The Aged P

Alan Bennett’s “Lady in the Van” was described by the Sunday Times as “One of the saddest, funniest and most distinguished offerings for years”

“It is said that charity begins at home. For Alan Bennett”, said the UK Guardian of an earlier production “it began at the bottom of his drive with a custard yellow van inhabited by an irascible eccentric who refused to budge for 15 years.

There’s a further psychological thread to which teases out the extent to which Bennett’s obsession with Miss Shepherd was a displacement activity designed to assuage nagging guilt about his mother’s dementia.”

There are only a few tickets left for the Horley Archway Theatre production of this brilliant play which will run for two weeks starting Tuesday July 17th – get them now before they are all sold…

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices….

That was Adam Smith’s perceptive dismissal of any trading cartel be it an association of manufacturers, retailers or trade unions because every one of them was constantly seeking to fix a common price for goods or labour to avoid the dangers of individual members lowering their prices and thus offering a more competitive market to consumers. Smith placed demand at the centre of any economic activity

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.

Any attempt to fix or manipulate price outside the mechanism of the market for the short term “common good” would in the long term produce distortions (business closures, repossessions, unemployment, shorages etc) that would cause even greater social misery.

Including the price of credit over the last decade says Steve Baker MP in the UK Spectator

Central banks held down interest rates to stimulate economies with new credit, to push impending corrections out of sight. Those artificially low interest rates discouraged saving and encouraged borrowing but banks can extend credit into existence to cover the gap. With moral hazard endemic, banks loaned recklessly, using derivatives to book unrealised cash flows as profit up front. Some individuals went home unjustly rich and politicians won elections as the system over-extended itself.

Such shenanigans have been blamed on relying too much on market forces and so recently there have been cries for greater degrees of supervision and regulation.

Cobblers

If there had been a truly free market for credit the corrections would have been self generating according to the ebb and flow of demand. Closer supervision and regulation merely makes it easier for powerful elites to impose “adjustments” to suit their own particular political/cultural agendas.

The really important question today is not whether the Bank of England encouraged manipulation of credit markets by self-interested rogues but why we tolerate systematic credit market manipulation by the central banks as a matter of policy: nowhere else in the economic system would we accept explicit planning of the price and quantity of a vital commodity. If it worked, we’d all be communists.

In other words – beware of the man with a plan because it will inevitably lead to your own true interests being subsumed for “the greater good”…as perceived by the man with the plan.

If a man has a plan use another four letter word to tell him where to go…..

Fascinating civil war broke out at Hot Air over a Jazz Shaw post taking House Speaker John Boehner to task for suggesting the November election will really be a referendum on President Obama rather than an endorsement (or otherwise) of Mitt Romney.

Aside from Romney’s “friends, relatives and fellow Mormons,” Boehner said, most people will be motivated to vote for him in opposition to Obama.
The Ohio Republican made the remarks when an unidentified woman asked during a question-and-answer session: “Can you make me love Mitt Romney?”
“No,” Boehner said. “Listen, we’re just politicians. I wasn’t elected to play God. The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney. I’ll tell you this: 95 percent of the people that show up to vote in November are going to show up in that voting booth, and they are going to vote for or against Barack Obama.

Opinon seemed evenly divided over whether Boehner was to be congratulated on his honesty or condemned for rocking the GOP boat. But soon one or two posters were declaring that Romney was not only the best thing since sliced bread but would also become Reagan 2 once he got to the White House.

Funny thing is, until the last registration, although there were partisan voices for Palin, Cain, Santorum, Perry etc the general view appeared to be that, far from being another Reagan, Romney was McCain 2 – a stodgy, uninspiring choice who could only be voted for with a peg affixed to one’s nose.

Strangely enough, however,since the most recent registration voices have appeared ascribing Zeus like qualities to a man previously despised for his Romneycare past, his flip flopping on key issues and his failure to stand for re-election as governor of Massachusetts……

But the post of the day came from someone who felt that Boehner had been hoist with his own petard and had no sympathy for his oddly timed whinge

Yeah, John, I wanted to vote FOR someone, someone I agreed with on 90% of the issues, someone I trust to at least fight for the reforms this country needs, someone to make me believe in the promise of America again. Sadly she decided not to run because she knew the deck was stacked against her because you and your ilk never would have her back and would work against her every step of the way. So I am left with Mittoast. And yes, John, I will be among the 95% that is going to be a good little solider, eat my gruel and vote against Obamao. But my vote won’t be FOR something. So John, don’t count on getting either my money or time. Those go for the things I am FOR.

Ouch….I hope that hurt…..

David Davies MP at The Commentator tries to explain it in words so simple that even Krugman, Obama, Hollande and the BBC/Guardianistas might be able to understand…

The ‘plan for growth’ is actually a euphemism for borrowing more money than we already are. Sound familiar?

The theory goes that the government borrows money to spend on a big project, like building a motorway. This creates lots of jobs in construction, and afterwards even more jobs are created.

We spend money to make money.

This sounds too good to be true because it is.

‘Growth plans’ have to generate enough money to pay back the sum borrowed, plus interest.

The government is already spending around £45 billion a year on interest payments alone – this is more than the defence budget.

This is actually a low figure, because those lending to us have confidence that we will pay the money back.

Countries that want to carry on spending money they don’t have (like Greece) can no longer borrow money easily and therefore need to be bailed out.

We don’t want to go there.

So, in order to ensure that banks and other countries retain their confidence in the UK’s willingness to sort out its deficit, this means sticking to the plan to spend what we earn.

I think we have learnt enough from the past decade to understand that a ‘growth plan’ is a thinly veiled call for ‘increased spending.’

Of course there is always the money tree……

The BBC, acting in its capacity of being the UK extension of Barack Obama’s “Palace Guard” (aka the US mainstream media) led on the website with an item headed

Romney and Republicans raise $100m in June

Under the headline the text confirmed that Mitt Romney, the likely Republican candidate in this coming November’s Presidential election, had raised more money than Obama. At first glance one could have sensed from this the possibility of a Damascene conversion at Beeb HQ…..that they might have actually decided to report a US election in a fair and balanced way by shedding the liberal/left blinkers that for over half a century have coloured their reporting.

But, true to form, as one’s eyes travelled down the page, it became clear that they were performing to the script posted out from the New York Times, Washington Post and the TV alphabets. The Obama campaign is firing all its guns on Romney’s wealth to characterise him as a gold plated fat cat who knows nothing about the everyday problems of ordinary people in a struggling economy – and the reason for harping on the success of the Romney/GOP fundraising was to associate the Republican Party with this fat cat image…

Look, folks, it’s Obama and the people v Romney and the fat cats – and the fat cats hope to buy the election…

Moreover, to darken the image even further, the BBC references a recent Vanity Fair article

And there were negative headlines this week over a Vanity Fair investigation reporting that much of Mr Romney’s personal fortune was hidden in a network of opaque offshore investment havens.

Yes, Vanity Fair, (the one that was so sympathetic to the Occupy “movement”)…..did a full scale investigation into Romney’s wealth (probably using the fifty fact checkers that AP sent to Alaska after Palin’s VP GOP nomination in 2008)…..yet somehow has never managed to send anybody to Chicago to find out more about Obama’s relationship with Tony Rezko, a key figure in his political transfiguration who was later convicted of money laundering and bribery.

But then, since VF is clearly the house magazine of the glitterati, the BBC didn’t spend too much time agonising upon the mixed messages being sent out by Obama’s hobnobbing with the Hollywood elite….

As for the tear stained pleas from Obama and his surrogates about being outspent – smoke and mirrors, anyone?

The only catch is that the actual spending by super PACs so far this year tells a quite different story. The truth is that the super PAC founded by top Obama staffers and its aligned “independent” groups are outspending groups that oppose the president by roughly two to one.

….and behind those pro Obama super PACs are some very shady figures….

But hey, whenever did an honest in depth probe of any liberal/left political structure figure particularly high on the BBC agenda? As for the piece itself just look at the subtle hints offered by the selection of photos……Romney holidaying on an expensive rich man’s toy while Obama is out there talking to horny handed sons of toil….

….and not a single mention of golf….

cross posted at Biased BBC

We did it!

We got West Sussex County Council to abandon their plans to remove the yellow lines and turn Street Hill into a public car park again – and we did it the old fashioned way….instead of sitting on our backsides muttering about it we actually worked together to show WSCC that the real local residents most affected by the dangers of heavy parking on Street Hill wanted the lines retained.

I just wondered who it was locally who wanted the lines removed – were they people who lived along our road of 53 houses? So I composed and printed off a brief flyer and delivered one to every house. It was raining, some houses had feisty dogs who appeared only too willing to hurl themselves at a hand as it pushed a leaflet through the letterbox and almost every house had a letterbox in a different position.

The flyer listed the reasons why I supported the retention of the yellow lines and my e mail address should they wish to comment. Then I went home for a sandwich and waited, wondering if I was just another retired old fart with nothing better to do than get worked up about parked cars.

The rest of the day passed by without any response so I was preparing to shrug my shoulders and admit defeat. Then in the evening my blackberry started pinging as people replied…”totally support”…”thank you for doing this”….”have already contacted WSCC”…….I had a result!

Within two days I had e mails of support from a third of the houses I had canvassed….

I must add that we are a very private, suburban road. We know our immediate neighbours very well, a few others are familiar by sight but about 80% are completely unknown to us. I was swapping e mails with people who I wouldn’t recognise! We came to the conclusion that we needed to reach the 60% who had not replied in order to get a sense of local feeling – otherwise we might fall into the trap of being a vocal minority claiming a false mandate….not uncommon in the UK or the USA, I fear.

So we drew up a petition and a team called on every house to invite signatures.

The response was overwhelming. Every house visited was not only keen to sign but happy to give voice to their own frustrations over WSCC’s intentions. Eventually we had signatures from 51 out of 53 households – and the two who did not sign were on holiday and would not return until after the deadline for responses had passed. But neighbours assured me that both household would have supported us.

I scanned the completed petition and sent one copy to the WSCC official who was implementing the proposal and another to the elected member who was chairing the relevant committee. Then we waited for the next step, a public meeting where the WSCC would report their own conclusions and take comments.

At the start of the meeting it was clear that the news was good. 99% of the public response (which almost entirely came from our road) was for retaining the yellow lines. It was also clear that the county engineer agreed with our view that parking along that hill would be dangerous at any time. So the proposal was to keep the lines as they were.

2.4 The majority of the objections are with regards to a revocation of the restrictions that formed part of the original proposals.
2.5 Road markings installed as part of the original proposals have been in place for approximately four months. During this time WSCC officers have not received any complaints from members of the public with regards to either not being able to park along Street Hill or with regards to displacement of parking into other roads on the network.

Towards the end of their report, in the dry, unemotional officialise that must always be the signature style of such pronouncements could nevertheless be found the very essence of representative democracy, the leitmotif of 1000 years of law and custom that developed into government by consent rather than diktat.

6.2 If the proposals are implemented some members of the public may not believe West Sussex County Council is acting in their best interests.

At the meeting one or two voices from different parts of our town claimed that they were speaking on behalf of others when they complained about the parking restrictions. But they could provide no hard evidence to back up their claims. Vague references to “chatting to others” was just not good enough when I could honestly say, as I did, that, on this topic, I was truly representing the views of my neighbours.

Strange to say, I felt highly privileged to convey that message and just briefly felt a bond with all those other people, often nameless, who have spoken up for their fellows in years gone by in Britain and North America.

Or am I over egging the pudding?

The big hits of 1963….

Difficult to believe that all these came out almost half a century ago (when I had just started out as a teacher) but each of them still gives me a buzz today, not just as a stroll down memory lane but because they are also still damn good songs.

The Exciters were one hit wonders but what a hit! I defy anyone not to move on this one….

The Drifters, of course , were far from one hit wonders with a whole stream of great songs throughout the 60s. They cornered the market in slightly slower paced, almost wistful numbers…..songs to sing after you had come home from partying with the Exciters…

Roy Orbison was unique – a great songwriter and that soaring falsetto. He wrote about heartache and sad times, reflective numbers that mirrored the ups and downs of life..with always just a touch of angst…

But 1963 was also the year the Beach Boys burst onto the scene, making me wish I could leave my South London suburb and hit the beaches in California and impress those bikini clad golden tanned girls as I efforlessly rode the waves…in my imagination…

Then Ray Charles came out with this self mocking anthem celebrating the inevitable outcome of spending all that money on surfing gear and ending up broke…

But then just one look at the Ronettes with their big hair, heavy eyeliner and those swinging hips in tight dresses and you were ready to spend all the money you didn’t have just to catch their eye…even though you knew your mother wouldn’t approve…..

Happy days when great music helped to spin our dreams in those brief moments away from the real world of school, college or work…..and they still fire the imagination of this senior citizen…..

You just know that David Cameron and/or another government minister will not be able to resist this one

Lord Wei said working part-time, volunteering for charities, or sharing their business experience with young entrepreneurs would help older people avoid boredom in retirement.
A pilot project is being established to develop the “national retirement service” concept, which would begin by targeting new pensioners on cruises, or other holidays and leisure activities.
They would then be encouraged to make contact with others in the same age group living nearby to discuss what to do with the years ahead.
Lord Wei’s plan could win support in government as ministers are sympathetic to moves to encourage older people to volunteer in retirement.

Just like the previous Blair/Brown Labour regime the Cameron/Clegg coalition loves this sort of wheeze. They simply cannot help telling what we should be doing.

Well, here’s a suggestion for Lord Wei, Prince Charles, Cameron, Clegg, Milliband and all the other busybody, pokenoses who are so eager to fill up our spare time with projects and initiatives…

JUST SHUT UP AND CONCENTRATE ON DOING YOUR OWN JOB.

1. Cut taxes
2. Sort out the banks
3. Tell the European court of human rights to go to hell
4. Clamp down on illegal immigration
5. Increase prison sentences for violent criminals
6. Cut foreign aid
7. End subsidies for wind farms

…and leave us alone to decide on what we do in our spare time…

Remember reading the 2004 Balen report requested by the BBC itself to investigate accusations of anti Israel bias in its Middle East reporting?

No, neither do I – because the BBC has resisted all attempts to force it into the public domain. Don’t bother to ring Sherlock Holmes either to find out why because the findings must have been an embarrassing indictment of the Beeb’s lack of neutrality.

At The Commentator Simon Plosker has a good analysis of a more recent report on the BBC’s coverage of the Arab Spring. Generally a whitewash but, to be fair, there are some criticisms, particularly of the rather cavalier use of unverified mobile phone footage without an accompanying caveat.

Perhaps the Balen Report also found that the BBC has an unhealthy reliance on Palestinian “eyewitnesses” whose versions of events cannot be guaranteed as reliable.
And what about the lack of caveats? Does the BBC announce the reporting restrictions from Gaza where there is risk of intimidation and threats from Hamas, both towards foreign media and against Palestinians who deviate from the party line?

That is a very pertinent point. The Hamas administration in Gaza is an authoritarian regime with an unpleasant record of human rights abuse. Any Palestinian who publicly criticised it would almost certainly suffer severe consequences. But in any Gaza vox pop presented by the BBC there is never a caveat about this lack of freedom.

But then should we be surprised? After all whenever “ordinary folk” were interviewed in any Catholic enclave in Northern Ireland during the thirty years of the Troubles we were never told by the BBC that their reporters only operated under IRA “protection”.

Similarly we were never informed that government “minders” always accompanied BBC “journalists” around Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, making certain that every citizen toed the party line.

As long as a regime or group is anti British (or anti Israel) you can be certain those caveats are conveniently forgotten.

After all, as the BBC says, “it’s what we do”

cross posted at Biased BBC

Guardianista left winger Laurie Penny accused historian David Starkey of being “racist” and a tax fiddler etc etc (she mingled with the OWS crowd in the USA recently)

She should not have messed with Starkey, who is gay and who came from a humble background. He is also right wing in his views and always robust in stating them even in front of the bleeding heart liberals at the BBC.

Note for US friends – in the UK a “Public School” is in fact an independent private school that charges annual fees of several thousand pounds per year and is therefore almost always attended by the children of the rich. 95% of children in the UK attend “State” schools funded out of taxation and therefore charging no fees..