Week 13 2014

Tendring Topics……..on line

‘The paths of glory………’

          Last week in this blog I discussed the approaching referendum on the future of Scotland.  All residents in Scotland over the age of sixteen (now that is a revolutionary change in electoral law!) will be given the opportunity to declare whether they want their country to remain part of the United Kingdom or become an independent sovereign nation-state.  The UK government has stated that the majority decision will be accepted and acted upon, whatever it may be.

            Just over a week ago a rather similar referendum was taking place in the Crimea about the future of that peninsula.  Crimea is a federal state of the Ukraine and voters were invited to declare whether they wished to remain part of the Ukraine or to become part of the Russian Federation.  That was certainly not an option that they were given in 1954 when Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet Government had decided, presumably on the grounds of administrative convenience, that Crimea would no longer be part of Russia as it had been from the days of the Tsar, but of the Ukraine.  It had made little difference then, because both Russia and the Ukraine were constituent republics of the USSR.

             The referendum has been declared by Barak Obama to be ‘illegal’ (it may have been 'invalid', but how can establishing whether voters would prefer to be Russian or Ukrainian possibly be against any law?), William Hague, our verbally belligerent Foreign Minister described it as ‘a travesty of democracy’, and our Prime Minister has declared colourfully, but with no evidence whatsoever, that the result was obtained 'under the barrel of a Kalashnikov!'  I have seen no reports of ballot-rigging, multiple voting, or bullying of potential voters, as there have been after elections in Afghanistan and countries in the Middle East and Africa. We can be quite sure that any such reports would have been given full publicity by the Russo-sceptic press. The pro-Russian majority of 96 percent established what had already been made obvious  The way in which the Crimeans had welcomed Russian troops and had voluntarily displayed Russian flags; provided ample evidence that the population of Crimea preferred a future with Russia rather than Ukraine.    Since ethnic Russians are said to comprise only some 58 percent of the population of Crimea, that enormous majority suggests that quite a few ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars also voted for the Russian option.

            It would be that sort of majority we would expect to get if the inhabitants of Gibraltar were asked if they wanted to be citizens of the United Kingdom or of Spain  – and for much the same reason.

            Russia’s subsequent ‘annexation’ of the Ukraine has been described as an illegal ‘land-grab’. Perhaps it was, but it was surely unique in the fact that the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the land that was ‘grabbed’ had wanted it to happen. It has also been unique in the fact that so far (even, it seems, after the forceful Russian take-over of the Ukrainian naval base reported this, Monday 24th March morning)  has been achieved with remarkably little bloodshed – less bloodshed, in fact, than in the violent demonstrations in Kiev that had preceded the Russian action.

            I recall that when it was decided to support the separatists in Kosovo (where I doubt very much if a referendum would have revealed over 90 percent of inhabitants wanted to break away from Serbia) the campaign included the RAF's bombardment of Serbia’s capital, the City of Belgrade.  When the UK government, after deceiving parliament and the British public about Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’, decided to join the USA in enforcing a regime-change in Iraq, the campaign began by inducing ‘shock and awe’ with terror air-raids on Baghdad.  As a direct result of that illegal invasion thousands of innocent lives were lost. Iraq is still a divided country in which terrorism flourishes; the same terrorism that perpetrated 9/11 and had been unknown in Iraq prior to our invasion.  I really don’t think that Crimea faces a remotely similar future.   I have referred in earlier blogs to the USA’s illegal blockade of Cuban ports, the use of chemical weapons in the Vietnam War and the totally unprovoked invasion of Grenada in the West Indies (then part of the British Commonwealth!)

            No doubt Russia has broken international rules by recovering its lost Crimean province without having first attempted negotiation, but ‘Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone!’

            I was not impressed with Vladimir Putin’s triumphal announcement of Russia’s recovery of Crimea in the Russian Parliament. Painstakingly staged, it resembled too closely George Bush’s premature announcement of victory in Iraq from the bridge of a US aircraft carrier.  All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Successful leaders surround themselves with flatterers who feed their egos and lead them on into folly. To suggest that Putin is another Stalin is ridiculous, but I do think that he may see himself as ‘Vladimir the Great’, a worthy successor of the Romanov Tsars.

            He has promised ‘to put the glory back into Russia’. I can only hope and pray that the eight million Russian dead of World War II remind him that the paths of glory lead but to the grave.  The rest of the world's leaders, every one of whom is too young to have personal memories of World War II, also need to remember it.

The Budget

          I once would have described myself as a ‘democratic socialist’. I was for a short while a member of the Labour Party and was, in fact, accepted as a Labour candidate for a county council election.  How glad I am now that I withdrew my candidature, believing that I could do more for the causes that I support in my weekly Tendring Topics column in a local newspaper, than in the Council Chamber at Chelmsford, where I’d have been expected to toe the party line.

            One of those causes (regular blog readers will probably be all too familiar with some of the others!) arises from my conviction that many, perhaps most, of Britain’s problems arise from the enormous and ever-widening gap between the richest and the poorest in our society.  To the New Labour Party’s shame that gap widened during their ten years in office and has continued to widen ever since.   I think that I am well qualified to comment on this subject because my own income and possessions are sufficient for my life style. At 92 the opportunities for extravagant living become somewhat limited! I have no desire for more than I already possess – and I certainly wouldn’t be happy with much less.  I now describe myself, not as a socialist but as an egalitarian and I don’t much concern myself with how greater equality could best be achieved. In some fields public ownership (either national or local) would probably be the best way forward, but co-operative ownership and employer/employee partnerships may also have a valuable part to play.  I support – very modestly – the Equality Trust www.equalitytrust.org.uk  that works toward that end.

 My idea of a ‘good Budget’ is one that narrows the gap between rich and poor and a ‘bad Budget’ is one that widens it.  It follows that it is many years since I have seen a ‘good Budget’ and I despair of ever seeing one produced either by our present government or any currently conceivable successor.

Both parties in the coalition government are eager to claim the credit for taking ‘millions of low paid workers out of the tax system altogether’ by raising the personal allowance (the level at which income tax becomes payable) from £10,000 to £10,500 a year.  It does, of course, help low earners but it also helps everyone who pays income tax (including me!) right up to those on £100,000 or more a year.  What’s more it perpetuates the false idea that there’s a hard-working group of ‘tax payers’ whose labours subsidise an underclass of non-taxpayers.  It’s not true.   The non income-tax payer pays tax (VAT) every time he has his car, or his bike or his house repaired.  He pays tax every time he buys himself a pint, fills up the petrol tank of his car or motor bike, or is foolish enough to buy a lottery ticket or scratch card, to put a few bob on a horse, or to play commercial bingo!   He probably pays a higher proportion of his income in tax than bankers or stock brokers with their inflated salaries and bonuses! 

Regular blog readers will know that I believe that every adult citizen, from the poorest to the wealthiest, should pay the same percentage of his or her gross income in income tax as their annual membership fee as a citizen of the UK – and that those who go abroad to escape that responsibility should automatically forfeit that citizenship.

A somewhat controversial feature of the budget would permit those who are saving for a pension on retirement to withdraw all or part of that ‘pension pot’ without financial penalty, at any time.  Fears have been expressed that ‘live-for-the-day’ fifty-year olds might draw out the lot and spend it all on a cruise to the Caribbean or a glorious boozy party, rather than leave it to  mature for a meagre pension that they may never live to enjoy!  I think there’s a much greater danger that responsible middle-aged people faced with a domestic crisis, might draw out a smallish sum from the ‘pension pot’ to deal with it, rather than go to a payday loan firm – or a loan shark.  No-one would criticise them for doing so -  but it wouldn’t take many such crises to empty that ‘pot’! 

I don’t think Mr Osborne and his colleagues realize how their policies have brought so many families to the edge of a financial precipice – and how little it could take to render them jobless,  homeless and relying on the local food bank for their survival.  But then I don’t suppose that the members of a government of millionaires who spend much of their time with fellow-millionaires can be expected to know much about the struggles and the anxieties of the less well off.

Week 41.10 12th October 2010

Tendring Topics……..on Line

‘How will the Chancellor’s child benefit move hit you?’

This was the question posed by the daily Coastal Gazette to its readers on Tuesday 5th October, the day that Chancellor George Osborne broke it to the Conservative Party Conference that from 2013 higher rate taxpayers would not be eligible for Child Benefit. Predictably the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph saw it as yet another assault on ‘Middle England’. Local readers of the Coastal Gazette however seem to have taken the news much more philosophically.

The higher rate of income tax comes into force on incomes of about £44,000 a year. I reckon that a substantial number of Gazette readers think in terms of a weekly wage rather than an annual salary. For them £44,000 a year is roughly £850 a week, not the sort of sum that many of them find in their wage packets on payday. Unsurprisingly they see the Chancellor’s decision as a sound one. Nina Hamilton, who lives not far from me in Old Road, is reported as saying, ‘People who are bringing in about a grand a week don’t really need the help in my opinion. Child allowance makes a big difference to people on lower incomes’. Amanda Snelling, a mother of one, from Great Clacton, made a similar point: ‘I’m all for these cuts for people earning upwards of £40K a year. If they’re on that money then what does a £20 a week benefit really mean to them anyway? It’s good news for the working classes who rely on that money’

Those who definitely will see the Chancellor’s proposals as unfair will be ‘Middle England’ mums whose husband’s income only just comes into that upper tax band and who feel that being at home for their growing children is more important than, for instance, owning a second car, living in a rather posher home or taking regular holidays in the Caribbean. Next door to them, in the leafy suburb in which they both live, may be a family with a total income of £60,000 a year – but it comes from a man and wife both working and earning £30,000 a year each. They will still get their child allowance because no one in the household is on the higher tax band! ‘Fair’, did I hear David Cameron say?

In my younger days, certainly in families from ‘Middle England’ and in many working class ones too, the wife made and maintained the home and looked after the children. The husband was, and was expected to be, the ‘breadwinner’. My mother never had a job other than home making once she was married. Neither did my wife. What a medieval idea that seems today! There was much less juvenile delinquency though in those days, many fewer schoolgirl pregnancies and many fewer teenage sufferers from alcoholism or sexually transmitted diseases.

One thing that has been made plain by those who protested indignantly at the Chancellor’s proposals, and those who thought that they were a good idea, was that everyone welcomes cuts in services and benefits – provided that they always affect other people. And that this is true of wealthy and poor alike! This will no doubt be confirmed when more details of ‘the cutbacks’ are known on 20th of this month. I really don’t envy the Chancellor in his task! He can’t possibly please everybody and he can’t possibly be fair unless he pleases nobody!

Some Cheerful News – for now!

There isn’t much good news about these days but it was nice to spot a small news item on an inside page of the Clacton Gazette announcing that the village of St Osyth has been listed by the Daily Telegraph as one of the best endowed by nature as a place to live. It has, says the report, low levels of air pollution and offers its residents ‘exhilarating sea walks’.

Its outstanding positive feature though is its low rainfall, at 20in or 513mm, the very lowest in Britain and (as I used proudly to claim when I was Tendring Council's Public Relations Officer) was comparable with that of the fringes of southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert! If you prefer a nearer comparison, Britain’s wettest spot, Crib Goch in Snowdonia (an area where thousands go on holiday each year) has almost 90 times as much annual rainfall at 177in or 4500mm.

It isn’t quite so good of course for keen gardeners. I remember, in the distant days when I was one of their number, surveying my parched lawn and wilting runner beans after weeks of drought, and reflecting that there were snags about cultivating a garden just three miles from the centre of Britain’s driest location!

It won’t, of course, affect the weather but I reckon that if the present owner of St. Osyth Manor gets his way and doubles the total number of homes in the village, St Osyth will become a lot less desirable place in which to live. Perhaps though, as Britain’s population grows, expansion on those lines is inevitable. I won’t be around to see it, but I think it possible that before the end of this century the village community will have been swallowed up in Clacton and will have become one of the town’s more attractive suburbs. 'Oh brave new world!'

Chip off the old block?

It can be disconcerting to find traits in your offspring that are replicas of your own. It can, of course, also be extremely satisfying. I have been more than pleased that my two sons have both chosen socially useful careers motivated by job satisfaction rather than by financial gain, and that my three grandchildren have followed in their parents’ footsteps. I am pleased too that, although no longer ‘go-to-meeting’ Quakers, my sons pursue what I consider to be the Quaker values of honesty, plain speaking and concern for others. In that respect I fear that it was their mother rather than I who set the example.

A little while ago I confessed in this column that I was an opinionated old man and one who was not content to keep his opinions to himself. Pete, my elder son, is beginning to display similar symptoms. I tend to spread my opinions via this blog and in the correspondence columns of the press. He – more usefully perhaps – shares his with his member of parliament. I should perhaps mention that in many respects, the present Prime Minister would consider Pete to be an ideal role model. Made redundant from a very senior post in local government housing administration, he launched his own IT consultancy, gathering round himself a team of IT experts experienced in public administration, to solve the problems of local, police and other public authorities. HUB Solutions Ltd ( www.HUBSolutions.co.uk ) now has satisfied clients throughout England and Scotland and an office in Glasgow as well as in London. This doesn’t mean that, any more than I do, he supports all – or even many - of the policies of David Cameron and the coalition that he heads. Very shortly after the General Election he wrote to his local MP, Lib.Dem. Lynne Featherstone about the coalition’s axing of the school building and renovation programme and received a very rapid and positive reply. Now he has written again in the wake of policies announced at the Conservative Party Conference. Below, slightly abbreviated, is his letter.

Dear Lynne,

I wrote to you shortly after the General Election, in which I voted for you, concerned at the decision your Government has made to cut the entire School Building Programme. I appreciated your prompt reply. However, I feel that policy pronouncements of the last week require me to tell you that the latest decisions of your partners in the Coalition seem to me to move so far in the wrong direction, that it is difficult for me to understand how you can remain a party to such a regime.

I am sure that I am not alone in noticing, that while the Prime Minister says that the burden of cuts must be shared by all, in fact a particular sector of the community – those with children in their care – has been relentlessly singled out for sacrifice. This anti-child policy started with the immediate and apparently careless decision to cut the school building programme. Since it became apparent that this could not even be accurately listed, it could hardly have been carefully assessed.

The Chancellor, in his first speech to the House, announced a cap on Housing Benefit, knowing that it would mainly impact upon families with several children living in central London properties, who would, as a result, be forced to move out – possibly away from extended family and schools, which are so important to children. I am sure that you are aware that it is practically impossible for a Benefit claimant to start a private tenancy on a high rent, as very few landlords would allow that. Therefore, the arbitrary cap would mainly affect those who were working and suffered misfortune such as illness, separation or redundancy.

The Chancellor this week announced two further policies that deliberately and quite carelessly extend this strategy, placing an arbitrary cap on Benefits receivable, and removing entitlement of Child Benefit from households in which any member is paying the higher rate of tax.
I have yet to see any attempt to share the “national sacrifice” with single young people and childless couples, who often have a high disposable income much of which is spent on entirely unnecessary luxuries. Just as relevant, if we are genuinely concerned about people who should be more motivated to get a job, I haven’t seen anything to encourage single young people, neither in work nor in full time education, who are potentially highly mobile and who have very little justification for claiming benefits, to seek employment.

I believe that decisions such as these which focus on the most vulnerable in our society are not just a matter of political judgement – or misjudgement – but are quite immoral in their motivation, carelessly indifferent to the impact of their application, and nothing whatever to do with the financial crisis.

I admire the loyalty that Liberal Democrats have shown to the concept of a coalition in the national interest, but morality demands that loyalty must have its limits. It doesn’t look as if the Liberal Democrats were even consulted on any of the policy pronouncements I have listed and I would urge you to consider the threshold at which, from a Liberal Democrat point of view, the Coalition is no longer serving the National interest. I believe that you can compromise on judgement, but not on the issues of fundamental morality to which I have referred..

Yours sincerely

Peter Hall

It is all stuff that I would have been happy to have written myself, except that I hadn’t realized the effect that capping housing benefit would have on poorer households in central London. But there, I haven’t had experience of housing administration in central London. Pete has. I am glad too that he has drawn attention to the fact that well-off ‘singletons’ and the DINKY (Double Income, No Kids Yet) Brigade seem so far to be escaping the cuts that are threatening those with families.

Looking at the bigger picture, it leaves me wondering whether financial measures affecting the great majority of us who are neither the seriously wealthy nor even residents in the very comfortable ‘Middle England’ of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, should be under the control of a Chancellor from a privileged background who has never experienced poverty or been in a situation where every penny (or even every fiver!) counts.

A Bungled ‘Rescue’

I can’t stop thinking about that Aid Worker, full of compassion for the Afghan people; kidnapped by those she was trying to help and then killed by our NATO allies in a bungled rescue attempt. The final indignity was surely the ever more detailed lies that were told about the manner of her death. (‘The embrace of death’, ‘Clutched to the bosom of a suicide bomber in the hour of rescue’) until, so it appears, photographic evidence suggested that she was killed by a fragmentation grenade hurled by one of her rescuers into the room in which she was held captive. Resolutely casting aside such thoughts as ‘trigger-happy Yanks’, there are two or three questions to which I would dearly like to know the answers.

The need for her rescue was said to have been urgent because she had been about to be transferred across the frontier into Pakistan. Isn’t the Pakistan government supposed to be our loyal ally who has recently fought a vastly expensive (both in resources and in human life) campaign clearing their border area of Taliban terrorists?

Why on earth were fragmentation grenades carried by troops engaged in a rescue mission? Stun grenades and stun guns, certainly – automatic rifles and hand guns, probably – the rescuers wouldn’t have known what armed resistance they might have encountered immediately before or after the rescue attempt. Tear gas or similar grenades, possibly. Surely not fragmentation grenades, deadly weapons used at relatively close range and guaranteed to kill or maim anyone, friend of foe, in their immediate vicinity!

Had it not been for that photographic evidence, we would still believe those lies about that aid worker’s death at the hands of her dastardly captors as the heroic rescuers drew near. How many other lies have we been told, I wonder, about this unwinnable war that is looking more like ‘Vietnam’ (except that then there were no British troops involved) as every day passes?