Tuesday, January 31, 2012

STEPHEN HESTER ABANDONED




STEPHEN HESTER, chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), has come under attack for receiving a£963,000 bonus. Large parts of the media, and Labour politicians have been outraged by his decision to keep his bonus.
            Stephen Hester is not a banker, but was recruited by those hypocrites who now sit on her Majesty’s opposition benches, who, when they were in power, were set to turn around this loss making carbuncle . It should of course been allowed to fail; for that is supposed to be how the market works. Instead the last Labour government poured  billions of people’s taxes into keeping it afloat, and recruited Stephen Hester to turn it around.
            This he is in the process of doing, and as part of his contract with the previous government his remuneration was contractually agreed to by both parties. So Mr Hester is quite right to ignore the croakers, and keep his bonus. There is nothing immoral in holding such a position; he has brought the bank back into profit, and when the time comes for the government to privatise RBS, they should walk away with a handsome return for the taxpayer.
            In the course of his overlordship of the RBS, Stephen Hester has had to make 3,500 people redundant, and may have to make many more so. He  had to because it was the price that the employees had to pay, not for any perceived failure by Stephen Hester, but the fault of bad decisions made by Sir Fred Goodwin, as well as the folly that now surrounds the euro zone; which Stephen Hester, like the rest of us, knew little of at the time of his preferment.
            If anyone believes that this bank could have been put back onto a successful footing without job losses, then they need their heads examining. Stephen Hester is being made a scapegoat, at a time when  banking has become the modern form of witchcraft, and its practitioners modern witches. Stephen Hester fits their bigoted description perfectly…he has even been photographed in full fox hunting apparel to give further spice to the prejudices he is already subjected to.
            Stephen Hester should carry on and fulfil his contract…I however, would not, had I been qualified for Hester’s job. I would have put two fingers up to my critics, given back my wretched bonus, and defied them to find someone who could do the job cheaper, if at all. Perhaps Bob Crow would have welcomed another nought on his six figure salary to give it a try?
            Whatever Stephen Hester is being paid, it is peanuts compared to the £45 billion of taxpayers’ money that has been spent in keeping the RBS afloat. So why jump on Stephen Hester’s back, when he is trying to make it a success, and, in the process, making a lucrative return on our politicians’ folly?

OF ALL THE critics of Stephen Hester’s remuneration arrangements, the most duplicitous has come from Mr Bean himself. Ed Milliband has challenged this government to show leadership and remove the ignominy of Stephen Hester’s immoral greed from the public eye, by taking away from him this obscene amount of money for so little return.
            Compared to Ed Milliband, Stephen Hester is an almost saintly figure. Hester is unlikely to forget from which political party he was recruited, and one would think that Ed Milliband would wish to remain silent on the issue of this man’s financial arrangements, considering they were made with the previous government, a government of which he was  part.
            Both the Milliband’s were, remember, the princes of Labour cronyism. They were both elevated to the House of Commons via safe Labour seats.
            Milliband has been a well known brand on the socialist Left ever since the late 1960s and well into the 1970s. It was the Milliband’s father Ralf, the Marxist intellectual who lectured at the London School of Economics, whose  influence upon student unrest helped characterise student protest at the time - which may partly account for Ed’s soliciting of the trade union block vote, when seeking the Labour throne.
            Many Labour politicians, who were  middle class students at the time,  became disciples of Ralf Milliband. So the Milliband’s, have, like crony capitalists, advanced their ambitions via their parents.

STEPHEN HESTER swims in much cleaner water as far as moral exactitude is concerned, than does the Milliband’s. He is just doing a job. He is not a politician. He is an ambitious businessman with a record that the previous government found best suited their requirement for salvaging the RBS. He does not deserve Ed Milliband’s hypocritical strictures. The RBS can and will be fully turned round over time. It will not be done so by either a trade union leader or a Labour politician baptised in the font of Marxism.
            It was the Labour party who negotiated and gave Stephen Hester his job, and the same party should be standing by him now. Gordon Brown welcomed Stephen Hester to the fold, as did, presumably Ed Milliband.
            Stephen Hester should now hold firm and remain true to the contract he signed. He does not have to sacrifice or apologise for anything. He agreed to manage the RBS and try to return it once more to, first of all, solvency, and then to profit. At which time there would be private interest gathering for the ownership the RBS. Thus releasing the British taxpayer from their financial commitment.
             

Monday, 30th January

FIRST ADDENDUM

STEPHEN HESTER has bowed to pressure and returned his bonus. It has been calculated by the Daily Telegraph, that the treasury would have received £500,000 in taxes taken from the various bonuses Stephen Hester was entitled too; but who will now receive nothing.
            I can understand why he had to cave in. The kind of pressure he came under was of a different nature compared to that he was used to working under in business. The kind of public exposure he has been put under by the politicians and the media, has however, taught him a vital lesson: if you are a business man or woman and you have to sup with politicians, do so with a very long spoon; especially if that politician is a Labour one.
            Ed Milliband now wants to go further than this one episode and take a look at all boardroom bonuses: ‘This isn't the best way of setting the pay for top chief executives, let's be honest about it’, said this sincere politician. ‘That is why we need real change - real change in the boardroom and new rules and real change from the Government to say tax the bankers' bonuses until we see the change in behaviour that we need.’
            So after months of  exposing his inadequacies as a leader to the British public, Milliband has hit upon a crusade that he hopes will make him popular with the voters; and it has all been achieved, by joining in the chase of one man.
            This is why businessmen should avoid politicians like the plague. Milliband will now try to keep this issue alive; not for any particular principle but purely for his own political survival, which I hope he succeeds in doing. If he is successful in hanging on to the leadership of his party; I hope he will send Stephen Hester a thank you letter, for being the fox instead of chasing one.
            Revolution in the boardroom and nothing less seems to be the message of politicians. For Vince Cable, and Nick Clegg would also favour a root and branch reform of boardroom bonuses. (however, they would each have an attack of the vapours at the mere mention of revolution).
            So, politically at least, there is now an enthusiasm for some kind of boardroom retribution regarding  bonuses. But the politicians had better take great care: the people are, at the moment angry with bankers and financiers; how long this will last depends on their own financial circumstances (let us not forget that the people were perfectly happy with city bonuses when they were given their cheap mortgages; which they now blame the banks for giving them).
            The public are angry with the banks; but are they so displeased with boardroom bonuses in companies where the shareholders determine the merits of generous bonuses? Remember, Milliband, Cable, and Clegg are leading the charge against all public companies – not just the banks.
IF THE TRIUMPHRATE of Milliband, Cable and Clegg have their way; then, like all reformers and revolutionaries, they must suffer (as well as the British people in this instance) the unforeseen consequences of their actions.
            How many times have we been told by politicians that we live in a global economy? So, surely any kind of reform must take this fact into consideration? But it appears that this mantra has been received by deaf ears, as far as our triumphrate are concerned.
            Unless, that is, they have been secretly supported in their intentions by every other economy in the world; but we remain ignorant because no announcement has as yet been made.

FINAL ADDENDUM

STEPHEN HESTER  misunderstood the nature of politicians. But he should not feel embarrassed by such a lack of understanding. Many successful businessmen and women have had similar experiences with politicians in the past, and this will continue well into the future.
            Stephen Hester saw the RBS as a challenge. As an entrepreneur his main satisfaction would have been in turning around this bank. When he succeeds, as I feel he is now more determined to do after this episode; he will be given his knighthood, recommended by whichever politician is in number ten at the time. He will go to the palace and kneel before, which I hope will still be the Queen, and in doing so, confront someone who knows all about the deeds and manners of politicians.
            As for the boardroom: there are plenty of such boardrooms  to retreat to all over the world, for those who may suffer Stephen Hester’s fate in the future. If the triumphrate  succeed with their ambitions, many entrepreneurs will go elsewhere to make their fortune; rather than rely upon the national lottery, as many of those who resent Stephen Hester’s bonus tend to do.
            Capitalism is the perfect suitor for human nature. It is not the product of a political ideology like socialism, communism, anarchism, environmentalism, or any kind of nihilism. It is, if you like, the mould from which human nature has been cast.
            Enlightened self-interest, ambition and reward, are the primary focus of the capitalist system; and in achieving these, society as a whole grows and evolves. Its people and their families find happiness with such an arrangement because it provides work and wages which, among many other benefits send them on holiday each year.
            But this free market system, from to time, lapses into various forms of  recession and depression; and this is what  is happening to us today. In the past Ed Milliband’s father would have provided an answer called Marxism; an answer which has been well and truly discredited by history.
            We, as a nation, have lost much of our manufacturing  base[1]. Now we have come to rely upon the financial sector, and the billions it pays each year to the exchequer, to help keep this country solvent. If our politicians and media, through their populist attacks, start to undermine what is Europe’s financial hub, then I hope they have an alternative ready.

           
                         








[1] How this happened is a whole new story

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Germany must ignore the failed economies


ACCORDING TO DER SPIEGEL, Angela Merkle is becoming isolated within the euro zone over her insistence that Germany’s pockets are not bottomless . But her partners insist that she is wrong and asks her to pour billions more of her country’s hard earned euros into saving both the euro currency and the world financial order; and if it all goes belly up, they are set to blame Chancellor Merkle…solidarity, it seems, is in short supply.
            But Merkle is right to resist such pleading from her various partners within the euro zone. Germany is the one country in all of Europe that has the right architecture in place for a successful economy. A strong work ethic among its people; a pride in its workforce for the product they are making and selling; a reputation for quality, and yes, that old cliché efficiency. It also has the finest apprenticeships in Europe ...where, in the UK, it seems, every youngster court’s celebrity, the German youth have their feet on the ground.
            It is as if Germany is being penalised for its success. The unelected Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, a technocrat who was elevated by the Merkozy after Berlusconi was forced to depart the stage, is saying that Germany  needs to do more to save the situation. Which of course means handing over more cash to help keep this wretched currency afloat.
            The European economies were out of kilter at the time of the euros’ birth. Rather than sound judgement, the project went ahead regardless. Driven by European idealism, Europe’s leaders, or those in its strongest economies, kept their fingers crossed. For faith rather than sound judgement, which they had but never used , was what launched the whole enterprise.
            Britain, an empirical nation by nature, did stop and study the likely success of a single currency under such a misalignment of economies, and found that there could not have been a less salubrious set of circumstance for its success, than were present at its launch. Of course our partners in Europe put our genuine concern down to our euro-scepticism. But they would be wrong; even many Europhiles had their doubts, but their solidarity with the cause of European Federalism kept them silent. Or this is what they will eventually say when the iceberg eventually penetrates  the hull.

GERMANY, WITH ITS history, wanted to prove themselves exemplary Europeans. No other nation has done more to redeem itself for its historical behaviour than the modern German people. When it came to Europe, Germany felt they needed to cement themselves in solidarity with the rest of Europe; and sound judgement took second place when it came to a single currency. It was as if they felt they could not trust themselves as a nation any more.
            I admire modern Germany, not only for the qualities mentioned above, but because they seem to have the same spirit that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution in the UK from the middle of the 18th century; but which has long since departed these shores.
            We in the UK, no longer speak of a manufacturing base, but a financial sector. Germany held true to its manufacturing base and made it so successful that it is in demand throughout the world. If only sound judgement had  been the sole consideration, when a single currency was presented to Germany, then today the Chancellor of Germany would not be hounded by lesser economies into saving them.
            While I do not live in Germany, the reports I collect from 24 hour news and the internet including Der Spiegel, I believe the German people are increasingly resentful of  how their taxes have been frittered away. Which, no doubt, is why Angela Merkle, who is soon to face re-election has proven so obstinate.

A CONFIDENT GERMANY would have delayed a single currency until all the economies of the member states had economic parity with each other. If this could not have proved possible (which I believe it could not), then a two tier system should have been enforced; had pragmatism ruled, instead of idealism.
            But even before all of this, political union should have heralded economic unification. In the spirit of idealism regarding the formation of a United States of Europe, this other premise for the single currencies success was ignored. Political union creates the architecture for economic union, and once more the  idealistic impulses of the federalists who chose to side step a vital issue  in order to make European Federalism a workable institution, failed because of their romanticism.
            But, as we know, politics is the democratic meat of the people; and what the federalist sought was the ending of all national sovereignty. This proved such an obstacle to Europe’s politicians in Brussels, that they thought they could do it in reverse with a single currency put before a political union. We now see where this has lead.
            Angela Merkle must stand her ground and demand the same entrepreneurial spirit from the so-called pigs nations, that her nation embraces.

IN ITALY AND GREECE, taxes have been optional since they joined the European union. There has been no effective tax base in either countries. Instead, any shortfall in public expenditure, was borrowed, with Europe’s stronger countries, via the euro of course, acting as collateral.
            It is obscenely unfair for those countries that have acted so irresponsibly as far as the running of their own economies is concerned, to now almost demand from Germany that they effectively bail them out once more. No wonder the German public are becoming more cynical by the day; and I hope they continue to press their chancellor to remain stubborn and bloody-minded…but, alas, as with the UK’s political leaders, Germanys will no doubt prove themselves equally manipulative when it comes to ignoring the popular will.
           
           
           
              

Friday, January 27, 2012

The European Court of Human Rights and the European Union - vipers at the throat of the nation state





‘The problem today is you can end up with someone who has no right to live in your country, who you are convinced – and have good reason to be convinced – means to do your country harm.
‘And yet there are circumstances in which you cannot try them, you cannot detain them and you cannot deport them’.
David Cameron speaking in Strasbourg

AT LAST, A BRITISH politician is telling the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) something it does not wish to hear; but not quite going far enough to satisfy his own people.
            There have been many decisions taken by these judges that have enraged the British people, Abu Qatada being the latest. We are obliged to keep this terrorist on our soil only because the ECHR refuses to allow us to deport him to Jordon, where Strasbourg fears he will be tortured.
            So at great cost to the British taxpayer , the majority of whom wish rid of him, he will enjoy custody at Her Majesty’s displeasure. Where,  no doubt, he will at some time in the future call upon the services of the ECHR once again if his coca is to cold, or his prayer mat to small.
            The ECHR has a backlog of 160,000 cases. The court may have  a modernist architecture that looks like two stainless steel grain silos; but  its inner workings resemble Chancellery in Dickens’ Bleak House.
            A majority of the British people, I suggest, want this wretched institution off our backs for good. When we allowed it into our lives back in 1966, we could not have foreseen the direction it was to take; or the power it was to accrue over English law.
            We have given a foreign court the power to override decisions that should be the sole business of, in the first instance, the people at the ballot box, followed by our elected lawmakers and  the judiciary.  The structure of English law has a timeline covering centuries. English law is the business of English people, and no other.
            The ECHR may be the wisest, fairest, and the most inspired of institutions; but it should have  no business; or carry any remit within these isles. Our politicians, as they have done with the EU, have made voting in a government a meaningless and pointless endeavour.
            So, after centuries of struggle to win the franchise, the British people are now left pondering if it was at all worthwhile for their ancestors to take the trouble. If we can no longer be our own masters, and have to accept a foreign court’s decision over one of our own, then the game is up.

BRUSSELS AND STRASBOURG, are our  modern equivalent of the 17th century Stuarts. Sadly we lack an Oliver Cromwell to fight our corner, and help see them off. Our political masters are to a man and women, in some degree or other, sympathetic to both European cities and what they represent.
            David Cameron’s speech will upset many on the continent, as his language was meant to do, in order to appeal to a euro-sceptic public and win him Brownie points in the polls.
            But he is as devoted to the European ideal as the Merkozy. He inhales euro-sceptic fumes for the sake of pacifying his backbenchers, and winning plaudits from the British people. But he will never allow an addiction to such vapours to overcome him. He, like Nick Clegg, sees the nation state as a dinosaur – the only difference between them being, is the respective natures of their very different backbenchers, as well as the average Conservative Party member.
            The only Party that can be trusted by any euro-sceptic in Westminster, is UKIP. They and only they concentrate their efforts on removing the United Kingdom from Europe. Theirs is a simple message, which is uncomplicated by other issues. This country’s sovereignty is paramount above all other consideration; which is why UKIP is restricted to a single issue and should remain so within Europe.
            I do not support UKIP. For nearly forty years of my life, I have supported and voted Labour. But at the last election I broke with tradition and voted Tory; so when I suggest that UKIP is the only answer to seeking the release of this nation, from becoming just another canton within a Greater Europe, I do so with regret because none of the other parties have lived up to their promise.
           
THE TROUBLE WITH UKIP however is that they lack a Cromwell to lead the charge against the collapse of the nation state. If UKIP had such a leader which the British people could follow; not only would they win a victory over the European Union, but evolve into a party of tradition which could one day replace the Conservative Party.
            Two thirds of the British parliament have been seduced by the European ideal and are fully prepared to accept it, whatever its deficiencies. To such people the ECHR’s outrageous rulings solicit a mere shrug of the shoulders.
            Although separate institutions, the ECHR and the EU share the same parents: liberal idealism dreamt them both up, and gave birth to them. Europe may have been in need of such a court when European nations such as Portugal, Spain, and Greece, were under the rule of fascist dictators; and part of Germany under a communist dictatorship. But I consider it offensive that we have to obey its rulings, when Britain’s human rights record is second to none.
            It is one huge, overstaffed and unneeded quango, that, as far as the UK is concerned should be well rid of. Our courts and only our time honoured courts should judge human rights abuses, if any, in the UK.
            As for outside the UK, do we not have the United Nations; or yes, if other European countries want it, the ECHR. But we in Britain elect our lawmakers on our behalf to provide us with a fully functioning criminal justice system. The ECHR is, like all quangos, undemocratic, and as such, one would have thought,  it falls foul of itself.
           
           


             
             

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

President Ahmadinejad the Magnificent


AMERICA, BRITAIN AND FRANCE have sent a flotilla into the Straits of Hormuz to  prevent Iran from closing it when new economic sanctions by the European Union take effect. The flotilla, is headed by a US carrier. Of course Britain and Frances’ contribution, is somewhat meagre and amounts to no more than tokenism; but it demonstrates a coalition of the like-minded.
            Iran has recently been sabre rattling in the straits by playing war games to demonstrate its military prowess to the West. These can be ignored: such displays of prowess fall well short of equity with what the West can produce.
            However, when President Ahmadinejad threatens the closure of a sea lane that carries 20% of the world’s oil, then what else are we supposed to do? Iran is hell bent on making a nuclear device of some kind. It will soon have a missile delivery system of such sophistication that it can threaten parts of Europe. When this happens we will be left scratching our heads, with the prospect of another Cuban missile crises at sometime in the near future; and if (as one commentator suggests) that a conflict today would bare comparison with 1939-45… then what would a nuclear armed Iran be compared with?
            For several years now Iran has bought time for itself to become a nuclear power in this most volatile region. During this time they have, from scratch, managed to produce weapon grade plutonium and will have achieved their goal of a nuclear weapon (so say the experts) within the next year. They have continually, throughout this whole period of development, protested to the international community that all of their nuclear ambitions are for civilian use.
            Both the United Nations and the West have found such promises disingenuous, yet time and time again, we have recoiled from taking any kind of action other than through sanctions. We have sought dialogue,  but Iran refuses to discuss a nuclear armament programme which they deny exists, but which we know they are working toward.
            Economic sanctions have been our one peaceful rejoinder to Iran’s military ambitions. Iran is ambitious. It wants to become a nuclear power and no amount of diplomacy will dissuade her from her course; no amount of pleading, and no amount of Danegelt will change Iran’s direction - no more than it would have France or Britain when they shared Iran’s ambitions.

THE IRANIANS will not forgo their nuclear ambition now it is within their grasp. Jaw Jaw, is better than War War, but only if both parties are prepared to talk. Iran has cajoled, at various times best suited to their agenda, the UN into believing that diplomacy and negotiation would meet with success.
            They have brilliantly grasped the fact that neither the United Nations or the West will prevent militarily, the realisation of their ambitions. On top of which, the one country that is prepared to take such military action, the state of Israel, has been hemmed in by US pressure.
            If the West had acted much earlier, as the Israeli’s did in Syria when they discovered Assad had a similar ambition to Ahmadinejad: then by bombing Iran’s  nuclear infrastructure in its infancy,  we would not be awaiting a possible conflict in the Straits of Hormuz today.
            If Iran succeeds in its ambition, then Saudi Arabia has promised to become a nuclear power within the region. You can see where this all leading; and it will have come about by the West issuing threats to Iran that they rightly dismiss. For Iran has the true measure of the West. They know that our politicians are weak and follow, instead of lead their people.
            I want to cover my ears when, for instance, our Foreign Secretary, William Hague (a man I have the greatest respect for as a politician and biographer) appears on camera and announces that the soon to be implemented European sanctions proves, not that they will work, but the resolve of European nations working together.

AS MUCH AS I loathe President Ahmadinejad and all his works, I cannot help but respect him for the way he has judged the moral cowardice and supine nature of the West. He has  acted at every step in the full knowledge that, apart from Israel, the West would hold back at any cost from a military conflict with his country; especially after Afghanistan and Iraq.
            He knows that            if Western politicians dared speak openly of military retaliation against Iran’s nuclear developments; their people would take to the streets in protest, and the Iranian leadership in Tehran would be ecstatic.
            When I say ‘their people’ would take to the streets. What I really mean is a spoilt section of middle class youth who have a greater say, because of their parents, on the behaviour of politicians, than does the rest of the ordinary people of any country in Europe or America.
            Iran should have been stopped in its tracks from becoming a nuclear power, and at one time Israel was the perfect vehicle for such an enterprise – as she proved with Syria.
            We are now in a far more dangerous situation regarding Iran than we would have been had the West acted sooner, or allowed Israel to do so. All Israel has been ‘allowed’ to do, by America under Obama, is to knock off a few of Iran’s nuclear scientists when the opportunity presents itself.
            This is hardly adequate. Once Iran becomes the most powerful military force in the region because of the West’s, as well as the UN’s feebleness, she will be in full control of the chess board. Which means that other countries in the region with the wealth to do so, will be busily becoming nuclear powers.
           
IRAN IS DRIVEN by Muslim fundamentalism,  and President Ahmadinejad  no doubt sees himself as another Suleman the Magnificent , the 16th century Turkish Muslim leader who advanced as far as Vienna on Europe’s north eastern boarders in the hope of taking full control of and reforming the Christian infidel by making Europe a Muslim entity.
            Normally we could ignore such an ambition today. But in Europe, as a whole, we have living among us some 15 million Muslims(something Suleman could only have dreamt of) who have been welcomed by our various liberal establishments as part of assuaging  their guilt complexes, that they share for the colonial injustice their respective countries were the cause of in the past.
            These Muslims now living among us are not all fundamentalists; but a significant minority are prepared to advance  to a point where, through violence, they seek Islam’s hegemony over the West. They may be a minority, but they are fed and watered innocently within the Islamic communities of Western Europe, including the United Kingdom.
            This does not mean that those they live amongst are aware of their purpose, but that they are merely the camouflage  that the Islamists seek to take advantage of.
            A conscience makes cowards of us all; and a liberal one in particular is fatal to us all. Iran’s advancement is due to Western liberalism and its tepid and half-hearted appeal to a rationality that does not exist in a religious fundamentalism that President Ahmadinejad represents.
            But rather than face up to the military sacrifices that may be needed to overcome  Ahmadinejad’s imperious ambitions; we in the West sit biting our nails hoping against hope that this later day Suleman will come to his senses and abandon the power that he knows is within his grasp…what are the chances?


           

           
             

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

IAN DUNCAN SMITH MUST BE SUPPORTED




TODAY , MEMBERS of the House of Lords are threatening to derail part of Ian Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms. Led by Paddy Ashdown and, of course, who else but the Bishops; they are trying to defeat the £500 cap on benefits which the Coalition are seeking to impose. The cap amounts to £35,000 before tax, and £26,000 after, as it is based upon the national average weekly wage
            For far too long have many in receipt of benefits been allowed to sit sprawled out on their sofas, passing their days away, while receiving welfare benefits that amount to more than  millions find themselves earning by working. A state of affairs has been allowed to continue for far too long, whereby those who are working in jobs that pay less than the amount the government wishes to cap in benefits; are having to pay, through taxation, for the workshy who have had it all their own way for far too long.
            The welfare state was never intended by its founders to become anything more than a safety net in difficult times; when, either through recession in bad times, or bankruptcy in good times, employers had to make redundant some or all of their employees.
            The welfare state sought to humanise capitalism by giving protection to those who had, for whatever reason, been discarded and driven into unemployment. It was a civilising measure that no one, from whatever pole of the political spectrum they came, could not support.
            The safety-net approach represented  a turning point. For the 19th and the early part of 20th century capitalism, no such safety net had existed. It was charity, the workhouse, or starvation. No other remedy was available to soften the blow of unemployment.
            But from being a safety net that amounted to a hand-up until the economy recovered; the welfare state has taken on a life of its own. A life its founders never intended. It has been elevated from a market place stall into a supermarket. The benefits system has been added to by different governments (usually, but not solely, Labour), until the multiplicity of entitlements resemble a supermarket’s many products.
            This cannot continue, and Ian Duncan Smith has tried to tackle this head on. In doing so he has earned the support of the British people, but the distaste of the Bishops who have not worked through his reforms, but nevertheless believe them to be evil incarnate.

IT IS DUNCAN SMITH’S  belief that people are better off  in work than out of it. But such people can only be encouraged into the workplace if they receive less through being on benefit than being at work. Which many in work consider fare. But who, nevertheless, still think the government’s cap is set too high[1].
            This is the greatest scandal in our society today. No-one can come up with a rational argument for paying those out of work more than many of the millions in work. Yet Paddy and the Bishops are hell bent on trying to secure such an injustice on those who chose to work for less than those on benefit.
            What Ian Duncan Smith has tried to do is to rebalance the welfare state and return it to a state that its originators intended. The new ‘supermarket state’ of welfare is corroding that original purpose. The welfare state has evolved from its meagre but humanistic impulse, into a series of benefits covering every aspect of human complaint, from corns to cancer, too every medical concoction that the applicants of any new benefit can come up with.
            If  we in this country are to survive as a competitive nation in the world. Then we must make sure that every possible work placement is filled. Be it, to my way of thinking, that most worthwhile of professions …the refuse collector; or the best skilled employment requiring an advanced education.
            If we are to survive as a world class economy, and not end up facing Greece’s dire position, then reform of the welfare state, the public services, and the NHS is needed; and any attempt to waylay the progress of such reforms will only harm all of those public institutions that need such reform.
            All  Paddy Ashdown and his ecclesiastical cohorts in the Lords will do, is delay the inevitable. The welfare state, as it is presently situated is unaffordable; and would remain so even if Ian Duncan Smith’s reforms were considered an inhuman folly – which they of course are not. At least, if we act now, there will still be a welfare state left help those who desperately need it. If, on the other hand, we continue on in the same old way, as Paddy and  the Bishops seem to want; then all that will be left for those left behind by society will be the charities.
            Billions of pounds of welfare benefits are wasted yearly…but it matters not, because it is only the taxpayers money after all; and we know how much politicians like to get their hands on peoples taxes. In a way they are as greedy as those bankers with their large, unearned bonuses. The politicians love spending money and accumulating even more at budget time; and if they run out, they borrow further billions – does  this reckless behaviour not sound familiar?
            Someone has to get a grip before it is too late and we lose our triple A status, and our borrowing becomes ever more expensive . At least on this issue, Cameron has chosen to lead and not follow public sentiment. Unlike the previous government, who let the banks behave so badly, because the balloon they were inflating was helping them win elections. Under such circumstances bank regulation never entered Gordon Brown’s mind.
            We are now having to pay the price for such foolish behaviour by both the banks and the politicians; and I think the British people know this from their personal lives, which is why Ian Duncan Smith has been supported by the public over his welfare reforms, and long may this support continue; for there is no easy course, only the wrong one…that of Paddy and the Bishops.
           

           


           
             


[1] According to twitter

Ms Kirchner needs to take deep breath and hold out her hand to perfidious Albion


ARGENTINA’S PRESIDENT, Cristina Kirchner has felt insulted by the prospect of Prince William’s departure to the Falkland’s on the 30th anniversary of our victory over President Galtieri, and our retaking of the islands.
            If we were to look back to the weeks leading up to the start of the conflict on the 2nd of April 1982, we would quickly realize that this whole enterprise was undertaken for one reason only.
            General Leopoldo Galtieri was an unpopular leader whose junta had failed miserably as mature politicians and who now sought a military conflict to assuage the unpopularity that his impoverished people felt toward him.
            A war would rally the people. National pride would replace anger toward him as their dominant emotion. On top of which, through misunderstanding  the British, it would be a war that would be winnable because the British would not want to engage in a military conflict, over a few remote islands in the south Atlantic, that few of the British people at the time had ever heard of.
            Galtieri may have failed as a politician; but as general he could recoup some popularity, by defying the British. So he took control of the Falklands and his people duly obliged him with an outpouring of emotion in Buenos Aires.
            It is important to realise that the taking of the Falklands by the Argentineans was never about any historical claim they may or may not have had. It was meant purely as piece of theatre orchestrated  to restore Galtieri’ s political fortunes.
            There was no noble purpose to this adventure, merely political opportunism. The trouble was he thought the last thing that would happen, did happen: and he would have been proven right however, if it had not been for Margaret Thatcher. For no other politician at the time, from whatever party, would have dared send the fleet thousands of miles south to recover such an insignificant piece of geography.
            The ‘Malvinas’ was guaranteed to press all the right buttons with the Argentinean public; but what was not considered at the time  was that their capture would press all the right buttons with the British prime minister, who was herself unpopular at the time.

SO, THIRTY YEARS have passed and Argentina has moved away from dictatorship and recovered democracy thanks, in small part, to what the British did to the Generalissimo in 1982. But rather than thank us, president Kirchner seeks to drag that unhappy episode in her country’s history once more into the limelight (there must be an election afoot).
            Profitable deposits of oil have since been found in the South Atlantic, which the British are now about to exploit. An opportunity, one would have thought, for the president of Argentina to reach an accommodation with the British over a possible share in the find, without, of course any acknowledgement  by Britain that the Argentineans have any kind of claim on the Falklands.
            Instead Ms Kirchner has managed to persuade other South American countries to deny entry into their ports any ship flying a Falklands’ ensign. This coalition of  ‘anti-British colonialism’ however soon seemed to waver when British ships flying the white ensign were allowed to dock, seemingly, at all ports of those countries Argentina had thought she had brought on side.
             As one e-mail I recently read suggested. Argentina has missed the opportunity of  having an Aberdeen on its soil bringing wealth and jobs to the country. Perhaps her neighbours  are not so hog-tied to a principle that is wholly of Argentina’s concern; and will offer facilities to the UK when oil production is underway.
            If the Falklands conflict had been built on principle instead of the survival of a dictator, then I would understand, if not accept, Ms Kirchner’s anger. But her behaviour does little to promote her people’s interests.
            According to Annabelle Fuller writing in today’s Daily Mail, an American company with links to the Pentagon, as well as UK Rockhopper, have discovered fossil fuel reserves in the Exclusive Economic Zone surrounding the islands, and are close to an agreement on exploiting them.

THE HINT IS, that with an American partner in the exploration of resources in the south Atlantic; and with a direct channel to the Pentagon, no less; Argentina’s difficulties can only increase.
            Come this April, Argentina will make all the appropriate noises on behalf of her people – especially after Prince William’s arrival on the islands.
            We have 1,2oo army personal and four Typhoon aircraft protecting the Falklands. We are however short of naval power, because of cuts in the MoD’s budget. However, a couple of submarines patrolling the 200 mile radius of the islands should deter any foolishness on behalf of the Argentineans, with the memory of the Belgrano still no doubt fresh in their avenging minds.
            The people of the Falklands should have the final say on who they chose to look after their interests. It is the people of these islands who should be placed above all other outside bodies, including the United Nations, when the future of the Falklands are discussed.
            As long as the people of these islands seek to remain part of a British protectorate as British citizens, then their wishes must be protected.
            If they chose to become citizens of Argentina, then there is very little morally, if not legally, the UK can do. If the citizens of the Falklands chose to become part of Argentina; then, while we will still have  a legal right to the Falklands, would it be worth pursuing it if the people themselves turned their backs on us?
            But this is unlikely to happen, and therefore this, as the only remaining outposts of British sovereignty ( of course not forgetting Gibraltar)  must be defended; and if their comes a time when it is no longer possible to do so, then a once proud nation that had given the world a universal second language as well as a political, artistic and scientific heritage,  will, like an ancient culture, depart this earth.
            This cannot of course, and hopefully will not happen. But it depends upon what we as  a nation are still prepared to do to keep our nation’s head above the waves. Argentina poses no threat to us today. But considering the way our nation is progressing, will we be in a position to keep Argentina at bay in another 30, or even 10 years?






Monday, January 23, 2012

SIMPLES – TAX ALEKSANDR






VINCE CABLE IS convinced that a mansion tax on properties valued at £2 million and over, will happen. It is expected that such a tax on an estimated 50,000 homes would bring in an extra £1.7 billion a year into treasury coffers.
            Perhaps George Osborn has told him something that we all should have been told. For if it happens, then envy will have been  its harbinger. If we were being led by a Labour government, circa Michael Foot , then envy would be a perfectly valid reason for introducing such a tax; which is why, among many other reason, Michael Foot was not elected.
            It was always the Conservative Party that favoured the use of this particular verb, when attacking Old Labour across the green benches. So why, if our Vince is right, are a Conservative party indulging the same covetousness toward the wealthy by making them pay extra, merely because they are wealthy and can afford to do so? Is not wealth a good thing any longer within the modern Tory Party? Has it  become such an abomination to be rich, that those who are, must be penalised for their affluence by making a larger contribution than the rest of us? They already pay more in taxation than the ordinary taxpayer.
            Many rich businessmen and women have accumulated their wealth by building up a business, and working hard to see it grow; and as it grew more people were employed, and more families came to rely on its success; and its success relied upon the business acumen of the by now rich businessmen and women.
            Wealth is the main incentive of the free market; wealth is not the milch cow for politicians who have brought the country to an almost bankrupt status, and who are now about to pour sugar into the petrol tank that drives the engine of capitalism, i.e. accumulated wealth.
            The only reason we occupy ourselves in running businesses or working in them, is to better ourselves through ambition in order to gain a measure of prosperity for ourselves and our families.
            Even that old fraud, Karl Marx, had to admit that capitalism was the most dynamic and progressive force known to human society - be it that it also engineered a cruel supremacy in the 19th century; when the proselytiser of ‘scientific’ socialism was proclaiming to the world a new religion, that would sadly lead to a system of government that, in its cruelties, surpassed even those of Victorian England.

WEALTH CREATION should not be abused in the way Vince Cable hopes to do. Penalising the rich presses all the right buttons emotionally among the British public. There is no doubt, millions of people have become  the victims of the vagaries of the market place.
            Capitalism is not, and never was; and can never be, a stable and consistent economic system. Human nature drives it forward, and human nature is as old as homo sapiens.
            Artists, writers and scientists have all advanced themselves through the free market. Science and technology, as well as the arts generally, have all prospered by this economic system best adapted to our natures.
            So why penalise the rich? After all do not millions each week buy a lottery or Euro lottery ticket to hopefully be counted among the rich? Yet it is among these very people that Mr Cable draws much sympathy for his proposal to increase the financial burden on the rich.
            Penalising wealth only delays our recovery. It is part of my somewhat meagre contribution to this debate to hope that George Osborn foregoes Vince Cable’s advances, and leave this mansion tax well alone.
            It is enough that the wealthy have to pay more in income tax; which, if you have to have a graduated tax regime, is much fairer than imposing an extra taxation on the ownership of property. This smells to me of envy; this also  means, that in the future whenever politicians mismanage the economy, they can, maybe, lower the mansion tax to £1 million; or even further down the road of political mismanagement to £500,000.

IT IS THE POLITICIANS who are supposed to manage our economy. It is not the individual entrepreneur or financial speculator that brings an economy to its knees; but the lax financial regulation by politicians. When the recent property boom was in full flow; when 100% mortgages in many cases were allowed. The politicians sat complacently on the sidelines hoping to garner a further term in office on the back of the popularity of such insane behaviour.
            It was yet another example of politicians being led by the wishes of the people; rather than leading the people, and warning them of what may be at stake by such irresponsible behaviour by the banks.
            The politicians have built their continuance in power on such a process. Yes, many bankers have been made, rightly responsible, by the politicians for the current financial collapse. But they themselves have to take a major part of the blame. They bought power on the basis of ignoring market behaviour that should have been regulated.
            Instead they allowed a bubble to inflate that would eventually burst; and when it did, the politicians shrugged their shoulders and sought to blame those whose irresponsible  behaviour they were quite happy to go along with for so long.
            For those who today still call themselves Marxists, should take a moment to consider whether their prophet would call himself a Marxist, if he were brought back through time to see what strides the free market had made, and what ignominy his system suffered with the collapse of communism.
            Penalising the ownership of property, in order to reduce a debt that the politicians were as culpable as the bankers in creating, may win brownie points with those who  have tragically suffered during this latest low point in the life cycle of capitalism; but if this tax goes ahead, there may be unintended consequences that leaves our nation’s wealth creation somewhat deficient, if the owners of those 50,000 homes decide to live elsewhere . This is always the difficulty in overtaxing the wealthy – the wealthy are accustomed to living wherever in the world they find  it cheaper to do so…that is human nature.