16th December 2013

The Annual Christmas Newsletter is being written, usually by the lady of the house, and received by her famously competitive friends who read it aloud through gritted teeth.

Dear Everyone, 

Well, what a year it has been and no sooner than we returned from our last sortie on Eurostar it is time to start buying presents and sending cards.

I was so pleased to see that How to spend it, was neatly tucked into our FT this weekend, such lovely things and so reasonable, it makes choosing what one wants from Santa so much less taxing.

Well we do hope that your year has been almost as good as ours.

2013 has seen one success after another as the whole family has seemed to benefit from the improvements now that Plan A is working. 

Of course Rupert always said that cutting back on Welfare will encourage people into working again and reducing immigration will mean that the jobs are there for hard working people if they get off their bottoms.

Reducing tax helps and means that this year at least we can afford a few little luxuries to make the season more enjoyable.

Work hard and play hard, as Rupert says.

Well the children are keeping up their studies as you might expect.

We had such high hopes for Philomena, and we're not disappointed, her nine A levels included a couple of *'s and the approaches from Oxford and Cambridge have been so tempting but she will not be dissuaded it's been an ambition since she designed her first Skyscraper and won the competition beating off all the famous names, so it's off to Harvard, twelve is young I know but she will fly home for the weekends, at least until she's settled.

Simon, such a darling, has had an offer from Harrow but is more tempted with Eton, after all if he is serious about a career in Politics it seems the right background these days. He did toy with applying to a free school that has opened nearby, but Rupert bumped into Michael G and after that conversation there was no argument. 

With his Latin A* Level he could be the next Mayor of London.

Darcy is continuing with his Mandarin. It was a big ask for the staff at his primary school but the Chinese Tutor we hired has been amazed at the progress he has made, fluent Mandarin at six is quite an achievement, he is looking ahead, a gap year before Eton spent in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies should give him an extra push.

Of course, there has to be a black sheep in every family, but little Tarquin is always aiming high. After all if you're going to be a black sheep you might as well be the blackest sheep you can.

After spending so long in his crib listening to punk rock versions of nursery rhymes it's hardly surprising that his first album is climbing the charts.

He spends so much time on his cell talking with his Homeys but hopefully he will have got it out of his system by the time he gets to Prep School.

Rupert is so busy with his various projects, dashing here and there and helping his friends in high places ( can't name name's I'm afraid but you know who) to keep their plans on track. After all too much socialist non-sense for too long has simply made people too dependent.

As he always reminds the children, we've had to work for what we've got, and all that Bullingdon Club business it wasn't easy keeping up whilst keeping the drink down.

This year we've hardly managed time off, just one long weekend on the Island, such a shame the Caribbean is so wonderful at this time of year.

And as for me?

Well I just try to keep things together so that home feels like home, when the children are back for the holidays. I keep the staff on their toes. Make sure that the larder is well stocked and the Chef is keeping up to date with the latest culinary developments. My latest jewellery collection is about to be unveiled. My interior decorating business keeps me busy. The book is coming along and my publishers are keen to catch the Christmas Market but worry that we may have left it a tad late, but with Kindle it can be downloaded instantly, so I tell them not to fret.

Oh well, must dash, time to organise the charity buffet ..... as poor little Jesus so wisely said, the poor, they're with you always ..........

4th December 2013

Viewed from the Scottish side, across the Solway, England seems to be a distant land.

In practise door to door to the hotel at Powfoot it is a little less than thirty miles in distance and using the M6 and the dual carriageway, by-passing Gretna and Annan, about half an hour in travel time.

It may well soon seem much further.

It could well be another country, independent, with its own Parliament, its own currency and its own laws.

It could be that in due course the Reivers will return. Exercising their own rule over the debatable lands.

As happens on the border between North and South in Ireland goods that attract varying levels of taxation from one side of the border to the other will be sold openly or covertly at the Markets on either side.

That could see the renaissance of Gretna Market.

The Solway could even echo with the sound of high speed launches running the gauntlet of the customs boats patrolling the changeable waters.

And on one side an emasculated Union Jack will the face the Saltire on the other.

The passion to control your own destiny, to take charge of your own future is driving independence movements from East to West, Slovakia in the East to Catalan in Spain.

Scottish Nationalism and the independence campaign is part of a wider nationalist aspiration, if it happens its impact on the geographical area known as North Britain will be significant.

And its all happening on the Unionist watch.

Under David Cameron leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party the desire for independence in Scotland will doubtlessly be answered by similar calls from Wales, from Cornwall and elsewhere.

In many ways it makes sense.

Speaking recently to an English friend permanently resident in Scotland, she described the NHS in Scotland as second to none. Our own experience confirms this. And interestingly the advice and support we received during a critical time whilst on holiday in Scotland,  dismissed by the specialists in England, has been proven to be correct.

If a newly elected Scottish Government is able to model itself on Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Norway it could start to pull away, economically, socially and culturally from its southern neighbour.

Grangemouth may well prove to be another signifier.

How a Scottish Parliament will, or would have, addressed the sharp issues surrounding the face off between a workforce and the owner of the business, behaving for all the world like a Victorian Magnate, locking the gates and slipping the key into the pocket of his waistcoat.

For the First Minister that must have been a testing time and the Unions acceptance of changing work and employment practises must have been extremely welcome, but it was a warning to both sides that these huge enterprises belong in the widest sense under public rather than private control simply because they require management that recognises that they are a public good and anything that threatens the benefits that arise constitute a moral hazard, whether it is aggressive union practises or take it or leave attitudes on the part of management.

With social care and education already different north of the border Scotland has been carefully marking out its territory for some years, the changes that follow independence will gradually shape the country but someone visiting today, five years or ten years from now will I suspect begin to see a nation focused on understanding and implementing the ideal of the common good. A big society in a small country.

And England will have to take notice and learn how to live differently.

21st November 2011

Just when you thought that it couldn't get any worse, it does.

The New CEO of the Co-op must wonder what he did to deserve this.

I can only admire him for his confidence and positive rhetoric.

But privately .... who knows?

I am at the other end of the scale in the Co-op.

I am a member and an Area Committee Member, this is the first tier in the democratic structure, from the Area Committee members can be elected, by other Area Committee Members, to a Regional Board and from there to the Group Board.

This was the path taken by The Reverend Flowers.

In order to ensure that there is a level of competence committee and board members are required to undertake education and to hold a certificate in Co-operation.

Now in the wake of recent events the Governance of the Co-op is to be reviewed.

In addition to the CWS, I am a customer/member of the Energy Co-op, The Co-op Bank and The Phonecoop.

I believe in co-operation and mutuality I am also by nature and conviction a socialist.

But I see two things happening at the present time that cause me to review what co-operation might achieve and who should be co-operating.

The first is the success of the John Lewis Partnership which is an employee co-operative (partnership).

If the Rochdale Pioneers had so imagined it and if they had had employees, it might have occurred to them all those years ago that the basic partnership was between the employees of the enterprise rather than the customers.

In practise the consumer co-op is a clunky mechanism, first there is the inertia of the wider membership, on both elections when I was 'voted' onto the Area Committee no election was required because there were too few nominees and the number who actually voted was very low. Members meetings are generally poorly attended. And this year of course the Dividend has not been paid because there is no surplus to distribute.

An employee Co-operative by definition has an active  membership, although some will be more active than others, you only have to visit a John Lewis or Waitrose store to see the enthusiasm of the staff.

The second,  is a view that, the key issue facing poor people in Rochdale was food, which was costly to buy, often adulterated and buying it meant going into debt in the company store which was owned by the factory or Mill where you worked and where sometimes you were paid in vouchers only redeemable in the company store.

Food is still an issue of course, people facing a choice between heating and eating, the rise of Food Banks, Food security and food price inflation mean that food is still expensive but the Co-op finds itself in a race to the bottom, led by supermarkets with deep pockets, as they try to discount their way in a market dominated by some major players.

It may be that the hubristic charge to expand the business by taking over other co-ops, mutuals and businesses which has been the hallmark of the past few years should now be reversed.

In my budgeting, energy is a key expenditure and the mutual/co-op model is helping me exercise some control of  my budget. The next major expenditure is communication and again the co-op model appears to work exceptionally well, ensuring that costs for telephony and internet access can be managed.

So my thought is that those charged with responsibility to advise and support the new CEO should reinforce the positive value of a local as opposed to a national presence, the success of smaller co-ops bears this out, that the co-op model should be employed where the 'shoe is pinching for people' (it is tragic that one major casualty of the Bank's problems was the Insurance Business a classic example of where co-operation was of immediate benefit to customers) and that the way to re-energise the movement is change the rules in order to enable the employees of the Co-op to become the owners of the business not the customers.

12th November 2013

Before the 'Big Society' there were 'Active Communities'.

Or at least an expressed desire on the part of New Labour that communities should be encouraged to become active.

That initiative coincided with my taking on the role of Chief Executive of a charity dedicated to encouraging exactly that, active communities.

The charity was founded during the First World War by an Army Chaplain in Belgium and in the immediate post war years armed with the communion role from Talbot House, what today we might call a data base, he contacted all those on the role and encouraged them to become active in building a better society in response to the fact that they had survived and in memory of their fallen comrades.

The charity continues to this day trying to build better communities.

Unfortunately my approaches to the active communities unit fell on deaf ears, stony ground and ignorance of the charity which always aimed to do good by stealth, as the founder declared, do something useful every day, but don't get found out.

Also because it was almost a hundred years old it wasn't new or novel and of course Mr Blair always liked things to be new, as in New Labour.

I used to tell a joke about Tony Blair quizzing St Peter at the pearly gated entrance to heaven, welcome Mr Blair says St Peter, aah, says Mr Blair I was just wondering before I glottal stop by, this is the New Heaven isn't it?

Eventually active communities fell by the wayside of politics to be followed in turn by the Big Society, which has it seemed followed it into oblivion.

Now it seems, from Mr Cameron's recently reported speech, we are looking forward to the efficiency of the Small State.

Small Stateism is now the way forward.

More efficient and needing less tax pounds to run.

It means of course that there will be less folk tied up in running it. But, according to the speech less managers means more Doctors.

The problem with politics and politicians is that too often rhetoric replaces reality. Reality is what we experience as we struggle with the business of managing the indoor critic's MS, on a daily basis.

Sitting in the waiting room yesterday waiting for our appointment with the Neurologist I read an article in Enable Magazine about the effect of Government cuts on the disabled.

It quoted Mr Cameron: 'Fairness means giving money to help the poorest in society. People who are sick, who are vulnerable, who are elderly - I want you to know we will always look after you. That's the sign of a civilised society'.

Was Mr Duncan Smith present for this speech I wonder?

Since making that speech in 2010, the disabled as a group have seen Disabled Living Allowance replaced with Personal Independence Payments, ATOS assessments introduced and the bedroom tax, resulting in a £500M drop in global income for those relying on the extra support needed to cope with their disabilities, whilst Local Authority care budgets have been cut by £2bn.

Fair?

Looked after?

Civilised?

Active Communities were deactivated, the big society has been reduced to the small state.

Promises have been broken.

5th November 2013

There are two names synonymous with radical change in the UK.

Robin Hood, Jim Wallis' favourite historical British character, as he told me when I interviewed him for BBC Radio Newcastle some years ago, who robbed the rich to give to the poor.

In fact on that visit to the UK Jim advised me that he had taken a detour in order to visit Sherwood Forest.

What he would make of the actions of the con-dems its fairly easy to imagine, but the real or imagined actions of Robin Hood hold out the possibility that in time good will prevail and the unjust receive their just deserts, so we can only hope.

The other name is of course Guy Fawkes, sometimes described as the only person to enter the House of Commons with honourable intentions.

Today we remember the Fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot.

It just so happens that it is also my mothers birthday, who had she lived would now be 97, sadly she died in 1980 of secondary cancer following an earlier diagnosis of and surgery for, Breast Cancer, I still miss her.

Today is also the wedding anniversary of my youngest daughter, so happy anniversary to her and her husband.

It can be useful to mark these personal and family anniversaries with what is happening in the wider or 'bigger' society. A way of taking the temperature of the world we inhabit with its challenges, its gifts and its blessings.

Certainly the present Government represents to a greater degree than any before, the challenges.

Shades of Thatcherism as we privatise more, sell off our social housing, invest in a potentially inflationary policy of housing subsidy and seek to cap benefits so that the poorest in our society bear the greatest burden of addressing the long term structural inequalities built into the fabric of our society.

In effect robbing the poor.

So much has been and is being written to challenge the negative impact of policies that in effect simply reward those at the top. The reason that so much is written and so many campaigns are launched is because we know who ate and are eating the pies, leaving just crumbs to fall from the rich man's table.

But the real tragedy of the these years of austerity (at least for some) is that it was not, and is not necessary.

A recent report demonstrating the richness and economic benefit arising from those who come to make their home here, completely undermining the false claim that immigration is always negative.

If money was fairly and evenly distributed throughout society then we would all be so much better off than some of us are, even if others might feel that the rewards they receive for their work could be higher. But a recognition that there should be a relationship between the highest paid and the poorest in any company, without the need for the Government to subside via the tax system, employers who pay poorly

Comparing the society in which I am growing old compared with the one in which I grew up is almost impossible, there is no comparison, shopping with my mother in 1950's Britain with rationing and ration cards, eking out the house keeping as best she could in order to feed her family, was soul destroying.

But there was community, there were networks of family support and over time we began to prosper as a family as society generally began to benefit from the great vision of social justice, of public ownership, of health care free at the point of delivery introduced by the first Labour Government.

Now, that system is being consciously and actively dismantled giving rise to increased pressures imposed through changes to the benefits system, job losses and the high cost of buying and heating a home.

For the thousands who now have to resort to food banks to feed their families even the 1950's, that previous decade of austerity, would appear to be, halcyon days.

Nye Bevan fought the 1945 general election on a programme which would effectively lead to the 'complete, political extinction of the Tory Party'.

His vision was for a society built on justice in which working people had power and in which the individualistic competitive society based on capitalist hedonism was replaced with socialism.

It was about the test of what makes a good society, it has been well characterised as the 'Kingdom of Bevan'.

On Thursday a new co-op will open in a new development opposite where I live.

It is a measure of the potential to continue to hold onto that vision of a better society promoting the 'common good' that my mother would have recognised the co-op as not only a place to do her family shopping but one in which , as an owner, she had a personal and valuable stake, represented by the 'Divi'.

So as Robin Hood continues to inspire and Guy Fawkes continues to challenge we must continue to hold out for the possibility of changing society for the better, as The Tunes sang, Truth, Justice and the Mancunian Way.

27th October 2013

Our house.

Because of my job we have always lived in fairly large houses, after all Vicarages have to be of a certain size, with reception rooms (to hold meetings) and dining rooms (to entertain) and studies (to study in).

Now we live in a much smaller house.

It is a modern cottage, twenty years old.

It is insulated (roof space and cavity walls) and it is much cheaper to maintain than a big, old, drafty  vicarage.

But it still has to be heated.

So we still have to buy energy as well as eat, all paid for out of the pension.

We are lucky because so far we have not had to make a choice between eating and heating but an increasing number of people will be making that choice this winter.

Our energy supply system is broken.

But this Government seems to have no plans to fix it, so even though wholesale prices have been pretty stable, retail prices have continued to rise.

Faced with having to fork out increasingly large monthly payments to British Gas I changed my energy supplier to Co-op Energy. I did it in the hope that I might see a saving but also because if I was forced to pay somebody for Gas and Electricity I would rather pay the co-op than a public utility that has been privatised.

Politically energy is very much the theme of the day.

Whether Labour can improve the current dysfunctional system I don't know but I do know that the con-dems shrill rhetoric about competition simply won't wash.

The fact is that when the public utilities were sold by Margaret Thatcher's Government, most of them went on to be owned by foreign investors and Governments.

Quite why it is not OK for the British Government to own its own energy supply but it is OK for France and Germany to own it, I do not understand.

But the longer this debate goes on, and the shriller it becomes as the election gets closer, it will become increasingly clear that we are being faced with a choice between ideologies.

The Tory Party and its Lib-Dem allies simply rehearse again and again the ideological rhetoric of private, private, private, although the irony of their proposed sale of Hinkley Point to a French/Chinese consortium which is in fact public. public, public, but just not British public, seems to have escaped them.

Under the first ideological Tory Government as under this one, Britain has become very good indeed at exporting.

We have exported the ownership of Energy, Water, Car Manufacture, Steel Manufacture, along with a range of other goods and services whilst claiming in an Alice in Wonderland kind of way that we are not doing what we clearly are doing.

Yes, cars made in the UK are being exported in increasing numbers to the rest of Europe, but the owners of those companies are based in Japan and India.

Recently driving through Shap village in Cumbria I passed the entrance to the Shap Quarries, the notice board at the entrance announced Tata, and they weren't saying goodbye!

If we are saying that the management of public utilities are always held in thrall by the Unions and that private ownership guarantees better management and improved outputs (The argument put forward in response to the closure and re-opening of Grangemouth Refinery) then surely the best way to resolve that is to address the critical issues rather than flogging everything off to the lowest bidder.

So as I settle in to battle through another long cold Cumbrian Winter I shall toast my toes at the Gas Fire and wash my dishes in the hot water and dry my smalls on the heated radiator happy in the knowledge that I actually own the company that supplies my energy because it is a consumer co-op and I am a consumer.

24th October 2013

This has been the longest break between blog posts ever.

Why the silence?

The answer to that gives rise to some interesting thoughts about the National Health Service, the way that it is organised, car parking and the existence of God.

The indoor critic had to have surgery and was in hospital for two nights after the operation which was a fairly major intervention.

We were told that it was in order to limit the risk of MRSA!

Right!

At a cost of around £250 a night to stay in hospital compared with the cost of a district nurse I suspect I know the real reason and, to make it a better bargain still, I come free and can bring the patient back when the drain needs taking out or if other attention is required.

Still I didn't mind because I wanted her home and she's happier at home so whatever the reason the outcome was pretty much what we wanted.

Recovery will take time and there will be follow ups to be done but at least we can look forward and she didn't contract MRSA and as she observed, they don't serve G&T's in Ward 10.

Despite feeling deflated by the events of the past few weeks and thinking if I had a faith I would have lost it by now I found myself in an unusual debate with God as I headed into the Hospital to collect the patient.

As well as the surgery which was necessary the patient has to use a wheelchair to get around and had the chariot with her in the ward.

When I approached the hospital I found myself thinking about the parking situation I would encounter.

Routinely we have to arrive an hour early for appointments to be sure of parking and I'm sure that blood pressure increases accordingly.

So as I drove through Carlisle on a cold wet October morning I found myself offering a prayer for parking in a disabled space in the parking area adjacent to the main doors.

The prayer took the form of an Abrahamic negotiation. 

So you’re Almighty, All Seeing, All Knowing, All Encompassing. You created everything and look after the sparrows. 

You are, so they say, Beneficent?

Well the thing is I offered I will believe that all that is true if and when I drive straight into a disabled parking space right by the Main Entrance so the indoor critic doesn't get cold or wet between leaving the hospital and getting to the car.

Of course the story has a happy ending and God and I are still friends.

I wonder, could Richard Dawkins have managed that?

3rd October 2013

So the big society came and went.

Not much mention of it in Manchester.

Seems that stomachs, power cuts and Neets were in vogue.

Not much policy either. Even though the recovery is still some way off achieving growth levels last seen before the bankers ate all the pies and created an international pie shortage.

Indeed we are told that the problem is being solved, just another five years of austerity, five years of further attacks on the poorest in our society, five years of less welfare and lower taxes for the wealthy and gosh!

We'll all be feeling better.

So what has the party conference season taught us?

Not very much it seems.

Other than to recognise a clearer difference now between the offers on the table.

Woolly old liberals in their sandals in Glasgow managed to put on a show, even though, like Methodists, there are fewer of them than ever.

The leadership spoke defiantly about how, with their 9% of support and just a handful of MP's, they should now be judged as a party of Government?

Their big offer was free lunches for schoolchildren. But given that in terms of support they now come fourth after UKIP it was hard to see how their claim could be taken seriously, like a desperate suitor the leaders speech was little more than drawing back the duvet to see who might snuggle in with him.

In Manchester it became clear that there is little new on offer, the Eton Mess will continue to be served up in the hope that we will all somehow eventually feel a bit better and  then elect the Tories outright to continue to do what they always seem to refer to as 'the right thing' unless of course we all wise up and realise that it is a slip of the tongue and what Mr Cameron really means to say is 'right wing'.

Because that is the offer being made, less government, corn for the rich and chaff for the poor.

The minimum wage has slipped behind inflation, there are increasing numbers of people on benefits who are working which means that the government is effectively subsidising employers and forfeiting tax income which when inflation is factored in becomes a triple whammy for the poorest and an unacknowledged benefit for others.

And, as the Tories introduce policies not thought possible by the Thatcher and Major administrations the rhetoric of disdain is used to decry the 'socialism' of the Labour leader.

The Daily Mail has taken the initiative seeking to damn Milliband by association with his Father.

Well, all that anyone can sensibly do, is seek to make their vote count and remember that, as the cost of living has risen, (inflation), so the average income has been reduced in order to reward the shareholders an directors of businesses by increasing dividends.

There are societies where the option for the poor determines the policies pursued by Governments, societies where justice is seen as a greater good than profit, surely that is the kind of society we wish to become?

26th September 2013

The usual rhetorical question is usually: Is the Pope still Catholic?

Now a new rhetorical question has been posed. Is the Labour Party still Socialist?

The answer is less obvious, the question less rhetorical, but after Brighton it seems that Socialism which we thought His Holiness Pope Tony has abolished along with Clause 5, might just be alive and well.

I met Ed Milliband over a private dinner, hosted by Community Service Volunteers for CE's of Voluntary Organisations.

I have to say I liked what I saw, and still like what I see on the TV.

I changed my energy supplier from British Gas to Co-op Energy, the change has saved me a considerable amount of money each month, the service is efficient and I get extra Dividend when I read my own meter.

The theory behind privatisation was that competition, market forces, drive down prices.

In point of fact prices have continued to rise and the market has been opened to companies based in Europe so not only are we importing our energy but the profits are being exported.

I remember in the late 70's, with three young children in the midst of a three day week, sitting in a cold dark Vicarage with a car spotlight hooked up to an old battery providing light during another blackout.

Then it was the miners who were blamed, now the power suppliers, who have their hands on the switch, who will thrust us into darkness on a whim, because they can and so that as the miners brought down the Heath Government they can try to achieve the same result over the new Labour Government in 2015.

Of course we await the blether of the con part of the con-dems, as the Tories hold their Conference in Manchester.

Of course its pretty clear what will be said and in what language, but securing energy and building homes is clearly the political priority for the next Government, it's just that con-dem Tories are choosing to cross the greasy palms of banks, builder and estate agents with money which it seems even the new Governor of the Bank of England has cautioned against, because of the risk of simply fuelling house price inflation and creating an unsustainable bubble or subsidising the energy companies who say they cannot afford to invest in new power stations.

So either we continue to trust capitalism to deliver social goals or we get a grip and invite all sectors of society to work together for, what in the Churches, we call, 'The Common Good'.

Its all in the detail.

It always is.

Recently my Doctor made an appointment for me at the hospital.

For various reasons I decided not to attend the appointment and rang to cancel, I was asked for my booking reference and password.

Haven't got one I said, have an NHS Number, No I was told, that won't do, I was referred to the first three page letter I received before the second three page letter, and there it was, well, OK a booking reference makes sense, but I had been given a password, which I must apparently always use when I contact the NHS.

Why I asked? another rhetorical question when it dawned on me!

Of course! this is all part of the preparation for V Day, as in V for Virgin not victory, when Branson rules, NOT ok! If you haven't got your password you won't get in, or you'll have to pay up front like in America.

It won't be long before your Virgin Health Credit Card will be in your wallet along with your Virgin Travel Card and your Virgin Mates Card and your allocated password will cover all eventualities, as long as you can remember it.

So we have a bold new vision of a socialist future in which Health will be free at the point of delivery, energy will be affordable and houses will available to buy or rent, with as many rooms as you want, without a surcharge.

Or remain condemned to falling living standards, rising prices, whilst held in thrall to the Capitalist overlords of the Universe.

As my dad once observed, the reason you're six foot whilst your grandfather was five feet two is socialism, free milk and orange juice.

It's the spirit of '45 all over again.

19th September 2013

As Nick Clegg tries to convince us (himself?) that the Dem half of the con-dems is a natural party of Government, all three of them, they could fit into a 'phone box in Downing Street and let No 10 to bring in a bit of cash!

Watching the performance as he tries to lure Labour into a new movie Coalition: The Sequel, I was reminded of a story about George Bernard Shaw.

Apparently at a dinner party he asked one of the female guests if she would sleep with him for 2000 guineas, after a brief consideration of the proposition she agreed that she could.

He then asked whether she would sleep with him for 200 guineas.

What do you take me for? she asked.

That has been established he replied, we are now negotiating the price!

Like many folk now, I tax my motorcycle on line.

The DVLA web site is excellent and does the work for you as it interrogates the relevant sites to establish that you are insured and that the MoT is up to date.

The licence arrives promptly and saves queueing in the Post Office or local DVLA office.

But it is not always thus.

I suppose that you should always be careful what you wish for (note for Nick Clegg).

But like many folk we find the evidence of obvious abuse of Disabled Parking Badges extremely annoying, especially when the spaces are full or a passing Chancellor is sitting in one eating his burger.

But they have tightened up on the application process. When the renewal notice arrived it said that you could complete the form on-line.

After two abortive attempts when the web site crashed, I got as far as uploading the indoor critics photo, no! that was a step too far.

So I thought I know, I'll save what I've done so far and try again later, I wrote the tracking number down and when I went back duly typed in the number.

This number is not recognised I was informed. Ouch!

It was only when I turned to the paper version pen in hand that I read that even if I completed the form on-line, I still had to supply various pieces of evidence to prove that she was she and send them BY SNAIL MAIL and not to forget the cheque.

So, actually completing the form on-line was actually a waste of time, and also, because when I finished it was raining, a waste of a sunny morning.

To me this experience is a warning that for some folk who may not be able to readily steer their way round a keyboard shifting all our contact with national and local government on-line could render them even more disabled than the they might already be. (Note for Mr Duncan Smith)

Surely the message is, if you are going to require all contact to be on-line then make sure that the programme you employ is fit for purpose?

11th September 2013

Have you noticed it too, or is just me?

The con-dem front bench appears to be getting plumper?

Certainly George Osborne is becoming what my granny would call, fuller in the face and the photographs of David Cameron sporting in the surf in Cornwall speak for themselves.

Of course the usual response when someone appears both plumper and still well groomed is: You're doing well.

And of course they are.

In fact the Chancellor is especially pleased with himself, the economy has turned the corner he tells us triumphantly, Plan A has worked.

Well sorry to rain on his parade but not here it hasn't.

Now we have the headline from today's newspapers that a Brazilian envoy for the UN has visited Britain, taken soundings, talked with folk and decided that the bed room tax has affected their human rights.

Indeed, so now in a fascinating example of what the churches call reverse mission, the third world has decided that in the not so rich west, i.e. 'up North', the policies of the con-dem's has in fact reduced living standards and effectively made people worse, rather than better, off.

Interestingly Vince Cable appears on the news telling us that George Osborne is not entirely right, the economy has not actually turned a corner, at least not yet, it's just going in the right direction.

But neither appear prepared to admit that living standards are in fact going down as the cost of living increases and benefits, both those paid to working families and those paid to those who are not working, are reduced.

So on we march towards 2015 and a chance to cast our verdict along with our vote on the con-dem parade of reduced benefits, hard hearted policies, condemnation of those who through ill health or disability cannot work alongside the constant refrain of the drum beat of austerity.

But this austerity is not shared, equally or equitably, I still have the image in my mind, of George Osborne in his Land Rover, eating his Big Mac whilst parked in a disabled parking space, that could account for the plumpness of course, fast food and short walks, as Jamie Oliver might advise, slow food and long walks are much better for the figure.

But that is really beside the point, Mr Gove visits a food bank and is reported commenting that if people have to rely on handouts to eat then they need to manage their money better, this from an ex journalist, now a minister living in a two income household.

There was a time a year or two back when I came across and started to develop the idea of the fourth world, that is the world of the poor, subsisting in the heart of first world nations, on an income comparable with third world citizens.

Meanwhile reports emerge that attitudes are shifting, people have finally, if not yet forcefully, rejected the dismissive and contemptuous attitudes expressed by the con-dem's and the survey of social attitudes suggests that people are recognising that the divisions emerging in society, fuelled once again by a housing boom, apparently engineered by the government, cannot be sustained.

I hope that at the party conferences the Liberals, as Mr Cable has started to do, begin to distance themselves from their coalition partners.

I hope also that Milliband and Balls take the opportunity to review their commitment to operating within the fiscal settlement being implemented by the Chancellor. It is really not necessary to continue to pursue austerity, which has strangled growth, when in fact investment in social development, improved wages and a more just social settlement will in itself stimulate growth as spending increases and demand rises.

Interesting that we have become so used to plastic that we often leave the house with just plastic in our wallets and purses, stop for fuel pay with plastic, shop in the supermarket pay with plastic, buy on online pay with plastic.

Well soon it seems, apart from that last example that's what we shall be doing as our paper money is transformed into plastic.

The give away comment on the BBC News last evening, following the report of those executives who left the corporation, (not with paper bags stuffed with plastic money but with plastic carrier bags stuffed with licence payers money), was at least it will be easier to wipe the red wine stains off a plastic fiver.

But not easier than rolling it up as a spill to to light your cigar.

Aah, how the first world lives.

Good job we've got the beady eye of the third world looking out for our interests.

6th September 2013

You know how it is.

The 'phone rings. You answer it. A voice mispronounces your name and tells you that your computer needs fixing, or asks to speak to you without first advising who it is that is calling, or if they are using a random call programme, simply hangs up because someone has answered before you.

Infuriating.

Various people have found ways of dealing with this, from call preference to one ingenious person who made his number a toll number so that the companies had to pay him for the privilege of calling him.

My response varies from the angry, to the humorous, to keeping them talking, to simply hanging up.

Even as I am writing this the 'phone rang and someone asked to speak to Geoff ....., when I asked what she wanted to speak with him about she said she was from the debt advisory line, hmm, again, thank you but I have enough debt to be going on with, thank you for your call.

What makes no sense is that if I needed health cover, or new windows, or a new boiler, or a car, or a therapist, or a conservatory, or debt advice, then I would initiate the search using yellow pages, the internet or by going shopping (unless I was in debt!).

How many people receiving a cold call about their energy supplier, missold insurance or whatever, would immediately think, Gosh! I never thought of that, how kind of you to call, yes, absolutely, here are my credit card details, help yourself to whatever you need.

It is incredibly annoying.

But then I think, well, it's a job, it means that someone is being paid, and well, that's a good thing, probably these days on commission only, which is a bad thing,  and then I feel slightly guilty for hanging up on them, but only slightly.

And, if they're from India, I think hmm, at least they're making Rupee!

It's the same with the unsolicited mail that comes pouring through the door.

All sorts of people who have paid for my address from someone else's data base, writing to me in envelopes that sometimes have my name, sometimes refer to me as the addressee or the occupier offering me a wide variety of goods, services and opportunities.

Most of it goes straight into the recycling bin.

The postman once asked me to be sure to tear it up so that he couldn't be accused of not delivering it, I did point out that he could tear it up himself and put it straight into the recycling rather than making the dog bark so fiercely and frightening himself (he was afraid of dogs!) but he said he couldn't.

Then every other Friday, it used to be weekly, comes the other side of this story when at some unearthly hour in the a.m. the recycling lorry pulls into our street and takes all the offending paper and the torn envelopes away to be turned into yet more offending paper and tearable envelopes, proudly bearing the logo, made from recycled paper.

Brilliant.

It's an almost perfect job creation scheme.

Post Men, Bin Men, workers at the recycling plant all kept in employment through the printing, distribution and circulation of pieces of completely useless paper.

If only I could be paid to be the key actor in this recycling drama then it would be perfect, so the dog barks, I go to the door, look at the junk mail, tear it all in half and put it straight into the bin, takes a minute each day and I hope that the people whose jobs now rely on my contribution, appreciate it.

Perhaps instead of leaving a Christmas box for the bin men and the postie in recognition of my contribution to their continuing employment,they could give me a Christmas gift?

30th August 2013

This blog has steadily moved away from its stated aim of offering a wry look at the 'big society'.

There are reasons for this.

One of course is that the idea of a big society has been lost in translation as the con-dems have moved further and further from the pretence that they are governing in the public interest.

As Suzanne Moore writes in the Guardian, the middle class is being squeezed, and it is being squeezed out of existence, in a reference to Karl Marx, she notes that he saw the decline of the middle class 'crushed by the logic of late capitalism' and so we have moved toward a caricature of society.

Not the big society but the broken society, asking as we struggle, who actually broke it?

The working class were declared redundant by the Thatcherite policies of the early eighties, now the middle class are being eroded, and soon we will be left with an upper class and an underclass, with the upper class in a dialogue that is nowhere as amusing as the the Two Ronnie's had it, blaming the underclass for their own predicament.

Scroungers! As Mr Duncan Smith and Mr Osborne have it.

Whilst the rich continue to grow increasingly and more obscenely rich.

Like so many I was extremely concerned about the possibility that the Government might, as encouraged by Tony Blair in the Times, to launch an attack on Syria as a punishment for its alleged use of chemical weapons on its own population.

Whilst I condemn the use of such weapons, or indeed any weapons as a means of stifling debate and bringing opposition to heel, it must also be said that a country such as Britain has no place intervening militarily in the affairs of another sovereign state.

The international outrage must be expressed in the UN by nations joining voices to condemn and should be accompanied by a clear attempt to establish the truth about what happened, whether the Government of Mr Assad was responsible, whether it was another group seeking to trigger the red line drawn by President Obama.

The result of Thursday's debate was brilliant insofar as Parliament was able finally to address the hegemony of the Osborne, Cameron, Clegg axis.

We can only hope that the other surgical strikes being planned by the axis on the disabled, the poor, the vulnerable and the middle class can also be brought equally abruptly to an end.

But why stop there, as some of the Leaders in today's newspapers have stated, finally we can see Britain's true place in the world.

A nations divided between rich and poor, a nation divided between North and South, a nation soon to be faced with the possibility of geopolitical unity being split when and if Scotland opts for independence, no doubt followed closely by Wales and possibly who knows, Cornwall?

If Scotland chooses independence, then Trident is likely to be the first victim, followed by, who knows what. Of course the money released by that decision should represent a remarkable peace dividend if it can be shared equitably.

The Tory Party is divided between the Hawks and the Doves, in matters of social legislation as well as air strikes and last night the Doves cast the final vote, aided interestingly by the incompetent who managed to miss the division.

So a Prime Minister cut down to size, a party cut down to size and a coalition lacking credibility.

There are still two years before an election.

But, whilst the poorest and most vulnerable in our society are held responsible for the financial crisis whilst Bankers continue to enjoy their champagne parties, as the middle class face extinction as a result of technological changes being engineered in silicon valley, as Parliamentary speeches begin to reflect what constituents are actually feeling, it will become increasingly unlikely that a cabinet of millionaires will be allowed to promote their prejudices as policies.

So maybe, when it becomes clear that we are all in this together, then maybe it will be possible to enlarge our vision and introduce a larger more humanitarian belief, that if we welcome the stranger, if we embrace change, if we care for the environment, if we care for the orphans and widows in their distress then we might become not only a better but a bigger society, offering a vision for a better more peaceful world, across the the globe.

20th August 2013

It's hard to know what to be more concerned about.

With Tony Blair as the Middle East Envoy it seems that everything is not getting better in either Syria or Egypt.

And here each day brings more conflicting news.

From arresting innocent travellers at Heathrow to zero hours contracts the con-dems continue to consolidate their reputation.

Vote Blue and Turn Green.

Green of course implies environmental integrity and all that.

But it seems that what has happened is that we voted blue and turned green with envy.

Having voted Blue as a consequence of a financial crisis in the hope that we can legislate our way to more settled times, we have moved, inevitably it seems, toward a more divided society, a society which the current Prime Minister insists on calling 'broken', but as the late author, Ian Banks, quoted in The Guardian Newspaper commented:

 'Your societies broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, let's blame the people with no power and no money and these immigrants who don't even have the vote - yeah it must be their f***ing fault'.

And blame them we have, they have been benefit capped, medically examined, rehoused to houses with less rooms, offered zero hour contracts and had to stand and watch as posters have been driven round their neighbourhoods advertising the threats against them.

It seems to me and as it say's on the tin, I am thinking aloud, that the public debate really needs to begin in earnest.

Every statement issued by the con-dems over the two years leading up to proomised elections in 2015 needs to be studied closely and subject to a hermenutic, a cost benefit analysis, a lie detector test and anything else that lies to hand.

It seems that the net result of current policies is to create a house price bubble which will make anyone owning a house feel better off as their equity position improves, feeling better off means that they might spend more, spending more will boost output, boosting output will increase taxation income, increased tax income will make the deficit appear to have been reduced.

But it will be another boom and will inevitably lead to another bust, either on their (the con-dem's) watch or on Labour's should they be elected.

The current narrative is being framed in terms of the 'mess we inherited from an irresponsible Labour Government', today in Australia, the Mayor of London, whilst kissing a, very small crocodile,  described falling out with your brother as a 'socialist' thing to do.

Pity the crocodile wasn't bigger, as it said in the Crocodile Dundee movie apropos a knife: 'that's not a crocodile, this is a crocodile'.

The Chancellor describes Mothers who stay at home to care for their children as making a 'lifestyle' choice and therefore not requiring child care support, the man known as IDS dismisses Labour as the party of welfare, which is ironic, given that reports suggest that his attempts to cap welfare have actually increased the welfare bill through increased administrative costs.

So how should the election debate be conducted by the opposition.

Good advice came today from another author who has recently died.

Elmore Leonard has this advice for Ed Milliband and the Shadow Cabinet:

Never use a verb other than 'said' to carry dialogue and never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said'. Avoid lengthy descriptions, the word 'suddenly' and leave out the part that people skip. 

Keep at it and keep it simple'.

12th August 2013

What right  minded person would vote this lot, the con-dems aka Tory Lite, back into power?

And as is becoming clearer by the day the real Tories are actually a pretty scary lot and completely without the humour we associate with the  UKIP of bonkers, bonkers land fame.

There seems to be little about them of kindness or graciousness or any recognition that the majority of the population really want very little from their Government apart from a secure and quiet, family or single or partnered, life, good neighbours and at the end of each week a little money left over from their budget to enjoy a pleasurable weekend.

Not a lot to ask?

But fewer and fewer seem to have these modest hopes met.

At every turn society appears to be worse off than when Cameron and Clegg sealed their marriage of convenience in the Rose Garden.

The latest news from the frontline is that wages have actually declined since the coalition implemented its austerity programme.

In most European countries wages have increased but not in the UK, here if you are not a banker, a CEO or a politician your take home pay is now worth less than it was, and to add insult to injury the newly installed head of the Bank of England has made it clear that inflation will be allowed to continue to depress income and of course the less you have to spend the greater the inflation-tax will impact on your scarce resources.

And if you have the effrontery to complain you will be advised by Mr Cameron to do, 'the right thing' or you will simply be  inviting yet another sneer from Mr Osborne who will simply blame your 'lifestyle' choice.

In a blog circulating on facebook Aiden Semmans tells an interesting story about Charles Moore with whom he was at University. See: http://aidansemmens.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/if-they-cant-afford-treatment-they-dont.html?spref=fb

As far as I know I wasn't at University with any Tories, probably because I didn't go to University at all, instead, having been invited to leave school by the Headmaster and clutching my one 'O' Level in Woodwork, I got a job as a Tyre Fitter in Stoke on Trent.

Working as a very junior member of the Tyre Fitting team at Normeir Tyres I was radicalised pretty quickly receiving a wealth of advice on subjects as diverse as how to approach a difficult task, don't stand if you can sit, don't sit if you can lie down, although lying down under a muddy sub-frame trying to loosen the bolts on a rusted exhaust wasn't the hugest amount of fun, neither was putting wet muddy overalls back on in the morning.

So I set about improving my life chances, first by landing a job as a Civil Servant, no muddy sub-frames or wet overalls there thankfully. In this job I spent eight hours a day writing benefit cheques (aka Giro's) by hand, after this I was promoted to the contributions section so saw the link between the benefits received in difficult times and the contributions which paid for them in good times (now is that too difficult a link for a Tory to understand?).

Then off I went to Theological College in Salisbury, a bona fide, working class hero in the Tory Shires, I lived in The Close to which Edward Heath retired when he was dumped by his party in favour of a certain Margaret Thatcher whose first action as Education Minister was to take away the free milk and whose subsequent actions are, for some poor bloggers, still too painful to recall.

At some point in my political education I became an Anarchist, Politics Out! was the chant, and later I adopted another slogan wearing my Trappist Punk badge on my denim jacket.

Later still I was called an irresponsible socialist, which whilst that amused some, did rather make me wonder what exactly was irresponsible about being a socialist.

After all putting the common interest or good, before personal gain and profit seems to me to be a perfectly responsible thing to do.

But that is exactly the opposite of what the Tory coalition has sought to achieve and what its narrative has promoted.

Mr Duncan Smith frequently calls the Labour Party the party of welfare, as though somehow that is a bad thing, clearly he thinks its a bad thing, but what is so wrong with ensuring that when a neighbour is in difficulty you can come to their aid?

And if you cannot do that personally what is so wrong in organising society in such a way that it is done structurally and effectively.

Food Banks are a visceral response to need but how much better and fairer would society be if everyone could buy their food from the store, and therefore had sufficient to eat.

Apparently, according to this distorted Tory narrative, the reason wages have fallen in value in the UK is not because of the flat lining economy (OK .03% growth or whatever) but because of Labour's financial mis-management leading to the financial meltdown.

I can only hope that Mr Ed comes back from his holidays with his loins girded, waving a bright red banner, and declaring that the time has come to sweep away irresponsible capitalism once and for all.

People want to be given a vision and a plan and reason to vote for a better answer or if that's not possible at least be asked a better question.

5th August 2013

Back in time for the rain.

At least we weren't planning a parade!

There is at least a freshness to the air!

As the running joke went during our stay in Genoa: humidity is not a virtue!

The big society which is, on the face of it at least, the underlying theme of this blog appears like the Monty Python parrot to be pretty much deceased.

I loved the photograph in The Times of Mr and Mrs Cameron in front of a fishmongers stall in Portugal on their recent holiday, they appeared to be making a speech although, judging by the glassy eyed stare of the fish, they may well have been rehearsing their speech for the Tory Party Conference.

Certainly the coalition appears to be pretty light on humidity, as increasingly mean spirited policies are rolled out almost on a daily basis to accompanying cheers from the Tory Party and the sound of ice rattling in the gin and tonic glasses.

From the poster vans circulating in parts of London inviting illegal immigrants to go home, to the bed room tax and the weeks delay in benefit payments alongside the 1% cap on increases in benefits each new announcement seeks to tie in support from the Tory Heartlands.

Politicians enjoy power and at a certain point in the lifetime of any parliament on any particular parties watch the agenda shifts from policies designed to benefit the economy and increase the sense of public well being, to simply ensuring that the Party in power is re-elected.

It is a bit more complex in a coalition because the party with the largest number of seats has to ensure that it distances itself from both the opposition and the party with whom it is sharing power.

It may not be as brazen as Robert Mugabe's tricks, printing a few hundred thousand extra voting forms, adding a few extra names to the electoral roll, making life difficult for supporters of the opposition to actually vote, but tricks are inevitably employed.

Labour is being systematically discredited as the party of welfare or in the gift of the Unions and whilst the smear campaign appears to be working, at least to the satisfaction of the lobbyist's, the real problem, Tory supporters switching allegiance to UKIP, means that they are currently being wooed back by a series of campaigns aimed at welfare dependency and immigrants.

Occasionally there is a sense of some disagreement emerging as the Liberal partners in the coalition try to distance themselves from the mean spirited rhetoric of messrs Cameron, Osborne and Duncan Smith.

The election, set for 2015 seems to have started already, it may well be that it will begin in earnest with this round of party conferences but we are it seems set for a long, drawn out and probably fairly disagreeable campaign running into 2015.

Add into the febrile mix, social networking: facebook, twitter etc which were so effectively used by the Obama campaign team and we might see a whole new style of not so much big society but bigging up campaigns exhorting us to vote for this party or that.

The campaign buses are even now being coach painted, the soap boxes prepared and soon the summer of heatwave and thunder will give way to a winter of extravagant claims, undeliverable promises and subtle and not so subtle attacks on sections of our society who don't want to vote for food banks, more children in poverty and attacks on their fellow citizens, but who prefer the large and spiritual ideas which underpin a society in which all strive to fulfil their human potential and are supported by the elected government to ensure that they will.

26th July 2013

So the Chancellor says that it’s his plan we’re all going to do well. We’re all in this together and we’ll all do well together, North and South, Plutocrat and Pauper. Tosh! If you believe that you’ll believe anything. If he believes his Orwellian statement which flies in the face of the evidence that with perilously few exceptions incomes are falling and none faster than those who rely on state funded benefits either through welfare benefits or tax allowances. But as the threatening billboards tour the country on the sides of delivery vans one group of people who won’t believe it are those who came here for a better life. As I was told in Italy last week by someone whose ambition it is to move to the UK, we just feel more comfortable speaking English. As one of today’s crossword clues captured it: A number of countries under one ruler? Answer: Empire. We English travelled the world, annexed it and demanded that folk spoke English, now they see the opportunity to flourish in the home of the language they were forced to learn, that is of course why the ridiculous, threatening billboards are in English, so that they will be understood, and what they say is, you’re not welcome here. A view reinforced when people from commonwealth countries are required to pay substantial bonds before they are allowed to visit. But were we ever welcome there? I guess that the Archbishop of York would know? The Ex Pat Ex Ugandan Judge is now launching a campaign to improve the pay of the low paid. Very correctly he identifies the problem of a Government subsidising businesses by offering various benefits to enable the low pay to actually survive in the low wage economy. The co-op is seeking, with the encouragement of its members, to implement the living wage but as the management of the Co-op as a business stress the ultimate impact is on the bottom line, profit. Is this what George Osborne means, that he will support the campaign to improve pay at the lower end of the income scale? I wonder how the Ugandan ex Pat Archbishop feels when he sees the Billboards, but then he is a legal immigrant. And his counterpart in Canterbury is going head to head with Wonga. By some strange, magic wave of his Arch-episcopate crook he is going to turn how many thousand Church of England Churches into Credit Union HQ’s. Gaining him a host of mainly, it seems, female fans amongst the commentariat. Of course that can only happen after the Church has disinvested in the Wonga holding company, which was apparently slightly embarrassing to the ex Oil Executive, Archbishop ‘light’ Welby, but he presses on regardless with his plan. When I started a community project in North Tyneside in the early eighties it took a good deal of lobbying before the church even began to take the reality of poverty seriously. Only after CAP and Faith in the City did the churches begin to engage with the realities of poverty in the urban, inner city and outer estate communities. It took seven years to launch a successful credit union so I am not sure that time is on the Archbishop’s side. I recall one meeting with Sir Richard O’Brien Chair of Faith in the City when person after person stood up to say that they simply could not afford to attend church because they had nothing for the collection. A conference I ran at the Cathedral in Newcastle drew a large group of people from an outer estate when I mentioned their expenses for travel there was an embarrassed smile as they revealed their strategy for travelling affordably on the Metro. So I wish Archbishop Welby well. After Rowan Williams’ poetry we turn to his successors’ concern with poverty and with Bankers. Now that I am retired I look back on a working life as a Parish Priest, qualifying as we did as a family for benefits and free school meals whilst still being one of the most affluent families in the Parish and wonder whether the effort (and the contradiction) was worthwhile? For me, now that I am a Church Pensioner, the jury is still out ………

24th July 2013

Genoa 2013

Choosing a locum in Genoa in July during a heatwave in the UK might seem like poor planning. But when the offer came in the middle of a wet Cumbrian January, it seemed like an opportunity.

The Anglican Church in Genoa, The Chiesa Anglicana, is located on Piazza Marsala, a short walk from Piazza Ferrari the central square in Genoa, with its statue of Garibaldi and its many roads (Vias) radiating off away to the outskirts of the city and down past the Cathedral to Porto Antico.

Sunday services, even in July when the City is vacated by those fortunate enough to have a house in the cooler hills, are well attended with a rich mix of English ex Pat’s, American and European visitors together with Anglicans from Africa and India.

On my first two Sundays the organist, Flora, was in the UK visiting friends and family and so the service was accompanied to great effect by two violinists, Hanuka and Eleanor, from Japan and Germany and now resident in Genoa.

Since my last visit to Genoa a regular Wednesday lunchtime service has been introduced, this brings together a smaller group of regular attendees for worship and mid week fellowship. But the biggest change was in the huge improvements to the ordering of the interior by the congregation with the support of the relatively new friends group.

My first official engagement as the Locum Chaplain was to attend a reception given by the American Consulate in the grounds of the Palazzo Bianco in Via Garibaldi, to celebrate Independence Day and the close relationship between Italy and the USA. There was no ‘Tea’ on offer, (it wasn’t a Tea Party!) so with ‘reluctance’ I sipped my cold Prosecco and toasted the pilgrim fathers silently.

The month has been spent seeking shade from the heat, occasionally from the thunderstorms but even in the evening the temperature has been 27 degrees and at mid-day as high as 37.5.

Other snapshots of our visit were of Beat Box, a Beatles Tribute band playing live at a Beatles Convention in Porto Antico, all four ‘Beatles’ Giovanni, Paolo, Giorgio and well …. Ringo? In their Beatle Party Wigs, played their parts right down to the ‘Liverpudlian’ banter between songs.

Whoever said nostalgia is not what it used to be?.

And to end Gezmataz, Genoas own Jazz festival which was especially wonderful featuring as it did the UK’s Andy Sheppard who was born in Warminster and who a couple of years ago played a wonderful, benefit concert for Lanercost Priory in Cumbria.

The congregation in Genoa are hoping that he can be persuaded to do the same for them.

22nd July 2013

I guess that if you went to Eton you might not relate too easily to the idea of fags in plain wrappers.

Dismissed by some of their own party as 'Posh' it is all too easy to misunderstand the current Tory leadership.

If, after a privileged education you went on to a privileged University life how are you meant to understand either the lives that other people live or indeed to care overmuch about them.

So confronted by the howls of outrage from your folk its much easier to say to yourself, let's keep cutting the welfare budget until we've said farewell to the poor.

At what point will we start to see economic migrants queueing up to leave the UK for the prospect of a better life elsewhere?

It would of course just be a case of history repeating itself.

All those folk who took a ten pound passage to the land of opportunity following hard on the heels of those who were sent there for stealing a sheep seem, to have done OK.

And now we're seeing the revenge of the economic migrant returning as a Lobbyist to win an election and help an old friend or two.

Smoking is both popular and addictive.

I grew up in a smoking household and possibly for that reason decided that I wasn't particularly attracted to the habit, so I am a non-smoker and therefore a disinterested party.

That I suppose is why tobacco, screened behind counters, sold in plain packaging or left around in free trial packs, leaves me quite unmoved.

I can't say the same for Gin or Whisky or a pint of real ale.

Then again smoking carries all the risks, as stated on the plain or decorated packaging, and some of those risks lead people directly to the doors of A&E.

The impact of smoking on health, and of course of alcohol as well, is one of the reasons why the NHS is under such pressure.

So it is interesting that as the pressure mounts to expose the extent of conflicted interest, that the links between winning an election, selling tobacco and opening up the health service to private competition seem to trace back to one and the same lobbyist.

There is no conflict of interest we are told, which is probably true because the parties in this drama all share the same interest.

What I imagine would be the preferred outcome of all of this is that in future all lobbying is done in plain packaging and any links with the lobbyist and the politician would be perceived as purely accidental.

Meanwhile it is in the interests of the privileged elite to keep the focus of the debate on the unions and, heaven forbid, the proponents of welfare.

Maybe the Labour leadership needs to lay down a new challenge, 'Repent for the kingdom of Bevan is nigh'

Now there's an election slogan that's clear, like our packaging.

16th July 2013

It was always my intention to make sure that this blog was as humorous as I could make it.

But the actions of the coalition over the past three (is it really only three?) years make it very difficult to retain a sense of humour.

We are seeing a new kind of conviction politics, they are convinced that they are right so, whatever the evidence, they press on with policies that damage social cohesion, confirming rather than challenging prejudice and ensuring that they demonise whoever gets in their way, the poor, the immigrant, the ill and the old.

I once attended a conference in London which was addressed by Mr Ian Duncan Smith. He spent the first part of his speech rehearsing a set of prejudices as facts, a set of strategies as a substitute for compassion and a set of conclusions that were frankly scary.

I recall asking a question to which the answer was incomprehensible and debating whether to stage a walk out but before I could decide he had left, I suppose that I stayed because the the whole speech was so barking that neither I nor anyone else believed that these ideas could ever be seriously proposed by a serious contender for Government and were just plates being spun by the latest in a series of failed Tory Party leaders during the post Thatcher lost years when Blair was in his pomp.

Now those scary ideas are policies and are inflicting untold damage and misery on people who are struggling to get by, raise their families and hold on to whatever zero hours job they can find.

The newspapers carry numerous stories and commentaries on the flaws in the coalition's claims and yet again and again in the right wing press the same old, same old, hackneyed phrases are rolled out presenting prejudice as fact and stirring up deep seated resentment and animosity aimed at the poor and the stranger in our midst.

It may be that people are wising up. The latest salvo from the Chancellor, that he will not raise tax because he can continue to cut welfare to pay down the deficit, is apparently according to one comment that I read, not widely believed. Nevertheless the continuing narrative representing Labour as the party who left a financial mess and the party of welfare continues to undermine Labour's standing in the polls.

Sadly, despite his image being so successfully undermined by Vince Cable , the facts of the matter are that the financial tsunami that swept across Western Europe which began with the tectonic plates of sub-prime mortgages crashing in the USA was largely held back from swamping the European economy by Gordon Brown's intervention.

Far from being the party who left the mess Labour was in fact the party that ensured that the mess didn't completely swamp the British economy.

There is a large measure of agreement that complex financial instruments, the packaging and selling of debt, hedging and arbitraging were responsible and no-one has gone to jail for it.

And as for Mr Duncan Smith's cynical description of Labour as the party of welfare.

Well the Milliball's should be celebrating. What exactly is wrong with being the party of welfare?

Surely the welfare, the well being of society as a whole is what Government should be in the business of ensuring and protecting.

Apparently IDS as he is widely known is planning to restrict family allowance to the first two children, apparently the scheme is drawn up and will be introduced if the Tories win the next election.

So then we can add to those named above, children, as their welfare is put at risk by short sighted, mean spirited policies.

It is truly hard to see where the humour is in any of this?

12th July 2013

My father was fond of observing that the only sure way to have genuine mourners at your funeral was to die in debt.

I must have taken this fatherly advice a little too seriously because debt and I have been life long companions.

Most recently of course, as a retired clergyman I acquired the biggest debt of all when I retired, a mortgage.

But having been retired for some time that debt is about to be discharged.

However lightly I might take it however debt is a serious matter.

As the song has it:

You load sixteen tons , and what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I ow my soul to the company store

Debt is a form of social control. Nobody is going to rise up and demand the end of injustice, there will be no barricades in the city of the indebted. Debt keeps us in our place and the company store keeps us just fed and watered enough to keep us fit to work and drunk enough at the weekends to ensure that we cause no trouble for the company which owns us lock stock and over a barrel.

Of course you could say that in the 21 Century this view of indebtedness is out of date and unrealistic but students now leave University with sizeable student loans which take years to pay down.

People who lose their jobs through redundancy or incapacity will have to rely on loans from Banks or Pay Day lenders to fund them before their benefits become payable.

And despite the associated risks individuals are incurring large, even in Japan, inter generational, mortgages in order to put a paper roof over their paper house.

And amongst all the news today we have been told that the Con-dem project has not finished, there are more cuts to welfare promised by the Chancellor because he can and because he will not countenance raising taxation.

According to research published by The Resolution Foundation up to 650,000 more UK Households would face debt peril, defined as spending half of disposable income on repayments, if interest rates rise by two percentage points.

Inevitably the report in the Financial Times notes that in this situation the poor will be disproportionately affected with 7% of the poorest fifth having half their income claimed by repayments compared with 3% of the richest fifth.

But hey, that's OK they don't vote Conservative.

Recently the Archbishop of Canterbury was quoted rehearsing an argument that I have  made in this Blog, that inflation is a tax on the poor and it is the tight control of inflation that is being relaxed, so whilst the Chancellor will not raise taxes on the wealthy, he will raise a tax through inflation, on the poorest.

Inflation which reduces the value of assets also reduces the value of debts, which looks like a good thing, almost 'forgive us our debts' or at least reduce their value through inflation but it overlooks the fact that in his prayer Jesus asks that our debts are forgiven as we forgive others indebtedness.

Of course we could recall the Year of Jubilee in which all debts were written down and each persons patrimony was returned but for that we might have to wait for the return of a Labour Government or Judgement Day whichever comes the soonest.

So we sit back and let this social experiment continue as the post war settlement is renegotiated, public ownership is discredited and everything is sold off to the lowest bidder.

Now we take our own rubbish to be recycled and soon we will delivering our own letters and paying for the privilege into the bargain.

And to add insult to injury Mr Clegg is at it, preening and posturing as he declares that he will talk to the party with the most votes first after the election and would be happy to coalesce with anyone, perhaps we should all vote UKIP just to see the look on his face, before the economy sinks like a stone and we're all genuine mourners at the graveside.

9th July 2013

Well done Andy Murray.

There, that’s said.

To be honest I have absolutely no interest in Tennis, I have played it in a bat the ball kind of way, Racquets as it were, and quite enjoyed the dashing about the court shouting Love and Deuce and even In and Out occasionally.

I enjoyed the playing but not half as much as much as I enjoyed the post match refreshments.

Especially the cold beer!

In my view, like so much of modern sport, it is overhyped and the players overpaid.

Nevertheless having said that, I have to acknowledge the determination, the professionalism and the discipline that goes into making yourself a world number one in any sport and Andy Murray has certainly achieved that, so well done to him.

As always, there is a moral to this.

The sight of the tennis player standing at the door of Number 10 Downing Street with the PM behind him, bathing in reflected glory.

What can you say?

About as little as it seems wise to comment on Falkirk, Unite and the Labour Leadership.

Of course Labour needs a much more robust relationship with working people, indeed after the smooching of the wealthy by New Labour, a period of reassessment is called for.

We have a Government with a clear agenda.

It aims with the support of the media, to reduce the State, to reduce support for welfare and to restore the busted trickle down economic theory of Thatcherism.

Rather than fighting amongst themselves, Unite whose Secretary was elected by a minority of those eligible to vote, should now be focussed on working with the Labour Party to offer a reasoned and reasonable opposition in an attempt to reduce the damage being done.

But no, instead it seeks to use under the counter, behind the scenes strategies, which effectively undermine its position and will, if not checked, hand the 2015 election to the Tories.

Unite and its leadership needs to adopt a much more rigorous approach in its strategy for proposing a socialist alternative to the policies of the con-dem Government.

There are clear justice issues here to be promoted under the broad heading of truth, justice and the Mancunian way.

Determination, professionalism and discipline win Wimbledon as we have seen and celebrated and midway through 2013, now with possibly two years to go, before the election, it is time to get serious.

People will not be bullied into voting Labour.

There has to be a reasonable informed public debate about the shortcomings of the coalition’s strategy, the demonising of some, the failure to protect others and the sanctimonious habit of always claiming to be doing the right thing.

About which any hermeneutic would observe that the word right usually implies, to the right, rather than correct or necessary.

The theories being offered to support the coalition’s forward strategy, the arguments for deficit reduction, a prolonged period of austerity, continuing unemployment facing young people; alongside its failure to boost the economy, invest in the future, build more houses etc etc.

All this needs addressing from a socialist, humanist perspective. With perhaps a reference to the need to recognise that prosperity is possible without a continuing dependence on growth.

Unite and its leadership needs to be putting its moral weight behind Labour as the only serious opposition and the only serious way of challenging the current direction of travel of the economy.

Perhaps the days of beer and sandwiches are over, that’s no longer the way that business is done.

So adopt the steely determination of an Andy Murray and settle your differences over a Ruby Murray before it’s too late.

In Falkirk you could try D’yoga, strengthening mind and body for the challenge ahead or maybe Indian Harvest in the hope of anticipating an Indian Summer in 2015.