they and what do they want?

Fare Play For All

In the media there has been a great deal of fuss and comment on the subject of rail fares and pricing.  As this involves commuter fares along with others, a great deal of it has concentrated on situations in the South East, but many other urban areas are affected.  It is a difficult business and with a long history.

For the backdrop to this post the Wikipedia article “Railway Regulation Act 1844” is in mind.  It is concise and says what it has to say.  What it means that is the issue of what services may be provided and at what price began in the earliest years of the railways as a key part of mass transit.

One aspect of the 1844 Act was that the provision for a “Parliamentary Fare” for the Third Class passengers was intended to enable the lower classes to be able to afford to travel quickly in order to seek work.  If one penny a mile seems very cheap the fact is it wasn’t. 

Taking typical working men’s pay at the time to travel any distance would involve quite a few shillings.  For example, Liverpool to Manchester might cost around three shillings or Birmingham to Manchester around six shillings.  The wage would depend on the skills of the worker, but either would make a large hole in or cost all of a week’s earnings.

The picture above, taken at Manchester Victoria Station in 1928 offers a real cut price bargain for the time, five shillings return for a day out.  However, given what I know about my parents incomes around that time, again this is about half my mothers weekly pay and a quarter of my father’s.

It is arguable what these figures might mean in today’s money given that the current historical comparisons depend on spending and other liabilities that can be very different but you could be looking at a rough equivalent of five shillings being about £100.  This, I stress, is the cut price special fare so imagine what the “normal” fares were like.

But those were the days when passenger revenues were only a part of overall revenue.  The railways were common carriers and moved almost all the freight for any distance.  Also they moved nearly all the post and parcels.  The amount of the basic fuel, coal, was huge and nearly all went by rail.

This is no longer the case.  There is some freight and there are always hopes to increase it.  Now the railways depend on passenger revenues.  Also, not only is the pricing complex but so is the structure and nature of state support.  Then the companies decided what locomotives and carriages they might have.  Now the government does.

During the 1950’s my experience was direct working on the platform and in the parcel’s office as well as travelling a good deal.  It certainly wasn’t cheap and any journey of distance was a major budget item.  Also, if you needed to order goods that came by rail, this could add significantly to the cost.

But like in many other spheres we have come to view the railways as something that “ought” to be cheap and almost in a way part of the benefits system.  The level of subsidy is substantial and we now have almost a “right” to travel where and when we want to, irrespective of the weather or need, the demand is to keep fares down and the subsidies up.

A railway is a high expense piece of social kit.  It requires a great deal of outlay to create, which may or may not yield a return.  Many a company in the 19^th Century went broke.  It is high maintenance.  It has to have staff and systems that are costly in turn.  It requires continual renewal.

All in all, given that it is almost solely passenger provision the real fare pricings to cover both revenue and capital costs would mean far higher fare levels than often apply today.  Certainly, some of the commuter fares are beginning to look serious but that is what it costs.

Given that the financial and social policies of recent governments have had the effect of driving a large part of the middling income groups out of the capital to live in areas with more affordable housing whiles at the same time increasing the subsidies to the rail services provided, something sometime had to give.

Could the train carrying the costs and pricing problems be about to hit the buffers?