The fear index

Curiously – and I know it’s hard to believe – banks are not all bad.

In fact, we need them. Not just to store our money, lend us cash and keep businesses afloat.

We need them because they employ thousands of people and generate profits for shareholders who, in turn, pay the pensions of many private-sector workers.

Let’s not forget, either, that the average bank worker is not on a multi-million pound bonus, doesn’t fiddle the figures and can’t escape with the loot when things go wrong.

The average bank worker is as much of a victim of the crooks, charlatans and shysters in the international banking casino as the rest of us.

The other day, a Wolverhampton businessman told me the secret of his success: “I can honestly say our bank put the lights on in our business. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

Unfortunately, the men who try to fix the odds when they play billion-pound roulette with other people’s money work for the same company as the average girl on the till in the High Street.

So they all get tarred with the same brush. Some tar, some brush.

Barclays may have lost and regained its chairman, City toff Marcus Agius, within 24 hours and lost its chief executive, American wide-boy Bob Diamond, but that solves nothing.

Diamond Bob will walk away with most of his £105 million personal fortune intact, even if he has to give up some share options.

Mr Agius, likewise, has nothing to lose personally from the fact that he is now only temporarily in charge of what was once one of the world’s most respected banks. After all, he is married to a Rothschild.

There’s talk of criminal charges against a handful of traders who tried to fiddle Libor, the inter-bank lending rate. It won’t come to much.

That’s because, firstly, Barclays is one of maybe 20 banks involved in the scam. They’re just the first to hold their hands up to it.

Secondly, the authorities have a knack of losing prosecutions against this sort of white-collar crime. Even when they win, the cases drag on for years, cost millions and the world has moved on.

And, thirdly, there is so far – despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth – little evidence the conspirators succeeded in fixing anything and, even if they did, that anybody lost money as a result.

There is also the small detail that the Bank of England may have encouraged the whole thing in a bid to make the disastrous credit crunch slightly less terrible.

It’s a merry-go-round at the top of these organisations. Everyone is chummy with everybody else. They give each other lucrative jobs. Nobody loses out.

It’s really a casino but they like to pretend it’s a gentlemen’s club.

The reason the banks had to be bailed out, the reason they can sell dodgy insurance policies to unsuspecting small businesses and the reason they can lie about Libor is simple: Casino bankers have nothing to fear.

What’s the worst possible thing that can happen to a banker who squanders a few billion quid or manipulates lending rates to make some easy money?

He loses his job. So what? By then he’s got his millions stashed away. He’s got his second home and his yacht.

He’s probably minimised his tax liabilities and he’s still got a pension that’s the envy of everyone except, perhaps, members of the medical profession.

Their pride might be hurt a bit. They may miss the adrenaline rush of gambling a few billions on the throw of an interest rate.

But there’s really no down-side for these people personally.

Their banks may go to hell in a handcart but so what? They’re alright Jack.

When we threw billions at Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyd’s, the very least the Government should have done is disqualify the members of their boards from ever serving as company directors again.

It’s illegal to trade insolvently and, on the face of it, that’s exactly what they were doing.

A small trader who does so is routinely banned from being a director, often bankrupted and frequently prosecuted. Not a banker.

Apparently this is because, no matter how bad their debts, they weren’t insolvent for one simple reason – the taxpayer would always bail them out. 

There is, therefore, no personal responsibility. No risk. Just the potential for massive rewards.

The banking system needs radical reform. But it’s not about regulation and rules. That’s just shutting the stable door after the golden horse has bolted. 

Only when the top people can be humiliated, stripped of their assets and sent to jail will we have a properly regulated banking system.

A well-padded early retirement is no penalty at all. If there were real threats, if these gamblers could lose their money and their liberty, they might exercise a bit of caution.

Dozens of inquiries are now under way but we all know why the men in braces behave so wildly. They have nothing to lose and millions to gain.

They have no fear. Take away the safety net. Watch them fall.

Physician heal thyself

Sorry, doctor, but we can’t afford your excessive pension any more.

*****

What is the point of recycled politicians becoming elected police chiefs and will they actually crack down on crime or use the job to fight political battles (on behalf of the Labour Party)?

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Why are we lending £200 million to Argentina when they refuse to accept the Falkland islanders wish to remain free?

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It’s OK to have the Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen” during the Olympic opening ceremony –it’s as offensive these days as a seaside postcard. We know it’s all a joke these days. Advertising butter on the telly is hardly calling for anarchy in the UK.

*****

If Lord Leveson can’t cope with the freedom of Cabinet Ministers to express their views then there is no hope that his inquiry will be capable of protecting freedom of speech more widely. It should now be abandoned as the criminal waste if time it has become.

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Should the rich pay their taxes when so many others are poor? Yes but nobody should pay more than the law requires.

Enoch was right (again)

Legend has it that when Enoch Powell went to the House of Commons barber's one day and he was asked: "How would you like you hair cut, sir?" he replied: "In silence."

This tells us a great deal about the man sometimes described as the greatest Prime Minister this country never had.

His caustic answer to a perfectly polite and reasonable question shows he was never one to bandy words unnecessarily. He was not a particularly sociable man. And nor did he bother very much about what other people thought of him.

Enoch Powell, who was born 100 years ago on June 16, was one of those rare politicians who wasn’t desperate to be liked.

No doubt, like all those in his line of business, he enjoyed the limelight, the applause of his audience and the admiration of his supporters.

But he was not afraid to say whet he thought. He was prepared to stick his neck out, make himself unpopular – especially among those on whom his career depended – and stick to his principles whatever the consequences for his own career.

This is called integrity. A rare commodity in a politician.

His critics, who are legion, claim his 1968 “rivers of blood” speech was a disastrous attempt to secure support for a planned challenge to Edward Heath for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

They say that until that speech, Mr Powell had never shown much interest in immigration.

Indeed, it is true he actually encouraged it when, as Minister of Health, he was persuading more people from the Commonwealth to work in the NHS.

He was a highly intelligent man – he translated ancient Greek texts and published four well-received books of poetry. He was an intellectual.

It is possible he miscalculated catastrophically. It is more likely, though, that he had become genuinely concerned at the transformation the country started to undergo in the 1960s.

“As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood,” he said.

As a result, of course, he has gone down in history as a racist and anyone who refers approvingly to his views is similarly condemned.

Yet, while some of the language used in the 1960s might not be acceptable today, it is difficult to argue with the sentiment that Britain was changing dramatically, without the consent of the people.

That, it seems to me, was the crucial point for Enoch Powell. Nobody had asked the British people if they were happy with the transformation taking place before their eyes.

There was little or no political debate about immigration. The main parties were all, basically, in favour of it and damn the consequences.

The voters had no say. There was no democratic legitimacy in the process. The people might approve of immigration but who would know? They had never been consulted.

After he was sidelined by the Tories and branded a racist by the entire sixties liberal establishment, Mr Powell continued to be his own man.

Never mind his comments about immigration, consider his views on Britain’s entry into the European Union.

He thought it would destroy this country’s sovereignty. He was so vehement that in the first election of 1974 he urged people to vote Labour.

Ted Heath and Mr Powell both believed this intervention tipped the balance and handed victory to Labour’s Harold Wilson.

As the former MP for Wolverhampton South West said: “If there be a conflict between the call of country and that of party, the call of country must come first.”
Mr Powell eventually became an MP in Ulster and continued to plough his own, unfashionable furrow.

Most of what he said remains relevant today. For instance, he was strongly opposed to reform of the House of Lords.

Of an elected upper house, he asked: "How can the same electorate be represented in two ways so that the two sets of representatives can conflict and disagree with one another?"

We still don’t have an answer to that one.

Had we listened to him, would this country be very different today? Who can tell?

What we can be certain of is that our democracy needs people who know their own minds and are prepared to dig their heels in when they judge it to be necessary – no matter what the impact on their own careers.

Such people are few and far between. But they are memorable.

Think of the Labour left-wing MPs Clair Short and Tony Benn, the founder of the SDP Dr David Owen, the arch-Eurosceptic Bill Cash or even Winston Churchill during the era of appeasement in the 1930s.

It is difficult to stand against the might of your party and the received opinion of the British establishment – the BBC, the civil service, the political consensus.
Such principled politicians rarely achieve their full potential.

Enoch Powell once observed: “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”

It’s only partly true. Some politicians achieve greatness even when their careers are unfulfilled.

A parcel of rogues

When you arrive at Edinburgh airport there are dozens of posters and signs proclaiming it to be “the home of RBS”.

It’s a bit of a surprise they want to boast about an organisation which received a £45 billion bailout but there you go. The Act of Union was only signed in the first place because the Scots made such a hash of trying to create their own little overseas empire in Panama and had to be bailed out by the English. As Robbie Burns said:

We're bought and sold for English Gold,

Sic a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.

So, as the nationalists launch their marathon campaign to win independence, we must remind them they will immediately become responsible for their own debts – starting with the £45 billion owed to the British taxpayer by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

As a matter of fact, it's all dark

Get out of Europe now, while you still can. That should be the advice for business in the Black Country. If you export to the Eurozone, start looking for new markets before it’s too late and if you’ve got money tied up in euros, rescue it now. And if you’re going to the Eurozone for your summer holiday, wait until the last minute before you buy any currency – it’ll be getting cheaper by the day and you never know whether you might need pesetas or drachmas again.

*****

If the Government really wants to reduce the number of public school boys (and girls) in positions of power, the answer is very simple: Start re-opening grammar schools. Meanwhile they’re trying to ban mobile phones from school – and about time too according to local teachers in despair over the breakdown in discipline in some Black Country schools.

*****

Why are we allowing the Olympics to over-ride petty considerations like civil liberties and the freedom of the citizen? Special lanes for the IOC bigwigs, with their own traffic light system designed to inconvenience everybody else. Abandoned immigration controls. Anti-aircraft missiles on buildings, protected by armed guards. £200 million being spent on security. Massive CCTV surveillance everywhere. Non-sponsor logos banned. Indeed, the use of the Olympic logo at a summer garden party would be the subject of a law suit. And some American technology designed to make us go deaf. What an incredible price to pay to watch (on TV as all the best seats go to the officials) a few people you’ve never heard of compete in events you have no interest in and, in many cases, didn’t even know existed.

*****

The real scandal of the child sex abuse case in Rochdale is not that it was perpetrated by Moslem men, it’s that the local council did nothing to protect the kids in its so-called care.

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It was set up as a way of “uniting” the whole of Europe. But the system has grown corrupt with factions, in-fighting and nobody actually listening to the voice of reason. Yes, it’s the Eurovision Song Contest from that well-known tourist destination Baku in that famous European country Azerbaijan.

*****

A City analyst has exposed what has actually been perfectly plain all along (though nobody wants to admit it) – that there are no real Government spending cuts. It’s all smoke and mirrors. And the tragedy is that, as a result, the economy is going nowhere.

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David Cameron says his favourite album is The Dark Side of the Moon. Is this wonderful but depressing piece of work a sign of how he’s feeling about his job? So much for Mr Bring-Me-Sunshine.

What a drag it is getting told

When I wrote my novel The Smoking Gun (see www.thesmokinggun.co.uk) I made up the idea of a total smoking ban imposed by a Coalition Government as a metaphor for the madness of the PC brigade. I didn't really think that's what we would come to within weeks of publication. Aren't we sick of being told what to do yet?

It's a packaging ban today but soon enough it will be a total ban if Health Secretary Andrew Lansley gets his way.

It seems he wants to reach the point where tobacco companies have "no business" in Britain.

Well apart from the thousands of jobs that would be stubbed out and the massive increase in the already lucrative smuggling trade (20 per cent of all cigarettes sold and half all rolling tobacco has been smuggled into the country) there is a civil liberties aspect to all this.

Not that anybody seems to give a flying whatever for such an out-moded concept.

Shock Jock

BBC Radio Edinburgh rings wanting me to take part in a debate on whether Scotland should have a nuclear deterrent. My reaction is to laugh out loud and tell them the whole idea is a joke. Suddenly they don’t want me on their programme any more. Which proves the Scotch take themselves too seriously and couldn’t survive independence, with or without their own nukes.
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It is not reasonable to assume millionaires need tax relief to turn them into “philanthropists”. If they want their knighthoods and public recognition, they should give their money away through genuine generosity and not because the Government turns it into another tax dodge.
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Why on earth would anyone invest in Facebook? It’s just a fading fad which has already had its day. Yet it’s about to be sold off for an astonishing $64 billion in one of the biggest con-tricks in history.
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The Tories are languishing in the polls as David Cameron struts the globe enjoying photo opps. I wouldn’t want to be a Conservative or Lib Dem councillor facing re-election next month. Labour candidates are lucky they can pretend Ed Miliband is nothing to do with them.
*****
At a time when this country is broke, why is George Osborne planning to bung another £10 billion to the dead-and-dying Eurozone via the IMF? Talk about money down the drain.
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Are mini-earthquakes a price worth paying for cheap gas? Probably the answer is yes – unless it’s your house that collapses.
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Should we demand that the candidates for Mayor of Birmingham – assuming there are any – must disclose their tax affairs? And, if so, should they also publish their spouse’s – because that’s how slimy hypocrite Ken Livingstone has avoided telling us the truth about how he minimises his tax bill? Meanwhile, Warwick University says there’s no point in elected city mayors. Will Brummies please take note?
*****
Should we really ban bank holidays to boost the economy? Certainly not – we all need the opportunity to spend hours in traffic and be ripped off at over-priced tourist attractions.
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If you want proof that high taxes lead to a cut in revenue look at the figures for smuggling alcohol, fags and petrol. The Government’s lost out on £30 billion of revenue because it’s trying to rip off the taxpayer. And I’m on the side of the smugglers.
*****
Amazing – the HS2 line won’t be built for years (if at all) but the gravy train has already left the station with 215 people on it and another 100 clambering aboard by the summer. All at our expense, of course, and all employed to make sure we don’t try and derail the whole wasteful scheme.
*****
The MI5 “body in the bag” inquest will be partly held in secret while the Government presses ahead with plans to impose more law behind closed doors. This is what happens in dictatorships.

Whether the weather is extreme

A bit of snow in Scotland in early April is another example of "extreme" weather, according to Jim Naughtie on Radio 4's "Today" programme this week.

The subliminal message is that this sort of extremity is out of the ordinary and therefore a consequence of climate change, itself the result of global warming.

The dry March and water shortages across half the country are supposed to be similar signs that the world's weather is out of joint because humankind is destroying its natural habitat by burning too many fossil fuels.

Every time there is a change in the weather, especially a dramatic shift, we're led to believe that global waming is to blame.

Yet March's drought was not the worst in the history of the universe ever. It was only the worst since 1957 when nobody had ever even heard of climate change.

The water shortages in parts of the country are not an inevitale consequence of climate change and lower rainfall is only partly to blame.

The shortages are a consequence of an increase in demand as well as a decrease in supply.

More and more people live in London and the South East so water consumption is bound to be at record levels.

In Milton Keynes they're banning baths in new houses and installing showers only, not because of climate change but simply because, in normal weather, the supply of water cannot keep pace with the demand.

I recall driving to Scotland in lovely spring weather one early April in the 1980s. We stayed the night just north of the border in Moffat and woke up to thick snow.

We struggled through blizzards all the way from Moffat to St Andrew's, passing several lorries and cars abandoned the night before. We made it but it wasn't much fun.

That was "extreme" weather too. But Mr Naughtie would not have batted an eyelid 30 years ago. He's have just called it "weather".

The word "extreme" only applies to serious freaks of nature not the variations and vicissitudes we have come to know and love over many years.

Why is the weather Britain's favourite topic of conversation? Because it keeps changing and we love its infinite variety.

It's changed again this week from beautifully spring-like to bleakly wintry. It's not actually terribly inconvenient - the snow quickly turns to mush at this time of the year - but it is interesting and can be exciting.

The beauty of the British weather is that it may well change again before long. It always does.

It's as if we're married to the climate - we cherish it "for better or worse".

The highs and lows of our climate are part of what we love about it. But do not be misled into thinking that every shift of the weather is the prelude to an environmental disaster.

Our climate constantly changes - and, like it or not, we are always under the weather.

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Labour may do well in the local elections but George Galloway’s by-election win set the scene for the real Town Hall winners – apathy, indifference if not fury. But we should not let our anger at Westminster politicians blind us to the fact that the local variety make important decisions which affect us directly.

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Why should we trust our spooks? You can be sure they aren’t as efficient, dedicated or competent as the TV Spooks so why should we give into their claims that terrorism can only be fought if we accept closed courtrooms and digital snooping on a massive scale?

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The anniversary of the Falklands must serve as a reminder we should only go to war when British interests are directly under attack. Which would rule out every conflict since then and require us to quit Afghanistan before any more young people die in a lost cause.

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The Government seems to think its fight with tanker drivers is the 21st century equivalent of Maggie’s battle with Arthur Scargill. They’re wrong, if only because she was properly prepared for the fight and ensured that ordinary people could go about their daily business unaffected. This time there would be chaos, confusion and crisis in a matter of days. Meanwhile petrol stations are ripping us off, cashing in on the panic.

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Rail passengers outside London and the South East face rising fares because the Government says the capital’s commuters are unfairly discriminated against. What nonsense. If you choose to live down south, you almost certainly earn a lot more than everyone else and costly commuting is part of the price you have to pay. We must resist this attack on the regions – which will be made worse by George Osborne’s perverse plan to pay public servants less outside the south east when they should actually get more.

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How pathetic of the Post Office to ban deliveries to an estate in Penkridge after a postman tripped. Talk about putting the customer last. The sooner this organisation is sold and made to face the realities of commercial life, the better for everyone.

Dave's dodgy diner

It’s not cash for access, it’s policies for power. To win and keep power, politicians want money. They’re quite prepared to sell a few policies in order to achieve their heart’s desire.

The Tories are bang to rights. Cameron is personally guilty. In an honourable world he would resign. In this one, he will call for some sort of Parliamentary inquiry into political funding which will conclude that private donors should be discouraged.

And, in exchange, the politicians will vote to take taxpayers’ money instead in a clear admission that they can’t actually trust themselves (let alone each other) to deal honestly.

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No sooner said than done –the Government’s new planning regime will destroy the countryside and deny urban areas the investment they desperately need.

Now we can see it’s happening already: a new town in the green belt between Birmingham and Coventry to go alongside the HS2 plus a third runway at Heathrow. They cannot be serious.

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Beware exploding Duracell batteries. Strangely, when you ring them up to complain, they don’t sound at all surprised to learn one of their AAs has blown up.

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It’s that time of the year again – the time when local councils, health authorities and other Government bodies try to get rid of as much money as possible before the end of the month. An NHS manager told me the other day she resigned after being asked to spend £30 million in March, having struggled through the previous 11 months trying to obtain any cash at all to improve services for the elderly.

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The scandal at the Ministry of Defence goes on and on. The car-boot sale of Harrier jump jets to the Americans has left this country defenceless. Now the planned aircraft carriers, which won’t be built for years, can’t accommodate the aircraft they’re supposed to carry. This country’s defence policy must be run by enemies of the state because nobody in their right mind would conduct it in this way.

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Dear Dave, If I have more kids, no job and no income and I plot terrorist attacks in this country and abroad, will you give me a bigger house too? It’s only fair and reasonable or do we only offer these things to friends of the late Osama bin Laden?

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BMW is offering workers in Oxford a six per cent pay rise – if they knock 10 minutes off their tea break. Is this an assault on our national character?

Poor old George

If George Osborne really doesn't pay the 50 per cent rate of tax then it's a fair bet most of the family's income, excluding his Chancellor's salary, is in his wife's name and not his. Either that or he has other "unusual" arrangments to minimise his tax. His problem now is that until we get full disclosure in public, this story will not go away. George will have to come clean and give us chapter and verse about his tax affairs.

We're on the road to nowhere

Roads for the rich? Cameron's plans for Zil lanes on motorways won't do anything to ease congestion. We in the West Midlands know that better than anyone - the toll road having done nothing whatsoever to reduce delays on the M6. Oh and I notice the M6 round Junction 10 is lined up for an experimental 80 mph limit. Is this some sort of joke?

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After all the ridiculous hype and hysteria over the Budget, we are left with a modest measure which makes hardly any difference. It's all about symbolism and image-making; economically, what really counts is taking place elsewhere. The more sound and fury there is, the less it signifies.

Mind you, scrapping national pay rates is a good idea – provided the Government pays workers in London and the South East less than those elsewhere in the country. This is to redress the balance and stop the capital becoming even more of a foreign country than it is already.

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The C of E's gay lobby should be very pleased with itself. It's getting marriage and bishops and it's now claimed the scalp of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. No matter how liberal Rowan Williams may be, it's not liberal enough for the flock of fanatics which now dictate terms in the supposedly conservative, establishment, old-fashioned Church.

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Why on earth should rag and bone men be exempt from the new laws cracking down on the scrap-metal trade? Is it because they are “travellers” and the Government is afraid of offending one of its favourite minorities?

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At last, someone in authority has had the courage to rule that it is unacceptable for women to expect to be treated in the same way as everyone else if they insist on wearing a face-covering niqab. This is not a religious necessity – it is a symbol of rejection and alienation and should be treated as such. Good for Judge Aidan Marron QC.

Water, water everywhere

Water disgrace - The privatised monopolies whining about their inability to supply a basic commodity to the people of Britain should be forced to secure their supplies by building a national grid. With their money, not ours (though it would still be a cheaper and wiser investment of public funds than a high-speed rails-for-the-rich train trip from Birmingham to London.

*****

What Cameron should be telling Obama (assuming he knows, which is doubtful): In 1842 the British army suffered one of its worst humiliations when it retreated from Afghanistan and was so badly destroyed only one man made it back to India. Nothing much has changed in the last 170 years. We are doing no good and we should get out now before more people die unnecessarily.

*****

Is there actually any difference between a civil partnership and a gay wedding?

*****

Why is Cameron proposing to take on the village green preservation societies across the country by ripping up the planning rule book and allowing a development free-for-all? The Tories say it’s to boost the economy but property companies are already doing better than for many years and they have plenty of land already available to keep them busy. This is another unnecessary battle the Conservatives are waging against their natural supporters.

*****

Forget a tycoon tax or a mansion tax – what we need is a new fund to funnel bankers’ bonuses into small businesses. In next week’s Budget, Chancellor George Osborne should kill two birds with one stone if he made rich bankers put their money to use for the good of the economy.

*****

Why is the Government planning to ban people from displaying their Christianity?

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As TV programmes are accused of breaking the law, why is it OK to promote gambling these days? It used to be regarded as worse than smoking and drinking – now half the Premiership teams have betting company sponsors. The National Lottery made it respectable despite the misery gambling can cause.

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I always felt it was a failing on my part that The Smiths always left me cold, no matter how many people seem to regard them as Gods. But after Morrissey's performance in Argentina I'm pleased to realise I was right all along. They were dreadful and Morrissey still is.

Ransomed by the Post Office

“This is an example, sir, where ignorance is no excuse.”

You might think I was being apprehended by the police for a crime of some kind. But no. I was collecting a birthday card sent by a friend with a first class stamp on it but withheld by the Post Office on the grounds that it was the wrong size.

It was square and, according to the man behind the Post Office counter in Evesham, it did not conform to the required shape and size to qualify for a mere first class stamp.

He demonstrated how it would not fit the Post Office’s standard letterbox sizes and said such templated letterboxes had been sent to every house in the country.

I protested I had never seen one but he had no sympathy. English card-manufacturers warned customers if their cards did not conform to the Post Office’s demands, he said.

Clearly I was being sent a foreign card. How exciting. (Actually it was bought at Marks & Spencer and seemed to have no warning about its shape and the dangers of being held to ransom by the Post Office.)

If I wanted the birthday card, I would not only have to pay the excess 22p which my friend had failed to cough up. I would have to pay an extra £1 on top of that as a handling charge, for causing the Post Office so much inconvenience.

Of course I coughed up but not before complaining about what a rip-off the whole system was.

But as we all know, the Post Office is not any ordinary business which aims at pleasing its customers and encouraging them to continue using its services. It’s a State monopoly determined to exploit its position for all it’s worth, for as long as it can, for the benefit of its employees.

As the man handed the envelope over to me he declared: “This is an example, sir, where ignorance is no excuse.”

I was so shocked I laughed. Does he think he’s a policeman or some court official or some jobsworth handing out a parking ticket? Does he think my ignorance, or that of my friend, is my fault rather than a result of his organisation’s pathetic attempts to con the public?

“That is so fxxxing rude,” I told him. Rather than prolong what could have turned very nasty, I decided to leave. But I am still seething.

Why can’t we privatise the whole organisation? At least then its employees might give some sort of thought for the poor ruddy customer.

Birmingham - better than London

Caroline Spelman is responsible for the utter disgrace of Ofwat allowing their new boss to work in London because – allegedly – nobody suitable would take the job if it was based in Birmingham. Yet Ms Spelman is MP for Meriden (right next to Birmingham in case she hadn’t noticed). Disgraceful.
*****
George Osborne is right – there is no money. So why do so many people seem to think there’s still room for tax cuts, higher public spending and cash for their own little hobby-horses? Maybe because Barclays is scamming us.
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Cynthia Bower supposedly quit the Care Quality Commission with her head held high. I don’t think so. She quit before the CQC was exposed as being just as appallingly run as the West Midlands strategic health authority, which ignored the Stafford Hospital scandal. How do these people rise to the top? It’s like Lyn Homer – who moved from scandal in Birmingham to scandal at the Borders Agency and is now in charge of HMRC.
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If you think the Coalition is chaotic, wait until we get an elected House of Lords and then decide who runs Britain.
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The population’s just risen by another quarter of a million. So much for the Tory crackdown on immigration.
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The news that Olympic badges are being made in a Chinese sweatshop by children earning 6p an hour doesn’t surprise me at all. The whole exercise in hype and exploitation fills me with horror. I am not looking forward to the Games and don’t care who wins what (except for the traditional athletics events).
*****
A new survey says we’re being over-charged for our gas and electricity. I know that’s true having just dealt with two separate companies who both blamed “computer error” for trying to rip me off. I made E.on write a letter of apology after they tried to double my standing order. The only solution is not to trust any of them and always complain.

That's rich

If rich civil servants can get away without paying their taxes why shouldn’t the rest of us?

What’s the point in slaving away to stump up the full rate of income tax and National Insurance when you can enjoy a scam which cuts your bill by thousands?

The answer is that, in the words of American businesswoman Leona Helmsley, “only the little people pay taxes”.

Nobody likes paying them. For most of us, tough, taxes are an unavoidable fact of life.

But not, it seems, for some of Britain’s top civil servants.

First it was a couple of people in the department of health; then it was 25 of them. After that, it turned out various Ministry of Defence pen-pushers were in on the scam.

Then we discovered that HMRC – the Government department responsible for collecting taxes – was also in on the deal.

It turns out even BBC newsreader Moira Stuart, who appears on the HMRC’s TV and radio ads, is one of the lucky winners.

The woman who tells us – at our own expense, don’t forget, because ultimately we taxpayers pay for these ads – that “tax doesn’t have to be taxing”, is paid through a company that allows her to avoid the full impact of the 50p top tax rate.

Now the Government is trying to find out exactly how many people – employed by the taxpayer, to work in the interests of the taxpayer – are allowed to do what most of us can only dream of and avoid paying tax.

It’s all quite legal, of course. Instead of being a boring, salaried, pay-as-you-earn employee of the Government, liable to pay whatever the appropriate rate of income tax may be plus your full whack of National Insurance, these top people are allowed to work as separate, one-man-band companies.

Of course, this valuable perk isn’t available to just anyone, you know. If you’re an office cleaner or a Jobcentre employee or a teacher you can forget it.

You have to be earning something over £100,000 a year before you’re important enough to be allowed into the latest ruse to rip-off the taxpayer.

These freelance deals allow the lucky non-taxpayers to avoid National Insurance payments completely. They get to pay corporation tax at a rate of 21 per cent instead of income tax at a rate of 50 per cent.

And, if they’re lucky, they can put some of the income into the name of a fellow director – a wife or husband – and reduce their tax liability that way too.

There is nothing wrong with trying to minimise the amount of tax you have to pay. Nobody in their right mind would ever pay more money to HMRC than is absolutely necessary. It is not a moral duty to pay tax, just a legal one.

And, while tax evasion involves breaking the law, tax avoidance is a perfectly reasonable course of action. Good planning and carefully sticking to the rules can allow people to avoid paying more than necessary.

But – and this is a big but – most of us are not being paid by the taxpayer in the first place.

If you are a civil servant – that is, someone whose income comes from the public purse – you should not be allowed to minimise your tax bill by dodging the ordinary taxes everyone else has to pay as a matter of inescapable routine.

You can’t blame the quasi-employees. Why wouldn’t you try to keep your tax bill down?

But what are their bosses and our political masters thinking of when they rubber-stamp these dodgy deals?

Do they not realise none of these jobs would exist if it were not for the money they have already squeezed from hard-pressed taxpayers?

Do they not realise the money – in many cases hundreds of millions if not billions of pounds –these quasi-civil servants are employed to spend has all come from the same hard-pressed taxpayers?

Do they not realise, in short, that they wouldn’t be sitting pretty if it were not for the little people, the unimportant, almost-irrelevant, ordinary Joe Publics they are supposed to serve?

David Cameron and Ed Milliband both like to talk in patronising terms about the people “who do the right thing”. These are the people our political parties all pretend they want to encourage and reward – because they need our votes.

Ordinary taxpayers are being taken for fools.

We hear all the time how countries like Greece are in deep financial trouble partly because the wealthy don’t pay their taxes. We’re in the same boat.

We have people like Top Shop owner Sir Philip Green avoiding an estimated £285 million in tax because the company is in the name of his wife, Tina, who lives in Monaco. Yet he was asked by Mr Cameron to review Government spending and purchasing.

And we have Barclays Bank paying themselves massive bonuses at the taxpayers' expense thanks to various clever little ruses.

Of course, we really need lower tax rates then people wouldn’t go to such lengths to avoid paying their dues.

But in the meantime, the least we can expect is that people who are employed by the taxpayer pay their fair share of taxes. Or, better still, we stop paying them altogether.

It's a snip at £110 billion

Dear Mr Bank Manager

You know that mortgage you lent me a few years ago? Well, I've spent so much money having fun and retiring early that I can't afford to repay it any more.

So I have decided that in future I will only pay off the capital and the interest on 30 per cent of the original sum.

What's more, my friends are lending me the money so I can afford to do even that.

This isn't an offer, it’s an ultimatum; take it or leave it.

You get to lose 70 per cent of your money but let's not say I'm defaulting on your loan, let's just say you are taking a bit of a haircut.

Think yourself lucky – at least you're not bald. Yet…

A little loss

If Lloyds bank makes a massive loss, partly because it mis-sold insurance policies, why does it only cut a small proportion of its top people’s bonuses? Why not axe them completely?

Let the train take the strain

Excellent news if you’re planning to enter Britain illegally – get yourself a Eurostar ticket and the immigration people will assume you’re “judged to be low-risk” and you can waltz into Britain unhindered. It’s much cheaper than paying your life-savings to a people-smuggling gang – and more comfortable too.

A shot in the dark

Will an elected police chief stop three shootings in Wolverhampton in just one day? No, I thought not.

Water, water everywhere

Don't be fooled by all this talk of drought. There's plenty of water, it's just that it's in the wrong place. Plus if the population rises 12.5 per cent in 30 years, which it has done, it’s no wonder we use more water.

Woof! Woof!

The appointment of poliversity guru Les Ebdon as head of fair access to higher education is not only a disaster but proof that the Lib Dem tale is wagging the Tory dog. And we haven’t even got to reform of the House of Lords yet.

Another triumph for Mr Blair

Let’s lay the blame where it’s due. The reason one of the world’s most wanted terrorists is being freed from jail and given permission to take his kids to school is because Tony Blair signed the European Convention on Human Rights.

If the millionaire charlatan who ran the country for a dismal decade hadn’t wanted to prove just how “European” he was, we’d never have been lumbered with all that human rights nonsense in the first place.

It’s bad enough when the legislation is used to give prisoners the vote or Romanian “Big Issue” sellers the right to taxpayer-subsidised housing.

It’s utterly scandalous when it’s used to keep Abu Qatada, one of the world’s most dangerous men, out of jail even though he’s wanted for terrorist offences in eight different countries.

Our courts have ruled that Mr Qatada’s human rights are more important than the human rights of the rest of us.

Keeping him in jail without trial while trying to deport him to his native Jordan is a breach of his human rights, it seems.

So out he comes from Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire, back to the bosom of his family – a wife and five children living in taxpayer-funded bliss in his £800,000 council house in Wembley.

Foolishly, we gave Mr Qatada asylum as long ago as 1993 when he arrived claiming to be a refugee from religious persecution – even though he got into Britain on a forged passport.

Since then, he has called on British Muslims to martyr themselves in a holy war against “oppression”. He issued a fatwa justifying the murder of converts from Islam, their wives and children in Algeria.

He has called for the killing of Jews and praised attacks on Americans.

Jordan sentenced him in absentia in 2000 to life imprisonment for his involvement in a plot to bomb tourists attending the country’s Millennium celebrations.

Videos of his hate-sermons were found in the Hamburg flat used by the 9/11 bombers.

When he was arrested in February 2001 he was found in possession of £170,000 in cash, including £805 in an envelope marked “For the mujahedin in Chechnya”.

He is wanted on terrorism charges in Algeria, the United States, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany and Italy, as well as Jordan.

Abu Qatada has been described as “Al Qaeda's spiritual leader in Europe”, “Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe”, “the most significant extremist preacher in the UK” and “a truly dangerous individual”.

Even the dear old Home Office says: "This is a dangerous man who we believe poses a real threat to our security and who has not changed in his views or attitude to the UK."

In the light of this country’s long-standing traditions, there is something objectionable to holding people in jail for year after year when they have not been convicted of any crime.

And it seems Mr Qatada has not broken any laws in this country – though that’s hard to believe, given the long list of crimes he is alleged to have been involved with elsewhere.

This country has a long and proud record of protecting the rights of the individual from the over-mighty State. And you could argue that the release of Mr Qatada is just the latest example of that noble tradition.

Certainly there is something repulsive about the kind of Guantanamo Bay detention centre where alleged terrorists are held without trial for years and left to rot in perpetual limbo.

Yet even within the best traditions of this country’s laws and liberties, it has always been necessary to balance the rights of the individual against those of society as a whole.

Mr Qatada entered this country illegally. He is wanted for acts of terrorism in half a dozen countries, all friendly nations.

Yet we have tied ourselves up in ridiculous human rights legislation to the extent that it is almost impossible to rid ourselves of this man, no matter how dangerous or repulsive he may be.

By opposing deportation on the grounds that Mr Qatada may not get a fair trial, Europe’s human rights judges are assuming that Jordan’s legal system is inferior to theirs.

But standards of justice are not the same the world over and what right do the judges of Macedonia, Ukraine, Albania and Moldova (among others) have to pronounce on the subject?

These are among the 47 countries which provide judges for the European Court of Human Rights.

We are being dictated to by lawyers from countries which didn’t even exist a few years ago and certainly have only a passing acquaintance with democracy and the rule of law.

On his release from jail, Abu Qatada will be living at our expense while we pay for his continuing fight against extradition and we pay to police his activities and try to stop him encouraging terrorism.

Is this really the price of freedom, democracy and the rule of law – or just another example of how this country is no longer capable of defending its own interests?

I can’t help thinking of Enoch Powell’s warning: “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”

Bring back the Drach

The BBC says: "The Greek PM has warned the nation of a collapse in living standards if MPs fail to pass an unpopular austerity bill demanded in return for a 130bn-euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout."

What the BBC, the Greek PM, the EU, the IMF and everyone else with a vested interest in keeping the Euro alive fails to point out is that Greece will face all of the above if they do pass the austerity bill.

There will only ever be light at the end of the tunnel for Greece - and Portugal, Spain and Italy - is if they get out of the single currency and devalue against the Euro (ie against the Deutschmark).

Otherwise they face years of grinding poverty whereas escape from the Euro might cause short-term pain - in exchange for long-term gain.

A champion of truth and honesty?

I see the slippery eel Alastair Campbell has won himself a wedge from the defunct News of the World because he was allegedly a victim of phone hacking back in the day.

“This has never been about the money,” he declares, promising to redistribute his new wealth to various lucky winners including the Labour Party.

Fair enough but then he goes on to claim he is using his public position to fight on behalf of the little people to change the media culture.

You know, the culture which he exploited as a reporter and then as a Government apologist. Indeed, the culture which permits charlatans and loathsome hypocrites to sex-up dodgy dossiers and lead his country into a war based on lies of the kind a tabloid hack never thinks twice about spinning up in the name of a decent headline.

Alastair “never let the facts get in the way of a good story” Campbell is the last person who should be given any credibility as a champion of liberty, truth and honesty.

Flu can be such a swine

Well, I don’t any longer think I’m going to die (at least in the immediate future). And believe me, this is real progress.

When they admitted me to hospital with severe pneumonia, I was alarmed.

I was even more concerned when a nurse let slip they suspected I was suffering from swine flu.

Swine flu? That’s the sort of disease they make horror movies about while Governments prepare for Armageddon.

It doesn’t happen to people like me. Surely it’s a Third World illness caused by grinding poverty, filthy living conditions and close association with muddy farm animals.

How did I get swine flu anyway? And is there a cure?

Suddenly I’m hidden away in an isolation unit with a notice about infectious diseases on the door, an antibiotic drip in one arm and an oxygen mask on my face.

No medical staff are allowed into the room without wearing a face mask. So, for several days, I don’t actually meet anyone, I just try and get some idea what they’re like from their eye.

Mostly, though, they won’t look at me. They just get on with taking blood samples, checking my blood pressure or offering me cups of tea.

The tea, inevitably, is vile but it doesn’t matter much to me. I haven’t eaten for a week and I’m generally so racked by coughing fits that breathing is more important than food or drink.

Occasionally a doctor comes to see me. I saw six in five days. Never the same one twice. I could tell, even though they were wearing masks, because they all asked the same questions.

What did I do for a living? It seems they were expecting me to say swineherd not journalist.

How much do I drink? Admittedly this is a tricky question. When you’re at death’s door, your alcoholic intake suddenly looms large in your life.

Do three glasses of wine a day make me an alcoholic? Do I actually drink that much anyway? If I promise to cut down, will you make me better?

Cigarettes? Oh dear. You begin to feel you have nobody to blame but yourself and your appallingly self-destructive lifestyle.

But flu isn’t self-inflicted. You catch it from other people. Granted, an unhealthy way of living might make you more vulnerable and the illness worse.

But it seems my real problems stem from the fact that I haven’t got a spleen.

That organ was removed in an emergency operation when I was ten years old. It was snowy. I came careering down a hill on a sledge, hit a tree and ruptured the thing.

At the time, and for years afterwards, I believed the spleen was an obsolete organ like the appendix. But it seems it wasn’t quite as unimportant as I thought.

Modern thinking, apparently, suggests anyone without a spleen should take antibiotics every day, as a matter of routine. Great – now they tell me.

It’s difficult to work out where and when I caught this dose of flu. I’ve been to London a few times recently and a packed underground may well be a breeding ground for all kinds of germs.

But it was in Wolverhampton that I realised something was seriously wrong.
I hadn’t slept the night before but I was due to speak at a business breakfast at the Wolves’ Molineux ground and I didn’t think I could just not turn up, no matter how ill I felt.

So I coughed and spluttered my way anti-socially through the event. I say anti-socially because anyone with a disease like flu should stay at home if they have the slightest suspicion they may be liable to infect other people.

My excuse is that I didn’t realise how bad I was. I only found that out when I tried to address the assembled business people.

My voice, which is generally quite a noisy instrument, would not play. It was a struggle to get the words out and by the end of my much-reduced speech I was almost inaudible.

That was the moment I stopped feeling like a normal human being and transformed into a pathetic invalid.

And as the days passed, I found myself getting worse not better. The GP said take penicillin and Paracetamol and it should pass.

When it didn’t, he gave me some kind of blockbuster antibiotic and said I’d start to feel better the next day.

When I didn’t, he sent me to hospital where I have been languishing ever since.
Yesterday doctor number six breezed into my room trailing trainees and nurses in his wake. He said he was too old to wear a mask.

He was brisk, friendly, informative, funny – a breath of fresh air.

He said the results of the swine flu tests were still not back five days after they were sent to the laboratory.

But declared it didn’t make any difference if I’d got swine flu or not; what mattered was dealing with the illness and making me better.

And he said I was making progress. Indeed, he’s sent me home.

It looks as if I can breathe again – literally as well as metaphorically.