I have to get up in four hours time to drive down to Sandwich for a round of golf on the famous course there. I'm a bit apprehensive as I have never played on a championship course.
Anyway, that is a roundabout way of telling you that I won't be blogging much tomorrow, so this can be an open thread. I will moderate comments as often as I can. Feel free to discuss anything you like.
34 comments:
I have a question for you all.
What links Norway, Russia, Dubai and Qatar?
Answer : They all have sovereign wealth funds built up from oil and gas. These are huge sums of money used to invest in foreign states.
The U.K. had huge oil and gas reserves. Where is our sovereign wealth fund? What has happened to the money that was gained by selling off these reserves? And why was it not properly invested?
You may answer that it was used to transform society in the 1980s but there should be a national dividend from that transformation. Where is it?
After all, the supposedly super corrupt Putin regime has managed to both transform society by encouraging the rapid growth of a middle class, which Putin wants to be 60% of the population by 2020 and has built up a sovereign wealth fund.
Where’s our money?
Iain,
Being spotted with a mobile phone or Blackberry around the clubhouse or course of any championship club is a huge "no no."
Mind you, everyone does it - but you have to be very discreet!
I see the coast guards went on strike this week with not much notice taken by the blogging world, as they was in a case of mild hysteria over the referendum.
But is anyone doing or making a strikewatch counter. Because I am sure the levels of strikers are going up, maybe not in days taken but in groups going on strike...
New labour old ways returning...
Hardy golfer stops teeing up, removes his cap, stands still, bows his head, as a furneral cortege goes past.
His freind says to him. 'whats come over you stopping playing while a funeral goes past'. He replies ' well she was a real good wife to me for over 30 years.'
These are the type of people you are going round with Iain, Enjoy.
Nice town, too. Sort of Rye, but flat.
m.hristov asks an interesting question. I think the answer is that Mrs Thatcher squandered the money. Disgracefully she used the revenues to keep tax rates low rather than to repay national debt and/or invest in infrastructure projects. (This is like chopping up the floorboards to burn to keep your house warm – ok in the short term but it does nothing for the value of your house). The low taxes produced some good results in terms of boosting private enterprise but, overall, they did us few favours in the longer term partly because they helped people to forgot the simple lesson that you only get what you pay for in this life and that you can't have decent public service (such as clean streets and rural post offices) if you won't pay for them.
Also her government allowed the reserves to be squandered when the price of oil was crazily low (8USD a barrel at one point) - by hanging onto theirs (more by luck than judgement I suspect) the ruskies have done much better and are now getting 100USD for theirs...
PS I hope Mr D replaced his divots on that lovely seaside course and resisted the old joke when asked what he’d like for luncheon.
M. Hristov asks where the money went from our oil and gas... well it mainly served to stop us going bankrupt in the mid 1980s.
See if this gets past your moderation; given that I am going to be criticizing you.
Lately this blog has become highly filled with venom from yourself. You use your post about the death of Francis Pym to critise him; surely it would be good grace to wait a few days, or (shock horror) not mention it at all.
You critised Ken Clark, simply because he stuck to doing what he always has said he will do.
I appreciate you had a break-in last week, but it wasn't our fault. Any chance you can return to reporting instead of character assassination?
As I say see if this gets past your moderation; or if you might just happen to press delete. And then wait for Verity et al to jump to your defence and how say wonderful you are......
But does everyone agree???
Is the defection, this week, to the Liberal Democrats of the former Chairman of London conservatives, Dirk Hazell, being kept quiet by the Tory Party.
Iain,
As a Type 2 diabetic, I am surprised that you have not condemned the LibDems attempts to wreck the nations health by reducing the VAT on fruit juices. Without the bulk contained in fruit, the sugar in fruit juice is quickly ingested causing glycaemic shock and increasing the risk of diabetes. I hope you will oppose their proposal.
Young man charged with rape; his name and picture is plastered all over the papers for weeks.
His accuser remains anonymous.
Neither should be named until a verdict is reached. The man should only be named then if he's found guilty.
M. Hristov said...
"The U.K. had huge oil and gas reserves. Where is our sovereign wealth fund? What has happened to the money that was gained by selling off these reserves? And why was it not properly invested?"
The evil Thatcher regime used it to pay for the unemployment they had wilfully created by destroying British industry. Everyone knows that.
Should Dwain Chambers be allowed to live his life now he's been parolled?
Ian wants him sent to Iran, by the looks of it (sky).
If a society is not a forgiving one (post sentencing and release) aren't we in danger of submitting to base level?
Sorry, Ian, I aren't quite sure of this one myself, but I hope I eventually convince myself that Dwain has done his time.
It's my choice not to be an alcoholic or a herion addict, so I don't feel the need to be persecuted for it.
Perhaps if there wa a performance enhancing drug for MPs (or selection to) then I would feel put out by a winner who took them, but I don't need them at all.
perhaps these points are weak ones, but I don't feel comfortable with total persecution of the state and her agencies.
NB. Aitken,Hamilton and Archer? Their views would be interesting.
Gary
Iain,
There is an analysis on eureferendum.com indicating that the headline policy on alcopops would run into serious problems due to existing and predicted up-coming EU regs. Tax harmonisation, and also alcohol abuse policy being an EU competence or “occupied field”.
Is there any analysis of the implementability of the policy that you are aware of ? And what are your thoughts ?
Regards,
“ELF”
M hristov 2.14 am.
The UK is one of the biggest owners of overseas assets in the world. Who owns these assets? British companies. The top 100 UK companies generate more than half their earnings from overseas (some in exports, of course, but a lot from overseas subsidiaries).
Throughout the oil boom years we could afford to run a low corporate tax regime which allowed our companies to amass these assets. That is the answer to your question "Where's our Money?".
Thank goodness we did it that way rather than centralising the gains into a sovereign wealth fund. Imagine Brown/Darling in charge of a few billions of investment capital. How long before they had toileted the lot on stupid pet projects? DeLorean and the rest all over again!
Peter King: Francis Pym was, Ken Clarke is a public figure of their own volition. Therefore, they are open to public criticism. I'm not quite sure why waiting a few days after someone's death makes any difference.
And as we've said before: Iain's blog - Iain's rules.
ps. Verity's busy, sharpening her axes in the cellar.
Peter King - Well, sure enough, as predicted, I am going to defend Iain's right to run his own blog as he chooses. This isn't a cooperative. It's private property. You have no say in how it's run.
Your reference to Iain's break-in last week is ludicrous, as though this would somehow wreck his better judgement and motivate him to write a negative piece on Ken Clarke.
This may be the most successful blog in Britain and the notion that Iain would benefit from following your editorial counsel is just daft.
Mrs Thatcher chose to use oil revenues to re-establish one part of the economy to its 19th Century primacy. The City of London. She was very successful in this regard but the money has gone to private individuals not to general good.
The concentration on the City led to terrible distortions in the economy because she made one terrible mistake The housing stock, which was sold off, as part of privatisation, was not renewed and this led to a shortage which has distorted the economy.
Also, she embraced the insidious new religion of environmentalism. Thus, allowing the ridiculous green mullahs to say that building more roads only leads to more traffic. So, very few roads were built under the stupid Blair. I cannot believe the mentality which says that if there is a shortage of an essential commodity you maintain the shortage. This has led directly to all this governments ridiculous road pricing policies.
The concentration on the City was carried through into the Blair years. Society was to be divided into the very rich and the relatively poor. A class of bureaucrats was imposed as well. These were divide into the rich bureaucrats and the poor bureaucrats but all bureaucrats owed allegiance to the government and the state.
If you are to maintain a system where you have a very few rich people and a large number of relatively poor people, you must do two things. Firstly, make sure that the poor are not educated properly and secondly eradicate or impoverish any professional middle class.
The first aim is very easy in this country. We have one of the worst public education systems in the world. This spews out illiterate, innumerate alcoholics who are largely obsessed with football. It was bad enough before the changes in the 1960s and the ridiculous hysteria about child safety, which means that it is possible to discipline children but now the system is totally broken.
The impoverishment of the professional classes is being achieved by stealth. The government has made the furthest advance with teachers. Teachers are now derided people who are abused by their pupils, paid less than plumbers and forced to teach a ridiculously restrained curriculum enforced by massive bureaucracy.
The next group of professionals who are getting the treatment are lawyers. This all started when Austin Mitchell MP attacked solicitors monopolies in 1986. The Blair government cleverly used divisions within the solicitors profession to divide and rule. City solicitors are to be “brought off” by allowing them to accept non-lawyer investment. This will make a few partners in the major firms very wealthy but it will have the advantage of bringing the previously independent solicitors under the control of the big city institutions. High street solicitors are to be dealt with by allowing Tesco and any other large institution to compete with them. That is to say they are to be destroyed. The only solicitors who are guaranteed to survive are criminal defence lawyers because they have statutory protection. Therefore, their income has been diminished over the years to the point where they earn about the same as teachers. Competitive tendering, due to be introduced in November, will marginalise them to the extent that no sensible person will want to become one. Barrister rely on solicitors and so their fortunes tend to follow those of the solicitors. The cream of the bar will be allowed to put themselves under the protection of the City of London. The rest will become relatively impoverished.
That leaves the doctors. They are less of a threat than teachers and lawyers and so they have been treated more leniently. They will be featherbedded into their bureaucratic nightmare.
These policies were started under Mrs Thatcher but really developed under Blair. He perfected the use of the greatest government tool, the press. Luckily “the comics” are staffed largely by lazy sycophantic time servers, like Piers Morgan, more obsessed with Cherie Blair’s hairstyle or venality, than real policy.
In ten years time the U.K. will be a third world country. Maybe not economically but certainly mentally.
We are rather like Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Let us hope we never have our own Adolf Hitler, for the ground has been beautifully prepared for such a person.
I am going to agree with Verity. Don’t worry Iain, your Blackberry hasn’t broken. I really mean it.
The great Hugh Montgomery Massingberd introduced the realistic obituary into the Daily Telegraph. Before that time the dead were embalmed in the pages of The Times.
I’ll never forget the Daily Telegraph obituary of a very unsaintly relative of mine. This man was famous for his stinginess, for being very poor at his profession and for dumping his first wife, in favour of a wealthy woman who was previously married into the Russian Aristocracy.
Massingberd commissioned the perfect piece, from a humourist who knew my relative, which managed to allude to all of these failings in an amusing and respectful way. I was deeply deeply impressed. The Times printed the usual embalmed piece.
Hypocrisy is an English vice but, in the context of obituaries, it is also very dull. Let us all celebrate people “warts and all”.
All about HONOUR.
Required reading for our mendacious MPs:
http://www.spiegel.de:80/international/germany/0,1518,540146,00.html
Dagmar Metzger made a promise to her constituents...& kept it.
The keeping of that promise, by only ONE person, let it be said, has changed the political scene in Hesse, the consequences are crucial as to how that state is governed.
Export Hodge to Germany & bring Metzger here. 8-))
“The Daily Mail” is an enigma. The newspaper is written in such a way as to make it very accessible over the internet, whether accessed from a PC or mobile phone. It is also written in a very readable way. However, it sometimes trades in poison and has had a particularly nasty campaign this week, against someone I know quite well. So, I am in an anti - Daily Mail mood today.
It makes me quite annoyed that the Daily Mail has to persecute individuals when it could be leading a campaign against the ridiculous situation we are in, regarding those accused of sexual offences. Their reporting of the lamentable Cambridge postgraduate case has been exemplary. Anonymity for the accused is essential.
People should realise that those accused of sexual offences are pariahs. I remember talking to a junior barrister who was involved in a case where some people were accused of facilitating the theft of £20 million from the government. The barrister said to me that the jury were smiling and this made a wonderful change from juries trying sex offences. That sums up the difference between socially acceptable crime and socially unacceptable crime.
I am restricting myself to discussing people accused of crime, not people convicted of crime. I have the same prejudice and instinctively feel that a sex offender should be treated more harshly than a thief and I can assure you that in prison they often are.
However, conviction rates for sex crimes are very low and all accusations are investigated, however trivial. This leads to ordinary people facing incredible pressures. Often these are young people, because experimentation with sex is such a difficult event. Not the wonderful experience promised by countless teen mags, films and TV programmes. Confidence and, by extension lives, can be ruined by false or mistaken accusations
I’ll finish with a true story, which I heard from a friend of mine involved in Mr X’s defence. I understand that these events happened within the last six years.
Once upon a time two middle class men lived in the same street. Both were professionals.
One of them, Mr X., was accused of a financial crime. The crime was allegedly against the government. The accusation became quite well known in the locality but nobody really bothered about it. It was very stressful for Mr X. but he didn’t fear any reprisals. The thought never crossed his mind. He was quite strong and stayed off anti-depressants and was able to function normally. He was acquitted, after a jury trial.
A few months after Mr X’s trial, his neighbour, Mr Y., was accused of a sex crime. Not by the alleged victim but by a third party. Mr Y was petrified that someone would find out about the accusation. He managed to restrict this information to two people in his street. One of them was Mr X. He was convinced that Mr Y. was innocent. Mr Y. went onto anti-depressants and got to the stage where he could hardly drive. Mr Y. was wreck. After nine months the accusation was dropped, because the alleged victim denied that the crime had occurred (in fact, the alleged victim had never accused Mr Y. of any offence). Mr Y.’s health was ruined and he could not take up work again. Mr X. was relieved because he would have faced a terrible dilemma, if Mr Y. had been formally charged with the crime. Mr and Mrs X. lived very close to Mr Y. If Mr Y’s house was firebombed the odds were that Mr and Mrs X would die as well. Logically, Mr X should have reported this risk to the Police but that would increase the possibility of them asking for Mr. Y. to be remanded in custody. Mr X. would, therefore, have been partly responsible for the incarceration of someone he believed to be innocent.
People accused of sex crimes must be allowed to remain anonymous.
Jersey:
The events of the past few weeks have indicated a strong level of misgovernance on the Island. It is not unreasonable to suggest that similar degrees exist in Jersey and the Isle of Man.
A feature of the Island life is the absence of serious Party Politics. I believe that stong and resilient democracies need a vibrant party political system.
Without compromising the islands' semi-autominous status (they are not members of the EU for instance -lucky old Channel Islands one could say), we should encourage the establishment of a Jersey Conservative Party (and an Guernsey and an IOM Party).
Conservatives Abroad will surely have members on all islands and there must be sitting deputies who basic political instincts are Conservative.
From the very beginning it should be made clear it is our intention to contest the next election to the States Assembly as Conservatives or indeed to the House of Keys as Conservatives.
Our Party and possibly another Conservative Party from the Commnonweath could provide advice on publicity, campaigning and electioneering techniques.The tax on our resoucres is minimal
It must be clear that the semi-fuedal nature of island life is no longer viable. What our firends in other mainland parties do is up to them but we can take the lead in a small way
Peter King - Iain's blog, so Ian's rules. His blog is not a democracy, it's a forum for his views which he allows commentary on, subject to his criteria.
As for his commentary on indiviuals, I don't regard them as anything other than factual and analytical, but I don't regard your comments as as factual in the slightest.
All I can suggest is, if you don't like it, go read another blog!
And the fact that Iain published your views proves you wrong!
OK - how about this for a conversation starter. Is rugby (union) a superior sport that soccer?
To my mind, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Whilst soccer is a great sport to watch, rugby has a much more enjoyable and respectable culture (except for the Scottish fans who boo at English penalties), the conduct of players is just more acceptable and they are better role models, and the game is just much more exciting to watch and play!
Only IMHO of course!
And well done Wales for winning in Dublin to day.
I think oil man is right about the oil money. What it did in the early 80s was to keep the value of the £ up which meant that businesses under stress because of recession couldn't compete with imports, which were in effect being subsidised. Thus the recession then was far deeper & had more long lasting efects than it need have.
The Tories didn't intend this & no other party was against keeping the £ strong but with hindsight....
Thank God for Yalland ...yes it is although whether watching English Rugby is currently superior to banging a nail carefully into your head is debatable.
Peter King, I have reread the Pym post and the only opinion was that his memoirs were "disappointing". Everything else was fact. I paid tribute to him and his military record. There was nothing venemous about the Ken Clarke thread either. Are you saying he is beyond criticism. I rather like Ken but he, like others, needs to be held to account for his actions.
I am astonished by your accusation. But at least you had the guts to put your name to it.
Pyms O’CLock
The odd thing is my recollection was that you were somewhat acidic to Pym ,looking back at it , I see you only mentioned that he was sulky about Margaret Thatcher and had his best times under Heath .
Ah Yes I Remember It Well
In my mind , in the intervening period this anodyne observation had metamorphosised into something like “ He was an intellectually corrupt ancient regime courtier who obstructed the forces of light and whose death cannot blot out his manifest evil”…. Odd that , but given what we know about Mr. Dale`s views …was I so wrong ?Worry not Iain your delightful transparency is one of your charms
Hare and Tortoise
On a lighter note - Concerning Hares and Tortoises ,can I recommend you read “The True tale of the Hare and the Tortoise” by Lord Dunsay . It is a gem of sustained political anti-fable . As in the better know version , the Tortoise wins ( because the Hare cannot be bothered) , however the parable is tested a touch further….
“…and even to this day “ a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness” is a catch phrase in the house of the snail
And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known is that very few of those who witnessed it survived the great forest fire that happened shortly afterwards . It came upon the weald by night with a great wind. The hare and the tortoise and very few of the beasts saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge f the trees, and hurriedly called a meeting to decide which messenger they should send to warn the beasts of the forest.
They sent the Tortoise”
PS I am sure I hold the world record for being deleted. I am founder member of "Les Billets Jaunes" having reciveed a yellow card whthin days of starting to comment.
Iain,
How did the golf go?
n.hirstov
The wealth from the oil and gas was used by Mrs T to pay the for debt labour had put us in. We were on the way back then Labour came in again and we are back to where we where last time they were in power. So perhaps you will remember when the next Conservative government have to pay it back again.
the UK still has huge Oil and gas reserves and has continued to have them ever since the first barrels arrives as any Scot will tell you . In the mythology of the left they have invented the "Luck "of Thatcher. in fact she inherited a country on its knees and the assistance of oil revenue was only party of the process. The Labour Party has tacitly admitted this by adopting many of her polices and not rescinding her trade Union reforms in particular. Unemployment was the fault of the left in allowing the unions to price Labour our of jobs and the UK out of customers .
This Oil revenue did not stop however and she is no more a beneficiary than any succeeding PM .The large size of it as a proportion of the treasury revenue ws due to the crippled economy Callaghan created ...( and to be fair Barber and others of the pre Thatcher consensus ). Andrew Marr conveniently forgot this in his official BBC history as he forgot that Margaret Thatcher acted out of more than cynical Political calculation in defending the Falklands ..ooops …again
I have watched the growth of this cosy "Oil" fiction with great amusement.
Newmania, it's a close call - but I think on the basis of performance, and the second halves against Wales and Italy (and I was present at both) the nail wins!
Unlike England.
Come back Jonno - all is forgiven!
Newmania said...
"I have watched the growth of this cosy "Oil" fiction with great amusement."
I have watched the growth of this Tory 'let's pretend Thatcher didn't destroy British industry' fiction with hilarity.
"I am astonished by your accusation. But at least you had the guts to put your name to it."
Since when has "guts" anything to do with anonymous posting of inane rubbish on a web-site like this?
"peter Wotsit" might have invalid views, but "guts" is something that peopple who put themselves in the firing line have. A name on here is just as anonymous as "anonymous".
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