BBC and Brexit

The Little Englanders continue to criticise the BBC for allowing a breath of criticism of the state of Article 50 negotiations, when they should be expressing gratitude to the corporation for creating the climate of opinion which led to the Leave vote in 2016. Norman Tebbitt for instance asked in the Lords yesterday:

[Does the Minister] not think as an individual, a private person, that there is something wrong when, out of 4,275 guests talking about the EU on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme between 2005 and 2015, only 132, or 3.2%, were supporters of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU? Frankly, the BBC has become the supporter of a foreign organisation called the European Union. Could not the Minister quietly whisper in somebody’s ear, “Get your act in order, because you owe a duty of impartiality”?

His Lordship should consider that during the years he cited, the policy of both government and opposition (including a change of party in power) was to remain in the European Union. So he is saying that there should have been more critics of the Conservative administration (and of the official opposition) being roughed up by John Humphrys between 2010 and 2015, while implying that he would deny the right to query the direction of the post-2016 governments. By the way, these queries come from more people other than hard-line Remainers.

As to the European Union being foreign, until March 2019 (and hopefully beyond) we are full members, participating in its administration both at ministerial level and through the European Parliament. One does not hear his Lordship complaining about our armed forces being at the beck and call of NATO, an arguably more foreign organisation, dominated as it is by the USA. Indeed, though our MoD has a say in NATO's direction, there are no other means of the ordinary UK citizen influencing NATO decisions. (I hasten to add that I believe in our membership of NATO and share the criticism of fellow member nations who do not make contributions at the level we do in the UK.)

May will withstand repeated pressure

Grant Shapps is at it again, asserting that the prime minister will either have to resign or face a vote of no confidence. My sense is that the qualities which enabled her to be the last person standing in the Conservative leadership election and to resist previous seemingly credible threats to her leadership will see her through her current difficulties. She is aided by the absence of an alternative who does not alienate large sections of her party.

Even the election of last year, undemocratic though it was, driven by panic (the possibility of a dozen sitting Conservative MPs being charged with electoral offences) though it was, has helped in that there is no stomach for yet another in the country, an election which would surely see Labour and Liberal Democrats making more gains than they did last year.

So Mrs May will survive, at the expense of the country's future.

British local government by-election results since 2017 general election

So far since May 2017

Waiting to be counted ...

... in the Big Garden Birdwatch 2018.

More on the Carillion failure

Further to my post of yesterday, the current issue of Private Eye reports that Carillion stopped paying into its pension fund last August - a signal, the Eye suggests, that the company was in a far worse position than it admitted at time of its second profit warning in September.

As to sub-contractors, not all will be covered by the government's bland assurance last Wednesday that " when it was decided to place Carillion in insolvency, the Government had two priorities: to protect and maintain the delivery of vital services in schools, hospitals and prisons and on the railways, and to support not only the 19,500 people directly employed by Carillion, but the contractors and small businesses involved." In fact, it seems likely that sub-contractors owed money up to 15 January 2018 for services supplied will simply rank as unsecured creditors and have to submit a claim in the liquidation. Given that a substantial part of the book assets of the company is "goodwill" (thanks again to Private Eye for that information) one cannot see unsecured creditors recovering much from the receivers.

Failing companies and pension funds

Among the casualties of the Carillion crash, along with sub-contractors and their suppliers, are pension funds. David Thorpe, writing in Liberal Democrat Voice, makes a suggestion which would go some way to protecting the latter:

At present, if a company goes bust, the first entity to be paid is the administrator, then the taxman, then the secured creditors, often banks, then the unsecured creditors, which includes the pension fund, and finally, the shareholders.

In this corporate structure, the power is in practice with the secured creditors (the taxman only becomes involved when they don't get paid, the banks can be engaged regularly with the company), so policy makers should act to ensure that all existing pension funds of UK-listed companies are treated as secured creditors, with at least the same seniority as the banks; this would give the trustees of the pension funds far more influence over how the capital generated by the company is distributed before there is a major problem, and put the hard working pensioners much nearer the front of the queue if the company in question turns into another Carillion. 

Incidentally, as recounted by Margareta Pagano in the London Evening Standard and in the i yesterday, a prominent Liberal Democrat supporter, Paul Marshall, was one of those who spotted that Carillion was in terminal decline. His hedge fund, Marshall Wace, made money for its clients by "shorting" Carillion stock last year. I would like to think that, if a Liberal Democrat had been Chancellor last year, no more government contracts would have gone to Carillion from mid-2017 on.

Untouched by human hand

One does not readily associate Michael Frayn with dystopian SF, but in A Very Private Life he extrapolated trends he recognised in 1968 (is the book really about to celebrate its golden jubilee??). In his imaginary middle-class future, everything - including children - can be supplied at the touch of a button. There is no need for any social interaction, although, as I recall the novel, the father of the heroine is a UN official who has to deal with the excluded people of the world, Frayn's equivalent of Orwell's proles or Wells' morlocks.

I was reminded of this recently in a discussion on CIX about participants' favourite Frayn novels. It was reinforced by news from the US west coast of Amazon's dehumanised convenience store and Terry Teachout's log of his progress to a technology-mediated life.

Cash, if one is to believe the media, is dying. Already public transport in London and other metropolitan areas will not take notes and coins. The same goes for a growing number of retail outlets in Scandinavia. The recent EU ban on fees for using cards for payment is going to further the trend. Link's proposal to change its charging structure may cause a reduction in the number of ATMs, the only means of obtaining cash for people living outside larger towns and cities, because of the closure of bank branches.

Government in the UK is intent on reducing human interaction. Advice is no longer provided face-to-face but by (often premium-rate) phone lines. Claimants for Universal Credit are expected to set up an on-line account on the blithe assumption that everybody has a home computer or a smartphone and lives in an area with good digital connections. Post Offices are induced to close by cutting sub-postmasters' incomes from government transactions.

Do not misunderstand me. I do welcome the ease of shopping in Tesco or Morrison, using their automated checkouts, though there is always the reassurance of a human standing by to clear any glitches. However, I also enjoy the more social experience of my local mini-mart for those emergency purchases or to use the in-shop post office. For those of my generation and older who do not have the same social networks, the regular trip to the shop or post office can be a factor in combating loneliness, which NHS UK admits can be a killer.

The people who make the decisions to save money by closing post offices, tax offices and job centres or taking staff away from railway stations (thus increasing the reluctance of vulnerable people to take the train) would be distressed if they were not able to see a live show (is there not Netflix?) or interact socially with their peers. One trusts that before it is too late the Establishment will realise that is not good to have a disaffected population inspired by a new Ned Ludd, and that both business and government should have a human, and local, face.

Heinz soups: a Proustian recollection

It seems that Heinz is having a clear-out of its canned soup range. Every supermarket which stocks the brand, and even my local mini-mart, Arbourne's, have multi-buy offers. Although I prefer these days to (in the words of Cassandra) construct my own soups, I could not resist the other day laying in a stock of cans as larder stand-bys. I also have a special reason for wanting to sample the vegetable soup again because, in a sort of reverse-madeleine moment, the very sight of that distinctive label brings back the memory of a taste from sixty years ago. Is it still the same as when I sat at the kitchen table in Wallasey playing cards (probably rummy or beat jack) with my mother to take my mind off the pain in an infected ear ("acute otitis media, hmm, Little?" as the French master queried when I eventually returned to school) which the hot soup was also designed to ease?