Week 26 2013

Tendring Topics………on line

What's really wrong with the economy? - an expert speaks.

          A recurring theme in Tendring Topics…..on Line has been my conviction that the current financial crisis is not the result of the previous government’s over-spending on benefits to the poor and disabled, but of the greed and selfishness of the wealthy.  I believe that the way to get rid of that deficit about which we are always hearing is not to cut expenditure but to make sure that everyone in the land bears a proportionate burden of taxation.  I am appalled when I hear the leader of the Labour Party, the only possible alternative government, proclaim that his party in power would pursue a very similar policy to that of the present government – but would do so more effectively and, if market forces permitted, a shade more humanely; hardly the kind of policy that inspired the pioneers of the Labour Movement to brave dungeon dark and gallows grim, and whose lifeblood dyed blood-red ‘every fold of the peoples’ flag’!   No wonder neo-fascist movements like Ukip, BNP, and English Defence League are gaining popular support.

            I am not an economist and am unable to substantiate my conviction.  I was delighted therefore to read an article by Dr Alan Storkey, economist and sociologist, in the Church Times (not generally thought of as 'loony lefty'!) of 14^th June declaring that ‘It is the rich, not the poor, who are the problem’  and backing that claim with hard facts and figures.

            Dr Storkey writes that Public Sector net debt was 36 percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in April 2008, and then doubled after the banking and other crises.  It is still climbing. The banks were and are a big part of the problem, and the Conservatives pushed for deregulated banking. The Government claims to have had a greater impact on debt than is the case.  It still climbs by about £100 billion a year.

            Yet, Labour would have cut back nearly as much as the Conservatives, and could not have kept the economy from what the Archbishop of Canterbury has rightly called a depression.

            The budget deficit requires the Chancellor, George Osborne, to save perhaps £80 billion a year.  Supposedly, it is the poor on benefits who are the problem.  But the underlying issue is that, over several decades, the rich have been milking the state of hundreds of billions of pounds.

            While the cost of benefits to the poor is less than is generally believed, the rich have received big handouts.  The first is tax, where, as the Office of National Statistics has declared, the poor are subsidising the rich.  The bottom 20 percent of the population pay proportionately 5.8 percent more tax than the top 20 percent (38.2 percent rather than 33.6).   If the rich paid the same proportion of their income in tax as the poor, it would bring in another £100 billion a year.

            That is not all.  Higher income groups have benefited from public-sector contracts, high public-sector incomes and bonuses.  For example GPs (family doctors) received a new contract in 2004, giving them an increase in pay from less than £80,000 to more than £100,000 a year for doing less work.  This cost the NHS more than £2 billion annually.

There has been no revaluation of house prices for council tax since 1993.  Over the past two decades house-price increases have mushroomed, but they are not reflected in council tax, which gives another bonus of tens of billions to the wealthy.

The big corporations avoid much VAT, evading tax to the tune of tens of billions.  The personal income of some of the top ten percent exceeds that of the whole of the bottom 50 percent, but some of this moves to tax havens, removing more billions from revenue.  Tax avoidance and evasion is estimated by the Tax Justice Network to amount overall at £70 billion a year.

In addition the banks have received profits through seigniorage, the windfall that comes through creating electronic money, amounting to between £20 and £30 billion a year, beside receiving government support while they run tax havens and give dud payment-protection insurance.

These losses of revenue are an overwhelming explanation of the Chancellor’s woes, and their solution.  Moreover, the way these funds are hoarded, moved and have created debt, explains why the economy is depressed, and will remain so.

Dr Storkey’s article in the Church Times concludes with the hope that, since the wealthy and the political establishment will not debate these issues, it is time that the Christian Church did so.       Why not?   Our God is one who ‘puts down the mighty from their seat and exalts the humble and meek………scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts ………fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich empty away’ -  and the Anglican tradition of Christ’s Universal Church now has a leader who probably has as wide a knowledge and experience of the realms of high finance and low dealing, as anyone either in our Government of millionaires or its supine and spiritless opposition.

The wrong sort of publicity! 

           I have never gone along with the idea that all publicity is good publicity.  There is a difference between ‘fame’ and ‘notoriety’ and it is the latter that has been showered onto Clacton and the Tendring District during the past year or so.

            Quite beyond the control of either the county or district council has been the amount of violent crime – including murder and attempted murder – in and around Clacton during the past year or two, one such incident less than a couple of hundred yards from my front door!  We’re hardly comparable with the Midsomer of Inspector Barnaby or the Oxford of Inspectors Morse and Lewis, but it’s quite disturbing enough in an area that we had thought of as being quiet and peaceful. 

Then there has been the revelation that the Brooklands Estate in Jaywick is Britain’s most deprived area, and that Clacton’s Pier Ward  is a ‘benefits ghetto’. In Pier Ward, the very centre of our holiday town, the UK’s fifth largest number of people on state benefit survive in former boarding houses converted into buildings with multiple ‘bed-sits’.  More recently we have learned that schools in rural areas and seaside towns (that means every one of Tendring’s schools) have an appreciably poorer academic record than those in large inland towns.

            There’s not much that we do about local violent crime. Perhaps the Commissioner we elected a few months ago will make a difference, though I’m not holding my breath!  Michael Gove, the government’s Education Secretary, really tries very hard, reaching back into the past even as far as my school-days, to find a model to solve education’s ills.  Perhaps he’ll succeed one day.

            The government is determined to ‘cut the red tape of planning legislation’ to free developers to ‘create wealth’ and help pull Britain out of recession.  In the ‘80s Mrs Thatcher’s government did much the same thing to free the bankers, wealth creators and financial risk-takers. Nobody at the time thought to mention that the risks were taken with our money!  We have to live with the result today.

            It occurs to me that the planning laws may need to be strengthened rather than weakened. Stronger and more firmly enforced planning legislation could have prevented Jaywick’s Brooklands Estate being transformed from a holiday township with basic facilities suitable only for short-term occupation during the holiday season, to an urban slum with cheap sub-standard homes occupied all the year round.  Is it not possible too that similar laws might have prevented the boarding houses of Clacton’s Pier Ward, being converted into cheap single-room bedsits in a Benefits Ghetto?

            Don’t be in too much of a hurry to cut all that red tape.  It may be all that is holding our fractured society together!

Another ‘bottom of the class!’

          It must have come as something of a shock to Tendring Councillors to know that after over twelve months operation of their reconstructed recyclable and unrecyclable refuse collection service, Tendring Council’s collection of recyclables was the lowest of any local authority within the county of Essex!

            Prior to April 2012 every household in the district had been issued with a green plastic box with lid and a supply of black plastic bags.  The black bags were for non-recyclable rubbish and the green boxes were for paper, cardboard and plastics of all kinds for recycling.  Householders who had more recyclables than would go into the green box could put them in an any-colour-but-black plastic bag or sack and put it on top of the green box.  Filled green boxes and filled black plastic sacks were put on the boundary of the property to be removed on the day of collection.   It worked pretty well though there was a minority of householders who ignored the green box and just put all their refuse in a black sack or sacks as they had done in the past.  Most of us, I think, co-operated.

            That all changed in April 2012.  All 60,000 households were issued with a red plastic box and two smaller green plastic boxes with lockable lids.  Our old green boxes were now to be used only for plastic milk bottles and plastic bottles that had held domestic cleaning fluids.  Other plastics – yoghurt cartons, food containers, plastic bags and so on – were henceforth to be put with the non-recyclable refuse, in the black plastic bag for landfill.

            The two plastic boxes with lockable lids were for food waste.  The smaller (‘the caddy’) was to be kept in the kitchen for the immediate receipt of food waste.  The larger was to be kept outside for reception of the food waste  when the caddy was filled.  The black plastic bag and filled container of food waste were to be put on the boundary of the property every week, the green box with some plastics and the red one with paper and cardboard were to be put out on alternate weeks for fortnightly collection.

              The situation was made worse by the fact that, presumably to save a few pounds, the red boxes for paper and card had no lids!  This inevitably meant extra litter blowing about the streets.  It also meant that when it rained between the box being put out and the arrival of the collectors, the saved paper and card became a soggy mess.  After receiving scores of angry letters, the Council bought 12,000 lids for those red boxes and left them to be picked up by householders at several centres throughout the Tendring District.

            The new recycling collection scheme was described by Tendring Councillor Nick Turner as ‘a Rolls Royce’ service but opposition Councillor Gary Scott wrote in the local daily Gazette ‘It is more like a Robin Reliant Service!’  For householders the system is complicated and, particularly for the old, time and energy consuming.  A kind neighbour carries my filled black sack and two filled plastic boxes (waste food and either the red or the green box) from my back door to my front boundary every week.  I find filling the sack and two plastic boxes every week and putting them by my back door completely exhausting.   Yes, I know that I am very old and am consequently feeble and lacking in energy – but then so are a great many other Tendring householders.  Don’t forget us. We pay our Council tax and we vote!

            Complicated, exhausting and incomplete (tons of salvageable plastics go into landfill) the system is much more ‘Robin Reliant’ than ‘Rolls Royce’.   A stroll down any residential road on ‘collection day’ for that area will reveal that a great many, possibly a majority, of householders simply ignore it and put out two three or four black plastic sacks filled with refuse of all kinds for landfill disposal.   I’m not at all surprised that Tendring District Council is ‘bottom of the class’ where collection of recyclables is concerned.

It is only fair to mention that the Essex County Council has done its bit to discourage recycling by closing Martin’s Farm Disposal and Recycling Centre in St Osyth, and reducing the hours of opening of their other centres.  No wonder there’s an increase in fly-tipping and that there are always queues of motorists at Clacton’s Rush Green Road Disposal and Recycling Centre.

            I expect that both county and district councillors are expecting a pat on the back for having ‘kept the Council Tax down to a minimum’.  I reckon that many voters will feel as I do that we would get better value for our money if the Council spent a little more and provided us with a better service. 

   

S more than £2 billion annually.

Week 22 2012 31.5.2012

Tendring Topic.......on Line

Recycling

           Tendring Council has a major problem in attempting to reconcile a sceptical public to a recyclable refuse collection scheme that was introduced after little if any consultation and is proving to be almost unbelievably unpopular. For week after week the correspondence pages of the weekly Clacton Gazette and its sister weekly the Frinton and Walton Gazette have been filled with letters overwhelmingly critical of the new scheme.  This correspondence has overflowed into the corresponding pages of the daily Gazette, which covers the Colchester area as well as the Tendring District.

            When the scheme was first introduced, my own principal criticism was of the fact that no lid had been provided for the red plastic boxes intended for the reception of paper and cardboard for recycling.  I pointed out that rain falling while the filled boxes awaited collection would reduce the contents to a soggy mess, while high winds would be likely to scatter the contents far and wide.  I understand that that particular defect is to be remedied and that we will all receive lids (costing the council £1 per lid!) for those red boxes.  

            I fear that it is a concession that may prove to be too little and too late. Our existing green boxes (that we have been using for all recyclables), are now to be used only for plastic bottles (please remove caps and stoppers before putting in box!) and metal cans of all kind.  All other plastics, including those that have been collected for recycling in the past, are now to be put into the black plastic sacks for unrecyclable refuse destined for land-fill. The red and green boxes have to be put out for collection on alternate weeks, and we have been issued with a chart showing which week for each colour box.  In the past, if we had more recyclable material than would go into our green box, we were able to put it in a white or transparent plastic bag and put it on top of the filled green box for collection.  That is no longer possible.  Any overflow has to go into landfill.

We also now have two extra smaller green plastic boxes with hinged lids for kitchen and food waste.  This is a service said to have been introduced by popular demand – well, I didn’t demand it, neither did anyone I know!   The smaller box or ‘caddy’ is to be kept in the kitchen to be emptied when full into the larger one kept outside.  This has to be put out every week, with the black plastic bag and either the red or the green box, by the property boundary for collection.   I do try to co-operate.  Every week on the appropriate day my kitchen waste (in my case mostly tea bags, egg shells, banana skins and a few lettuce leaves), and either my green or my red box, and my black bag of unrecyclable waste, are ready for collection.  I find though that at age 91, I just can’t carry them to the boundary of my property. I know that the Council would arrange for them to be collected from by my back door if asked but, as the collectors arrive in my street shortly after 7.00 am, that would mean leaving my side gate open all night; something that I am not inclined to do.  However, I am very fortunate in having a neighbour who is prepared to take my boxes and black plastic sack out for me, and bring the empties back again.  Others are not so lucky!       Complying with the Council’s instructions and putting out the appropriate boxes on the right day is a bit complicated and time-consuming, but it can be done.  The scheme could work if sufficient householders were prepared to co-operate.  My observations suggest that this isn’t happening.

            There have always been some, probably a minority, of householders who have failed to support the Council’s recycling efforts.  They have put out several filled black plastic sacks every week but never a green box with recyclable waste.  I believe that minority has now expanded into a considerable majority.  Driving, in my mobility scooter up and down part of my road before and after collection, left me feeling that out of some 40 households, only ten or a dozen were fully co-operating with the Council's scheme.

          I can’t imagine how members of the Council will attempt to remedy the situation when they meet in emergency session to consider it. Attempt to bluff it out, hoping like Mr Micawber that ‘something will turn up’? Revert to the old system?  Abandon the food waste scheme and replace it with a glass collection that at least wouldn’t need a special vehicle?  One thing that they really must strive to do is regain the trust and confidence of the public, because without public support any voluntary recyclables collection scheme is doomed to failure.  The stick? The carrot?  I am not at all sure that either is available for use.  I await developments – and our next local government election – with interest!  

A Little Ray of Sunshine!

          In the midst of a double page in the Gazette for 25^th May, filled with the problems of Tendring’s Refuse and Recyclables collection scheme, is a picture of broadly smiling Councillor Nick Turner, Tendring Council's 'cabinet minister' for Public Health, with the announcement that the ‘new scheme will save taxpayers more than £450,000 a year as well as increasing recycling rates by approximately 5 percent in the first year of operation’.  He adds that, ’80 percent of residents are recycling’ and, ‘The new service is still being rolled out in some parts of the district but we are extremely pleased with the results so far and I thank everyone who is taking part.  Tendring Council is collecting, on average, ten tonnes of food waste per round each week from the eight rounds.  If this continues, the council will far exceed its estimate of 2,600 tonnes a year’.

            Isn’t that heartening news?  I wonder what all those bitter letters of complaint were about, why the council is going to the trouble and expense of getting and delivering lids to the red boxes, and is holding a special council meeting to discuss the problem.  ’80 percent of residents are recycling?’ It is clear that Councillor Turner doesn’t live in the same road as me.   I am beginning to wonder if he lives on the same planet!

The Art of Parenting

          I think that Prime Minister David Cameron was probably right when he suggested that ‘bad parenting’ played a part in the creation of those riots last summer  (though I believe, nothing like as large a part as poverty and long-term unemployment).  I have reservations though about the suggestion that parenting classes for expectant and new mums and dads will solve the problem.  They’ll be useful, of course.  Goodness knows some young mums and dads need them badly. I fear though that it may well be those who refuse to attend them! I doubt in any case if they’ll play a significant part in preventing future antisocial behaviour, vandalism and truancy.  Only time will tell.

Ipswich’s Public Health Department where I worked from 1937 to 1939.  The photo was taken some twenty years ago when most of the Health Department’s functions had been taken over by the NHS. The building remained unchanged.        

There is, of course, nothing new in teaching expectant mums and dads about parenting young children and steering them through the first few perilous years of their lives. Before World War II Ipswich’s Public Health Department, where I was a very junior employee from 1937 till 1939, housed a Maternity and Child Welfare Clinic and a School Clinic as well as Sanitary Inspectors (they’re now called Environmental Health Officers) Health Visitors, district nurses, school nurses and midwives.   Both of those clinics were presided over by a doctor experienced in that particular field of medicine, while the whole organisation was headed by the Medical Officer of Health, another highly qualified and widely experienced doctor.  

            The Maternity and Child Welfare Clinic looked after expectant mums and young children below school age, advising and helping.   The Midwives visited the expectant mums in their own homes giving advice and support on a one-to-one basis. In those days most births took place in the mother’s own home.  After the baby’s birth and the immediate post-natal period, the Health Visitor took over, visiting regular and keeping an eye on the progress of the child and the competence of the young mum. 

The joy of parenthood.  My wife Heather, with our firstborn son in 1953.         

Although by 1953, when my first son was born, the NHS – not the local authority – was responsible for all those functions, the situation was not greatly different.  My wife, who had opted to have her baby at home (this was by then less common than it had been) received regular visits from the midwife before, during and for a week or so after, the birth.  Then the Health Visitor took over but she soon came to the conclusion that we were unlikely to prove to be ‘problem parents’.  One local government service that was available – when the UK was still struggling with debt incurred in World War II but which the country ‘just can’t afford’ now – was that of a ‘home help’.  Because of my wife’s medical history (she had had pulmonary and laryngeal TB and had survived crippling major surgery) she was accorded, free of charge, a home help, a friendly lady who came to us once a week to help with the household chores.  My wife and I didn’t go to parenting classes but, looking at my two sons today and remembering their childhood and adolescence, I think that we must have been reasonably competent parents.

            In any case, I don’t believe that the kind of parental neglect that leads to antisocial behaviour and, in extreme cases, to riots, does have its roots in those early days that are the subject of parenting classes.  It is much more socially important during the child’s and adolescent’s schooldays.   Those are the years when the absence of a loving and caring parents at home to welcome, support and generally take an interest in them really can affect their whole future.

            During my schooldays in the 1920s and 1930s my Mum was always at home when I returned from school, always eager to find out what I had been doing and to encourage me to get on with my homework.  If I went out in the evening she wanted to know where I was off to and with whom.  It never occurred to me not to tell her!  I always came home lunchtime (though we called it dinner time!) and so did my Dad.  Our meals were family meals.  I had a three mile cycle ride home from my secondary school, but we did have a two-hour mid-day break and, although there were cheap school meals available, I preferred my Mum’s cooking.

            So did my sons!  They too, came home to dinner every day and I was fortunate in always being employed near enough to my home to make it possible for me to come home too.  My wife never worked outside the home after we were married.  This was partly because of her frail physical condition but also because she found home-making and bringing up a family a satisfying full-time occupation.

            Nowadays that seems to be unthinkable.  Women ‘liberated from the kitchen sink’ are enslaved by the cash till, the restaurant kitchen or the shop or factory floor. During pregnancy they remain at work till the last minute and resume work directly they can find an affordable child minding service. Many children say goodbye to their parents soon after 8.00 am and don’t see them again till 6.00 pm or later. As a result many couples may be better off financially than either my parents or my wife and I ever were.  They may be able to get ‘their feet on the home ownership ladder’, have a second car in the garage and take an annual holiday on the shores of the Caribbean or the Mediterranean.  But they cannot give their developing children the care and attention that they (and the society into which they will grow up) need.  It is a form of child neglect that results in gang culture, antisocial behaviour, teenage pregnancies and petty crime. I don’t believe that parenting classes, however good, can ever compensate for a parent who isn’t there when needed.