Posts filed under 'Social/Political'
November 14th, 2008
It seems that politicians just can’t stay out of football. Once again we have them dabbling in the murky world of FIFA and the Olympics, trying to pursuade Scotland to take part in some sort of Great Britain side for the London 2012 Games. It seems they just can’t understand that certain elements of FIFA would jump on any possibility to reduce the number of places enjoyed by the home countries in international tournaments, and that it really doesn’t matter what promises and assurances are given by Sepp Blatter to todays politicians. They also don’t seem to get the other crucial aspect. The four home unions have very different traditions, the players have very different styles, and the fans have very profound identities which would never admit to any form of coalition. Neither the associations, fans, or players want anything to do with the Olympics, which many regard as hopelessly corrupt and drug riddled.
Which brings us to drug testing and the announcement that footballers will be required to tell drug testing squads where they are at any time so they can be randomly tested. Now when applied to athletes, who are training as individuals and often traveling to warm weather or high altitude venues, this may have some purpose to ensure there is no out of competition doping; although even there it is somewhat restrictive. The position with footballers is rather different; they play and train every week and are available at their club’s premises at clearly defined times. There seems no reason whatever for additionally insisting that they reveal their whereabouts in the evening and on Sundays. It can only be seen as standardisation for standardisation’s sake, with the base model being a sport which has become a joke affecting one which has no record of drug use – well apart from beer of course.
Personally I’d like to see the traditionally non-olympic sports tell the IOC where to go and to take their drug issues with them, but sadly the lure of money and supposed prestige seem to hold sway with far too many of them. The sight of tennis players half-heartedly competing for gold medals which mean nothing compared to their Grand Slam tournaments is pathetic. An under-23 football tournament that takes players away from their clubs in the middle of the season is beyond pointless.
November 6th, 2008
So it seems that a recession is upon us. It must be true if the astoundingly cautious Bank of England cuts interest rates by 1.5%. Funny how just a few weeks ago everything was fine, the economy was sailing along without any really major problems, all that was wrong was a soaring oil price that was supposedly causing a knock on to gas and electricity prices and a suggestion that the housing boom was over. The problem taxing everyone’s mind was global warming. There was a small difficulty about “sub-prime” mortgages in the USA, nothing to worry about.
Now our banking system is in ruins; HBOS, which was a combination of one of the most conservative banks and the largest building society in the UK has lost over 90% of its stock market value and is apparently so short of liquidity that it needs to be taken over by Lloyds-TSB, and all the other major banks need shedloads of public money to carry on. So the man in the street is seeing his savings and investments reduce in value and his taxes going to prop up banks that seems unable to handle money despite giving us a poor service and high charges.
Meanwhile those gas prices that went up are noticeably not coming down despite a major fall in the oil prices that they were supposed to be connected to. Ever get the feeling you’ve been had?
The fact IMHO is that the people who run the money markets are generally pretty clueless apart from the speculators and the occasional guy like George Soros who can see trends before they happen. Most of them are there because of who they know rather than what they know. How many times have we seen competitions where a bunch of schoolkids manage to outperform the advice of all the “best” financial pundits and advisors. And as was shown some time ago the financial system is an almost perfect example of Chaos Theory in action. With the modern inter-connectedness that has been built into the international trading systems chaotic behaviour is a predictable (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms) outcome. A downward trend once started is almost impossible to stop. (As I write this I’m looking at the stock markets continuing to fall despite the 1.5.% cut)
Unfortunately the banks and building societies, once the bastions of safe conservative advice, have been sucked into the constant drive for more and more growth and as a result they have tended to dive into markets that would previously have been seen as far too dangerous, simply because to be seen to be lagging behind had become unacceptable when others were forging ahead, no matter how ill-advised such sectors might be.
Sadly there is very little indication that governments are willing to impose any real constraints on the banks or the markets. Maybe they’ve become so international as to be unmanageable, yet if so how come it’s national funds that are bailing them out? Maybe neither politicians or civil servants have the experience to operate in this field. Or maybe the theory of economics and monetary matters just showed once again how incomplete a theory it really is and no-one dares tinker with something that they’ve realised they don’t understand.
(The link at the top of this post is to a post on Robert Peston’s excellent BBC blog which is becoming a must-read for market watchers.)
May 23rd, 2008
Could Gordon Brown’s demise trigger Scottish independence?
Last night’s by-election result which saw a Labour majority of 8000 reversed to the Tories could presage more than just a Cameron government. It might convince voters who have previously supported the SNP but backed off from full independence to finally embrace their primary policy.
Despite the Tories having the most lightweight and unknown bunch of shadow cabinet members in history (how many of them can you name?) it appears that the English are so fed up of New Labour and Gordon Brown that they’d prefer anything else – except the Liberals who seem to have dropped off the political map after getting rid of two leaders in recent years. Certainly Brown has been unlucky with the US-created credit crunch and having inherited a series of unpopular policies from a Tony Blair who was increasingly seen as having made us a pawn of George W. I suspect that there is also a backlash against a government that is persistently trying to interfere with privacy and freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism in a way that is completely at odds with any idea of a free country.
Here in Scotland it’s impossible to imagine voters turning to the Tories in the way that appears to be happening in the south, and Labour support has historically tended to be more solid, but any move away from them is more likely to see further support for an SNP which is already riding high and is generally seen as doing a good job despite being a minority administration. The prospect of their wishes being overturned by an English Tory landslide might persuade enough of the Scottish electorate to consider going it alone as a viable option. If that idea starts to gather pace then Wendy Alexander’s attempt to force the SNP to hold a referendum before they are ready might rebound even more on Labour than it already has.
April 4th, 2008
We’ve now got CCTV cameras in Dalry Road, on tall heavy poles. More surveillance. It’s getting to the point you’ll need to live in St Kilda to avoid the damn things. Did we vote for them? Did we agree to them? No we didn’t. The British people regularly support politicians who promise to increase the number of police on the beat, yet other than football matches and at railway stations I can’t remember when I last saw a policeman on the street. No, instead of more police we just get more cameras, more attempts to foist ID cards on us (and make us pay for the privilege!), and ever more hysterical terror stories to try to justify them. Is it any surprise that people are leaving Britain in droves, sick to death of a state that appears to want total control over their lives?
I’ve always loved Scotland, but if I’d known the direction the UK was heading when I was 20 I’d probably have emigrated. The personal freedoms my father and grandfathers fought world wars for are vanishing rapidly. I can only hope that Scotland finally gets independence and moves in a different direction to England.
In the middle ages it was the church that sought to control the people by keeping them illiterate and putting the fear of god into them. Now we’re tagged, satellite tracked and videoed. If you use a loyalty card your spending patterns are compiled, your mobile phone calls are recorded and your movements followed. Now the police are pushing for everyone’s DNA to be permanently stored. Maybe the politicians have responded negatively to that one, or maybe it was a stalking horse; a device to see what reaction there’d be so they could see how much they could get away with while appearing to be the guardians of our freedoms. Were this proposal to go through we’d all be suspects.
Funny how if you go out with a camera and take pictures in the street you’re “acting suspiciously”, and god help you if you’re anywhere near a school when you’re doing it. Yet “the authorities” seem to think they can take whatever pictures they like. Meanwhile we are encouraged to report “suspicious behaviour” that is so vague that everyone could be included – apparently if you have more than one mobile phone it’s a sign you may be a terrorist!? Remember the poor guy who was shot by an armed response unit while walking home with a table leg in a plastic bag because someone thought his Scottish accent was Irish and the table leg was a shotgun. That’s what happens when fear takes hold and everyone turns informer.
People used to come to this country to escape exactly this sort of repressive society! Britain was seen as a bastion of freedom. It’s time we made it plain that we want to get back to that situation.
January 9th, 2008
Travelling to Malta over Xmas I was reminded of the astonishing stupidity that seems to overtake humans when they’re in groups.
Firstly I took the train to Glasgow. The train was packed with pre-xmas shoppers (though why anyone would go to Edinburgh to shop escapes me – the shops are awful) and this must have been obvious to those waiting on the platform. Yet they insisted on gathering close to the doors and stared gormlessly when heavily loaded passengers tried to disembark and had to push past them. Did it not occur to them that they can’t get on until the incoming people have got off? Had the train been quieter and the people waiting been fewer then the chances are that everyone would have acted more sensibly, moving aside for each other, yet in large groups such common sense seems to be absent.
An equally brainless scenario can be regularly seen with air travel. What is the point of people leaping to their feet as soon as the aircraft has landed only to have to stand crushed together until the doors are opened and the staircase is in place. It doesn’t matter who gets off first – we all have to wait for the baggage to be offloaded anyway.
Which of course leads to the other scene of idiocy – the baggage carousel. We’ve all seen it, a planeload of passengers all crowding round as close to the moving belt as they can get, all craning to see past each other to see if the luggage coming down the belt is theirs or not. The predictable result is that no-one can see except the person at the furthest up the line and there is a mad scramble to grab luggage seen at the last moment through a pile of struggling bodies. All of it completely unnecessary. If everyone would simply stand back by even three or four feet then the lines of sight would open up and everyone would be able to see, the lucky first recipients would be able to easily retrieve their cases without fuss and with room to manoeuvre, and no-one would have to battle. It doesn’t need an Einstein to work this out so why does everyone insist on subjecting themselves to the crowded scramble?
Next time you find yourself in a crowd, watch carefully. But most important, think for yourself!
November 1st, 2007
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for the Liberals, if only because they seem to be the only party in Britain who are capable of a modicum of free thinking. (It’s just a pity that they seem so prone to shooting themselves in the foot – like shedding leaders like confetti.) So it was good to see their two leadership candidates both pledging to refuse to register for the government’s proposed identity card scheme. I had hoped that Gordon Brown might have quietly shelved this hopelessly misguided plan, particularly given its vast cost, but there seems little sign of him doing so. If the Liberals would also pledge to reduce the number and spread of CCTV cameras they’d have my support.
Of course the other option would be an independent Scotland – will Alex Salmond promise not just a nuclear weapon-free country but also a CCTV-free one?
Altogether now – FREEDOM
Next Posts