31st October 2011

The LSX campaign still grabs the headlines and everyone is at it.

The idea of camping out in central London in around St Paul's Cathedral in order to make your views about the mess that the financial services industry has got us into is a pretty good one.

I am sure that if there had been a Stock exchange in Bradford and there had been a similar camp, on the whole the Chapter would have welcomed the campers, although I have to admit they never really liked the modern sculpture I installed.

But what is interesting is how the real focus of attention has been the Cathedral itself.

The Dean and Chapter seem to have made a hash of both their response and the PR campaign that followed it.

Closing the Cathedral was plain silly and the queue of pompous prelates lining up to have their two penn'orth was embarrassing really.

It's not as though the protesters don't have a point.

From Madrid's 'indignados' through the 'Wall Street' protesters, an international network of peaceful protest is drawing attention to the fact that financial services and bankers have been getting away with blue murder, pocketing thousands of Euros, Dollars and Pounds in Bonuses whilst unemployment has risen dramatically as Government's have tried to cut their way out of recession. In particular unemployment amongst young people has become a scandal which should embarrass all of us.

Things are simply out of kilter.

The Euro is valued now at almost a Pound Sterling, the exchange rate is around £1 20, but if you go into a store to buy something in a Eurozone country that has an equivalent value in the UK the original calculation, divide by three and multipy by two still applies, in other words in reality the Euro is still, in terms of its purchasing power, worth 66 pence Sterling which was its opening value when it was introduced.

So who is pocketing the difference?

Whilst politicians and church leaders flounder around becoming increasingly angry with the protesters and each other, recently reported exchanges between the Italian and German leaders and President Sarkosy and David Cameron, were more reminiscent of the Kindergarten than mature political debate, the protesters coninue to ask perfectly proper questions in a language that is tolerant and inclusive.

When I was at theological college, and I wasn't a Greek Scholar, so I might be making this up and Google hasn't been able to help, but I am sure that I was told or read, that in St John's Gospel the actual translation of the word dwelt, as in, God dwelt amongst us, was tented.

Worth a thought if you are the Bishop of London or the Dean of St Paul's .......

29th October 2011

The flaneur is a person who sits and watches people around them, observes, notes, perhaps writes poetry or just imagines.

Sitting in the warm autumn sunshine in the park near our apartment this morning we read the Newspaper over a caffe corretto.

The addition of a shot of Grappa to the espresso or caffe normale in the Italian, 'corrects' it.

Families gathered, as did those exercising their dogs and even the sparrows are so comfortable with people that they take crumbs from your fingers.

It was a perfect morning.

And yet the news was terrible.

The imminent collapse of the Euro at a stroke taking the Eurozone with it and quite possibly meaning that when we head to the bank machine there will be no cash forthcoming.

The Chinese appear to have dismissed the European appeal for financial support on the grounds that Europe is profligate.

Floods in Italy in the Cinque Terra have only affected people locally but in Thailand the flooding will have an immediate impact on the cost of computers which are likely to rise.

The Arab spring looks increasingly as though it will usher in Islamic regimes in the Arab world.

Even Scotland it appears could exchange its role as a leading nation in the Union for one of independent actor in the ensuing maelstrom following the collapse of the Eurozone, probably unleashing a popular campaign for Carlisle and Berwick to join Scotland in its independent statehood.

Our current holiday reading is 1Q84 by Murakami.

Here the normal world of 1984 slips into a mysterious world with two moons the 1Q84 of the title where nothing is what it seems and the protaganists are pursued not by big brother but by the guardians of the 'Little People'.

As we drank our corrected coffee and looked around, nodding in acknowledgement of the friendly greetings from those around, we imagined how all these different geo-political scenarios will in the end play themselves out?

Will the Financial Services grind to a halt, will barter become the new form of trade, will the discredited bankers take up their beds and set up camp outside St Paul's?

It is too early to tell but it is also clear that the post war political settlement world has slipped into a weird and possibly dangerous world where we just possibly should start stocking up with dried goods and candles in case the supermarket shelves start to empty and the lights start going out in the City's.

And so it goes ..........  

28th October 2011

One national newspaper carries a weekend review, usually of a high flying, high spending, high worth individual describing a typical weekend.

Usually it is made clear during the article that the individual being interviewed owns a number of properties in city, country or seaside, to which they can repair depending on their mood, social or business requirements.

Despite having owned only a couple of properties over a lifetime I can understand how it might feel to have access to properties around the world or across Europe.

My family home has usually been a vicarage and now in retirement I have acquired access to a number of properties from the highlands of Scotland to the Ligurian coast where, within moments of arriving, I feel completely at home.

One such apartment is in Via Goito in Genova.

This elegant apartment is the Chaplaincy house for the Chiesa Anglicana in Genova, where in exchange for the accommodation, the Chaplain offers pastoral and liturgical support to the congregation which gathers for worship at 10 30 CET every Sunday.

This is a wonderful way for an impoverished and therefore low spending, low net worth, retired Church of England clergyman, to spend his weekend, breaking bread and saying his prayers, with a wonderful group of people from around the world.

The Church on Piazza Marsala is in the care of the Diocese of Europe, the previously, and in my view better named, Diocese of Fulham and Gibraltar. However the responsibility for the maintenance and restoration of the Church rests with a small congregation made up of English folk living in Genova plus other members of the wider Anglican diaspora.

The Church and its congregation are in some ways a wonderfully eccentric anomaly in Genova, as are the English, usually retired, clergy (I include myself in this of course) who offer upwards of a month at a time as Locum Chaplains.

Being equally enamoured of things Italian and things English marks the congregation out.

Peter who has taught English in Genova for years relishes the richness of his life in Italy and wonders why anyone would choose to live in England these days; Alexia born in Africa married to her Italian husband zipping about the City streets on her scooter; or Mary, originally from Ghana whose husband is an Alpini stationed in Afghanistan and who loves the sound of the cork popping from the Prosecco as refreshments are served after the Sunday Eucharista.

Most Sundays, Liz, an English teacher, married to her Italian husband with a Genovese daughter, Son in Law and Granddaughter, opens the Church and greets us as we enter with an Italian, ‘Buongiorno’, the service sheet which she has printed, already on the Altar.

Then, at the last minute, usually with her Italian Mother in Law on her arm, in rushes Flora the organist, always with too much to do and too little time, with her Italian greeting, a kiss on either cheek, she rushes across to switch on the organ and brief the violinists, Hanuka is Japanese and Ellena her colleague German, who will accompany the hymns.

The congregation can be from any where and everywhere. At my last service the nations represented included Ghana, Nigeria, other African Nations, Japan, India, Germany, England, the United States and Italy.

There are also Ecuadorean and Nigerian Congregations who use Holy Ghost as their place of meeting for worship.

On Easter Sunday 2011 we were struggling through the service with a handful of the regular congregation, when the doors burst open and a gang of twenty young people poured in, tall and handsome, they brought an energy with them.

I assumed they were Americans as they joined in and lifted the spirits of everyone present with their liveliness and loveliness, only to discover that they were in fact from the Netherlands and touring Italy for the Easter break.

Buongiorno indeed!

The Church was designed by the English Architect G E Street and is typical of his design work, a fine Victorian building built to a specification drawn up by Sir Montague Yeats Brown, British Consul at the time.

The Church was built to serve the English speaking community resident in Genova in the nineteenth century. There is also an English section in the great Staglieno Cemetery which provides the final resting place of a number of ex Pats not the least Oscar Wilde’s wife Constance.

Oscar Wilde visited Genova around 1880, where he wrote the sonnet, ‘Written in Holy Week at Genoa’, whose opening lines refer to a park near the present day Di Negro Metro Station.

James Smithson another Englishman has a memorial in the Church, a chemist and mineralogist, and both a European and an Internationalist he died in Genoa in 1879. He left his considerable fortune to America to found the Smithsonian Museum.

Today the building is showing signs of wear and tear and needs some refurbishment and the present Honorary British Consul Ms Denise Dardani is leading an initiative to start a Friends of the Chiesa Anglicana to raise funds for the refurbishment.

24th October 2011

Apparently the campers around St Paul's are digging in until Christmas.

I wonder if they are expecting Father Christmas to drop by?

Whilst it seems to me to be an over reaction by the Dean and Chapter, the closure of the Cathedral whilst the Stock Exchange remains open for business, seems to have rather missed the point of the protest.

It is clear that there is something rotten in the state of human affairs and money lies at the heart of it.

Ridiculous rewards for some, if the rumours are true Tony Blairs reward of £2M for acting as an adviser to a Bank is one example of a reward so far outweighing the effort and intelligence brought to bear on the task as to be obscene.

But the FT at the weekend continues to publish its How to Spend it Magazine and the number of zeros attached to everything from Houses, to Cars, to Televisions, to Clothes, to Watches and Furniture is truly eye watering.

But the goods on sale and the price tags suggest that the bonuses are still being paid and are out of all proportion to the effort involved in 'earning' them.

At the other end of the scale yesterday I met a group of young men who had arrived in Italy after a perilous crossing of the Mediterranean from Libya.

For three days, like St Paul, they had been 'adrift at Sea' and in 'shipwrecks often'.....

Refused entry into France, the Schengen rules appear to have been suspended at Ventimiligia, they are living in Genoa on food stamps, vouchers and handouts, but at least they have been welcomed by the Church.

The condem Government continues to act as though there is nothing wrong with the system of bonuses and disproportionate rewards and really nothing wrong with some individuals getting to eat the pies whilst others don't even qualify for the scraps from the rich mens tables.

The trickle down theory of wealth creation was discredited in the 80's and a fairer system of redistribution was introduced, perhaps history will judge Gordon Brown more kindly than the electorate did. Now however, the clock has rewound itself and we find ourselves fighting the old battles again.

I have yet to work out how a very few individuals wrongly claiming benefits, given the millions that go unclaimed, can somehow be painted as the cause of all societies ills, when others can receive millions in bonuses? I read recently that RBS paid more in bonuses than it owes the UK Government, that was payments to individual employees simply for fulfilling their job description.

The LSX protesters are right to draw attention to what is happening and right to lay the responsibility at the door of the Stock Exchange, sadly St Paul's decision to close has cast them in a dubious light, let's hope that Father Christmas brings them what they are hoping for ........

22nd October 2011

Missed a couple of days blogging this week.

I have been travelling. First by train down to Brighton and then up to London and finally to Genoa.

When we travel together the resident critic has to use a wheelchair and so this week was an exercise in testing current attitudes to disabled passengers on trains, planes  buses and taxis.

We were generally delighted with the ease with which we were able to get about, as we usually use our own car it made quite a change, but it was not necessarily a change for the worse.

We had two trips through London at rush hour and the commuters were brilliant, courtesy and kindness all around.

The flight to Genoa was very comfortable and easy which was suprising given that when we arrived at Gatwick the departures board announced a two hour delay, which was then changed to the scheduled time when they found another plane.

Unfortunately a bit had fallen off the 'new' plane and had to be glued on again and so we had to sit on the tarmac waiting for the glue to dry!

We left an hour late after sitting in an increasingly  uncomfortably warm cabin.

But once in the air the G&T certainly helped to cool us down.

In London I missed the campers in St Pauls churchyard but couldn't help wonder what on earth was going on.

The campers are campaigning to close, challenge, disrupt or just draw attention to the Stock Exchange?

The Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral asked the police to withdraw and appeared generally to welcome the campers, then the Dean announces that the Cathedral has closed for the first time since the Blitz and blames the campers' creating a risk to the public, the worshippers and the 'pilgrims' despite the fact that groups of a 'hundred' can still attend for weddings?

Having worked in a Cathedral myself I rather thought that this particular crisis had the marks of the Chinese word for crisis which, apparently, means both risk and opportunity.

I rather think the risk has been overstated, apparently the campers have been advised by the fire brigade and are taking their advice and anyway they are right next door to Black's camping shop so handily placed for everything from billy cans (if not Billy Bragg, who apparently is in Dublin) to sleeping bags.

But I obviously don't know all if indeed  I know any of the facts and the Dean might be right, after all he used to be Bishop of the Isle of Man and knows a thing or two about risk, given the TT and Birching.

But the opportunity, it seems to me to provide sanctuary, an honourable and ancient tradition whereby anyone, simply by grasping the door of the Church, can claim protection is an excellent one being acted out here by the protesters and apparently the Cathedral did ask the Police to draw back and they did.

So sanctuary was offered and received.

Some years ago I ran a pilgrimage in Birmingham during Holy Week where the pilgrims visited the City and re-enacted some of the events of the first Holy Week.

One event was overturning the money lenders tables.

So to re-enact this event I arranged a visit to the Stock Exchange.

The LSX campaign is an extraordinarily focussed attempt to draw attention to the fact that, as Bill Clinton once famously explained, it's the economy.

If we want to know why our society is in such a mess, is, as the PM states, broken, then all you have to do is follow the money ......

18th October 2011

It's a test of just how inclusive the big society really is. Travelling with a wheelchair certainly has its challenges. The booked assistance worked really well, apart from our being forgotten at Euston but the Train Manager rose to the occasion. Then we walked down to Kings Cross, Thameslink, managing to avoid manic commuters, rabid dogs and broken pavements, only to find that the last Brighton train had departed four years earlier, apparently we should have been at St Pancras! So back through the thronging crowd, past the Eurostar Terminal and onto the First Connect platform. Again the staff were great, helpful, courteous and got us onto the train, but there was no space for the wheelchair amidst the grimly determined strap hangers on the crowded train. It might be grim up North but travelling home at Eight at night after a hard day at work and paying a fortune to travel on an overcrowded train and then having to share the limited space with a wheelchair, it was a test of everyone's patience. So when we arrived in Brighton I expected a stampede for the doors, with us crushed in the rush. But surprisingly and refreshingly, No .... People stood back to allow us to get off the train. A cheery Station Attendant placed the ramp and Hey Ho, there we were, the first stage of our journey completed, so let's hear it for the commuters on the 16 43 City Thames Link to Brighton train a magnificent testament to the bigness of our society, maybe the 8 13 Brighton to Victoria won't be so bad after all on Wednesday morning? Now if First Connect could just lose a couple of seats and create some wheelchair spaces .........

15th October 2011

I have a confession to  make.

I have renewed my subscription and re-loaded The Times app. I know, but what can you do?

Personally I blame the in-house critic who has sooo missed her regular meetings with and reading of, Caitlin Moran's column.

Certainly the column has not let us down this morning ....... Go Caitlin!

I just hope that Cameron, Clegg, Osborne et al read it this morning, it won't make them weep but it just might make them think.

I suppose the thing is I got over myself.

I know all the arguments against News International and I largely agree with them but, apart from the fact that I am off to Genoa for six weeks as a Chaplain at the Church of the Holy Ghost (Piazza Marsala, if you are in Genoa a warm welcome awaits you), and the fact that English Newspapers cost three times the UK price in the Eurozone and are delivered to the ipad for a third of the UK cover price for the printed edition, the main reason I surrendered to what was probably always inevitable, was Liam Fox.

If we didn't have a free press he might have continued to act in a manner that was both high handed and unaccountable.

They do it because they think they can, think they can get away with it, think that no-one really cares, that it doesn't matter.

I guess that at least he wasn't seen wandering round St James's Park dropping secret documents into litter bins in a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy scenario.

But apart from the issues of defence security and the matter of acting with a duty of care to the people of this country, it now appears that Mr Fox's friend was given some £147, 000 by a consortium of right wing groups and by association that money would appear to be an attempt to secure influence.

However bad the Government, and for the poor and for the working man this Government is very bad news indeed, (see Caitlin Moran), it is essential that we have a free press, even one owned by the Murdoch family, to maintain pressure, to root out inappropriate behaviour, to hold to account and to shine a light on the murkier areas of activity, it is the only way that the truth has half a chance of prevailing rather than being the victim of weasel words and chiselling.

I have always read The Times, I began reading it when the front cover carried the personal columns, I suppose that I have got used to the editorial style, which despite the change of ownership, has remained consistent over the years, and I have relied on the Editorials and the columnists but more recently the separate supplement, The Game has become required reading on a Monday over my porridge.

So we are back again, Sport, Opinion, Headlines, it doesn't take long, but it keeps those politicians on their toes ...........

13th October 2011

The big society seems to have slipped down, if not off, David Cameron's agenda recently.

This could mean of course that this blog may have to be re designated and turn its attention to a wry look at other matters in the news.

It was interesting who picked up on the big society and who didn't.

My only contribution to a recent meeting of the Co-operative Party discussion on the big society was to observe that Mr Cameron would doubtless be delighted to know that we were discussing his spurious notion, if only to oppose and reject its principles, because it meant that he was setting the agenda.

As my biography indicates I have spent most of my adult working life either as a Clergyman in the Church of England or in the Charitable sector.

As such I believe that I am to some degree qualified to discuss the big society because I have worked in and with local communities around a range of ideas and issues from homelessness to unemployment. I was a founder member of Church Action on Poverty and have both established and managed a range of community projects in Yorkshire, Lancashire, the North East before taking on the leadership of a National Charity with community and volunteering activity across the United Kingdom.

Words can lose all meaning if they are used inappropriately or imbued by the person using them with a spurious meaning.

Mrs Thatcher on the steps of Downing Street in that famous film clip rehearsing the words of St Francis Prayer: Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury,pardon; where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy; pretty much rendered the prayer unprayable, which was quite and achievement.

And the big society?

Well if by big you mean inclusive, large, grand, significant, then the idea of a big society is undermined by the diminishing of people by a thousand small cuts.

So in this big society, the big people are those with large bank accounts, big bonuses and big tax cuts and their relative size is created not by making the big people bigger but by making the rest of us smaller.

And society, the concept which was challenged by Mrs Thatcher's claim that it didn't exist, well that too is undermined by the way that Mr Duncan Smith's emphasis on welfare undermines the truly big concept of social security.

The grand vision of Beveridge and Aneurin Bevan, of citizens feeling secure in their homes, their families and their jobs is watered down and becomes simply welfare which, of course is too close to farewell.

Yesterday in PM's questions the Prime Minister stated that the Government regretted the seventeen year high level of unemployment but that it was doing all it could to get people into work.

Cutting public expenditure?

Reducing Investment ?

Transferring jobs from the public to the private sector ?

It seems to this observer that little or nothing is actually being done, somehow we seem to have returned to the Thatcher view that the market rather than Mervyn is king and the economy like the weather cannot be controlled.

11th October 2011

It's hard to know where to start today.

The indefensible, apparently right wing, Defence Minister, Dr Fox who has confused his verities with his werrities.

The shocking figures showing the number of jobs lost in the public sector.

The equally scandalous reports that child poverty is in fact increasing in the UK.

The economist who forecast the recession who is apparently suggesting that it would be better as some have recomended, for debts to be written off and money given to individuals who will spend it to greater benefit.

Quoted in today's Guardian Professor Steve Keen suggests that: the key to averting or curtailing a second Great Depression is to reduce the levels of private debt, through a unilateral write-off, or jubilee.

So it might in fact be worth starting with two quotes from the Bible.

From the prophet Micah: do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.

And, from the Book Leviticus Chapter 25 vv 39-41:

   ‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves. ⁴⁰ They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property of their ancestors.

Theology will not convince everyone. Not every one is religious or believes in God. But every one does have a theory to live by and which supports their views and opinions.

Sometimes an individuals ethical framework will be based on a humanist world view.

Politicians of right and left will have a theory which is shaped by their own individual value system.

Whatever drives a persons view there will always be an outcome in terms of policies, actions and moral behaviour.

Micah predicted the downfall of Jerusalem. He stated flatly that the city was doomed because its regeneration was financed by dishonest business practices. These business practices impoverished the city’s citizens.

Some bells ringing there?

The idea of a Jubilee is written into the text of the Jewish Scripture, it appears to have been placed there for two main reasons, the first, because the theology states that nobody 'OWNS' anything, because the land belongs to God, it is the land of God's promise, we live in it by God's grace.

The second because, human nature being what it is, some will prosper and some will fall back, so, in order to ensure that the land holdings of each of the tribes of Israel is secured, every fifty years, each man's patrinomy will be returned to him.

An idealistic but powerful vision which appeals to the poor more than millionaires or billionaires or trillionaires.

It seems that not only the UK, but the entire western world, has lost its way.

The con-dem Government has decided that reducing the national debt is the only way forward, so with what are proving to be weasel words, it is driving its policies forward and the poor are paying an ever higher price.

There will be no Jubilee that is certain, but perhaps a little justice and mercy wouldn't go amiss?

8th October 2011

This week Billy Bragg was member of the Question Time Panel.

He came up with a statistic and a proposal for spending the £75 Billion of QE2.

His statistic was that it amounts to about £4000 per person/household.

His proposal was that each household should receive that amount to spend as they choose, thereby ensuring that the money is spent in the local economy rather than locked up in UK Banks.

Unsurprisingly his proposal seemed pretty popular with the audience.

Baroness Warsi demonstrated how the economy needs two levers, unfortunately she appeared to be miming the part of a bar maid on East Enders. Apparently QE2 is OK because it has been introduced by George Osborne whom we can trust rather Gordon Brown whom we couldn't.

I have mentioned in this blog that some years ago I proposed this idea when I worked for a Government Task Force in Birmingham, it was a serious proposal, as I am sure Billy Bragg's was, and after the laughter of my colleagues had subsided the Head of the Task Force Initiative appeared to give the idea some serious consideration before deciding it was too risky.

But what is the risk? and is it less of a risk than giving the money to the Bankers?

My experience of Bankers is not an especially good one.

Some years ago I had the privilege of spending a semester at an American College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Every day I walked to 'school' through Harvard Yard to Brattle Street where the Episcopal Divinity School was located.

Before we left the Pound was in free fall against the dollar and so I took advice from a friend who was a banker, he put me in touch with an expert of foreign exchange, well he said things won't get worse than they are, in fact they can only improve, so hold on to your sterling just now and exchange it when you are close to leaving.

The pound dropped even further and when I did exchange my money I was roughly 10 cents in the pound worse off, receiving a dollar for every pound.

So with my much reduced capital which had to last me and my family, six of us in total, for six months in America, I opened an account at a Bank in Harvard Square and deposited my cheque.

Once our travel money had evaporated and the cheque had cleared I went to the Bank and tried to cash a cheque.

There is no money in this account, I was told by the teller. Clearly she was not a fortune teller in fact I had no fortune, it had disappeared.

But, I said, I have only just deposited a cheque, not in this bank you haven't, but I deposited it with you I exclaimed, panic rising in my voice.

I've never seen you before, she said flatly.

At the interview with the manager of the bank, thankfully I had kept the receipt, I shared the view that I thought that in America people came in off the street and robbed the bank, not the other way round.

I look forward to Billy Bragg turning his idea into a song  about who are the bank robbers and who are the robbed.

I just hope that Mervyn King keeps the receipt.

6th October 2011

This week I read my meter.

For saving the Gas Board (there's a give away) the cost of sending someone to read my meter I now do that job along with emptying my own dust bin and doing my own recycling.

My reward 100 Nectar Points.

Along side the Nectar  Points for which I have sold my soul, my Gas Bill has gone up by £20 a month for the second time since I last read my meter.

I was paying £10 a month in February it's now £50.

Then I went to the Supermarket.

When I got back to the car my in house critic observed that for all the years she did the shopping, raised the children etc she was aware that she spent her days looking harassed now I am the one with the harassed look as I rush back to the car with my bags of shopping.

Not surprising I said, look what I have bought, guess the cost, £40 she said, wrong I replied £63.

I actually think prices were going up as I was filling my basket, it is truly scary.

Now my in-house critic has drawn my attention to the fact that although I claim that this is a wry look at the big society I am becoming both more political and less wry as time passes.

But I say that is not surprising.

Mr Cameron's speech at the Tory Conference was depressingly predictable.

Blame Labour for the debt. Refuse to change your policy. Tell people to pay off their credit cards. All the while keep your fingers crossed behind your back.

Who is going to tell Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne that their plan is not working and will they listen?

Well the newspapers for one and the IMF for another.

It strikes me whenever I hear the speeches, that we have a Government that just seems   to be out of its depth.

I imagine them occasionally ducking under their desks to read their economic primers and then sitting back up to repeat the definitions.

But they are not taking part in a debating class at Eton they are supposed to be Governing a country.

The reason that spending is going down and credit card debts are going up is that people are paying for necessities, food, fuel, even mortgages are being paid, by credit card, just stand in any supermarket check out queue and you can't but help noticing what is happening.

When I was at school, I didn't go to Eton, I went to a school in central Manchester, my journey home was by train.

I used to catch the train at the Manchester Central railway station.

The Station was built between 1875 and 1880 by a joint collaboration between the Great Northern Railway, the Midland Railway and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway it was opened on the 1st July 1880.

As a youngster I thought of it as one of the wonders of the world with its huge wrought-iron and glass ceiling with no intermediate supporting pillars, under the single roof the station was a huge dusty dirty space full of people bustling to and from work and school and shopping.

It continued to function as a Station providing local services finally closing to passengers on 5th May 1969, now it is a conference centre and Arena.

Watching the news last night I recognised the background, it somehow seemed to act as a metaphor for how the world has changed and not necessarily for the better, perhaps as he redrafted his speech Mr Cameron might have reflected that the last train to Prosperity has left the station and it is going to be a long wait for the next, if it ever comes.

4th October 2011

Any society is shaped by its Government.

If politicians act with justice then society will be enriched and not only society at large but the lives of
individuals and families.

But sometimes Government's need to be challenged to act justly.

The broad church that is the conservative party sends out a mix of confusing messages pro and anti Europe, human rights, welfare, education, health care and taxation.

The extreme right of the party makes its hysterical demands and is largely unelectable but the 'one society' conservatives on the other extreme can from time to time sound quite convincing to some people which is what makes it dangerous.

Which is why civil society must be built on a broad alliance of community organisations, religious groups, political parties, trades unions and others.

We can all remember that marvellous moment when Tony Blair was barracked by the WI it was the scariest moment of his Prime Minister-ship and only lacked the soundtrack of Jerusalem to be complete.

At a meeting this morning I heard about the work of The Mothers Union as the speaker put it not quite the WI with prayers rather than Jerusalem.

One particular project run by the MU appealed to me.

Each year the organisation sends handwritten Christmas cards to prisoners in young offenders institutions.

Often that card is the only card a young person will receive.

Having been stripped of their own clothes at the beginning of their sentence and received a number in place of their name the card they receive is a reminder to them that someone knows where they are and that their name is made to count.

Of course the Mothers Union is not the only agency that practices small acts of kindness, they are far more common than people realise.

I have always enjoyed the story told of Trevor Huddlestone, when he was a parish priest  in Soweto, doffing his cap to Desmond Tutu's mother.

That act of respect was a small act of kindness in itself, acknowledging the existence of the mother as a fellow human being. This inspired Desmond Tutu's vocation and within it lay the seeds of the collapse of Apartheid.

In families children and grandchildren can be the most common source of such acts of kindness and elders can be the beneficiaries but it works both ways.

As the party conference season draws to a close in Manchester it is worth reflecting on the kind of society we want and the steps, both personal and political, we need to take to achieve that society.

Kindness is a pretty soft word but where would we be without it?

2nd October 2011

I have actually met both of the Milliband Brothers.

My meeting with Milliband the elder was at a New Labour bash at Somerset House.

He criticised me for wearing a blue tie.

Polite laughter from all the creeps gather round who were relieved that they had chosen the red tie or were wearing the black tie.

I was not amused because I had been given the tie by a friend who had apparently acquired it from a Saudi Prince and I thought it rather smart I was even less amused when later that evening I spilt some soup on it and rather ruined it.

I even suspected that Milliband the elder had jogged my elbow on purpose because he didn’t like my tie.

Milliband the elder struck me as a rather confident, possibly overconfident, man who knew that his career was moving in the right direction and that it was only a matter of time before he was running things.

Later he became Foreign Secretary and impressed Mrs Clinton.

Milliband the younger spoke at a meeting of Chief Executives of Charities and reassured us how important we all were and how crucial the work our charities were doing was in the scheme of things.

I wasn’t wearing a tie that night.

So I asked him if that was true, why the Government wasn’t paying properly for the work.

He looked pained and I had a sense that even though he didn’t have an answer to the question what he really wanted to hear was positive comments from his audience rather that critical questions.

Now I am retired and a citizen of the Twilight Zone.

I doubt if I will meet either Milliband again or indeed any one else in Government or in Opposition.

But if I did my question would not be about ties or about paying charities properly for the services they provide to the communities they serve, my question would be do you actually understand what the role of an Opposition actually is.

The Labour Conference was an exercise in electioneering for an election that is still four years away.

We want the votes of Conservative voters.

What do we have to promise to do to get them, compliment them on their blue ties? Or answer their questions about the Meals on Wheels they used to deliver before the service was cut because of loss of funding?

No.

Opposition is about taking each policy proposal that emerges from the current con-dem Government and exposing it for what it is.

Forensically examining each policy, each statement, each green or white paper and demonstrating why it fails to address the crucial questions facing the country.

My meeting with Milliband the Elder was at a DfES reception for people sponsoring Academies, which is why pouring scorn on a blue tie was a bit inept I thought, but why is no-one from the Labour party now exposing why their Academy Policy was so different than that being proposed by Gove?

Ed Balls ties himself in knots over the economy, trying to convince Conservative voters that he can be trusted whilst not alienating Labour Voters by appearing too right wing, so he comes across all coalition lite.

But he is a co-op party sponsored MP.

Right there he has a better model for an economy that will work on behalf of all its stakeholders.

Community/member ownership. Mutuality. Fair trade. Local Sourcing.

This Government is truly shocking and its policies partisan in the extreme.

It is now the job of the Labour Party under Ed Milliband to oppose it.