27th February 2015

Tendring Topics……on line

Is our economy safe in their hands?

            One of the main points of the Conservative Party’s election campaign is that the country’s economy is safe in their hands.  Vote for any party other than the Conservatives, they say, and you’ll have Ed Miliband as Prime Minister. Our economy – your money – is safe with David Cameron.   Well, I’m not all that keen on Ed Miliband but I really don’t think his economic policies are materially different from those of David Cameron.  It doesn’t seem to occur to either of them (or perhaps they’re both too scared of well-off voters to mention it) that cutting essential public services is neither the only nor the best way of reducing that deficit. 

The deficit is the difference between the government’s income and its expenditure.  Why not try increasing its income?   A penny on income tax would hurt no-one (even with the skewed-in-favour-of-the-wealthy income tax system we have today) and would have an instant effect on the deficit.  Instead David Cameron is talking about cutting income tax!  Both he and the Liberal Democrats are convinced that they’re doing a tremendous service to the poor by raising the level at which income becomes liable, thereby taking some low-paid workers out of the income tax system altogether.  Sometimes they say, ‘Out of the tax system altogether’, as though income tax were the only tax we all pay.

In fact, by raising the  threshold at which income tax becomes payable, they are helping everyone who pays income tax – but they are not in the least helping those whose income is already too low to be subject to taxation.

 One way in which the Government has wasted our money is in the maintenance of our Trident Nuclear Submarine ‘independent Nuclear Deterrent’.  It is not independent (can you imagine us using it – or even threatening to use it – without the OK of Washington?) and it hasn’t deterred any of the many acts of aggression that have occurred in the post-war years.  When the Falklands were invaded by Argentina neither our ‘nuclear deterrent’ nor our ‘special relationship’ with the USA were the least help to us.  Nor does everyone think that the lavish cost of an all-but-a-state-funeral of a politician who deeply divided the country and whose flagship ‘right to buy’ legislation is responsible for our current housing crisis, was money well spent.

Perhaps though the most absurd and obviously crazy way in which the Conservative dominated coalition government has frittered away our money has been the replacement of area Police Committees with directly elected ‘Police and Crime Commissioners’ with power to appoint and sack Chief Constables and to determine the general direction of police work though operational control remains, thank goodness, with the Chief Constables.   The former Police Committees were, so the coalition claimed, ‘undemocratic’.   How can one man or woman, elected by a tiny fragment of the total electorate, possibly be ‘more democratic’ than a committee, at least some members of which had been elected locally?

The obvious way to make the police answerable to the local public was to make them the responsibility of the local county or unitary authority council. They would elect some of their members to serve on a ‘Police and Crime Committee’ with the same responsibilities as those of Police and Crime Commissioners.  These police committees would be more representative of their whole area than any single individual could hope to be.  They’d also be much better able to co-ordinate police activities with those of other local or regional services such as education, social services, highways, and parks and gardens, for which the County Council or Unitary Authority is responsible.  What’s more, they’d cost less, which I would have thought would have been a prime consideration of our Prime Minister and Chancellor.

You’ll recall that the public showed its contempt for the whole idea of directly elected Commissioners (an idea imported from the USA) by failing to turn up at the polling booths.  Nationwide the percentage of those bothering to register their vote was the lowest recorded in any election – and Essex set a splendid example by having the lowest turn-out of the lot!

Of course there has always been the possibility that those of us who were convinced that the appointment of Police and Crime Commissioners was a costly mistake were quite wrong. There could have been a dramatic fall in crime and rise in the detection rate, and we might have all been sleeping easier in our beds in the knowledge that we had a Commissioner looking after our interests.  Essex’s own Commissioner – Nick Alston - seemed a pleasant enough chap.  Perhaps he could work miracles.

Headlines in the local Daily Gazette suggest that he can’t; It’s official……crime is rising in Essex.   In fact, that is only partly true.  The number of domestic abuse cases rose from 9,222 to 10,825 in 2013 and there was 35 percent rise in prosecutions against Class A drug dealers. The solved crime rate fell to 27.63 percent.   On the other hand there was an 11.6 percent drop in the number of burglaries and there were 900 fewer incidents of rural crime.

 While the government exercises tight control of the purse strings there is little that either the Crime Commissioner or a Police Committee can do to reduce crime.  Mark Smith, chairman of the Essex Police Federation is quite sure that the politicians are to blame:

 It is quite clear that what we are being told by the politicians is not true.  They say crime is down.  It is not and we are not even recording new crimes like cyber crime and ‘grooming’.

We have already had cuts of £72.5 million and have heard that in the next five years we are going to have to save another £80 million. We will probably lose 200 officers this year, so we will have gone down from 3,600 to 3,000. In five years there will only be about 2,000 if the cuts go ahead.

I’m not a great Ed Miliband fan and intend to vote Green in the General Election. However I’d support Ed Miliband’s promise that a future Labour Government would put more coppers on the beat and pay for the change by scrapping those expensive and largely impotent Police and Crime Commissioners.

Yet another NHS reorganisation?

In this blog I have again and again criticised the action of successive governments – both Conservative and Labour – of stripping local authorities of the powers and responsibilities that were theirs in the 1930s.   When in 1937 and aged sixteen, I stepped onto the very lowest rung of the staff ladder of Ipswich Corporation’s Public Health Department in 1937 the Department was responsible for a General Hospital, an Isolation Hospital (infectious diseases like diphtheria and scarlet fever were much more common, and deadlier, in those days), a Maternity Home and a Tuberculosis Sanatorium. The department was also responsible for the domiciliary midwives and district nurses and the school medical service, as well as the environmental health services for which it is responsible today.  There may well have been other services of which I was not aware.  I was very young, on the very lowest staff level – and my local government career was interrupted after just two years by the outbreak of World War II!

After the war I was older and, I hope, wiser than I had been.  I was one of the returning servicemen who voted for Clem Attlee’s Labour Government – but I was a little dismayed when all those local health and medical services were taken over by the NHS.  However I thought that the advantages of a truly National Health Service outweighed the disadvantages, and – until the last year or so – I have had no reason to think otherwise.   I wasn’t impressed with the Government’s last NHS reorganisation.  It sounds wonderful to make GPs responsible for all their patients needs – seeing a consultant, getting a bed in a hospital and so on.  But GPs are fully occupied examining patients, treating them and passing them on to consultants when necessary.  They really didn’t have the time for administrative work.   I wrote in this blog that they were getting rid of one layer of bureaucracy and replacing it with dozens of smaller layers as GP practices took on extra staff or formed consortiums to deal with this work.  Now it seems the Government is really trying to localise the Health Service in at least one part of the UK.  They are making the local authorities that comprise Greater Manchester a single comprehensive Health and Welfare Authority, responsible for both Health and Social Services.  It sounds a brilliant idea but there are several matters on which I’d like further clarification.

The government will fund this new authority.  This government isn’t famous for its lavish support of public services.  Will there be adequate funding?

He who pays the piper calls the tune.  Are we quite sure that this new authority will not find itself directly under the thumb of bureaucrats in Whitehall?

Just now the new authority will be under democratic control by elected councillors.  But I understand that within a few years the area will have an all-powerful ‘Mayor’.  Will a Mancunian equivalent of Boris Johnson dictate Health Service policy?

   Services inside the new authorities’ area will inevitably be different (not necessarily either better or worse) that those outside.  What will happen when someone complains that ‘That woman over the road got into hospital immediately.  I’ve been told I’ll have  to wait two months – it’s just a post code lottery?'

      

           

20th February 2015

Tendring Topics…….on line

‘Immoral Earnings’

          Tax evasion (strictly illegal) and tax avoidance (legal but often distinctly dodgy) have been a recurring theme in this blog. I regard income tax as our annual subscription for the privilege of British citizenship. We should be proud to pay it, not reluctant. There is nowadays a thriving business in advising already-wealthy clients how to avoid paying anything like their fair share of income tax – in some instances how to avoid paying any income tax whatsoever.  This new ‘profession’ is surely parasitic and ’living on immoral earnings’, much the same as brothel keepers and the like; and deserving the same punishments as them if or when they are brought to justice.

             I was astonished when I learned that BBC investigative journalists had discovered that Britain’s largest Bank HSBC, was among  the foremost of these ‘financial pimps’ – and that one of their multi-millionaire clients had lived in luxury for years without ever paying a penny in income tax.  HMRC – the government department charged with the collection of taxes and customs duties believed that this particular client was living somewhere in Spain, but – surprise, surprise! – had been unable to contact him.

            There seems to have been a remarkably cosy relationship between HSBC, the HMRC and the government that employs the latter to collect money owed to them (our money in fact).   A former Chief Executive, later chairman of HSBC, on leaving the bank was ennobled (just like our own Lord Hanningfield!) and given a job in the government.  Nothing wrong with that perhaps – I have always thought that the Kray brothers would have made excellent Police and Crime Commissioners!    Rather more worrying is the fact that, on retirement, a former senior official of HMCR was given a senior position with HSBC.  Poacher becoming a Gamekeeper is one thing – but Gamekeeper becoming Poacher is something quite different.

           

            I wouldn’t pretend to understand exactly how multi-millionaires were advised on avoiding the taxation that the rest of us have to pay.  It seems though that at the centre of this operation was a Swiss ancillary of HSBC. We are told that that ancillary has now been thoroughly reorganised.  ‘Lessons have been learned’ from the mistakes.  They were made a few years ago and we must now draw a line under the past and move forward into the future.

            I bet that those ‘celebrity paedophiles’ who are serving prison snentences for incidents that occurred forty or fifty years ago, are wishing that they could have said the same thing – and got away with it!

The Prime Minister’s response

          David Cameron’s response to the revelations about HSBC and HMCR was as we have come to expect.  No government, he claimed, has done more than his has to stem aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion.  That says no more than that no government has ever done very much in that field.   Understandable enough – start taking money from the super-rich and they’ll be less inclined to offer financial support to the party that they had relied upon to look after their interests.

            Probably though Mr Cameron, like me, doesn’t really understand how tax avoidance works, and how it can be prevented.   He swiftly moved on to a field in which he and his chancellor have become experts; penalising the poor and vulnerable to avoid inconveniencing the really wealthy.  They hadn’t previously noticed that some of those who receive benefit do so because they are suffering from obesity or alcohol or other addiction.  These are curable conditions.  Cut their benefit unless they are positively seeking a cure and you’ll not only improve their medical condition but you’ll encourage them to seek work and save a few quid to reduce that deficit.

            I’m reminded of a somewhat cynical story that was circulating in Germany in the early post-war years when every firm and every organisation was struggling to rid itself of the taint of Nazism.    One keen German gardener meets another:   ‘What have you been doing today Fritz?’ ‘I’ve been denazifying my carrot patch’. ‘Denazifying?’   ‘Yes, denazifying – you know; pulling out the little ones so that the big ones will thrive and get bigger’. 

Ukraine

           Three times I have started to put on paper my thoughts about the situation in Ukraine and three times I have failed.  The situation changes day by day, almost hour by hour.  Hope of a peaceful settlement almost dies – and then flickers into life again. One thing that is certain is that the outlook on both sides has hardened as a result of the conflict. Before the killing started I am quite sure that the rebels would have been satisfied with a limited autonomy within a loose Ukrainian Federation.  Now, I think, they’ll be striving for full independence.   Similarly, many on the government side would, I think, have been willing to grant that limited autonomy.  Now hard-liners will be satisfied with nothing less than the ethnic cleansing from Ukraine of all Russophiles (hundreds have already been killed and thousands driven into exile) and the obliteration of the Russian language and of Russian culture from the country.

In this conflict it is the rebels (always referred to in BBC news bulletins as  ‘Russian-backed rebels!) who are the victims.  They feared that the Kiev Government intended to destroy their language and culture.   At first they tried to prevent them by peaceful means – do you remember the tv pictures of unarmed civilians, men, women and little children trying to stop the progress into their country of Kiev government tanks and armoured cars?  Since the fighting started it is the rebels’ homes that have been flattened by shellfire.   The million people driven from their homes and seeking refuge in Russia are all from rebel held towns and villages.  I have little doubt that they comprise most of the 5,500 dead.

Angela Merkel and the French President are at least trying to keep the flame of peace alight.  Our government?   Well, we’ve supplied the Kiev Government with sixty second-hand armoured cars.  They’re unarmed at the moment but the Kiev government can soon mount some machine guns onto them and send them into the conflict.    Oh yes – and our Defence Secretary has announced that any armed Russian incursion into the Baltic States will be resisted by NATO.  Over a quarter of the population of two of those three Baltic states are ethnic Russians. The Defence Secretary (who clearly isn’t old enough to remember the true horror of a European War) would be better occupied urging the governments of those Baltic States not to treat the ethnic Russians as second-class citizens, and to give the Russian language the same status as the local tongue.  Switzerland, Belgium and Wales all have more than one ‘official language’.   So could Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.   

If the Baltic ethnic Russians have no grievances they’ll have no inclination to revolt and seek Russian help.

Some later thoughts

This morning (Friday 20^th February) I have just heard that an influential committee of the House of Lords has declared that, due to inept policies pursued by inexperienced foreign office officials, we have ‘sleep walked’ into the situation in Ukraine.  My own fear is that we may be sleep-walking into World War III.

 Nations, as well as individuals, should make a real effort to see the world through the eyes of their opponents.  Russia sees itself surrounded by a hostile NATO alliance extending from the Baltic, round the frontier of the Russian Federation to the Black Sea.

We may well think of that NATO alliance as being purely defensive – but how would we feel if the Irish Republic, the Netherlands, Belgium and France were to become part of a potentially hostile alliance?   How would the USA feel if Mexico and Canada did the same?

In the case of the USA we know what would happen.  In the 1962 the Soviet Union attempted to supply its ally Cuba with missiles to defend itself from the very real threat of invasion from the USA. President Kennedy – by no means the most bellicose of American presidents – was prepared to bring the world to nuclear war to prevent it.   Fortunately Nikita Khruschev, then President of the USSR, had more sense.  He withdrew the missiles – but there was no further attempt to invade Cuba from the USA.

February 2015

Tendring Topics……..on line

Tendring Topics……..on line

The tragedy of Ukraine

            Regular blog readers will know that I have a personal concern about the conflict in Eastern Ukraine because of the thought that those engaged on both sides in that conflict may be that grandchildren of the Russian and Ukrainian conscripted ‘slave workers’ who were my good friends and comrades in Germany from 1943 till 1945 when I was an ‘other rank’ British POW also compelled to work there.

            I was delighted when the political leaders of France and Germany, having had talks with the President of the Kiev Ukrainian government, discussed with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, their plans for an immediate cease-fire leading to a permanent peace   I had hoped that these talks would be successful though I was not convinced that either the Ukrainian President had absolute control of the government forces (there are, I believe, a number of private ‘militia’ groups supporting the Kiev government)  or Vladimir Putin control of the rebels..

            There have now been over 5,000 fatal casualties in this unnecessary civil war.  Although we don’t know who these casualties are I’d be very surprised if the majority of them are not civilians and victims of the relentless shelling by the government forces of towns and villages under rebel control.  Certainly most of the thousands of  refugees whose homes have been destroyed and who are seeking refuge in Russia, are from rebel-held areas under constant attack.

             It wasn’t really surprising that that first peace initiative failed. It was never likely that an agreement that had been welcomed by the Ukrainian President could possibly be immediately acceptable to the rebels.  Both sides needed to compromise if there were to be a lasting cease-fire.  A few weeks ago there had been hope as the prisoner of war exchange agreed in Minsk in September took place.  Since then the fighting has flared up again.  It is assumed by our press and the BBC that the rebels were responsible – but were they?  It really does take two to make a quarrel – or a war.

            After the failure of the German and French peace initiative, hopes of a cease-fire flickered but were not totally extinguished.  Fortunately, neither Angela Merkel or her French counterpart were prepared to take ‘no’ for an answer.  They arranged a meeting on 11^th February, this time with both Vladimir Putin and Barak Obama, Presidents of the Russian Federation and of the USA, taking part. Once again there were no representatives of Russian speaking East Ukraine present.  This was not because no representative of the rebels was prepared to come, nor yet because President Putin had advised them against coming; but simply because the representatives of the Kiev government refused to speak to them!

It must have been a strange peace conference that barred one of the combatants from participation.  However it permitted the Kiev government to persist in the fiction that the rebels were under the direct command of Russia, and effectively prevented them from publicising their reasons for armed resistance to a government take-over.

           

            Discussions went on throughout the night.  With the dawn came news of a hard-won agreement that German Chancellor Angela Merkel said gave ‘just a glimmer’ of hope.  There is to be a complete cease-fire effective from midnight on Saturday 14^th February.  Both sides are then to withdraw their forces to leave a ‘peace corridor’ between them.  Prisoners are to be exchanged and talks to begin about the degree of autonomy that is to be accorded to East Ukraine.

            The Foreign Minister of the Kiev Government has already said publicly that the plan will fail and, of course, his government has the power to make sure that it does so – and to put the blame squarely onto the rebels!

            The only way to ensure that the peace plan has any chance of succeeding is for the cease-fire to be rigorously policed by a considerable number of neutral observers from France and Germany.  They might, at the same time, see if there is evidence of the Russian Army Units that ‘the west’ seems to be quite certain are now fighting in Eastern Ukraine.  On the BBC tv news recently we have had several reports from correspondents behind the rebel lines in Eastern Ukraine. None of them has mentioned the presence of Russian Military Units.

            My own guess is that the Russian government probably has given the rebels some artillery because we have recently heard of the rebels shelling government army positions.  Previously it was the government troops doing all the shelling.  I think too, that it is probable that Russian Army volunteers have been granted leave to allow them to support their brethren across the frontier.  Had the Russians sent an armoured division in to help the rebels – as has been claimed by the Ukrainian President – I believe that the Russian flag would now be hoisted over the Kiev Parliament!

            I believe that by far the best solution would be for both sides in Ukraine to be disarmed and for Ukraine’s neutrality to be guaranteed by both NATO and the Russian Federation.  Further I believe that both the Russian and Ukrainian languages (are they really very different?) should be made official languages in Ukraine and given equal status, and that Ukraine should be given free trading access to both the EU and the Russian Federation.

             Without the financial burden of defence spending, with easy access to the world’s markets, and with the financial help needed to rebuild their shattered country provided by their fellow Europeans both in the EU and in Russia, Ukraine’s recovery could be spectacular, and a model for other defence-burdened countries to follow. No – of course I know it isn’t going to happen.  It would spell the end of civilisation as we know it.  Think of all the jobs that would be lost in the ‘defence industries’ (not to mention the loss of dividends to share holders!) if it did!

            Late News – I have just (13^th February) heard that if the cease-fire to begin at midnight on the 14th is broken, further sanctions will be imposed on Russia by the EU.   Don’t those blinkered idiots even consider the possibility that the cease-fire might be broken by Ukrainian government forces?

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5th February 2015

Tendring Topics……..on line

 Eye to Eye with ‘Private Eye’

           

On 24^th January I wrote critically  in this blog about the Westminster Abbey authorities flying our national flag at half-mast in mourning for the death of the King of Saudi Arabia, and of the Prime Minister and the Prince of Wales, a future Defender of the Faith (our Faith!) flying to that benighted country to present their condolences.  I asked if we really needed oil – and arms sales – so desperately that we were prepared to take as an ally a country whose ethos is the exact opposite of the ‘British values’ that our Prime Minister claims to be so keen to promote.

            I have just read the copy of Private Eye published on 23^rd January, just the day before I published that blog, in which they gave their view of the United Kingdom’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.  Here it is:

            While David Cameron stands shoulder to shoulder with world leaders protesting at extremist assaults on freedom of expression on the streets of Paris, his government continues to ignore such intolerance when practised by a government with which the UK wants to do business.

            As ‘Charlie Hebdo’ was attacked, Saudi Arabia was meeting out the first of 1,000 lashes to blogger Raif Madawi.  Yet so keen is Cameron to cultivate the despots in Riyadh that, not only did he not denounce the flogging, but his government continues to cover up the corruption that sustains the barbaric regime there.

            ‘Private Eye’ is currently engaged in a freedom of information battle with the Ministry of Defence for details of its complicity in corruption on a £2 billion defence contract.  The government refuses to provide it on the grounds that exposing such dirty secrets would harm relations with Saudi Arabia.

            Given that the oppressive state spawned the group that claims responsibility for the Paris attacks (not to mention the 9/11 bombers) al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps the ‘relations’ so highly valued by the British government would be better served by exposing the Saudi regime rather than covering up for it.

          
                King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died on 23^rd January, the day that Private Eye went on sale. In that issue it commented on the jihadist murders in Paris and on the world-wide demonstrations – led by the western world’s political leaders - supporting ‘free speech’.  It was unable though to comment in that issue on the obsequious haste with which some of those same leaders flew to Saudi Arabia to offer their condolences on the loss of the leader of a country that prohibits free speech, bans the practice of any religious faith other than its own fundamentalist version  of Islam, inflicts cruel and  barbarous punishments on it own people, holds democracy and human rights in contempt, and generally makes Saddam Husseins's Iraq, Colonel Gadafi's Libya and President Assad's Syria, seem by comparison to have been earthly paradises of liberty and tolerance.

          In view of this, the cover of the Private Eye of 23^rd January shown above, was remarkably prophetic. The  'speech bubble' shown emanating from the world's leaders is surely more accurate than 'Je suis Charlie', the slogan of the 'free speech' protesters!

‘Man’s inhumanity to man!’

            I can’t imagine a crime more heinous than that of IS (Islamic State) in burning alive, in a cage, the unfortunate Jordanian airman who fell into their hands.  The wickedness of the action was made worse by IS’ pretence of negotiating his release in exchange for a captured failed suicide bomber.   These ‘negotiations’ ensured IS the publicity for which they had hoped, and gave false hope to the victim and his friends and relatives.  I have little doubt that his fate was sealed from the moment of capture.

            The airman’s dreadful death brought to my mind another shameful incident almost exactly seventy years ago.  I was a prisoner of war at a ‘working camp’ in Zittau in eastern Germany.  Throughout the bitterly cold winter of 1944/’45 we had watched civilian refugees from the inexorably approaching Eastern Front pass through the town; old men, women and little children. Many were trudging through the snow pulling little carts with all their belongings.  They were making for Dresden, 60 or 70 miles to the west where they’d be sorted out by the German Red Cross and sent to relatively safe areas for refuge.  It was obvious to all that Germany was defeated and World War II coming to an end.

            On the night of 13^th February 1945 Dresden was flattened by high explosive and incendiary bombs dropped by hundreds of RAF bombers.  The centre of the town – not the railways and factories on the outskirts – was the bombers’ target and it was crowded with hapless refugees. The RAF bombers departed before the dawn but bombers from the USA continued during the following day. The number of dead is estimated to have been between 22,000 and 25,000.  Many of them were killed by collapsing buildings, others were asphyxiated by smoke.  They were the lucky ones.  A substantial number, men, women and little children will have been burnt alive – just like that unfortunate Jordanian airman.

            The crews of the RAF and American bombers were ‘just obeying orders’.  They didn’t know on whom their bombs were falling and anyway, the Germans had done much more dreadful things.  The bombing of Dresden took place just a few days after the Soviet Army had liberated the Auschwitz death camp in Poland and had told the world of the horrors they had discovered there.   Those aircrews were quite different from the killers of IS who had allowed their victim to hope for release and had then murdered him in the cruellest way that they could devise – a way that was guaranteed to torture not only their victim but those who loved him.

            Those aircrews were quite different from the cold-blooded torturers and murderers of IS. But their victims, whose bodies were found among the still smouldering ruins of Dresden, suffered exactly the same agonies as that Jordanian airman. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the events of that February night almost exactly 70 years ago set my mind on a course that ended with my repudiating all acts of violence and, just three years later, joining the religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and embracing the Quaker testimony against all wars.

Late Note.  The action of the Jordanian Government in hanging two jihadist prisoners (including the woman whom the government had been prepared to exchange for that airman) was understandable but regrettable.  It is only by breaking the cycle of vengeance that we can hope to achieve peace.