POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

Richard is right of course, one of the problems about the 'employment' figures for me is the fact that in the old days, if you were employed you could, with care, do wonderful things on low wages. I bought a 7 acre farm with a good house with a loan from the bank on an income of about £30 a month and paid it back at £15 a month and that in a time when interest rates sometimes reached over 20%. Tell that to a youngster trying to start up today and they will think you are fey!
Being 'employed' these days is no guarantee of a living wage or security and that's the biggest change I can't swallow. As Richard says, this is in effect a subsidy to industry, the taxpayer is forced to pay money to support a policy that more or less guarantees low wages. This smacks to me of social control, the government decides whether you need a food bank or not....
As for anyone being 'flamed'.... it will never happen on this site as long as the present moderators are in charge and reviewing all posts daily. As Doc once said, OG is not a democracy! We have been called the Mafia at times but speech is more free on here than anywhere else I know....
The furore over Chuck's letters.... I think everyone is aware that I hold no brief for the monarchy or the amorphous network of power we call 'The Establishment' but I can see nothing wrong with him writing letters that carry no effective weight beyond influence. All right, some of his views are far out and we can disagree but they are not dangerous. Who knows, he might be right about herbal medicine and nano technology!
I note that our re-elected MP Andrew Stephenson is on the cover of Private Eye as one of the two token males in the front row of women members in Cameron's party line up.
One final point about the tenor of the responses on this topic (and the rest of the site as well), my yardstick for measuring it is whether I enjoy the debate, learn things I didn't know before and enjoy what is always a good tempered exchange of interesting and sometimes opposing views. Would that our governance operated in the same way!

[Tizer]

Talking of learning things....Mark Carney was interviewed by John Humphrys this morning with the focus on `Why is UK productivity so low' but for me it raised another question. What is meant by a nation's `productivity' and how is it measured? And in particular, what contributes to productivity. Carney quite rightly pointed out that many things will influence productivity, although not necessarily in an obvious way. For example, the quality of teachers in infant school will have an effect. But what directly contributes to productivity; for instance do people working in call centres contribute as much as those in engineering jobs? Explanations would be welcome!

[Pluggy]

OG is not a democracy!

Maybe I should crack the whip more.......

[Stanley]

Save it until the moderators tell you it is needed Pluggy. No need for it at the moment but there have been times in the past.......

Good question Tiz. The situation is even worse than it appears because in the time productivity has been falling we have seen tremendous advances in technology. I think a major part of the problem is the de-skilling of the workforce. Computer controlled manufacturing and distribution has taken over from humans. (Marx predicted it in 1859....)
An example.... In olden days, when there was a flush of milk in the Spring there wasn't enough tank capacity in the dairies to hold it all. The solution was to load road tankers and send them to different dairies all over the region, in our case based on Newcastle under Lyme where a man called Bishop employed by the MMB worked out which milk went where on a piece of paper and informed the producing dairies where to send milk by 3pm in the afternoon before. Many a time we passed each other on the road carrying milk in opposite directions. Question, was it productive? I think it was because it solved a problem.
At one point it was decided to do it by computer (in the early 1970s....) They tried it and it was a glorious cock-up and they swiftly went back to Mr Bishop and his piece of paper. So where was the productivity? It was there because the system worked but how do you measure it?
As the proportion of call centre workers and shelf stackers increases and properly skilled workers decrease it seems inevitable that 'productivity' wil;l fall but I still don't know how you measure it.

[Bruff]

As I understand it, and that’s not much, productivity is a function of skills and investment, innovation and enterprise. I imagine optimum productivity is the right balance between all these because, self-evidently if you invest in new machinery and technology you can do more with less. But that’s only one part of the equation because what do you do will all the folk replaced? Presumably this is where skills and enterprise and innovation comes in. After all, once we got rid of the fruit and veg man’s pony and trap the big lorry had to be built. Simplistic probably, but I think that’s the drift.

At the moment, we hear a lot about industry not investing and sitting on a cash pile and perhaps one reason is a skills gap that means there’s little point in investing and anyway labour is cheap making the investment not cost-effective. In addition, low skills means less innovation too as there’s no labour and its cheaper to run with the current low skills and attractive lower wages. To the extent there is enterprise, this seem to me too reflective of the skills issue as current entrepreneurs seem to be intering the hotels for dogs market or cupcake-making (chosen illustratively, there’s nothing wrong with folk wanting to open an hotel for dogs).

I would have thought what we need is Government to sit down with employer groups and employee groups and educational establishments and other groupings as approriate to decide on a strategy for what we actually want to be and how we get there and what the role of each of these groups is in this, to ensure that we actually deliver the high-skilled, entrepreneurial, innovative place folk keep banging on about. Unfortunately, any notion of doing that in this country is seen as dangerously ‘Soviet’ or something and so there’s no chance of it happening, in contrast to the Germans who I think I’m right in noting do just this and have done for years.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

Richard I love 'an hotel for dogs', standards must be maintained!
On the whole that's a good explanation of how I see it. I have been banging on for years about the advantages of the old systems of working, and particularly in local public services, where there were plenty of opportunities for unskilled (and sometimes otherwise unemployable) workers to have a 'proper job' such as road sweepers, bin men, length men on the roads. Seen now as wasteful and inefficient but they gave these people the dignity of a job and kept them off the benefits system. It was a humane way of running society and, if a proper cost/benefit analysis was applied was probably cheaper than the modern alternative. But such analysis was never done, 'inefficiency' was rooted out and systems 'modernised' and we lost this capability of offering suitable employment to people who were often otherwise disadvantaged. The modern solution is to subsidise low pay by tax credits and thus expand the dependency culture. In human terms this lessens the quality of life of the beneficiaries as they are automatically, in some eyes, converted to scroungers.
My mind goes back to a man called Jimmy Futcher who lived in Skipton and worked as a driver for West Marton Dairies. He was disadvantaged by having incredibly short legs and he always refused our offers to put extensions on the pedals in the wagon to make life easier for him. He managed! He was incredibly strong and was one of the founders of a gymnasium in Skipton. A famous story about him was that he had been sacked by the electricity board because one day when their vehicles failed to climb a hill to a place where a pole had to be installed in a field, Jim put the pole on his shoulder and carried it to where it was needed! How would Jim get on today if he applied for a job as a wagon driver? I doubt if he would ever be considered due to our modern standards of safety and yet he was a good and reliable worker and an asset to the firm.
We need the old jobs where such people could make a useful contribution, no matter how 'inefficient' and retain their dignity by earning an independent living wage. Look at the recent story of Remploy where a humane system was deemed 'uneconomic' and disabled people thrown on the scrap heap. This is not progress!

[Tizer]

Thanks for the detailed replies, you've both always got interesting views and information! The mention of Jimmy Futcher's case makes me think of Mrs Tiz's grandfather who started work in a Salford foundry in the 1920s. He soon suffered an injury to his foot which meant he could no longer work in the foundry so the company found him something useful to do in the laboratory. He took to that, did exams and ended up a chemical engineer with responsibility for major sewage treatment plants at different times (Gravesend, Glasgow), water and sewage treatment for Auckland, NZ, and finally a chemical engineering consultant travelling the world.

[Stanley]

Lovely story about your grandfather and not uncommon when 'one of the lower orders' was given an opportunity by someone who had the power. Remember Walter Greenwood who went straight from school in Salford in the inter war years to an engineering works as an apprentice. As soon as he reached the end of his training and qualified for a higher wage he was laid off (yes, it happened then as well) eventually found a menial job with a newspaper, became a successful journalist and wrote 'Love on the Dole', essentially the story of his own experience. Still worth reading if you want to understand how those communities worked....
One of the things that continually struck me when I was doing the interviews for the LTP was the high proportion of very intelligent people who had been disadvantaged by not being able to take advantage of the scholarship system and go to grammar or high school because they were filtered out by not being able to afford the cost of the uniform. The opportunity was denied them by the system and fine minds went to waste, they were condemned to a life as factory fodder. I often wonder if such matters ever cross the mind of those who are privileged and get the higher education as a matter of course. I have argued consistently all my life for better investment in primary education and opportunity for all, we are still guilty of labelling kids and categorising them too early in life. It is a terrible waste of human talent.
On another matter. It gives me no pleasure to report that when I forecast the dissolution of Iraq and eventually the whole of the Middle East due to Western greed, mismanagement and totally wrong foreign policy I was not a long way from the truth. See THIS for a current BBC report on the advance if IS towards Baghdad. I heard an interview yesterday on R4 with a man who evidently knew what he was talking about as he has been involved in events in the region for many years. He categorised the whole of our interventions in the region as catastrophic. In particular he said that the latest US air strikes against IS had been totally useless in terms of halting the general advance of the rebels and that he could not see any possibility of Baghdad remaining under the Iraqi government's control.
Meanwhile, the US sends Delta Force troops in for a murder and snatch raid in Syria and trumpets it as a success, while IS infiltrates Jehadis into the refugee flows across the Mediterranean into Europe. Are we watching rational and successful foreign policies or a complete failure to deal with what is in effect a 'reverse crusade'?
I think the latter and the terrible thing is that due to centuries of Western arrogance and mismanagement dating back a thousand years we have created a gulf in understanding between two belief systems that threatens to overwhelm us. Can you remember those that argued that Saddam Hussein was the best asset the West had in the region because he was holding the lid down on what was potentially an explosive situation? They were right but in the end even Saddam's repression and cruelty could not have stemmed the tide for ever. Look at the melt down in Egypt, the looming catastrophe in Afghanistan and the inability of the West to admit mistakes and change policy and make your own mind up. All right, I could be totally wrong.... Make your own mind up but recognise that we may be looking at perhaps the greatest of Harold's 'Events Dear Boy'. It makes our current parochial concerns over money look insignificant.

[Tizer]

...they were filtered out by not being able to afford the cost of the uniform.

When I started at secondary school my parents found the price of uniform difficult. I didn't have any older brothers to hand down their clothes so my Mum acquired some items from a lad who lived down the street from us and went to the same school. The only trouble was that as well as being two years older than me he was a lot bigger. For a couple of years I went to school in very baggy clothes!

[Stanley]

I had exactly the same experience at grammar school where the uniform was a grey flannel suit. I was always the worst dressed in the class and suffered because of it. One of the reasons I was bullied. Not the happiest period in my life and I couldn't wait to leave. Funny thing is I got very good School certificate results and the masters couldn't understand why I left and went farming. Life improved immediately. That's why the origin of the name 'Stig' for Top Gear's driver offended me so much and that pic of the boys at Eton....



I often wonder what happened to my chief tormentor a lad called David Winnat..... It would please me if he had no better a life than I have!

See THIS for reports of the fall of Ramadi to IS....
Parliament meets today, now the mayhem will start! I suspect that Ramadi will be the last thing on their minds, too pre-occupied with political manoeuvring and dirty tricks....

[Stanley]

It's very quiet Jim, I don't like it.....
In contrast with the last few weeks nothing is coming out of the Tory Party... I fear the worst and we shall start to know the full impact of the storm very shortly with the budget and the mini-budget to follow. At last we'll get a good idea of the scale of the cuts and where they are going to be made. The only forecast I'm making is that nothing will be done to damage the top 1%'s ability to accumulate wealth and the banks will not suffer despite the fine words in the manifesto.
No doubt we will hear about the triumph of the 'economic miracle' evinced by the fact that inflation is in negative territory for the first time since the 1960s but in truth this is nothing to do with government policies, just a temporary accident of the low oil price (rising again now) and good harvests making commodities cheaper.
The bottom line, and the most important factor is that so long as interest rates available to the top 1% are greater than GDP the trend will be for the available money to migrate into their bank accounts to the detriment of the other 99%. The poorer you are now, the more it will affect you. Yes, I've been reading Joseph Stiglitz and I believe him. A far better economist than Wee Georgie... GDP will not rise until the spending power of the lower orders is improved significantly because they spend the money, they don't stash it away off shore.....

[Tizer]

HSBC say they are going to start charging people for depositing money in those currencies which fall into negative interest rates.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting to see the outcome of the Greece negotiations which were supposed to have been sorted by now. It's all looking rather bad....LINK
The result of Cameron's EU referendum negotiations could be influenced by the Greek outcome if the EU becomes less stable, as is bound to happen if Greece pulls out of the Euro.

[Stanley]

If anyone is hoping for a good outcome of the crisis in the Greek economy, don't hold your breath! What has happened and is happening there is just one example of the imperfections in the Euro system which can't be mended until there is full central fiscal and political control inside the EU, what should have happened before the Euro was introduced. Even if this can be achieved it is years in the future. When thew Central Bank announced that it would do 'anything that was necessary' to mend the problem everyone knew that this was an empty promise and it did not improve the situation. As I have repeatedly said, the Train Crash is still happening.....
Palmira in Syria, no need for a link, anyone with half a brain knows what is going to happen, vandalism and barbarity on an industrial scale. Bush, Blair et al have a hell of a lot to answer for! (Chilton??????) We are watching the whole of the Middle East go up in flames....

[Stanley]

I don't understand Theresa May's proposal to take illegally earned money off foreign workers if they are caught. Assuming they have any money and the police successfully recover it what happens then faced with a destitute person or family? Do we just let them starve or will we have to support them until they can be deported? I can't imagine the police being very happy about such a loose proposal as this especially after Theresa told their conference to stop whingeing as reported crime was down. At the same time the police point out that they police by consent and the reduction in officers directly on the beat or communicating with the public was going to affect this. As for 'reported crime' being down, could that possibly be anything to do with a possible rise in unreported crime because the public have lost confidence in the police's ability to do anything about minor crime? It seems to me that the whole system of law and justice is deteriorating because of savage cuts, not least in Legal Aid and the access of ordinary people to justice. We already see the cases where those who have been wronged not being able to match the resources of large companies even if there is an obvious case to answer. None of this gives me confidence in the system.

[Tizer]

An illuminating few minutes on the Today programme this morning when they interviewed Colonel Collins (Irish Guards) about the current fighting with IS in Iraq. He said 200 IS volunteer fighters had defeated 2,500 Iraqi army soldiers, who tend to simply give up and run away. He explained that it's a lack of leadership; there's no need for Western troops, there are plenty of troops on the ground. When the British and American soldiers left after training those troops (and Collins was there) Al Malaki threw out the commanders and put his friends in charge who are not up to the job. Now the most effective leader is from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Iranians are beginning to take over.

[Stanley]

I heard that as well Tiz and did I also hear him say that the officers were airlifted out of danger leaving the troops on their Jack Jones to face the IS? Also there were questions about how well supplied the Iraqi troops were. I keep hearing optimistic statements about the safety of Baghdad and the ineffectiveness of the IS but despite this they have taken two major towns, on in Syria and one in Iraq in the last 14 days. Something doesn't square up in this lot!
I watched the reports about the EU summit in Finland and I can't get rid of the feeling that we are sleepwalking into a foreign policy and political disaster. We are holding a gun to the EU's collective head and telling them that if they don't give us what we want we will take our bat home. Not the best base to start a negotiation from.....
Meanwhile, back at home we start to get a better picture of how the NHS finances are doing. In short, dreadful and it seems to be a product of not having enough staff and having to hire in expensive temporary staff. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we get some revised (and increased) estimates of how much the service needs to tread water.

[Stanley]

It's too quiet out there in the Westminster Village.... Why do I have this nagging suspicion they are polishing the package of cuts......

[Big Kev]

It's too quiet out there in the Westminster Village.... Why do I have this nagging suspicion they are polishing the package of cuts......

A pay freeze announced for MPs today [url=ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32863296]Pay Freeze[/url]

[Stanley]

I thought it was just the continuation of the cap on ministerial pay introduced under Blair and if so there is a pay rise for MPs in the pipeline that is statutory so all may not be as simple as it seems. Rest assured, they will not starve..... We are seeing the way the wind is blowing from the new restrictions on the right to strike and then there is the small matter of the next tranche of cuts in the Benefits System... I'll take a small bet that the poor will be worse treated than the MPs.
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest..... It looks as though the farcical EU v. Greece fixture could be approaching an end game. Both sides are indulging in brinkmanship and the EU has a lot more to lose than Greece. It's a toss up who blinks first but an exit by Greece is looking more possible. The anti-austerity feeling in Greece has been dented but is still strong and if Syriza caves in the consequences could be even worse internally. Events Dear Boy......
That isn't all. In Spain the anti-austerity party is winning power in elections and there is every sign that they are going to pursue the same velocities as Syriza. It is quite possible that by coalition with the Left they can control both Madrid and Barcelona. Not good news for the EU.....

[Stanley]

Have a look at THIS for evidence that the markets are getting uneasy about Greece and Spain. This is important for the UK. All right, we are not in the Euro and the Pound is strong but so much of our trade depends on Europe doing well and a rising Pound makes exports more difficult. I know I go on about this but what we have been looking at for the last few years is the Euro Zone fighting a rearguard action against the inevitable consequences of the mistake made when introducing the single currency before political and budgetary control was established over the member countries. This was recognised at the time but the political value of the single currency outweighed the facts. The European Elections last year gave a clear signal that there was a growing unease with the use of austerity as a sticking plaster for the economies. This has come to a head in Greece and appears to be happening in Spain as well and the markets are increasingly wary of the situation. The train crash in slow motion is still happening in my opinion and when it happens the UK is not going to be unscathed. Our much vaunted 'economic recovery' is founded on austerity and increasing levels of debt, both public and private, the same precursors that led to the 2008 crash. Fancy statistics and funny accounting like PFI are not the answer and the big question is how long will it be before our leaders recognise that fact. The longer they pursue this course the harder the fall will be.
But what the hell do I know about these things......

[plaques]

The IMF and the EU central banks will do everything possible to protect the Banks, Bond holders and Share holders. (socialist capitalism). Meanwhile the the ordinary worker will have to be 'more flexible', a euphemism for taking a cut in wages. Plus a more realistic approach to welfare and health cover, ie; less of it. (capitalist socialism). Mr Osborne will argue that what's good for them is good for us. Good old fashion house keeping. You know it makes sense!.

[Tizer]

Yes, and we should be pleased that the rich are getting richer because "we'll all benefit from the trickle down effect"!

[Stanley]

I found out the other day that it was President Kennedy who first used the phrase "A rising tide lifts all boats" most probably coined by one of his speech writers or advisers. This is now well refuted by all reputable economists, we have the evidence to show it is too simplistic. Far better to introduce 'the tide' directly to the bottom echelons as they spend their income and as it moves through the economy we get a multiplier effect as the cash is used over and over again.
It's being widely reported that the infamous manifesto promise to introduce a law prohibiting tax, VAT and NI increases will be included in the Queen's Speech. If so the only source for the billions needed to pursue the Tory policies can only come from cuts. In other words increasing austerity and hence inequality.... It is an enormous mistake! I said as much in the immediate aftermath to 2008 and have not changed my opinion. I also said that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with Capitalism as a system for managing money flows and the global economy. The problem is the version of 'market capitalism' that is being used which stems from a very old classic economical belief that markets are a perfect regulator as they are 'real life'. There is some truth in this if the market is benign and well regulated so that it can be adjusted when the model fails but if imperfections like greed and dishonesty are allowed to flourish we get scandals like the LIBOR and FOREX manipulations. That is why we need strong international regulation more than ever.
Consider the EURO affair.... In effect the Central Bank is manipulating the market to bend it towards their version of stability. In the end all artificial influences like this fail and the resulting chaos is worse that the original problem. I am convinced that privately, the authors of the policies know this and are attempting to rectify matters but the problem is that the time scale of the adjustments needed is far longer that the timescale of the reality of the breakdown in the system. This is why I keep referring to a train crash in slow motion. It describes perfectly what we are watching. In this respect Cameron is right, the Project needs to be changed but he is not arguing from broader economic problems (I doubt if he understands or believes them) but from narrow self-interest which are more to do with managing his Party than the wider economic realities. Tin Hats On Lads!

[plaques]

President Kennedy who first used the phrase "A rising tide lifts all boats"

I like the comment ' Its seems to be true for the ones in the "Mega-yachts" but for those clinging to the flotsam they appear to be snagged under their anchors.'
Proper constituted regulation should be designed to benefit All the population and not just the 1%. The recent proposal by the EU to standardize capital gains across the EU countries would stop the race to the bottom which allows corporations to pay tax at a lower rate than the office cleaner, (Ref Warren Buffett).

[Stanley]

Well done P! You have a good memory. (I've had to stop reading Stiglitz, it was straining my eyes too much and affecting them badly. Roll on July 24th!)
As for Cameron's speech read by Brenda yesterday (she must get so bored by it.....) interesting to note that they are sot pedalling on the Bill of Rights. This is a straw in the wind that indicates that despite all his fine words and 'aspirations' the grand Tory Project might not be quite the plain sailing that some people imagine. He only has a slim majority in the Commons and a hostile House of Lords. Then of course he has his own fractious back benchers.... Things could get very interesting in the next few months. Nicola is already flexing her muscles by making the entirely sensible point that any referendum on membership of the EU would be hollow if one of the devolved parliaments (Like Scotland of course) returned a clear majority against leaving. She has a point!