How To Lose Money Bank of Scotland Style
If we thought Fred the Shred and his crew of comedians were a wunch of bankers, this story from the Herald in Scotland is up there with his worst.
The Bank of Scotland loaned £11.2 million to an ex-banker to fund a new stadium for his football club; Dunfermline Athletic. Everybody then went bust leaving Lloyds Bank holding the baby with the gold-plated nappies. Here’s what the article says about the final outcome.
Despite being valued at £11.2m in 2011, the East End Park stadium was sold by administrators KPMG to a fan-led buyout team for just £700,000.
It strikes me, that there has been a bit of hanky-panky here. After all why would a club with average gates of a few thousand want a stadium that holds over eleven thousand? I wonder if Gordon Brown has any links to Dunfermline and its football club!
Miliband Has Another Crazy Idea!
After his idea of freezing energy prices, which I think, anybody with any knowledge of how the energy markets work, will think is a non-starter, he’s now had another idea, which although on the face of it looks good, will have far reaching negative consequences if it is implemented. It’s all reported here on the BBC and it is well summed up by the first paragraphs.
Firms would not be able to undercut wages by paying agency staff less than permanent staff under a Labour government, Ed Miliband has said.
Writing in the Independent on Sunday, the Labour leader said the party would close a loophole in the law that allowed for differing rates of pay.
Mr Miliband said he wanted to tighten the rules to “stop a race to the bottom with workers coming here from abroad”.
If you take an industry like farming, which relies heavily on bringing in agency workers to harvest fruit and vegetables, the resulting increase in price of the food, would probably mean we’d import more food from places like Kenya. Farmers would probably only grow food that could be harvested totally by machine.
Other industries would probably be similarly affected and their costs would go up, meaning more higher prices for consumers.
One point that he seems to ignore, is what happens in a company if agency workers and permanent staff are paid the same. A company would adjust the workforce to have the best one to meet its needs. So permanent staff might come under other pressures to perform as well as agency staff, be they from the UK or abroad.
It’ll be interesting to see how this argument develops. I’d love to see a breakdown of where these agency workers are employed by industry and region. I suspect that we’ll find some important public services wouldn’t run without them.
You can’t bring in these sort of policies immediately. You have to phase them in gradually over a period of time. It’s like trying to ride a bicycle slowly, by only turning hard left and hard right, instead of by small movements on the handlebars.
My only worry about these unworkable pronouncements from Ed Miliband, is that enough people might believe him and vote for him in 2010. His deputy may be called Balls, but Miliband talks it in spades!
An Unusual Cold War Story
I’ve just read this story on the BBC, about the personal relationship between Nikita Krushchev and John F. Kennedy and especially about a puppy given to the Kennedys by Krushchev.
You can draw a lot of interesting conclusions.
Tories Fear Scots Will Break Away
This is the headline on a piece on the front page of The Sunday Times today.
Whether the Scots vote for independence is up to them, and I don’t care one jot, as I see advantages in both outcomes.
If the Scots leave the United Kingdom, whether we are English, Scots or Welsh, we’ll see a whole lot of tortuous and very lengthy negotiations, which will make those in Northern Ireland at the present time, seem like a couple of two year-old twins arguing over a cake.
On the other hand if they stay, we’ll avoid any hassle with lots of domestic things, like travel, banking, insurance and energy. At the present, I don’t use any companies domiciled outside of England for my basic needs, as I don’t want a foreign government interfering in my affairs.
But there’s the advantage if the Scots leave, in that the English parliament would then be able to vote for what is best for England and Wales. We could for example move our time to that of France, Germany and most of Europe, as Scottish backwoodsmen wouldn’t be able to sink the legislation.
If Scotland breaks away, they will probably take control of their fishing industry and pictures like this one, will become more common.
Peterhead fish In London
I lkike good fish, but whether the EU would let them keep it from the Spanish and the Dutch is another matter.
If they did break away, that would of course, be the end of it and we wouldn’t have to have the argument again. Unless, they wanted to rejoin, but I do think the English would have a view on that!
Scotland would probably make a go of it alone, for one of the same reasons Ireland did. There is a large diaspora, who will support the country, through thick and thin.
At the moment the English and the Scots are like a couple trapped in an unhappy marriage. Both, to kiss and make up and go for a divorce are better options than struggling on!
I do hope that both sides accept this referendum as a full and final conclusion. but I doubt they will!
Farage Says Yes!
Nigel Farage of UKIP saying that the UK should accept more Syrian refugees is a bit of a surprise.l Here’s an extract from a report on the BBC.
The UK should take in some refugees from Syria’s civil war, UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has said.
He told BBC News that Western countries should agree to take an allocation, but he did not specify numbers.
I wonder what his typical supporter thinks of this statement!
Ulster Says No!
The talks in Northern Ireland seem to have ground to their inevitable conclusion, as is reported here on the BBC. Here’s the first bit.
Talks aimed at solving some of Northern Ireland’s most contentious issues ended on Saturday without agreement.
The five main parties will meet again early on Monday to discuss parades, flags and dealing with the past.
I am getting sick to death of the same entrenched attitudes, that have cost all of us billions of pounds.
Who is going to rid us of this troublesome country?
Most of my friends from Eire don’t want this bigotted basket case either!
One point that has to be made. In most of England, we don’t have any religious parades that are contentious and you rarely see flags flown that some might not like. Even the cross of St. George has gone from something that was only flown to annoy to a flag flown with pride. So why if we can do it on this side of the water, can’t the Northern Irish do it.
I was also in Liverpool in the sixties, where there was a nasty undercurrent of religious tension. You don’t hear anything negative like that, from the city now!
Hot Air Over London’s Airports
Sir Howard Davies and his Airports Commission has reported about what it feels are ideas to expand London’s airports.
What he is proposing ignores a few facts.
I don’t think that any extra runway at Heathrow is possible, as the people who live in West London, would not vote for any MP, who supports it and therefore in their view make their lives worse. This of course ignores the fact that most people in the area, moved there after Heathrow was opened and they have had plenty of time to move away.In fact, they’re probably some of the most opinionated and selfish Nimbys in the country.
The major airlines, such as British Airways and Virgin want Heathrow to be expanded as this is much more convenient and probably more profitable for them. After all, say if Gatwick were to be expanded, then they would have to have two operations in different places.
Everything, I’ve read about the report, makes little mention of technology that will become available in the next few years.
Aircraft will certainly get more efficient and hopefully quieter, which should ease disturbance.
But some of the bugger changes will occur in how the aircraft are controlled, so they will be able to fly paths, that are much more precise and therefore become less noticeable to those on the ground. Such things as stacks of aircraft over London waiting to land at Heathrow will disappear.
The Commission does state that patterns of air travel will change because of low cost airlines and more point-to-point flying.
And this brings me to the last fact that he ignored.
Generally, it’s passengers who choose which flights they use. And the methods they choose are sometimes bizarre to say the least.
I choose my flights very much on the departure time of the flight and the availability of gluten-free food at the terminal.
Others may only fly with an airline on their favourite loyalty program.
So one factor that will change our behaviour and ease pressure on busy airports, is convenient alternatives. We already get that. Scots who want to fly to say the States, often travel to Manchester Airport, as the flights are cheaper, than at Glasgow or Edinburgh. This loads the trains from Glasgow to Manchester Airport so much, that extra trains are being purchased for the route. Other Scots, who may need to fly to say London to get an onward flight, often take a quick hop to Schipol instead. The big airlines at Heathrow, want this stopped and hence they are in favour of an expansion there.
So one thing that will take the pressure of the airports in London is better facilities and more flights at other airports. We probably need to open up regional airports more to foreign carriers, but then the big boys like their monopolies.
I can never understand why there isn’t a regular service from Stansted to the New York area. Airlines have tried but all seem to fail. Is the marketing of the big airlines and Heathrow to blame?
Crossrail and Thameslink will be game changers in how passengers choose to use the London airports. Millions of people will now be better connected to either one or both of the airports, so if the flights are available at the convenient one, they’ll use them.
Personally, I used to hate Gatwick, as this post from 2011 indicates. But after a change of ownership and better train links from East London, I quite like the place. Gatwick will get better, as the South Terminal gets rebuilt and restaurants are improved. Stansted is now rather a dump and you would only fly from there for cheap flights or unusual destinations.
So even the most stubborn of individuals can be made to change their minds!
Of the options the Airports Commission lays out, only two are viable.
An airport in the Thames Estuary will never be built, as it is just too costly and new technology and the other airports in the South East will expand enough to take the increase of demand.
A new runway at Heathrow will never be built, as the Nimbys and politics will stop that happening.
So we are left with a new runway at Gatwick. I may not agree with how it is built, but the big factor is that the locals are not as opposed to the idea as they are at Heathrow.
But the idea I like is the extending of the northern runway at Heathrow. It was an innovative idea thought up by a pilot and put forward by Arup, who are not noted for bad ideas.
Although it would require a lot of thought over how it would be operated, It has the great advantage that it could probably be built with not too much disruption to either operations at the airport or the traffic on the M25. You could start by building a tunnel parallel to and west of the western section of the M25, which would be opened before you actually started work on the airport. Remember that with Crossrail and other tunnels, we’re the world’s best tunnel builders.
I’ve looked at a detailed map of the area and if the problems of air traffic and organisation of the aircraft can be solved, I think that much of the noise intrusion could probably be contained within the current airport boundary.
But I have this sneaking suspicion that no new runways will be built or extended and in twenty years time or so, we’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.
Passengers will just choose their airports with more care and airports will be competing with us with better and better facilities and more point-to-point flights.
Scrapping The Car Tax Disc
It has been reported that the government is going to scrap the car tax disc.
It won’t affect me, but I think there will be an alliance of those, who want to keep it.
There will be those, who will object solely on the basis, that the only way to check will be to look it up on a database and this is an infringement on their liberties.
It will also make it difficult for busybodies to report neighbours, who constantly park outside their house, for not having a tax disc.
If the DVLA did the system properly, you would only be able to pay road tax on-line, so that would annoy the Internet refuseniks.
And then there’s the unions, who may complain about the job loses at Swansea and in the Royal Mail.
I’ll be surprised, if they are abandoned it, without a fight from a very odd alliance of troublemakers.
The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction
I remember a BBC television comedy series called Citizen Smith, which starred Robert Lindsay as Wolfie Smith. This sums up the theme of the series.
Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front (the TPF, merely a small bunch of his friends), the goals of which are “Power to the People” and “Freedom for Tooting”. In reality, he is an unemployed dreamer and petty criminal whose plans fall through because of laziness and disorganisation.
But today, I was watching the BBC News and they were discussing the Lambeth slavery case.
Later in the article on Citizen Smith, this paragraph appears.
The Tooting Popular Front was inspired by the numerous minuscule leftist political groups active in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. One model may have been the then somewhat well-known “Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought”, a particularly far-left group led by Aravindan Balakrishnan, who became a suspect in the Lambeth slavery case of 2013.
Sadly John Sullivan, who wrote Only Fools and Horses, in addition to Citizen Smith, died in 2011, so he can’t tell us if his fictional revolutionaries were based on Balakrishnan’s group.
Politicians Must Choose Their Friends Better
P.J. O’Rourke, who is no lover of politicians, once said.
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
It is a test that should not just be applied to politicians, but to their friends and donors as well.
Today in the Times we have two stories about people wanting to influence politics.
The first is about the troubles of the Labour Party and their relationship with the Co-operative movement. It contains this classic quote from, a Tory MP; Brooks Newmark.
The toxic element of a great ethical institution like the Co-operative is the way the Labour Party has effectively infiltrated it and infected it because of the benefits they have been receiving from it. The only way the Labour Party could get a loan if it didn’t have the Co-operative Bank is from Wonga.
But then Ed Milliband got his own back on the Tories by complaining about some of their donors. But at least these donors, were using their own money, rather than that of members of the Co-operative movement.
Remember too, that the Liberal Democrats had a dalliance with Michael Brown.
And then there’s the story of Hotchpotch the cat who was left £10,000 by Malcolm Richards who was a large financial supporter of Ukip.
I can smell the fruitcakes.
Perhaps we need say a ten percent tax levied on every political donation. The money could be used for philanthropic purposes, like looking after distressed catfolk.
The Anonymous Widower 