"Heathrow faces fines for chaos" was the headline in the Sunday Times 26.12.10. Apparently the government is to bring in new legislation that will allow airports to be fined tens of millions of pounds for disrupting passengers' travel.
Has the government gone completely off it's trolley? Does it think that the airport operators have any control whatsoever on the amount of snow dumped on their runways or the weight of ice forming on their planes? Of course they don't. And you can bet your life that none of these "fines" will find their way back to the passengers who have been disrupted. The government has just come up with one more creative wheeze to get more money for nothing and increase costs for everybody else. If the airports are fined large amounts they will obviously have to pass on the costs to the travelling public, thus reducing the numbers who can afford to fly and increasing the dissatisfaction of those who are trying to fly but cannot because of the snow.
The government is supposed to represent the people - and I can't see many of the thinking public supporting this idea. But if they are daft enough to bring in this legislation, it is only fair (in line with their "equality" agenda) to bring in similar legislation granting tax rebates to everyone who has their travel disrupted by their failure to keep the roads clear. Or is it a cardinal sin if you can't swan off on holiday abroad but not if you can't manage to get to the shops to buy food? This government has a very weird sense of priorities!
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Creative Accountancy
Many years ago I met my friend for the first time after leaving school. I had gone to university and he had gone straight out to find a job. I asked him what he was doing now and he replied "Creative Accountancy". An ordinary accountant, it seemed, did the more mundane monetary tasks, while a Creative Accountant was ....... well ...... more creative. It seemed to me just like a new or more polite term for "fiddling the figures".
Well those currently in office at the Treasury must be well qualified in Creative Accountancy. They have invented a new term to make a large reduction in grant sound like a reduction of less than half the real amount! The trouble is, as no one has heard of this term before, they have to explain it, and once they have done that it becomes obvious to all what a devious brood they all are.
The executives of Follyville have just been told what their government grant will be next year. It would appear that the grant for 2011-12 has been reduced by 6% (as a percentage of "Revenue Spending Power"). On enquiry, this new term is explained as "the government grant + the amount of Council Tax they are expected to collect". You don't need to be very qualified in maths to realise that they are "fiddling the figures" on a massive scale to try and hide the fact that the real reduction in grant is actually 15.5%. No wonder politicians get a bad name!
Well those currently in office at the Treasury must be well qualified in Creative Accountancy. They have invented a new term to make a large reduction in grant sound like a reduction of less than half the real amount! The trouble is, as no one has heard of this term before, they have to explain it, and once they have done that it becomes obvious to all what a devious brood they all are.
The executives of Follyville have just been told what their government grant will be next year. It would appear that the grant for 2011-12 has been reduced by 6% (as a percentage of "Revenue Spending Power"). On enquiry, this new term is explained as "the government grant + the amount of Council Tax they are expected to collect". You don't need to be very qualified in maths to realise that they are "fiddling the figures" on a massive scale to try and hide the fact that the real reduction in grant is actually 15.5%. No wonder politicians get a bad name!
Friday, 9 July 2010
Unacceptable Bishops
I have just discovered that Jeffrey John has been kicked off the shortlist for the new Bishop of Southwark due to public opposition - the second time this indignity has befallen him (first after being shortlisted as Bishop of Reading).
They find him unacceptable because he is gay. They seem to overlook the well known biblical passage (Galatians 3:28) that states that in Christ there is "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Just acceptable bishops and unacceptable bishops apparently. Those making all the noise should stop worrying about Jeffrey John's credentials and start worrying about their own credentials as Christians.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is worried about precipitating a split in the church but if these people left, it seems it would not be too much of a loss as, it seems, they are not real members anyway!
They find him unacceptable because he is gay. They seem to overlook the well known biblical passage (Galatians 3:28) that states that in Christ there is "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Just acceptable bishops and unacceptable bishops apparently. Those making all the noise should stop worrying about Jeffrey John's credentials and start worrying about their own credentials as Christians.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is worried about precipitating a split in the church but if these people left, it seems it would not be too much of a loss as, it seems, they are not real members anyway!
Friday, 2 July 2010
Student Finance - the ongoing saga
See my post of 11 May 2010.
I thought that was the end of it. Wrong!.
About three weeks after submitting the photocopied forms my wife and I both received a proper printed form (in separate envelopes despite the fact that they know we both live at the same address) with a letter explaining that our daughter had now submitted her details online and could we both please complete these forms and return them. For those of you who don't know these are multipage booklets requiring much information to be looked up in order to complete them. Having done this already I was somewhat reluctant to do it all again. So I phoned the student finance hotline. I suppose I shouldn't really be all that surprised to find myself having a very one-sided conversation with a machine. "Press 1 for xxxx ; press 2 for xxxx" - I'm sure you all know the routine. However, one of the options said "If you have been requested to submit information which you have already submitted, you need do nothing." Fair enough - so I did nothing.
My daughter has just received an e-mail message from Student Finance acknowledging receipt of her online details and stating that they would be sending out forms to her parents in the near future for them to complete their details!
How on earth can we allow the country to be run on organization like this? If all the information could have been submitted online at the same time on a single application form with a single reference number Alice might have been told by now how much she was getting. As it is, I can see a repeat of last year when many students didn't get any finance at all until at least the end of the first term. Alice has already had a request from her university to pay the first term's accommodation rent up front now. Where is that money supposed to come from?
If the "burning of the quangos" we have been promised is a reality, then I suggest Student Finance should be one of those to go. Its organisation seems at least as bad, if not worse, than the infamous Child Support Agency. The job could easily be carried out much more efficiently by any self-respecting payroll department.
I thought that was the end of it. Wrong!.
About three weeks after submitting the photocopied forms my wife and I both received a proper printed form (in separate envelopes despite the fact that they know we both live at the same address) with a letter explaining that our daughter had now submitted her details online and could we both please complete these forms and return them. For those of you who don't know these are multipage booklets requiring much information to be looked up in order to complete them. Having done this already I was somewhat reluctant to do it all again. So I phoned the student finance hotline. I suppose I shouldn't really be all that surprised to find myself having a very one-sided conversation with a machine. "Press 1 for xxxx ; press 2 for xxxx" - I'm sure you all know the routine. However, one of the options said "If you have been requested to submit information which you have already submitted, you need do nothing." Fair enough - so I did nothing.
My daughter has just received an e-mail message from Student Finance acknowledging receipt of her online details and stating that they would be sending out forms to her parents in the near future for them to complete their details!
How on earth can we allow the country to be run on organization like this? If all the information could have been submitted online at the same time on a single application form with a single reference number Alice might have been told by now how much she was getting. As it is, I can see a repeat of last year when many students didn't get any finance at all until at least the end of the first term. Alice has already had a request from her university to pay the first term's accommodation rent up front now. Where is that money supposed to come from?
If the "burning of the quangos" we have been promised is a reality, then I suggest Student Finance should be one of those to go. Its organisation seems at least as bad, if not worse, than the infamous Child Support Agency. The job could easily be carried out much more efficiently by any self-respecting payroll department.
Follyville Economics
Those of us who work for local authorities are in a no-win situation as far as economics are concerned. The government has, over a long period of time, made strenuous suggestions to local government that they should find whatever means they practically can to save taxpayers money. The officers at Follyville Borough Council have done just that and, for the year just gone, managed to save £850,000 on the planned budget. I don't know how that compares to other councils, but I would have said it was worthy of a pat on the back. ....... but no. Quite the contrary! One of Follyville's own councillors is demanding to know why the council underspent by such a large sum. [He must follow this strange economic logic hypothesised in my last post.] His reasoning must be "bugger the government's requests - if it's in the budget we'll jolly well spend it whether we need to or not." Surely he must realise that a large underspend is always preferable to a large overspend ............ or maybe not!
Economics
So we've now had the "emergency budget". Did it make any sense? Well that's another question. I'm no economist but I do understand common sense and logic and to me this budget didn't add up. The government's declared intention was to encourage "the economy" to grow. As I understand it "the economy" is measured in terms of the amount of stuff we produce and sell. So basically the government wants producers to produce more and consumers to buy more. So to encourage this it increases VAT to 20%, thus making everything more expensive. Wages are frozen and benefits cut, meaning that people will have less money to spend. So with less spending power and higher prices normal logic would dictate that people will be able to buy much less. Is the government completely off its rocker or is there a special kind of economic logic of which I am unaware? If anyone can advise, please leave a comment.
David Cameron is apparently asking for suggestions of how to get us out of the financial mess we are in. I don't know that I can help here but I can make some suggestions to help prevent us getting in a similar mess in the future.
As the problem is basically too much debt, both nationally and individually, one simple remedy would be to ban the continuous stream of junk mail being sent out by the banks trying to encourage people to have one of their credit cards. I must get at least one of these per week. I do not want a credit card. Credit cards lead people into debt. As a bank customer I am appalled at the expense they go to to promote these things. This is my money they are using (and other customers) which would be far better used in giving us all a better rate of interest on our savings...... quite apart from the acreage of forest that must be destroyed annually to service this rubbish. If people really want a credit card they can go to the bank and request one ...... it really is not a commodity that needs advertising (they don't advertise cheque books for heaven's sake!).
Alongside the junk mail ban the government should also restrict credit cards to one per person. This should be quite sufficient for peoples needs yet still retain a certain amount of control over the amount of collective debt.
The answer is obvious, Mr Cameron, now get on and do it!
David Cameron is apparently asking for suggestions of how to get us out of the financial mess we are in. I don't know that I can help here but I can make some suggestions to help prevent us getting in a similar mess in the future.
As the problem is basically too much debt, both nationally and individually, one simple remedy would be to ban the continuous stream of junk mail being sent out by the banks trying to encourage people to have one of their credit cards. I must get at least one of these per week. I do not want a credit card. Credit cards lead people into debt. As a bank customer I am appalled at the expense they go to to promote these things. This is my money they are using (and other customers) which would be far better used in giving us all a better rate of interest on our savings...... quite apart from the acreage of forest that must be destroyed annually to service this rubbish. If people really want a credit card they can go to the bank and request one ...... it really is not a commodity that needs advertising (they don't advertise cheque books for heaven's sake!).
Alongside the junk mail ban the government should also restrict credit cards to one per person. This should be quite sufficient for peoples needs yet still retain a certain amount of control over the amount of collective debt.
The answer is obvious, Mr Cameron, now get on and do it!
Saturday, 12 June 2010
A Very Strange Wedding
I have just been to a strange wedding. I have been to a good few weddings in my time after a long career in church choirs and have seen many strange occurences, but never quite so many in one wedding!
The bride was Nigerian and the groom white English. Nothing wrong with that except that Africans keep different time to the rest of us. At the appointed time of the wedding the three or four people in the congregation were told that the bride was running twenty minutes late. Then, about a minute later, it was announced that she had arrived. She came in accompanied by various relatives and friends, many in traditional Nigerian wedding robes. The bride wore a traditional English wedding dress but seemed unable to walk in it without constantly kicking out the front of it from underneath so she didn't trip herself up.
The groom kept fidgeting about and looking nervously over his shoulder as though he was a prisoner on the run and expected the police to turn up at any minute to arrest him. Or perhaps he was worried someone would stand up and declare an impediment. He managed to get the ring on the brides finger without incident but then she put a ring on his finger and it wasn't until after the vows had been made that the groom cried out in pain and tried to take the ring off. It was at this point that it was realised that the ring was on the wrong finger and, worse, was stuck.
During the singing of the last hymn another contingent of Nigerians arrived, including a flower-girl who was very disgruntled that she had missed the actual wedding. The married couple went to the side of the church to sign the registers and there was a big kerfuffle trying to get the pen to work and then an even bigger kerfuffle which, I discovered afterwards was due to the groom having spelt his surname wrongly. It was only spotted by the rector because the best man, who happened to be the groom's father, also signed as a witness, and spelt his surname differently. Rapid alterations had to be made, which gave just enough time for the final witness to arrive at the very last minute, to be hastily ushered up to the front of the church and to sign the register, despite the fact that she had not actually witnessed the marriage at all!
As they say in Yorkshire - "There's nowt so funny as folk".
The bride was Nigerian and the groom white English. Nothing wrong with that except that Africans keep different time to the rest of us. At the appointed time of the wedding the three or four people in the congregation were told that the bride was running twenty minutes late. Then, about a minute later, it was announced that she had arrived. She came in accompanied by various relatives and friends, many in traditional Nigerian wedding robes. The bride wore a traditional English wedding dress but seemed unable to walk in it without constantly kicking out the front of it from underneath so she didn't trip herself up.
The groom kept fidgeting about and looking nervously over his shoulder as though he was a prisoner on the run and expected the police to turn up at any minute to arrest him. Or perhaps he was worried someone would stand up and declare an impediment. He managed to get the ring on the brides finger without incident but then she put a ring on his finger and it wasn't until after the vows had been made that the groom cried out in pain and tried to take the ring off. It was at this point that it was realised that the ring was on the wrong finger and, worse, was stuck.
During the singing of the last hymn another contingent of Nigerians arrived, including a flower-girl who was very disgruntled that she had missed the actual wedding. The married couple went to the side of the church to sign the registers and there was a big kerfuffle trying to get the pen to work and then an even bigger kerfuffle which, I discovered afterwards was due to the groom having spelt his surname wrongly. It was only spotted by the rector because the best man, who happened to be the groom's father, also signed as a witness, and spelt his surname differently. Rapid alterations had to be made, which gave just enough time for the final witness to arrive at the very last minute, to be hastily ushered up to the front of the church and to sign the register, despite the fact that she had not actually witnessed the marriage at all!
As they say in Yorkshire - "There's nowt so funny as folk".
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