Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Blame Game

Here's a thing: it turns out there's some dirty goings out taking place in the City. Who'd have thunk it? There seems to be an attitude amongst our great financial institutions that just as they are too big to fail, they are also too big to not cheat.

Since the 'Crash' rogue deals seems to have popped up on a semi-regular basis. One would start to think that there is a cultural problem amongst companies based in the Square Mile.

However that's just a sarcastic introduction to what I really wanted to talk about, which is the blame game. Obviously whenever something like this happens our esteemed political leaders like to shout a lot at each other & blame anyone but themselves. It's happening now in the House of Commons as we speak.

And whilst the shit hit the fan on this one whilst the Tories are in power the seeds of it were sown...well..a long time ago. Just as our politicians became too close to Rupert Murdoch and News International so to have our politicians been hypnotized by the bling, bling, bling of the City of London.

The consensus emerged - and Osborne likes to pretend he didn't believe this, but he did - that a light touch was needed to regulate the City of London. It was too big a part of the economy and in a competitive landscape no one wanted to rock the boat too much. Even after the 'Crisis' not much changed. The rhetoric became nastier and bonuses became a bigger issue but apart from that the City seems to carry on as before. Bob Diamond himself felt that they'd been given enough of a kicking and unwisely decided to say so.

But here we are again.

The Labour Party had thirteen years in government but they too got caught up in the web. LIBOR could have been regulated then, but it wasn't. Osborne chose not to regulate it in the last Finance Act. No one comes out of this looking good, which is why I'd like Ed Miliband to take a more mature stance than the usual political one and say something along the lines of...

"It's obvious banking regulation needs to be properly reviewed. None of us come out of this looking good. We failed to act when we had the chance. We all got too close to the City of London. Like it or not the City is a significant chunk of the UK economy but perhaps both we and the party opposite have become over-enamoured of it to the expense of other parts of the economy. Happy to continue with the light touch of regulation we all made a mistake. I therefore propose that all the parties work together to find a new consensus. That instead of trying to pin the blame on each other we put our heads together to find the right solution."

That might be a better use of everyone's time. And money.

But I suspect we'll just get the usual blame game followed by cosmetic changes & another 'rogue' in a few months time.


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Champagne Socialism & Other Animals

I'm middle-class. I earn over the national average income.

This apparently is supposed to disqualify me from being a socialist. There seems to be a belief amongst Tories that once you earn over a certain amount of money (or if you've been bought up in a style somewhat similar to the average Tory MP) that you automatically should divest yourself of all left-wing beliefs and sign up to support them.

That a high income or 'posh' upbringing automatically makes you some kind of hypocrite if you suggest a fairer distribution of incomes. That wealth somehow makes you incapable of empathy fit only to sit there selfishly demanding 'What's in it for me' rather than asking 'What can contribute to help others.'

Tax is - I have come to realise - the price we pay for living in a reasonably civilised society. No one enjoys paying it & a lot of it is spent on things I don't agree with and may never even benefit from but other people do. People who need that support more than I do.

Because I'm aware that I've been lucky. Even when things have looked bad and I've thought dark, dark thoughts I've always been aware that I have the support of a loving family and good friend and I've usually been working in reasonably well paid jobs that don't require overtime (paid or unpaid). I should remind myself of that fact every single day.

Apparently though I am supposed to put aside my left-wing beliefs or be a hypocrite. I'm not sure where the actual income cut off is according to the Tories but I know that once I've crossed that line voting Tory is what I should be doing as they're best placed to look after me.

But I'm quite happy being a champagne socialist. In the 21st century we seem to have become a much more selfish species - or at least because the rules have been loosened we've reverted to type. So instead of looking at the poor, the disabled, the unemployed and asking what can we do to help, we seem to be asking what can they do to help me get a tax cut. We hear words like 'feckless' chucked about and the rhetoric on disability recently has become poisonous as if disability in and of itself is an insult to the British people regardless of whether it is genuine or not.

No one seems to want to ask how in the 21st century in a wealthy country we can still have genuine poverty, sink estates, under-educated children attending flaking schools...etc and then be lectured by governments about 'responsibilities' and 'entitlement'.

In the end I have always felt that my life is better when other people's are better. And if government is for anything it should be for everyone. Not just the few. It should be about bringing us together, not driving us apart. It should be about pulling people up, not dragging them down.

Yes we have our own role to play as citizens in that but that doesn't mean we should blindly obey or live as if we are part of The Prisoner's Village. Paraphrasing something that Ed Murrow once said surely the right to disagree, the right to be wrong is fundamental to a free society.

And I disagree with much of what the current set of suits full of bugger all are doing, even if I stand to come out of it quite nicely thank you. If that makes me a 'Champagne Socialist' then so be it.

Monday, June 25, 2012

The Thatcher Thing

It dawned on me this morning, whilst listening to our Prime Minister dribbling on that I have come to dislike David Cameron more than I disliked Margaret Thatcher.

This sudden shock has little to do with the merits of Thatcher's Britain but more to do with them as people. The thing with Thatcher was that at least you go the impression that she'd worked her way through to being PM with ideas that she had developed through time and experience. Her solutions might have been wrong but she did - at least - work hard to get where she was and that for her being PM was a chance to do something 'good' and meant something to her. She also seemed to work hard.

It's a faint praise but it'll have to do for now.

But Cameron...was he ever going to stop to think about what he believes?

From Eton to Oxford to PR to SpAD to MP to PM. All without ever having to break sweat too much. The impression with Cameron is that being PM was something he is doing for a bet or as a gap year job before going off to do something better paid. There's no sense that he's doing the job for any other reason than that.

All the guff about changing the Tory Party was just enough bullshit to look real. Say what you like about Blair (another ex-PM with whom I have certain issues) at least the fights he had within his party were real rather than cosmetic.

Has Cameron ever really had a Clause Four moment? (And no gay marriage doesn't count. That's a basic issue of civility and civil rights imo)

And what does he actually do? PMQs has exposed his lack of understanding of his own governement policies over & over again. It also exposes his irritation whenever his divine right to rule is questioned. He seems to be the most hands off Prime Minister in my life time at a time when Britain could do with some genuine direction he seems more interested in chillaxing (whatever the fuck that means).

The same could be said of the Invisible Chancellor who rises from his bunker on rare occassions to smirk & sneer.

So David Cameron congratulations by combining Toryness with laziness and an air of smug entitlement you have managed to make Thatcher look slightly less awful. It's not much of an accolade I agree but I think your worth it.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Moral Courage-A Quotation

I saw this quote today from Robert Kennedy and I felt it was worth sharing:

"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”

I'll admit to lacking that 'moral courage' myself but it is, as Kennedy says, 'a rarer commodity..."