Many of the characteristics of a free society are now in place in China; but there is as yet nothing approaching a real culture of freedom. As I have pointed out before, the numbers directly affected by state oppression are mercifully small. But, as the latest show-trial of veteran dissident Liu Xiaobo demonstrates, the State can still be very nasty when it wants. And the Chinese are well aware of the function of these examples of tyranny; they quote the ancient phrase “killing the monkey to frighten the chickens”. There remains a pervasive culture of fear. They don’t understand our Western confidence that, so long as we keep within clearly defined laws, we can do as we like without fear. The Chinese are permanently haunted by the fear of offending someone important. If they come up against problems in the workplace, they are most reluctant to to raise them with colleagues or management, for fear that someone might mark them down for rocking the boat.
Freedom of speech is vitiated not so much by actual oppression as by private paranoia. When blogging about China, I will often try out ideas on my wife, but I no longer show her my posts before submitting them. I got sick of “Are you sure you ought to say that?” and “They’ll never give you a visa again, you know”. Ultra-cautious is the default setting; no thought is given to the real probability of getting into trouble.
A painful example of this occurred last week. On 9 December I posted a piece about resurgent prostitution in Beijing. I was given the idea by a girl who worked as a waitress in a notorious haunt of the demi-monde. When I told her I was planning to write an article based on our conversation, she was thrilled. As a courtesy, I showed her the text before posting, just in case she was worried. Again, she was very pleased and flattered. So I sent her the URL so she could read it. But when she saw it in cold print, so to speak, on an international website, she panicked. Suddenly it occurred to her that it could cause all sorts of trouble, and she spent two hours berating me by phone and text message. (Well, as a long-serving heterosexual, I’m well aware that any dealings with what is oddly called the “gentler sex” are likely to lead to a handbagging somewhere down the line.) In vain I tried to convince her that the content was perfectly harmless, that my readership among the cadres of the Beijing Public Security Bureau is statistically insignificant, that the Chinese authorities are far too preoccupied with their own people to care what foreigners write in foreign languages on foreign websites. It cut no ice. I do hope that the Chinese will grow out of this paranoia.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Contemporary China: the upside
So, farewell then, Beijing. It’s been fun as usual, but it’s beginning to take on the wearily familiar characteristics of a great economic metropolis: rising prices, overburdened transport infrastructure, and everyone too busy to enjoy life. Might as well have stayed in London, you may think.
The enterprise society, certainly, continues to burgeon, within the tight constraints of a corrupt and sclerotic political system. Maybe one shouldn’t be so surprised. It’s just occurred to me that the rigidity of the political structure here has perhaps contributed more than we think to China’s irrepressible growth. If you grow up in a system where nothing works and nothing can be formally changed, but you still need to get things done, you develop an innovative, and sometimes an unscrupulous, approach to ways and means. China is a society in which one is constantly coming up against the mantra “nothing can be done” – “mei ban fa” is the virtual state motto – but where almost everything can be worked with patience and imagination. There are some lovely stories of unofficial enterprises springing up on the very margins of the law in the seventies, before Deng Xiaoping came along with his black and white cats and conferred official blessing.
And this sclerosis may well be the real foundation of China’s coming economic triumphs. My dear friend Katy, who, despite being quite well-connected, has never bothered with a conventional “job” in her life, and who has just taken seven years out following the birth of her son, is now doing the groundwork for her seventh or eighth business start-up, and she is considerably younger than I am. When one compares that to my contemporaries in the UK, whose idea of the way to prosperity has been to land a “job” in someone else’s organisation, and then spend 40 years sitting around wearing suits, one sees why China is looking like a winner. Maybe the “ghastly old waxworks” (©HRH The Prince of Wales) of the Politburo are China’s best bet for continued economic expansion. Of course, 20 years down the road, when the leaders of society all belong to the spoilt, privileged and over-educated single-child generation, it may all be very different.
The enterprise society, certainly, continues to burgeon, within the tight constraints of a corrupt and sclerotic political system. Maybe one shouldn’t be so surprised. It’s just occurred to me that the rigidity of the political structure here has perhaps contributed more than we think to China’s irrepressible growth. If you grow up in a system where nothing works and nothing can be formally changed, but you still need to get things done, you develop an innovative, and sometimes an unscrupulous, approach to ways and means. China is a society in which one is constantly coming up against the mantra “nothing can be done” – “mei ban fa” is the virtual state motto – but where almost everything can be worked with patience and imagination. There are some lovely stories of unofficial enterprises springing up on the very margins of the law in the seventies, before Deng Xiaoping came along with his black and white cats and conferred official blessing.
And this sclerosis may well be the real foundation of China’s coming economic triumphs. My dear friend Katy, who, despite being quite well-connected, has never bothered with a conventional “job” in her life, and who has just taken seven years out following the birth of her son, is now doing the groundwork for her seventh or eighth business start-up, and she is considerably younger than I am. When one compares that to my contemporaries in the UK, whose idea of the way to prosperity has been to land a “job” in someone else’s organisation, and then spend 40 years sitting around wearing suits, one sees why China is looking like a winner. Maybe the “ghastly old waxworks” (©HRH The Prince of Wales) of the Politburo are China’s best bet for continued economic expansion. Of course, 20 years down the road, when the leaders of society all belong to the spoilt, privileged and over-educated single-child generation, it may all be very different.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
China: the demi-monde flourishes
I got talking the other day to a young lady who spoke the most admirably fluent English. I normally insist on speaking Chinese to people here in Beijing – if only to show off – but she insisted harder. She assured me that she was entirely self-taught.
Somehow she seemed reluctant to mention what she did for a living. She began with a long spiel about hailing from a small village in Shanxi province, an unprepossessing dustbowl in what might be called the Chinese mid-West. She had already obtained a degree or diploma in sociology, her chief interest, and now, aged 23, was saving up for further study in business or economics, as people from poor families have to sacrifice their interests to their futures. In the meantime she had to make some money, so…
No, not quite what you’re thinking. She works as a waitress in Beijing’s best-known knocking-shop, a set-up that has existed at one location or another for 20 years. (A very pretty girl, she is not herself for sale.) This place presumably has a watertight arrangement with Jingcha Plod, or more likely his bosses. It’s not strictly a brothel, as nothing happens on the premises, but girls are allowed to come there (subject to permission from the plods on the door, who don’t stop any males) to tout for business. There’s a bar, and a dance floor, and goodish music, and it’s perfectly possibly to spend an enjoyable and innocent evening there, if you like a slightly sleazy backdrop. (And I do.)
The Beijing demi-monde, like everything else here, changes its form constantly. Right now the Mongolians are back in town. For a few years now, Beijing has been a lucrative target for the enterprising and broad-minded beauties of Ulan Bator. The Mongolian ethnic type is well suited to the business, with Oriental looks on generous quasi-Russian figures.
But last time I was here there were none in sight; the visa tap had been turned off. Now it is dripping again; the girls can have two-week visas, whereas it used to be three months. (Trying to curtail prostitution is the world’s second oldest profession, and one is reminded of the little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the dyke.) The stories are all the same; no work, large families, fatherless babies, feckless male relatives.
Whether or not one regards the work itself as unpleasant, the attendant circumstances certainly have been. The girls are foreigners working illegally, and thus have no rights. A Mongolian girl I knew a few years back told me that she had known four colleagues who died in Beijing; two drunken accidents, one murdered by a client, one picked up in a police round-up and made to stand in waist-deep cold water for hours, from which she picked up a fatal infection.
“May I ask you a personal question?” my young friend asked as we finished our caramel lattes. “What do you think of the business that goes on in our bar?” I told her what I think and always have; that this is something that has always gone on and always will; that, if the poor are to be always with us, then so will prostitution. I am glad to say that she agreed wholeheartedly.
Somehow she seemed reluctant to mention what she did for a living. She began with a long spiel about hailing from a small village in Shanxi province, an unprepossessing dustbowl in what might be called the Chinese mid-West. She had already obtained a degree or diploma in sociology, her chief interest, and now, aged 23, was saving up for further study in business or economics, as people from poor families have to sacrifice their interests to their futures. In the meantime she had to make some money, so…
No, not quite what you’re thinking. She works as a waitress in Beijing’s best-known knocking-shop, a set-up that has existed at one location or another for 20 years. (A very pretty girl, she is not herself for sale.) This place presumably has a watertight arrangement with Jingcha Plod, or more likely his bosses. It’s not strictly a brothel, as nothing happens on the premises, but girls are allowed to come there (subject to permission from the plods on the door, who don’t stop any males) to tout for business. There’s a bar, and a dance floor, and goodish music, and it’s perfectly possibly to spend an enjoyable and innocent evening there, if you like a slightly sleazy backdrop. (And I do.)
The Beijing demi-monde, like everything else here, changes its form constantly. Right now the Mongolians are back in town. For a few years now, Beijing has been a lucrative target for the enterprising and broad-minded beauties of Ulan Bator. The Mongolian ethnic type is well suited to the business, with Oriental looks on generous quasi-Russian figures.
But last time I was here there were none in sight; the visa tap had been turned off. Now it is dripping again; the girls can have two-week visas, whereas it used to be three months. (Trying to curtail prostitution is the world’s second oldest profession, and one is reminded of the little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the dyke.) The stories are all the same; no work, large families, fatherless babies, feckless male relatives.
Whether or not one regards the work itself as unpleasant, the attendant circumstances certainly have been. The girls are foreigners working illegally, and thus have no rights. A Mongolian girl I knew a few years back told me that she had known four colleagues who died in Beijing; two drunken accidents, one murdered by a client, one picked up in a police round-up and made to stand in waist-deep cold water for hours, from which she picked up a fatal infection.
“May I ask you a personal question?” my young friend asked as we finished our caramel lattes. “What do you think of the business that goes on in our bar?” I told her what I think and always have; that this is something that has always gone on and always will; that, if the poor are to be always with us, then so will prostitution. I am glad to say that she agreed wholeheartedly.
Monday, 7 December 2009
BBC newsreader Susan Osman will do well in China as a token 'big-nose'
I was interested to hear that Susan Osman, a newsreader with the BBC, has got fed up with Britain’s incorrigible ageism and is now planning to seek a new career in China. As a chap of a certain age who is also “between careers”, I wish her well. But I wonder whether her hopes may not be misplaced. She may indeed do well here; it’s quite a land of opportunity these days. But if so, she is quite likely to owe part of her success to the tokenism so heartily disapproved of in the West. Not as a token oldie, of course; the Politburo are on telly all the time and they make Gordon Brown look like a carefree teenager. Nor as a token woman; I think it could be maintained that, politics apart, China leads the world on equal opportunities in the workplace. No – she’ll always be in demand as a token big-nose. (I wish to make it clear that I have never knowingly seen Ms Osman and intend no comment on her personal appearance – that’s just what the Chinese call us in their less polite moods.)
She may indeed find China less ageist than Britain, though I’m not sure. Aside from the Party, civil society is very youthful. The over-fifties grew up entirely under the great Chairman, and few of them have found themselves able to adjust to the incredibly swift changes which followed his demise. The old receive respect and an outward show of deference, but they’re not running the show any more. Most of my friends in their thirties and forties are running their parents’ lives as well as their own.
And, ageist or not, they’re certainly lookist. Remember the little girl who sang at the Olympic opening ceremony? Her voice was beautiful, but it was decided that her teeth were a mess (hardly surprising at age seven), so she had to sing off-stage while a more conventionally pretty girl lip-synched. This elicited outrage in the West, which my wife failed to understand; in China, she said, this was perfectly normal behaviour. Maybe this won’t be a problem for Ms Osman. In any case Chinese are notoriously incapable of guessing the ages of Westerners. For genetic reasons my hair went white in my early thirties; but even I was not prepared for an old josser in the far north-east estimating my age at 75 when in fact it was just under half that. And in any case tokenism will come to Ms Osman’s rescue; foreigners are known to be a law unto themselves, and nothing we do surprises the Chinese.
I wish Ms Osman every success, but she mustn’t complain if she finds herself rather short of colleagues of her own age. In China, as in Britain, public employees (which most of the media are) retire five years earlier than everyone else. The normal retirement age is 60 for men and 55 for women. Therefore, in the public sector, women usually retire at 50 (Ms Osman is 51). As one who retired with great glee at 46, I think this is splendid. Others may find it a touch, well, ageist.
So if Ms Osman finds herself treated with great deference, her every word treasured as a gem of immemorial wisdom, but is always politely circumvented when executive decisions are being made, I hope she won’t be offended.
She may indeed find China less ageist than Britain, though I’m not sure. Aside from the Party, civil society is very youthful. The over-fifties grew up entirely under the great Chairman, and few of them have found themselves able to adjust to the incredibly swift changes which followed his demise. The old receive respect and an outward show of deference, but they’re not running the show any more. Most of my friends in their thirties and forties are running their parents’ lives as well as their own.
And, ageist or not, they’re certainly lookist. Remember the little girl who sang at the Olympic opening ceremony? Her voice was beautiful, but it was decided that her teeth were a mess (hardly surprising at age seven), so she had to sing off-stage while a more conventionally pretty girl lip-synched. This elicited outrage in the West, which my wife failed to understand; in China, she said, this was perfectly normal behaviour. Maybe this won’t be a problem for Ms Osman. In any case Chinese are notoriously incapable of guessing the ages of Westerners. For genetic reasons my hair went white in my early thirties; but even I was not prepared for an old josser in the far north-east estimating my age at 75 when in fact it was just under half that. And in any case tokenism will come to Ms Osman’s rescue; foreigners are known to be a law unto themselves, and nothing we do surprises the Chinese.
I wish Ms Osman every success, but she mustn’t complain if she finds herself rather short of colleagues of her own age. In China, as in Britain, public employees (which most of the media are) retire five years earlier than everyone else. The normal retirement age is 60 for men and 55 for women. Therefore, in the public sector, women usually retire at 50 (Ms Osman is 51). As one who retired with great glee at 46, I think this is splendid. Others may find it a touch, well, ageist.
So if Ms Osman finds herself treated with great deference, her every word treasured as a gem of immemorial wisdom, but is always politely circumvented when executive decisions are being made, I hope she won’t be offended.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
The atrocious taxi-drivers of Beijing. 'Tiananmen Square? Never 'eard of it, guv'
I normally like taxi drivers. Some of my best friends, etc. But Beijing is a new and terrible world.
Driving a taxi here has never enjoyed a lot of cachet. Back in the 1980s, driving was itself considered an honourable profession; there was no such thing as a private car, and thus the only driving licences belonged to those who did it for a living. Driving taxis was what you did when you had more or less fallen through the cracks of the official system, just as many civilian aircraft were piloted by Air Force throwouts, with predictable results. The cars were not exactly of the highest quality; the cheapest and most popular were cuboid yellow vans, built out of the waste material at the Harbin No 1 Aircraft Factory, and known as “bread wagons”. These were driven by grizzled, chain-smoking provincials, dispensing the usual cabbies’ salty wisdom in impenetrable accents.
Qualifications have never been hard to obtain. Ten years ago – I don’t know how much has changed since, but I suspect not a lot – the Chinese driving test consisted of driving to and fro across a piece of waste ground, usually in groups of eight or ten, so one didn’t have a lot of personal scope to disqualify oneself. The alternative method of obtaining a licence was a small brown envelope, possibly accompanied by a bottle of Black Label, handed to the director of the driving school. Either way, not exactly a recipe for high standards. And there is certainly no established procedure for would-be cab-drivers comparable to our “doing the knowledge”. In fact, I’ve always fantasised about Beijing drivers sitting an exam called “doing the ignorance:
“Do you know the way to Tiananmen Square?”
“Never ‘eard of it, guv.”
“Main Railway Station?”
“Isn’t that sort of out West somewhere?” (It isn’t.)
“Forbidden City?”
“Not a clue, guv. Is that one of those new developments that’ve just gone up?”
On Saturday night I had dinner with friends in the far west of town. I left early enough to get the last tube home, as the line closes around 11 p.m. Well, so I thought. The station was a mile or so away, so I took a cab. I was a bit bemused at the way he was taking me, but I thought (why?) he presumably knew what was what. Finally, after ten minutes or so, he stopped the car and told me he hadn’t the faintest idea where the station was, and that I’d better find someone else. (An underground station a mile away from his rank!) I didn’t have a clue where I was either, except that it seemed a distinctly unprepossessing place to pick up taxis: what I did know what that I had now indisputably missed the last tube.
And there are no greater experts on missing the right exit, suddenly finding they can’t turn left when intended, getting the one-way system wrong, etc etc. They will also make a bee-line for any Gordian traffic snarl-up (this isn’t hard) and embroil you in it for hours. Take a good book, because you won’t be going ahywhere any time soon. But don’t get too engrossed, because you’ll have to be alert when the traffic clears to ensure you don’t end up in Mongolia. If there is one area in which a great big Maoist purge is called for…
Driving a taxi here has never enjoyed a lot of cachet. Back in the 1980s, driving was itself considered an honourable profession; there was no such thing as a private car, and thus the only driving licences belonged to those who did it for a living. Driving taxis was what you did when you had more or less fallen through the cracks of the official system, just as many civilian aircraft were piloted by Air Force throwouts, with predictable results. The cars were not exactly of the highest quality; the cheapest and most popular were cuboid yellow vans, built out of the waste material at the Harbin No 1 Aircraft Factory, and known as “bread wagons”. These were driven by grizzled, chain-smoking provincials, dispensing the usual cabbies’ salty wisdom in impenetrable accents.
Qualifications have never been hard to obtain. Ten years ago – I don’t know how much has changed since, but I suspect not a lot – the Chinese driving test consisted of driving to and fro across a piece of waste ground, usually in groups of eight or ten, so one didn’t have a lot of personal scope to disqualify oneself. The alternative method of obtaining a licence was a small brown envelope, possibly accompanied by a bottle of Black Label, handed to the director of the driving school. Either way, not exactly a recipe for high standards. And there is certainly no established procedure for would-be cab-drivers comparable to our “doing the knowledge”. In fact, I’ve always fantasised about Beijing drivers sitting an exam called “doing the ignorance:
“Do you know the way to Tiananmen Square?”
“Never ‘eard of it, guv.”
“Main Railway Station?”
“Isn’t that sort of out West somewhere?” (It isn’t.)
“Forbidden City?”
“Not a clue, guv. Is that one of those new developments that’ve just gone up?”
On Saturday night I had dinner with friends in the far west of town. I left early enough to get the last tube home, as the line closes around 11 p.m. Well, so I thought. The station was a mile or so away, so I took a cab. I was a bit bemused at the way he was taking me, but I thought (why?) he presumably knew what was what. Finally, after ten minutes or so, he stopped the car and told me he hadn’t the faintest idea where the station was, and that I’d better find someone else. (An underground station a mile away from his rank!) I didn’t have a clue where I was either, except that it seemed a distinctly unprepossessing place to pick up taxis: what I did know what that I had now indisputably missed the last tube.
And there are no greater experts on missing the right exit, suddenly finding they can’t turn left when intended, getting the one-way system wrong, etc etc. They will also make a bee-line for any Gordian traffic snarl-up (this isn’t hard) and embroil you in it for hours. Take a good book, because you won’t be going ahywhere any time soon. But don’t get too engrossed, because you’ll have to be alert when the traffic clears to ensure you don’t end up in Mongolia. If there is one area in which a great big Maoist purge is called for…
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
The Chinese are betting on infrastructure as Beijing switches to the 'Shanghai model'
There may be nine million bicycles in Beijing, as the song assures us; personally, I think the lady is working with out-of-date figures, as the old velocipede is nowhere near as ubiquitous as formerly. What is certainly true is that there are now four million cars, which presents rather more of a problem.
The road-building programme has been quite impressive – six concentric ring roads as against three in 1989 – but it is nowhere near keeping pace with the growth in traffic volumes. Accordingly, the eight-lane boulevards criss-crossing the city resemble faintly undulating car parks during the two-hour morning rush hour, the three-hour afternoon rush hour, and most of the weekend. I rather suspect that many people are driving their cars as a status symbol – bicycles are so Third World, and public transport so proletarian – rather than because the car gets them to their destination more quickly, because it almost certainly doesn’t.
Fortunately, the city fathers have got something right. Stimulated by the approach of last year’s Olympics, they put in place a huge extension programme for the Beijing Underground. Ten years ago there were only two lines, which meant that for most parts of the city the tube wasn’t much help. Now there are half a dozen, giving pretty decent coverage all over the city and out to the burgeoning suburbs. And it’s a delight to use, if you can stand the crowding; lovely clean stations with working escalators, trains running like clockwork at proper intervals, no breakdowns, functioning doors and ticket machines – all the advantages of a system which is two or three years old instead of 150. And a ticket to anywhere on the system costs 18p. Public transport looks like coming into its own just before the roads seize up altogether.
The Chinese are betting heavily on infrastructure as the foundation for long-term economic growth. This follows an intense debate within the post-Mao leadership about the way forward. The father of reform, Deng Xiaoping, set up the “Guangdong model”, based on the special economic zones on the border with Hong Kong. Broadly speaking, it consisted of removing government interference and government controls, giving the private sector its head, and letting infrastructure look after itself – if private industry needed it, private industry could buy it. Deng’s death left the leadership to Jiang Zemin and his friends, most of whom hailed from around Shanghai. The “Shanghai model” was different; much more government-influenced, much more planned and controlled, grounded on the provision of an infrastructure on which industry could thrive. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the backing for the development of this region came from Singapore.
Now Beijing, which as the political capital was always more staid than swashbuckling Shanghai, has gone for an extreme version of the Shanghai model. It will be interesting to see how well it prospers. It couldn’t, of course, be more different to the principles by which the USA operates; as the two giants of the 21st century face up to one another, we will see how the two systems compare.
The road-building programme has been quite impressive – six concentric ring roads as against three in 1989 – but it is nowhere near keeping pace with the growth in traffic volumes. Accordingly, the eight-lane boulevards criss-crossing the city resemble faintly undulating car parks during the two-hour morning rush hour, the three-hour afternoon rush hour, and most of the weekend. I rather suspect that many people are driving their cars as a status symbol – bicycles are so Third World, and public transport so proletarian – rather than because the car gets them to their destination more quickly, because it almost certainly doesn’t.
Fortunately, the city fathers have got something right. Stimulated by the approach of last year’s Olympics, they put in place a huge extension programme for the Beijing Underground. Ten years ago there were only two lines, which meant that for most parts of the city the tube wasn’t much help. Now there are half a dozen, giving pretty decent coverage all over the city and out to the burgeoning suburbs. And it’s a delight to use, if you can stand the crowding; lovely clean stations with working escalators, trains running like clockwork at proper intervals, no breakdowns, functioning doors and ticket machines – all the advantages of a system which is two or three years old instead of 150. And a ticket to anywhere on the system costs 18p. Public transport looks like coming into its own just before the roads seize up altogether.
The Chinese are betting heavily on infrastructure as the foundation for long-term economic growth. This follows an intense debate within the post-Mao leadership about the way forward. The father of reform, Deng Xiaoping, set up the “Guangdong model”, based on the special economic zones on the border with Hong Kong. Broadly speaking, it consisted of removing government interference and government controls, giving the private sector its head, and letting infrastructure look after itself – if private industry needed it, private industry could buy it. Deng’s death left the leadership to Jiang Zemin and his friends, most of whom hailed from around Shanghai. The “Shanghai model” was different; much more government-influenced, much more planned and controlled, grounded on the provision of an infrastructure on which industry could thrive. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the backing for the development of this region came from Singapore.
Now Beijing, which as the political capital was always more staid than swashbuckling Shanghai, has gone for an extreme version of the Shanghai model. It will be interesting to see how well it prospers. It couldn’t, of course, be more different to the principles by which the USA operates; as the two giants of the 21st century face up to one another, we will see how the two systems compare.
Banks are fuelling a massive property boom in Beijing, the city the credit crunch forgot
Back in Beijing. The swish new airport: the traditional small idiosyncrasies. As well as filling out a landing card, you also have to sign a declaration that you have no infectious diseases, and hand it to an official who is wearing a face mask, just in case you are lying. Then the usual pig’s breakfast at baggage reclaim; this isn’t specific to China, it’s just that these days a two-stage flight gives you a greater than 50 per cent chance of having your baggage mislaid.
I park myself in a part of town where 20 years ago there was nothing but a socking great power station, but where they are now building the latest spiffy new business and shopping area. The new mall is full of Prada, Gucci, Ferragamo, the whole nine yards. Not many actual customers yet, though; just a lot of young female window shoppers, and the only place doing business is Starbucks. But it’s presumed that they will come. There’s a new Marriott and a new Ritz-Carlton too, although I have no information as to occupancy rates.
This city is awash on a tsunami of government money. I don’t think J M Keynes ever envisaged anything on this scale. China is the land the credit crunch forgot. The banks have gone along with the Zeitgeist and are fuelling, with easy lending, the most humungous property boom. I had guessed that the property market would keep rising until the Olympics and then run out of steam. Shows how much I know. Speculators have been making 600-800 per cent profits in the last 5-7 years. Prices are not quite Central London, but they’re certainly the better parts of Zone 2.
However, at the micro level things are not quite keeping up. Arriving at my (perfectly nice) hotel, I find the door-key doesn’t work, and they come back with four or five new ones, preventing me from having a much-needed shower and kip, and it takes an hour and a half to sort it out. Always the smiles, the unfailing politeness; always the complete inability to spot what needs to be done and to Do It.
One sign of modernisation, though: as well as the usual minibar stuff, the minibar offers condoms, both normal and vibrating (no, don’t ask me) and performance-enhancing oils and creams for men and women respectively. (This was a double room; I’ve no idea if the same is on offer in a single.) But it’s interesting that they’ve been forced to admit that sex actually exists, and that a billion and a half people weren’t found under gooseberry bushes. A step forward – or possibly not?
I park myself in a part of town where 20 years ago there was nothing but a socking great power station, but where they are now building the latest spiffy new business and shopping area. The new mall is full of Prada, Gucci, Ferragamo, the whole nine yards. Not many actual customers yet, though; just a lot of young female window shoppers, and the only place doing business is Starbucks. But it’s presumed that they will come. There’s a new Marriott and a new Ritz-Carlton too, although I have no information as to occupancy rates.
This city is awash on a tsunami of government money. I don’t think J M Keynes ever envisaged anything on this scale. China is the land the credit crunch forgot. The banks have gone along with the Zeitgeist and are fuelling, with easy lending, the most humungous property boom. I had guessed that the property market would keep rising until the Olympics and then run out of steam. Shows how much I know. Speculators have been making 600-800 per cent profits in the last 5-7 years. Prices are not quite Central London, but they’re certainly the better parts of Zone 2.
However, at the micro level things are not quite keeping up. Arriving at my (perfectly nice) hotel, I find the door-key doesn’t work, and they come back with four or five new ones, preventing me from having a much-needed shower and kip, and it takes an hour and a half to sort it out. Always the smiles, the unfailing politeness; always the complete inability to spot what needs to be done and to Do It.
One sign of modernisation, though: as well as the usual minibar stuff, the minibar offers condoms, both normal and vibrating (no, don’t ask me) and performance-enhancing oils and creams for men and women respectively. (This was a double room; I’ve no idea if the same is on offer in a single.) But it’s interesting that they’ve been forced to admit that sex actually exists, and that a billion and a half people weren’t found under gooseberry bushes. A step forward – or possibly not?
Monday, 23 November 2009
Let's face it: Russia is dying
The BBC reports that Mr Bill Browder, head of a company called Hermitage Capital and once the largest foreign investor in Russia, has now described that large and empty country as “essentially a criminal state”. One’s first reaction is that Mr Browder, who has had far better opportunities for observation than most of us, has taken rather a long time to realise this. But then none of us has been particularly quick off the mark in grasping what has been right in front of our noses for years. Their representatives are still polluting the G8, the Council of Europe and other supposedly civilised institutions. We still pretend politely to take Mr Vladimir Putin seriously.
But I think we can accept Mr Browder’s solidly grounded appraisal as the definitive word on Russia. On the world stage it is the equivalent of the shaven-headed and tattooed drunk who waylays you in incomprehensibly threatening terms in the centre of Wigan at two on a Saturday morning. It constitutes a permanent threat to its neighbours. Its rampant gangsterism is actually worse than totalitarianism: whereas China’s oppression of the minorities in its border areas is at least motivated by trying to preserve order, Russia prefers to allow gangster enclaves to proliferate all around its borders (Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Transdnistria, arguably Kaliningrad). The Soviet Union used to be described, most aptly, as “Upper Volta with rockets”. Progress of a sort has been made, and modern Russia might best be described as Moss Side with rockets.
And then they come over here, buying up nice parts of London and football clubs. Yes, they bring lots of money in, but we try not to think too hard about how some of that money was obtained. (To be fair, as Mr Browder has now ascertained, it is difficult to make money honestly in Russia, even with the best will in the world.)
But can one simply give up on such a large and powerful country? The answer is that we may have to. It’s dying. The population is falling steadily; male life expectancy is already well below 60 (and considerably lower than that for anyone getting on the wrong side of the regime). The place is even more sodden with vodka than a British town centre on a Saturday morning. The strategic balance which existed during the Cold War will soon be restored by the rise of China (which will have annexed Siberia by 2050). I mentioned once that my children looked at me blankly when I mentioned a country called East Germany: their grandchildren may be equally fogged by the mention of Russia.
OK, some will find this “offensive”, but don’t be too quick to start throwing the word “racist” around. It’s nothing to do with race. It’s simply that what happened there between 1917 and 1991 has poisoned an entire nation to death, as if with polonium-210. Regard for human life and dignity was permanently destroyed by Stalin et al. For a while it looked like the old traditions of Russia, notably those of the Orthodox Church, might provide a focus for a genuine revival. But the wound is clearly too deep; the Church, which was always that way inclined, has largely thrown in its lot with thuggish nationalism.
It’s sad. Dostoyevsky will always be among my top half-dozen writers; Solzhenitsyn and Shostakovich made admirable efforts to keep the flag flying through the 20th. But it’s gone. No point in denial. A terminal case. Let’s just hope its demise isn’t too painful for the rest of us.
But I think we can accept Mr Browder’s solidly grounded appraisal as the definitive word on Russia. On the world stage it is the equivalent of the shaven-headed and tattooed drunk who waylays you in incomprehensibly threatening terms in the centre of Wigan at two on a Saturday morning. It constitutes a permanent threat to its neighbours. Its rampant gangsterism is actually worse than totalitarianism: whereas China’s oppression of the minorities in its border areas is at least motivated by trying to preserve order, Russia prefers to allow gangster enclaves to proliferate all around its borders (Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Transdnistria, arguably Kaliningrad). The Soviet Union used to be described, most aptly, as “Upper Volta with rockets”. Progress of a sort has been made, and modern Russia might best be described as Moss Side with rockets.
And then they come over here, buying up nice parts of London and football clubs. Yes, they bring lots of money in, but we try not to think too hard about how some of that money was obtained. (To be fair, as Mr Browder has now ascertained, it is difficult to make money honestly in Russia, even with the best will in the world.)
But can one simply give up on such a large and powerful country? The answer is that we may have to. It’s dying. The population is falling steadily; male life expectancy is already well below 60 (and considerably lower than that for anyone getting on the wrong side of the regime). The place is even more sodden with vodka than a British town centre on a Saturday morning. The strategic balance which existed during the Cold War will soon be restored by the rise of China (which will have annexed Siberia by 2050). I mentioned once that my children looked at me blankly when I mentioned a country called East Germany: their grandchildren may be equally fogged by the mention of Russia.
OK, some will find this “offensive”, but don’t be too quick to start throwing the word “racist” around. It’s nothing to do with race. It’s simply that what happened there between 1917 and 1991 has poisoned an entire nation to death, as if with polonium-210. Regard for human life and dignity was permanently destroyed by Stalin et al. For a while it looked like the old traditions of Russia, notably those of the Orthodox Church, might provide a focus for a genuine revival. But the wound is clearly too deep; the Church, which was always that way inclined, has largely thrown in its lot with thuggish nationalism.
It’s sad. Dostoyevsky will always be among my top half-dozen writers; Solzhenitsyn and Shostakovich made admirable efforts to keep the flag flying through the 20th. But it’s gone. No point in denial. A terminal case. Let’s just hope its demise isn’t too painful for the rest of us.
End of free banking? What is WRONG with these people?
So we’re now told, by the Sunday Express, no less, that the banks are planning to charge us all for taking our own money out of cashpoints. (Yes, I know, I just happened to pass it in the supermarket.) Apparently the FSA are about to rule on the legitimacy of the arbitrary charges hitherto levied by the banks. The banks presumably thought they’d get their threat in first, to warn the FSA against doing the right thing.
Where do these people think they get off, saying that if the courts rule one rip-off illegal then they’ll have to introduce another one to make up the shortfall? The answer can only be that they are living on a very distant planet indeed. Which of course they are; they keep telling us that if they are forced by taxes or regulation to live on the same planet as the rest of us they will take their ball and go off to Dubai or the Caymans or somewhere.
And don’t tell me they’ve got some absolute duty to keep their profits sky-high. I don’t believe bank profits are ever wholly legitimate. All the money they deal with is other people’s, and far too much of it is sticking to their fingers already. All through the crisis of the last two years they have behaved with the smug assurance of those who know they have the rest of us over a barrel.
It is a fundamental principle in a free market society that you only pay for what you freely choose. If someone is asked to pay for a good or a service they must have the option of refusing to do so and going without. And banking is not optional. It is certainly compulsory for every employed person. During an earlier acute phase of my bankophobia I wrote a formal memo to the payroll office at my place of work asking for my salary to be paid to me in cash in a brown envelope. This was purely in order to demonstrate that they would never allow this; I can’t say that I was ever really enthused by the idea of yomping round to electricity, water and phone companies with a fistful of tenners. Therefore government must ensure that there is at least one bank where they don’t charge you to get your hands on your own money. (It already owns a couple – where’s the problem? Or it could be based on a revitalised Post Office.)
Meanwhile, what are we going to do about a financial ruling caste who just don’t “get it”, and to an extent far beyond that of our much-reviled MPs? We seem to have exhausted all possibilities of moral suasion and all legal and regulatory avenues of restraint. It may be getting towards the time for direct action. Perhaps we should think of November 2009 as November 1788. Where I live in agricultural Lancashire there are plenty of old farm carts which would make excellent tumbrils, and I have always intended to learn to knit.
Where do these people think they get off, saying that if the courts rule one rip-off illegal then they’ll have to introduce another one to make up the shortfall? The answer can only be that they are living on a very distant planet indeed. Which of course they are; they keep telling us that if they are forced by taxes or regulation to live on the same planet as the rest of us they will take their ball and go off to Dubai or the Caymans or somewhere.
And don’t tell me they’ve got some absolute duty to keep their profits sky-high. I don’t believe bank profits are ever wholly legitimate. All the money they deal with is other people’s, and far too much of it is sticking to their fingers already. All through the crisis of the last two years they have behaved with the smug assurance of those who know they have the rest of us over a barrel.
It is a fundamental principle in a free market society that you only pay for what you freely choose. If someone is asked to pay for a good or a service they must have the option of refusing to do so and going without. And banking is not optional. It is certainly compulsory for every employed person. During an earlier acute phase of my bankophobia I wrote a formal memo to the payroll office at my place of work asking for my salary to be paid to me in cash in a brown envelope. This was purely in order to demonstrate that they would never allow this; I can’t say that I was ever really enthused by the idea of yomping round to electricity, water and phone companies with a fistful of tenners. Therefore government must ensure that there is at least one bank where they don’t charge you to get your hands on your own money. (It already owns a couple – where’s the problem? Or it could be based on a revitalised Post Office.)
Meanwhile, what are we going to do about a financial ruling caste who just don’t “get it”, and to an extent far beyond that of our much-reviled MPs? We seem to have exhausted all possibilities of moral suasion and all legal and regulatory avenues of restraint. It may be getting towards the time for direct action. Perhaps we should think of November 2009 as November 1788. Where I live in agricultural Lancashire there are plenty of old farm carts which would make excellent tumbrils, and I have always intended to learn to knit.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Obama in China: his hosts are still grateful for the snub to the Dalai Lama
So President Obama is in China for the first time. (First time as President that is – no idea whether he may have spent time gallivanting around there in his youth.) In the international fixture calendar, this ought to be the Big One: the Liverpool-Manchester United of summitry. But I think it’s unlikely that we’ll need to hold the front page this time.
That’s partly for good reasons. There do not appear to be any major conflicts threatening to boil over. Nowhere in the world are the giants of the 20th and 21st centuries respectively facing each other down like boxers at the weigh-in. China does not feel the need, as Russia often does, to act all truculent so as not to be ignored. They know no one’s going to ignore them.
Of course the Chinese never lose the opportunity to score a point. The opening Foreign Ministry communiqué (issued by Mr Qin Gang, an old mate of mine and probably the only government spokesman in the world who has also umpired at Wimbledon) focussed, on, of all things, Obama’s much-appreciated refusal to meet the Dalai Lama prior to visiting China. As a black president, said Mr Qin, Obama was in a better position than his predecessors to appreciate the fight against slavery, which is what the Chinese were conducting when they overran Tibet in the fifties. (Can’t you just see the Dalai bestriding the old plantation with his assortment of whips?) Obama was also reminded of Abraham Lincoln, whose concern for the unity of his country is now matched by that of President Hu Jintao. So there we have it: main item of concern a minor squabble in which the US has already made the necessary concession. Advantage People’s Republic of China.
This is not to say that the meeting room in the Zhongnanhai Party Complex does not contain the odd large grey pachyderm. As I mentioned in my post of 3rd August, the economic issues between the two giants are deep-seated, and they constitute a total stand-off: the Chinese are not going to take the risk of freely floating their currency just to please Uncle Barack, and the US still owes China two trillion big ones and isn’t going to be wiping out the debt any time soon. And if there is a real prospect of agreement between the two major climate change players in advance of the Copenhagen summit, they’ve certainly done a good job of preserving secrecy on the matter.
It’ll certainly do Obama no harm to get a handle on how China works, and to ensure that the mood music is good (which is what he does best). But I imagine they’ll have been scraping the barrel for anything of substance to put in the final communiqué. Still, better jaw-jaw than war-war, as the man said.
That’s partly for good reasons. There do not appear to be any major conflicts threatening to boil over. Nowhere in the world are the giants of the 20th and 21st centuries respectively facing each other down like boxers at the weigh-in. China does not feel the need, as Russia often does, to act all truculent so as not to be ignored. They know no one’s going to ignore them.
Of course the Chinese never lose the opportunity to score a point. The opening Foreign Ministry communiqué (issued by Mr Qin Gang, an old mate of mine and probably the only government spokesman in the world who has also umpired at Wimbledon) focussed, on, of all things, Obama’s much-appreciated refusal to meet the Dalai Lama prior to visiting China. As a black president, said Mr Qin, Obama was in a better position than his predecessors to appreciate the fight against slavery, which is what the Chinese were conducting when they overran Tibet in the fifties. (Can’t you just see the Dalai bestriding the old plantation with his assortment of whips?) Obama was also reminded of Abraham Lincoln, whose concern for the unity of his country is now matched by that of President Hu Jintao. So there we have it: main item of concern a minor squabble in which the US has already made the necessary concession. Advantage People’s Republic of China.
This is not to say that the meeting room in the Zhongnanhai Party Complex does not contain the odd large grey pachyderm. As I mentioned in my post of 3rd August, the economic issues between the two giants are deep-seated, and they constitute a total stand-off: the Chinese are not going to take the risk of freely floating their currency just to please Uncle Barack, and the US still owes China two trillion big ones and isn’t going to be wiping out the debt any time soon. And if there is a real prospect of agreement between the two major climate change players in advance of the Copenhagen summit, they’ve certainly done a good job of preserving secrecy on the matter.
It’ll certainly do Obama no harm to get a handle on how China works, and to ensure that the mood music is good (which is what he does best). But I imagine they’ll have been scraping the barrel for anything of substance to put in the final communiqué. Still, better jaw-jaw than war-war, as the man said.
Friday, 13 November 2009
How the Civil Service sabotages the campaign against forced marriages
I heard something astonishing the other day. I’m not easily astonished, and still less by the vagaries and abysmal stupidities of the Civil Service in which I spent 20 years of my life. But this one fair took my breath away. I’m assured it’s true, and my knowledge of the bovine inflexibility of the bureaucratic mind does not incline me to doubt it.
As we know, there is a problem in this country regarding forced marriages. Some families, generally originating from the Indian subcontinent, attempt to remove their children, usually daughters, from the UK in order to marry them off to someone from their country of origin. Our government, laudably, takes this problem seriously, and has established a unit in the Home Office dedicated to rescuing these unfortunate girls and bringing them back to the UK.
The sensational news I heard was that these girls are expected to pay for their own flights home. And, if they do not have the money, they can be given a loan to buy their ticket, but they must surrender their passports until it is repaid in full, thus preventing them from leaving the country in which they are in danger. This demand is made in the name of consistency, as all other Brits needing help with repatriation are treated the same way.
Now, I have no quarrel with the principle of self-funded repatriation. If you get into trouble in a foreign country, you should not expect HMG to pick up the tab for bailing you out. Embassies and consulates are not made of money, and, besides, it creates a moral hazard if cock-ups are allowed to be cost-free.
But can’t these people see that forced marriages are an entirely different case from the tourist who had his ticket nicked when he was plastered? The moral hazard argument falls away, because the girls did not choose to put themselves in such a position. And the demand for money creates far more difficulties for these girls than it would for tourists. Most tourists can drum up money from somewhere, whereas if you are going to kidnap your daughter and marry her off abroad, the first thing you do is make sure she doesn’t have access to the price of an air ticket home. And, if the tourist has no money and needs to borrow some, who is usually the first port of call? His family. Get the point?
The reality, in most cases, is that the girl will have no one to turn to for money; even friends from outside the family may let her down for cultural reasons. So, with no way out in sight, she may see no alternative to going back to the family and submitting to their wishes. What sort of concrete-headed zombie can’t see this?
There remains the argument, mentioned above, that the Government is not made of money. But let’s look at the figures involved: the Forced Marriages Unit repatriates about 300 young girls per year. These days you can fly almost anywhere in the world for £500. So the government stands to save £150,000 (probably rather less) by this measure. The total cost of the Forced Marriages Unit, with its overseas network, must run into several millions, money well spent in my view. But talk about spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar!
I once got carpeted for calling one section of the Foreign Office, in writing, “a bunch of brainless jobsworths”. I took my lumps and made my apologies with good grace, as no useful purpose can be served by addressing colleagues in that way. But does anyone really believe that the Civil Service is not full of brainless jobsworths? Where do they get them from? And don’t get me started on the MoD’s decision to take legal action to reclaim compensation from two seriously injured soldiers, undoubtedly at a cost greater than the sum being reclaimed…
As we know, there is a problem in this country regarding forced marriages. Some families, generally originating from the Indian subcontinent, attempt to remove their children, usually daughters, from the UK in order to marry them off to someone from their country of origin. Our government, laudably, takes this problem seriously, and has established a unit in the Home Office dedicated to rescuing these unfortunate girls and bringing them back to the UK.
The sensational news I heard was that these girls are expected to pay for their own flights home. And, if they do not have the money, they can be given a loan to buy their ticket, but they must surrender their passports until it is repaid in full, thus preventing them from leaving the country in which they are in danger. This demand is made in the name of consistency, as all other Brits needing help with repatriation are treated the same way.
Now, I have no quarrel with the principle of self-funded repatriation. If you get into trouble in a foreign country, you should not expect HMG to pick up the tab for bailing you out. Embassies and consulates are not made of money, and, besides, it creates a moral hazard if cock-ups are allowed to be cost-free.
But can’t these people see that forced marriages are an entirely different case from the tourist who had his ticket nicked when he was plastered? The moral hazard argument falls away, because the girls did not choose to put themselves in such a position. And the demand for money creates far more difficulties for these girls than it would for tourists. Most tourists can drum up money from somewhere, whereas if you are going to kidnap your daughter and marry her off abroad, the first thing you do is make sure she doesn’t have access to the price of an air ticket home. And, if the tourist has no money and needs to borrow some, who is usually the first port of call? His family. Get the point?
The reality, in most cases, is that the girl will have no one to turn to for money; even friends from outside the family may let her down for cultural reasons. So, with no way out in sight, she may see no alternative to going back to the family and submitting to their wishes. What sort of concrete-headed zombie can’t see this?
There remains the argument, mentioned above, that the Government is not made of money. But let’s look at the figures involved: the Forced Marriages Unit repatriates about 300 young girls per year. These days you can fly almost anywhere in the world for £500. So the government stands to save £150,000 (probably rather less) by this measure. The total cost of the Forced Marriages Unit, with its overseas network, must run into several millions, money well spent in my view. But talk about spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar!
I once got carpeted for calling one section of the Foreign Office, in writing, “a bunch of brainless jobsworths”. I took my lumps and made my apologies with good grace, as no useful purpose can be served by addressing colleagues in that way. But does anyone really believe that the Civil Service is not full of brainless jobsworths? Where do they get them from? And don’t get me started on the MoD’s decision to take legal action to reclaim compensation from two seriously injured soldiers, undoubtedly at a cost greater than the sum being reclaimed…
Impunity, not formal state oppression, is the real human rights problem in China
When Westerners complain about human rights abuses in China, the Chinese are apt to bridle. Partly this is out of sheer patriotic fervour, but a lot of it is rooted in the belief that the Westerner is just parroting recycled material from 30 years ago, and has not grasped how much things have improved for the ordinary citizen since Deng Xiaoping took power. Not just in economic terms, but in terms of simple personal freedoms.
My marriage is one example. Up to about 1984 my wife could have gone to prison for the crime of “li tong wai guo” – foreign connections. Now nobody minds who you talk to, meet or marry. Freedom of speech for the individual is almost total; there are no beady-eyed informers sitting around in bars and restaurants. Except, that is, if you are on some sort of black list, which you only really get on by attempting to organise dissidence. Freedom of association is still a bridge too far.
It’s also true that the State devotes huge resources to policing the Internet. I am sure the Party realises that this attempt is ultimately doomed, both for technological reasons and because economic development demands fairly open access to information. But, for the time being, they are prepared to make the effort in order to stifle organised opposition, and, crucially, to maintain the orthodoxy of the national discourse, not allowing certain ideas even to be contemplated.
And so, a bit of perspective is needed on human rights in China: the things we Westerners worry about most are nowhere near as bad as some of us seem to think. The formal state apparatus of tyranny oppresses a few people badly, but it is a fairly small number, and, many Chinese would argue, it only affects those who have deliberately stuck their heads above the parapet.
The most serious problems in this field lie elsewhere. They were pointed up by a recent Human Rights Watch report picked up by the Independent. The report tells of hundreds of people, mainly from the provinces, who claim to have been maltreated by local officials, and, despairing of getting justice from the tight-knit local government mafias, have come to the capital to seek justice from central government, as Chinese have always done since the high Imperial days. In the capital, of course, they are just a bloody nuisance, and are subject to two main dangers: (a) their local governments sending thugs after them to bring them back, and (b) arbitrary arrest and incarceration by unofficial quasi-police thugs in Beijing. HRW mentions the existence of “black jails” in the capital, into which people are thrown without any due process or any records kept, by goons accountable to no-one who beat and even rape their prisoners.
The government denies categorically that such jails exist, but no other Chinese will deny it. The activities of hooligans who derive their impunity from being generally on the side of government, but who remain both unaccountable and deniable, are as much a fact in China as in Zimbabwe. And the worst of it is that these brutal round-ups tend to coincide with great State occasions – such as the imminent visit of President Obama. They want the riff-raff off the streets for the motorcades and the TV cameras. Some of this might not be happening but for the visit of St Barack.
Impunity is the common factor in all aspects of this problem – the petty local officials who can mess you around and extort money from you with no comeback, the higher local officials who invariably back them up, making it necessary to go and petition central government in the first place, and then the “black jail” system that hits you (all too literally) when you get there, are all part of the same phenomenon. It’s this that represents the real human rights problem in China, not gulags or secret policemen or arrests of active dissidents.
It filters through into the mindset. My wife often sits beside me when I am writing these pieces, her heart a-flutter. “Surely you can’t write that – you’ll get into trouble!” I give the usual spiel about an Englishman, provided that he is not breaking publicly proclaimed laws, being able to do what he likes in perfect serenity. “But they won’t give you a visa next time you want to go to China.” We shall see. Tomorrow I am off to the Consulate in Manchester to apply for one. I’ll let you know if I get the elbow.
My marriage is one example. Up to about 1984 my wife could have gone to prison for the crime of “li tong wai guo” – foreign connections. Now nobody minds who you talk to, meet or marry. Freedom of speech for the individual is almost total; there are no beady-eyed informers sitting around in bars and restaurants. Except, that is, if you are on some sort of black list, which you only really get on by attempting to organise dissidence. Freedom of association is still a bridge too far.
It’s also true that the State devotes huge resources to policing the Internet. I am sure the Party realises that this attempt is ultimately doomed, both for technological reasons and because economic development demands fairly open access to information. But, for the time being, they are prepared to make the effort in order to stifle organised opposition, and, crucially, to maintain the orthodoxy of the national discourse, not allowing certain ideas even to be contemplated.
And so, a bit of perspective is needed on human rights in China: the things we Westerners worry about most are nowhere near as bad as some of us seem to think. The formal state apparatus of tyranny oppresses a few people badly, but it is a fairly small number, and, many Chinese would argue, it only affects those who have deliberately stuck their heads above the parapet.
The most serious problems in this field lie elsewhere. They were pointed up by a recent Human Rights Watch report picked up by the Independent. The report tells of hundreds of people, mainly from the provinces, who claim to have been maltreated by local officials, and, despairing of getting justice from the tight-knit local government mafias, have come to the capital to seek justice from central government, as Chinese have always done since the high Imperial days. In the capital, of course, they are just a bloody nuisance, and are subject to two main dangers: (a) their local governments sending thugs after them to bring them back, and (b) arbitrary arrest and incarceration by unofficial quasi-police thugs in Beijing. HRW mentions the existence of “black jails” in the capital, into which people are thrown without any due process or any records kept, by goons accountable to no-one who beat and even rape their prisoners.
The government denies categorically that such jails exist, but no other Chinese will deny it. The activities of hooligans who derive their impunity from being generally on the side of government, but who remain both unaccountable and deniable, are as much a fact in China as in Zimbabwe. And the worst of it is that these brutal round-ups tend to coincide with great State occasions – such as the imminent visit of President Obama. They want the riff-raff off the streets for the motorcades and the TV cameras. Some of this might not be happening but for the visit of St Barack.
Impunity is the common factor in all aspects of this problem – the petty local officials who can mess you around and extort money from you with no comeback, the higher local officials who invariably back them up, making it necessary to go and petition central government in the first place, and then the “black jail” system that hits you (all too literally) when you get there, are all part of the same phenomenon. It’s this that represents the real human rights problem in China, not gulags or secret policemen or arrests of active dissidents.
It filters through into the mindset. My wife often sits beside me when I am writing these pieces, her heart a-flutter. “Surely you can’t write that – you’ll get into trouble!” I give the usual spiel about an Englishman, provided that he is not breaking publicly proclaimed laws, being able to do what he likes in perfect serenity. “But they won’t give you a visa next time you want to go to China.” We shall see. Tomorrow I am off to the Consulate in Manchester to apply for one. I’ll let you know if I get the elbow.
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Time for a new nickname for the Conservatives. Don't let in the LTV
Given the animosity which has crept into the current election campaign (much of it among readers of this blog – but I do not complain, I remember how I felt in 1996) isn’t it time for a new generation of political nicknames?
My commentators, stung not so much by my expressed views as by my declared allegiance to Labour, have come up with such gems as “the Sewer Party”, “Liebour”, “ZANULab” and the impressively agglomerative “ZaNuLieBore”. But none of these have really stuck, though I accept that the distortion of the previous Prime Minister’s name into “Bliar” has.
In Germany, the parties are generally known by their colours. Social Democrats are Red (though “very pale pink” might be more appropriate these days), Christian Democrats are Black (from their historical clerical-Catholic antecedents) and the Greens speak for themselves. When, after the 2005 elections, a Christian Democrat-Free Democrat-Green coalition was briefly considered, it was called the “Jamaica coalition”, after the colours – black, yellow and green – of the Jamaican flag. But you couldn’t do that in Britain – talking about the Reds or the Blues would only mark you out as a football fan.
No really effective nickname has stuck to my own party. Some of my Tory friends refer to us as the “Trots”, but there are far too many Trot groups around for one’s meaning to be clear, especially as some of those are actually Stalinists.
The Conservatives at least have an old-style red-blooded nickname: “Tory” was a name used for barbarous Irish bandits in the 17th century. Their opponents, the Whigs, derived their name from Scottish rebels, and in the eyes of such as Dr Johnson their name was an insult in itself. Speaking of a contemporary poet at dinner, the great Sam said: “Mason’s a Whig.” Affecting to have misheard, the lady next to him asked: “A Prig, Sir?” “Worse than that, a Whig!” the great man continued. “But he is both!” But there are no more Whigs, and the term “Tory” has become totally innocuous, used neutrally by friend and foe alike.
I have long wished to popularise my own name for Her Majesty’s current Opposition. Not only is it modern and snappy, but it also honours one of Labour’s heroes, Aneurin Bevan. I would like more people to understand me when I speak of the evils and inadequacies of the LTV. Many will remember one of Bevan’s most trenchant comments on his political opponents, a three-word phrase which I have reduced to its initials.
All right, some of my younger readers may require an explanation. Nye Bevan once memorably referred to the Tories as “lower than vermin”. I have nothing to add to that, though happy to reduce it to a set of initials.
Don’t let in the LTV. You know how long it can take to get rid of them.
My commentators, stung not so much by my expressed views as by my declared allegiance to Labour, have come up with such gems as “the Sewer Party”, “Liebour”, “ZANULab” and the impressively agglomerative “ZaNuLieBore”. But none of these have really stuck, though I accept that the distortion of the previous Prime Minister’s name into “Bliar” has.
In Germany, the parties are generally known by their colours. Social Democrats are Red (though “very pale pink” might be more appropriate these days), Christian Democrats are Black (from their historical clerical-Catholic antecedents) and the Greens speak for themselves. When, after the 2005 elections, a Christian Democrat-Free Democrat-Green coalition was briefly considered, it was called the “Jamaica coalition”, after the colours – black, yellow and green – of the Jamaican flag. But you couldn’t do that in Britain – talking about the Reds or the Blues would only mark you out as a football fan.
No really effective nickname has stuck to my own party. Some of my Tory friends refer to us as the “Trots”, but there are far too many Trot groups around for one’s meaning to be clear, especially as some of those are actually Stalinists.
The Conservatives at least have an old-style red-blooded nickname: “Tory” was a name used for barbarous Irish bandits in the 17th century. Their opponents, the Whigs, derived their name from Scottish rebels, and in the eyes of such as Dr Johnson their name was an insult in itself. Speaking of a contemporary poet at dinner, the great Sam said: “Mason’s a Whig.” Affecting to have misheard, the lady next to him asked: “A Prig, Sir?” “Worse than that, a Whig!” the great man continued. “But he is both!” But there are no more Whigs, and the term “Tory” has become totally innocuous, used neutrally by friend and foe alike.
I have long wished to popularise my own name for Her Majesty’s current Opposition. Not only is it modern and snappy, but it also honours one of Labour’s heroes, Aneurin Bevan. I would like more people to understand me when I speak of the evils and inadequacies of the LTV. Many will remember one of Bevan’s most trenchant comments on his political opponents, a three-word phrase which I have reduced to its initials.
All right, some of my younger readers may require an explanation. Nye Bevan once memorably referred to the Tories as “lower than vermin”. I have nothing to add to that, though happy to reduce it to a set of initials.
Don’t let in the LTV. You know how long it can take to get rid of them.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Ashcroft vindicated - or maybe not
So Lord Ashcroft and the Tories are off the hook at last. All doubts have been removed about the residence status of the Tory Party’s vice-chairman and major donor.
Or so you might think if you saw William Hague on the Andrew Marr programme on Sunday. And even more so if you read the Independent’s write-up next day (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-finally-come-clean-on-ashcroft-tax-status-1817257.html). Andrew Grice, the Indy’s political editor, writes “Tories finally come clean on Ashcroft’s tax status”, and goes on to say that they have “confirmed that he is paying tax in Britain”. Job done.
Well, call me a pedantic old socialist cynic, but I’m not sure it has been. Look at what Mr Hague actually said. "My conclusion, having asked him, is that he fulfilled the obligations that were imposed on him at the time that he became a peer." He added: "I imagine that [paying taxes in the UK] was the obligation that was imposed on him." How nice that Mr Hague should be so trusting, and that he should possess such a vivid imagination!
Mr Hague’s motives are obvious, and perfectly respectable: he wants to get the Ashcroft issue off the table before the election campaign begins in earnest. It is rather strange that Central Office should have chosen the Independent to put out their version of the story: but spin, like the Almighty, moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. What is even stranger is that the political editor of a centre-Left paper should swallow the Central Office version hook, line and sinker.
I’m not impugning Mr Hague’s veracity: he strikes me as an honest man, as well as far too intelligent to think he can get away with telling porkies on TV. But a moment’s thought should reveal to us that what has been said is some way short of a firm statement that Lord Ashcroft is paying UK tax. And further pondering made it clear to me that Lord Ashcroft might never have paid a penny of UK tax, and Mr Hague’s statement would still not have been a lie.
Supposing (just supposing) that Lord Ashcroft had, in good faith, interpreted the obligations laid on him as falling short of an absolute requirement that he take up full UK residency for tax purposes. Then he would have been able to give Mr Hague the assurances requested. Meanwhile, Mr Hague’s imagination might always have led him astray, as imagination will. He does not state as a fact that Lord Ashcroft committed himself to full UK residence.
As far as I am concerned, the question has still not been answered. It will not be answered without an unequivocal statement in the form “Lord Ashcroft assures me that he has been a UK resident and a UK taxpayer since financial year X-Y”. I hope Labour have not been discouraged from asking it by the Independent’s trusting assurances. It still has the makings of a potential major embarrassment for the Conservatives.
Or so you might think if you saw William Hague on the Andrew Marr programme on Sunday. And even more so if you read the Independent’s write-up next day (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-finally-come-clean-on-ashcroft-tax-status-1817257.html). Andrew Grice, the Indy’s political editor, writes “Tories finally come clean on Ashcroft’s tax status”, and goes on to say that they have “confirmed that he is paying tax in Britain”. Job done.
Well, call me a pedantic old socialist cynic, but I’m not sure it has been. Look at what Mr Hague actually said. "My conclusion, having asked him, is that he fulfilled the obligations that were imposed on him at the time that he became a peer." He added: "I imagine that [paying taxes in the UK] was the obligation that was imposed on him." How nice that Mr Hague should be so trusting, and that he should possess such a vivid imagination!
Mr Hague’s motives are obvious, and perfectly respectable: he wants to get the Ashcroft issue off the table before the election campaign begins in earnest. It is rather strange that Central Office should have chosen the Independent to put out their version of the story: but spin, like the Almighty, moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. What is even stranger is that the political editor of a centre-Left paper should swallow the Central Office version hook, line and sinker.
I’m not impugning Mr Hague’s veracity: he strikes me as an honest man, as well as far too intelligent to think he can get away with telling porkies on TV. But a moment’s thought should reveal to us that what has been said is some way short of a firm statement that Lord Ashcroft is paying UK tax. And further pondering made it clear to me that Lord Ashcroft might never have paid a penny of UK tax, and Mr Hague’s statement would still not have been a lie.
Supposing (just supposing) that Lord Ashcroft had, in good faith, interpreted the obligations laid on him as falling short of an absolute requirement that he take up full UK residency for tax purposes. Then he would have been able to give Mr Hague the assurances requested. Meanwhile, Mr Hague’s imagination might always have led him astray, as imagination will. He does not state as a fact that Lord Ashcroft committed himself to full UK residence.
As far as I am concerned, the question has still not been answered. It will not be answered without an unequivocal statement in the form “Lord Ashcroft assures me that he has been a UK resident and a UK taxpayer since financial year X-Y”. I hope Labour have not been discouraged from asking it by the Independent’s trusting assurances. It still has the makings of a potential major embarrassment for the Conservatives.
Monday, 9 November 2009
The former East Germany got a raw deal out of reunification
Between 1978 and 2006 I spent a total of about six years living, working and travelling in Germany, so was well acquainted with it both with and without the Wall. As is the way of walls, it seemed pretty permanent while it was there, and as if it had never been when it wasn’t. In 1993, with a friend, I spent an afternoon walking the length of its former course before it all got built over. (While all the East Germans were streaming into the West to look for jobs, my friend and thousands of his fellow Bohemians had hopped the other way to find cheap and deliciously retro flats.) Later on the Wall came up in a conversation with one of my sons. It didn’t ring a bell. Come on, I wanted to say, you were sitting with me when we saw it happening on TV. And then I remembered that he’d been nine months old at the time.
The speed at which it happened caught everyone cold, particularly in the West. Suddenly they had got what they’d always wanted, and how on earth were they going to cope with it? Firstly, the question of unification – yes or no? The Chancellor at the time was Helmut Kohl, for whom reunification was the ruling passion of his life. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of his dream (and Margaret Thatcher’s nightmare). Pleas for caution were disregarded in a tidal wave of national sentiment. When the first free elections were held in the East, they brought the Eastern version of Kohl’s party to power, which included Angela Merkel. Unification was now unstoppable.
Economic integration presented more intractable problems, but these were simply steamrollered by Kohl; though he must have known that setting the exchange rate for eastern and western marks at 1:1 would be disastrous, it was simply something that had to be done.
The result of this rush to unity was that the former East Germany, once one of the more successful of the Warsaw Pact states, is now the only one that has been unable to recover under capitalism. The economically active sector of the population high-tailed it to the West to find work. The East has been done up a treat, it’s true: beautifully renovated historic towns are ten a penny, but virtually nothing is going on in them. German unemployment is much higher than ours, and that is almost entirely down to the East; this is partly due to the fact that both men and women expected to be employed in the East, whereas in the West millions of housewives are happy to stay out of the statistics. It is virtually certain that an East Germany allowed to preserve its statehood, cheap labour and attractive exchange rates for a bit longer would have been in a better condition now; but there was no saying that in 1990.
The Social Democrat opposing Kohl in the unification election of 1990 was Oskar Lafontaine: he said exactly that, got thrashed, and is now a leader of the Left Party, ironically the only real “unification” party, with its main power base in the East. Another group with its main power base in the East is, sadly, the many-headed neo-Nazi movement, which feeds on unemployment, economic malaise, and lack of sense of purpose.
Yes, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a great and unforgettable moment; but it is a pity that those who were supposed to be the main beneficiaries got so little out of it.
The speed at which it happened caught everyone cold, particularly in the West. Suddenly they had got what they’d always wanted, and how on earth were they going to cope with it? Firstly, the question of unification – yes or no? The Chancellor at the time was Helmut Kohl, for whom reunification was the ruling passion of his life. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of his dream (and Margaret Thatcher’s nightmare). Pleas for caution were disregarded in a tidal wave of national sentiment. When the first free elections were held in the East, they brought the Eastern version of Kohl’s party to power, which included Angela Merkel. Unification was now unstoppable.
Economic integration presented more intractable problems, but these were simply steamrollered by Kohl; though he must have known that setting the exchange rate for eastern and western marks at 1:1 would be disastrous, it was simply something that had to be done.
The result of this rush to unity was that the former East Germany, once one of the more successful of the Warsaw Pact states, is now the only one that has been unable to recover under capitalism. The economically active sector of the population high-tailed it to the West to find work. The East has been done up a treat, it’s true: beautifully renovated historic towns are ten a penny, but virtually nothing is going on in them. German unemployment is much higher than ours, and that is almost entirely down to the East; this is partly due to the fact that both men and women expected to be employed in the East, whereas in the West millions of housewives are happy to stay out of the statistics. It is virtually certain that an East Germany allowed to preserve its statehood, cheap labour and attractive exchange rates for a bit longer would have been in a better condition now; but there was no saying that in 1990.
The Social Democrat opposing Kohl in the unification election of 1990 was Oskar Lafontaine: he said exactly that, got thrashed, and is now a leader of the Left Party, ironically the only real “unification” party, with its main power base in the East. Another group with its main power base in the East is, sadly, the many-headed neo-Nazi movement, which feeds on unemployment, economic malaise, and lack of sense of purpose.
Yes, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a great and unforgettable moment; but it is a pity that those who were supposed to be the main beneficiaries got so little out of it.
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Does China care what happens in Afghanistan?
One more recent summit that passed under the radar of most people without Olympian boredom thresholds was last month’s Beijing meeting of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Come again? Well, it’s a strategic cooperation arrangement between China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, focussing on Central Asia. OK, you can go back to sleep now.
But one event might make you perk up a bit: the Summiteers received an exploratory letter from an entity calling itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban to you, me and HM Armed Forces). They were, of course, seeking support from their Asian brothers in driving the imperialists from the region, amid heart-rending expositions of their suffering. “Our parent (sic) are not able to send their children to schools with a peace of mind, fearing they might be killed”. This clearly refers only to male children: parents of female children daren’t send their children to school because they might be killed by the Taliban. Farmers and traders are not able to go about their normal business because the Brits and Yanks might kill them. No Afghan farmer or trader ever got killed by the Tallies, after all. Anyway, they wrote to the leaders of the SCO asking for support. Any chance that they’ll get it?
Well, given that the Uzbeks are inclined to boil Taliban types alive, I imagine they’ll have one adverse vote. But what about the Chinese? They have maintained a studied neutrality in that part of the world. But do they have a dog in the fight? What stake do they have in Afghanistan, apart from the fact that it is a neighbour state thanks to about fourteen miles of border?
Quite a big one, actually. A recent Economist report pointed out that at Aynak, just south of Kabul, there is a huge copper mine, one of the biggest sources of copper in the world, and two years ago the Chinese invested more than $3 billion in it. After all, the SCO is really all about natural resources – if they don’t cooperate, the water wars of the later 21st century will be something to behold. And the Chinese know damn well that the Americans are a better bet to keep their investment safe than the Taliban. So I assume the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan got a dusty answer, if it got one at all.
But it’s amazing what the Chinese get away with in terms of poncing, mooching and bludging. The Afghan police force guarding the mine is funded by the Japanese. Security in the wider area is provided by the US Army. The Chinese don’t pay a single yuan, and retain the right to get all sniffy about “Western imperialism” in public. Still, at least they’re clear about which side their bread is ultimately buttered on.
But one event might make you perk up a bit: the Summiteers received an exploratory letter from an entity calling itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban to you, me and HM Armed Forces). They were, of course, seeking support from their Asian brothers in driving the imperialists from the region, amid heart-rending expositions of their suffering. “Our parent (sic) are not able to send their children to schools with a peace of mind, fearing they might be killed”. This clearly refers only to male children: parents of female children daren’t send their children to school because they might be killed by the Taliban. Farmers and traders are not able to go about their normal business because the Brits and Yanks might kill them. No Afghan farmer or trader ever got killed by the Tallies, after all. Anyway, they wrote to the leaders of the SCO asking for support. Any chance that they’ll get it?
Well, given that the Uzbeks are inclined to boil Taliban types alive, I imagine they’ll have one adverse vote. But what about the Chinese? They have maintained a studied neutrality in that part of the world. But do they have a dog in the fight? What stake do they have in Afghanistan, apart from the fact that it is a neighbour state thanks to about fourteen miles of border?
Quite a big one, actually. A recent Economist report pointed out that at Aynak, just south of Kabul, there is a huge copper mine, one of the biggest sources of copper in the world, and two years ago the Chinese invested more than $3 billion in it. After all, the SCO is really all about natural resources – if they don’t cooperate, the water wars of the later 21st century will be something to behold. And the Chinese know damn well that the Americans are a better bet to keep their investment safe than the Taliban. So I assume the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan got a dusty answer, if it got one at all.
But it’s amazing what the Chinese get away with in terms of poncing, mooching and bludging. The Afghan police force guarding the mine is funded by the Japanese. Security in the wider area is provided by the US Army. The Chinese don’t pay a single yuan, and retain the right to get all sniffy about “Western imperialism” in public. Still, at least they’re clear about which side their bread is ultimately buttered on.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
In defence of the 'endearritating' Stephen Fry
My colleague Damian Thompson has just laid in to Stephen Fry with a vengeance. Here’s the case for the defence, written a few weeks ago after the row over Fry’s Twitter comments:
I see that Stephen Fry is in trouble again, temporarily driven from Twitter by a revolt among his vast army of followers following his intervention in the Daily Mail-Stephen Gately affair. Though no Twitterer myself, I am conscious through more traditional channels of a recent rise in anti-Fry sentiment. And not just in the press, where he is now routinely mangled. He has, I think, over-exposed himself, to coin a Fryesque double entendre. And he shouldn’t have called Jan Moir a “repulsive nobody”, if only because it lays him open to suggestions that he thinks her views invalid because she is not as big a celeb as he is, which I’m sure was not his intention. (With his contention that the Daily Mail is “a paper no decent person would be seen dead with” I have no problem.)
So did he have it coming to him? I don’t think so. Not just because Stephen Fry is very clever, very witty, and widely admired for his humane and liberal views (though I know some see him as the very model of a kickable bien-pensant). The main point about him is that he is transparently a good man. The late Auberon Waugh, whose memory I revere, maintained that the only real distinction between human beings is that between the nice and the nasty. Not all the twitterers and bloggers in the world can pin the label “nasty” on Fry. There is no malice in him, or if there is he has hidden it very well.
Yes, I know he can be maddening. Fry at his archest can make even my loyalty wobble. The American humorist P J O’Rourke coined the term “endearritating”, actually for Dr Ruth Westheimer, but it fits Fry like a glove. But I don’t think venom ought to be directed towards anybody so fundamentally benevolent. Let’s do what we can to support nice people. There isn’t exactly a superfluity of them around.
I see that Stephen Fry is in trouble again, temporarily driven from Twitter by a revolt among his vast army of followers following his intervention in the Daily Mail-Stephen Gately affair. Though no Twitterer myself, I am conscious through more traditional channels of a recent rise in anti-Fry sentiment. And not just in the press, where he is now routinely mangled. He has, I think, over-exposed himself, to coin a Fryesque double entendre. And he shouldn’t have called Jan Moir a “repulsive nobody”, if only because it lays him open to suggestions that he thinks her views invalid because she is not as big a celeb as he is, which I’m sure was not his intention. (With his contention that the Daily Mail is “a paper no decent person would be seen dead with” I have no problem.)
So did he have it coming to him? I don’t think so. Not just because Stephen Fry is very clever, very witty, and widely admired for his humane and liberal views (though I know some see him as the very model of a kickable bien-pensant). The main point about him is that he is transparently a good man. The late Auberon Waugh, whose memory I revere, maintained that the only real distinction between human beings is that between the nice and the nasty. Not all the twitterers and bloggers in the world can pin the label “nasty” on Fry. There is no malice in him, or if there is he has hidden it very well.
Yes, I know he can be maddening. Fry at his archest can make even my loyalty wobble. The American humorist P J O’Rourke coined the term “endearritating”, actually for Dr Ruth Westheimer, but it fits Fry like a glove. But I don’t think venom ought to be directed towards anybody so fundamentally benevolent. Let’s do what we can to support nice people. There isn’t exactly a superfluity of them around.
Message for Guy Fawkes' Night - blow up the Government if you want - but don't expect it to change anything
“Build a bonfire, build a bonfire,
EU Directives on the top,
Health and Safety in the middle,
And burn the bloody lot.”
I’m sure there’ll be millions of us singing something like the above this Guy Fawkes Night. But we might as well save our breath to cool our hot buttered rum.
I’ll tell you what worried me most, as a Labour man. I feared a real libertarian Tory campaign promising bonfires of regulations, bureaucracy and paperwork, with details all worked out. It would have been perfectly possible to attach a research team to each front-bencher, identifying individual areas where everyone’s money and time was being wasted in the department the spokesperson was shadowing. Directly and openly identifying police paperwork surplus to requirements. Compiling a coherent action plan from the literally millions of ridiculous elf ‘n’ safety stories that have emerged over the years. Diversity surveys and compliance monitoring to be challenged to justify their existence in a balloon debate with schools, hospitals and pensions. Inviting citizens to write in with examples and suggestions – a “Bullsh*tWatch” campaign. They’d have swept the country.
Phew! I needn’t have worried. Yes, these things will occasionally be picked up as a stick to beat the Government with; but it’s not as if there were any real prospect of a new Government changing anything. If anything were likely to be done, Mr Cameron would surely have told us by now. What he did was to stand up at the Tory Conference and say, in the vaguest terms, that he will cut the cost of the Civil Service.
But we all know how well that will work. After his first Cabinet meeting, the Ministers go back to their departments with their instructions: “Sir Humphrey, the Prime Minister has told me to cut X, Y and Z.” The rest is television history. Whitehall will deal with this as easily as John Terry with a speculative long ball into the box.
Do I believe we could do with a 25 per cent Whitehall and local government headcount cut? Yes, with knobs on. Could it happen? No, there is no conceivable enforcement mechanism, and too many livelihoods and careers depend on this overstaffing. And they all have existences to justify.
Many critics of the present government blame over-regulation on the authoritarian tendencies of the Labour Party. But those tendencies are endemic to politicians, and are in any case not the key factor. Do you really believe that a down-to-earth bloke like Alan Johnson speaks up in Cabinet to say “We really must act against the scandal of parents looking after each other’s children, and giving them lifts to Brownies?” No – there are just too many people justifying their salaries by extending the scope of legislation, monitoring compliance, closing loopholes etc., and forcing this rubbish on the Minister, as did Sir Humphrey. If only civil servants were as lazy as is sometimes rumoured, we’d all be better off. Paying them to lounge around doing nothing would save almost as much as sacking them altogether.
So elect a new government if you must. But don’t expect it to make any difference. Not without more of the sort of plain speaking which no one these days feels able to get away with.
EU Directives on the top,
Health and Safety in the middle,
And burn the bloody lot.”
I’m sure there’ll be millions of us singing something like the above this Guy Fawkes Night. But we might as well save our breath to cool our hot buttered rum.
I’ll tell you what worried me most, as a Labour man. I feared a real libertarian Tory campaign promising bonfires of regulations, bureaucracy and paperwork, with details all worked out. It would have been perfectly possible to attach a research team to each front-bencher, identifying individual areas where everyone’s money and time was being wasted in the department the spokesperson was shadowing. Directly and openly identifying police paperwork surplus to requirements. Compiling a coherent action plan from the literally millions of ridiculous elf ‘n’ safety stories that have emerged over the years. Diversity surveys and compliance monitoring to be challenged to justify their existence in a balloon debate with schools, hospitals and pensions. Inviting citizens to write in with examples and suggestions – a “Bullsh*tWatch” campaign. They’d have swept the country.
Phew! I needn’t have worried. Yes, these things will occasionally be picked up as a stick to beat the Government with; but it’s not as if there were any real prospect of a new Government changing anything. If anything were likely to be done, Mr Cameron would surely have told us by now. What he did was to stand up at the Tory Conference and say, in the vaguest terms, that he will cut the cost of the Civil Service.
But we all know how well that will work. After his first Cabinet meeting, the Ministers go back to their departments with their instructions: “Sir Humphrey, the Prime Minister has told me to cut X, Y and Z.” The rest is television history. Whitehall will deal with this as easily as John Terry with a speculative long ball into the box.
Do I believe we could do with a 25 per cent Whitehall and local government headcount cut? Yes, with knobs on. Could it happen? No, there is no conceivable enforcement mechanism, and too many livelihoods and careers depend on this overstaffing. And they all have existences to justify.
Many critics of the present government blame over-regulation on the authoritarian tendencies of the Labour Party. But those tendencies are endemic to politicians, and are in any case not the key factor. Do you really believe that a down-to-earth bloke like Alan Johnson speaks up in Cabinet to say “We really must act against the scandal of parents looking after each other’s children, and giving them lifts to Brownies?” No – there are just too many people justifying their salaries by extending the scope of legislation, monitoring compliance, closing loopholes etc., and forcing this rubbish on the Minister, as did Sir Humphrey. If only civil servants were as lazy as is sometimes rumoured, we’d all be better off. Paying them to lounge around doing nothing would save almost as much as sacking them altogether.
So elect a new government if you must. But don’t expect it to make any difference. Not without more of the sort of plain speaking which no one these days feels able to get away with.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
As an ex-diplomat, I volunteer to join an EU diplomatic service and sit around doing nothing
I may be Labour, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the Lisbon Treaty much. Any more than I liked Nice. Or Maastricht. It is increasingly clear that European institutions have turned into a huge juggernaut, built and set in motion by European nations, but over which they now have no vestige of control. As for the democratic deficit, it is now reaching black hole proportions.
Not that I’m dead against a degree of European integration: it makes obvious sense in the age of globalisation. But it should have been bottom up, not top down. Above all, we should have stopped and redesigned the whole bang shoot from scratch when the picture changed so radically in 1989. But by then the wheels of the juggernaut were already unstoppable. So now here we are and here we stay, no matter who wins the 2010 election.
However, a naughty and delicious thought has been germinating. As well as the Blairs and the Milibands and whoever else gets the plum jobs, the Treaty of Lisbon provides for the establishment of an EU diplomatic service.
This is not an entirely new thing, of course; the EU has long maintained separate representation in the world’s major capitals, and there are already large numbers of Brussels-based officials working as diplomats. But I can’t imagine they have a fully staffed diplomatic service ready to roll. They must be drafting new people in from somewhere, presumably transferred or seconded from national diplomatic services for the most part. But maybe, just maybe…
I tried this idea out on my son, who perceptively replied “But you don’t want to go through all that again, surely?” I pointed out that it was not diplomacy which I had disliked, it was work. Contrary to popular prejudice, British diplomats have to work quite hard. The FCO has long-established traditions of high competence and efficiency (there are exceptions, but they are the sort that prove the rule) and there are still plenty of old-style martinets in the higher reaches to enforce them. The idle and the disorganised are soon found out (no predictable jibes please – I lasted 20 years).
But Eurodiplomacy has had no time to establish such traditions. It is all fairly new, and the men in Brussels can have no clear perception of exactly what they can expect from the out-stations. A further obvious point is that the Eurodips will come from a wide variety of cultures, some of which are, shall we say, a good deal less Stakhanovite than others. To put it bluntly, there could be some very cushy little niches out there.
Would it be dishonourable of me? I don’t think so. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Many of us are less than enthralled by modern capitalism; but for now it’s the only game in town, so one has to come to some arrangement with it to earn a living. All work at bottom is either vocation or prostitution. If you’re going to sell out, you may as well get a decent price.
So – FOR HIRE, reconditioned vintage diplomat, one careful owner, still under fifty, 20 years experience, German and Mandarin speaking, will eat and drink anything, adaptable to siesta culture, impenetrable bullsh*t no problem, all offers involving fat pay packet and expense account considered. Apply now to beat the Christmas rush.
Not that I’m dead against a degree of European integration: it makes obvious sense in the age of globalisation. But it should have been bottom up, not top down. Above all, we should have stopped and redesigned the whole bang shoot from scratch when the picture changed so radically in 1989. But by then the wheels of the juggernaut were already unstoppable. So now here we are and here we stay, no matter who wins the 2010 election.
However, a naughty and delicious thought has been germinating. As well as the Blairs and the Milibands and whoever else gets the plum jobs, the Treaty of Lisbon provides for the establishment of an EU diplomatic service.
This is not an entirely new thing, of course; the EU has long maintained separate representation in the world’s major capitals, and there are already large numbers of Brussels-based officials working as diplomats. But I can’t imagine they have a fully staffed diplomatic service ready to roll. They must be drafting new people in from somewhere, presumably transferred or seconded from national diplomatic services for the most part. But maybe, just maybe…
I tried this idea out on my son, who perceptively replied “But you don’t want to go through all that again, surely?” I pointed out that it was not diplomacy which I had disliked, it was work. Contrary to popular prejudice, British diplomats have to work quite hard. The FCO has long-established traditions of high competence and efficiency (there are exceptions, but they are the sort that prove the rule) and there are still plenty of old-style martinets in the higher reaches to enforce them. The idle and the disorganised are soon found out (no predictable jibes please – I lasted 20 years).
But Eurodiplomacy has had no time to establish such traditions. It is all fairly new, and the men in Brussels can have no clear perception of exactly what they can expect from the out-stations. A further obvious point is that the Eurodips will come from a wide variety of cultures, some of which are, shall we say, a good deal less Stakhanovite than others. To put it bluntly, there could be some very cushy little niches out there.
Would it be dishonourable of me? I don’t think so. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Many of us are less than enthralled by modern capitalism; but for now it’s the only game in town, so one has to come to some arrangement with it to earn a living. All work at bottom is either vocation or prostitution. If you’re going to sell out, you may as well get a decent price.
So – FOR HIRE, reconditioned vintage diplomat, one careful owner, still under fifty, 20 years experience, German and Mandarin speaking, will eat and drink anything, adaptable to siesta culture, impenetrable bullsh*t no problem, all offers involving fat pay packet and expense account considered. Apply now to beat the Christmas rush.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Did corruption in Chinese universities cause the suicide of a brilliant young academic?
The Chinese government is not notable for accountability or responsiveness. And therefore, when the lapidary notice appeared in the official press that the 31 October meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress had announced the replacement of Zhou Ji by Yuan Guiren as Minister of Education, it was hardly surprising that no further comment followed.
The Chinese blogosphere, and the expat academic population, claim to be a great deal better informed. They are absolutely buzzing with news of the recent suicide of a young academic at the prestigious Zhejiang University, just south of Shanghai. Dr Tu Xuxin, who had completed a Master’s degree and then a PhD in geotechnical engineering at Northwestern University in the USA, had returned to China to take up a senior position at Zhejiang. Three months later he jumped head first off the top of one of the university buildings.
The story is that Dr Tu fell foul of endemic corruption in Chinese universities. In his six-page suicide note he claimed that he had been lured back to Zhejiang on the basis that the university, already one of considerable reputation, was offering 100 newly-funded senior academic jobs, of which he had been promised one. When he arrived home, he discovered that the promises he had received were worthless. The salary range he had been encouraged to expect was £20-30,000: he was given £5,000, with no prospect of improvement. Having brought his wife back to China with him, he found her heavily disappointed and blaming it on him. The suicide note spoke of “the reality about the world of academics and research in China: cruelty, treachery, and apathy.”
Sympathy rippled around the Chinese-speaking world: but some of it was tinged with realism. A contributor to the longhoo.net site, while sympathising with the poor man, put it thus:
“Dr Tu had made the mistake of not fully researching how things are done and pursued in the academic scene in China. If anything, he should’ve been better prepared to handle the difference in expectations. Those that have lived, studied, and worked for some time overseas are easily blinded by gushes of patriotism for their home country, and thus wistfully buy into the idea that they can make huge contributions on grounds of their better talents and abilities. However, such wistful thinking is naïve in that they haven’t fully grasped the networks of connections that are the unspoken rules of the academic circle in China. Partition and usage of research funds in Chinese universities lie with the discretion of the privileged few – those with the connections. Dr Tu wasn’t prepared for this: the American system he had worked with was all about fairness and talent.”
At the same time, a story from three years ago is gradually surfacing on the net. In Yongzhou, in Hunan province, video evidence has come to light allegedly showing Zhang Yaoyin, an 11-year-old girl, being beaten to a pulp with an iron bar by her teacher, in front of the class, and then thrown out of a fourth-floor window to her death.
In any case, Education Minister Zhou Ji has resigned, or at least been transferred to an inferior post, and my Chinese friends attribute his resignation to at least one of these affairs. For the honour of China, let’s hope they’re right. China needs proper accountability, not just for sustained economic success, but for full acceptance as part of the civilised world. May Dr Tu Xuxin and Miss Zhang Yaoyin rest in peace.
The Chinese blogosphere, and the expat academic population, claim to be a great deal better informed. They are absolutely buzzing with news of the recent suicide of a young academic at the prestigious Zhejiang University, just south of Shanghai. Dr Tu Xuxin, who had completed a Master’s degree and then a PhD in geotechnical engineering at Northwestern University in the USA, had returned to China to take up a senior position at Zhejiang. Three months later he jumped head first off the top of one of the university buildings.
The story is that Dr Tu fell foul of endemic corruption in Chinese universities. In his six-page suicide note he claimed that he had been lured back to Zhejiang on the basis that the university, already one of considerable reputation, was offering 100 newly-funded senior academic jobs, of which he had been promised one. When he arrived home, he discovered that the promises he had received were worthless. The salary range he had been encouraged to expect was £20-30,000: he was given £5,000, with no prospect of improvement. Having brought his wife back to China with him, he found her heavily disappointed and blaming it on him. The suicide note spoke of “the reality about the world of academics and research in China: cruelty, treachery, and apathy.”
Sympathy rippled around the Chinese-speaking world: but some of it was tinged with realism. A contributor to the longhoo.net site, while sympathising with the poor man, put it thus:
“Dr Tu had made the mistake of not fully researching how things are done and pursued in the academic scene in China. If anything, he should’ve been better prepared to handle the difference in expectations. Those that have lived, studied, and worked for some time overseas are easily blinded by gushes of patriotism for their home country, and thus wistfully buy into the idea that they can make huge contributions on grounds of their better talents and abilities. However, such wistful thinking is naïve in that they haven’t fully grasped the networks of connections that are the unspoken rules of the academic circle in China. Partition and usage of research funds in Chinese universities lie with the discretion of the privileged few – those with the connections. Dr Tu wasn’t prepared for this: the American system he had worked with was all about fairness and talent.”
At the same time, a story from three years ago is gradually surfacing on the net. In Yongzhou, in Hunan province, video evidence has come to light allegedly showing Zhang Yaoyin, an 11-year-old girl, being beaten to a pulp with an iron bar by her teacher, in front of the class, and then thrown out of a fourth-floor window to her death.
In any case, Education Minister Zhou Ji has resigned, or at least been transferred to an inferior post, and my Chinese friends attribute his resignation to at least one of these affairs. For the honour of China, let’s hope they’re right. China needs proper accountability, not just for sustained economic success, but for full acceptance as part of the civilised world. May Dr Tu Xuxin and Miss Zhang Yaoyin rest in peace.
Monday, 2 November 2009
Are the Chinese racist?
Yesterday The Observer reported an alarming row over a TV talent contest in Shanghai. One of the leading contestants, a 20-year-old girl named Lou Jing (pronounced Low not Loo), has attracted enormous opprobrium from all over the country. Some of the comments in the Chinese blogosphere are almost unbelievable. Sounds familiar, you might think. But the only allegation levelled at her is that she has dared to appear on television while being of mixed race, her father being a black African who was not married to her mother.
For a start, Lou Jing is extremely lucky to be alive. I thought I’d seen it all in China, but I’ve never seen an African/Chinese mixed race person there. You don’t actually meet all that many people born out of wedlock at all. This is not, as the prissy blogosphere would have it, because of the superior virtue of Chinese maidens. It is because illegitimacy is so socially unacceptable that (at a guess) 99 per cent of such pregnancies are terminated. If the mother suspected that the pregnancy had resulted from an affair with a black man, I would have said until today that that figure was 100 per cent. And this 20 years ago! Lou Jing’s mother is one extremely brave woman.
And so we come to the big question: how racist are the Chinese? The China Daily quotation used in the Observer piece – “anyone who marries a foreigner is deemed a ‘traitor’ to his or her race” – is vastly simplistic. First of all, the modern PC “his or her” is inaccurate. There are sexual as well as racial psychopathologies at work here. I am quite sure that no Chinese family objects to a son bringing home a blonde daughter-in-law. But for some reason the proportion of women to men marrying foreigners has until now been probably north of 100:1.
But even as regards daughters things have changed. (Slowly: as recently as 2004 my Chinese girlfriend, now my wife, had the police knocking on her door on a Sunday morning after some neighbour had grassed about my frequent visits.) To the sexual and racial prejudices has been added a third: economic status. Even if not all white men are rich, they will be assumed to be, and a woman who has travelled and hooked a white guy has automatically raised her status thereby.
I will confess to slightly cold feet the first time I was taken to see my prospective in-laws in Chongqing. I was assured that there would be no problems, but I knew that they were solid conservative Mao-era party stalwarts and I wasn’t so sure. Furthermore, we were met at the airport by my fiancée’s sister, whose small son cowered in terror. Actually, the whole family was extremely kind and welcoming – even the little boy, given a few hours to adjust – and I have never felt a breath of hostility on the grounds of my race or nationality. Later this month they will acquire their second English son-in-law. (The remaining daughter is married to a Canadian. But a Chinese-Canadian isn’t a foreigner at all.)
But I have asked my wife whether she would have been prepared to marry a black man. Emphatic negative. She is not personally prejudiced, and has adjusted happily to multicultural Lancashire – but she would simply not have been able to do it. It is the social conditioning: she would be too fearful of what they would say back in Chongqing. Everyone in China “knows” that all Africans have HIV. And, if a child were to be born, she could never have emulated the self-confidence of Lou Jing’s mother.
The social status of foreigners among the Chinese depends solely on their perceived economic standing. Once I was walking around a market town on the China-Russia border, and noticed that the locals were being a lot less polite than is normally the case. I realised, from some unpleasant expressions being bandied about, that they thought I was Russian – there were plenty of ragged Siberians mooching about. Once I had explained that I was British, attitudes changed noticeably.
So it’s not just racism. But it’s not not racism either. I have posted a few times on Chinese economic activity in Africa. Not that it’s necessarily politically sinister; but the phenomenon worries me. I can foresee a habit arising of expat Chinese entrepreneurs despising and maltreating their African workforce, culminating in a wholesale massacre of Chinese in Africa. Believe me, it could happen.
For a start, Lou Jing is extremely lucky to be alive. I thought I’d seen it all in China, but I’ve never seen an African/Chinese mixed race person there. You don’t actually meet all that many people born out of wedlock at all. This is not, as the prissy blogosphere would have it, because of the superior virtue of Chinese maidens. It is because illegitimacy is so socially unacceptable that (at a guess) 99 per cent of such pregnancies are terminated. If the mother suspected that the pregnancy had resulted from an affair with a black man, I would have said until today that that figure was 100 per cent. And this 20 years ago! Lou Jing’s mother is one extremely brave woman.
And so we come to the big question: how racist are the Chinese? The China Daily quotation used in the Observer piece – “anyone who marries a foreigner is deemed a ‘traitor’ to his or her race” – is vastly simplistic. First of all, the modern PC “his or her” is inaccurate. There are sexual as well as racial psychopathologies at work here. I am quite sure that no Chinese family objects to a son bringing home a blonde daughter-in-law. But for some reason the proportion of women to men marrying foreigners has until now been probably north of 100:1.
But even as regards daughters things have changed. (Slowly: as recently as 2004 my Chinese girlfriend, now my wife, had the police knocking on her door on a Sunday morning after some neighbour had grassed about my frequent visits.) To the sexual and racial prejudices has been added a third: economic status. Even if not all white men are rich, they will be assumed to be, and a woman who has travelled and hooked a white guy has automatically raised her status thereby.
I will confess to slightly cold feet the first time I was taken to see my prospective in-laws in Chongqing. I was assured that there would be no problems, but I knew that they were solid conservative Mao-era party stalwarts and I wasn’t so sure. Furthermore, we were met at the airport by my fiancée’s sister, whose small son cowered in terror. Actually, the whole family was extremely kind and welcoming – even the little boy, given a few hours to adjust – and I have never felt a breath of hostility on the grounds of my race or nationality. Later this month they will acquire their second English son-in-law. (The remaining daughter is married to a Canadian. But a Chinese-Canadian isn’t a foreigner at all.)
But I have asked my wife whether she would have been prepared to marry a black man. Emphatic negative. She is not personally prejudiced, and has adjusted happily to multicultural Lancashire – but she would simply not have been able to do it. It is the social conditioning: she would be too fearful of what they would say back in Chongqing. Everyone in China “knows” that all Africans have HIV. And, if a child were to be born, she could never have emulated the self-confidence of Lou Jing’s mother.
The social status of foreigners among the Chinese depends solely on their perceived economic standing. Once I was walking around a market town on the China-Russia border, and noticed that the locals were being a lot less polite than is normally the case. I realised, from some unpleasant expressions being bandied about, that they thought I was Russian – there were plenty of ragged Siberians mooching about. Once I had explained that I was British, attitudes changed noticeably.
So it’s not just racism. But it’s not not racism either. I have posted a few times on Chinese economic activity in Africa. Not that it’s necessarily politically sinister; but the phenomenon worries me. I can foresee a habit arising of expat Chinese entrepreneurs despising and maltreating their African workforce, culminating in a wholesale massacre of Chinese in Africa. Believe me, it could happen.
Legalising cannabis could make things worse
Another big row about drugs policy – like all the others, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. This one centres around the sacking of Dr David Nutt, an adviser to the Home Secretary, for public disagreement with government policy. Radio phone-ins all day have been full of rants: experts know much more than ministers, the latter should listen to them, Alan Johnson should have been sacked instead, etc. etc. The present government can no more do anything right than could John Major’s in 1996.
But the fact is that expert advisers are solely employed to give expert analysis and recommendations; they are not responsible for the political and social consequences of these, whereas ministers are. If ministers are apt to attach too much importance to possible cheap shots in the tabloids, those are political and social consequences too, and can’t be ignored altogether.
What interested me was that Dr Nutt’s departure followed so closely on Jacqui Smith’s stellar performance on Thursday’s Question Time. Ms Smith was jolly courageous to go on at all; as she must have expected, she appeared to a slightly rougher reception than that recently accorded to Nick Griffin. By the end of the programme she had turned it right round: she was getting full endorsements from Tory MP Cheryl Gillan, Plaid Cymru chief Elfyn Llwyd, and most of the audience. All by fearlessly holding the line on the drug policy argument. Dr Nutt was out next day. If she saves her seat, she will owe it to that programme.
I don’t have any coherent views on all this. All the drug arguments I’ve ever heard make sense for thirty seconds and then evaporate into a vague miasma. I’m very glad I’ve got two children through to adulthood – and in South London, too! – without any drug disasters. I know that I drink more than is good for me, and that this disqualifies me from pontificating. The argument I’ve been most impressed by in thirty years of cogitation was the late Sir Kingsley Amis’s: alcohol has probably preserved society from falling apart under the stresses and strains of modern life, and, more to the point, it is now part of the warp and woof of society, claims which more modern drugs cannot make. But then, you may correctly say, Sir Kingsley was parti pris; parts of his Memoirs are a masterpiece of alcoholic denial.
What I don’t understand is the way the legalisers keep bringing forward the argument that alcohol is a bigger social problem than cannabis, but that this is not properly recognised because alcohol is too popular for its banning to be conceivable. It’s a cogent argument, but doesn’t really support their case. If it is true, maybe it would be better to suppress cannabis, to stop that becoming so widely used that it becomes a huge and insoluble social problem – just like alcohol.
But the fact is that expert advisers are solely employed to give expert analysis and recommendations; they are not responsible for the political and social consequences of these, whereas ministers are. If ministers are apt to attach too much importance to possible cheap shots in the tabloids, those are political and social consequences too, and can’t be ignored altogether.
What interested me was that Dr Nutt’s departure followed so closely on Jacqui Smith’s stellar performance on Thursday’s Question Time. Ms Smith was jolly courageous to go on at all; as she must have expected, she appeared to a slightly rougher reception than that recently accorded to Nick Griffin. By the end of the programme she had turned it right round: she was getting full endorsements from Tory MP Cheryl Gillan, Plaid Cymru chief Elfyn Llwyd, and most of the audience. All by fearlessly holding the line on the drug policy argument. Dr Nutt was out next day. If she saves her seat, she will owe it to that programme.
I don’t have any coherent views on all this. All the drug arguments I’ve ever heard make sense for thirty seconds and then evaporate into a vague miasma. I’m very glad I’ve got two children through to adulthood – and in South London, too! – without any drug disasters. I know that I drink more than is good for me, and that this disqualifies me from pontificating. The argument I’ve been most impressed by in thirty years of cogitation was the late Sir Kingsley Amis’s: alcohol has probably preserved society from falling apart under the stresses and strains of modern life, and, more to the point, it is now part of the warp and woof of society, claims which more modern drugs cannot make. But then, you may correctly say, Sir Kingsley was parti pris; parts of his Memoirs are a masterpiece of alcoholic denial.
What I don’t understand is the way the legalisers keep bringing forward the argument that alcohol is a bigger social problem than cannabis, but that this is not properly recognised because alcohol is too popular for its banning to be conceivable. It’s a cogent argument, but doesn’t really support their case. If it is true, maybe it would be better to suppress cannabis, to stop that becoming so widely used that it becomes a huge and insoluble social problem – just like alcohol.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
The Wii Fit Plus: a computer game the Government wants you to play
The first computer game with the explicit endorsement of the Department of Health has just hit the shops. It is called the Wii Fit Plus and is meant to enable you to achieve a sylph-like figure without removing your eyes from the screen. And it comes with the opposite of the Government Health Warning on your fag packet.
I derive this information from my younger son, just short of his twenty-first birthday and possibly the world’s leading expert on these devices. He is very much the target market for the Wii Fit Plus, weighing seventeen stone (but then so do I, and he’s taller). It shows you various exercises to do, and – this is the innovative bit – you wear some sort of attachment on your body, so that the machine knows whether or not you are doing them correctly, and precisely how many calories you are burning off, encouraging you with word and demonstration the while. If this sounds rather reminiscent of Winston Smith and the telescreen in the opening chapter of 1984, do remember that so far it is all entirely voluntary, and you can tell it to sod off just like you do the lady on the satnav.
Let’s not brood too long over what future Harriet Harmans might make of it. It sounds a bit sad, but I can see there is something to be said for it, if one is a fitness fan doomed to live under sodden English skies, or else too grossly fat to risk being seen in public in one’s sports gear.
However, the idea of an endorsement by the Government is rather a new departure. (Though I can’t help fearing that in the current political situation that may be rather a kiss of death.) Let us hope that (pause to look up name) Mr Andy Burnham is seen disporting himself with his Wii on public service advertising in the run-up to Christmas. And the mind boggles at whatever other government departments may jump on the bandwagon. Encourage Pocket-money Prudence with an Alistair Darling Piggy-bank. Or what about a sustainable Christmas tree graced with an angelic Ed Miliband? One thing is certain: any military toys endorsed by the Ministry of Defence will have fallen apart by Boxing Day.
I derive this information from my younger son, just short of his twenty-first birthday and possibly the world’s leading expert on these devices. He is very much the target market for the Wii Fit Plus, weighing seventeen stone (but then so do I, and he’s taller). It shows you various exercises to do, and – this is the innovative bit – you wear some sort of attachment on your body, so that the machine knows whether or not you are doing them correctly, and precisely how many calories you are burning off, encouraging you with word and demonstration the while. If this sounds rather reminiscent of Winston Smith and the telescreen in the opening chapter of 1984, do remember that so far it is all entirely voluntary, and you can tell it to sod off just like you do the lady on the satnav.
Let’s not brood too long over what future Harriet Harmans might make of it. It sounds a bit sad, but I can see there is something to be said for it, if one is a fitness fan doomed to live under sodden English skies, or else too grossly fat to risk being seen in public in one’s sports gear.
However, the idea of an endorsement by the Government is rather a new departure. (Though I can’t help fearing that in the current political situation that may be rather a kiss of death.) Let us hope that (pause to look up name) Mr Andy Burnham is seen disporting himself with his Wii on public service advertising in the run-up to Christmas. And the mind boggles at whatever other government departments may jump on the bandwagon. Encourage Pocket-money Prudence with an Alistair Darling Piggy-bank. Or what about a sustainable Christmas tree graced with an angelic Ed Miliband? One thing is certain: any military toys endorsed by the Ministry of Defence will have fallen apart by Boxing Day.
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Poor (?) Lord Ashcroft's in trouble again
Poor Lord Ashcroft, to employ a fantastically inappropriate adjective, seems to be in trouble with the government of Belize again.
Ashcroft – one of the most English names imaginable, reminiscent of woods and agriculture, of the great English countryside. The name could only denote a denizen of a green and pleasant land. I have never been to Belize, but with its tropical location it is surely both green and pleasant too.
It’s not easy for expats. I’m not saying that their loyalties are necessarily divided: it should be perfectly possible to give both parties their due, to be a good resident of one while remaining a good citizen of the other. (Well, unless the two nations are actually playing each other at football.) It’s taxation which presents the difficulty. However dual one’s loyalties, one is inclined to think it a bit much to be expected to pay their taxes twice over. (Some think it a bit much to be expected to pay them even once, but that’s another matter.) Hence the ubiquity of Double Taxation Agreements between countries, ensuring that such a contingency does not arise.
So perhaps the resentment of the Belizean authorities against Lord Ashcroft derives from disappointment. Perhaps the local financial authorities are smarting at having been told that they may not dip into Lord Ashcroft’s capacious coffers, because he has emptied them with a liberal hand into those of Mr Alistair Darling. It surely cannot be otherwise, as he is Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party and is directing large chunks of cash into funding its campaigning in vital marginal seats. And he wouldn’t be doing that if he weren’t a fully paid-up UK taxpayer, would he?
We don’t know. There are, quite rightly, laws protecting confidentiality on matters of personal finance. There are also laws covering political donations. If we can’t enforce the latter without breaching the former, I suppose we just have to throw our hands in the air and leave it all to the judgment of Heaven. Jolly convenient for friend Cameron and his exciting band of Ashcroft-supported A-listers.
But somehow this example of an unanswered and unanswerable question takes me back to the Sixties, which was full of them. I hardly qualify as a flower child, but I was undeniably born in that decade’s inaugural year, and many will think that my unquenchably idealistic left-wingery is qualification enough. So indulge me as I brush the dust from the old guitar:
Where has good Lord Ashcroft gone,
Dear David Cameron?
Where has good Lord Ashcroft gone,
My dear old Dave?
Where has good Lord Ashcroft gone?
Tell me, Mr Cameron.
When will we ever learn,
When will we ever learn?
Has he fled beyond the seas,
Is he here, or in Belize?
Tell us where he pays his tax,
“We’re not telling that to hacks!”
Say where his returns are filed,
“Depends where he’s domiciled!”
He’s given lots of cash to you,
Any to the Treasury too?
“He’s a zillionaire, you see,”
(Says David Cameron)
“Just like my friend George and me.”
“Our kind don’t like paying tax,”
(Says David Cameron)
“That’s only for the little chaps.”
Ashcroft – one of the most English names imaginable, reminiscent of woods and agriculture, of the great English countryside. The name could only denote a denizen of a green and pleasant land. I have never been to Belize, but with its tropical location it is surely both green and pleasant too.
It’s not easy for expats. I’m not saying that their loyalties are necessarily divided: it should be perfectly possible to give both parties their due, to be a good resident of one while remaining a good citizen of the other. (Well, unless the two nations are actually playing each other at football.) It’s taxation which presents the difficulty. However dual one’s loyalties, one is inclined to think it a bit much to be expected to pay their taxes twice over. (Some think it a bit much to be expected to pay them even once, but that’s another matter.) Hence the ubiquity of Double Taxation Agreements between countries, ensuring that such a contingency does not arise.
So perhaps the resentment of the Belizean authorities against Lord Ashcroft derives from disappointment. Perhaps the local financial authorities are smarting at having been told that they may not dip into Lord Ashcroft’s capacious coffers, because he has emptied them with a liberal hand into those of Mr Alistair Darling. It surely cannot be otherwise, as he is Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party and is directing large chunks of cash into funding its campaigning in vital marginal seats. And he wouldn’t be doing that if he weren’t a fully paid-up UK taxpayer, would he?
We don’t know. There are, quite rightly, laws protecting confidentiality on matters of personal finance. There are also laws covering political donations. If we can’t enforce the latter without breaching the former, I suppose we just have to throw our hands in the air and leave it all to the judgment of Heaven. Jolly convenient for friend Cameron and his exciting band of Ashcroft-supported A-listers.
But somehow this example of an unanswered and unanswerable question takes me back to the Sixties, which was full of them. I hardly qualify as a flower child, but I was undeniably born in that decade’s inaugural year, and many will think that my unquenchably idealistic left-wingery is qualification enough. So indulge me as I brush the dust from the old guitar:
Where has good Lord Ashcroft gone,
Dear David Cameron?
Where has good Lord Ashcroft gone,
My dear old Dave?
Where has good Lord Ashcroft gone?
Tell me, Mr Cameron.
When will we ever learn,
When will we ever learn?
Has he fled beyond the seas,
Is he here, or in Belize?
Tell us where he pays his tax,
“We’re not telling that to hacks!”
Say where his returns are filed,
“Depends where he’s domiciled!”
He’s given lots of cash to you,
Any to the Treasury too?
“He’s a zillionaire, you see,”
(Says David Cameron)
“Just like my friend George and me.”
“Our kind don’t like paying tax,”
(Says David Cameron)
“That’s only for the little chaps.”
Sorry, children, this year I'm not giving in to Halloween blackmail
What are the ethics of (a) offering sweets to children not your own and (b) submitting to blackmail? I thought I’d ask because millions of us are going to be faced with the issue today. It’s Halloween, in case you’re living on Mars. Whatever we may think about this ghastly American import (see Damian Thompson’s blog post, to which I say Amen) we’re stuck with it. My wife reminded me to go out and buy a few packets of sweets. We forgot last year, and though our defiance was not punished with a hail of eggs against the frontage of the house, we might not be so lucky this year.
So much for submitting to blackmail. Now the other part. Handing out sweets to children (I’m damned if I’m going to give them money – besides my own two have taken all that) has become an uncomfortable business these days. As all football fans know, there is a certain Premiership manager who is alleged by opposing fans (without the slightest vestige of truth) to make a habit of pursuing children with a packet of sweets and an ingratiating smile. I do not wish to be confronted either with PC Plod or with a huge bloke with a shaven head and lots of tattoos, brandishing a packet of Maltesers and asking me what the hell I was doing offering them to little Tyson. And it’ll be no better in the more upmarket areas of town. Except that there, in addition to PC Ponsonby-Plodde, it’ll be a revolving-eyed harridan barking that little Jocasta has gone down with 57 different allergies and it’s all your fault.
Perhaps it’s better to pull up the drawbridge and to risk the eggs. No concessions to terrorists!
So much for submitting to blackmail. Now the other part. Handing out sweets to children (I’m damned if I’m going to give them money – besides my own two have taken all that) has become an uncomfortable business these days. As all football fans know, there is a certain Premiership manager who is alleged by opposing fans (without the slightest vestige of truth) to make a habit of pursuing children with a packet of sweets and an ingratiating smile. I do not wish to be confronted either with PC Plod or with a huge bloke with a shaven head and lots of tattoos, brandishing a packet of Maltesers and asking me what the hell I was doing offering them to little Tyson. And it’ll be no better in the more upmarket areas of town. Except that there, in addition to PC Ponsonby-Plodde, it’ll be a revolving-eyed harridan barking that little Jocasta has gone down with 57 different allergies and it’s all your fault.
Perhaps it’s better to pull up the drawbridge and to risk the eggs. No concessions to terrorists!
Friday, 30 October 2009
Oh no, house prices are going up again
I see from today’s papers that there has been a minuscule rise in year-on-year house prices. A fairly minor statistic, you might think – funny how that’s front-page news.
But, of course, in papers of conservative inclination it always is – Private Eye has a running joke about it. In reality, house price fluctuations should only be of interest to those actually on the point of buying or selling, which is quite a small minority. But we know that there are vast swathes of Middle Britain where the state of the housing market is regarded as an indicator of financial, social and moral well-being, if not as a direct correlative to the size of the male Middle British appendage. See daytime television for confirmation of this. Actually, for Pete’s sake, don’t.
And don’t you just want to plank anyone who talks about “properties”? It’s a house, you plonker, it’s a BLOODY HOUSE! It’s for LIVING IN! We’re not playing Monopoly here!
It may be political suicide to diss Middle Britain, but that won’t stop me doing so. These are the “hard-working families” to whom all our parties suck up so fawningly. Well, I’ve always been rather derisive of the term “hard-working families”. It seems to straddle the fine line between bullsh*t and nonsense. I know: I’ve been one.
When I was last a nuclear family, in the early years of the present decade, I was a civil servant: ’nuff said. My wife was self-employed, which is no doddle, but it gave her the freedom to take four months annual holiday. And as regards our teenage sons, the word “hard-working” could only have been used in the context of sledgehammer irony. In fact, like most of the bourgeoisie at that time, our family fortunes depended not on hard work or anything like it, but on the precipitous rise in the value of our house (now, of course, her house).
OK, Gordon Brown has his client base in government offices and quangos: but David Cameron has one too, based on secure salaried jobs, asset price bubbles and an unbreachable sense of entitlement, from which derives Tory policy on inheritance tax and the prospect of a peerage for Kirstie Allsopp.
The Britain of the early Noughties. No real effort, no risks, no enterprise required. But it’s gone, and it’s not coming back. No secure jobs, no mortgages, no free money materialising magically from one’s des. res., and the house price statistics back on page 94 where they belong. A government which really wanted to promote enterprise would strip away virtually all taxes and regulations from small business and tax the big ones and their bloated, flabby salariat to hell and beyond. It’s people getting rich which grows the economy, not people staying rich. And the sooner we see another 50 per cent off house prices, the happier I’ll be.
But, of course, in papers of conservative inclination it always is – Private Eye has a running joke about it. In reality, house price fluctuations should only be of interest to those actually on the point of buying or selling, which is quite a small minority. But we know that there are vast swathes of Middle Britain where the state of the housing market is regarded as an indicator of financial, social and moral well-being, if not as a direct correlative to the size of the male Middle British appendage. See daytime television for confirmation of this. Actually, for Pete’s sake, don’t.
And don’t you just want to plank anyone who talks about “properties”? It’s a house, you plonker, it’s a BLOODY HOUSE! It’s for LIVING IN! We’re not playing Monopoly here!
It may be political suicide to diss Middle Britain, but that won’t stop me doing so. These are the “hard-working families” to whom all our parties suck up so fawningly. Well, I’ve always been rather derisive of the term “hard-working families”. It seems to straddle the fine line between bullsh*t and nonsense. I know: I’ve been one.
When I was last a nuclear family, in the early years of the present decade, I was a civil servant: ’nuff said. My wife was self-employed, which is no doddle, but it gave her the freedom to take four months annual holiday. And as regards our teenage sons, the word “hard-working” could only have been used in the context of sledgehammer irony. In fact, like most of the bourgeoisie at that time, our family fortunes depended not on hard work or anything like it, but on the precipitous rise in the value of our house (now, of course, her house).
OK, Gordon Brown has his client base in government offices and quangos: but David Cameron has one too, based on secure salaried jobs, asset price bubbles and an unbreachable sense of entitlement, from which derives Tory policy on inheritance tax and the prospect of a peerage for Kirstie Allsopp.
The Britain of the early Noughties. No real effort, no risks, no enterprise required. But it’s gone, and it’s not coming back. No secure jobs, no mortgages, no free money materialising magically from one’s des. res., and the house price statistics back on page 94 where they belong. A government which really wanted to promote enterprise would strip away virtually all taxes and regulations from small business and tax the big ones and their bloated, flabby salariat to hell and beyond. It’s people getting rich which grows the economy, not people staying rich. And the sooner we see another 50 per cent off house prices, the happier I’ll be.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
The East Asia Summit: China, Rio Tinto and the mysterious arrest of a Chinese-Australian
Did you know there was an East Asia Summit going on? It was supposed to happen a year ago in Bangkok, and then there was a coup, so they moved it to Chiang Mai, then to Phuket, then to the world’s whoring capital Pattaya, and that had to be cancelled too, so now it’s happening in the more sedate resort of Hua Hin. (Memo to brewers: if you want a piss-up organised on your premises, don’t ask the Thais.)
One of the bigger real issues relates to the arrest in China of a man called Stern Hu. Yes, OK, let’s can the “Hu Hee” jokes. Hu is a perfectly normal name in China – the Supreme Leader bears it – and he adopted the name “Stern” after Isaac the great violinist. That’s several steps upmarket from a waiter I once knew who assumed the moniker “Stallone”. Mr Hu is a naturalised Australian, and was until his arrest in July the chief representative of Rio Tinto. He has been charged with bribery and the revelation of state secrets.
Serious stuff, eh? Well, that depends. China is far from being the only part of the world where doing successful business is likely to involve the odd brown envelope; of course it is against the law, but the law, like most Chinese laws, is only selectively applied. (We’re talking about a country where all extra-marital sex is illegal.) As for revelation of state secrets, well, releasing any information which has not been expressly passed for release by the authorities is against the law. It happens all the time, of course – I’m doing it now – but you can be pulled up for it if it’s in the national interest to do so. So Mr Hu is both guilty and not guilty, according to how sane (or, alternatively, bourgeois-liberal-decadent) one is feeling.
Kevin Rudd, the Sinophone Prime Minister of Australia, is at this meeting. Australia is in the tough position of having to pretend it is in Asia, as it would be foully racist not to, while not forgetting that it is the only country for thousands of miles which disapproves of chaps getting flung into the slammer at a whim. What he is up against, as he probably knows as well as I do, is the fact that the Chinese do not believe that a man called Hu can be an Aussie. We’ll see how far Mr Rudd gets.
Of course there is a backstory to this. Hu’s arrest was uncomfortably close in time to Rio Tinto’s refusal to allow the Chinese aluminium giant Chinalco to boost its stake in RT from 9 per cent to 18 per cent. The message was received and understood: China will not be allowed to muscle in on the world’s metals markets. OK, the Chinese said: say goodbye to Mr Hu, then.
Now, let’s try to maintain a little objectivity here. No-one wants to see the commodities markets dominated by China or anyone else. But that isn’t really what we’re looking at. Three firms – Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale – enjoy a virtual monopoly over the world trade in iron ore. China is where most of the world’s construction is going on, and the world’s economy is grateful for it. That the Chinese should want a stake in this market is hardly unreasonable.
That the Chinese should respond by arresting an Australian on highly dodgy charges is of course unreasonable. But if the Chinese are treated as people who must be shut out of world markets, how do we expect them to behave? The way forward is surely to lock China into world trade, where everybody’s prosperity depends on everyone else being reasonably sensible. The Chinese can grasp that – they’re not Russians, after all. Talk some sense into them all, Mr Rudd.
One of the bigger real issues relates to the arrest in China of a man called Stern Hu. Yes, OK, let’s can the “Hu Hee” jokes. Hu is a perfectly normal name in China – the Supreme Leader bears it – and he adopted the name “Stern” after Isaac the great violinist. That’s several steps upmarket from a waiter I once knew who assumed the moniker “Stallone”. Mr Hu is a naturalised Australian, and was until his arrest in July the chief representative of Rio Tinto. He has been charged with bribery and the revelation of state secrets.
Serious stuff, eh? Well, that depends. China is far from being the only part of the world where doing successful business is likely to involve the odd brown envelope; of course it is against the law, but the law, like most Chinese laws, is only selectively applied. (We’re talking about a country where all extra-marital sex is illegal.) As for revelation of state secrets, well, releasing any information which has not been expressly passed for release by the authorities is against the law. It happens all the time, of course – I’m doing it now – but you can be pulled up for it if it’s in the national interest to do so. So Mr Hu is both guilty and not guilty, according to how sane (or, alternatively, bourgeois-liberal-decadent) one is feeling.
Kevin Rudd, the Sinophone Prime Minister of Australia, is at this meeting. Australia is in the tough position of having to pretend it is in Asia, as it would be foully racist not to, while not forgetting that it is the only country for thousands of miles which disapproves of chaps getting flung into the slammer at a whim. What he is up against, as he probably knows as well as I do, is the fact that the Chinese do not believe that a man called Hu can be an Aussie. We’ll see how far Mr Rudd gets.
Of course there is a backstory to this. Hu’s arrest was uncomfortably close in time to Rio Tinto’s refusal to allow the Chinese aluminium giant Chinalco to boost its stake in RT from 9 per cent to 18 per cent. The message was received and understood: China will not be allowed to muscle in on the world’s metals markets. OK, the Chinese said: say goodbye to Mr Hu, then.
Now, let’s try to maintain a little objectivity here. No-one wants to see the commodities markets dominated by China or anyone else. But that isn’t really what we’re looking at. Three firms – Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale – enjoy a virtual monopoly over the world trade in iron ore. China is where most of the world’s construction is going on, and the world’s economy is grateful for it. That the Chinese should want a stake in this market is hardly unreasonable.
That the Chinese should respond by arresting an Australian on highly dodgy charges is of course unreasonable. But if the Chinese are treated as people who must be shut out of world markets, how do we expect them to behave? The way forward is surely to lock China into world trade, where everybody’s prosperity depends on everyone else being reasonably sensible. The Chinese can grasp that – they’re not Russians, after all. Talk some sense into them all, Mr Rudd.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Friday, 23 October 2009
Even in Saudi Arabia, men are afraid of nagging wives
A wife suing her husband for divorce on the grounds that she is listed on his mobile as “Guantanamo” would be good for a chuckle anywhere in the world. But who would have thought it would come from Saudi Arabia, of all places?
Arguably this is the best publicity the Kingdom’s had for years. There we all are, assuming that all Saudi marital disputes are settled by a clip round the ear, a beating by the religious police, or at best by the recitation of forbidding words from the Koran, and now we find that the blokes can feel just as oppressed by the old ball-and-chain as we do. Meanwhile, the Kingdom clearly isn’t short of feisty ladies who take no nonsense from their lords and masters. This one is petitioning for divorce, but has indicated that the prisoner may get away with a large monetary payment to her, in which case she will deign to stay married to him. Sounds like a bit of a double whammy to me.
One sympathises with the poor chap, though one’s main feeling is admiration for the indefatigability of human nature. Even given some of the most misogynistic legislation the world has ever seen, the character of the ferocious old battleaxe cannot be suppressed. Wasn’t it Horace, or possibly Boris Johnson, who once said “You can expel Nature with a pitchfork, but she’ll always come creeping back”?
I’d love to have a drink or two with this guy and compare battle-scars, but I dare say he doesn’t get to go down the pub much.
Arguably this is the best publicity the Kingdom’s had for years. There we all are, assuming that all Saudi marital disputes are settled by a clip round the ear, a beating by the religious police, or at best by the recitation of forbidding words from the Koran, and now we find that the blokes can feel just as oppressed by the old ball-and-chain as we do. Meanwhile, the Kingdom clearly isn’t short of feisty ladies who take no nonsense from their lords and masters. This one is petitioning for divorce, but has indicated that the prisoner may get away with a large monetary payment to her, in which case she will deign to stay married to him. Sounds like a bit of a double whammy to me.
One sympathises with the poor chap, though one’s main feeling is admiration for the indefatigability of human nature. Even given some of the most misogynistic legislation the world has ever seen, the character of the ferocious old battleaxe cannot be suppressed. Wasn’t it Horace, or possibly Boris Johnson, who once said “You can expel Nature with a pitchfork, but she’ll always come creeping back”?
I’d love to have a drink or two with this guy and compare battle-scars, but I dare say he doesn’t get to go down the pub much.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
We may aw well forget about mortgages - and jobs too
So now the banks (three hearty cheers!) are telling us that they will start to limit the supply of mortgage funding, not only according to the size and regularity of our incomes, but also by the thriftiness of our spending habits. For those on average and below-average incomes, I give the following Irish translation; until now there have been no mortgages available at all, from now there’ll be no mortgages at-all-at-all.
As a freelance, and one of those who used to be on the property ladder until landing on a socking great property snake called a divorce, I know that a house now falls into the same bracket as a Ferrari; something only to be contemplated when filling in one’s lottery numbers. No whingeing; I claim no natural right to a three-bedroom semi. But Lady Thatcher’s property-owning democracy is now surely in its death throes.
In any case the banks’ criteria make no sense. The idea of buying houses on a mortgage was born in the days when the bank could reasonably expect that a chap with a steady job would keep it for life. These days there’s no real reason to discriminate between the chap with a regular job and one on a fluctuating freelance income; the former is no less likely to be on his beam ends next year, and (may I venture) the latter is more likely to be keeping his income up by bobbing and weaving, whereas the other will probably be traumatised into hopelessness.
Ultimately the banks will get onto this too, and will start only lending money to those who are rich enough already, helping them leverage London property from the stratosphere into the ionosphere. The problem with tolerating a swathe of super-rich in our country is that service providers will start to feel that an infinitesimal sliver of the billionaire market is going to be more profitable than any amount of market share among the plebs, who can simply go to hell. Adam Smith (whom I honour greatly) said that it was not the benevolence of the baker, butcher etc. which encouraged him to feed us, but his self-interest. What he didn’t say was that, if the self-interest of the baker, butcher etc. encouraged him to direct all his efforts towards someone else, we’ll bloody well starve.
So where does that leave the rest of us? Well, sort of a bit disenchanted with an economic structure which leaves us out of account altogether. We can’t get mortgages, so maybe we won’t bother with the regular jobs that exist to service them either. We won’t pay stupid prices for accommodation whose only virtue is a location close to a workplace. We’ll live from hand to mouth, but we’ll live free.
The much-bewailed lack of jobs for young graduates (= cushy sinecures) may be a beacon of hope. I have always told my two student sons: don’t get a job, get a skillset. (After several thousand evenings of seeing their father come home from the office in a vile mood, they’re both determined never to set foot in one.) And then, if democracy survives (and that’s a great big Lacedaemonian “if”) we can hold a nice straightforward election: us v. them. You do the math.
As a freelance, and one of those who used to be on the property ladder until landing on a socking great property snake called a divorce, I know that a house now falls into the same bracket as a Ferrari; something only to be contemplated when filling in one’s lottery numbers. No whingeing; I claim no natural right to a three-bedroom semi. But Lady Thatcher’s property-owning democracy is now surely in its death throes.
In any case the banks’ criteria make no sense. The idea of buying houses on a mortgage was born in the days when the bank could reasonably expect that a chap with a steady job would keep it for life. These days there’s no real reason to discriminate between the chap with a regular job and one on a fluctuating freelance income; the former is no less likely to be on his beam ends next year, and (may I venture) the latter is more likely to be keeping his income up by bobbing and weaving, whereas the other will probably be traumatised into hopelessness.
Ultimately the banks will get onto this too, and will start only lending money to those who are rich enough already, helping them leverage London property from the stratosphere into the ionosphere. The problem with tolerating a swathe of super-rich in our country is that service providers will start to feel that an infinitesimal sliver of the billionaire market is going to be more profitable than any amount of market share among the plebs, who can simply go to hell. Adam Smith (whom I honour greatly) said that it was not the benevolence of the baker, butcher etc. which encouraged him to feed us, but his self-interest. What he didn’t say was that, if the self-interest of the baker, butcher etc. encouraged him to direct all his efforts towards someone else, we’ll bloody well starve.
So where does that leave the rest of us? Well, sort of a bit disenchanted with an economic structure which leaves us out of account altogether. We can’t get mortgages, so maybe we won’t bother with the regular jobs that exist to service them either. We won’t pay stupid prices for accommodation whose only virtue is a location close to a workplace. We’ll live from hand to mouth, but we’ll live free.
The much-bewailed lack of jobs for young graduates (= cushy sinecures) may be a beacon of hope. I have always told my two student sons: don’t get a job, get a skillset. (After several thousand evenings of seeing their father come home from the office in a vile mood, they’re both determined never to set foot in one.) And then, if democracy survives (and that’s a great big Lacedaemonian “if”) we can hold a nice straightforward election: us v. them. You do the math.
Monday, 19 October 2009
How Brown could throw the Tories into disarray: a sudden referendum on Europe
I heard an audacious proposal to upset David Cameron’s apple cart last night. It came from a Labour MP whom I had better not identify.
Let us assume that the Czech President finally ratifies the Lisbon Treaty, as he now seems certain to do. Now, suppose that the Prime Minister then addresses Parliament, pointing out that the Treaty is now formally in force. However, he adds, he is aware that there is a strong feeling in the country that this step should really be ratified by a referendum of the British people. He therefore proposes to hold one, on the first Thursday of May 2010.
But, he will continue, the Lisbon Treaty is now part of the internal structure of the EU, so that the referendum cannot be on Lisbon alone: the option of an EU without Lisbon no longer exists. The referendum must therefore be on the question of continued UK membership of the European Union. He and his party will be campaigning for a Yes vote. Four weeks after the referendum, a General Election will be held.
That would be quite a coup de maître. At a stroke the Tory campaign is thrown into utter confusion; presumably they would have to make common cause with the government on the referendum campaign while trying to undermine it for General Election purposes, and so will come over like John Kerry on Iraq in 2004. Every little Tory dissension on Europe will come out of the woodwork, clicking like a death-watch beetle, whereas Blairites and Brownites will be singing in perfect harmony for once, with Lord Mandelson on mellifluous lead vocals. Labour will be able to wave its implementation of its manifesto promise triumphantly in everyone’s face, countering the accusation that this is a wholly Machiavellian manoeuvre, even though it is.
The one possible drawback is that people might be so disgusted by all this that the referendum vote is lost. (Yes, I know that if the franchise were limited to Telegraph blog readers it would go down in flames, but sadly that is not the case.) But then the General Election would be too, and then wouldn’t Messrs Cameron and Hague have a fine mess to clear up?
There’s rather an unBritish whiff of scorched earth about all this, and somehow one cannot envisage the current Prime Minister embarking on quite such a white-knuckle strategy. But it’s a nice thought.
Let us assume that the Czech President finally ratifies the Lisbon Treaty, as he now seems certain to do. Now, suppose that the Prime Minister then addresses Parliament, pointing out that the Treaty is now formally in force. However, he adds, he is aware that there is a strong feeling in the country that this step should really be ratified by a referendum of the British people. He therefore proposes to hold one, on the first Thursday of May 2010.
But, he will continue, the Lisbon Treaty is now part of the internal structure of the EU, so that the referendum cannot be on Lisbon alone: the option of an EU without Lisbon no longer exists. The referendum must therefore be on the question of continued UK membership of the European Union. He and his party will be campaigning for a Yes vote. Four weeks after the referendum, a General Election will be held.
That would be quite a coup de maître. At a stroke the Tory campaign is thrown into utter confusion; presumably they would have to make common cause with the government on the referendum campaign while trying to undermine it for General Election purposes, and so will come over like John Kerry on Iraq in 2004. Every little Tory dissension on Europe will come out of the woodwork, clicking like a death-watch beetle, whereas Blairites and Brownites will be singing in perfect harmony for once, with Lord Mandelson on mellifluous lead vocals. Labour will be able to wave its implementation of its manifesto promise triumphantly in everyone’s face, countering the accusation that this is a wholly Machiavellian manoeuvre, even though it is.
The one possible drawback is that people might be so disgusted by all this that the referendum vote is lost. (Yes, I know that if the franchise were limited to Telegraph blog readers it would go down in flames, but sadly that is not the case.) But then the General Election would be too, and then wouldn’t Messrs Cameron and Hague have a fine mess to clear up?
There’s rather an unBritish whiff of scorched earth about all this, and somehow one cannot envisage the current Prime Minister embarking on quite such a white-knuckle strategy. But it’s a nice thought.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
China and Russia are back together again
The Sino-Russian “strategic partnership” would appear to be on a roll again. Following the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic comes the 60th anniversary of Sino-Russian diplomatic relations, as Stalin was naturally the first to recognise the regime of his fellow-psychopath Mao. What more natural than that not-really-Supreme-Leader Putin should come over to demonstrate the enduring strength of the relationship?
The usual impressive announcements were made. “Views were exchanged” on mutual energy cooperation.
Cooperation is also going smoothly on the construction of a gas pipeline from Siberia, although one hears from other sources that they are bickering about prices. Banking cooperation deals have been signed with a value of $1 billion, presumably involving lines of credit that will be used if and when the bickering stops. The total figure for all these deals is an impressive $4 billion.
I remember these communiqués well from my time as a diplomat. You have to have a big headline figure, which generally represents an aspiration rather than an actuality. It’s there to cover the fact that there’s no substance to these “big visits” at all. On the Chinese side it’s the prelude to a “Russia Year”, which of course is just a goodwill gesture. Apart from the need for certain Russian natural resources, which the Chinese know they’ll get anyway as the Russians can’t afford to brass them off, there’s nothing in this relationship.
That’s not to say that it doesn’t come in useful to both sides in worrying the West; the combination of the UN’s two principal dictator-protectors (known to me as “Tyranny International”) always makes us shiver a bit. And the Chinese may well be a bit miffed that St Barack has given Russia a free pass on human rights in exchange for a bit of help over Iran; still, it may encourage them to be a bit more helpful in the international arena.
Still, we should watch the progress of China’s “Russia Year” with considerable interest, using matchsticks to prop our eyes open if necessary. Perhaps by the end of it they’ll be the only ones left prepared to take Macho Man Putin with any seriousness at all. And that’s just out of politeness.
The usual impressive announcements were made. “Views were exchanged” on mutual energy cooperation.
Cooperation is also going smoothly on the construction of a gas pipeline from Siberia, although one hears from other sources that they are bickering about prices. Banking cooperation deals have been signed with a value of $1 billion, presumably involving lines of credit that will be used if and when the bickering stops. The total figure for all these deals is an impressive $4 billion.
I remember these communiqués well from my time as a diplomat. You have to have a big headline figure, which generally represents an aspiration rather than an actuality. It’s there to cover the fact that there’s no substance to these “big visits” at all. On the Chinese side it’s the prelude to a “Russia Year”, which of course is just a goodwill gesture. Apart from the need for certain Russian natural resources, which the Chinese know they’ll get anyway as the Russians can’t afford to brass them off, there’s nothing in this relationship.
That’s not to say that it doesn’t come in useful to both sides in worrying the West; the combination of the UN’s two principal dictator-protectors (known to me as “Tyranny International”) always makes us shiver a bit. And the Chinese may well be a bit miffed that St Barack has given Russia a free pass on human rights in exchange for a bit of help over Iran; still, it may encourage them to be a bit more helpful in the international arena.
Still, we should watch the progress of China’s “Russia Year” with considerable interest, using matchsticks to prop our eyes open if necessary. Perhaps by the end of it they’ll be the only ones left prepared to take Macho Man Putin with any seriousness at all. And that’s just out of politeness.
Sunday, 11 October 2009
England's World Cup qualifier - the decline of televised sport
It’s been a crap week for televised sport in this country. Once the ICC Champions Trophy was finished there wasn’t any more cricket, and it was a week without footie because of the internationals at the weekend, and then we couldn’t watch Ukraine-England either. The “rights” to televise it had been bought by a Mickey Mouse Irish company which had gone bust, and so in true dog-in-the-manger style no-one could televise it at all. You can’t even watch it in the pub.
But wait, the powers-that-be said, do not repine – you can get it on your computer for only £11.95. Yeah, we all thought, great: sit down with your mates huddled around a 15-inch laptop and watch the whole thing in dodgy picture quality with a crate of Albanian lager. The shape of things to come.
All this “rights” stuff is a perversion of the “choice” it’s meant to represent: it’s governed by the great imperative of Revenue Protection. This, for the uninitiated, means quite simply that the service provider thinks it is a million times more important to stop people who haven’t paid from receiving the service than to ensure that those who are entitled to receive it can. All national major sporting events should be on the BBC. End of story.
All right, it wasn’t a great game. We lost 1-0, and evidence that there is anything more to Rio Ferdinand than a face like a duck was not forthcoming. And yes, I’m sure more money is made the way they do it now. But football needs more money like…oh, I don’t know, fill in your own cheesy simile. All I can say is that this stinks.
But wait, the powers-that-be said, do not repine – you can get it on your computer for only £11.95. Yeah, we all thought, great: sit down with your mates huddled around a 15-inch laptop and watch the whole thing in dodgy picture quality with a crate of Albanian lager. The shape of things to come.
All this “rights” stuff is a perversion of the “choice” it’s meant to represent: it’s governed by the great imperative of Revenue Protection. This, for the uninitiated, means quite simply that the service provider thinks it is a million times more important to stop people who haven’t paid from receiving the service than to ensure that those who are entitled to receive it can. All national major sporting events should be on the BBC. End of story.
All right, it wasn’t a great game. We lost 1-0, and evidence that there is anything more to Rio Ferdinand than a face like a duck was not forthcoming. And yes, I’m sure more money is made the way they do it now. But football needs more money like…oh, I don’t know, fill in your own cheesy simile. All I can say is that this stinks.
Friday, 9 October 2009
The Jewish names missing from a Guardian list of Nobel Prize winners
The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama has unsurprisingly drawn a barrage of diverse comment in today’s press. For me the most interesting reaction came from Simon Rogers on the Guardian website. Not in anything he said about Obama, though. He published a list of all Peace Prize winners since 1901, under the perfectly reasonable question “How does Obama compare?”
Close examination of this revealed a few slips. In 1978, for instance, the laureate was named as President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Half accurate. Some of us may remember that Sadat shared the prize that year with another statesman, one Menachem Begin by name. But Begin’s name was conspicuous by its absence. Further down, the award in 1994 to Yasser Arafat was noted. But had he received the prize alone? I rather thought that Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres had shared it with him. You wouldn’t have discovered that from Mr Rogers’s list.
I owe this fascinating discovery to the blog forum Harry’s Place. Within 40 minutes of posting, the no doubt vermilion-faced Rogers added his own comment. “Hi, I’m afraid rather than conspiracy, we’re also just capable of making a mistake in complicated data entry (which affected a number where there were two or more winners). This has been rectified [it has].” (He’s also capable of making a mistake in his grammar, eh?)
Data entry? OK, but no one has yet found any other mistakes in recording the many occasions on which multiple awards were made. I am not implying in any way that the Guardian or Simon Rogers are guilty of deliberate falsification. It was an oversight, no doubt under deadline pressure. Even so, what an odd business.
Close examination of this revealed a few slips. In 1978, for instance, the laureate was named as President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Half accurate. Some of us may remember that Sadat shared the prize that year with another statesman, one Menachem Begin by name. But Begin’s name was conspicuous by its absence. Further down, the award in 1994 to Yasser Arafat was noted. But had he received the prize alone? I rather thought that Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres had shared it with him. You wouldn’t have discovered that from Mr Rogers’s list.
I owe this fascinating discovery to the blog forum Harry’s Place. Within 40 minutes of posting, the no doubt vermilion-faced Rogers added his own comment. “Hi, I’m afraid rather than conspiracy, we’re also just capable of making a mistake in complicated data entry (which affected a number where there were two or more winners). This has been rectified [it has].” (He’s also capable of making a mistake in his grammar, eh?)
Data entry? OK, but no one has yet found any other mistakes in recording the many occasions on which multiple awards were made. I am not implying in any way that the Guardian or Simon Rogers are guilty of deliberate falsification. It was an oversight, no doubt under deadline pressure. Even so, what an odd business.
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Our poverty attracts the pity of the Chinese
I know our economy has been taking a bit of a bashing recently, but I was a bit taken aback at something my wife said yesterday. Apparently two Chinese friends, independently and on separate occasions in the last week, told her of their surprise at how poor everyone seems to be here.
Both ladies were too polite to amplify, but both had been our guests at a recent party, and no doubt the modest circumstances chez Collard had contributed something to this observation. Still, even I didn’t realise I qualified for the Third World’s pity just yet.
It needs of course to be placed in context. Many of the Chinese living here, especially in the academic world, come from very wealthy families; they’d have to be, to pay full-cost fees for post-graduate as well as undergraduate degrees. So they’re hardly directly comparable to the struggling middle classes of a standard English town. But there are other factors involved.
Only ten or fifteen years ago China’s opening to the outside world had shown the Chinese just how wealthy the Western world was. Going to the West, insofar as that was possible, was like a voyage to Eldorado; one expected untold wealth and luxury, and for the first generation of escapees that was what one got. For those who stayed back home, imagination had to suffice. People would ask, brazenly, how much one earned, translate it into renminbi, and their eyes would start to revolve, thinking how much that would buy in 1990s China.
Which was of course the snag. With so much of the population living on or around the breadline, China has had to keep the basic cost of living very low indeed. Housing, transport, clothing, food, all had to be accessible to those who had remained on Communist-era wages. Thus when middle-class incomes started to shoot up like rocketing pheasants, that income was virtually all disposable. When Chinese come to Britain, therefore, they are not prepared for the fact that most of our monthly incomes, even the higher ones, are swallowed up in fixed costs before they’ve had time to settle in our bank accounts. Somewhere inside them the expectation still remains that we ought to be a lot richer; we’re Westerners, after all. But the reality is that middle-class jobs in Beijing or Shanghai pay hardly less than in the UK, so they have far more cash to buy bling and make whoopee than we do.
So, when you see statistics for the average income in China (£1,275 per annum in 2006) take them with a pinch of monosodium glutamate. There are a billion peasants on far less than that, and several million in the cities with a hell of a lot more. At least they’re becoming sensitive to the plight of us poor sods over here.
Both ladies were too polite to amplify, but both had been our guests at a recent party, and no doubt the modest circumstances chez Collard had contributed something to this observation. Still, even I didn’t realise I qualified for the Third World’s pity just yet.
It needs of course to be placed in context. Many of the Chinese living here, especially in the academic world, come from very wealthy families; they’d have to be, to pay full-cost fees for post-graduate as well as undergraduate degrees. So they’re hardly directly comparable to the struggling middle classes of a standard English town. But there are other factors involved.
Only ten or fifteen years ago China’s opening to the outside world had shown the Chinese just how wealthy the Western world was. Going to the West, insofar as that was possible, was like a voyage to Eldorado; one expected untold wealth and luxury, and for the first generation of escapees that was what one got. For those who stayed back home, imagination had to suffice. People would ask, brazenly, how much one earned, translate it into renminbi, and their eyes would start to revolve, thinking how much that would buy in 1990s China.
Which was of course the snag. With so much of the population living on or around the breadline, China has had to keep the basic cost of living very low indeed. Housing, transport, clothing, food, all had to be accessible to those who had remained on Communist-era wages. Thus when middle-class incomes started to shoot up like rocketing pheasants, that income was virtually all disposable. When Chinese come to Britain, therefore, they are not prepared for the fact that most of our monthly incomes, even the higher ones, are swallowed up in fixed costs before they’ve had time to settle in our bank accounts. Somewhere inside them the expectation still remains that we ought to be a lot richer; we’re Westerners, after all. But the reality is that middle-class jobs in Beijing or Shanghai pay hardly less than in the UK, so they have far more cash to buy bling and make whoopee than we do.
So, when you see statistics for the average income in China (£1,275 per annum in 2006) take them with a pinch of monosodium glutamate. There are a billion peasants on far less than that, and several million in the cities with a hell of a lot more. At least they’re becoming sensitive to the plight of us poor sods over here.
Monday, 5 October 2009
President Blair - a steal at £3.5 million. Unbeatable value for money
The papers are all full of the exciting news that Tony Blair, if he follows his manifest destiny and is inaugurated shortly as the first President of Europe, will earn about £3.5 million during his 30-month tenure of office. I wonder how this stately figure was arrived at.
The prevailing post-Thatcherite wisdom is that rewards are equivalent to one’s value in the open market. I’m sure it’s not only we socialists who feel a smidgen of doubt in this particular case. For all Mr Blair’s gifts and abilities, does the EU not think it could have had a perfectly serviceable President for rather less than three and a half mil? And I can’t imagine the salary was fixed to attract the right candidate. £3.5m is surely small change to Tony and Cherie these days, and it’s not exactly a secret that Blair wants this job so badly that he’d be quite happy to do it for nothing. After all, I’m pretty sure that he won’t have to put his hand in his own pocket at any time during those 30 months. Except for holidays, of course – whoops, I forgot, the Blairs tend not to pay for those either. So why the need to set the Presidential screw at this level?
It’s obviously a matter of status. One has to at least pretend to keep up with the Berlusconis. Like our former Deputy Prime Minister, one wants to be let it be known that one has one’s own personal Jag as well as the official one. Important people like to be rich, and vice versa. And, after all, that the EU likes to scatter other people’s money with a lavish hand is not exactly news.
What is clear, though, is that this sort of thing has nothing to do with market values. And it’s not confined to the public sector, either, though in the private sector it’s shareholders’ money rather than taxpayers’. Beyond a certain level, probably not unadjacent to the Government’s arbitrarily chosen £150,000, the connection between salary and market value becomes so exiguous as to be nugatory. That’s why I don’t care how highly they are taxed. And the next person to tell me that high salaries are justified by the market value of the services provided, rather than a mere badge of self-defined status, will get my pint upended over their head.
The prevailing post-Thatcherite wisdom is that rewards are equivalent to one’s value in the open market. I’m sure it’s not only we socialists who feel a smidgen of doubt in this particular case. For all Mr Blair’s gifts and abilities, does the EU not think it could have had a perfectly serviceable President for rather less than three and a half mil? And I can’t imagine the salary was fixed to attract the right candidate. £3.5m is surely small change to Tony and Cherie these days, and it’s not exactly a secret that Blair wants this job so badly that he’d be quite happy to do it for nothing. After all, I’m pretty sure that he won’t have to put his hand in his own pocket at any time during those 30 months. Except for holidays, of course – whoops, I forgot, the Blairs tend not to pay for those either. So why the need to set the Presidential screw at this level?
It’s obviously a matter of status. One has to at least pretend to keep up with the Berlusconis. Like our former Deputy Prime Minister, one wants to be let it be known that one has one’s own personal Jag as well as the official one. Important people like to be rich, and vice versa. And, after all, that the EU likes to scatter other people’s money with a lavish hand is not exactly news.
What is clear, though, is that this sort of thing has nothing to do with market values. And it’s not confined to the public sector, either, though in the private sector it’s shareholders’ money rather than taxpayers’. Beyond a certain level, probably not unadjacent to the Government’s arbitrarily chosen £150,000, the connection between salary and market value becomes so exiguous as to be nugatory. That’s why I don’t care how highly they are taxed. And the next person to tell me that high salaries are justified by the market value of the services provided, rather than a mere badge of self-defined status, will get my pint upended over their head.
Marek Edelman: death of a great man
I was just about to take the Telegraph’s obituarist to task for a failure to mention the death of Marek Edelman, when I discovered that he or she was in fact quicker off the mark than me. I thus have no need to recount the life story of the last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but I do think that an extraordinary human being deserves a eulogy as well as an obituary.
The month-long fight of the doomed Jewish community against overwhelming force was a great act of resistance, even though the chances of survival were no greater than for those who went to the camps. Edelman was one of very few survivors of the ghetto’s total destruction, and had to hide underground for the remaining two years of the war, quite an achievement in itself. After the war he became a cardiologist of high standing, though this did not save him from further anti-Semitic persecution under the Gomulka regime. Once more he bounced back, as a Solidarity activist from the very beginning of the movement. One senses that he came out of his dreadful wartime experiences with an intense commitment to human freedom and dignity.
Edelman was never a Zionist; before the war he had been a leader of the Bund, the Jewish Socialist organisation, and he remained firmly Polish. In old age, he was not afraid to speak up for the Palestinians when he felt that the Jewish self-defence for which he had fought was in danger of crossing the line into oppression. He was thus a controversial figure in Israel; but whether or not one agreed with his views, it cannot be denied that he had earned the right to express them.
Marek Edelman, zikhrono livrakha!
The month-long fight of the doomed Jewish community against overwhelming force was a great act of resistance, even though the chances of survival were no greater than for those who went to the camps. Edelman was one of very few survivors of the ghetto’s total destruction, and had to hide underground for the remaining two years of the war, quite an achievement in itself. After the war he became a cardiologist of high standing, though this did not save him from further anti-Semitic persecution under the Gomulka regime. Once more he bounced back, as a Solidarity activist from the very beginning of the movement. One senses that he came out of his dreadful wartime experiences with an intense commitment to human freedom and dignity.
Edelman was never a Zionist; before the war he had been a leader of the Bund, the Jewish Socialist organisation, and he remained firmly Polish. In old age, he was not afraid to speak up for the Palestinians when he felt that the Jewish self-defence for which he had fought was in danger of crossing the line into oppression. He was thus a controversial figure in Israel; but whether or not one agreed with his views, it cannot be denied that he had earned the right to express them.
Marek Edelman, zikhrono livrakha!
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