The East London Line Opens
I’m glad to see that the teething troubles that delayed the opening of the East London Line have been solved and it is now open. Labour activitists mostly of the Old variety wanted it delayed until after the election, but if you read the comments on The Times report of the opening, I suspect they are in the minority.
If it works and it’s safe, it should be open.
But it should still have been called the Brunel Line.
Birmingham’s Sexist Employment Practices
That’s the only way to describe them.
The tribunal didn’t describe them as sexist, but felt they were a massive injustice. But then reports, I’ve heard have said that few if any women got the bonus and the best paid jobs went to those in favour with the union. That surely must be wrong, as trade unions look after all their members.
I though blame the managers. They must have known what was going on and didn’t take any action to correct it.
What I also find very strange is that some employees were earning a lot more than their managers. Surely the managers would have complained.
Stupid Candidates
First we had John Cowan making anti-Muslim comments and today we have Philip Lardner making unacceptable homophobic statements.
Are these prospective parliamentary candidates being stupid or telling the truth?
In my view, there is a fine line between making out-of-step comments and being too-much the party poodle. But then if you want to be different, there are many areas where you can do this without offending anybody with racist or homophobic remarks.
So they’re stupid. And their parties are probably stupid in giving them the chance to stand as candidates.
Liverpool Reborn
Stephen Bayley wrote an article in The Times yesterday about how inspiring architecture is creating wealth, health and happiness.
Cities are living organisms. This means sometimes they die. Pompeii is one example, although no one saw it coming. Detroit’s fate was more predictable, possibly even inevitable: Motor City is stuck in reverse and headed for oblivion.
Liverpool nearly died. Like Detroit, it fell at great speed from economic and social grace. Unesco World Heritage credentials describe old Liverpool as “the supreme example of a commercial port at the time of Britain’s greatest global influence”. It was the New York of Europe.
He talks about how good architects have rebuilt the city and made it fit for the twenty-first century, but observes that politicians in London haven’t noticed. London to me is a city of good modern architecture, but save for a couple of nice buildings, those bridges and Grainger Town, Newcastle doesn’t seem to have been improved. Surely now, in the depths of a recession, we should be encouraging good building to leave a legacy to the future and also provide the jobs and homes we need. I’m not sure you need that many more shops and offices, though.
He ends the article by asking what makes a good building. He believes it is one that makes you feel better. He is absolutely right and having created a few in my time, I like to think I know how to create them. I shall create another when I return to London. Somewhere to live and somewhere where I will probably eventually die.
But then Liverpool in the 1960s turned me from a shy young boy with ideas into a shy young man with ambition, drive and a strong belief in myself. It does that to people. Even now, I go back occasionally to make sure that I know what life is about. It is still the second city of the UK despite what others say.
I shall be buying his book. If nothing else it will give me the faith to carry on in this world.
Libby Purves Hits the Nail on the Head
Libby Purves got right to the point in The Times yesterday about youth unemployment.
The last two paragraphs sum it all up.
In France, three years ago, Dominique de Villepin, then Prime Minister, tried to address it in a novel way: he proposed flexible job contracts for first-time workers under 26 — the CPE or first employment contract. Within the first two years they could be dismissed with no reason given, and employing any young person who had been six months out of work would exempt you from national insurance. Thus, employers might take a punt, and the young get a chance to prove themselves. Three months later, after violent demonstrations, the Government stepped back and the unions crowed. Now the French stick to the tired old stuff we go in for here — training schemes, internships, fake jobs, anything to keep the figures down.
But it’s real jobs they want, these young: to be needed, useful, a cog in the machine. Even if it’s a job you have to laugh at in the pub that evening. Many young French voices — drowned by union rhetoric — said precarious employment on the CPE would be better than none. I suspect ours would agree. But what politician would dare roll back some of the stifling regulation and expense entailed in giving them a chance?
I have recently had a stroke. I’m better now and can drive again. But in the four weeks when I couldn’t drive, I woulod have loved to be able to recruit a helper, who I could then have fired when I was better.
How many other temporary jobs are there out there, that are unfilled because of the bureaucracy.
Cloud Cuckoo Politics
I listened to Chris Giles of the Financial Times last night on BBC Radio5’s Drive programme. He said that the various parties promises on the deficit don’t add up. They have promised saving in the order of ten billion or so, when documents from the Treasury show that we need to save around three times that much.
I’ve been in Newcastle over the weekend as you have seen and up there, they are worried about losing jobs when the new government cuts and cuts hard. After all large numbers of jobs in the North East are either directly with the government or strongly supported. Many too, are in-line for savage cuts because of new technology.
So would NuLabor tell the truth in the North East? No! But the Tories and the Lib Dems have nothing to lose there, so they would at least do the dirty deed after the election.
So what can be cut, what can be improved and how can we raise more revenue?
There are government programmes that can go like Trident, ID Cards, the two aircraft carriers, the Joint Strike Fighter and some other defence projects. Most though will not show up until about 2017.
I have one bitch on what can be improved in the NHS. Every time I go between my GP and Addenbrooke’s I have to tell the other doctor what the previous one, as the two doctors do not have access to the same database. How much does that cost the NHS? And how many other systems show a total lack of joined up thinking?
When we talk about efficiency savings, that is what we’re talking about and it will cost jobs in the NHS and agencies like the Police. But these will mainly be in back-office clerical areas. Well! They should be, but will government really bite the bullet.
Most taxes don’t raise more than about five billion.
So if you want to raise large amounts of taxes, then you increase the big ones like Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT, Corporation Tax and energy taxes.
Income Tax needs to be restructured with perhaps a 50% top rate and very much higher thresholds at the bottom. But I would allow tax relief on any salary you pay to others. So if you employed a nanny or a gardener, then this would be allowed. This may seem something for the well off, but it would also enable anybody to investigate ideas without having to go to the expense of setting up companies and finding loopholes in the tax system.
In other words you restructure Income Tax so that it is basically tax neutral for individuals but creates more jobs, which therefor will increase the tax take and also decrease the benefit take.
I’d also abolish National Insurance and combine it with Income Tax, as that is what it is, a secondary Income Tax.
At the same time, I’d also abolish Inheritance Tax and put three pence on the top rates of Income Tax. This would mean that a lot of rich people would move here and they would create employment. It would also have other employment benefits as people would do what was best at the time, rather than spend fortune avoiding Inheritance Tax.
I’m afraid VAT will probably have to go up. There is no other way to raise significant revenue. As VAT is generally only paid by consumers, as companies offset it, I would prefer that the tax rises were here, than before people got their money.
Corporation Tax is already high compared to other countries in Europe. If it is raised we are in danger of losing companies abroad. So raising it is a no-no, but lowering it may well raise more revenue as other companies would move here.
Now we come to energy taxes. They should be raised substantially. If coupled with increases in Income Tax thresholds they would publish the profligate. I would abolish Vehicle Excise Duty and just have a Vehicle Registration Fee for every time a vehicle changes hands.
Now, I am a control engineer by training and a lot of this is standard control theory, where you do something and you get lots of secondary effects. You just have to make sure that the secondary effects create jobs and thus raise Income Tax take and reduce benefits.
NuLabor has dug us into a big hole. We will only get out by being radical. Correct that; very radical.
Chimpanzees Grieve
There have been a lot of reports on the BBC about the death of a female chimpanzee in a safari park.
It shows how closely we are related to them and like us they have feelings too.
The interesting thing is that the chimpanzee who died was probably about sixty. That is older than my late wife.
Loch Ness Monster
The Loch Ness Monster is one of these stories that refuses to go away.
Now, as the tourist season approaches the National Archive of Scotland have released documents to show that there were worries that Nessie would be hunted and shot in the 1930s.
In 1938, the chief constable of Inverness-shire raised concerns about protecting Nessie from hunters.
In a letter he wrote: “That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness now seems beyond doubt.”
I don’t believe that the monster exists.
Loch Ness has been closed off from the sea for many thousands of years, so if a monster exists it is either that number of years old or they have lived and bred happily in the Loch.
The first premise is unlikely, so there must be at least two. But then if there were only that small a number, then they would have so many genetic problems because of in-breeding. So if they were more, then surely they would have provided more evidence.
It’s a myth designed to get tourists to Scotland.
Suggestions for the Pope’s Visit
This story broke last week, when an e-mail started to circulate suggesting things that the Pope might like to do on his visit to the UK.
I used to think that the Pope’s views had an effect, but after reading PeopleQuake, it would seem that some of his views on contraception aren’t taken at all seriously, except possibly in the Philipines. In Italy, they certainly aren’t, as if the current rate of births continues, the number of Italians in Italy will have declined to about 15% by the end of the century.
But the e-mail sent was stupid and I can’t understand why all of those involved haven’t been fired.
Surely, they should have been thinking up ways of making sure that the Pope was properly informed about child abuse by members of his priesthood.
The Demise of the Nightingale
This article in The Independent blames deer for the demise of the nightingale.
Nightingales are disappearing from Britain because deer are eating the woodland undergrowth the birds need for nesting, a new study has shown. It is a significant breakthrough in understanding why numbers of the renowned songbird are rapidly falling.
It just shows that we must get a balanced view on conservation. Deer numbers have increased greatly in recent years and as they have no natural predators, this will continue unless culling is introduced.
The Anonymous Widower 