Week 5 2012 2.02.2012

Tendring Topics.........on Line

A Matter of Priorities

            Our Tendring District undoubtedly has its problems.  We have, so it is said, fewer graduates and fewer folk with other qualifications than any other district in Essex.  Our town centre shops are threatened with closure. Our unemployment rate, especially youth unemployment, is well above the national average – and rising! We have had four (or was it five?) murders during the past twelve months and a number of scarcely less serious incidents of knife crime. There are potholes in our roads, and our pavements, away from the town centres, are broken, uneven and positively dangerous.  Oh yes – and there’s Brooklands Estate, Jaywick, Britain’s most deprived neighbourhood, still demanding urgent attention..

            It isn’t one – or even all – of these problems though that has brought unanimity to the often-divided Tendring District Council.  It’s the fact that they have been ‘snubbed’ by Whitehall in that the Olympic Torch, on its tortuous progress from its home in Greece to the Olympic Stadium at Stratford, isn’t going to cross the Tendring District’s hallowed soil. The Clacton Gazette records that The decision to leave the district out was unanimously condemned by councillors who tried desperately to make Olympic bosses change their minds. 

            A petition and pleading letters had been sent to Lord Coe, to the Prime Minister,  and to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.  They had even suggested ways in which, with just a little deviation, the Olympic Torch could be brought through part of Tendring – but answer came there none!   ‘It was’, said Councillor Stephen Mayzes rather petulantly ‘very disappointing and I think just plain rude’.   

            Blog readers will remember Councillor Mayzes. It was he who, as Tendring Council’s Tourism Supremo, tried to prevent one of Europe’s most prestigious leisure organisations (the Camping and Caravanning Club of Great Britain) from holding a rally, during the school holidays, on the playing field of the Coastal Academy!  He also decided that the Holiday Coast’s summer season ended on 31^st August and saved the taxpayers a few pounds by withdrawing the beach patrols and closing the Tourist Information Offices.  You will recall that we experienced an Indian summer, with hundreds of visitors at the end of September and into October!

            Not a man to admit defeat, Councillor Mayzes is now organising his own event, in which he hopes teams from local schools and athletics clubs will carry an imitation ‘Olympic Torch’ in a relay round the Tendring District.  ‘We will create our own torch and a route round Tendring.  I want to get all of our schools and athletes involved, and I think it could really get people excited about the Olympics and our local talents’.

            Who knows?  It might take off.  It won’t achieve anything though, except perhaps soothe hurt feelings in the Weeley Council Chamber. I think it’ll also make the council look petty and small-minded, or perhaps just plain bonkers!   It certainly won’t do anything to solve any of the very real problems with which Tendring Council is faced.

 ‘Be bloody, bold and resolute!’*

            Oh dear – it’s supposed to be unlucky to quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth!  Those words of advice to Macbeth  from the three witches describe pretty well though our Prime Minister David Cameron’s advice to the world’s financial experts at Davos, particularly those of the EU and the Eurozone.  They have to be bold and take urgent drastic steps to escape financial disaster.

            Certainly David Cameron was following his own advice.   It was only the day before that he had learned that growth in Britain’s economy was even lower than the already low figure that had been predicted, that unemployment – particularly youth unemployment - in Britain had reached its highest level for decades, and that the National Debt, the reduction of which had been the principal objective of his government, had risen to an unprecedented one trillion pounds! (It's a good job my laptop possesses a 'spell-check'. I have never before had occasion to type 'trillion'!)  It must have taken real courage - the uncharitable might say ‘arrogance’- after that, to fly to Switzerland and lecture other governments about how to handle their financial affairs.

            A couple of days earlier I had listened on Radio 4 to a BBC correspondent in Sweden, a country that resembles our own in many ways.  It is geographically on the edge of Europe. It is a constitutional monarchy. It is a member of the European Union but, like us, is not within the Eurozone.  It has however the great disadvantage of having a far more extreme climate than ours and, in particular, a much darker and colder winter season.

            Yet Sweden seems to have been virtually unaffected by the European financial crisis.  There have been no cuts in public services or in benefit payments to the poor and disabled, no great surge in unemployment and no talk of an uncontrollable financial deficit.  There were no summer riots, no ‘Occupy Movement’ demonstrations in city centres - and no need to heap blame on the previous government or the Eurozone.  From the correspondent’s report I gained an impression of a country at ease with itself.

            There may be all sorts of reasons for this, but here are three that I am sure are among them.   Sweden is a land of high taxation but the tax is levied fairly and, Swedes believe, is used wisely and to everyone’s advantage.  There is no enormous gap between the incomes of the rich and the poor. They‘re not burdened with  a ‘special relationship’ that drags them into illegal and unwinnable wars and results in their having totally useless and vastly expensive nuclear-armed submarines permanently patrolling the world’s oceans.

            I believe that world politicians who would really like to know how best to run their country’s economies could do worse than to investigate the Swedish model.

             *Those who are familiar with Shakespeare’s play will know that that piece of advice from the three witches was followed by Macbeth – and led to disaster.

             

An Awful Example

          A friend of mine once remarked that no-one was ever completely useless.  Even the most unpromising could serve as awful examples, to draw attention to the causes of their plight and to encourage others to avoid them.  I am sure that my friend had in mind elderly human wrecks brought low by alcohol, drug abuse and general dissipation – summarised by Marlene Dietrich in her song in the classic ‘western’, ‘Destry Rides Again’ as, ‘cigareets, and whisky, and wild, wild women’!

            They, of course, are the awful examples at the bottom of the social scale – but there are awful examples of the effects of greed and selfishness at the other end of the social scale too.  In recent years wages and benefits have fallen behind inflation (have declined in value) while the profits, salaries and bonuses of the wealthy have increased in leaps and bounds.   Those of us who have protested about this and sought to change it have been in a minority – though a growing one.  Now, thanks to the well publicised awful example of the top officials and senior board members of the Banks, that minority has become a very vocal and increasingly influential majority.

            It was neither the Eurozone nor the last Labour Government that created the current financial crisis (though the New-Labour Government didn’t take the steps that might have prevented it) but the greed and incompetence of the Bankers.  That is not my judgement; I am not competent to make one, but that of the Governor of the Bank of England who is surely in a position to know.

            Now it is the bankers, not necessarily the ones who caused the crisis but others with the same ethos, who are receiving (I can’t bring myself to say earning!)  million-pounds-a-year-plus salaries and who are claiming even more enormous bonuses.  It is as though they draw their enormous salaries just for turning up at their offices fairly regularly but expect a bonus for actually doing the job to the best of their ability!

            I remember, in 1938 when I was a junior clerk (office boy really!) in Ipswich Corporation’s Public Health Department, hesitatingly telling the Medical Officer of Health after some minor blunder that, ‘I did my best, sir’.  Glaring at me he announced ‘I am not interested in your best Hall. I want the best’.   I suppose that had I been a potential successful banker, instead of creeping away wishing that the earth would swallow me, I’d have replied confidently that, ‘in that case sir, I would expect a substantial bonus at the end of the year’.

            Public opinion has, quite rightly, been outraged by the bankers’ attitude.  A public debate on the subject was threatened in the House of Commons.  There’s little doubt that this would have resulted in a cross-party condemnation of the bankers’ greed.  Rather than face that, both the chairman and the chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, in which the government representing us taxpayers holds a controlling interest, have returned their million pound bonuses!

            The government says that it has no right to interfere with salary negotiations between banks and other private enterprises, and their employees.  Quite so – but they do have a responsibility for maintaining adequate public services and health and welfare provisions.  These were part of the fairer, more peaceful world for which thousands of us thought we were fighting in World War II and for which we voted in1945, but which we have seen systematically whittled away by successive governments since.

            The government does have the right and the duty to impose taxes upon its citizens to pay for these services, and has a moral duty to impose those taxes fairly upon us all.  The simplest, most straightforward, and fairest way of taxation is by means of an income tax properly graded so that it takes from rich, the poor and the ‘squeezed middle’ about which we hear so much, an equal proportion of their income.  None of us likes paying income tax but it is the only tax that is levied according to our ability to pay it.  No-one has ever starved to death or been rendered homeless or destitute by having to pay income tax.

            To be ‘fair’ (a concept to which the government pays continual lip service!) there needs to be many more income tax bands than the three – standard, higher and highest - that exist at the moment.  The very poor would pay little or none and the very rich might be expected to pay as much as 90 percent (not of their entire income of course, but of income in excess of perhaps a million pounds a year) in tax.  At the same time that the new properly graded system is introduced there would need to be watertight regulations preventing the tax evasion and – currently legal – tax avoidance that at the present time rob the Exchequer of millions of pounds a year.

            Both private firms and public authorities could then have an absolutely free hand in rewarding their senior staff.  We, members of the public would know that the greater part of any really excessive award would be coming back to us either in public services or in the reduction of our own tax burden.

……and an anecdote.

          This was sent me by a blog reader:

          The Chief Executive of a Bank, a Daily Mail reader, and a recipient of social security benefit are seated round a table on which there is a plate with 12 biscuits.

            The Banker pockets eleven of the biscuits and then turns to the Daily Mail reader with a word of warning, ‘You’d better watch out – that scrounger is after your biscuit’.


Postscript - Gallant knights and Noble Lords 


I am shedding no tears and wasting no sympathy over Mr Fred Goodwin's lost knighthood.   I do have a couple of questions though.

Wasn't Fred Goodwin one of the greatest of those great financial geniuses who threaten to depart from Britain   if we dare to increase their tax liability?   What a pity we didn't think of doing that before he took control of the RBS.  Who knows - we might have shaken out a few more very expensive supermen (and superwomen) whom we could well spare.

If Fred Goodwin, who has never been convicted or even suspected of any criminal activity, can so easily be stripped of his knighthood, how is it that the former leader of Essex County Council, a convicted criminal  under further investigation by the police, remains the 'Noble Lord' Hanningfield?

            

Week 1. 2011 4th Jan. 2011

Tendring Topics……..on Line

Always Winter…….but never Christmas!

Since I last posted a blog I have spent several happy hours in C.S. Lewis’ imaginary world of Narnia. I watched ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ on tv before I left Clacton to spend Christmas with my two sons. On Boxing Day my elder son took me to watch the recently released ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ and on my return I watched Prince Caspian that had been recorded for me by my ‘freeview box’ in my absence. I liked the first – ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ best, though The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ came a close second. I had – some years ago – read all the Narnia books. There are three others yet to be filmed; The Horse and his Boy, The Silver Chair and the award-winning The Last Battle.

Those acquainted with ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ will know that prior to the fortuitous arrival of the evacuated Pevensea children in 1940, Narnia was under the spell of the Wicked Witch. It was a world in which it was always winter – but never Christmas.

C.S.Lewis must have had truly prophetic vision since that seems to be the fate that awaits us. Our world hasn’t been taken over by the Narnian Wicked Witch. We are threatened by another witch though, Courtesy’s ugly sister – Political Correctness. Increasingly ‘Christmas’ is being phased out in the ludicrous belief that its mention might offend non-Christians. Greetings cards manufacturers nowadays prefer to offer ‘Seasons Greetings’ rather than ‘Happy Christmas’. Christmas (the time of thanksgiving for the birth of Jesus Christ) has become The Festive Season or The Mid-winter Festival.

I was disappointed to discover that Tendring Careline, a local institution for which I have the highest regard (and on which at some time or other my life may depend!) has fallen under the evil spell. I and – no doubt – all other Careline clients have received a useful Careline Calendar indicating when they would like us to check the efficiency of the system. The calendar didn’t come with the Christmas Greetings of the Careline Staff (Christmas is becoming one of those words that are not used in polite society) but with Seasons Greeting. Recipients are told that The Careline team would like to offer all our service users a Happy Holiday Season and a safe and peaceful New Year.

There’s nothing wrong with being wished a safe and peaceful New Year, but a Happy Holiday Season is a pretty poor substitute for a hearty and sincere Happy Christmas! To many of us Careline clients – old, possibly disabled, living alone, almost or completely housebound – ‘holidays’ are things of the past, suggesting activities that are now far beyond our capabilities.

Christmas though, is something different. It is a time when we hear, if only via scribbled Christmas cards, from almost-forgotten friends and relatives far away. A time when, on the whole, people are nicer to each other, and to us, than at other times in the year; when we can enjoy the fairy lights and decorations in other people’s homes even if we can’t manage them ourselves. We can enjoy Christmas church services on radio and/or tv. Some of us, perhaps with help, can get to a Christmas church service ourselves. Had I spent Christmas in Clacton my mobility scooter (my iron horse) would have made it possible for me to attend 8.00 a.m. Mass at St. James’ Church followed by a special Christmas Meeting for Worship at the Quaker Meeting House. As it was, on Christmas Day my younger son Andy took me to a Choral Eucharist that I thoroughly enjoyed at St. Mark’s Church of England parish church in Enfield.

It is a time too when we can enjoy our memories of Christmases past, though ironically it is the happiest memories that are most likely to make us feel sad.

A happy Christmas memory. My late wife Heather manning the Quaker ‘white elephant’ stall at the annual CCVS (as it then was) Christmas sale in Clacton's Princes Theatre in, I think, the early '70s.

I hope that, should I still be around next Christmas (not a possibility on which I would advise anyone to bet too heavily!) Tendring Careline will feel able to send me, and all their other clients, a traditional Christmas greeting. In recent years, our winters have been long, cold, dark and miserable. Please don’t rob us of the interlude of warmth, love, light and joy that Christmas brings!

The Big Freeze – the aftermath!

When, a fortnight ago, I warned in this blog about the risk to domestic plumbing systems arising from successive days and nights of sub-zero temperatures, I hardly expected my gloomy forebodings to be realized quite so spectacularly. On 29th December news bulletins recorded that 40,000 Northern Irish homes were without a mains water supply because of the loss of water from tens of thousands of burst pipes. Scotland, although it had more severe weather for a longer period, was not so badly affected and there have, so far, been no reports of interrupted water supplies in England as a result of burst pipes. The Irish Republic where, in many areas, the weather cannot have been wildly different from that in Northern Ireland, has had many crises recently – but widespread loss of water supply has not been among them.

The Northern Irish Government and the Water Authority are being criticised for not having reacted quickly and effectively to the situation. I think that there should be an investigation into the cause of the crisis as well as into the ineffective attempts to alleviate it. Do building regulations in Northern Ireland incorporate proper frost precautions and, if so, are those regulations rigorously enforced? I saw, on a tv news bulletin, water jetting from a burst in what appeared to be a supply pipe from the water main rising to the upper storey of a house on an external wall. On the same news bulletin we saw a branch pipe taken several feet along an external wall to an outside tap. If builders can get away with such obvious and easily spotted design faults what about the less obvious and invisible ones?

Are water mains buried at a sufficient depth below the streets or footpaths? And what about the connecting pipes (or ‘rising mains’) from the water main to the premises? That connecting pipe should be at least 1ft 6in below ground level throughout its length. In a large housing development reducing that depth by a few inches overall can save quite a lot of money and – once the trenches have been filled in – no-one is aware of anything wrong until, of course, there is a cold spell like the one that we have recently experienced!

We all know, because we have heard it so often from know-it-all politicians, that pettifogging regulations enforced mindlessly by faceless bureaucrats, stifle enterprise and inhibit wealth creation. It is worth remembering that they also prevent disasters like that which, as I write these words, we are witnessing in Northern Ireland.

Footnote – I was disquieted to hear the Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Water Authority, who really should have known better, blame all those burst pipes and leaking water mains on ‘the suddenness of the thaw’. Had he been a reader of this blog he would have known that it was the severe and prolonged freeze that damaged the province’s plumbing systems. The thaw merely made it evident.


‘Give all thou canst. High Heaven rejects the law of nicely calculated less or more’

The above quote by William Wordsworth was inspired by the government’s wish to encourage us towards charitable giving, and their making it easier (by any means other than putting extra cash into our pockets or handbags!) for us to do so. Little ‘nudges’ to urge us toward philanthropy are to be included in Council tax and income tax demands and other official communications.

One of the now-totally-useless skills that I acquired as a PoW in Germany was that of driving an ox-cart (yes, oxen were quite commonly used to pull heavy loads in Germany in 1943/’45). The ox would have a single cord attached to the right-hand side of its mouth, connecting it to the driver. When the driver wanted the ox to turn to the right, he pulled long and hard on the cord. That pulled the ox’s head round to the right and it followed its nose in that direction. If, on the other hand, he wanted the ox to turn to the left he gave a series of short, sharp tugs on the cord. This, the ox disliked and instinctively turned his head away from it – toward the left. ‘Simple!’ as the meerkat says in the well-known tv advert!

I have a feeling that those little nudges toward charitable giving, especially when accompanying some kind of a tax demand, are likely to have the same effect on us as those irritating sharp tugs had on the ox. It’ll turn us away from them.

Most of us, in any case, get plenty of reminders of charitable giving landing on our doormats almost every morning, as worthy charities ply us with heart-rending stories and gifts (ball-point pens, pictorial calendars, greetings cards, shopping bags, electric torches – even a few small coins!) to make us feel guilty if we fail to support them. There are two or three charities that I regularly support as generously as I can. If I attempted to give to all who ask, I’d be in need of charity myself.

I don’t think that I am being unduly cynical in suggesting that the government is well aware of the sterling work that many charities perform, and that they realize that their funding cuts to local authorities are limiting, if not stopping altogether, the financial help that charities have come to rely on from that source. They are hoping that their ‘give more to charity’ campaign will encourage us, as individuals, to make up the shortfall.

Possibly men and women of good will, will respond as generously as they are able to. Surely though, it is the government’s job to ensure that less benevolent citizens also make their fair contribution towards the well-being of the sick, the disabled and those otherwise in need. There’s just one way to do that. Reform the Income Tax system, adding a penny or two per pound to the general rate and making it more progressive, so that the seriously wealthy pay their fair share towards national recovery. Stamp out tax evasion and currently-legal tax avoidance. Those are options that, so far, do not appear even to have been considered in the corridors of power.

‘On the twelfth day of Christmas……..’

…..down come the Christmas trees, the holly and the ivy, the fairy lights and the tinsel. In medieval times that was the end of twelve days of celebration. The fact that Shakespeare wrote a play ‘Twelfth Night’ especially for the occasion suggests that the final day of Christmas (6th January) was reckoned to be almost as important as Christmas Day itself.

On the twelfth day – ‘The crib’ at St James’ parish church in Clacton-on-Sea depicts the Magi arriving and presenting their gifts to the new-born Messiah.

It was remembered and celebrated as the anniversary of the day on which the ‘Three Kings’, ‘Three Wise Men’ or ‘Three Magi’ from the east arrived in Bethlehem to give their gifts of gold, frankincense and Myrrh to the newly born Jesus. It was Epiphany (the ‘showing’), the day on which the Christ Child was presented to the Gentiles, whereby God made it clear that the Christ was his revelation of himself to the whole world, not just to the Children of Israel. All the man-made decoration could therefore be put away because ‘The Light of the World’ had come.