Coalition - PLEASE get a grip

The UK Treasury has admitted that the white paper on bank reform, based on the recommendations of the Sir John Vickers report, will not be published until June. If the legislation is passed much of it will not be implemented until more than 10yrs after the crisis that prompted reform. There's urgency for you. The Government can, of course,screw up education & the NHS & much else at very high speed. Meanwhile JP Morgan Chase follow UBS in uncovering massive trading losses ($2bn).JP Morgans boss, who doubtless will still be richly rewarded, admits to "errors,sloppiness and bad judgment".Then Clinton Cards is brought down with great loss of jobs by Barclays Bank & RBS selling the loans they have made to Clinton to an American competitor - American Greetings - who immediately called them in. If the banks don't see that it is their job to prop up failing businesses (& it probably isn't) it should not be the Taxpayers job to prop up failing banks. Even more so when Barclays think it is proper to set aside £2.1bn in bonuses & only £700m for dividends. The Government hopes that 'investors' will sort this mess out,but institutional investors are all too often part of the mutual backscratch society and vast numbers of ordinary retail investors don't get to vote on directors remuneration because their shares are held in 'nominee' accounts. To finally add insult to injury the Government is secretly trying to offload its shareholding (or part of it) in RBS & Lloyds at a considerable loss to the taxpayer. As its cover the Treasury Select Committee will be taking evidence on such disposal - not from the poor bloody infantry of taxpayers - but from such 'objective' individuals as the CEO of Standard Life,the Head of UK investments at Schroders and so forth. Then there's the BSkyB affair - - - No wonder the voters are deserting the Coalition in droves.

A little Respect does Labour a lot of damage

Before Labour get too cock a hoop about their local election gains they should remember the word 'Respect'. Nobody will deny that the local election results represented a strong backlash against the Coalition but they were not a ringing endorsement of Labour. The apparent ease with which George Galloway can chew up a Labour heartland should be a great worry for them. When it comes to arousing passions Galloway & Alex Salmond are streets ahead of Cameron, Osborne, Miliband & Balls, yes & indeed Clegg. Thatcher gave impetus to the 'Prime Minster as President' style of politics & was ably followed by Blair. LibDems have never gone down that route.

Only the LibDems are untainted by Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch said he never asked favours of politicians. Well of course not. He never needed to. It was clear even to me,as humble member of the exploited idiots who work hard, pay our taxes & don't make a pain in the butt of ourselves, that politicians would always know what Murdoch wanted and would smooth his path accordingly. The current links between the Tories & News International which are being exposed are no closer than those between Blair & Labour were. Tony flew half way round the world (at taxpayers expense?) to pay homage at the Court of King Rupert. In testimony last week it was helpfully confirmed that Tony's Europe policy was made in Wapping - not Downing Street. One document, also revealed last week, was a grovel from Gordon Brown pleading for the Sun to lay off & claiming mateship just days before the 2010 election. Just a few days afterwards the unelected emperor of the World is being ushered through the back door of No 10 to greet the new Prime Minister. Only the LibDems are untainted - despite huge efforts by NewsCorp to gain privilege access to Vince Cable when the BSkyB decision was his.

Politicians need us to have short memories

It was 1986 when Cecil Parkinson, Courtier of Queen Margaret of Finchley, started the de-regulation of UK Financial Services. Was it pure co-incidence that for most of the 20th century to that point the return on bank equity rose broadly in line with the growth of the UK economy [about 2%p.a.] but between 1986 & 2006 that return shot up to an annual average of 16%? I don't think so. Freed from constraint, & with the opportunity to make obscene levels of personal wealth for those at the top of the pile, the banks simply started to play roulette. Bankers bonuses are one of history's great thefts. A gigantic reward for failure. At long last shareholders are starting to flex their muscles & vote against such pay. But Government must do more. It is outrageous that Barclays Bank proposes a bonus pot of £2.1bn whilst spending only £700m on dividends.

A missed opportunity budget

So now we have had the budget. The headlines were all about the so called 'Granny Tax' which is not a tax at all but a reduction in the age related allowance that was put in as a gimmick by Labour to avoid giving a decent basic pension. Long before you get to the average income level of about £26k it starts to be clawed back. And yes,my pension income is big enough to be affected by this & I don't mind. The rise in basic pension & other benefits are better & why should the retired be better off than those in work on a similar income? I don't have any of the expenses that my kids who are in the same £10k to £26k income bracket have to face. Nevertheless the budget is a hugely missed opportunity. The rise in stamp duty on mansions is trivial compared to the untouched and absurdly low Council Tax levied on properties worth millions. As Will Hutton says (Observer 25th March) "Anyone who believes that a 45% top rate will suddenly unleash a wave of dynamic entrepreneurialism needs to lie down in a darkened room". Meanwhile 7300 employees of AstraZeneca are to lose their jobs - presumably to pay for the two thirds increase in the Chief Executives remuneration. And just to bolster the delusions of grandeur that permeate the UK establishment we still spend more on defence than the police/the courts/the fire service/the prisons all put together.

50p is not 'clobbering'

What a shame it is that if you say the same thing often enough it becomes accepted wisdom. What a pity therefore that in her excellent piece "The one-trick coalition" [Observer 18th March] the estimable Heather Stewart uses the phrase " -- exodus of wealth creating entrepreneurs" in the context of the 50p tax. Similarly on BBC Breakfast a commentator reflecting on the tax said that the LibDems will find '---other ways of clobbering the rich'. If an extra 10p on people making over five times average earnings is 'clobbering' then I speak some different version of English. Doubtless some people making £150k+ per year do create wealth but the REAL wealth creators are the micro & small businesses that I deal with. They design & sell products around the world which are manufactured by similar sized firms in Britain. They each provide employment for perhaps between 8 & 20 people. Only the merest handful of Owners/Directors within these businesses get anywhere near £150000p.a. - many think themselves lucky to be 40% taxpayers. At the other end of the scale the Financial Services Industry has shed tens of thousands of jobs, seen share prices collapse and still thinks its executives deserve seven figure remuneration.

Time to respect the right to choose when to die

Tony Nicklinson had a massive stroke some 6yrs ago and is totally paralysed. All he can move is his eyes & blink but his brain is unimpaired. He cannot commit suicide [which is legal] by himself. Anyone that helps him may be charged with murder. He has recently [12th March] won a High Court ruling which will allow his case to be considered in open court. He doesn't want to go yet but what gives the likes of Ann Widdecombe, Baroness Finlay and their supporters the right to deny him the choice? Come to that what gives them the right to deny anyone that choice? Recently someone I knew died. His relatives were of the Widdicombe/Finlay school but were completely broken up by his suffering over the last couple of weeks of life despite the best palliative care that could be legally offered. I respect that. All I ask for is that my wish to just end it all at a time of my choosing is equally respected.

Immediately [c. 15.50 BBC News 12th March] the ruling was announced Baroness Finlay was on the TV arguing her usual case against assisted suicide. To many of us that case is threadbare. She pushed it further than usual by asserting that, if the Dutch experience [where assisted suicide is legal] was translated to the UK, there would be some 13000 such events here. This was presented as huge number but no evidence as to its origin was forthcoming. In reality there were 491348 deaths from all causes in the UK in 2009 [It hovers around half a million most years]. Twelve thousand of these were due to accidents.

Meanwhile Ann Widdecombe, whose views on assisted suicide are well known, had a headlined comment " If assisted suicide was put into law no granny would be safe" [Financial Times Magazine 10/11 March]. This reaches a new low in emotive distortion of the truth. She does not have a shred of evidence for that assertion. On the contrary all the evidence from countries, where the law is more sensible & compassionate than Widdicombe would allow, shows that her scaremongering is the opposite of the reality. The time is long overdue for the Law to recognise the consequences of advances in medicine over the last 50yrs and come up with a realistic mechanism giving freedom of choice to all.