30th September 2011

I love charity shops.

Untold bargains and designer clothes all purchased at a low price that helps a Charity undertake its charitable work.

There’s a definite feel good benefit that results from shopping in a charity shop.

There’s also the fact that you’re not likely to bump into David or Samantha or George, even in posh London charity shops.

Recently I arrived at a Trustee Meeting of a charity I support to be greeted at reception with a pleasant, you look smart today.

My shirt had cost me £1 50, my Jaeger tweed jacket £3 50 and my cords £4 00, all from charity shops.

Smart and all for under a tenner.

Result.

But there is something wrong in the state of charity shops today.

I was reminded recently by a friend that my rule of thumb was always:

Designer labels? Check! Denim? Check! Leather? Check!

Then move on.

But now there are rarely any designer clothes, leather or denim to be found.

My guess is that it is all on ebay.

It is an intriguing clue to the state of the economy.

People are making things last longer and, when they want to change their wardrobe instead of filling a black bin bag with their stuff and taking it to Oxfam they put it on ebay.

My last visit to a charity shop revealed mainly F&F, the Tesco brand, George, the Asda brand and the inevitable Marks and Spencer.

So whatever Mr Osborne might claim to the contrary it is a definite thumbs down for his economic strategy.

People are strapped for cash and my totally unscientific observation is folk are buying in the supermarkets and when they do have something of value they no longer need, rather than give it away, they will sell it.

Obviously there could be other reasons; there are scams, the bags that get shoved through the door from organisations that claim to be recycling the goods only for them to be sold for profit.

So folk think right well if there is a profit to be made I might as well make it myself.

You can also see that some of the bigger, more professional charities will sort the better stuff and send it off to the bigger City shops, leaving the lower priced stuff to sell in poorer areas.

But my theory is that charity shops are a barometer for the real economy and a much more accurate reflection of where the pinch is being felt and by whom.

Given that without charity shops some of our high streets would look even more run down than they do imagine what will happen if the charity shops can no longer trade profitably and have to close down themselves.

Then we really will have a broken Britain on our hands and what’s more we will know who broke it!

28th September 2011

I have just spent two weeks in Scotland.

It felt like the twilight zone.

Driving around trying to find a 3G signal in order to check emails and post blogs and download The Guardian now that I have cancelled the Times as a one man protest at phone hacking.

The valley is steep sided, surrounded by high wooded hills.

A river runs through it.

As I was fishing a couple of jet planes swooped over, low across the Loch below the height of the hills on either side.

During the holiday we saw any number of missions as the pilots practised their bombing runs for action in either Afghanistan or Libya.

But not just jet fighters.

Helicopters flew over practising their manoeuvres, so low I could clearly see and wave at the pilot, who waved back.

And magnificently, if you like that sort of thing, a huge transport plane, a Hercules I imagine, so low that I almost thought that if I cast too high I might catch him.

There was so much evidence of a nation at war, or preparing for war, or just rattling its sabres?

And the cost is hard to imagine.

Each exercise, each manoeuvre, each sortie costs the tax payer at a time when the defence budget has been dramatically cut back.

This Government is unashamed.

Not content with creating inflation, throwing people out of work and creating the conditions for a depression, its leadership has the temerity to lecture other world leaders on how to deal with their economic problems.

Hidden in the news this week was an interesting clue as to the style and strategy being employed.

The Libyan Campaign to remove Gaddafi we were told would cost roughly a quarter of a million pounds.

To date it has cost £1.7 Billion.

No explanation, no apology, maybe it was all the fault of the outgoing Labour Party?

Or maybe the low flying exercises hidden away in the far north of the country in the twilight zone will be funded from some sum of money that has been hidden away in a secret election fund?

Then there are free schools.

Free for whom.

The pupils who qualify for free school meals? If indeed there are any.

Free for the parents and others who have established them.

And how is the loss of tax income and the increase in welfare payments being paid for?

Mr Clegg attempted to convince his Liberal Party that things would be worse, that they were they insisting on Liberal Policies at the heart of the Government.

But they are not the opposition they are collaborators.

So why is the Labour Party not opposing the policies that are harming our society, creating division and causing real harm for families and communities, the elder and the disabled?

It is clear that so many of the advances made by Labour, new or not, are now being dismantled and cut back.

Years ago as a sixteen year old working in the MPNI I was opening the post and one letter contained a sixpence.

The pensioner explained in his letter that he was so disgusted by the insulting increase in his pension award that he was returning it, perhaps it will help the Government he stated, it certainly doesn’t help me.

It’s a view with which I have some sympathy.

But what do you send back that will in any way assist this Millionaire Coalition Government?

27th September 2011

Comedians are funny people.

Did you hear the one about the big society?

It was so big I couldn’t get it through the door, boom, boom!

And there’s nothing funnier than a funny clergyman.

So it was quite a gift to the script writers when the CofE ordained women as Priests and The Vicar of Dibley was born.

Not quite so funny for every shortish, plumpish Lady Vicar since Dawn French made the role her own.

I always hoped that, having pretended to be a Vicar Dawn French would discover her inner calling and become one, like the singer from The Communards who is now a broadcasting Vicar.

Apparently Rowan Atkinson wrote a piece in the Times at the weekend describing clergy as Smug, Arrogant or Conceited.

I must admit that I missed his article.

At the weekend I read the Financial Times, I enjoy reading about how the wealthy make it and spend it.

Oh dear, does that sound Smug, Arrogant or Conceited?

I guess I am not one of Mr Atkinson’s fans, but he has many and has made a good living pretending to be Marcel Marceau as Mr Bean, a first World War Officer in Blackadder and a Vicar in Four weddings and a Funeral.

So why does he think clergy are smug, arrogant or conceited.

Maybe it is that, having created the prototype for a certain kind of ridiculous clergyman; he needs from time to time to reinforce the caricature in order to continue to make comedic capital from it.

My dictionary defines the charges as follows.

Smug: Contentedly confident of one’s ability, superiority, or correctness, complacent.

Mmm .….!

Arrogant: making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights, overbearingly assuming, insolently proud.

Again, Mmm …..!

Conceited: having an excessively favourable opinion of one’s abilities, appearance etc.

And again, Mmm …..!

I imagine that there are clergy who qualify under these definitions to be referred to as S, A or C, after all the clergy are recruited from the population at large, AKA the Laity, and amongst this disparate body some will be S or A or C.

But most of the clergy I actually know, or who I have worked with over the years, are neither S or A or C, instead they are hardworking and self effacing, putting the needs of others before their own needs and the needs of their families. As St Paul famously puts it:

‘Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility regard others as better than yourselves’.

Even Mr Bean?

It is a bit rich I must say to hear someone who has made a career out of pretending to be a clergyman criticise the profession he has caricatured.

It is also an irony that he has made far more money out of pretending to be a clergyman than he ever would have done if he had instead become one, always assuming that he had passed the selection process and not been rejected on the grounds that he was either S, A or C.

Funny people comedians…….

24th September 2011

Weird stuff happens.

Sometimes it happens in dreams.

Sometimes it happens in real life, sometimes in a missed call or in an interrupted way as you catch sight of something out of the corner of your eye, say whilst passing a poster, or reading something that wasn’t there or thinking that a piece of text says one thing whilst it says another but you read the words you want into it giving it a whole new meaning.

Yesterday I thought I had caught a fish but it wasn’t, I must have snagged some weed, but for one brief moment my heart skipped a beat as I thought that this summers dry season with a whole year of nil returns was about to be ended with my landing a 10lb Salmon.

I once read a story in a fishing magazine about an angler who caught a fish whilst fly fishing on a stocked lake, but before he could land it the fish managed to escape by snapping his leader and making off with the hook still in its mouth and trailing a length of leader behind it.

He repaired his line attached another fly and began fishing again, soon enough he had a fish on but to his amazement when he landed it, it was the same fish and he had foul hooked it through the ring on the original hook.

A tall tale or a fisherman’s tale?

Difficult to know but the story was published in a reputable magazine and it wasn’t the first of April.

Weird stuff happens.

Today I saw a photograph of myself in the newspaper.

I was amazed and did a double take, I even checked in the mirror and sure enough it was definitely me.

The same bald head, the same glasses, the same general features.

I was in Ramallah as part of a crowd listening to President Abbas address the UN asking them to recognise the Palestinian State.

Marvellous really.

Even though I knew that I was actually fishing on the River Tummel.

But the camera never lies.

Every picture tells a story and I had signed an online petition urging the UN to recognise the State of Palestine so in a sense I was there, in spirit if not in fact, and there was my picture proving it.

Had the organisers of the petition worked some kind of internet magic? Did I have a doppelganger? Or was I in fact in two places at once?

Weird stuff happens.

Apparently if the UN had agreed then the Americans would veto the proposal so it was unlikely that Palestine’s Statehood would be recognised.

But this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue.

On the 21^st of September I led prayers for peace in recognition that it was the International Day of Prayer for Peace.

The current economic meltdown and the threat to the Global Economy that it implies was also debated by the UN.

The British Prime Minister recommended Britain’s answer but the IMF are not as convinced that it is the answer as Mr Cameron is.

Ultimately, whether it is in Palestine or the UK the only peace that will truly last is the peace based on justice, whether we imagine it, whether we campaign for it or whether we pray for it we have to continue to hope that it will come.

After all weird stuff does happen.

22nd September 2011

Munro’s are mountains over 3000 feet.

People collect them.

Not that they take them home and keep them in a cupboard in the best room, they climb them and tick them off in a book.

Some quite well known people collect Munro’s so it entirely possible to set off along some muddy track in the Scottish Highlands and bump into a Cabinet Minister or a Lord of the Realm, a DJ from Radio 1 or a pop singer.

I am currently staring at a Munro, watching the weather close in as another gale lashes the hill side.

This is a famous Munro because it played host to a remarkable scientific experiment when the Astronomer Royal, a Clergyman the Revd Maskelyne set up camp in 1774 and performed an experiment whereby, using principles described by Sir Isaac Newton, he set about weighing the Earth.

Schiehallion is a Gaelic word meaning ‘constant storm’ and its name is well earned as, during our stay here, it has either been lashed with rain, obscured by mist or wreathed in cloud.

Which makes Maskelyne’s achievement even more remarkable.

Maskelyne was a bon vivant, on a previous expedition his hospitality account was questioned because of the high cost of the wine he consumed.

Apparently, whilst he was in the area, Schiehallion acquired a reputation, not for constant storms but for constant partying.

Different kinds of parties are gathering at the moment and doubtless the wine bills will also be great.

The liberal party conference continues a pace as Clegg, Cable, Huhne and Alexander promote themselves as being at the top of Government.

But their condemnation of the last Labour Government simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because it is now clear that the global economy is struggling, the Euro is struggling, America is struggling and the era of free money resulting from increase property values is well and truly over.

Soon Mr Cameron will be repeating Mrs Thatcher’s phrase about not being for turning as he continues to argue that he has no choice but to continue with his policies and try to persuade us that, ‘we are all in this together’, no doubt he will blame the liberals for his not being right wing enough and there will be speeches demanding that we leave the EEC and renegotiate the Lisbon Treaty and bring back hanging, repeal taxes for the wealthy and benefits for the feckless.

The Labour Party have an opportunity to restate the simple proposition that the Earth is round not flat and that people matter.

Bagging Munro’s is a strange hobby and it is especially popular with the over sixties.

But it is a dance.

Like the army of the Grand Old Duke of York they march up the hills and they march down again.

When they are up they are up and when they are down they are down.

Their footsteps will wash away in the constant storms but the mountain remains.

In the end we all come and go, this Government has come and will go, to be replaced by another that will be fairer or not but it is occasionally worth reminding yourself of the constancy of the earth, its ability to renew and reshape itself and its capacity, despite all the abuse we load onto the ecosystem, to survive.

18th September 2011

Death and Taxes.

They can’t be avoided.

That’s how the saying goes.

It is of course quite correct to say that Death cannot be avoided.

As the rich man in the parable discovered, when your time is up, it does not matter how full your barns are, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

But taxes are a different matter.

Ask Philip Green.

His shop is top but his taxes are not because he has discovered, invented, adopted, perfectly legal ways of not paying tax on his income.

So that’s OK.

But there is a tax that is regressive, that is affecting all of us and for which this so called low tax, coalition Government is entirely responsible.

When I say affecting all of us, if you have invested in Land or Gold, you probably won’t notice it.

But if you are poor you must certainly will.

It’s called inflation.

Whatever you might say about the last Government inflation was kept low.

I always liked it that the Governor of the Bank of England had to write a letter to the Chancellor explaining why inflation had gone up and had to promise to bring it straight back down.

I haven’t heard too much about those letters recently.

Increases in fuel prices and VAT have obviously contributed to the increase in inflation and the coalition has condemned us all to higher prices but inflation has also increased from 2% to 41/2% possibly 5% meaning that unless wages rise, everyone will be worse off.

Inflation is a regressive ‘tax’ that affects the least wealthy more than the wealthy especially if that wealth comes not from earned income and is held in assets other than cash.

So the next time the Chancellor appears in public, a rare sighting that will be, or if Danny Alexander makes a speech about tax at the Lib Dem Conference, which he is planning to do:

Here’s the thing, taking low earners out of Tax and keeping the 50% tax rate sounds fine in principle but if what you are doing in your general monetary policy, is not keeping a tight reign on inflation then you are, in effect, continuing to tax the poorest disproportionately.

Inflation is a bad thing wherever you meet it whether on the high street or in a pop song.

There have been some great anti-tax songs written and sung, George Harrison, Lonnie Donegan to name just two artists who have tackled the subject.

But as inflation stretched the average pop song throughout the overblown, inflationary seventies, making it longer and longer, it took Johnny Rotten to root out the inflation and return the pop song back to its three chord, three minute perfection ……

15th September 2011

In our house we divide the labour reasonably evenly.

My wife basically buys the clothes, plans the menus and decides where we will take our holidays.

I have responsibility for our views on foreign policy. I maintain a critique of Government fiscal policy and usually choose the Manchester United team for the next match.

It works quite well.

We dress well, eat well and always enjoy our holidays. Meanwhile our foreign policy means that we enjoy continued security in our home, our taxes are burdensome but not crippling and Manchester United usually wins.

Reviewing the press recently to see how my views on Libya were shaping up, I saw that the coalition is planning to introduce more women friendly policies.

Ha, I thought, clearly the Cameron and Clegg households enjoy a similar division of labour.

After all Mr Cameron promised that this was going to be ‘a most family friendly administration’ perhaps he has been reminded of his promise and that he is failing a little in delivering on the ‘f’ words, family, friendly and fair because this con-dem Government is sadly demonstrably not family friendly.

It is banker friendly, our rich friends in the south friendly but not family friendly.

So, I thought, that is excellent and I read on.

Then I read that support for the coalition amongst women voters has fallen dramatically, child benefit is clearly at the top of the issues that concern women, but other policies regarding who receives the benefits, the increase in women’s retirement, pensions etc etc.

So women have got the message.

Not family friendly at all.

So why this change of heart?

Then the penny dropped.

If we carry on like this and alienate our most significant constituency we will lose the next election. Right!

Now this raises an interesting point for debate.

Should Governments do what is right for the people they are elected to serve, whatever the consequences, or should all their policies and programmes serve their principal objective, to be re-elected?

In America President Carter took the first view and became a one term President, President Obama is caught between the Devil and the Tea Party.

It is amazing really that over the hundreds of years of parliamentary elections, how often those in power have managed to remain in power, often, even when their policies are deeply unpopular.

That is because ‘staying in power’ is the name of the game.

That is why all the coalition’s policies are geared toward this one simple objective.

Mr Osborne is a very political Chancellor of the Exchequer and his game plan is simple, get the worst over soonest and then offer sweeteners in the two years before the election and people will forget the pain and we will be re-elected.

So in our house I might be given a new responsibility; remembering the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and, like Father Time, reminding people of what happened in those dark days.

After all as a wise Labour Prime Minister once commented, a week is a long time in politics.

13th September 2011

I guess I am naive.

Because I still find myself shocked by the obvious abuse of the Blue Badge Scheme and the shamelessness of the abusers.

I know ..... it's a value judgement.

But when you are lifting a mobility scooter or wheelchair out of the back of the car and a smart young woman parks in the space next to you and skips off to do her shopping, you ask yourself what is happening here?

It seems to me that abuse in little things, like borrowing a Blue Badge from a relative and using it to get convenient parking in town or the supermarket car park, usually means that the individuals moral compass has slipped and they are as likely to abuse in other things as well.

Apparently Blue Badges are stolen in London because they have a high street value and can save the owner not only a good deal of money but also offer free access to the congestion charge area.

I once heard a stand up comedian on TV citing the abuse of the Blue Badge Scheme as symptomatic of wider ills in society.

His punchline was the ineffable, 'being fat and ugly may not be pleasant but it is NOT a disability'.

The Blue Badge is one of the privileges of living in a civilised society, it is designed to level the playing field for those with limited or no mobility, it also extends across Europe, so it is a privilege that belongs to the wider liberal democratic polity.

We have used our Blue Badge in Italy, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Spain.

One evening, driving through Tarifa in Southern Spain, we were looking for a hotel for the night, as we drove through we saw a Disabled Parking sign and an empty space right outside a Hotel, this was clearly a sign from St Christopher, Patron Saint of Travellers.

We parked, checked into the Hotel and asked if the space was OK to use.

Reassured, we left our car overnight, the next day as we got ready to move on, the Newsagent and Lotto Kiosk opposite was open, and, parked close to our rear bumper, was another car with a Blue Badge, taking advantage of the ability to park on Double Yellow lines which is afforded by the scheme.

As we loaded the wheelchair and got ready to leave the Kiosk attendant came out of the Kiosk in a wheelchair and a Senora, who was probably his wife we thought, came over to the car, she smiled a little grimly as we exchanged Hola's and then as we drove away pulled her car forward into the space.

Clearly we had pinched 'their' space. We were within our rights but we still felt a little guilty.

I have asked people without Blue Badges to move out of a disabled parking space but am becoming chary, even if I am right, of becoming involved in any kind of road or parking space rage.

By the same token I have been challenged.

Recently I parked in a Disabled Parking Bay and before I could get out of the car and before my wife had set the clock on her badge in order to display it, there was a tap on the window and a chap started accusing me of abusing the privilege etc.

It was only when I opened the door to unload the wheelchair that he backed down and even then was quite grudging in his apology.

It is a measure of how big a society is when people behave with propriety in the smaller as well as the larger matters that affect how we rub along with both neighbours and total strangers.

10th September 2011

I was forwarded a joke recently.

Then it appeared on facebook.

It was the one about David Cameron and Nick Clegg in an aeroplane.

Cameron says he could make someone happy by throwing a £1000 note out of the window.

Clegg reckons he could do better and make ten people happier by throwing £100 notes out.

The Pilot overhearing this conversation comments to the co-pilot: I could make 28 Million people happy by throwing them both out.

It is increasingly dispiriting to face the day.

The latest demand to reduce taxes for the wealthy by lowering the 50% tax rate whilst actually increasing the tax burden on average earners by increasing VAT.

The free schools that are being opened in privileged areas by privileged individuals and groups.

The emotive and highly charged language of punishment, withdrawal of benefits and eviction for a range of offences.

I have written about Beveridge before in this blog.

The essence of Beveridges welfare proposals were not to reward people for laziness or idleness in fact the welfare state was designed to create a sense of security for all citizens by insuring against income loss and guaranteeing that life chances were enhanced through education, growing old was made more secure through pension payments and ill health addressed through health insurance.

It troubles me both personally and publicly that these humanistic ideals are being reversed by a co-alition government that has lost sight of the ideals of public service that were built into the founding of the welfare state.

It is that important sense of security that is now missing.

As the economy continues to flat line and it becomes clear that the cuts in fact are contributing to the loss of demand as people remain anxious as to what lies ahead for them and their families it is crucial that we begin to question the claims that are being made by our politicians and test them against the key question addressed by Beveridge: do people feel secure or is the future increasingly uncertain for everyone.

So after last weeks 8-2 win over Arsenal and today's 5-0 win over Bolton this is my suggestion, Sir Alex for PM.

That should work .... an old socialist who knows how to win.

8th September 2011

Broken.

Brokeness.

Broke Backed.

The dictionary defines the word broken in different ways.

Medical - a broken arm.

Personal - a broken promise.

Disarray - police dispersing in broken ranks.

Psychological - a broken heart.

Or just plain not working - a broken dishwasher.

What I couldn't find is any reference to broken societies, broken criminal justice systems or broken economies.

But David Cameron, George Osborne and now Ken Clarke are prefacing their comments about society with the word broken.

Yesterday was a good test of whether this is true.

We are needing to do some work to make our house safer and easier for us to live in now we are older.

So we looked at what we could do and set about finding ways to pay for it.

First we contacted an organisation which helps with equity release, it is a social benefit organisation, they still exist but have been instructed by the FSA that they must refer people to commercial lenders.

So we looked out of the front door and there was a line of rich people, getting richer, with their hands out waiting to take advantage by helping themselves to our money, or at least the money tied up in the house, our equity, for doing nothing useful that I could see.

So then we contacted the local authority.

The relevant department has had its grant withdrawn so there is no money to help in cases like ours. The same department has had its staff reduced and those that are left have had their hours cut.

So basically a helpful system that had been put in place to help people to continue to live in their own homes and manage for themselves without needing to make demands on public services has been - well, Broken.

By whom and by what?

Swinging cuts that are now taking effect reducing services and placing impossible strains on those who work in them?

The powerful ensuring that their version of fairness exists to benefit their wealthy friends?

It doesn't really help going round saying that things are broken when they are not. It helps even less going round breaking things to prove a point.

A senior Conservative politician was overheard referring to the coalition as being Broke Back.

We really don't need the tired rhetoric of the coalition's theory of brokeness.

We need a Government capable of fixing things.

6th September 2011

The Green Belt is the name of a festival.

Sort of like (I think) a Christian Glastonbury with music and bands and seminars and discussion.

Google describes it as an arts, faith and Justice community.

But the word Greenbelt has a wider meaning. The Greenbelt was key to ensuring that urban sprawl was contained and a clear dividing line was drawn between Town and Country.

Growing up in inner city Manchester our family days out began when we crossed that clear dividing line.

When the motor bike and side car crossed the Mersey and we drove out into the Cheshire countryside we crossed, not just a philosophical, but an actual boundary.

In the post war planned economy the Greenbelt was seen as a way of protecting the countryside. But more importantly it defined the City.

The City grew upward not outward and as the slums were demolished they were replaced by the promised post war 'homes for Heroes'.

Now it is all to be torn up by Mr Pickles and Mr Osborne.

Apparently the Greenbelt is an obstacle to recovery, too much planning is a bad thing, and developers are being told that they can build where they choose.

This is social irresponsibility of a very high order.

Clearly we need development. Clearly as the demand for houses increases as family patterns change we need to build homes. To undertake this programme of house building with the associated infrastructure developments, will in its turn create jobs and wealth.

But if this development is not managed. If the affordable social housing is not built in the right locations. If the transport links are not in place. If the 'strip mining' of the Greenbelt is allowed to go ahead. Then Britain will soon start to resemble America, where the neon ribbon runs along the highway linking one urban centre, food outlet and shopping mall to another.

In most of Europe urban development happens without reference to City Hall. The result is the chaotic development that in some cases, literally disfigures otherwise beautiful locations.

The likely effect of the lifting of planning controls is that the developers will build poorer and poorer developments with higher and higher profit margins and then inevitably find cute ways of not paying the tax on their profits thereby benefiting no-one other than their profitability and share prices.

This attack on the Greenbelt is another example of why the long term consequences of this coalition Government is to be feared.

It seems obvious to me that the tragedy of the Blair/Brown conflict that undermined the previous Labour administration opened the door for the heirs and successors of Margaret Thatcher to take up where she left off.

We were promised that 'things were going to get better'. It has proved to be a hollow promise.

So this weekend take a trip out into the Greenbelt, you've missed the festival itself, that was two weeks ago, but if you want to sniff the fresh air, watch the salmon in the Rivers, see the Deer in the forest or the Red Squirrels in the Scots Pine, then move quickly because Mr Pickles will soon don his hard hat and drive his bulldozer through the regulations and build and build and build ........

2nd September 2011

The weather in Scotland has been fine this week.

Sitting outside the oldest pub in Scotland, drinking Thrappledouser and eating Bacon and Brie Sandwiches we must have been caught in a dozen photographs as holiday snappers captured the hotel for the holiday album.

Opposite us in the square men working on the refurbishment of the Golf Course were also drinking and eating.

All their vehicles had French number plates.

So not only does that fine nation own the water and the power, apparently they are market leaders in designing and building golf courses.

We really are now part of Europe.

Not only have we joined forces with our French allies to assist Libya to effect a change of regime, we just didn’t use the phrase ‘regime change’ but that’s what it amounts too we share a great deal with the French and other European partners, France it seems for power and water and golf course building, Spain for Banking and I remain partial to Italian Beer and Pizza.

The only real rivalry remains on the Football Field and it seems that after Man U’s drubbing of Arsenal they have almost, at least those players who qualify by being English or who have a choice to make about being English or not, formed the basis of a new national side.

Perhaps they have learned their improved skills by playing with French and Spanish players at Club level?

The next two challenges facing the big society are building enough houses to meet demand and getting the NHS to run on time and on Budget.

Fortunately I have never been ill or hospitalised in France or Spain, I did have an occasion to visit an Italian hospital, intriguing and very Italian, lots of bureaucracy, a very early start, the queues for the blood tests were forming at 6 30 am and then the results were posted on the internet by 11 00, remarkable combination of tradition and the best use of modern technology.

So the Italians to run the NHS?

And perhaps we will partner with the Germans to build houses; they demonstrated their efficiency with East Germany’s transformation after unification.

Although there may have to be a change of common tenure arrangements as, if we follow the European Model there will be more renting and less ownership, so Mrs Thatcher’s dream of a property owning democracy may appear somewhat hubristic.

So now we are European in all but name all we need to do is pay for it, now what about that dratted Euro?