28th January 2013

The narrative of this coalition government is increasingly threadbare.

As recession gives way to depression, it is possible to see that austerity has not worked.

Industry is in stasis, investment is at an all time low, the attempts to kick start the economy by rewarding the rich has failed and so all that is left is political legerdemain by focusing on Europe, continuing to blame Labour rather than the hubristic bankers and reducing welfare benefits and asking the poorest in society to bail out the wealthy.

Even Nick Clegg is sounding out Ed Milliband as a prospective coalition partner after the next election.

The latest measure to hit the headlines is being introduced by Lord Freud the welfare minister who lives in an eight bedroomed country mansion.

It's not yet the Poll Tax, but it could be!

What is being called the Bedroom Tax is causing a furore on facebook, I shared a picture which came via another facebook friend and received more likes than for anything else I have shared and the piece itself was shared by facebook friends with their friends.

What is the Bedroom Tax.

It affects those who rely on housing benefit for their housing needs and is designed to ensure that their accommodation meets their needs without affording them the luxury of a spare room to house overnight guests or to use, in one case cited in the Guardian of an Artist, to use as a studio, or perhaps for a writer, to use as a Study.

Pensioners are apparently excluded from the legislation.

Whenever Governments seek to pry into their electors affairs so intimately, they risk being punished at the Ballot Box.

But of course as a number of comments on this particular piece of legislation point out, it is full of anomilies.

Children of the same sex, according to the Tory Millionaires who have decided to introduce this legislation, should share a room, but if one of the children has special needs, for whatever reason, there is a complex and hard to calculate allowance, but the net result will be the same, a loss of housing benefit.

Private landlords often have little or no interest in assisting their tenants to maximise income and are likely to have little sympathy if their rental income is effectively reduced by the loss of a percentage of housing benefit, social landlords, on the other hand, could well find themselves in an impossible position trying to square the circle between, tenants financial difficulties and their social needs.

I'm always interested, walking around more historic areas of cities or visiting National Trust properties to see the reminder of the window tax, a similar property tax levied on the number of windows in a property, it is however easier to brick up a window than it is to seal off a room.

Interestingly in rural cumbria, rooms were often added or subtracted, two of my children live in houses where rooms have been added by breaking through into next door and then when family needs changed being sealed off again or in another case the concept of a flying freehold introduced to allow a room to be added above another, the freehold of one property being extended to cover the invasion of another properties air or attic space.

But the principle here is another invasion altogether, the invasion of an individuals or a families personal space.

Doubtless if we wanted to enquire into the living circumstances of one of the millionaires who sit in the cabinet we would be told quite clearly that an Englishmans home is his castle and so it is.

By what right then do they assume to violate the desmesnes of someone whose 'castle' happens to be paid for out of housing benefit, simply because their private circumstances, whatever they are, mean that they need some support in putting a roof over their and their families heads.

In one of my earliest jobs as a very junior Civil Servant as I was sent out by my section head to investigate the circumstances of a claimant.

An anonymous letter had been received saying that the individual was suspected of co-habiting with a partner.

I visited the house, produced my identification and although my heart was not in the task, asked if I could enter the premises.

I was 19, and about to go off to Theological College, the young lady in question, with two young children, not much older than that herself.

I tried to gently steer the conversation around to the question of whether she lived on her own.

Suddenly the room darkened, I turned to see a huge man, his head towering above the door frame which his body filled almost entirely.

He didn't speak, just looked.

Rapidly, like the old News of the World reporters, I made my excuses and left.

Back in the office I filled in my report: No evidence of co-habitation.

After all, like windows and bedrooms, it was no business of mine.

22nd January 2013

Every day when I drive into the Urbanisation on the Costa del Sol where I am spending a couple of months as a Locum Chaplain, I pass a sign which says Ferrovial Agroman.

This is the name of the company who built the urbanisation.

This is the third time in a year that we have been here.

There are routine failures, electric gates either don't open or stick open, power cuts are fairly routine, fortunately the lift is programmed to descend to the ground floor and open when there is a power cut.

Useful if your companion is a wheelchair user.

On this visit the street lighting was less efficient and we were told that some of the copper cable had been stolen and had not been replaced.

The cleaning and gardening staff appear to have had their hours dramatically reduced and the place is just not quite as clean and tidy as it was a year ago during our first visit.

Like many urbanisations in this part of Spain the building works are unfinished.

A result of the economic downturn.

Fortunately our tenure here is in part payment for the Locum Duties I fulfill as an unpaid chaplain.

Like so many of the public utilities that operate the infrastructure of the United Kingdom, Ferrovial Agroman is a European business, headquartered in Madrid.

They are, of course, major players in the big society.

As so much of UK energy, manufacturing, service sector, water and transport systems are owned by companies based in India, China and Europe, how does the UK Government exercise meaningful power?

As a nation we have surrendered control to external private and public interests.

The effect of this is seen in our inability to tax profits or determine any kind of meaningful employment policy: recently Honda announced that it was making a quarter of its workforce redundant, where will the next announcement come from?

As a friend of mine once commented about the opening of a Japanese manufacturing plant in the North East, it won't work here, we can't live in paper houses, the weather's too poor.

Like in the nursery rhyme, paper, wood, hay can all be blown down and since the 1980's our industrial strategy of selling UK plc to the not always highest bidder has resulted in the centre's of industrial power moving outwith the British Isles.

Two interesting signs of this are the speech we were meant to hear this week in which presumably to satisfy the right wing of the Conservative Party and head off the threat represented by UKIP, Mr Cameron was, we were led to understand, to distance himself from Europe?

Not especially sensible when much of UK industry is now Headquartered in the Rhine Ruhr Metropolitan District.

However the speech he did give, called for global co-operation in the fight against terrorism in Africa, not the least because of course, like diamonds, gold and now energy, the riches of the African sub continent are exploited and abstracted by European countries, leaving Africa as always, the poorer.

Yesterday I bought a pink elephant key ring from a beautiful young African woman on the promenade in Fuengirola, she was a refugee from central Africa seeking refuge in Europe, yet despite the fact that her country is exploited by the west, she is treated inhospitably, not a refugee, but an immigrant.

Britain needs to wake up to the reality of the globalised world, when world maps were coloured the red of colonial domination, Britain was always shown to be larger on maps and globes, now we are being cut back  down to size.

Even the recent weather which has brought Britain to a standstill is Headquartered in America from where it sweeps across the Atlantic to bring Heathrow to a standstill.

And the owners of Heathrow? BAA, major shareholder Ferrovial Agroman ....... Headquarters? Madrid.

17th January 2012

On my very first visit to France with my young family I took them into a cafe in a small town in the North of France.

We read the menu which was written in chalk on a board on the wall.

The Children were intrigued by one item which was written as Cheval Hamburger, but then it dawned on them that Cheval was the same word as the French use for horse.

Horrified they refused to order anything and after finishing and paying for our drinks we left.

So now they and we are horrified all over again.

Some good jokes have been shared, my favourite was: I have just eaten a burger from Tesco, I enjoyed it but I've still got a bit in my teeth.

Of course Mr Cameron was dismayed by the news which he thought was extremely disturbing and completely unacceptable and will doubtless raise it in his speech on the EEC tomorrow amidst heckling from Nigel Farage in the form of neighing noises or was that just him laughing?

At least we have been spared a latter day John Gummer on TV with his children eating burgers from a van parked outside his daughters riding school.

Or possibly worse, Michael Gove force feeding burgers to the pupils in one of his academies or free schools, perhaps with Jamie Oliver looking over his shoulder?

But what do we expect?

The thing about real food is that it costs money to produce when it has to be raised, grown and harvested.

I can pop round to my local butcher to buy the best steak and he will be able to tell me where the beast was raised, which abattoir it was sourced from and how long it has been hung, but he will charge me for it and it won't be cheap.

The burgers my Butcher sells are made by him in the shop, from meat he has sourced locally and inevitably they cost a good deal more than the supermarket burgers I could by as an alternative for the Sunday BBQ.

There is a linkage here which Mr Cameron should find much more disturbing and even more unacceptable than horse meat in a supermarket burger.

The connection between rising poverty, which is happening now on his watch as group after group, from children in families, through working people, to the disabled and the elderly, find the cost of living rising and wages and welfare payments reducing leaving them with less money for the rent or the mortgage, less money for clothes and shoes, less money for getting about and increasingly no money at all for food, leaving them turning to a food bank run by the local church as the only way of feeding themselves or their family.

And when there is some money left, after everything has been paid, they go to the supermarket and search for the cheapest food they can find to make a meal for the family.

Burger, beans and chips can be both nutritious and tasty and it doesn't occur to anyone to ask which farm the beef in the burger was raised on or whether indeed it is beef at all, what is important is that it is cheap and cheerful.

And who can blame the suppliers of these products if they decide that in order to respond to customer demand for cheap, cheaper, cheapest food, they might cut a few corners and beef up the message in horse code and serve it with horse radish sauce?

8th January 2013

This year the indoor critic and I will celebrate what I believe is our Sapphire Anniversary?

Forty Five years and counting.

Way back in 1968 I spent an afternoon trawling the antique and second hand shops in Manchester's Shudehill area, to try to find an affordable wedding ring.

My guide was my younger sister who steered me away from Ratners and H Samuels and Hire Purchase towards a ring of burnished gold which I could afford to buy with the money I had in my pocket and still have enough left for our bus fare home.

We found a 22 carat gold ring for £5, arguably the best £5 I have ever spent as it is still on the finger I placed it on forty five years ago and now appears to be wearing better than either of us.

During our forty five years we have seen significant changes in what has been called the welfare state.

When our first child was born there was no Child Benefit, that arrived with the second child, but against that education and health care were  free at the point of need, including higher education, and as a young clergy family with four children, we qualified for free school meals.

In 1968 Harold Wilson was Prime Minister and over the period we have seen Nine subsequent Prime Ministers.

The only one I have any affection for was Harold Wilson whose legacy was the Open University.

But between that visionary initiative and the war in Iraq, we had the three day week, the Miner's Strike, Thatcherism, the Lottery introduced by John Major, devolution, civil partnerships, the loss of child benefit data and a banking crisis.

Now we have a coalition and yesterday it was defended.

Vote blue go green? Or vote blue get lost?

For most people the test of the success or failure of a government is whether they feel physically safe, financially secure and can look to the future with some degree of confidence.

Certainly when I bought that 22 Carat ring in Manchester 45 years ago, I felt reasonably safe in my home City and whilst I was not financially secure, I seem to recall that the Five Pound was in my possession following a stint working in Kendal Milne's in a holiday job in Manchester, I also was advised that the job I was entering as a clergyman in the Church of England was both permanent and secure, that would certainly not be the case today.

Indeed it seems that no job can be viewed as either permanent or secure.

And now of course I cannot look to the future with much confidence. Sure I receive a state pension together with an occupational pension, and generally the month and the money tend to come to an end roughly in sync with each other.

But the indoor critic has a life limiting condition and will increasingly need care, especially if she finds herself on her own. The Dilnott Enquiry suggested a £35k top limit on care, before the Government picked up the costs. Now the Chancellor is suggesting £75K, the effect of which means that a large majority of people will still have to sell their homes to pay for care, an outcome which Dilnott was trying to avoid.

But if £75k doesn't seem a lot to you then its easy to assume that it is not a lot to other people.

Reading the names on the Roll Call of Prime Ministers is pretty disheartening. Looking at what  little has been achieved, despite the rhetoric of causes of crime, or an end to boom and bust or making work pay the only sensible conclusion any observer can come to is that what we have witnessed in the past forty five years is the failure of politics.

From the open university to open war on the poorest in society to open bonus season for bankers it has been downhill all the way.

From a promising young couple with a future we have become somewhat more anxious not only for ourselves and our future but for children and grandchildren.

Out there, in the dark, at the edge of the camp fire glow, the forest is full of danger and wild animals ready to attack and bite, I can hear their growling as I type.

Between now and November I have to try and find something Sapphire, worried that sapphire is blue I checked again to discover that a red sapphire is specified for a forty fifth anniversary.

Vote blue go red, or should that be Ed to make ten?

4th January 2012

David Cameron is optimistic!

I'm not sure what scares me the most, the optimism of politicians or the facts as I can read them in the newspapers.

The situation facing the United Kingdom along with the rest of Europe and to a degree the United States gives me no grounds for optimism.

I recently read an article by the Chair of the Church Urban Fund arguing that we must not abandon the principles of Lord Beveridge.

Well, the fact that the Church Urban Fund was meant to be an exemplar of the Churches commitment to social justice and meant to be wound up five or so years after Faith in the City, notwithstanding, although whether it was felt necessary to keep it going because of pressing social injustices or whether it was kept going for other reasons it's hard to say, the issue of Lord Beveridge and his recommendations make for an interesting discussion.

As a sixteen year old in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance I was sent to Birmingham on a course to be introduced to the Beveridge principles as they underpinned the work I would be doing as a very junior clerk.

The principles are clear and it is also clear that they are being traduced by the Government of the day.

But once at work in my new career I was told by a number of older colleagues that, to quote a TV advert 'There would be trouble ahead'.

The 'trouble' as they saw it was that the principle that no individual should be left without income or home when through sickness or old age they couldn't earn their living whilst right and fair and just, depended entirely on those in work paying through National Insurance and taxes, the benefits and pensions that were needed to honour the principle.

Their argument was that what should have been introduced was some form of actuarial based insurance scheme, so that those in work set funds aside for periods of sickness or unemployment and ultimately to pay for their pensions in old age.

Of course Beveridge's birds are coming home to roost.

The triple dip recession into which we are about to move, brought about by the coalition governments toxic programme of cuts and austerity, has resulted in fewer people in full time employment forced to fund an ever increasing welfare bill made up in its largest part of people over sixty five claiming their pensions.

Often saying, well I've paid in, so I'm entitled to my pension.

The problem with that of course is that what you paid in, paid for previous generations of pensions and yours rely on increasing taxation on bankers who would rather have bonuses, because there are fewer folk in the UK making anything and nearly all the new jobs are part time and we all rely on financial services.

So its not surprising that MP's are becoming younger and it is increasingly seen as a career opportunity for young and upcoming folk who either don't want or can't find a day job.

The Conservatives are the UK equivalent of the Republicans in America and UKIP is the equivalent of the Tea Party.

They are equally against taxation and for unbridled capitalism, despite the lessons of history which have shown again and again that these measures simply don't work.

From 1939 to 1945 Britain had to employ a command economy, it was called the war effort but it involved a form of socialism, of course there were profiteers but they were largely looked down on and booed, both at the time and later by history.

After the 1945 general election, the Labour Party was elected, and set about restructuring the British economy in favour of working people. 

Taxes increased, industries were nationalised, and the welfare state was created. 

The next four years saw some of the most rapid growth Britain has ever experienced.

With the ending of the sixties came Thatcherism and what the Beatles called a Hard Days Night.

Of course, despite Judy Dench's speech in the latest bond movie, we are not on a war footing, but we are facing some dramatic challenges.

There is no room for optimism.

Whether you are employed, disabled, sick or elderly the message is that the coalition does not have your interests at heart.

So don't be bamboozled into a false optimism.