Clegg & Executive Pay
Nick Clegg (he of no commercial experience whatsoever) is keen to cap ‘executive pay’. In short a return to an incomes policy. The triumph of hope over experience in private sector income policies run by governments never work, I am old enough to remember them all.
However, there is a role for an incomes policy in the private sector. There has been a dramatic increase in public sector executive pay in the last 10 years. Totally disproportionate to those and the bottom of the scale. Performance growth in the public sector consistently lags the private sector, as indeed one would expect where there are no checks and balances. No serious performance targets but a box ticking culture with no serious disciplinary market pressure to ensure efficiency.
Anyone dealing with their local council, NHS, business Quango (DEFRA, FSA etc) will have experienced a lack of urgency if not downright incompetence. In the private sector there is always an alternative supplier i.e. the discipline of the market.
Do Town Clerks really need £200,000 pa? Do chief executives of NHS Trusts really need £200,000 pa? Do BBC senior executives really need their £400,000 pa?
The Quangocracy are grossly, objectively overpaid. Hector Sants presides over one of the most incompetent organisations in the world, the FSA, is £600,000 per year really necessary?
So Nick, old son, restraint on executive pay, yes, but in the public sector please.
Too Windy for Windmills
It is understood that when the wind isn't blowing, wind turbines produce no energy. What is less understood is that when there are strong winds, wind turbines have to be turned off. Now it turns out that turbines are even more vulnerable to... err... wind that was previously thought. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner reports that,
Ultimate wind power destroys turbine at Scapegoat Hill
A WIND turbine came crashing down as high winds and burst of torrential rain swept across Huddersfield.
The turbine was one of two that had been put up on fields off Halifax Road at Scapegoat Hill earlier this year.
It fell down on Tuesday when squalls are thought to have reached 80mph on the top of hills and moors.
The freak winds also hit Meltham, causing damage and leaving debris in its wake.
Godfrey Bloom and the Duke of Edinburgh were unable to give an account of their whereabouts on Tuesday.
Shh! Wind Farms are Noisy
It is an open secret that wind turbines are as silent as they are invisible as they are value for money. But Britain's energy policies have been created by people who believe that 400-foot tall machines with 250-foot long rotating assemblies make no impression on the senses and no impact on the nation's economy. It is as if nobody ever stopped to think: I wonder what it's like, living next to a machine. It is as if machines were known for being easy on the eye and ear, and for blending into rural landscapes.
One couple who found their trust in this country's policy-makers was misplaced are Julian and Jane Davies. They didn't anticipate any problems with the wind farm being installed close to their Lincolnshire home in 2006. But when it arrived, it produced such a racket that their home became a hostile environment. Unable to tolerate the noise, they moved into rented accommodation and began legal action against the developers to recover the value of their home, which was no longer marketable. Nobody wants to buy a home next to a noisy wind farm.
The Telegraph are reporting that the Davises claim has been settled out of court. But there is a catch. Says the newspaper:
Both sides said in a joint press release: ''The terms of that settlement are strictly confidential, and the parties will not be answering any questions about the terms of that agreement.''
The case was described as being of general importance because hundreds of other families say they have suffered similar disturbance from wind farms up and down the country.
The operators were accused at the start of the High Court hearing earlier this year of trying to impose "a code of silence" on those examining or recording the noise the turbines caused.
There's an irony in the operators of noisy machines forcing their critics into silence. It has taken years for the Davises to see justice, and for the wind farm operators to admit responsibility for the injury, expense and distress caused by the noise they have made. The presumption in favour of wind farm developers in the planning process and the huge profits guaranteed to them by insane energy policies mean that they are free to put wind farms where they please. Unlike the individuals who have to suffer them, they are able to afford expensive legal action, before and after construction of their turbines.
Thanks to the bravery of this couple, however, the country has seen that it is possible for the Davises of this world to slay their Goliaths -- huge energy companies and their resources. Gagged they may be, but the Davises have sent a message loud and clear: wind farms are noisy. The companies who tried for so many years to deny the truth are unable to sustain the lie.
Good With Wind
Good old Co-op. Power to the people! Well, maybe not. The Co-op has just circulated a new pamphlet "Say YES to clean energy. Join our new campaign to support a clean energy revolution". As you may have guessed already, the revolutions happen at the top of a windmill - when the wind is blowing, that is.
The Co-op has joined up with Greenpeace to call on the UK Government to meet its renewable energy goals (e.g. build more wind farms); it has even given customers a handy leaflet to be returned Freepost to the Manchester office so that their names can be added to a petition headed by the Co-op Campaigns team. Wow, they are keen to be green.
Interestingly, the Co-op farms over 50,000 acres of land in the UK, claiming to be the UK's biggest farmer. Farmland is as good as anywhere to put up a wind turbine taller than Nelson's Column, and to collect the funds generated by each turbine. You can see half a dozen of them on their farm near Wisbech:
http://www.co-operative.coop/farms/where-we-farm/map/coldham/
One of their farms is on the Normanby estate near Scunthorpe, where the windmills are going up already. Normanby is Samantha Cameron's ancestral home before her marriage.
As a rough guide each windmill produces £150,000 worth of electricity a year, and receives a subsidy paid for by adding a bit to everybody's electricity bill totalling £250,000 a year. That is index-linked for the next 25 years. Am I surprised that the Co-op is agitating in favour of renewables?
My constituency is graced by two other Co-op farms, one at Swinefleet near Goole, and the other at Wykeham, near Scarborough, both pretty flat areas not unlike Normanby. No doubt the word is 'watch this space', because if there's space to put one, these farmers may soon be growing windmills. Screw the people.
The Cold War on British Muslims
The other day I came across a book called 'The Cold War on British Muslims". I wondered what to expect. No surprises, however. It is a little demonstration of frustrated left-wing activists bitter about the support that the individuals and groups they see as their opponents are receiving.
The long title practically says it all. The second part of the front page title reads thus:-
"'An examination of 'Policy Exchange' and 'The Centre for Social Cohesion'".
These are two respected 'think-tanks' respected whether you agree with their various thoughts or not.
Two of the authors of the book are freelance writers, Scots, with a connection to the University of Strathclyde, while the third author is a professor of Sociology.
The University of Strathclyde was formed in 1964 out of the combination of Glasgow Tech, and the Scottish College of Commerce. Later in 1993 it added Jordanhill College of Education to its campus.
There is virtually no argument worth tuppence in the book. It is focused on the two charities above and their funding. The authors have gone to considerable lengths to find out who supports them financially, and by how much. As several of the lead donors are Jews, there is also a strong anti-Jewish bias. (I don't like to use 'anti-semitic' as Arabs are also Semites).
That is about it. They report some occasions when the two think-tanks have said something about British Muslims.
There is no reference to the fact that all Muslims are not the same. There is no reference to the bitter divisions between Sunni, Shia, Ahmadi, and others leading to the members of some 'denominations' being more open or less open to becoming terrorists.
They disparage the major donors to the think-tanks. It is a bit like "we know where you live...."
We are used to a bit of terrorism in this country. For a few decades it was disaffected people from Ireland, now it is disaffected people whose link is not another country but their understanding of a religion. This book is not a lot of help in this respect.
Traderight Guest Post
We are now approaching the final 'bunker' stage of the doomed Euro. The Russian artillery of the world markets can clearly be hard on the outskirts of the city, some senior politicians, bankers and bureaucrats are donning civilian clothing and slipping away with forged papers. A few are being rounded up and hanged from lampposts while Barosso moves imaginary armies on the Elbe.
Reichsmeister Trichet is set to fly the city and Van Rumpoy is about to strangle his pet miniature poodle and swallow the capsule.
Let us hope we can capture the remainder for a good show trial in Brussels and hang them.
The usual 'Know nothing' Commission
Most people and organisations need to know in advance the potential consequences of their actions - and the resultant costs.
Not so the European Commission!
We asked a question about the effect on small businesses of complying with just one sub-section of the EU ePrivacy Directive - and the losses to those businesses which might result.
How did the Commission reply?
Well they told us how we'd got here - and the objective. And about a guidance paper .... but.
On the effects and the losses, they admitted they have no idea.
And they didn't even send us or tell us where to find the guidance paper!
Capitalism
The use of the word capitalism always raises a wry smile from me on a good day, a snarl of anger on a bad one. Let us start with the Oxford dictionary definition "An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit rather than the state". This short essay is directed at Guardian rustlers, BBC presenters and producers, (ok so they are the same beasts), spoilt middle class children pretending to live in a tent outside St Paul's and finally the dumbed down economics faculties in educational establishments all over Europe and North America.
The one thing we do not have, have not had for nearly 100 years is capitalism. Post war Hong Kong came pretty close but I know of nowhere else. For the purpose of brevity I will restrict my argument to the United Kingdom. What we have is statism. Years ago in any economic exam paper it would probably be referred to as mercantilism. There is a strong case for calling it neo-socialism, we do not, repeat not have capitalism.
Fifty percent of GDP is spent by government. This astonishing figure immediately defeats any possible argument that we live in a capitalist society. Almost everything is run by government or quasi government organizations. Much of it happened by stealth. The gradual de-nationalization of industries was replaced with an expensive array of government sponsored quangoes quite deliberately set up to enable government to continue control but in the style of back seat driving.
The primary responsibility is no longer to the enterprise shareholder in the modern UK. Indeed the shareholder comes fairly far down the list, as any share portfolio holder will glumly tell you. The FTSE for example is at exactly the same level now as it was fourteen years ago, and in a significantly devalued currency, hardly the mark of a capitalist society. The first duty of industry is to compliance with government regulation, Brussels or Whitehall, it makes no matter. In financial services government stooges, lay folk always, in exchange for huge salaries, pensions and honours have complete and total domain. They interpret their own impenetrable rule book, adjudicate on it, assess their own fines, keep the fine and there is no serious appeal procedure, certainly none within the principles of English law. No presumption of innocence, trial by jury or open public accountability. Indeed secrecy is the mainstay of the procedure. The directors and employees therefore have their primary duty based on compliance. Not the shareholder or indeed even the customer. The Treasury in the shape of Mr Hoban are actually legislating on the remuneration of financial service companies this year. So there is no liberty of contract. Nor is there liberty of contract in employment. The government sets minimum wages, holidays, maternity and paternity leave, ordinary leave, pension arrangements and shadowy legislation based on 'discrimination'. As if we did not discriminate in absolutely every other aspect of our lives. Between tea or coffee for breakfast, jam or honey for tea or even Jane or Sally as a life partner.
The farmer's life is dominated by DEFRA, the factory by 'elf and safety, the restaurant by so many people at the Town Hall they are impossible to count. All of this, is of course, claimed by this public sector rentier class as being in our own interest. Caveat emptor is abandoned we are considered by the bureaucratic and political class to be too stupid to do anything for ourselves. Energy, agricultural, fishery, employment policy is all governed from Brussels. Whitehall controls the education and health services, and pretty incompetently too. Divide the number of qualified health workers or teachers into the annual budget and try and find out where the money goes. We have more administrators in hospitals than beds, more civil servants at the MOD than soldiers. We have nationalized the banks with tax payers' money. The government begs, borrows, steals and counterfeits billions of pounds every year. We are leaving our grandchildren with public debt too big for them to even comprehend. The public service broadcasters are selected by the government, so are the directors of the Bank of England and the Confederation of British Industry. Such gains an investor makes are hit with capital gains tax, the dividends hit with income tax, the companies themselves clobbered with corporation tax.
The examples of statism are almost limitless. But whatever it is it is not capitalism. So capitalism has not 'failed' because we never tried it.
Benefit Tourism
The Lloyd-George government first floated the idea of a welfare state, it was a radical idea, paradoxically sparked by developments in Bismark’s administration in Germany during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was reappraised in wartime Britain by Beveridge in 1943, as a blue print for the modern welfare state. It matters not what style of welfarism a modern industrial economy runs it is always subject to moral hazard. The systems usually mutates into something quite different as politicians manipulate the concept to bribe voters with their own money. Given that politicians, with the aid of cronies at their central banks can print or borrow money almost without short term restraint the temptation to do so is irresistible to the electioneering politician.
Yet this was never the original intention the Lloyd-George and Beveridge ideas were to fund a system of benefits paid for by compulsory subscriptions called National Insurance Stamps. Still laughingly called so even today although everyone knows it is just another tax. (Remember vehicle excise was called the Road Fund Licence?)
The Attlee administration completely wandered from the path of self sustainability after only a few short years of government. As the welfare state grew to mind boggling amounts the original, perhaps worthy, concept of a ‘safety net’ was discarded. It became a cradle to grave monster and Kenneth Clark as Chancellor took it through the one hundred billion pound a year barrier in the 1990s.
Of course the problem we now have is that welfare has become a life style choice keeping people in a twilight world of semi poverty. Trapped in a system where the deserving and undeserving poor are treated equally. Welfare spending is out of control, as it was bound to be as it is non discriminatory. In the last few years we have seen a million immigrants come to the UK to do jobs at the unskilled end of the market, not because we have no one to do them but because a welfare recipient can get as much money for claiming benefits and watching day time TV as rising at 6am to pick sprouts on a frosty November morning.
It is natural therefore that anyone who is eligible to come here wants their hand in the till. Other countries think we are mad, try and apply for welfare in Italy as an immigrant and see how far you get. However it is too easy to blame the immigrants for welfare tourism when we need to blame the system. We must put in place a real safety net, not a life style alternative. It matters not whether you are British or foreign. No one should live at the expense of his neighbour.
I would argue the welfare state has been a failure encouraging moral decay in the nation over two generations and should be scrapped forthwith.
