Say what you like about Peter Mandelson, but he’s certainly played a blinder this week. First, a Conference speech in which he just about realised the impossible dream of winning the love of the Labour Party. Using his own comeback(s) as an inspiration for the desired comeback of his Party was a piece of unbelievable chutzpah; in this form he leaves Derren Brown standing as an illusionist.
And now a full-dress piece on China in today’s Telegraph. The impression (however misleading) is that the great man has found time amid the hurly-burly of a crucial Conference to regale us with words of well-matured wisdom.
It’s hardly an original observation that China will be a key economic player for the foreseeable future. But Lord M is reminding us of two things: firstly, that we have not done as much as we might have to realise those opportunities; and secondly, more subtly, that one racks one’s brains for the slightest scrap of evidence that Messrs Cameron and Osborne even know where China is. (Note for Tory conference organisers: it’s up in the top right hand corner, usually coloured yellow.)
It’s an uphill struggle. The Chinese – and who can blame them – are determined that if there’s money to be made out of their modernisation, it should be made by Chinese people. In the early days of China’s opening to the world economy, it used to be horribly difficult to repatriate one’s profits even if one made any. The example Mandelson gave of a successful British project was the Pilkington glass plant in Shanghai. Nothing wrong with that. But this project began in the 1980s, and I imagine returns in the early days were not high. You need to hunker down for the long term, as many Germans, Americans etc. have done. An atmosphere in which you have to deliver shareholder value in six months max or you can forget it doesn’t help.
But it’s no good telling us today what we should have been doing 25 years ago. What should we be doing today? All I can think of is being prepared to punt some money, and to get down and dirty. Don’t waste time schmoozing leaders – or does government create wealth all of a sudden? By all means be polite enough to them to ensure they don’t do you down, but remember that they’re just politicians – and ones without the chastening restraints of a free press, to boot. Don’t just stick around Beijing and Shanghai; they’ve been done to death, and costs are rocketing. Get out of the comfort zone. Find a sharp young English-speaking local fixer, and head out to the monoglot boonies. There are provinces you’ve never heard of with populations equal to Britain plus France. Your favourite restaurant will still be there when you get back; in the meantime, get those wobbly bits down you. Learn a bit of the lingo (hint: single people will work out how best to do this). Ten years of this, and you may have dysentery, cirrhosis and knackered lungs; you may also be suffering from morbid obesity of the wallet. And remember, Lord Mandelson is right behind you.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Monday, 28 September 2009
German elections: a quick guide to what's really going on
The more one looks at the German election result, the more one wonders. On the one hand, it is a clear majority (well, 48.4%, but who’s counting?) for a coalition with a clear ideological direction; on the other, a colourful spectrum of intriguing possibilities. The Social Democrats put in their worst performance in the history of the Bundesrepublik; but then so did Merkel’s CDU/CSU, on a record low of 33.8%. In a system where a 5% hurdle was built in to keep out the nutters, Germany has now entered the age of five-party politics: this would still be the case had the hurdle been 10%. How different from the old days, when there was Left and Right and a little liberal party in the middle holding the balance, ensuring that Hans-Dietrich Genscher retained the Foreign Minister slot with the dogged unshiftability of the Vicar of Bray.
But the real attention will of course be on the new government, which will probably take two or three weeks to fit its disparate parts together. Yes, they’re all singing from the same hymn-sheet as regards capitalist conservatism of a faintly Cameroonish tinge: but there are considerable differences which will need bridging. Even Merkel’s own party is actually two parties, linking the solid but open-minded Protestant work ethic, from which the Chancellor herself hails, to the stuffier do-as-you’re-damn-well-told types from what might be called the Ratzinger country. Add in the bouncy, terribly progressive, turbocapitalists of the FDP – hedge funders meet the Stop the War Coalition – and you’ve got quite a rich mixture. The FDP want to slash taxes – Merkel, who happily endorsed a raising of the top rate in her outgoing government, does not appear to see that as a panacea. The FDP want to run down participation in the “war on terror” to a point just short of open revolt against the US; Merkel remains a solid Atlanticist. This might be even more exciting than the three-party squabble over the future of the Left on the other side of the house.
We shall see. But I would bet that, amid the sound and fury, German politics will trundle along its well-worn paths with the same dour predictability with which their monumentally unexciting football team keeps bloody well winning things.
But the real attention will of course be on the new government, which will probably take two or three weeks to fit its disparate parts together. Yes, they’re all singing from the same hymn-sheet as regards capitalist conservatism of a faintly Cameroonish tinge: but there are considerable differences which will need bridging. Even Merkel’s own party is actually two parties, linking the solid but open-minded Protestant work ethic, from which the Chancellor herself hails, to the stuffier do-as-you’re-damn-well-told types from what might be called the Ratzinger country. Add in the bouncy, terribly progressive, turbocapitalists of the FDP – hedge funders meet the Stop the War Coalition – and you’ve got quite a rich mixture. The FDP want to slash taxes – Merkel, who happily endorsed a raising of the top rate in her outgoing government, does not appear to see that as a panacea. The FDP want to run down participation in the “war on terror” to a point just short of open revolt against the US; Merkel remains a solid Atlanticist. This might be even more exciting than the three-party squabble over the future of the Left on the other side of the house.
We shall see. But I would bet that, amid the sound and fury, German politics will trundle along its well-worn paths with the same dour predictability with which their monumentally unexciting football team keeps bloody well winning things.
University term begins again, and the Chinese are back
I was in Sainsbury’s yesterday afternoon. (Don’t you just hate columns, blogs etc which begin like that? But I crave indulgence.) Fortunately our local Sainsbo’s doesn’t assault its customers’ ears with Muzak, so mine were lulled with the ubiquitous sound of a familiar language. Mandarin Chinese. Looking around me I might have been in Guangzhou Tesco. The occasional foreigner (as they will insist on calling us, even in our own country), but otherwise wall-to-wall the sons and daughters of the Middle Kingdom. And then I remembered; it is the end of September, and I live in a small university town.
Yes, around this time of year we go Chinese. I merely observe; I have no racist reactions, and nor does anyone else. Firstly, this is the era of globalisation; virtually a quarter of the world’s population is Chinese, and why shouldn’t that be the case here? Secondly, these are all bright and valuable undergraduate and postgraduate students; they’re not on the dole, and if you get beaten up late at night it won’t be one of them who does it. No doubt they keep our university afloat with the fees they pay. (Economists often complain about the high Chinese savings rate; I wonder if they realise what a large proportion of those savings go to British and American universities, to educate the savers’ grandchildren.)
The strange thing is that Chinese universities are riding high in the world rankings. Only the very best UK/US places of learning can compete with the best of Beijing and Shanghai. So why are so many Chinese parents so keen to send their kids to our universities?
Partly, of course, because the top universities in Beijing and Shanghai are not so easy to get into. The word is that it doesn’t exactly depend on school results. Natives of those cities enjoy a built-in advantage, and good connections also help. Chinese who don’t enjoy these advantages feel better off sending their kids to Western universities than second-rate Chinese ones. Western education, you see, still carries a certain innate cachet. In a society where “face” is everything, it’s interesting to see that our products are seen as automatically superior, however debased we may sometimes feel it is. The Chinese theoretically believe their culture is superior to all others; but they are voting with their feet, or at least their children’s and grandchildren’s feet – and long may it remain so.
Yes, around this time of year we go Chinese. I merely observe; I have no racist reactions, and nor does anyone else. Firstly, this is the era of globalisation; virtually a quarter of the world’s population is Chinese, and why shouldn’t that be the case here? Secondly, these are all bright and valuable undergraduate and postgraduate students; they’re not on the dole, and if you get beaten up late at night it won’t be one of them who does it. No doubt they keep our university afloat with the fees they pay. (Economists often complain about the high Chinese savings rate; I wonder if they realise what a large proportion of those savings go to British and American universities, to educate the savers’ grandchildren.)
The strange thing is that Chinese universities are riding high in the world rankings. Only the very best UK/US places of learning can compete with the best of Beijing and Shanghai. So why are so many Chinese parents so keen to send their kids to our universities?
Partly, of course, because the top universities in Beijing and Shanghai are not so easy to get into. The word is that it doesn’t exactly depend on school results. Natives of those cities enjoy a built-in advantage, and good connections also help. Chinese who don’t enjoy these advantages feel better off sending their kids to Western universities than second-rate Chinese ones. Western education, you see, still carries a certain innate cachet. In a society where “face” is everything, it’s interesting to see that our products are seen as automatically superior, however debased we may sometimes feel it is. The Chinese theoretically believe their culture is superior to all others; but they are voting with their feet, or at least their children’s and grandchildren’s feet – and long may it remain so.
Sunday, 27 September 2009
German elections: meet the new boss - same as the old boss
Well, it looks as though the German Right has got what it wanted in their election. Of course an election based on PR is never likely to attract the sort of excitement that a first-past-the-post election brings; alternatively, perhaps it’s just that no-one believes a German election is ever going to change anything much. Both of these rather flippant statements are entirely true.
No-one ever doubted that the babetastic Frau Angela Merkel was going to continue in her role as Chancellor. The only issue was whether she would be able to ditch her current coalition partners (the Social Democrats, i.e. liberal capitalism with trade unions) for a more Right-wing lot (the Free Democrats, i.e. liberal capitalism without trade unions). This she seems to have achieved. Those (somewhat numerous) Germans who are trying to cast the good lady in the role of a Frau Thatcher are, however, doomed to disappointment: nothing changes in Germany, and it isn’t going to start now. While we argue over the 48-hour week, the Germans are still holding the line in the 37-38 region. It won’t get any easier to get any sense out of anyone on a Friday afternoon. I love the place.
Unemployment won’t come down very far in a country where you have to have the exactly appropriate qualifications to apply for any sort of job. In the unlikely event that Frau Merkel tries to change any of this, she will be reminded in no uncertain terms that that was not what she was voted in for.
Meanwhile, the Left will now be off the leash; the Social Democrats, roughly equivalent to New Labour, are out of government and able to position themselves to benefit from any disillusionment. In competition, of course, with the Greens and the Left Party, who got not far off 25 per cent of the vote between them. All that Frau Merkel can really congratulate herself on is still being there: it doesn’t seem that her position has improved much.
No-one ever doubted that the babetastic Frau Angela Merkel was going to continue in her role as Chancellor. The only issue was whether she would be able to ditch her current coalition partners (the Social Democrats, i.e. liberal capitalism with trade unions) for a more Right-wing lot (the Free Democrats, i.e. liberal capitalism without trade unions). This she seems to have achieved. Those (somewhat numerous) Germans who are trying to cast the good lady in the role of a Frau Thatcher are, however, doomed to disappointment: nothing changes in Germany, and it isn’t going to start now. While we argue over the 48-hour week, the Germans are still holding the line in the 37-38 region. It won’t get any easier to get any sense out of anyone on a Friday afternoon. I love the place.
Unemployment won’t come down very far in a country where you have to have the exactly appropriate qualifications to apply for any sort of job. In the unlikely event that Frau Merkel tries to change any of this, she will be reminded in no uncertain terms that that was not what she was voted in for.
Meanwhile, the Left will now be off the leash; the Social Democrats, roughly equivalent to New Labour, are out of government and able to position themselves to benefit from any disillusionment. In competition, of course, with the Greens and the Left Party, who got not far off 25 per cent of the vote between them. All that Frau Merkel can really congratulate herself on is still being there: it doesn’t seem that her position has improved much.
Saturday, 26 September 2009
What the hell is the point of the United Nations?
So the circus has come to town again. The unspeakable Gaddafi is given a reasonable 15 minutes to speak, and goes on for an hour and three quarters of clowning, tearing up the UN charter and talking complete nonsense about swine flu. Well, you might say, that’s what Gaddafi does. But why do they let him? OK, manhandling him from the room might have been a bit much to expect, but they could at least have switched his mike off. But naturally everyone simply submitted to having their schedule thrown out and their time wasted. And then, naturally, Mugabe with more of the same. Why can this organisation not impose its own agreed rules?
Because “national leaders” are just too important, like two-year-olds taken at their own self-estimation (“Look at me!”). Every meeting starts unconscionably late, because in some parts of the world one demonstrates one’s importance by keeping other people waiting. (Rather like inviting women on dates: her punctuality will be in inverse proportion to her desirability.)
On two occasions during my diplomatic career I was offered a job at the UK representation in New York. This was quite a prestigious posting, but I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole; I know what goes on there. You spend all morning and all afternoon in meetings where no-one has a sense of the value of time; and then at 5 p.m. you go back to the mission and the real working day starts. I had small children whom I wanted to see from time to time. A no-brainer.
No doubt some people will be thinking that all this sounds a bit racist, imperialist, etc. Where do I get off, despising representatives of poor Third World countries? Well, if they were real representatives I wouldn’t despise them. Of course the people of Libya have a right to be represented in the counsels of the mighty; I just don’t think their interests are served in any way by highly paid and busy people having to listen to Gaddafi. Leaders of democracies have to identify themselves to a fair extent with the needs of their peoples because they want to get re-elected; all dictators are interested in is staying in power for ever and ever, and forming alliances with other dictators to that end.
Yes, of course we have to be realistic, and there have always been countries with sub-optimal political arrangements with whom we have to deal. And there are countries which may not be tremendously significant in political or economic terms which do genuinely represent a people whose voice deserves to be heard. But there are plenty of “leaders” who should simply be told: “You’re not representative, and you don’t matter. Go away.”
Because “national leaders” are just too important, like two-year-olds taken at their own self-estimation (“Look at me!”). Every meeting starts unconscionably late, because in some parts of the world one demonstrates one’s importance by keeping other people waiting. (Rather like inviting women on dates: her punctuality will be in inverse proportion to her desirability.)
On two occasions during my diplomatic career I was offered a job at the UK representation in New York. This was quite a prestigious posting, but I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole; I know what goes on there. You spend all morning and all afternoon in meetings where no-one has a sense of the value of time; and then at 5 p.m. you go back to the mission and the real working day starts. I had small children whom I wanted to see from time to time. A no-brainer.
No doubt some people will be thinking that all this sounds a bit racist, imperialist, etc. Where do I get off, despising representatives of poor Third World countries? Well, if they were real representatives I wouldn’t despise them. Of course the people of Libya have a right to be represented in the counsels of the mighty; I just don’t think their interests are served in any way by highly paid and busy people having to listen to Gaddafi. Leaders of democracies have to identify themselves to a fair extent with the needs of their peoples because they want to get re-elected; all dictators are interested in is staying in power for ever and ever, and forming alliances with other dictators to that end.
Yes, of course we have to be realistic, and there have always been countries with sub-optimal political arrangements with whom we have to deal. And there are countries which may not be tremendously significant in political or economic terms which do genuinely represent a people whose voice deserves to be heard. But there are plenty of “leaders” who should simply be told: “You’re not representative, and you don’t matter. Go away.”
Thursday, 24 September 2009
America owes China two trillion dollars. But what does that mean?
There are one or two issues of major global importance which get too little attention, simply because they are so complex. One of them is the uncomfortable economic stand-off between China and America, about which learned articles have rumbled on for months in the stiffer journals, read by few and understood by even fewer. Now they are snapping at each other about little bits of protectionism, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
We are all familiar with the aphorism which goes: “If you owe someone a thousand pounds, you’ve got a problem. If you owe someone a million pounds, he’s got a problem.” Now, the US owes China two trillion dollars. Who’s got the problem?
In an earlier blogpost I flippantly suggested that if the US’s debt to China got any bigger China would in effect “own” the USA. Of course this is nonsense, because China has no way of staking its claim. Should the US default on a payment, they can hardly send the bailiffs round to repossess California. Every now and then the Chinese mutter about the possibility of doing down the dollar by changing some of their reserves into yen or euros, but they don’t mean it: they don’t want to undermine the dollar while they’re still owed so many of them.
Meanwhile, the Americans grumble endlessly that the Chinese are keeping the value of their currency artificially low. It is a logical nonsense that one of the world economy’s biggest players still has a currency which is not freely convertible and allowed to find its own level on the markets. But it’s not exactly hard to see why the Chinese are not yet prepared to venture forth on the choppy waters of untrammelled currency speculation. Their current policy originated as a defence against the worst of the Asian financial crisis in the late 90s, and its wisdom wasn’t exactly shaken by more recent events.
So, to the American plea to level the terms of trade by letting the currency float, the Chinese simply say “Why should we?” Well, because it’s not fair in the context of free trade. But the Chinese have an all-purpose get-out: we may be a major player in absolute terms, but per capita we’re still a poor developing country. So we need these little unfairnesses to help us get on level terms with you. The implication is that China won’t treat the US as an equal until their per capita economies are of similar size, i.e. when China’s economy is five times the size of America’s.
How do we get out of this double bind? We’ll see if any bright ideas come up at the G20. I’m not holding my breath.
We are all familiar with the aphorism which goes: “If you owe someone a thousand pounds, you’ve got a problem. If you owe someone a million pounds, he’s got a problem.” Now, the US owes China two trillion dollars. Who’s got the problem?
In an earlier blogpost I flippantly suggested that if the US’s debt to China got any bigger China would in effect “own” the USA. Of course this is nonsense, because China has no way of staking its claim. Should the US default on a payment, they can hardly send the bailiffs round to repossess California. Every now and then the Chinese mutter about the possibility of doing down the dollar by changing some of their reserves into yen or euros, but they don’t mean it: they don’t want to undermine the dollar while they’re still owed so many of them.
Meanwhile, the Americans grumble endlessly that the Chinese are keeping the value of their currency artificially low. It is a logical nonsense that one of the world economy’s biggest players still has a currency which is not freely convertible and allowed to find its own level on the markets. But it’s not exactly hard to see why the Chinese are not yet prepared to venture forth on the choppy waters of untrammelled currency speculation. Their current policy originated as a defence against the worst of the Asian financial crisis in the late 90s, and its wisdom wasn’t exactly shaken by more recent events.
So, to the American plea to level the terms of trade by letting the currency float, the Chinese simply say “Why should we?” Well, because it’s not fair in the context of free trade. But the Chinese have an all-purpose get-out: we may be a major player in absolute terms, but per capita we’re still a poor developing country. So we need these little unfairnesses to help us get on level terms with you. The implication is that China won’t treat the US as an equal until their per capita economies are of similar size, i.e. when China’s economy is five times the size of America’s.
How do we get out of this double bind? We’ll see if any bright ideas come up at the G20. I’m not holding my breath.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
A Chinese passport: the mark of Cain?
One of the biggest drawbacks to being Chinese is holding a passport which is regarded as the equivalent of the medieval leper’s bell and call of “UNCLEAN!” Travelling with my Chinese wife, I dread each encounter with immigration officials, as, impeccable though her papers always are, they still have “People’s Republic of China” on them (the worst problems we encountered were in Hong Kong of all places). Now my quasi-brother-in-law (i.e. the chap who’s going to marry my wife’s sister in November) is finding out all about it.
After an incredibly time-consuming paperchase, he has procured for his fiancée a marriage and settlement visa. Now he is, not unnaturally, trying to arrange a honeymoon. Only problem is, they’d have to spend half their time until the wedding sorting out the visa, and sorting out the wedding is going to take up quite enough of the time, thank you. So, my friend has gone on the Net to find places where Chinese people can go without too many tedious formalities. The results have been instructive.
The problem is, of course, that no nation wants to be seen as a soft touch for Chinese, fearing that they’ll find a billion or so of them on the doorstep. It’s less than twenty years since it really was like that in Beijing: word would soon get around about who had revised their visa policy, and the queues would lead round several blocks first thing next morning.
There are a few places in Africa you can go (Djibouti, Comoros, Ethiopia anyone?). Various islands in the South Pacific. In the Americas you are more or less limited to the Dominican Republic; in Europe to the holiday paradise of Kosovo. There are a few places in Asia, but not so many at the top of most people’s wishlists. Still, they do include Thailand and Sri Lanka. So all is not lost, and my sister-in-law will get a suitably exotic honeymoon.
I’d have settled for the Lake District myself. But I suppose it’s bloody cold up here in December.
After an incredibly time-consuming paperchase, he has procured for his fiancée a marriage and settlement visa. Now he is, not unnaturally, trying to arrange a honeymoon. Only problem is, they’d have to spend half their time until the wedding sorting out the visa, and sorting out the wedding is going to take up quite enough of the time, thank you. So, my friend has gone on the Net to find places where Chinese people can go without too many tedious formalities. The results have been instructive.
The problem is, of course, that no nation wants to be seen as a soft touch for Chinese, fearing that they’ll find a billion or so of them on the doorstep. It’s less than twenty years since it really was like that in Beijing: word would soon get around about who had revised their visa policy, and the queues would lead round several blocks first thing next morning.
There are a few places in Africa you can go (Djibouti, Comoros, Ethiopia anyone?). Various islands in the South Pacific. In the Americas you are more or less limited to the Dominican Republic; in Europe to the holiday paradise of Kosovo. There are a few places in Asia, but not so many at the top of most people’s wishlists. Still, they do include Thailand and Sri Lanka. So all is not lost, and my sister-in-law will get a suitably exotic honeymoon.
I’d have settled for the Lake District myself. But I suppose it’s bloody cold up here in December.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Oh dear, Lady Scotland
It seems that Baroness Scotland, the Attorney-General, has been caught very nastily. As the Government’s chief law officer, she was quite properly responsible for promoting legislation closing loopholes for those who employed non-British citizens whose immigration status prevented them from working. Now she has been found employing a cleaner who was indeed in Britain on a visa which precluded working.
Lady Scotland has denied any culpability in this matter, saying that she had been shown documents which confirmed her cleaner’s right to work. Obviously the courts will have to rule on this, and it is quite right that legal judgment be suspended until they have pronounced.
However, my own interest is sparked by my knowledge that many illegal immigrants are employed for the purpose of undercutting the national minimum wage. Whatever the immigration status of Baroness Scotland’s cleaner, I would be interested to know what the Tongan lady was being paid. If a Labour Attorney-General has employed the wrong person in genuine ignorance, she may survive; if she has not been paying the minimum wage, she will certainly not. Information, please.
Lady Scotland has denied any culpability in this matter, saying that she had been shown documents which confirmed her cleaner’s right to work. Obviously the courts will have to rule on this, and it is quite right that legal judgment be suspended until they have pronounced.
However, my own interest is sparked by my knowledge that many illegal immigrants are employed for the purpose of undercutting the national minimum wage. Whatever the immigration status of Baroness Scotland’s cleaner, I would be interested to know what the Tongan lady was being paid. If a Labour Attorney-General has employed the wrong person in genuine ignorance, she may survive; if she has not been paying the minimum wage, she will certainly not. Information, please.
Oh dear, Lady Scotland
It seems that Baroness Scotland, the Attorney-General, has been caught very nastily. As the Government’s chief law officer, she was quite properly responsible for promoting legislation closing loopholes for those who employed non-British citizens whose immigration status prevented them from working. Now she has been found employing a cleaner who was indeed in Britain on a visa which precluded working.
Lady Scotland has denied any culpability in this matter, saying that she had been shown documents which confirmed her cleaner’s right to work. Obviously the courts will have to rule on this, and it is quite right that legal judgment be suspended until they have pronounced.
However, my own interest is sparked by my knowledge that many illegal immigrants are employed for the purpose of undercutting the national minimum wage. Whatever the immigration status of Baroness Scotland’s cleaner, I would be interested to know what the Tongan lady was being paid. If a Labour Attorney-General has employed the wrong person in genuine ignorance, she may survive; if she has not been paying the minimum wage, she will certainly not. Information, please.
Lady Scotland has denied any culpability in this matter, saying that she had been shown documents which confirmed her cleaner’s right to work. Obviously the courts will have to rule on this, and it is quite right that legal judgment be suspended until they have pronounced.
However, my own interest is sparked by my knowledge that many illegal immigrants are employed for the purpose of undercutting the national minimum wage. Whatever the immigration status of Baroness Scotland’s cleaner, I would be interested to know what the Tongan lady was being paid. If a Labour Attorney-General has employed the wrong person in genuine ignorance, she may survive; if she has not been paying the minimum wage, she will certainly not. Information, please.
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Is China serious about renewable energy?
Hat tip to Geoffrey Lean’s blog for the report that China is about to build the world’s biggest solar power station. It makes sense; they’re building it in Inner Mongolia, where there are hundreds of miles of bugger all in which to do so, and where there’s plenty of sun when the snow isn’t ten feet deep.
Does this mean that the Chinese are taking renewable energy seriously, though? Aren’t they happy just to carry on with blasting the atmosphere full of coal dust and then blaming the West for doing it first? Or perhaps they’ve cottoned on to the idea that there may be a real future in renewables, and that they may be best placed to cash in – it’s not just that they’ve got the millions of acres of bare grassland, but they’re also quick on the draw; if they really decide to build something, it gets built pronto, which gives them a major advantage compared to our horrendous lead times.
It’s a mistake to assume, from their posturing on climate change, that the Chinese don’t care about pollution. True, they’re not terribly green in the Porritt/Monbiot sense. But they’re sensible enough to know that air pollution is making a significant difference to the economy and public health.
And they have the same concerns over energy security and diversity as we have. Coal they still have a-plenty, but gas has largely to come from Russia, and the possibilities of regional tension in the North-East have to be kept in mind. And a really fast expansion of their nuclear network would give some pretty terrifying hostages to fortune, given the local penchant for jerrybuilding and exchanging blind eyes for brown envelopes. So why not try renewables? The idea of the Inner Mongolia project is to make the solar station the nucleus of a huge renewable energy park. There’s no shortage of wind up there either: every spring it takes half the Gobi Desert on an excursion to Beijing. This could be quite exciting; and at least we’ll be able to learn something from it.
Does this mean that the Chinese are taking renewable energy seriously, though? Aren’t they happy just to carry on with blasting the atmosphere full of coal dust and then blaming the West for doing it first? Or perhaps they’ve cottoned on to the idea that there may be a real future in renewables, and that they may be best placed to cash in – it’s not just that they’ve got the millions of acres of bare grassland, but they’re also quick on the draw; if they really decide to build something, it gets built pronto, which gives them a major advantage compared to our horrendous lead times.
It’s a mistake to assume, from their posturing on climate change, that the Chinese don’t care about pollution. True, they’re not terribly green in the Porritt/Monbiot sense. But they’re sensible enough to know that air pollution is making a significant difference to the economy and public health.
And they have the same concerns over energy security and diversity as we have. Coal they still have a-plenty, but gas has largely to come from Russia, and the possibilities of regional tension in the North-East have to be kept in mind. And a really fast expansion of their nuclear network would give some pretty terrifying hostages to fortune, given the local penchant for jerrybuilding and exchanging blind eyes for brown envelopes. So why not try renewables? The idea of the Inner Mongolia project is to make the solar station the nucleus of a huge renewable energy park. There’s no shortage of wind up there either: every spring it takes half the Gobi Desert on an excursion to Beijing. This could be quite exciting; and at least we’ll be able to learn something from it.
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Dealing with China: the day I shook hands with the author of the Tiananmen massacre
I am grateful to Peter Foster’s blog for reminding me of the continued existence of the Chairman Mao cult; not something that one is often reminded of these days. He isn’t mentioned much; the doublethink involved is something most Chinese prefer not to get involved with.
But what about those foreigners who have to get involved on a daily basis with Mao’s successors at the head of the Party – the diplomats? How does it feel to deal with a regime which is the direct descendant of Mao’s, and which still derives its entire legitimacy from his victory in 1949?
On 1st October there will be a huge Olympic-style spectacular to celebrate the 60th anniversary of this regime. This in itself makes me feel queasy; I was in Beijing for the 50th, and refused to have anything to do with it, saying ingratiatingly that China was not 50 years old, but 5,000. And the tank parade down Chang’an Avenue was in execrable taste.
In 1991, to my great shame, I was unable to avoid shaking hands with then Premier Li Peng, the author of the Tiananmen massacre. (Yes, of course I fantasised about syringes and little-known poisons, but….) And I remember my Ambassador, hearing of the release from prison of the last member of the Gang of Four, saying “Grrr! I’ll send a hit-man after him!” (he had been en poste during the Gang’s reign of terror, when diplomatic immunities were not respected). The difference between us and the Chinese is that we keep the past in mind while we’re doing our jobs, and they try not to. (I have never forgotten reading in some demographic study that there is a massive slump in the population’s age graph for the year of my birth, 1960: that was in the middle of the famine caused by Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and it is true that I rarely meet exact contemporaries.)
Now, of course, our people are content to follow the Chinese line; it’s all got so much better now, and China is on the right track; there’s nothing to be gained by raking up the past, and China may well be better off as it is than had the regime been messily overthrown in 1989. But those of Judaeo-Christian heritage can’t help feeling that somewhere along the line the past will come and bite China back; it’s only forty years since they were eating each other, and there are an awful lot of ghosts still to be laid.
So, while wishing China well, I stick to the sentiments expressed ten years ago, when two veteran China correspondents and I noisily toasted the day when the big picture of the old bastard is finally torn down from Tiananmen Gate.
But what about those foreigners who have to get involved on a daily basis with Mao’s successors at the head of the Party – the diplomats? How does it feel to deal with a regime which is the direct descendant of Mao’s, and which still derives its entire legitimacy from his victory in 1949?
On 1st October there will be a huge Olympic-style spectacular to celebrate the 60th anniversary of this regime. This in itself makes me feel queasy; I was in Beijing for the 50th, and refused to have anything to do with it, saying ingratiatingly that China was not 50 years old, but 5,000. And the tank parade down Chang’an Avenue was in execrable taste.
In 1991, to my great shame, I was unable to avoid shaking hands with then Premier Li Peng, the author of the Tiananmen massacre. (Yes, of course I fantasised about syringes and little-known poisons, but….) And I remember my Ambassador, hearing of the release from prison of the last member of the Gang of Four, saying “Grrr! I’ll send a hit-man after him!” (he had been en poste during the Gang’s reign of terror, when diplomatic immunities were not respected). The difference between us and the Chinese is that we keep the past in mind while we’re doing our jobs, and they try not to. (I have never forgotten reading in some demographic study that there is a massive slump in the population’s age graph for the year of my birth, 1960: that was in the middle of the famine caused by Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and it is true that I rarely meet exact contemporaries.)
Now, of course, our people are content to follow the Chinese line; it’s all got so much better now, and China is on the right track; there’s nothing to be gained by raking up the past, and China may well be better off as it is than had the regime been messily overthrown in 1989. But those of Judaeo-Christian heritage can’t help feeling that somewhere along the line the past will come and bite China back; it’s only forty years since they were eating each other, and there are an awful lot of ghosts still to be laid.
So, while wishing China well, I stick to the sentiments expressed ten years ago, when two veteran China correspondents and I noisily toasted the day when the big picture of the old bastard is finally torn down from Tiananmen Gate.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Mandelson in China: do the Chinese care about human rights?
So my Lord Mandelson is in China, making a speech to the Communist Party School on how China needs to get with the programme on human rights. Is this likely to do any good? Is it not just one of those things that both we and the Chinese know we have to do when we go there? Do the Chinese actually care at all? Should they even care at all?
On the face of it the Party School sounds like an unpromising place to start. In fact, as our Embassy will have told Mandelson, it is the designated place where serious thinking is encouraged, albeit under controlled conditions. Mandelson is assured of a genuinely interested audience. But how far up the ladder does that interest percolate?
Unfortunately we have rather led the Chinese to dig in on this point. Many of them think our mindset is too rigid: that we see a red star and automatically think Soviet Eastern Europe. And so on both sides there is sometimes a dialogue of the deaf.
In fact there is no real comparison. Countries like East Germany really did try to pry into every corner of one’s life. China’s secret police don’t give a damn what people think or chat about in cafés. Even twenty years ago I collected a compendium of ribald jokes about the leadership from locals.
It is only the association of large numbers of dissidents that worries them, and then they crack down hard. In Chinese parlance this is called “killing the chicken to frighten the monkeys”. In 1998 a group of activists were jailed for trying to found an independent political party; there is no record of their ever having been released. The fearsome persecution of the Falun Gong religious sect is an extended act of revenge for its achievement, in 1999, of gathering 10,000 demonstrators outside Party headquarters in Beijing without anybody realising in advance.
The key to this occasional severity, in tandem with strict controls on information, is the desire to maintain a unified public opinion. This is a significant element of public policy. Better to create a climate of no dissidence than to persecute dissidents. And it’s fortunate that the Party’s monomania sits so well with the idea inherent in most Asian cultures that collective rights trump individual ones. Anyone who has regular dealings with Chinese know how hard it is to influence their minds away from the state orthodoxy, which is all most of them have ever heard. Thus it is vital to exclude all heretical opinions from the public space, though everyone may know they exist in the shadows.
This is the dilemma: China knows that open access to information is vital for economic success, but does not want to loosen its grip on public opinion. They have genuinely moved on from Big Brother (ob. 9.9.1976, 33 years ago today); they now concede a high degree of individual freedom, but for the foreseeable future there will be lines you can’t cross. It’s easy to justify, after all: the maintenance of a system which ensures that 1.4 billion people get fed is more important than intellectuals mouthing off, isn’t it? The Soviet system was not only more oppressive, but didn’t actually feed its people.
Ultimately the Chinese will realise that freedom is more efficient as well as being, well, freer and more human. I can vouch for the fact that most of them do value the latter qualities. Perhaps Lord Mandelson is just the man to make the point.
On the face of it the Party School sounds like an unpromising place to start. In fact, as our Embassy will have told Mandelson, it is the designated place where serious thinking is encouraged, albeit under controlled conditions. Mandelson is assured of a genuinely interested audience. But how far up the ladder does that interest percolate?
Unfortunately we have rather led the Chinese to dig in on this point. Many of them think our mindset is too rigid: that we see a red star and automatically think Soviet Eastern Europe. And so on both sides there is sometimes a dialogue of the deaf.
In fact there is no real comparison. Countries like East Germany really did try to pry into every corner of one’s life. China’s secret police don’t give a damn what people think or chat about in cafés. Even twenty years ago I collected a compendium of ribald jokes about the leadership from locals.
It is only the association of large numbers of dissidents that worries them, and then they crack down hard. In Chinese parlance this is called “killing the chicken to frighten the monkeys”. In 1998 a group of activists were jailed for trying to found an independent political party; there is no record of their ever having been released. The fearsome persecution of the Falun Gong religious sect is an extended act of revenge for its achievement, in 1999, of gathering 10,000 demonstrators outside Party headquarters in Beijing without anybody realising in advance.
The key to this occasional severity, in tandem with strict controls on information, is the desire to maintain a unified public opinion. This is a significant element of public policy. Better to create a climate of no dissidence than to persecute dissidents. And it’s fortunate that the Party’s monomania sits so well with the idea inherent in most Asian cultures that collective rights trump individual ones. Anyone who has regular dealings with Chinese know how hard it is to influence their minds away from the state orthodoxy, which is all most of them have ever heard. Thus it is vital to exclude all heretical opinions from the public space, though everyone may know they exist in the shadows.
This is the dilemma: China knows that open access to information is vital for economic success, but does not want to loosen its grip on public opinion. They have genuinely moved on from Big Brother (ob. 9.9.1976, 33 years ago today); they now concede a high degree of individual freedom, but for the foreseeable future there will be lines you can’t cross. It’s easy to justify, after all: the maintenance of a system which ensures that 1.4 billion people get fed is more important than intellectuals mouthing off, isn’t it? The Soviet system was not only more oppressive, but didn’t actually feed its people.
Ultimately the Chinese will realise that freedom is more efficient as well as being, well, freer and more human. I can vouch for the fact that most of them do value the latter qualities. Perhaps Lord Mandelson is just the man to make the point.
Monday, 7 September 2009
Personal injury lawyers be damned. Let's pass a Stuff Happens Act
As we all know, there will have been a new government elected by this time next year, of one persuasion or another. What piece of legislation ought to be top of the new Parliament’s agenda? (Let’s exclude, just for the purposes of argument, the widespread demand for a series of Nuremberg trials of the outgoing government, with yours truly strung up alongside them for complicity. I take your point: I remember what my own feelings were about the Tories c. 1996.)
Actually my own candidate would probably go down well with the Telegraph fraternity. I’m sure that what we most need is a bonfire of Elf ‘n’ Safety regulations and their preposterous interference in the normal lives of citizens. Children are supposed to grow up with assorted bruises and occasional broken limbs – I’d broken both arms and acquired a hernia before I came of age, not to mention having to confront my father with a golf-ball-size bump on my head which I had no recollection of having sustained (school leaving party).
But there’s a backstory to Elf ‘n’ Safety paranoia. It is, of course, Personal Injury lawyers. Schools and local councils more or less have to apply strong E ‘n’ S rules if they’re risking being sued for millions. This is the root to which the axe needs to be laid. I will greet with a magnum of the good stuff the “Stuff Happens Act 2010”. The thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to can no longer be treated as a ticket in the great Compensation Lottery. If someone has been caused direct financial loss by an accident which was clearly caused by outrageous negligence, then fair enough. But I can’t wait to see the back of the endless adverts for ambulance-chasing law firms offering the chance of big payouts, usually at the taxpayer’s expense one way or another. About a year ago I tripped over a wonky paving stone in the London Borough of Camden and broke two fingers; I still can’t quite clench my right fist. (Fortunately I’m a southpaw.) Every now and then, contemplating the wreck of my finances, I wonder whether I wasn’t a bit stupid not to sue like daytime TV viewers would.
Credit where credit’s due: Mayor Boris, whom I rather admire, is consistently vocal on this topic; indeed he coined the formulation ‘elf ‘n’ safety’. It has frequently occurred to me that consistent campaigning on this issue should sweep Call-Me-Dave to power. So why do we hear so little from him? Labour could make some ground with it too, now that the Prime Minister is no longer a lawyer married to another lawyer. Again, silence. Could it be that there are just too many lawyers in Parliament, on both sides of the house, for common sense to prevail at the expense of their personal incomes?
No doubt we have all sympathised at times with Dick the Butcher in Jack Cade’s rebellion in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 2: “The first thing we’ll do, let’s kill all the lawyers”. Perhaps I’d stop short of that, but I’d still recommend a good look at the backgrounds of next year’s parliamentary candidates, and refuse bluntly to vote any more barristers or solicitors into Parliament. That way the “Stuff Happens Act” might stand a chance.
Actually my own candidate would probably go down well with the Telegraph fraternity. I’m sure that what we most need is a bonfire of Elf ‘n’ Safety regulations and their preposterous interference in the normal lives of citizens. Children are supposed to grow up with assorted bruises and occasional broken limbs – I’d broken both arms and acquired a hernia before I came of age, not to mention having to confront my father with a golf-ball-size bump on my head which I had no recollection of having sustained (school leaving party).
But there’s a backstory to Elf ‘n’ Safety paranoia. It is, of course, Personal Injury lawyers. Schools and local councils more or less have to apply strong E ‘n’ S rules if they’re risking being sued for millions. This is the root to which the axe needs to be laid. I will greet with a magnum of the good stuff the “Stuff Happens Act 2010”. The thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to can no longer be treated as a ticket in the great Compensation Lottery. If someone has been caused direct financial loss by an accident which was clearly caused by outrageous negligence, then fair enough. But I can’t wait to see the back of the endless adverts for ambulance-chasing law firms offering the chance of big payouts, usually at the taxpayer’s expense one way or another. About a year ago I tripped over a wonky paving stone in the London Borough of Camden and broke two fingers; I still can’t quite clench my right fist. (Fortunately I’m a southpaw.) Every now and then, contemplating the wreck of my finances, I wonder whether I wasn’t a bit stupid not to sue like daytime TV viewers would.
Credit where credit’s due: Mayor Boris, whom I rather admire, is consistently vocal on this topic; indeed he coined the formulation ‘elf ‘n’ safety’. It has frequently occurred to me that consistent campaigning on this issue should sweep Call-Me-Dave to power. So why do we hear so little from him? Labour could make some ground with it too, now that the Prime Minister is no longer a lawyer married to another lawyer. Again, silence. Could it be that there are just too many lawyers in Parliament, on both sides of the house, for common sense to prevail at the expense of their personal incomes?
No doubt we have all sympathised at times with Dick the Butcher in Jack Cade’s rebellion in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 2: “The first thing we’ll do, let’s kill all the lawyers”. Perhaps I’d stop short of that, but I’d still recommend a good look at the backgrounds of next year’s parliamentary candidates, and refuse bluntly to vote any more barristers or solicitors into Parliament. That way the “Stuff Happens Act” might stand a chance.
Friday, 4 September 2009
Winnie-the-Pooh: the unauthorised sequel
Christopher Robin chucked a crisp packet over the fence surrounding the Hundred Acre Agribusiness Park, noticing that the large sign guarding the entrance had been broken off diagonally to read TRESPASSERS W. “Bloody oiks from the comprehensive”, he said to Piglet, his eyes never drifting for a second from his Nintendo DS.
Rabbit came past at a rapid walk, texting frantically into his Blackberry. “Can’t stop, chaps. Board meeting in ten minutes. Got to marshal all the little friends and relations – sorry, non-executive directors I should say.”
“Where are the rest of the crowd?” asked Piglet eagerly.
“Doubt we’ll see Kanga and Roo today. Roo got caught jumping into the river once too often, and Kanga got a real going over from the Health and Safety Heffalump.”
Along trudged Eeyore, dripping wet from a small raincloud which hovered above him, while the rest of the sky was blue and sunlit. “Crappy English weather hasn’t changed much since 1928,” he murmured.
“Ooh look, it’s Eeyore!” squealed Piglet in joy.
“Hello, little Piglet. Hello, Christopher Robin,” said Eeyore. “Have you heard of this new book they’re bringing out about us?”
“No,” said Christopher Robin, “Do tell.”
“Typical of this Modern Media Age,” said Eeyore. “No privacy. No consideration. Just Money, Money, Money. Still,” he looked up hopefully, “I bet it won’t sell.”
“How exciting!” chirped Piglet.
“You don’t need to worry, little Piglet,” said Eeyore. “You’re not going to be in it. The Muslim Council of Britain have threatened riots unless you’re eliminated.”
“Where’s Pooh, incidentally?”
“Well, I left him in the cupboard under the stairs. Teddy bears are so twentieth century, don’t you think? This new writer chappie is going to have to get with the programme,” he went on, waving the Nintendo on which his fingers had never stopped cavorting. “Besides, Pooh’s all strange these days, ever since he discovered that genetically modified honey.”
“Yes,” said Piglet. “I never thought that second head really suited him.”
“So what’s the book going to be called then, if Pooh isn’t in it?” said Eeyore. “He rather got top billing last time,” he added wistfully, “Despite not being the most memorable character. By A Long Chalk,” he continued sadly.
“Well,” said Christopher Robin. “I rather think that it’s my turn this time. After all, you must admit I got a bum deal out of the last one. Total laughing stock for the rest of my life, everyone whispering “hoppety-hoppety-hoppety-hop” behind my back, and the old man made millions out of it and didn’t leave me a bent penny. All went to the Garrick and Westminster School, for Pete’s sake! It’ll be different this time. How about ‘Christopher Robin Cashes In At Last’? That has a certain ring about it.”
“Ker-ching!” squeaked Piglet.
Rabbit came past at a rapid walk, texting frantically into his Blackberry. “Can’t stop, chaps. Board meeting in ten minutes. Got to marshal all the little friends and relations – sorry, non-executive directors I should say.”
“Where are the rest of the crowd?” asked Piglet eagerly.
“Doubt we’ll see Kanga and Roo today. Roo got caught jumping into the river once too often, and Kanga got a real going over from the Health and Safety Heffalump.”
Along trudged Eeyore, dripping wet from a small raincloud which hovered above him, while the rest of the sky was blue and sunlit. “Crappy English weather hasn’t changed much since 1928,” he murmured.
“Ooh look, it’s Eeyore!” squealed Piglet in joy.
“Hello, little Piglet. Hello, Christopher Robin,” said Eeyore. “Have you heard of this new book they’re bringing out about us?”
“No,” said Christopher Robin, “Do tell.”
“Typical of this Modern Media Age,” said Eeyore. “No privacy. No consideration. Just Money, Money, Money. Still,” he looked up hopefully, “I bet it won’t sell.”
“How exciting!” chirped Piglet.
“You don’t need to worry, little Piglet,” said Eeyore. “You’re not going to be in it. The Muslim Council of Britain have threatened riots unless you’re eliminated.”
“Where’s Pooh, incidentally?”
“Well, I left him in the cupboard under the stairs. Teddy bears are so twentieth century, don’t you think? This new writer chappie is going to have to get with the programme,” he went on, waving the Nintendo on which his fingers had never stopped cavorting. “Besides, Pooh’s all strange these days, ever since he discovered that genetically modified honey.”
“Yes,” said Piglet. “I never thought that second head really suited him.”
“So what’s the book going to be called then, if Pooh isn’t in it?” said Eeyore. “He rather got top billing last time,” he added wistfully, “Despite not being the most memorable character. By A Long Chalk,” he continued sadly.
“Well,” said Christopher Robin. “I rather think that it’s my turn this time. After all, you must admit I got a bum deal out of the last one. Total laughing stock for the rest of my life, everyone whispering “hoppety-hoppety-hoppety-hop” behind my back, and the old man made millions out of it and didn’t leave me a bent penny. All went to the Garrick and Westminster School, for Pete’s sake! It’ll be different this time. How about ‘Christopher Robin Cashes In At Last’? That has a certain ring about it.”
“Ker-ching!” squeaked Piglet.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
What's China's Number Two doing in the Bahamas?
My friend in the Bahamas (how nice it is to be able to start a sentence thus) tells me that they are enjoying the visit of top Chinese mogul (well, President of Parliament actually, but he ranks second in the Politburo) Wu Bangguo. What on earth is he doing there, considering that one can get a decent tan in China this time of year? According to the official communiqué it is about “increasing mutual understanding and enhancing freedom”. Well, if one wants to know how to enhance one’s freedom, the Number Two in the Chinese Communist Politburo is exactly the chap one would turn to, n’est-ce pas?
More importantly (one suspects) the Chinese are currently paying for all the roads in Nassau to be rebuilt, and building the Bahamians a National Stadium. The roads are apparently excellent – this is something we all know the Chinese can do. (Once I took a British Professor of Civil Engineering round some Chinese construction projects and he was horrified, but that was twenty years ago and they’re all still standing.)
My friend wonders what exactly the Chinese are getting out of the deal other than good will, which, he says, they could have had for a smile and a beer. Is the Politburo laying the groundwork for a self-indulgent retirement?
The answer is probably that the Chinese take the UN rhetoric about all countries being equal and equally worthy of respect rather seriously. Of course they tend to confuse countries with their governments, but in a fairly benign environment like the Bahamas that doesn’t do any harm. Behind that, of course, lurks the fact that China needs votes at the UN, and that of the Bahamas is as good as, to take an example entirely at random, Japan’s. And the Taiwanese are active in the area and aren’t short of a bob or two. The amounts China is prepared to spend in order to pre-empt the Taiwanese are quite impressive. Still, I’m glad the Bahamians are getting their new roads and stadium, and I hope to be out there to see them before too long.
More importantly (one suspects) the Chinese are currently paying for all the roads in Nassau to be rebuilt, and building the Bahamians a National Stadium. The roads are apparently excellent – this is something we all know the Chinese can do. (Once I took a British Professor of Civil Engineering round some Chinese construction projects and he was horrified, but that was twenty years ago and they’re all still standing.)
My friend wonders what exactly the Chinese are getting out of the deal other than good will, which, he says, they could have had for a smile and a beer. Is the Politburo laying the groundwork for a self-indulgent retirement?
The answer is probably that the Chinese take the UN rhetoric about all countries being equal and equally worthy of respect rather seriously. Of course they tend to confuse countries with their governments, but in a fairly benign environment like the Bahamas that doesn’t do any harm. Behind that, of course, lurks the fact that China needs votes at the UN, and that of the Bahamas is as good as, to take an example entirely at random, Japan’s. And the Taiwanese are active in the area and aren’t short of a bob or two. The amounts China is prepared to spend in order to pre-empt the Taiwanese are quite impressive. Still, I’m glad the Bahamians are getting their new roads and stadium, and I hope to be out there to see them before too long.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
The Working Time Directive: sole jewel in the EU's plastic crown
Normally my views on EU directives are firmly in line with Daily Telegraph orthodoxy: they’re ill thought through, have no democratic mandate, are contrary to the EU principle of subsidiarity, and certain countries (we all know which) don’t obey them. But one which I have always excepted, and which I see as a shining light in the impenetrable fog of Brussels obscurantism, is the Working Time Directive, otherwise known as the 48-hour week.
It’s easy to see why it has to be an EU directive. Personally, I think it’s the sort of law any proper Labour Government should have passed in its first week: but then we’d have heard all the usual wittering about competitiveness. Much better to coordinate it with all our main competitors. (And no, our direct competitors in the field of labour conditions do not include India and China.) You may think what you like about the Franco-German short working weeks: it’s still embarrassing to admit that, while their institutions are arguing about 36 or 38 or 39 hours, ours are still reluctant to concede 48.
It’s not just a piece of socialist legislation; it fits perfectly with elements of the Cameroon programme. Strengthening the family, for instance; how better to achieve that than by at least ensuring that the family can be given top priority after 6 p.m.? And the work of the voluntary sector, community life, Burke’s “little platoons”; in practice it’s always been the middle class that has led this sort of thing, and these elements can never flourish while the middle class is in the office till half past eight. And the effects on gender equality are too obvious to need pointing out.
“Yes, but it’s the compulsion I don’t like.” Fair enough point; but there are times when a law can free people up to do the thing they really want. Take seat belts. When I was young, in the pre-compulsory days, I didn’t drive, but was often a passenger in a friend’s car. In this situation putting on one’s seat belt was regarded as the action of a wimp, and was sometimes even interpreted as an insult. Thank God that, for my children’s generation, it’s just something you have to do.
When workers have the “choice to work as long as they want”, it means that the person who goes home at 5.30 is making a clear statement that their home life is, at least in evenings, more important to them than work. Now of course this is the default position of any sane person, but I can see why one might not want to rub it under one’s boss’s nose. Much better to have everyone going home early as a matter of course. As a middle manager in the Foreign Office, my voice was often heard resounding down the corridors at 5.55: “Come on, haven’t you people got pubs to go to?” (My hero was Douglas Hurd, who firmly refused to accept any papers after 5 pm.)
But what about productivity and getting the job done? Well, it’s already established that we Brits work the longest hours in Europe and our productivity is pretty ropey. In my view that’s because nobody can really work twelve-hour days at full capacity. As for the NHS, who wants to be treated by a doctor who hasn’t slept for three nights?
It’s also generally agreed that most businesses were far less efficient 20-30 years ago because they failed to impose proper controls on costs. We have learnt to manage our resources much better now. The WTD could have the same effect on staff time, also a finite resource. Centuries are wasted every day in our economy because time is not used properly, and it isn’t used properly because everyone treats it as a cost-free good. If every one of your staff was working eight hours a day and not a minute more, you’d make sure that time was used efficiently. I’ve seen too many people mooching around aimlessly in the afternoon and balancing it by spurts of energy at seven-thirty to be at all impressed. (Oh, sorry, I forgot: bosses like to be able to rule by fear, checking what time you go home and uttering snide comments. Having all this arbitrary power is an important part of their motivation. Don’t think it adds much to the bottom line, though.)
I heard, though this may be apocryphal, that in the brave days of the French 35-hour week the relevant Ministry used to send enforcement officers round in vans to look for lights in office buildings after 6 pm and investigate. Se non è vero, è ben trovato. The French get some things right. Haven’t these people got pubs to go to?
It’s easy to see why it has to be an EU directive. Personally, I think it’s the sort of law any proper Labour Government should have passed in its first week: but then we’d have heard all the usual wittering about competitiveness. Much better to coordinate it with all our main competitors. (And no, our direct competitors in the field of labour conditions do not include India and China.) You may think what you like about the Franco-German short working weeks: it’s still embarrassing to admit that, while their institutions are arguing about 36 or 38 or 39 hours, ours are still reluctant to concede 48.
It’s not just a piece of socialist legislation; it fits perfectly with elements of the Cameroon programme. Strengthening the family, for instance; how better to achieve that than by at least ensuring that the family can be given top priority after 6 p.m.? And the work of the voluntary sector, community life, Burke’s “little platoons”; in practice it’s always been the middle class that has led this sort of thing, and these elements can never flourish while the middle class is in the office till half past eight. And the effects on gender equality are too obvious to need pointing out.
“Yes, but it’s the compulsion I don’t like.” Fair enough point; but there are times when a law can free people up to do the thing they really want. Take seat belts. When I was young, in the pre-compulsory days, I didn’t drive, but was often a passenger in a friend’s car. In this situation putting on one’s seat belt was regarded as the action of a wimp, and was sometimes even interpreted as an insult. Thank God that, for my children’s generation, it’s just something you have to do.
When workers have the “choice to work as long as they want”, it means that the person who goes home at 5.30 is making a clear statement that their home life is, at least in evenings, more important to them than work. Now of course this is the default position of any sane person, but I can see why one might not want to rub it under one’s boss’s nose. Much better to have everyone going home early as a matter of course. As a middle manager in the Foreign Office, my voice was often heard resounding down the corridors at 5.55: “Come on, haven’t you people got pubs to go to?” (My hero was Douglas Hurd, who firmly refused to accept any papers after 5 pm.)
But what about productivity and getting the job done? Well, it’s already established that we Brits work the longest hours in Europe and our productivity is pretty ropey. In my view that’s because nobody can really work twelve-hour days at full capacity. As for the NHS, who wants to be treated by a doctor who hasn’t slept for three nights?
It’s also generally agreed that most businesses were far less efficient 20-30 years ago because they failed to impose proper controls on costs. We have learnt to manage our resources much better now. The WTD could have the same effect on staff time, also a finite resource. Centuries are wasted every day in our economy because time is not used properly, and it isn’t used properly because everyone treats it as a cost-free good. If every one of your staff was working eight hours a day and not a minute more, you’d make sure that time was used efficiently. I’ve seen too many people mooching around aimlessly in the afternoon and balancing it by spurts of energy at seven-thirty to be at all impressed. (Oh, sorry, I forgot: bosses like to be able to rule by fear, checking what time you go home and uttering snide comments. Having all this arbitrary power is an important part of their motivation. Don’t think it adds much to the bottom line, though.)
I heard, though this may be apocryphal, that in the brave days of the French 35-hour week the relevant Ministry used to send enforcement officers round in vans to look for lights in office buildings after 6 pm and investigate. Se non è vero, è ben trovato. The French get some things right. Haven’t these people got pubs to go to?
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