Compassionate Conservatism

You may call me hopelessly old-fashioned, but I believe in loyalty. One of the ways in which we reward loyalty is a pension plan. In the case of state pensions (professors, teachers, firemen, policemen, etc), the standing argument is that many of these people took the good pension as a trade-off for lower incomes than they could get in industry.

Even the Soviets recognized that this trust was inviolate. Not so the corporate raiders, who started in about 1980 to raid the funds to pay for their purchases, totally destroying many of them in the process.

Today, the conservative US columnist George Will published a piece blaming California's financial ills on over-taxing the rich, and the 'generous' state pension system.

I find it a very odd coincidence that the very same day, conservative Republican lawmakers in Ohio announced that their public pension system is in trouble, and requires a major overhaul, to be done on the backs of the current retirees.

Hi-yo Silver, away!

Jesse alerts us to the fact that the Chinese government is not only investing in precious metals, but actively encouraging its citizens to do the same. Funny that our governments aren't doing this.

And gold briefly cracked the $1,000 ceiling today. Naturally, there'll be a reversal at some point, but I have a hunch that much money and effort have been expended trying to put off this psychologically important event. Once you've made the first crack in the eggshell, it gets a lot easier.

Every little thing's gonna be all right

Dr Mark Perry reckons it's all been on the up-and-up since 1929. Yes, production has become more efficient over time. But can it be quite as rosy as it seems, when the last quarter-century has seen an explosion of debt?

United 93

Just watched the film, "United 93" and wondered if I'd pass the test when the moment came. Remember reading how at the Guardian newsroom on September 11, 2001, the self-regarding hacks were watching the Twin Towers burn on TV and commenting how the Americans had it coming. If so, may the next one hit Farringdon Road - but only the guilty parties. That's the catch, isn't it?

A positive step: solar cooking

A brief grumblestice while I pass on a brilliant idea that my sister-in-law has just successfully tried out herself (in the northern USA): a solar cooker made from cardboard and aluminium foil.

Here's the site: http://www.freewebs.com/sunnycooker/

Will Tony Blair take Irish nationality?

Cherie Blair has said on a TV chat show that the Blair children have dual nationality, British and Irish, the latter because of Tony's mother (an Irish Protestant). It is stated that Tony and Cherie have only British passports.

That is not to say that the parents might not later choose to apply. Advantages would include the famously lenient Irish tax treatment of writers and artists (once entirely exempted, but now lightly taxed at 1% on annual income up to €100,000 and 2% for those earning above that figure). Eire is a good country for those who specialise in popular fiction.

Or perhaps the Republic would simply be a good place to lie low when the truth comes out. In 2006, General Sir Michael Rose called for the impeachment (a procedure not used for two centuries) of the Prime Minister, for taking the country to war on false pretences. In this context, it's worth noting that extradition from the Irish Republic to Britain has always been made very difficult. (When exactly were those Irish passports issued to the children?)

Not that the people of the Irish Republic are afraid to call people to account*; they take their religion and morality quite seriously there, still. I watched the Gay Byrne Show on 28 October 1994, when Gerry Adams faced political opponents and a far from sympathetic Southern Irish audience and was called a murderer to his face (he remained lethally calm and turned the point into an issue of good manners).

Perhaps Tony Blair, that son of Proteus, will one day be seized and held until verity is forced from him.

Update

*The current PM is ostentatiously backing compensation claims against Libya for supplying the IRA with explosives. Could we start a leetle closer to home? How much are the IRA, PIRA and the rest prepared to pay?

Fisk this - Jack Straw on oil and Al-Megrahi

In the Telegraph and other papers:

Mr Straw also claims today that Mr Brown had nothing to do with his change of heart over the PTA [Prisoner Transfer Agreement], adding: “I certainly didn’t talk to the PM. There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all.”

Even if literally true, the above statement is consistent with the possibilities that:

- Mr Straw communicated via a third party with the PM on oil-for-Lockerbie-bombers (or, the PM raised the matter with others)
- Mr Straw communicated directly with the PM, but not through speech
- There were once paper-based records to show the PM's involvement, but they have been destroyed
- There were, or still are, records held in other form (e.g. email)

A good example of a "non-denial denial"?

PM to quit?

Peter Hitchens speculates that Gordon Brown may resign soon:

What will all these people do for a hate-figure if Mr Brown quits, as I think he will probably do on ‘health grounds’ before the Election?

I reconfirmed our electoral register details by phone yesterday; but I really don't know whether I will be able to vote for any of the candidates. Have we got to the point where mass abstention sends a stronger signal than positive choice?

It occurs to me that even using the phrase "sending a signal" reveals how much the political class has lost touch with us.

UK public debt worse than USA

It's reported in the Press that UK national debt will reach c. £1 trillion by the end of the year, and when the Office of National Statistics adds-in the cost of bank bailouts to Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland, the total should be £2.5 trillion. This will make our position worse than that of the United States, as shown in the graph below.

Lone wolves and the herd instinct

When Tony Butler worked as a football radio presenter for BRMB, I heard him comment on the news media: "They hunt in packs." (His Black Country accent, part of his charm - there's a beautiful, musical suite of accents in the Dudley/Wolverhampton area - sounded the word as "hoont".)

It's true even now. British PM Gordon Brown is down, heir-presumptive David Cameron is up. We shall see what Balloon Head makes of the economy when he gets in.

The problem with Brown is that he is, in my (educationally experienced) opinion, mildly autistic. He's the kind that academically dumber, normal kids pick on and wonder why he doesn't fight back. He hasn't helped himself by aiming obsessively at a job which requires quite different skills, which the flashy Blair has in spades; but self-knowledge comes hard for ASD types. Star Trek fans will understand that Scotty could never take Captain Kirk's seat in the Starship Enterprise; but maybe he harboured ambition, all the same. Had Kirk made Scotty his deputy, it could have lit the touchpaper.

The autistic child senses his vulnerability, and will make compromises to be part of the flock. Desperate for acceptance and respect, Brown has paltered with the truth throughout his political career, as commentators on his time as Chancellor have often noted. The brawling pit of the House of Commons has never been the place to nurture an inner-directed, analytical man's integrity.

But the pack is blind, too. Unrestrained, the instinct to group-bully the outsiders, the different ones, would send the human race well back into the Stone Age. And then look at the ones they instinctively, collectively follow. How many years was it before the Press revealed what they must have known all along, that the overjoyed crowd that greeted Blair in Downing Street after the 1997 General Election, was a handpicked mob of Party members? I shall believe in journalistic independence when a new incumbent is promptly probed and criticised.

And what is the pack now saying about Afghanistan? Are they correct? Would it solve our problems to withdraw and concentrate on more achievable aspects of domestic security (some British Army regiments stationed by our ports, airfields and the Channel Tunnel might not go amiss); or would it be a sign of weakness, the crumbling that in ancient times not only ceded the provinces formerly under the Pax Romana, but at last saw Alaric's Visigoths rampage through Rome itself?