Week 11 2013

Tendring Topics………on Line

‘Onward Christian soldiers……..

            The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), of which I have been a member for over sixty years, is perhaps best known for its Peace Testimony, its practical peace-making, and its opposition to all wars.  This didn’t stop George Fox, founder of the Society, and other early Friends from using military imagery in proclaiming the truth of the Christian Gospel as they saw it.  Many of those early Friends were disillusioned ex-servicemen from Cromwell’s army. They declared that, using peaceful means, they were fighting The Lamb’s War against the forces of evil.  This thought was in my mind while I was composing last week’s blog.  I was delighted that our fellow-Christians in the Salvation Army had organised a Food Bank to help Clacton’s poor and that we Quakers were supporting it as individuals and as a Meeting.   I was glad that this palliative action was being taken by Christians of every tradition, nation-wide.

            On the other hand, I had been pleased to read in the Church Times that, in the House of Lords, the Bishop of Leicester had expressed concern that these Food Banks were becoming accepted as a normal part of the ‘welfare state’ – not simply as a timely and temporary remedy in an emergency.  The welfare of its citizens should be the concern and responsibility of the state, not left to the charity of its better-off citizens.

            Last week the Church Times recorded efforts by Christians of very different traditions to encourage the government to bear in mind the causes of ‘the western world’s’ current economic crisis and not to make scapegoats of the very people who are already suffering most as a result of it.

            Archbishop Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church world-wide, urged Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to tackle the big banks whose irresponsibility and incompetence had been the primary cause of our problems.  As a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards the Archbishop (whose knowledge and experience of the commercial world is at least equal to that of the Chancellor!) declared that, ‘Big complex banks are not only too big to fail; they’re too big to manage’. He went on to say that the Chancellor was, ‘continuing to defend the idea of a small group of absolutely colossal banks’, and asked, ‘if this lack of will to break them up and reduce them to a size that eliminated risk to the economy is not simply a recipe for a repetition of the disasters we’ve seen in the last few years?’

             Much more recently the Archbishop has endorsed the strongly worded protest of over forty Church of England Bishops at the government’s attempt to solve the country’s economic problems by capping benefit payment increases at one percent, less than half the current rate of inflation. This, the Bishops said, would bring some 200,000 children into poverty. They asserted that at times of national financial crisis the vulnerable need extra – not less – help.

            Because of the Church of England’s ‘established church’ status Prime Ministers are closely involved with the filling of any Bishopric or Archbishopric that becomes vacant during their term of office. Could it be that David Cameron furthered the appointment of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury because of his Eton education and his wide and successful experience in the world of business before becoming an Anglican priest?  Had he imagined that that background made him ‘one of us’ and that he could be depended upon to support a government of millionaires, by millionaires and for millionaires?  It would have been understandable enough.  Some nine hundred years earlier King Henry II had made exactly the same mistake when he appointed his former close friend Thomas a Becket to that same post.

           I can well imagine the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer rhetorically  asking, in exasperation,  'will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?'  Fortunately there is little risk of Archbishop Welby suffering the same fate as his martyred medieval predecessor.

            Meanwhile a coalition of nonconformist Churches – The Baptist Union, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church – have produced and published a report The Lies We Tell Ourselves challenging ideas about poverty that are spread by the Government and some sections of the news media.

            The report says that statistics have been manipulated by politicians and the media to support a comfortable but dangerous story: that the poor deserve the cuts that they are facing. ‘The poorest 120,000 families in Britain have been scapegoated, labelled as troubled and blamed for a large proportion of the problems in society’. Researchers had found that the common factor in the 120,000 families was not criminality or addiction, but the mothers’ mental health problems and that, ‘the figures used by the government were statistically flawed and highly misleading’.   Other ‘myths’ about poverty that the report claims to expose include the suggestion that child poverty is due to the parents’ not wanting to work.  It was found that, in-work poverty is now more common than out-of-work poverty’.   The report is being sent to every MP in the United Kingdom and to every Member of the Scottish Parliament.

              I am reminded of a verse of a hymn ‘O God of Earth and Altar’ written by G.K.Chesterton, author of, among many other things, the Father Brown detective stories.   In the hymn he asks God to defend us from:

Lies of tongue and pen,

And from the easy speeches

That comfort cruel men.

            The mother of Jesus Christ declared that the God whom we Christians worship ‘Scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts, puts down the mighty from their seats and exalts the humble and meek’.  Moreover he has ‘filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away’.

            Does that declaration have any relevance for those of us today who are neither proud and mighty nor poor and hungry?   I think so.  St Theresa told us that, ‘In this world God has no feet but our feet to run his errands, no hands but our hands to do his work’.    Christians, of every tradition, are called upon to live ‘in the imitation of Christ’ and to work towards the fulfilment of the prayer: Thy Kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!’  

            ‘Onward Christian soldiers……..’ carrying the banner of truth and armed only with love and compassion for our fellow men and women, whatever their colour, race or creed!

The Debt Time-bomb!

          I have written before in this blog about the way in which the government, while penalising us all as it tries to reduce the nation’s debt, is actively encouraging individual indebtedness.  Student loans can leave graduates owing tens of thousands of pounds, and perpetuating the idea of ‘home ownership for all’ while insisting that no-one can expect to have a ‘job for life’ leaves no-one confident of being able to pay off the mortgage debt that makes home purchase possible.

            The government’s policies of cutting social service benefits and public servants’ income while food and fuel prices increase, drive those existing on a subsistence income into debt whenever their households are struck by a sudden and unexpected financial crisis – an expensive repair to a car needed for work, the irreparable breakdown of a cooker, fridge, freezer or washing machine, the illness of a major contributor to the family income, and so on.   In the first instance the sum that has been borrowed may seem small but if it is not repaid promptly (and how can it be by those already on a just-get-by income?) the accruing interest will soon take on astronomical proportions.    It isn’t surprising that Clacton-on-Sea and the Tendring District generally, with its high and growing unemployment, its deprived areas and its impoverished families and elderly residents, should be among the first to experience the wave of indebtedness among its inhabitants

The Clacton Gazette records that almost half of the 7,000 local people who sought the help and advice of the Clacton Citizens Advice Bureau last year had serious money problems, with about 60 new cases turning up each month. CAB adviser Lee Fraser told a Gazette reporter, most people sought help only as a last resort when they were already thousands of pounds in debt.   The average debt had been almost £10,000 and one client had total debts, including his mortgage, of over a million pounds!   ‘By the time they come to us, said Mr Fraser, ‘They are fully into the debt spiral.  Usually we see them when it has got to the stage when they are being plagued by phone calls from creditors and they are no longer opening any letters they receive…….people with council tax arrears have bailiffs knocking at the door’. Studies have revealed that one in eight people in serious debt has contemplated suicide.   CAB say that they can’t work miracles.  They can only help and advise.  However the fact that last year they helped to prevent 400 people within the Tendring District from losing their homes, and succeeded in getting £4.5 million of debt written off, seems pretty miraculous to me!

This year the benefit cuts, so-called bedroom tax and changes in liability to pay Council Tax, all of which will take effect within the next few weeks, will put further pressure on the finances of the poor, just when those with incomes in excess of £150,000 a year are having their income tax liability reduced! This, in turn, will increase pressure on the CABs throughout the UK, at the same time  as many of them, including Clacton CAB, are having to reduce the number of their specialist advisers (the only people employed in ‘financial services’ who are serving the community!) because of official spending cuts.

The Adverts Tell the Story

            From 2004 to 2006 (the last two years of my wife’s life) when I was her full-time carer, she and I watched a great deal of daytime commercial television.   It seemed to me at the time that the programmes were financed largely by adverts from firms of ‘ambulance chasing’ no-win no-fee lawyers encouraging those involved in an accident to sue, and by money-lenders eager to lend large sums of money often to people who, in their own interests, should never have been encouraged to borrow a penny.  Never mind, they insisted, if you are already deeply in debt, are old, out of work, have a bad credit rating, or have been refused by other lenders, get in touch with us.  We may well be able to help you.  They had a special message for those who already had multiple debts.  We’ll put them all together and pay them off.  Then we’ll be your sole creditor – and there may even be enough slack for you to enjoy some of the  really important things in life, like a holiday in Bermuda or a second car.

            Since 2006, increasing mobility problems have meant that I still watch daytime commercial tv from time to time. As  the national economic crisis deepened I noted that those public benefactors offering loans to all and sundry had changed their tone.  They were no longer eager to help one and all, but concentrated on those who had a reliable income but were sometimes faced with a sudden expensive emergency, just a week or two before payday.  'A small, perhaps £500, ‘payday loan’ would solve your problem.  Just say the word, and it will be in your bank account within hours'.

            Now that payday loans have been exposed as the potential debt-trap that they are, there are fewer of those adverts and those that still exist are less strident.   There are still plenty of ambulance chasing lawyers on the scene though, and the moneylenders’ adverts have been largely replaced by those of the gamblers.  There’s at least half a dozen on-line bingo games –Sun, Robin Hood, Foxy and so on – plus on-line roulette for the serious gambler and, of course, the National Lottery.

            It is as though members of the tv-watching public have come to realize that they’ll never escape from poverty by hard work and saving (with interest rates below the level of inflation saved money is likely to be steadily losing, instead of increasing, its value) and borrowing offers only a temporary and illusory escape.   The only chances of escaping from poverty to wealth are of suing somebody (preferably a public body or a rich corporation) for injuries you have suffered in an accident that was ‘their fault’, or by successfully gambling with the few pounds that you still have in your pocket or handbag.  You’re ‘in it to win it – somebody has got to be a winner and it could be YOU’.  

           Here's a bit of of 'tax avoidance' advice of which even the poorest (perhaps particularly the poorest)  of us can take advantage.  Don't gamble.  Don't buy National Lottery tickets and don't buy scratch-cards.   Don’t be fooled – you are far more likely to be struck by lightning than become a lottery millionaire!  The only sure winners, week after week, are those who run the gamble and the government which taxes your folly!  

Week 34 2012

Tendring Topics....on Line

Paying for Daytime Television

          For the two years following the accident in 2004 that resulted in my wife becoming increasingly disabled, she and I watched a good deal of both daytime and evening television. After her life came to an end in 2006 I watched ‘the box’ much less. I was desperately seeking busyness to help fill the gaping, and aching, space that her death had left in my life.

Since then the years have taken their toll.  I have moved from my mid-eighties to my early-nineties!  My physical activities have become increasingly limited and I again find myself watching tv both in daytime and in the evening.  The digital revolution, and the freeview box with integral recorder, have widened my choice.  On daytime commercial tv there is very little new to watch.  However, old age has one unexpected, if somewhat mixed, blessing.  Although I may recall a great deal of one of the Midsomer Murders or  Murder She Wrote episodes when I see either of them again for the second, or possibly the third, time – I rarely remember who-dun-it, and how and why!

            I do remember from the past the adverts filling the commercial breaks that irritatingly punctuate commercial tv programmes.  Some are entertaining and are regularly updated by the advertisers (I have in mind some of the Specsavers adverts and the always-entertaining Meercat adverts by Comparethemarket.com).  Others, repeated ad nauseum, are infuriating.  In particular I can’t bear that character who strides across the tv screen shouting maniacally that with his products, if you buy one, you get one free.  BOGOF indeed!

            Over the years these adverts have changed, reflecting the national mood. In the early years of the new millennium they seemed to be dominated by two themes.  One of them was all about ‘ambulance chasing’ lawyers eager to inform viewers that if they had an accident that wasn’t their fault, they could be entitled to generous compensation.  These public spirited and altruistic professionals would ensure that those accident victims received every penny of it if only their help were sought.  The ‘other side’ would have to pay the legal expenses.  It was surely unfortunate that the presenter of one of these adverts was an actor best known to most of us as a bent copper in The Bill.

            The other theme, and this was surely the more noxious, was the offer by  money-lenders to give financial ‘help’ to people who, in their own interest, should never be allowed to borrow.  It doesn’t matter, these warm-hearted philanthropists insisted, if you’re old, unemployed, on benefit, and have a disastrous credit record. Get in touch with us.  We may be able to help’ 

            Others aimed at a slightly different class of viewer.  We were shown a lower middle-class householder (unquestionably a Daily Mail reader!) who had everything;  a nice home, a good job, a beautiful wife and marvellous kids, but there was just one tiny little flaw in this earthly paradise.  He and his wife were, well ‘a bit messy with money’.  There were two or three credit card debts to service, one or two HP agreements, the mortgage on their lovely home, and so on.  It could be something of a nightmare – especially to one whose mind was focussed on higher things; like for instance, whether or not the local football team would keep its place in the First Division at the end of this season.

            The tangle of family debts needed no longer  be a problem.  Those warm-hearted money-lenders would gather all of them together and take them over, so the instalments could be paid tidily, month after month.  Who knows, they added, it might even be possible to lend that delightful family more money to provide some of the other essentials of modern suburban life – a second car for the wife?  Perhaps a family holiday in the Bahamas?

            The benevolent money lenders are no longer quite so blatant.  A few months ago they were pushing their latest idea. Everyone, they said, at sometime or other faced a domestic crisis that needed a relatively small sum of money (perhaps £200 or £300) to settle.  Unfortunately these crises had a habit of occurring just a week or two before payday.   The answer was a payday loan.  Give them a ring and within minutes the two or three hundred pounds would be in your bank account.  It could be repaid on payday with what seemed a very small amount of interest. Easy – but the snag was that what was left of the borrower’s pay wouldn’t then be enough to last the next month.  The answer to that?  Perhaps another payday loan, and another after that – with the interest beginning to become anything but a ‘small amount’.  Following adverse publicity in the news media payday loan adverts are now becoming rarer

            Ambulance chasing lawyers still make their appearance on commercial tv offering ‘no win ….no fee’ services to accident victims.  They do seem to be a little less brash, a bit more grave and professional, than they once were. 

            The latest trend in daytime tv advertising is possibly a response to a realisation by members of the public that there’s little hope of becoming rich by diligence and hard work these days.  It is publishing opportunities for gambling – ‘Someone has got to win – it could be you!’   There are a surprising number of on-line Bingo games available to hopeful fortune seekers.  There’s Sun Bingo. There’s Foxy Bingo, and there’s Tombola.   There may well be others.   There’s an occasional advert for the National Lottery and for on-line roulette. There are also what I think of as disguised lotteries within the fabric of tv programmes.. ‘Secret Dealers’ and ‘Dickinson’s Real Deal’ for instance, always feature a ‘competition’ with  a single prize of several thousand pounds for phoning in, or texting, the correct answer to an easy (much too easy) question. A typical question might be.  Brussels is the capital city of (A) Bulgaria? (B) Switzerland? or (C) Belgium?   Viewers who think they know the answer are invited to phone or text A, B, or C to a given phone  or text number.  There must be scores, perhaps hundreds, of correct answers submitted.  As there is only one ‘winner’ the ‘competition’ really amounts to yet another lottery.

            It seems sad that so many of us appear to be hoping, by means of one or other forms of gambling, to win a life-changing sum of money to escape from the ordinariness of our every day lives. ‘Someone has got to win – it could be you!’   It’s not very likely though that it will be.  The only certain regular winners are the organisers of the gambling game or the Lottery.  They have to make a profit and pay their very considerable advertising or sponsorship costs.

Colchester Council ‘harnesses the sun!’

          A report in last Friday’s (17^th Aug.) local daily Gazette reinforced my confidence in the value of true localism – the devolution of the powers of central government to elected local authorities and the freedom of those local authorities to use those powers wisely.

Last July Colchester Council hired the Breyer Group to install photo-voltaic panels on the roofs of 563 houses managed by Colchester Borough Homes.  They had intended to provide the same service for 2,000 of those homes but central government (‘Nanny knows best dear) had cut their financial support.

            The fruits of the council’s decision are now being harvested and a very bountiful harvest it is proving to be.  Mrs Iliffe-Weston, one of the tenants involved, told the Gazette that for the six months from February to August 2011 her electricity bill had been £331.96 but that for the equivalent six months this year (most of which were not noted for their periods of warm sunshine!) it was just £96.33! 

            The good lady heeded the sage advice that if something seems too good to be true – it probably is!  She thought that there may have been a mistake and, as she definitely did not want a surprise bill of £1000 later, she phoned the Electricity supplier.  They assured her that the bill was correct and that the reduction was due to the photo-voltaic panels on her roof.

            I am not a bit surprised.  The installation on my roof is much smaller and less ambitious.   I have just two small photo-voltaic (I have always called them photo-electric) cells, servicing my solar water heating system. When the fluid in the solar water-heating panel on my roof is a few degrees warmer than the water in my hot water storage cylinder, those photo-electric cells activate the pump to circulate that fluid through the heat exchanger in the storage cylinder. The system is thus self-contained, needing no electricity from the grid.

            .   In weather such as we are having as I write (18^th Aug.) I don’t need to switch on my gas boiler o at all.  In the winter, and on overcast summer days, the solar panel doesn’t produce all the hot water I need but, in summer and winter alike, it preheats the water in the storage cylinder before it circulates through the boiler, which therefore needs to burn less gas to bring it to the required temperature.

            I pay my combined gas and electricity bill monthly by direct debit. My solar heating system has reduced those payments by £30 a month.  My saving is therefore in the region of £360 a year – not quite in the same league as that of Mrs Iliffe-Weston but then mine doesn’t take up so much of my roof surface and, I imagine, cost less to install.

            Congratulations to Colchester Council. As well as doing their bit for the environment, their initiative means that nearly 600 Colchester householders have a few extra pounds in their pockets to spend, and thus to help the country out of the recession.  Pity the Council didn’t get the central government support for which they had hoped – but there, central government has probably got other urgent concerns like nuclear submarines to service and multi-millionaires to keep on-side!