Greek trajedy

I have now read most of the election leaflets put through my door. One of the most common themes is protecting public services. Also mentioned much are bankers, nuclear weapons, poverty, renewable energy and immigration.

There was almost no mention of Government Debt. For those of us involved in financial markets; this has been a worrying week. Greek Government Debt has been classed as Junk Bond status. This makes it very difficult and expensive to raise money, so they are reliant on the IMF. The country faces savage public spending cuts and big tax rises.
This could be the shadow of things to come in Britain if we don’t tackle our Government debt mountain fairly quickly.
Comrade Supreme Leader Brown says it would be irresponsible to cut spending till 2011. Somehow these pin stripe suited people who buy our government bonds are unlikely to be impressed by that. In contrast to the clunking fist, the young whippersnappers, Clegg and Cameron, talked about pay restraint, axing Identity Cards and scrapping the Euro fighter. It may not be enough, but at least it is a start.

postal voting

My mum received her postal voting form today. Coincidentally a letter also arrived from her Labour MP. His sources of information advised him that she had a postal vote. He took the chance to remind her what a wonderful job his party has done managing the economy. He also explained how to fill in her ballot paper, and how to put a cross next to his name.

What he forgot to mention was that he didn’t actually reply to the letter she sent him about a year ago.

CND hustings in Hillhead Library

I must be a glutton for punishment, going to two hustings in a week; this one was organised by CND. Four candidates attended; I still haven’t seen the Conservative or BNP candidates. It was much the same format; each candidate gave a short opening speech. The Liberal Democrat position is that they are not in favour of replacing Trident, but in favour of some nuclear deterrence. The SNP are against Trident and would get rid of nuclear weapons immediately. The Trade Union and Socialist Party would scrap Trident and all nuclear weapons too. Likewise the Greens.

The prize for the most unusual speech goes to the Green candidate who went out of his way to praise the absent Labour candidate. Apparently she put a message on some website stating her opposition to Trident. A member of the audience pointed out that she votes according to her party line, which is in favour of Trident, so that was confusing.

Yours truly plucked up the courage to ask a question. “In the last few years we have seen small defenceless countries being bullied and invaded by nuclear powers, so don’t you think we need some deterrence?”

The SNP man replied that deterrence was a thing of the past. The Green man likened it to giving guns to the elderly to defend themselves against knife carrying yobs.

On the whole I think the jury is still out. I feel we should gradually work towards disarmament while maintaining some deterrence. We ought not to go about invading other countries and starting expensive and unwinnable wars.

Quality of Life

The only interesting article I read in the newspapers yesterday was about noisy neighbours. It seems that many people, myself included, get woken up regularly by things that go bump in the night. Apparently door slamming and heavy clumping footsteps are two of the major offenders. People running down the stairs can sound like a herd of elephants.

The article mentioned loud music and pets as other major sources of noise. It seems that people can be quite inconsiderate. Another source of noise pollution increasingly mentioned is from people leaving pubs and clubs.

Our city council has allowed an increased number of pubs in residential areas, and now, they have a policy of granting later licenses. They appear to think it is unreasonable of us to want a good night’s sleep.

Report on hustings in Glasgow North on 25.4.10

One of our churches held a hustings for the local candidates. It was a full house; who says religion and politics don’t mix? Of course, being the west end it was very civilised and everyone was polite. Each candidate spoke for two minutes then it was the turn of the audience to ask questions. Predictably someone asked about the greedy bankers. All the candidates seem agreed that they are going to tax them more. It is going to be like getting blood from a stone, as banks are making eye watering losses. Further taxes will ensure shareholders, including the taxpayer, will have no chance of a dividend.

There was a question about treatment of asylum seekers. The best answer to that came from the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate. She pointed out that many of the asylum seekers have fled their homes as a result of our Government’s foreign policy. For example the invasion of Iraq.

The final questioner asked the panel what they thought about more devolved powers for the Scottish Parliament. Again they all seemed agreed that Scotland should have tax raising powers. Don’t we all pay enough tax already?

The candidates summed up. Our sitting Labour MP mentioned the government’s record of eradicating pensioner poverty. Pensioners have much to be grateful for: exceptionally low interest rates on their hard earned savings; collapse in the value of shares they own in banks; rising inflation further eroding their standard of living.

It's the economy

Comrade Supreme Leader Brown has put his handling of the economy centre stage; he portrays himself as a “safe pair of hands”.

This week the office of national statistics released our paltry growth figures. The UK economy grew at an anaemic 0.2 % in the quarter to 31st March. That is 50% decrease in the low growth of 0.4% to the end of December. So it appears that the economy is heading back into recession.

UK National Debt stands at a staggering £890 billion. This year our Government overspent by £163.4 billion, almost double last year. As a proportion of national output, our public borrowing is even higher than that of Greece.

To add to this worrying picture, inflation is beginning to rear its ugly head. The Retail Prices Index rose to 4.4%.

It doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence over the handling of the economy. The same old solutions don’t seem to be working. I think we need someone with some new ideas about how to tackle this problem.

Hustings meeting in Glasgow North

There is a hustings meeting tonight, Sunday 25th April at 7pm in Hillhead Baptist Church, Cresswell St.

A caring society?

One of the areas discussed briefly on the leader’s debates, was how we treat the elderly. It’s something close to my heart as one of my parents is in care, and the other is being looked after at home.
The impact on my family has been huge. We have had to devote much of our time and energy to looking after them. What assistance do we get from the Government? Almost nothing; nobody from social services asks us if we would like a break, or offers any assistance.
My parents worked hard and saved hard. If they had blown their money on drinking, fast cars or holidays, the state would pay for their care. This Government has rewarded those who make no effort to save and penalised those who prepare for the future.
Interest rates have been kept low, hammering pensioners and savers. It is the profligate that are rewarded. One of Comrade Brown’s first actions as Chancellor was to withdraw tax relief from pension companies. In return for all this, what do pensioners get? A free television license!
If the issues I have raised have rung any bells, please pass on this blog’s details to someone else.

Election Fever

I received a red coloured glossy election flier from my local Labour MP. She is apparently a hard working campaigner, campaigning against all sorts of things, whatever that means. Included in her campaigns have been bank charges, post offices and jobs (her own perhaps).
It reminded me that I have written to her twice this year concerning things I felt strongly about. On both occasions I only received a standard email response “Your email communication is acknowledged and the information has been noted”.
Perhaps I have high expectations, but that wasn’t really the response I wanted. What I hoped was that she would support the objection I have written to the Licensing Board. Until recently, my area has had relatively few pubs, but something odd happened a while ago. A hairdressing salon asked for a license; apparently their customers needed a gin and tonic to calm their nerves. Of course the councillors granted it; albeit with a bit of mirth. And what do you know, the hairdressers has morphed into a bar. Now they want to increase licensing hours till midnight. This is what happened in Byres Road a few years ago, now the residents in the area have to put up with sleepless nights due to disorderly behaviour. Some have been forced to move away.

What's wrong with a hung parliament?

Many in Government and the City are trying to scare us about the consequences of a Hung Parliament. Should we be worried?
Well, actually we have had one in Scotland since 2007. It has forced the ruling party to seek consensus, and so far, prevented them from unleashing an Independence Referendum on us. Many of the disasters of the last ten years have been because of large majorities:

For example, it would have been hard for the Government to have invaded Iraq if they had a wafer thin majority.
The Labour group in Glasgow City Council was able to set up all these private companies and hand out jobs to elected members, because the opposition could be ignored.

Forcing governments to negotiate and compromise can mean less laws, but better ones.

Some common misconceptions about politicians

There are some misconceptions that regularly get bandied about regarding politicians. I often hear “Why bother voting, they are all the same”.
Would it be correct to say that Michael Foot was the same as Tony Blair? If you have ever tried to contact your local politicians, you might notice that some are quite diligent and others try to fob you off. In general, the ones with small majorities are keener than the ones who expect to get back in at each election.

It is also widely believed that all politicians are dishonest. My stint in that profession taught me that there are quite a few who don’t fiddle their expenses.
People, understandably feel that their one vote doesn’t really matter. Well, I beg to differ. When I got elected, my majority was 43 votes.

Remember the environment

In the rush to save the banks, the Government seems to have forgotten that we need to save the planet. Fortunately some of us still feel that protecting the environment is nearly as important as protecting our wallet.
I was interested to attend a hustings meeting where people had the chance to question candidates. All the main parties were involved. It was interesting to see that Labour has selected the previous MP’s son to represent them. Keep it in the family, I say.
He explained his party’s pledges to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions by 30%. Having targets is very eye catching, but has a poor record, and is no sustitute for taking concrete actions. In Kyoto in 1997, the developed nations agreed to a 5% emissions cut by 2012. But by 2007 these emissions had risen by 11%.
In Great Britain it is calculated that around 24,000 people die prematurely from breathing polluted air. We have agreed targets to reduce this. Unfortunately we have not met our targets on Nitrogen Dioxide or Particulates. Not to worry, the American Journal of Epidemiology estimated that victims of air pollution only die 9.8 years early.

Today I was lucky enough to read his exciting election manifesto; the headline, “Fair for All” is full of originality. Perhaps it might have been called “Don’t mention the Deficit”. It is crammed full of wonderful new recycled policies; I was especially impressed by his cunning plan to improve failing hospitals. As we know, hospitals are allowed to be the judge of their own performance, this is quite correct; it would be unfair if an external body was to monitor them. The Supreme Leader’s plan is: if the hospital judges itself not to be successful; it will be taken over by a more successful one. This is similar to Turkeys voting for Christmas, and cannot fail to work.
It was also reassuring to see his pledge that referrals to consultants would take no more than 18 weeks (approximately 4 months). If I were to be ill, I will be very patient and happily wait that length of time; after all, we have been doing so for a number of years.

Identity Cards

He also kept a very tight rein on his Government’s expenditure, diligently avoiding any unnecessary debt. The many billions he poured into the health service for example, have created a very valuable army of managers, who have been worth their weight in gold. It is very satisfying to hear of so many managers earning over £150,000 per annum.
It is astonishing to hear the global financial markets comparing us with spendthrift governments like Greece and Iceland.

His rivals at this election are unable to take the tough decisions he has done. They are suggesting that he cancels his plan for a National Identity Card. Comrade Supreme Leader feels it is well worth borrowing another £10 billion or so, to be able to eavesdrop on his citizens. It is quite wrong to suggest that civil servants could lose peoples’ private details, that has never happened. As a precaution he believes that our private details such as medical records, tax records, political activities and credit histories should be kept in a central database. At present they are kept in all sorts of separate files and that makes it difficult for fraudsters and private companies to access them.

Humble origins

Our dearly departed Leader was the pin up boy for New Labour; fêted by the party as a future First Minister. One of his last engagements was a meeting with Comrade Supreme Leader Brown. We will never know what passed between them, but shortly after, he announced his resignation.
Our comrade Supreme Leader Brown is, as we all know, of very humble origins. Brought up in a miner’s cottage, the family of six slept in one bedroom. As they had no running water, they took turns to bathe in a nearby river. There is a Tory smear which says he injured his eye in a rugby match; we all know he would never have played such a decadent upper class game. Actually his injury was sustained saving the life of an injured miner after an accident in the pit. There are further scurrilous Tory accusations that he attended University and was parachuted into a safe Labour seat.

Of course, our comrade Supreme Leader has been financially astute. He very cleverly spotted the bottom of the gold market and sold the country’s gold reserves at that time. During my career in the financial markets I now recognise my wrong thinking. I have in some cases bought shares at low prices and sold them at a profit.
He also, very cleverly, set up a new system for monitoring the banking industry, and we owe him a huge debt for that. Due to his careful scrutiny, they did not get involved in any hanky panky. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he abolished boom and bust, and in no sense was he responsible for the reckless lending of some banks. If two Scottish banks over extended themselves and lent money to all and sundry, can he be held accountable? That was the fault of the Americans, with whom we have a special relationship.

This is the type of person that the dearly departed Leader had rewarded with positions of responsibility throughout Glasgow. His largesse was also extended to key players in the opposition; he wasn’t stupid, he realised that it was in his interest to keep them on side. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, was created Chair of the body who monitors these quangos. The glorious ex-Leader has been repaid by the support of the Liberal Democrats in preventing an investigation into the whole affair. It appears that the leader of the official opposition, the SNP, was also sitting on one of the boards.

Glasgow has the title of the unhealthiest city in Britain; we can expect to live many years less than anyone else in the country. The Council tried to blame the ills on poverty and deprivation, but that has not stood up to scrutiny. The poor life expectancy travels through all social classes. If we are honest with ourselves we can perhaps see some of the problems. We drink too much, do too little exercise and are not really interested in the pollution we are causing. When I raised the issue of Glasgow’s poor air quality, other councillors fell about laughing.

We saw what happens when these colleagues are put in charge. There was a Labour councillor running the body in charge of public transport. I remember him well from my time in the Council. He came to speak at a conference in Dundee. Myself and my colleagues travelled by train; Dundee is well linked with public transport. He took his car, and I asked him if as a representative of the public transport industry, he ought to set an example and use it. Well, he told me he didn’t go in for gesture politics.
At any rate, it appears that his co-directors had a jolly good time, jetting off around the globe, staying in luxury hotels and even attending a football cup final These trips were presumably for the purpose of seing how other cities run their public transport systems, and to learn lessons from this.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. The one time golden boy of the Labour Party has crashed and burned. In his wake he has exposed a tangled web private businesses running council services.
In my previous book I touched on the regimented nature of the political groups of the Council. What I underestimated was the magnificent system of patronage designed by the dearly departed Leader. Towards the end of my time in office, there was a rush to privatise Council departments. Culture & Leisure and a rash of other departments were removed from Council control and arms length companies were created to run them.
I was slightly bewildered; here was a Labour politician taking public sector departments into private ownership; even Margaret Thatcher would have been proud of him. I found myself, a businessman, in the position of rebel against the so-called left wing Labour Party.
From the outside this could look like jobs for the boys (and girls). By giving his colleagues well paid positions on the boards of these companies, he could ensure loyalty.