Oh the Irony!!!!

Having been absent from the blogosphere for the past seven days due to having to fulfill that most pressing of human endeavours, namely earning a living; I have spent the past few days checking the various news feeds, looking for those issues which reflect in an ironical sort of way the polarised system with which we live today, and which lies at the heart of why 2020UK came into being.

Politics has always been a tribal business.  From the times of the Ancient Greeks and Romans it has always been full of intrigue, one-upmanship and betrayal. Some two thousand years of so-called civilisation has failed to change the behaviour of our elected representatives, who while persistently telling us they are listening, then go and do the exact opposite immediately afterwards.  Such an instance occurred earlier today during the Education Select Committee hearing, when Michael Gove once again confirmed that when it comes to belligerence, he’s definitely in a class of his own.

On the BBC News website , it reported that during exchanges with select committee members who were being fed questions from the public using the twitter #AskGove hashtag, Mr Gove labelled opponents of his plan to turn Downhills Primary School in North London into an academy as “Trots” saying, “It’s a pity that the Labour party hasn’t spoken out against this Trot campaign.” Campaigners at the school, including governors, have argued that they should not be forced to adopt academy status. The twitter exchanges also included a response from the Save Downhills campaign who replied: “We are parents! Listen to us!”

In a further sign that Mr Gove is clearly not one to let the opinions of others colour his views, he was also asked via Twitter if he would want children to follow the example of how MPs behave in the House of Commons. Mr Gove defended the practice decrying what he called the “namby pamby tendency to anaesthetise public debate”, claiming it was all part of a raucous and rumbunctious House of Commons. This is a view clearly at odds with what most of the general public think, and which once again, brings our system of politics and governance into disrepute.

With the Welfare Reform Bill returning to the House of Commons for its final reading, and where the Government have said they will seek to reverse the recent Lords defeats, proving yet again that they only listen when it suits their agenda, attention is now turning to the Health & Social Care Bill – or Lansley’s Lament as it may yet become known. With the whole of the medical profession united in saying the bill is unworkable in its current form, Lansley went on the attack targeting in particular the British Medical Association, claiming that this was the same body which had originally opposed the creation of the NHS in 1948. Maybe those with longer memories than I can verify this, but from my limited reading, opinion among Doctors was fairly evenly split between the-then older and newer medical generations as to the practicality and viability of a national service. How ironic that some sixty-four years later, we once again have a Minister for Health criticising the medical establishment for standing in the way of progress!

In an ironical twist to the healthcare prevention debate, I saw a headline in the UK edition of the Huffington Post  which caused me not-a-little anxiety. Being part French – not sure which part but my mother should – I have always believed in the health-giving properties of vin rouge taken in “reasonable moderation” – mind you, my celtic side has also said the same thing about the water of life or Uisce Beatha to give it its gaelic translation. The headline which caused this unfortunate state of angst read, No Proof A Glass Of Wine A Day Is Good For The Heart. It’s too painful to provide a fuller synopsis, best click on the link yourselves, but the report does quote one of the medical experts who said referring to the conflicting findings on whether wine is healthy or not as, “It’s complicated” –  he’s not kidding!

Another recent report which caused some amusement during the past week, was the one which referred to the fact that mother nature and modern building techniques may have done for the Houses of Parliament what Guy Fawkes singularly failed to do, and send the whole edifice crashing into the Thames. Doubtless there will be some who would prefer this happen when the house is in session, but that wouldn’t be fair, would it?

If this was not ironic enough, the online Political Scrapbook today carried a report of the increasing possibility that the epetition submitted by conservative political blogger, Guido Fawkes, to restore capital punishment will be withdrawn due to lack of supporting signatures. At only 26,000 signatures, it is way short of the 100,000 needed to trigger a parliamentary debate, and is way below another epetition calling for the current ban to be retained.

As the PS report makes clear: all this on the day of the 406th anniversary of the original Mr Fawkes being hung, drawn and quartered for treason, for attempting to blow up the original Houses of Parliament.

Oh the irony!!!!

 

Michael Cronogue

The Purpose of 2020UK

If you look at the tab ABOUT you will read:-

The purpose of 2020UK may be summed up as finding answers to the following three questions:-

1. What form of governance is capable of controlling events in a world where commerce is global?
2. What sort of governance can meet the needs of our complicated and multi-layered society?
3. What sort of governance can meet the desires of the majority whilst ensuring that the needs of all minorities, including the poorest, are met?

Since that was written, we realise that we need to add a fourth:-

• What sort of governance can create a sustainable economy which ensures employment for all with the ability to work without resource to growth?

The last is required because without the ability to create wealth there can be no possibility of meeting aims 2 and 3. Many will be concerned at the idea of ‘without resource to growth’. After all, almost every politician and economist (but with a few interesting exceptions in both camps) looks to growth to avoid a ‘double dip recession’ and economic figures which register little or no growth are seen to be a failure of government.

First of all we need to look at ‘growth’, ‘zero growth’ and ‘recession’. What do they really mean? Finding a good definition for what economists mean by ‘growth’ is difficult as different authorities provide different definitions. The easy one is ‘an increase in the GDP’. So with that in mind, let’s look at it in terms of family income for a moment and we will posit a family with a combined income of £40,000 which is about the national average.

The UK GDP fell by 0.2% in the last 3 months of 2011 equal to a fall of less than 1% per annum so we will think in terms of  the family economy shrinking by 2%: the income is now £39,200. If there is zero growth, the income stays at £40,000 and an increase in the family economy of 2% results in an income of £40,800. In none of these cases would the family need to make huge changes in their lifestyle – if it were not for inflation. That is the big problem – growth is deemed necessary to provide a cushion against inflation. In fact, what has happened is that at both governmental and individual level, growth has been used to spend, spend, spend rather than to save for a rainy day. This has created a culture of debt and it is that culture, I would suggest, and not the actions of individual governments of all parties which has caused us to run onto the buffers.

So, back to our four purposes. The blogs carried by 2020UK last week all have a bearing on this subject.

Purposes 1 and 4: On Monday I was writing about the need to create wealth. On Tuesday GPWayne looked at the erosion to wealth creation caused by corruption. On Wednesday, Lucy Brown asked the very pertinent question, ‘What does Britain do?’. Her analysis does not make comfortable reading because, to put it bluntly, we are no longer the supplier of choice to the world and we have yet to find another role.

Purpose 3: Joanna Cannon’s moving blog titled ‘Shifting Sands’ convincingly illustrates the need for a complete rethink in the way in which we tackle the needs of the disadvantaged.

All four purposes: I believe that William Bain’s blog illustrates why our present form of governance is unable to achieve any of our purposes.

William Bain is an incredibly nice guy. He is one of those rare people who have a religious faith (he is a Catholic) and yet is extremely tolerant (he supports homosexual ‘marriage’). Brought up in Springburn in central Glasgow, he naturally cares deeply about those who live in his constituency (another rare trait: he was born and bred in the constituency he now represents). His outrage at the fact that ‘his’ people have suffered and are suffering from the changing fortunes of life do him huge credit. But it is that very tribalism that I consider means he will never achieve the very things he wants to achieve.

Reading his blog one sees the hand of history on his shoulder (and not in a good way). Glasgow, like so many other parts of the country, grew on the back of the industrial revolution when Britain truly was the powerhouse of the world – but the world has changed.

Have you been watching John Sargeant’s programmes on the railways of India? Up to about fifty years ago, every bit of that railway was made here, in the UK, and shipped across the world to the sub-continent. No longer: the Indians make their own railway engines now. So do all the other countries to which we exported rail, locomotives and rolling stock.

That hit Glasgow hard. The North British Locomotive Company had their headquarters in Springburn – in Willie Bain’s back yard – and exported to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia and even to Palestine. They were often carried in ships built in Glasgow. In the early 1900’s the company employed over 8,000 people. Then both engines and ships tended to be built elsewhere and so, after a period of decline, the NBLC closed in 1962.

That is just one example of events not in the control of any government: Labour, Conservative, Liberal or coalition. Playing the blame game against the Tories will not solve the problems caused by the changing global situation. All it will achieve is to increase divisions in our society when what we so desperately need is cooperation where the best from all sides work together for the common good. In my book, Mr Bain would be in that number.

But there is another part of his blog where he and 2020UK are in total accord. Our slogan is that we seek to see politics in the UK with 2020 vision. The SNP led by Mr Salmond would appear to be deliberately ensuring that the true effects of Scotland declaring independence are withheld from the electorate.

It is far from easy trying to run a country on democratic lines and there are articles on our web site which suggest that governance in the UK is now far from democratic (I have written some of these myself). The campaign (if that is the right word) being run by Mr Salmond is undemocratic and we should all do everything in our power to make that clear. This is a separate issue from the question, ‘would either Scotland or the UK benefit if Scotland became an independent country?’ which is possibly the question that should be put to the electorate. This is about providing the electorate with the information needed to make an informed (if not always wise) decision. Without that information there can be no democracy.

Rodney Willett

Salmond has questions to answer, because the evidence doesn’t support him

By guest blogger William Bain MP (Labour, Glasgow North East: shadow Scotland office minister).

Economic storm-clouds are gathering across the EU, and the impact of the downturn is being felt deeply in Scotland, with female unemployment up 25 per cent in the last quarter, amid soaring levels of child poverty, and weakening demand.

With the impact of the majority of the spending and living standards squeeze still to be felt from this April onwards, it has also become clear that there are worse times ahead than most had hoped for.

With the failure of the government on jobs and growth, if Labour forms a government after the next general election in 2015, it is likely to inherit a significant deficit and still-weak public finances. Times are tough and the UK and Scottish governments’ reckless plans are continuing to choke off prospects for recovery and depress demand.

Scottish Labour would do things differently and is pressing the UK government to begin prioritising a plan for jobs, growth and long-term investment.

The Resolution Foundation published further evidence this week that even on highly optimistic Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts of a return to the previous trend-rate growth of 2.5 per cent per year by 2015, the inequality gap between rich and poor will have widened, and that real household incomes for low and middle earner households could still be eight per cent below their 2007 peak levels by 2020 if there is near-stagnant growth instead.

The Child Poverty Action Group is predicting a record rise in child poverty levels of 800,000 by 2020 without a change in economic course now. Evidence is mounting, from the IMF to the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, that economies with higher levels of equality experience higher growth.

A particular urgency has been added to this debate by the International Labor Organisation’s prediction last October of a global youth unemployment crisis if action is not taken by governments now on jobs.

An important step in the right direction entails taxing bank bonuses to get up to 10,000 young people in Scotland into work, and temporarily cut VAT to boost the economy and help squeezed households and businesses.

Instead of putting people out of work and borrowing £158 billion more over the parliament as a consequence, the UK government ought to heed economic sense, change course and put jobs first.

On an EU-level, the ratings agency Standard and Poor’s said recently that austerity on its own had been entirely self-defeating in the last year.

Added to this, the IMF in its world economic outlook report is likely to forecast that the Eurozone economy will contract by 0.5 per cent this year, some 1.6 per cent lower than in its September forecast, and the IMF, together with the World Bank, World Trade Organisation and eight other organisations, ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, are calling on governments to adopt policies better suited to the creation of jobs and economic growth.

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde has reiterated that for some countries, a slower rate of fiscal consolidation should be considered.

The rules for the stability pact being negotiated by the Eurozone governments require deficits no higher than three per cent, national debt never exceeding 60 per cent of GDP, and the structural deficit only exceeding 0.5 per cent of GDP in exceptional circumstances where a severe downturn is being experienced.

Currently, 14 out of 17 Eurozone states would fail the rules on the deficit, 13 out of the 17 on debt, and would face fines from the European Commission if they sought to provide capacity for their economies to grow by easing fiscal policy.

In the context of the current debate on whether Scotland should become a separate state, and leave the UK financial system this is a crucial point.

If Scotland separated from the rest of the UK and wanted to re-join the EU, the EU treaties are clear – even if the SNP are not – on what our currency would be expected to be in the medium-term. Only the UK and Denmark have an opt-out from the Euro by law, and only Sweden has had the option on whether to join the exchange rate mechanism or not.

So leaving the UK would mean a separate Scotland loses that opt-out and would have to commit itself in its application for re-accession to eventual Eurozone membership, just as Croatia has done in its recent accession treaty prior to joining the EU next year. For the SNP, the inconvenient truth is Scotland’s membership of the UK gives us the best of both worlds in Europe: we are in the EU, but not in the Euro.

Preparing the economy for Euro membership would see Scotland have to make deeper spending cuts in line with the Maastricht convergence criteria, at a time when the rate of youth unemployment is nearing one in four in Scotland, up 123 per cent in the last year.

It’s a price Scotland’s young people shouldn’t be expected to pay.

The Maastricht criteria require a candidate country’s deficit to not exceed three per cent and its total debt to not exceed 60 per cent of GDP barring an exceptional crisis, inflation to be no higher than 1.5 per cent above the best three performing EU member states, long-term interest rates no higher than two per cent above the average in the three best performing EU states on inflation, and membership of the exchange rate mechanism for two years prior to admission to the Euro, without any devaluation of its currency.

With UK debt heading towards a peak of 78 per cent during this parliament according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, and the deficit forecast to meet the Maastricht rule only in 2016 on the optimistic forecasts of growth returning to levels of 2.7 per cent in 2014 and three per cent in 2015, it is unlikely that a separate Scotland taking on its share of debt could meet these fiscal rules without further cuts in public expenditure at a time when economic recovery will not be secure.

Even in the period before joining the Euro, continuing to use sterling as a currency creates real risks. There are only two ways to do so – either through a formal currency and monetary union with the UK, or through a sterlingisation mechanism.

If Scotland broke away, the UK could not be forced into a currency or monetary union. It would be a decision of two separate states.

Even the SNP concede that a separate Scotland would have to give up economic sovereignty to the Bank of England, complying with extremely tough fiscal rules imposed by treaty without accountability to the Scottish parliament.

One of the lessons of the current Eurozone crisis is that a currency and monetary union without proper co-ordination of policy on taxes and expenditure can inhibit the creation of jobs and growth. But what price for a currency union would be required by the financial markets?

There is every prospect that even fiercer austerity measures would be sought, to demonstrate the smaller part of any currency union’s commitment to fiscal rigour given the unlikely prospect of fiscal transfers from the larger unit of the currency union to the smaller unit, at a huge cost to a much-needed improvement in levels of jobs and growth north of the border.

The SNP are now in the incredible position of seeking to use a currency over which Scotland would have just given up all political, monetary and fiscal control. The SNP must explain urgently how breaking up the UK financial system, only to form new fiscal and political institutions necessary under monetary union is in the interests of businesses or workers here.

The simple truth is that it isn’t.

Were the UK to decline to form a currency and monetary union with a separate Scotland, the SNP’s only option would be a sterlingisation mechanism, where the Bank of England would set interest rates in the interests of England, Wales and Northern Ireland only and, crucially, any Scottish Central Bank would not be the lender of last resort nor the issuer of currency.

Important studies from the IMF show that such a policy puts the financial system under severe stress, leaving it open to the possibility of a systemic shock should investors from across the border wish to relocate their assets.

The largest countries which use a version of this mechanism to use the US dollar are Panama, Ecuador, and El Salvador. Oil-producing Ecuador needed to establish a stabilization fund to reassure investors. Panama has no central bank.

Banks would be required to adopt higher capital buffers to provide necessary liquidity to reassure investors. The IMF also says that deregulation of labour markets is required to reassure the markets in states using this currency mechanism.

The SNP must now come clean as to the effects sterlingisation would have – in order to provide liquidity support, higher capital buffers for banks based in Scotland than under the Vickers proposals being adopted in the UK by 2019 at the latest, with the result being fewer assets available to lend to businesses to kick-start growth in Scotland.

The final report of the Vickers Commission found that the total level of support provided by the UK to its banking sector, including the two major Scottish-based banks, was £1.2 trillion.

This would not be available to a separate Scottish state, where bank liabilities could exceed 800 per cent of GDP. That is the life now facing Iceland and Ireland, the not-so-quickly forgotten arc of prosperity which, in the face of financial pressure, was unable to stand effectively.

Those who say this argument is talking Scotland down miss the point and do a disservice to the national debate. This is a real and tangible example of why it is in Scotland’s interests to share risks and resources across the UK.

Business in Scotland knows how severe the effects the last restriction on credit was for Scotland’s economy – the last thing the Scottish economy needs now are proposals which fail to secure financial stability which is the bedrock for securing jobs and growth in any country.

The SNP’s search for an economic paradigm is legendary – the Asian tiger economies of the Far East, New Zealand, the arc of prosperity, the Scandinavian model – every few months brings a new model of how they want the Scottish economy to look. But nowhere do they explain what the problem is to which separation is the answer.

They must now explain how, in the absence of plans for a currency union with the UK, sterlingisation on the Central American model could create a stable framework for a separate state with massive bank liabilities on its national accounts from RBS.

The mess the SNP are in over finances and the currency shows Scotland would better realise the economic potential of its natural resources, and the skills of its people within the United Kingdom, rather than risk businesses, jobs and growth under ill-conceived economic plans for separation.

Scotland’s economic destiny is at the core of the national debate which we will have until it is settled in a clear, decisive referendum.

This piece first appeared in Left Foot Forward and is reproduced with Mr Bain’s permission.

 

TAIL PIECE BY TEAM 2020UK

Some reading this blog may be surprised to find it under the 2020UK banner as we have no allegiance to any political party and, indeed, question whether or not the party system is not well past its use by date.

Naturally Mr Bain has a political agenda but it is not for his comments about the failures of the government that we post this blog but because he asks some very balanced and real questions – very much in the spirit of 2020UK – of the SNP in the matter of independence for Scotland which we would like to see answered.

Having said that, feel free to comment on anything he has written. We shall be talking to the SNP and inviting them to answer these questions. Watch this space – but do not hold your breath.

Shifting Sands

By guest blogger Joanne Cannon

Acopia.

My spellchecker doesn’t even recognise this word and yet I see it written in so many patient histories. Acopia: the inability to cope. The shameful state of affairs where someone does not possess the correct physical or emotional armoury to deal with the world. God has short-changed them, life has trampled over them in its rush to get on with all the important things it has to do and society has left them to drift alone in an ocean of self-contempt.

I read acopia and I see an alcoholic.

I see him lectured to and tutted at. I hear him find the courage to admit to how much he drinks and then I listen to the silence around his bed as people evaluate a life they know nothing about. I watch as chlordiazepoxide is poured into his system and addiction is evicted from his body and I witness the struggle as he allows it to leave. When he is finished, I watch him walk from the ward in borrowed clothes, with a carrier bag filled with nothing, to be catapulted back into a society which neither cares nor even cares to understand.

I read acopia and I see a suicide attempt.

I see other patients listen through paper-thin curtains and hide their judgement behind Sunday morning newspapers. I watch someone whose mind is wrapped in so many layers of self-loathing, no one can hear its screams. I see someone who tries to walk through their day with the weighted pull of misery around their ankles and I watch as they try and fail to keep up with everyone else. I listen as they search for the words which will lead those with tranquil minds along a path of understanding and then I feel them admit defeat. I hear them recite from a script. An easy, deceitful script of regretful words and denial of recurrence and I watch as they put on a mask of untruth which is so tight, it won’t even allow a bead of misery to leak on to their face. Yet, as they walk away, I can smell the trapdoor. I feel its pull and I hear its comforting words and I know it lies waiting with patient self-assurance.

I read acopia and I see an old man.

I hear how he uses the edge of furniture to get from the kitchen to the sitting room. I look into his eyes and wonder who he used to be and I listen as he struggles to remember the answer for himself. I hear him tell people that he lost his wife and I watch as people regard this with such little significance, no one even bothers to write it in his notes. I sit in meetings where strangers calculate the worth of his life on sheets of A4 paper and I watch them sweep eighty years of existence into a neat manila folder. I see him stapled and paper-clipped and led away from one small life into another small life. And I see a new life which is so small, it doesn’t even allow room for the thin slice of himself he had managed to hold on to.

I read acopia and I see a cancer patient.

I see someone the same age as me. I see someone who knows the lyrics to the same songs, who marked their life with the same tape measure as I did, who assumed the same guarantee as I assumed. As I assume even now. I see failed chemotherapy. I read on, as the entries in their notes become shorter and shorter and I try to catch the hope which slips through their fingers, because somehow, I feel I have an obligation. As I stand by their bed, I think about the birthdays and the Christmases and the lyrics to the songs, and I see a mirror. The reflection in the mirror is almost unbearable, and yet I stare and stare because I must find the difference or I will never be able to look away.

I read acopia and I feel the shifting sands beneath my feet.

Joanne Cannon blogs at http://joannacannon.wordpress.com/

Tailpiece by Team 2020UK

We hope that you will agree that this is beautifully written and important. We feel that it underlines what we have being saying about the allocation of benefits. Ticking boxes doesn’t work. Every person is different: what a disability that one may find totally incapacitating another may find easy to manage. We are planning a major debate on disability benefits in the near future – please join in.

What Does Britain Do?

What does Britain do? It’s a question commentators come back to time after time, scratching their heads about what this country actually produces. We import much of our food, our electronic goods come from Asia, we all buy clothes with labels proclaiming they were made abroad – so what does our country actually do? Two of the most frequent answers point to our financial sector and the ‘services’ industry. Neither of these strike me as long-term solutions to our problems – they rely on external factors and, as we have seen, in times of severe economic hardship the sector that explodes most painfully is the retail sector. The smaller companies are shedding jobs faster than McDonald’s and Asda can create them. I’m not suggesting that hundreds of smaller companies across the country aren’t doing something and doing it well. What I’m concerned about is that we’re not really known for anything apart from money and service. We don’t do anything so how can we hope to survive?

One industry which is bucking this trend appears to be the car manufacturing industry. Last year car production in the UK rose by 5.8%, despite car sales in Britain falling by 4.4%. We’re exporting cars very well apparently, with companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota and Vauxhall announcing new lines at their plants. The companies may not reside completely in Britain but they are investing in us, creating jobs and wealth for the country. We need more of that but how to encourage it?

As 2020UK guest blogger, G.P. Wayne, pointed out yesterday, no business can choose more expensive suppliers simply to be seen as ethical or to boost the interests of a company based in this country. Our companies have to become more competitive, offering a good product but good service alongside it. Perhaps that’s where our experience in the services sector comes into play. We need innovation, we need to create more of our own products. Yes, to then export them, but also to consume/buy ourselves. We hear a lot about promoting this from successive governments yet we still rely on the safety net of the financial sector and the services industry. However, that safety net has more than a few holes in it. Another way is needed and the sooner the better.

Lucy Brown

A culture of corruption

By guest blogger GPWayne

Corruption is concomitant in cultures driven by greed, the search for power and profit. It is difficult, and possibly suicidal, for a single actor to act ethically when the competition may not do so. No business can afford to underestimate the implications of competitive capitalism; where a competitor can gain legislative, supply chain or market advantage one must respond appropriately or watch as market share diminishes. The assumption that one’s customers will pay extra for ‘moral’ products is not consistent with broad experience, just a minority one – albeit admirable.

A study of history reveals that morality is usually trumped by self-interest and the search for power and wealth. The link between amoral behaviour and the profit motive seems unbreakable. A society which is fair and honourable and egalitarian, that rewards truth and honesty and disdains amorality has yet to be built. Consequently, history also records that well-meaning people have repeatedly tried to ‘fix’ this kind of system, and all seem to have failed.

Perhaps it is time we stopped trying to fix this system, and instead recognise that it cannot be fixed because the problems are a function of the system’s design and the imperatives that are its foundation. Only by rejecting this atavistic social paradigm can we replace it with something that values human experience over money, that values dignity of the individual over status, and does not place the work ethic at the heart of all human endeavour. As trite as the expression appears, none the less we should work to live, not live to work.

*   *   *

One argument frequently put to me places much faith in purchasing discrimination – both by businesses in their selection of suppliers and services, and by consumers choosing ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’ products in preference to – inevitably – cheaper ones.

I find this argument strangely naive. In the context of business to business, no company can chose to use more expensive (read ‘ethical’) suppliers of raw materials or services without disadvantaging that business and turning the enterprise toward some kind of philanthropic institution. Philanthropy and the adoption of social purpose and responsibility is at once a worthy aim and also a serious disadvantage: the putative loss of market share and potential reduction of ‘raw’ profit; these are hard to explain to shareholders who, in light of their pan-national demographic, will have less concern for the domestic betterment of other countries than for their dividends.

For the public, choice is clearly proscribed by banks, energy suppliers, supermarkets and the like. Can you buy many consumer electronic goods that are not made in China? Computer products not made by a Foxconn subsidiary?

In matters of choice, we are all held hostage to the implications of commercial trans-nationalism. The growth of global markets and the consolidation of the multi-nationals has made choice the prerogative only of those who can afford to pay extra for it. No matter how far you travel around the world, it is clear that most of us now dress the same. From Sidcup to Sidney we work in ubiquitously bland industrial estates. We eat the same burgers, enjoy the same entertainment on the same i-Pods and televisions. Uniformity is demanded of consumers everywhere, as the price for what choice we can afford. Economies of scale rule globalisation: to suggest we have any real choices in this globalised consumerist milieu smacks of apologia.

 *  *  *

That the ancient trading system can be fixed, patched up, modified and repaired, is what I call a ‘status quo’ argument since it does not ask the greater and more difficult question – whether the system is worth fixing yet again. Those that argue for social or commercial evolution depend on the premise that there is a way of exploiting labour and markets that is ethical and moral.

I do not believe that capitalism can be moral, for it depends far too much on two kinds of exploitation: of poor people by those less poor – a hierarchy of exploitation if you like – and the exploitation of desire and demand, where dissatisfaction and an artificial obsession with brands, status and novelty are manufactured by advertising in the same way obsolescence is built in to every product. One example alone demonstrates the moral vacuum at the heart of the consumer ethic: which manufacturer seeks product longevity when they know a longer lasting product, while plainly better value for the consumer, will also impinge on future sales?

For most of us, work is neither noble nor fulfilling. Most people do not work because they love to do so, but because they have to; those who can forge some kind of marriage between work and vocation are lucky indeed. Most of us work because we live in a system where, unless we maintain some kind of employment, we cannot survive. The work force is a resource whose compliance is manufactured. Many of us, no longer morally bound by echoes of the Protestant work ethic, are instead compelled to work so we can service our debts.

The idea that there is some kind of honourable way to exploit labour is naive, as it is to believe that sustainability and economic growth are mutually congruent aims. The entire chain of consumerism depends on acts that are amoral, manipulative and sometimes outright dishonourable. Nothing will make exploitation sustainable, no matter how we dress it up in fine sounding theories, laws, or high-minded rhetoric.

Where there is brass, there is muck; while we care more about brass than we do much else, we will always be wading in muck. Sustainable or ethical business practices, if they are to succeed, must be a subset of a greater morality, one that permeates our whole culture, and from the top down. When corruption is endemic at the level of government, for example when the Serious Fraud Office is prevented from investigating the bribes paid to Saudi princes by BAe, expecting the left hand of commerce to ignore the fact that the right hand is buried deep in the till is both unreasonable and self-defeating.

Good intentions will not save us: how many good people have discovered that, in a corrupt place, the only way to conduct business is on terms set by the proprietor? When the proprietors are governments, when corruption is an institution embedded in our culture, we are all compromised, our only options to participate to the extent we can bear, drop out altogether, or starve.

Or stop trying to fix a perpetually broken paradigm and invent a new one.

G.P.Wayne blogs at http://gpwayne.wordpress.com/

Creating wealth

As those who follow this blog will know, we have been looking at the way in which the benefits system deals with those with needs and especially those with long term disabilities. We have, I think, ample evidence that:

• Most people who receive benefit are truly in need of help
• There is a tiny minority who cheat the system
• Any system which tries to categorise claimants will fail as people do not fall into discrete categories but are individuals who fall on a continuum between two points
• There are a number of continua to consider of which just a few are mobility, motor control, sight, hearing, understanding and mental stability.
• Needs may be monetary but are more usually some form of care.

The present system appears not to recognise these points and is ‘not fit for purpose’.

We want to explore this whole matter in the weeks (or possibly months) to come and we shall be asking for all sorts of volunteers to make that exploration worthwhile – in the sense that we want to come up with a workable system and a mechanism to persuade politicians to give it due consideration. That is a huge ask but I am convinced that we shall make it work AND that we shall come up with something so radical as to have no connection with the systems in place at the moment. It is interesting that the reforms under consideration at the moment actually do no more than to try to revise the methods now in place. The resulting outcries and debates (in both Houses) suggest that tinkering will, at best, achieve nothing or, at worst, do damage.

Today, however, I want to look at the way in which we, the people of the UK, create the wealth needed to foster a proper system of care for those in need. Frankly, deciding how to cut the cake is of little point unless it is of sufficient size to be worth cutting.

Whilst it is not true it is a generally held perception that left wing politicians have done their best to cut the cake honourably but have destroyed the baking industry whilst the right wing have honoured the bakers and kept most of the cake for themselves. This very perception is stopping otherwise intelligent folk from the left and the right working together to try and come up with a balance between the these two basic requirements.

So – from whence cometh the wealth? Historically it came from a combination of raw materials, labour (by man and beast) and mechanisation. Initially the only ‘wealth’ that was produced was food where the raw materials were the wild plants (and the labour was gathering done largely by women) and the wild animals (and the labour was hunting done largely by the men).

Obviously things have moved on here in the UK – both technically and socially but the hunter-gatherer age was actually quite recent and, indeed, still exists in a few small areas of the world. It is reasonable to say that that old culture is still present in our modern DNA and every now and then we feel the echoes. Is it possible that a denial of the inbred hopes and aspirations left over from that era are one of the causes of drugs, violence, self harm and so on?

Enough digressing: back to the subject in hand. Wealth in those days was created by the best gatherers and the best hunters with the rest happily (or not) tagging along. You may be sure that the best in both cases ended up with the most comfortable sleeping quarters, clothing and, of course, the tastiest food. Every member of the group knew every other member. They knew that it was to everyone’s advantage to follow the natural leaders and those leaders knew that they relied on their followers to maintain their positions. A leader who failed or cheated might get away with it for a while but would then be deposed (using whatever force was required). Was this benevolent dictatorship punctuated by assassination (which some consider the most efficient of all types of government) or the stirrings of democracy (since every voice could be heard but the weight of each would be determined by the speakers reputation)?

Since then two things have happened which are, in my view, worth exploring. The first is that the natural leaders no longer ‘know’ the group they serve (who may well live in a different continent let alone country) and the second is the ability to store wealth. The second will have to wait for another day.

The first means that the connection between the wealth creators and the rest of us has been broken. Does this explain why wealth creators appear so indifferent to the problems they cause? Can that link be restored? Is it possible that modern communications (mobile phones, YouTube, television and social networking) are creating connections that might help?

The problem is that we need the wealth creators. Governments have tried to take over that role but have failed. They are just not sufficiently risk-averse or quick enough on their feet to run businesses which have to compete in an open market. This does not include the utilities or railways where the ‘competition’ is farcical which is why I support the renationalisation of these. Actually, this unwillingness to be risk averse and slow-footed reaction to events also creeps into the problems faced by the NHS, by schools and the social services where an element of true competition just might be invaluable.

So we tax those who create wealth too heavily at our peril: they go elsewhere. It may upset our sensibilities but there is evidence that the 50% tax band has had a negative effect on the overall tax take, Although the reason for that is not clear, emigrating businesses may well be one cause.

In days gone by, the great wealth creators were also great philanthropists. Often they lived in close proximity to their workers and honestly cared for their welfare and the welfare of their families: one thinks of the great Quaker families such as the Cadburys. Since we must have wealth creators, should we be using all our powers to ensure that those that do well by themselves then turn their attentions to doing well by others? Some do now – not all wealth creators are greedy and selfish.

Some, however, have become wealthy whist failing to create any real wealth. At the moment attention is on those working for banks bailed out by the nation’s taxpayers but who, thanks to contracts that would stand in a court of law, will still receive huge and unacceptable bonuses. What to do about these?

Whatever we suggest it must be doable. It is all very well taking about ‘good businesses’ and ‘bad businesses’ but who decides which is which? Notably none of the politicians who seem to favour this type of discrimination has yet to provide a workable definition of either so I will try: a good business is one that makes its customers happy, properly rewards those who work for it and pays the taxes due from it. An added bonus is if it can make a profit for those who have provided it with capital. Businesses which fail these tests are probably bad businesses.

Far lighter regulation is needed to allow businesses to start and thrive (‘start-ups’ was an area in which I worked as a consultant and about which I have written books). Making it easy to start a business is the best way to create competition. Real, open competition is the best way to enable customers to regulate businesses with their feet. It is also the best way to ensure that there is a good market for labour which, in turn, is the best way to ensure that workers are properly rewarded and protected for they too can then vote with their feet.

As soon as ‘light regulation’ is mentioned there is an uproar: people think the government should be looking after them from cradle to grave. Whether it should or not is an interesting argument but when it tries it usually makes a mess of things. Far better a system where people can look after themselves and after each other.

It is interesting to note that nearly all the problems that hit the headlines about businesses are about the sectors so heavily regulated that there is little or no real competition. This is especially true of the banks.

One final thought: not all bankers were born with silver spoons in their mouths nor are they all evil. I know three who all received seven-figure bonuses at the end of 2010. One went to a public school and then university. The other two came from ordinary working families and neither went to college – one actually left school with no qualifications whatsoever. Both he and the one who was privately educated gave their entire bonuses to charities and the third gave half of his. Even Fred the Shred came from a humble background: his father was an electrician. Incidentally, that is not an argument for those working in institutions that have been saved by our money receiving bonuses.

So, I welcome your thoughts on the generation of wealth, the control of business, the care of customers and the relationship between employers and employees.

Rodney Willett

Independence Posturing

It’s inevitable, I suppose, that we’re hearing a lot about the potential independence of Scotland considering the referendum that’s likely to be held in 2014. However, I’m already getting sick of the political point-scoring this is entailing. I know I have no vested interest, given that I’m from Yorkshire, but looking at it all as an outsider, I can easily believe your average Scottish citizen may be getting a little disgruntled themselves.

Currency issues are, naturally, a large consideration. Keep the pound, enter the euro (insert klaxon warning here) or develop a new currency altogether? All of these options require serious analysis. After all, the European Union would have a massive impact on Scotland’s budget should they join the euro – Brussels wants the power to look through the budgets of Eurozone states and effectively demand changes. Wouldn’t this be going out of the frying pan and into the fire as far as Scottish citizens are concerned? As for keeping the pound, Alan Tovey has today written in The Telegraph that Westminster would still impose restrictions on the pound to try and prevent a potential fiscal meltdown. The article, based on a report by JP Morgan, has pointed out the pitfalls of all three options. None of them are exactly easy routes and shouldn’t be billed as such.

Fundamentally, I believe that every decision – big or small – should be made by the Scottish citizens. I don’t think that the SNP, spearheaded by Alex Salmond, has the right to dictate to the country at such a momentous time in their history. At the end of the day, Salmond’s a politician and will be negotiating from his own particular platform. That may or may not be the will of the country at large. You can’t leave decisions like this until after the referendum either – people need to be sure of what they’re voting for and the precise conditions attached. So what does that mean? That a large list of alternatives should be circulated to all of Scotland for opinions? Perhaps. There may be a less administration-heavy way of doing this but, really, something like that needs to happen. The majority need to have a say in the hypothetical creation of an independent Scotland and they need to know precisely how it may be constructed.

Lucy Brown

IT’S THE TESTS THAT DECEIVE, NOT THE PEOPLE CLAIMING BENEFITS!

Today’s blog is by guest blogger David Harney.

The coalition came into government with a firm belief that an army of shirkers was bleeding the state dry with fake disabilities. That much has always been clear from Cameron’s offensive rhetoric, the benefits system, he says, has created a benefits culture. The Tories want to end this culture once and for all; in the case of DLA (Disability Living Allowance) by reassessing claimants. The Labour government introduced the Work Capability Assessment, for new claimants; the difference now is that all claimants have to be assessed. This alone can prove not only time consuming & costly, but stressful & damaging for many people who already suffer Mental Illness.

In a nutshell, the system is that you chuck as many people as you can into the deep end and whoever floats long enough to take you to tribunal, well, congratulations. Think of a 16th-century witchcraft trial, take away the transparency and public approval, and you have it about right. It is wicked, out-dated, & just plain wrong!

The focus so far has been on the absurdities of the physical disabilities that have been discounted by the WCA: claimants have to score 15 points to stay on the full allowance. A person with multiple sclerosis scored zero, despite a surgeon’s letter stating he was too ill to work. Someone who was registered blind was found to have “mild visual impairment”. The fact that  the whole Tory led Government’s Welfare Reform Bill discriminates against Cancer Patients, is undeniable.

But the assessment for those with mental illness is even more bafflingly inadequate, & frankly wicked. Atos, the company responsible for the assessments, does not require staff to have any training in or understanding of mental illness. There’s an anecdote about an assessor telling a claimant that because he wasn’t rocking or sitting in a corner, he obviously wasn’t unwell. Claimants are asked how they arrived at the appointment: if they managed to take public transport alone, and are presentably dressed, this counts strongly against them. Likewise, if they are articulate. So there’s no acknowledgement that mental illness fluctuates, and someone might be fine on one day, but incapacitated the next.

Sharon McConville, who has been diagnosed at different times with major depressive disorder, bipolar affective disorder and schizoaffective disorder, is unusual in speaking openly about the WCA, as it applies to her personally: “There is huge variability in my condition – on a given day I may be depressed, hypomanic, psychotic or relatively well – and I find it hard to see how a face-to-face meeting at one point in time can accurately determine the level of support which is necessary to help me function as well as possible from week to week, month to month.”

At the same time, there’s no understanding of people whose illness has a high anxiety component, who might never even open their post, let alone be able to face an appointment. You’re damned if you do turn up, and damned if you don’t. There is no provision set for conditions in which the patient might have poor insight into his or her own illness. A survey by the mental health campaign Rethink, of the people who have been reassessed so far showed that only 12% felt that the assessor had even understood their condition; 80% said the stress and anxiety had worsened their health. The WCA is so riven with faults that it’s hard to see what kind of mental illness would, under its terms, actually qualify someone for help.

So, typically, this might result in the treatment meted out to Man A, (anon) who has bipolar disorder, and suffers severe depressive episodes that can last up to two months, several times a year. He scored zero on his Atos test last March and his invalidity benefit was stopped. As a result he became stressed, his symptoms worsened and he had frequent suicidal thoughts. He had to wait 11 months for his appeal, at which the judge said he had no case to answer, and he will now receive his backdated benefits. He said after his appeal: “I am relieved the decision has gone in my favour, but I am also very angry. The result of my appeal just goes to show how flawed the current system is – with no political opposition.” This last point is vital: it’s rare for someone with severe mental illness to want to be identified, let alone have the stomach for a public meeting, still less a campaign. Political opposition to the WCA needs to be much more muscular.

But before you even consider the politics behind all this – whether removing benefits from anyone is a fair way to stimulate employment when there is a shortage of jobs – there’s a clear discrimination case to answer. The argument about whether or not mental illness counts as a “real illness” has been fought and won. To devise a test, therefore, that might (patchily) assess physical impairment but doesn’t, except in the crudest terms, address mental illness, is discriminatory.

Furthermore, if you have arthritis and your benefits are cut, your life will get worse but your arthritis won’t, necessarily. If you have depression and you are treated outrageously by a system that was apparently designed to reject your legitimate claim, then your depression very probably will worsen. Tribunals may sort out the injustice suffered by individuals, but what this situation demands is a `class action` against the discrimination that underpins it. It is this very discrimination that must not be allowed to infect a welfare system that was designed to protect the most vulnerable in our society. It must be fought!

 

Rip-Off Britain

Ed Miliband has launched another crusade, this time against what he terms as ‘predatory’ companies helping to create a ‘rip-off Britain’. It surprises me that only now are politicians grasping how private companies exploit the public in various small ways that add up to a huge chunk out of a pay packet at the end of a month. Miliband is clearly trying to grasp an idea which resonates with the public but how effective can he promise to be in curbing these private firms?

Of course, some would argue that companies should be allowed to charge the best rates they possibly can for all their services. After all, if a company becomes rich then they can afford to employ more people and we could experience that ‘trickle-down’ effect that politicians are so keen on talking about. Whether it actually works like that is up for debate, and I suspect many would argue vehemently against it. However, that would be one argument in favour of letting companies do as they wish. What are the ones against?

Well, take car parking charges, for one. The Telegraph writer, Janet Daley, has already noted why she’s bemused about the focus Miliband has put on this particular issue: “He cites excessive parking charges. Well, amen to that, you might say. Except that he goes on to be quite specific and limited in his examples: the cost of  parking at railway stations has increased dramatically, he notes, Southeastern trains having raised their prices by 16 per cent. These charges (along with season tickets and rail fares generally) should be capped. Ed says nothing, oddly, about the humongous charges levied by local councils for ordinary street parking which do so much damage to high street businesses. Nor does he mention the peculiarly infuriating practice of (usually Labour) councils who charge for residents’ parking which means that home-owners cannot park in front of their own property without paying an annual fee. So he singles out the private company that over-charges for parking but not the branch of government that does the same thing on a much larger scale.” Miliband seems to have picked his battles with private companies (which he must believe will go down well with the public) and ignored the government posturing that costs so much more in the long run. Perhaps confronting the reasons behind local councils charging so much for parking would lead him into something of a thorny area – councils levy charges on parking to cover costs that would otherwise have been funded by money from elsewhere. Going into the depths of that particular argument would’ve bogged Miliband down.

Nevertheless, the problems he mentions do exist. Saving fees on pensions, airline levies, bank charges, premium rate consumer helplines, the muddy area around energy prices: they are all valid criticisms for Miliband to make. He plans to curb these costs. Admirable, yes, but something he could not do until at least 2015. So is he wasting his breath at this point?

2020UK would love your opinions. Are we living in ‘rip-off Britain’? Do private companies need pulling into line? What are your pet hates about hidden or excessive charges in your everyday life?

Lucy Brown