Practical Thoughts

Dear Reader, Our financial wizard, our chancellor George Osborne, has been to Shanghai to represent his country at the G20 summit. He has been reported to be so concerned about the state of the world's economy that his first inclination is to apply more cuts in next month's budget. The question I find difficult to find an answer for is that a layman like me could see the world's economy was stumbling many months ago - and there were those far more qualified than me who said the same. What did Osborne do in his November statement? He claimed that he could borrow on this country's growth in 2016 to cover shortfalls due to the opposition he faced on (particularly) Tax Credits. Three months later his first inclination is to go back onto the right foot to apply cuts.  This much lauded Chancellor has perpetually got his sums wrong since 2010 and also applied a policy that was far too stringent. Now he wants the general public to suffer more. The latest set of damn...

Dear Reader, The growing gap between the ultra-rich and the rest of us has made headline news with the release of Oxfam’s latest set of damning inequality statistics, which make an irrefutable case for sharing the world’s wealth and power more equitably. There are many ways in which this emerging call for sharing is already being expressed across the globe – including the ongoing advocacy for tax justice, the emergent focus on ‘de-growth’ as a catch-all framing for the great transition that lies ahead, and the urgent need to protect the basic human rights of desperate refugees in order to let “peace and love flow without borders”.  A diverse group of the world’s largest NGOs and other progressive organisations have responded to this mounting injustice by forming a global alliance to fight inequality, in a bid to gather the momentum needed to achieve their stated objective of tackling the systemic causes of inequality.   Meanwhile, the evidence suggests that 2016...

Dear Reader, Today being February 14th is an opportunity to reflect on "Valentine's Day" and its quite interesting source. Saint Valentine is a widely recognized third-century Roman saint who - though little is known about him - is associated since the High Middle Ages  (1100–1350)  with a tradition of courtly love. Now that ("courtly love") in itself was a phenomenon of that period in that it is also associated with the troubadour tradition which is of an interesting source. A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry. It is commonly believed that the troubadour school or tradition began in the late 11th century in Occitania (and subsequently spread into Italy and Spain and related movements sprang up throughout Europe). But reading Idris Shah's book The Sufis gives quite a different slant on the origin. The true source of the  troubadour    appears to have come from European contact with a branch of the Sufis, who even t...

Dear Reader, The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking. (A.A. Milne) Whatever you might think of people like Enoch Powell, at least he said what he thought and you knew exactly where you stood with him. With people like Cameron his tune changes with the times and which way the wind is blowing. The professional politician of the times since Blair took 'the throne', has rarely been given to plain-speaking; I at least give credit to Corbyn in trying to change that perception of politicians. But the words of politicians also need to be measured for truth. Here is an example of part of a speech my local MP (Liam Byrne) made to a European Council last week, concerning action against the Islamists: '... [what] we have learned [in] fighting insurgencies is that you cannot kill your way to victory. Victory...

Dear Reader, Last week, a British visitor to the Sangatte refugee camp at Calais was witness to the death of a 4-year-old little girl. "Her heart just seemed to give up", said the visitor. That such a young person - nay, a child - should die amidst all the squallor of that much-maligned establishment is almost heart-breaking to any ordinary person who is motivated by compassion. Yet the UK's Prime minister (David Cameron) - possibly on the very same day as the little girl died - last week referred to the camp occupants as simply a "bunch of migrants". A few months ago, he referred to them as "a swarm of migrants". Obviously he must be thinking that so many have died since that to describe them as a "bunch" is now more appropriate. What leadership from a British prime minister. The world is going bonkers: there's no need for me to describe all of what's happening - the quality press and al-Jazeera are quite good in portraying t...

Dear Reader, Last night I spent a longer amount of time than usual watching TV. But  it's invariably the case that if something is shown that has something profound to say about humanity, then I will try to watch it. Last night, ITV and More-4 showed two programmes about the Jewish Holocaust, 70 years on. The first was about a woman who, as a twin, was experimented upon by the infamous Dr. Mengale, and yet survived her ordeal. She was predicted by the Nazi doctor to have only a short time to live, but by willpower and providence she survived. If she hadn't, her twin sister would also have been killed for comparison of the two bodies at death. The most astonishing aspect is that the woman is willing to forgive all Nazis for their actions. Amazing. Yet the 94-year-old lady has many critics amongst her own people. The second (longer) program was entitled  Night Will Fall and was based upon the huge documentary film evidence that was put together from British, American an...

It has only just come to my attention that Derek Hathaway, OBE, my very old fellow Billesley Common, Billesley School and Tabernacle companion from our young years, has died after a sad illness. We were the same age. Derek went on to Moseley Grammar School, as did the likes of Professor Carl Chinn and Jasper Carrott (Bob Davis), both of whom have also played a sizeable part in my life. He lost his father at the age of 13 and had to leave school at the legal minimum of 15 to provide for his mother and siblings. After being successful in Birmingham Derek had been living in the USA for over 20 years and was a hugely successful businessman at Harsco as well as being a highly charitable man. He received his OBE (for charitable work) in 2008. It had been agreed for me to visit him in the USA in 2015 for the purpose of writing his biography, but he had contracted a severe cancer and was not well enough for the arrangement to take place. One of his stated pieces of wisdom was th...

Dear Reader, On TV the other night a bizarre situation occurred.  I had been watching a BBC report on the terrible conditions at Madaya, and after some time decided to switch to al Jazeera to see their take on the matter.  In fact,  al Jazeera    was not transmitting a news programme but a documentary on new technology - mostly about AI (artificial intelligence).  On the  al Jazeera    programme they were talking about how the new technologies were going to revolutionise matters - that we would see so much more in the form of robotics and self-drive cars etc. etc. But, yes, the introduction of all that would cost jobs. But, hey, they said, that's all happened before as technology has progressed. Now, don't you find all that bizarre? That we know full well that half the inhabitants of the world are suffering in the most alarming way and yet we have people suggesting that the new technologies are going to be the answer to everything. E...

Dear Reader, Firstly, I wish you well for this year and always. But secondly, and mainly, there is much room for concern - and hope - for what may transpire in 2016. Everywhere we hear of disaster and considerable suffering, and as if Climate Change and the world-wide flooding isn't enough, with terrorism and Daesh continuing to keep us occupied, we now have the news of the plight of 40,000 inhabitants of the Syrian village of Madaya in Syria. This village is under siege by allies of Sadat and its inhabitants are quietly dieing of hunger. They are surrounded by mines and also get shot if they try to leave. No-one - apparently - cares. We in the west (particularly those that are already materially well endowed) seem convinced that these are all temporary issues that will pass over so that we can just get on with what we've always been doing - making money and trying to be better off than the rest. Friends, that concept is one that should be consigned to the history boo...

Dear Reader, At a time of important festivities, my diary entry for this week is not going to be long. But because it's not long it doesn't mean to say that it's not something I feel strongly about: I do. It's about the UK banks. This week the news emerged that the banks have been avoiding the payment of their taxes. We also learnt recently that our financial wizard George Osborne has been getting friendly with the banks. Is his friendliness a roundabout way of trying to get the banks to pay their share? But, the banks being the banks, they will not play ball unless there's something in it for them. After all, Gordon Brown's quantitive easing (printing money) policy did not nothing but effectively give money to the banks to bolster their balance sheets as they refused to play ball by making that money available to the community. They got free money, and now they avoid paying their share of taxes, we hear. And it is the banking system that created the f...