Credibility and Frances Maude

Credibility: not a word usually associated with the slimy, venal piece of ordure otherwise known as Frances Maude. When he mentioned it during a ding-dong with Mark Serwotka on the Today programme, it stretched credulity so much it felt like the bottom of a vast barrel had just been scraped and found wanting. 

Maude is the MP who had a spat with the Commons expenses authority so bought a flat on a £345,000 mortgage barely 300 yards away from one of his homes in London. He then claimed £35000+ over two years. From the public purse. Even though he is a millionaire with four properties to his name. 

This is the same public purse that he is now so eager to protect from the needs of decent folk. But as they say, he broke no rules - - - - because the rules were made up by similar cheating, conniving scum like him (aka ‘other MPs).

The fact that he is now a Minister says all you need to know about the standards of the government and of Cameron’s ‘clean up’ of politics. 

Speaking of Public Sector Pensions...

There will be much pontification and rumbling about the Public Sector strike scheduled for tomorrow. Many of those doing the pontificating, whether it be in print or on the airwaves, enjoy vastly superior salaries and pensions than those they castigate. Take a look at how much one organisation pays its leading lights.

The BBC is a great national institution. It reflects our society on the issue of pay. There are a number of highly paid presenters including Gary Lineker on a reported £1.5 m. Yes, true, that much for cliche-ridden ‘analysis’ on Match of the Day. Jonathon Ross pleased many when he recently resigned from his £6 m pa contract. At the time he was reported to be the highest paid BBC employee. There are also thousands and thousands of intelligent, capable BBC staff who are paid a fraction of what these ‘celebs’ receive from us, the license payers.  The insatiable greed of the highest paid has been cravenly permitted by a BBC Management which is itself in thrall to greed. The vast sums paid to corporate non-entities like Mark Thompson do not correspond with value for money. There are other examples:

“John Humphrys will see his salary from the Today programme fall to £375,000 as part of deals which have seen presenters of the Radio 4 show take pay cuts of up to 20 per cent.

His new contract means he is likely to get an estimated £2,500 for each edition (approx 150 pa) until February 2013 — a 17 per cent cut.” Telegraph 19/2/11 Not a bad little earner per day.

“Jeremy Paxman takes 20% pay cut to stay at Newsnight - but still gets £3m over four years.” E Standard 8/2/11

“Huw Edwards, who reads The Ten o'clock News on BBC1 is reported to earn £250,000 a year, while Fiona Bruce earns £150,000 for reading the news, but another £250,000 for presenting other programmes, including Crimewatch.” Telegraph 2006

It is clearly very demanding to be able to look presentable and read an autocue. Much more demanding than arriving at a bad car crash and helping to save lives. Or inspiring young people to flourish and fulfill themselves. Or even sorting out housing problems with distressed citizens. Or cleaning up the vomit and body fluids produced by our infirm and elderly. 

Practicing looking sincere in front of the mirror is clearly the way to go for a well rewarded life. Talking inanities about football is lucrative but not quite as lucrative as being very cheeky with celebrities and politicians about their sex lives. 

With matching pensions to soothe the stress.

At more lowly levels, a Freedom of Information request to the Beeb revealed the following from BBC People:

“Based on staff employed on permanent or fixed-term contracts as at 28 February 2009, the median salary for a Broadcast Journalist within Radio 5Live was £32,014 and for a Senior Broadcast Journalist £42,452. These figures are based on full-time equivalent salaries to take into account those staff who work part-time.”  Now those figures seem grounded in the real world. Would that the ‘suits’ were rewarded on similar lines. 

Open your wallet before your gob

Before any of the self-appointed ‘moral guardians’ of the fourth estate heap more rubbish on the actions of desperate people trying to preserve a reasonable pension they should tell us exactly what they receive each year. [Note the non-use of ‘earn’ - pay attention Littlejohn at the back]. Some of these opinion formers are on vast sums, well in excess of lowly council workers. The Beeb and other broadcast media are not blameless either. Many of their presenters are on huge salaries. Their foreign correspondents (who generally earn every penny) report on strikes and demo's from Arab Spring trouble spots to general approval. The reaction in the UK is markedly different. To take strike action in the UK is portrayed as an anti-social activity akin to child beating and cruelty to animals. Balance? The status quo prevails and the rich and powerful go unchallenged.  

The hypocrisy and craven subservience to the status quo needs challenging. Following Steve Richard’s awful article in the Independent today, which seemingly was based on the people he met on a cruise he once went on, there was this splendid response online. There are alternatives. 

“So the UK cannot afford to give retired people a decent income? Other countries can. Lets take Germany as an example.The difference lies in political attitudes and awareness. Both countries are wealthy in global terms. The resources exist in both countries for people to have a decent retirement, and to have full employment if they chose to do so. 

 In the UK the dominant cultural attitude is that you 'live to work', once you cannot work you should not really live. The UK chooses not to employ a good proportion of its population. Young graduates....83 applying for every job, the unskilled languish hopelessly for generations on the dole, employers expect anyone over 55 to retire or they are the first to be made redundant. Yet the new way of thinking is that people should now work up to their 70's, but there is no mechanism to create this huge number of extra jobs.  The UK has an economy based on banking and capital locked in over inflated property prices. It is fundamentally dysfunctional. Private companies have been allowed to get away without providing for pensions, the public sector therefore is now to lower its employment standards to the lowest standards in the private sector. The private sector dismisses collective opinions of its workforce and unsustainability and short termism is the prevalent culture in management and the boardrooms.

In contrast, in  Germany people 'work to live'. Holidays are longer and  the atttude is that  you should retire as soon as possible, and start to live and travel, including cruises if thats your forte! Pensions are generous. Private sector employers have to provide a decent contribution to pensions, the public sector has to do likewise. The economy is based on making things, its industries are efficient, it operates a Keynesian economy where the state provides assistance to industry in many guises as well as having an effective social infrastructure funded by the state. Indeed the ruling conservative party (CDU and CSU) have enshrined in it's constitution that social welfare is to be protected...and that is the more monetarist right wing party of the coalition in Germany! Unions are considered to be an important asset in managing companies through mechanisms such as works councils.

The problem with UK journalists like yourself, is that they can never see outside of the neo-liberalist box. There are many different economic models other than that set up in the Thatcher and Reagan years, and then embedded by New Labour.  Other economic models exist where people and then leading fulfilled lives are considered to be the core of economic policy. There is no political debate in the UK merely tirades about personalities, bashing unions, immigrants and the dispossessed working class. Its time the UK and its press joined the real world and started to explore alternatives, look beyond little England and lets have some decent coverage of issues where comparisons are made with countries with better economic models.” 

Well said oldnic007! They do have some funny monickers on the web

Parents as strike breakers

Everybody has been to school so anyone can teach, is a feeling prevalent among the more stupid in our society. The squit Gove is a fine example of someone who is reputedly quite bright but who makes stupid errors. Like many Ministers he is arrogant and is hell bent on forcing his agenda through.

He appears determined to inflict the education he had on the nation’s children. Rather than looking backwards to the last century our education system should be enabling children to thrive and flourish in the modern world. A world that is changing incredibly quickly. A world where standing up for yourself takes many forms and requires guts and good communication skills. A world where unchecked and insatiable greed has produced inequality and unfairness on a peace-shattering scale. 

Gove’s latest wheeze is a doozy. Parents should keep schools open on Thursday. Forget child protection issues, Forget planning. Forget ability. Forget about learning objectives. Forget the impact of such an action on the relationships within and without the school community. And forget about what an invidious position it puts non-striking headteachers in. 

One of the rights on the UN Charter of Human Rights is the right to withdraw your labour. It is a right which when used by emerging nations struggling to overthrow tyrannical leaders is applauded by our mealy-mouthed political class. Fine for the third world - do not do it here. That seems to be the message put out by a compliant and collusive media. Does anyone believe that Rupert Murdoch, the Barclay brothers and Dirty Desmond are champions of union rights? Hmm, thought not.

Several members of the commentariat write that striking is just so passe, as though they were assessing fashion accessories. They moan, whinge and wail but are remarkably lacking in alternative legal strategies to get the message across. It is not a move that people take lightly. It costs money and is unsettling in so many ways. The ATL teacher’s union has never been on strike in 125 years. Does that not mean anything to squitty Gove? Why are the most moderate and pacific teachers prepared to strike?

Because what they are being asked to do stinks.

The politics of greed

Following the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression banking regulations were tightened up. For forty years banking and finance became synonymous with boring effectiveness. The seventies changed all that. The oil price rise allied to several crop failures made people lose faith in their governments effectiveness. Along comes Reagan spouting, “Untruths and doublethink to convince a credulous public that ‘government had become the principal obstacle to their personal fulfillment.’’ Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present by Jeff Madrick  reviewed in New York Review of Books by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells, which appeared in the Guardian 25/6/2011. 

Reagan, who made a great play on his aw shucks folksiness, helped make greed not only acceptable but desirable. Deregulation of the financial sector promoted the boom and bust cycle which has dominated world finance ever since. As each bust passes we hear the familiar mantras of ‘lessons must be learned’ without any real attempt to put the genie back in the box. Why is this? 

It has a lot to do with the way our politics is financed by the greedy. People like Friedman and Greenspan who believed the financial markets could do no wrong are very influential. There is another aspect which is disturbing as it is with us to this day. “It’s hard to make sense of the growing ability of bankers to get the rules rewritten in their favour without talking about the role of money in politics.” (ibid)

In America today most Republicans are attached to greedism and see big government as the problem. They extol the small man but are in thrall to corporate executives. The lack of regulation which they support and which allowed the sub-prime market to boom and then bust, are working hard to undermine the Obama administration’s efforts to put in place consumer protections which would prevent another sub-prime fiasco.

In the UK much has been made of ‘we are all in this together’ and the need for massive and swingeing public sector cuts. Little has been done to rein in the architects of our distress, the banks and financial institutions who brought about this mess. It is no co-incidence that the biggest contributors to Tory funds are financial institutions and hedge funds. 

As ‘The Age of Greed’ makes clear, Wall Street has triumphed at the expense of America. We are in a similar position. The City continues on its unrestricted and unrestrained way while the rest of us take the pain for very little gain. This is a global problem. 

There has to be a way for the insatiably greedy to be controlled for the good of the world. Our current crop of politicians are simply not up to the task. Too many are corrupt; some are weak and others lack the principles and values to formulate an alternative vision. 

We cannot go on like this.

What is it about our MPs that makes so many of them so crap?

Perhaps it is the way they have ‘moved on’ from the expenses scandal. There were a few casualties along the way, a handful of scapegoats who are currently doing time at her majesty’s pleasure but great swathes walked away relatively untouched. There has been an outpouring of ‘lessons learned’ and similar vagaries. But deep down not a lot has changed. 

Take for example the slipped out news that just as the coalition are gearing themselves up for a scrap with the public sector over pensions, MPs are negotiating their pension provision behind closed doors. No talk of restraint or taking the pain there. 

Or have a look at David Laws, an MP rated as very clever and a future mover and shaper.  The millionaire ex banker wrongly claimed £56,000 from the Commons authorities. He was suspended by his colleagues for a whole seven days with hardly a murmur. Frances Maude, currently upsetting the public sector with his comments about privilege and the need to take a bashing, is another millionaire whose expenses were a disgrace. He sails blithely on.

Or maybe it is the way they will not give a straight answer to a straight question. Angela Eagle was on ‘Any Questions’ this week. Asked repeatedly if she would support or condemn the public sector unions for taking strike action she weaselled and slithered while audience members yelled, “Answer the question.” A simple statement to the effect that she supported the UN Charter which entitles workers to withdraw their labour yet hoped an agreement could be reached would have been fine. What is it with Labour MPs and striking? Their movement was born out of industrial struggle, yet the modern post-holders deny their lineage. The same MPs who rage about workers taking strike action in the UK applaud workers taking action in other countries cf the Arab Spring.

Perhaps it is the way they enjoy fantastic perks. The Olympic ticket agency announced with great fanfare how they were making 10,000 tickets available for our troops. As there are currently over 200,000 of them, that number will not go very far. Quietly and without too much fuss, it was revealed that 9,000 tickets had been reserved for our 650 MPs. Nice.

But what is really awful is the way that so many have become clones. They follow a similar route into politics. University, research assistant to an MP, research assistant to a Minister or Shadow Minister, safe seat. Sometimes they had a job with a PR company or a lobbying company along the way (Cameron). One thing is absolute; contact with real people in real jobs struggling in the real world is kept to the minimum. Life in the bubble dominates. Values and policies overlap around the middle with a few exceptions at either end of the spectrum. All three major parties are singing from the same page of the hymn book although not necessarily singing the same hymn. Alternative approaches to our current situation are thin on the ground. The one Green MP has a different solution. Where are the others?

And as for the House of Lords.....!

PFI

“No Treasury Minister would appear on this programme.” Yet another example of our political class treating us with contempt. It is something which has been going on for some time. It happens far too frequently and is not confined to the coalition. It will not stop until we rise up. 

 An investigation on ‘File on Four’ into the lack of transparency and the huge profits available to the private sector for getting involved with PFI schemes ran into the usual wall when accountability crops up. PFI or the Private Finance Initiative, was the wheeze dreamt up by the Tories under Major and enthusiastically taken up by NewLabour. It works like this. Companies put money up to build a school, hospital or build fighter planes or similar. The government agrees a contract whereby the builders are paid back so much a year for 30/40 years. At very good rates. One research project established that a new hospital built under PFI would cost three times the actual cost spread over many years. It is no wonder that governments do not want us to see what they are doing. They are saddling future generations with masses of debt. 

The contract often then becomes a marketable asset in itself in that the contracts can be bought and sold. For reasons of ‘commercial confidentiality’ it is all hush hush. 

And that is why it stinks.

Without transparency corruption runs rampant. Without transparency  accountability can be denied or delayed. Without transparency the rich cream off masses of cash from the poor and keep the details secret. It is the FIFA approach to good governance. 

The silence from our political class is deafening. NHS defecit? MoD problems? Education cuts? All could be eased if this nettle were grasped.

According to the File on Four programme, contracts appear to have been somewhat generously drawn up to the massive advantage of the private investment companies. The sums involved are colossal. Billions and billions. Which leads us to another cause for concern which the programme did not touch on. The revolving door between Ministers, senior civil servants and private industry is well known but little tackled. Private Eye have made the point on numerous occasions. Defence Ministers who step down and within months are on the board of an arms company. Health Ministers who step down and walk into the boardroom of BUPA or similar. Former Home Secretaries on the boards of security firms. Senior civil servants responsible for negotiating the contracts walk away from Whitehall into the industry they have just been dealing with. The massive amounts of cash on offer in the off-balance sheet PFI deals are a great temptation for public servants feeling somewhat unappreciated and unrewarded. Nothing like a bit of back-scratching to sort out the pension. 

And so it goes and the cash flows into deep pockets. It is a real struggle to find out the extent and what the actual costs are in both short and long term. We are being ripped off by our financial institutions. And guess what? Many use offshore tax havens to maximise their profits. So we, the taxpayer, pay over the odds to companies who avoid paying taxes on the massive profits they make from public works.

It is wrong. It is rotten. It is false accounting and too many of our political leaders are happy to keep schtum.

It is no surprise that the government do not want to go on the record. Shame on them.