Month: March 2009

Reading the briefing from the US side on Mr Brown’s desperate visit to the new President, he would be better off not going.

The President is born of the struggle to free the slaves and to free America from British colonialism. He does not automatically see the UK as his best friend. We hear that he wants to base the relationship on a realistic appraisal of what the UK can do for the US. Fine. He will probably change his mind over time, as his predecessors have done. I see no need to force the pace of that change, or to demean the UK by seeking special favours or special language to describe the relationship at this stage. Sometimes it is better to show some British reserve and dignity instead of trying to force a special friendliness which is not yet there.

Mr Obama at the moment wants something. He wants the UK to send more troops to help US ones in Afghanistan. Let him work out how best to ask us and how to persuade us that it is worth doing. Personally I think we should tell him he is wrong, and plan a withdrawal from Afghanistan. I don’t see why our PM has to pay the airfare to cross the Atlantic for a short meeting, and not even be offered lunch for his pains.

I appreciate Mr Brown wants to go and chance the spin game for different reasons. He wants to “sell” the President his plan for world economic policy. This salesmanship will take the form of picking up all the ingredients of the two massive Obama state spending packages, and presenting them as part of the Brown approach to economic intervention. You can write the communiqué and press release now without bothering to go.

The absurdity of it all is underlined by the UK briefing, telling us Mr Brown wants some of the Obama star dust to rub off on his bent and unpopular shoulders. Why tell us that, to confirm our worst fears about this unnecessary journey. If they have something to fix for the G20, fix it on the phone.

On Saturday I went to Stratford to see the Tempest. I went thinking it was not my favourite play by a long way. I was amazed at the stunning performance, which brought the magic to life and made some sense of Prospero’s ramblings. The Director used African magic on the enchanted island, vibrant with colour, dance and music. It was an astonishing spectacle. Prospero’s use of the spirits to straighten out his corrupted and broken world was masterful. The act of forgiveness as they put legitimate authority back in charge at the end seemed appropriate rather than naïve. If only Ariel were still for hire!

Before the play I visited the Shakespeare properties, which I had last been inside in my youth. How different they are. It reminded me just how interpretations of the past change to reflect modern preoccupations and understandings.

The Birthplace has been bedecked with wall hangings. An older cot is lined with cloth to avoid splinters we are told, and the bed displays a child’s bed extension where before there was an orderly scene of a made up adult bed and a child’s cot without lining beneath the white walls. We are now advised that people slept upright, so the old pillows have been replaced.

Bigger changes have occurred at Mary Arden’s House. The House I visited before has been downgraded to John Palmer’s house. Mary Arden’s house is now a red brick house (concealing an older house beneath ) set out with Victorian range and laundry. The house proud domesticity of the Great Hall to the old Mary Arden’s House has been banished. That house has been converted into an untidy centre for displaying a range of different Tudor crafts.

I wondered about conjuring and con tricks. The misrepresentation of Mary Arden’s house was a genuine mistake. The different treatment of the Birthplace was their best guess at the time. Who knows how these properties will be presented in fifty years time, and who knows what more may be discovered about how they once were?

At Dr Hall’s house the interesting question was his medical approach. The few case notes on display reminded us that he was like all Tudor and Stuart Doctors a herbalist. Doubtless many modern Doctors would say he got some of his diagnoses wrong, and woudl argue that many of his remedies would have had little if any effect. They often seem to treat herbalist predecessors as unwitting charlatans. Dr Hall did praise Harvey for his assertion of the circulation of the blood, at a time when most Doctors condemned the radical idea that the heart is a large pump to push blood around in circles. What was clear from the property was that Dr Hall was shrewd businessman, who knew his medical market well and made a good living from his practise. I wonder how modern medicine will be viewed in some future century?

I have always favoured an employee and management buy out of the postal service. Much of the Post Office is already privatised, as it takes the form of a string of small businesses operating the Post Office franchise through a big network of shops. Much of the transport is contracted out.

I am not keenon foreign interests buying a minority stake on the back of the weak pound. Why not enter negotiations with the staff to see what could be organised? The government deal looks like another bad one for the taxpayer, leaving us with the massive pension liabilities so the foreign buyer can buy a clean interest.
It may be better than keeping the whole thing in public ownership, where we have to pay both the losses on the business and the losses on the pension fund, but why are they the onlytwo options? Can’t we have an option where staff and taxpayers are both better off?

Shortly after the expensive and clumsy nationalisation of Northern Rock I made a speech to a large dinner in London that we needed to move on from talking in billions about public finance. I suggested we needed a new larger unit. I proposed the “Rock” or £100 billion as the sensible unit for account, management and discussion.We were clearly moving into an era of big government, where the odd billion was not worth discussing. It was just small change. A “rock” would buy you the NHS for almost a year , or a mortgage bank. Strangely the government thought they could afford both.

In a few short months my proposal was blown out of the water by the terminal fascination this government has with RBS. Now we all talk in trillions, if we wish to discuss the true and dreadful sate of the public finances.

I had come to the conclusion that the true liabilities of the state – including pension deficits, Northern Rock, PFI, PPP and Network Rail as well as the public debt the government recognises, reached about £2 trillion before the RBS adventure. On top of this today we should add the £2 trillion of the RBS balance sheet, now that we own or about to own practically all the shares and clearly stand behind every last bad debt and foolish investment this wretched bank has ever made. Or if you prefer not to consolidate this errant and overghty subsidiary, you need to account for the £0.5 trillion banking package last autumn which failed to work as intended, and the guaratees now being crafted for banks that will exceed another £0.5 trillion.

If you were being kind you would conclude the taxpayer in on the line for at least £3 trillion, or twice the National Income. On private sector accounting rules it would be at least £4 trillion.

The public accounts are being shot to pieces. Usual debate about whether to increase spending by a few billion or to cut taxes by a few billion have become futile against this huge move to mega buck spending on banks. The government has developed a dangerous and expensive habit of propping banks in the dearest way imaginable. I have not been blogging on the issue of Goodwin’s pension pot, because it is a small diversion from the collosal waste of public money going on in subsidising and backing toxic debt