Old Gaffer

Blog

  • Are Presedents for real?

    After a lot of thought, but not a great deal of research, I express my views on government leadership. What has become evident is that it doesn’t matter how weak or strong the head of the government is, either the Prime Minister or a President, if those behind him are not cohesive and strong, then the government is weak. By this token, the head of the government must be strong enough and wise enough to hold his own and hence will not make a fool of himself. I think that George Bush had a problem with this, he had a poor memory, and was constantly making gaffes which undermined his authority. A lot of his decisions have been suspect with hindsight. This disruption in Westminster prompted me to start thinking about the role of Prime Ministers and Presidents. There was no shadow of doubt that Churchill during the war, was not only a very strong person with a wide experience, but he had the best team who could possibly be had behind him and one that trusted him. I think the problem in Westminster is that Blair, who himself was strong, persuasive, and egocentric, got rid of a large number of the better and experienced politicians, because they disagreed with him, and replaced them with people more loyal to him in all circumstances but were less experienced. Brown inherited some of these people, and I suspect that some of their loyalties were perhaps then divided.

    By all accounts President Bush avoided making decisions where possible, and at times made the wrong ones that caused him to be mistrusted by the public. When he went on world tours of state, one got the impression that it was merely a figurehead doing as he was told. Obama, on the other hand has set off at an alarming pace to introduce himself throughout the world hotspots, and is making elaborate promises clearly intended to change the American outlook in the eyes of the world. The question that immediately comes to mind is how he can keep this up, the amount of boning up that he has to do on a daily basis to fulfil the different circumstances that he will meet as he goes from country to country, or makes speeches in his own country on a variety of subjects. In his case I believe that there are others behind him who are making his agenda, keeping him up to date, because I don’t believe in the short time that he has been in office he could have had the depth of knowledge, and the time in which to absorb all the groundwork that was necessary for him to conduct himself as he does. It will be interesting to see where he is in 12 to 18 months time

    I don’t believe the promised change in the whole of our government system will materialise because it is too momentous a task, and at a time when our whole future is going to have to change on practically every level to accommodate the changes created by the credit crunch, there wouldn’t be enough days in the month, budget enough and the people to do it. However if they were ever to do so in the future I think all the parties should ensure that their proposed leader is a man or woman of integrity, strong and determined, and above all experienced in both politics and the world in general. It is not enough to have advisers that are the current commodity, because they inevitably, by their very nature and purpose, will lead.

  • Stop! For pity’s sake, Stop!

    I am referring to this daily diet of politics, in spite of the fact that I am also another one at it. I have already written my objection to politicians having others write their speeches, because I believe they should all be forced to write their own, if nothing else, so that what they say are their own policies. There is a good way to check, currently, with all these politicians having to stand up and reply to why they have been elected, to why they haven’t been elected, and all the other questions that they are being asked every time they put in an appearance anywhere. That is when they have to speak from the heart, or pretend to. That is also when they are passing on their own thoughts. I discovered it interesting, as a pastime rather than research, just to see how many of them are flummoxed when they suddenly find them selves faced with the woolly lump of a microphone – in some cases it’s very revealing, not only about the quality of the rhetoric, but the fact that some of them say more than they should, and suddenly realise that it will come back to haunt them.

    Let’s change the subject. Are you getting inundated with hilarious stories on a daily basis? My family knows that I’m no surfer of the Internet, I use it as a tool rather than a toy. So they keep me abreast of the humour, which in a high proportion of cases is really very clever. Looking back to the days when we all listened to the radio, or should I say the Crystal Set, to the information or humour that had been carefully vetted so that nothing of a sexual nature could offend the offendable, I now realise slightly salacious jokes slipped through, and while my mother feigned disgust, my grandmother and I smiled at one another, because we knew, she because of her age and experience, and me because I was learning, that sex offered properly, can be an hilarious subject. It’s great, that at this time we can still laugh at ourselves.

    This of course, caused me to surf a wee bit, with the result that unfortunately I’m finding not only the breadth of interests on the Talk-Talk opening page, but the slant of those interests, which mainly seems to trend towards the trivial. This in turn clearly indicates to me that the need of the general public is to move away from reality, into the world of the celebrities, the tittle-tattle, and pretty well anything that distracts from the mundane, which has now become so objectionable. I believe that apart from people like me who are past it, the speed of life today just to stay afloat, together with the loss of so many of our cheap and simple pleasures in the name of progress, such as kids being able to move around, play on open ground, and walk to school, and has now become dangerous, is so shackling, that the majority no longer have the time to appreciate the simple and finer things, because they strive for the sake of striving, ever upwards.

    I think if anything, what I have just written, is probably both sad and boring, but if it is true the trend like politics should be reassessed and changed.

  • The Ulster Unionist is sacrificed on the alter of self-agrandisement

    On May the second this year, on this blog, I predicted that the proposed changes in the Unionist party, inaugurated by David Cameron, would lead to the Unionists having minimal representation. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to work that out, but it is a fact that it has happened. I don’t blame the electorate, because the whole thing is being confused by spurious rhetoric, and hollow promises, when our so-called leaders in Stormont, can’t agree on anything substantial, and we’re drifting into a morass. I fail to understand how approximately two thirds of the electorate can be virtually disenfranchised, when once they were the main force in Northern Ireland. If this is allowed to persist without remedial measure so that the Unionists present a common front, we might soon be ruled from Dublin. Is that the ruse? More than one government has given the impression that Northern Ireland is a drain on Britain, when in actual fact because we are behind the times, I believe our standards are as high as any on the mainland.

    There are still those Unionists who were part of the old government machine, and I urge them to sort their differences out, find a common path and let Unionism take the position it once did and represent the majority once again. There is no arguing that in the distant past, there were levels of injustice, but to a great extent these have been amended, and the electorate on both sides of the political divide have not the same outlook nor the intensity of outlook that brought us to the Troubles. The Nationalists understandably will go on working for a United Ireland, while at the same time it is hoped, they will ostracise terrorism in the name of a United Ireland. I do not wish to be a rabble-rouser, and I’m certainly not putting ideas into the minds of the UFF, as they are unlikely to read this blog, and anyway can draw conclusions as well as anyone. But if push comes to shove, and the Unionists are totally sidelined, we could be put back 40 years, and by past experience, for what?

  • Ignorance is no excuse

    There’s a hackneyed phrase from the Bible that says ‘Forgive them for they know not what they do.’ I think this applies in the current government crisis, where everybody is shrieking for change, not only in Westminster, but in the EU and Local Government, yet they have not got an idea of the cost in disruption, financially and in many other ways, even if they seem to have knowledge of what they really want. Across the world there are so many different types of government from dictatorships to our four-tier system, if you include the Queen, which indicates the variety of ways it can be viewed. I have worked for a consultancy, been a consultant, a contractor, been a civil servant in Local Government, the Northern Ireland Government, the Imperial Civil Service, been self employed and unemployed, and a serviceman. In all these experiences I have found that the detachment of central government is the most serious problem to the function of the country. One of the problems is that a proportion of those in control at the higher levels and in Parliament is more concerned with their own advancement than they are in the general welfare of the public, and so detached that there is little communication with the grass roots. So it is essential that if there are any changes these points should be taken into account. So let’s do so.

    If you take the analogy of a ship, there is a captain in total control, and a series of departments interacting, but with their own responsibilities. This is a system that works from the time the ship leaves port, until it reaches its destination, and it has worked for thousands of years. Local government is rather like a ship, it is virtually autonomous if it is not subjected to government checks and balances at every turn. If things go wrong the local people are the only ones who suffer, not the whole country, and the remedy is in their own hands. Once Central Government imposes its influence, this introduces another time factor, another set of checks and balances that have already been dealt with, in other words, apart from the financial side, it is a total duplication. If the taxes are local, sensibly drawn up and applied, then central government has a smaller input on how the money is spent and from whence it comes. The government always has the right to take the council to task if it misbehaves, but it seems there is no one to take the government to task because it is so remote from the man in the street. This is not so with Local Government.

    If we’re going to change things then let us go back to the good old days, when we knew our councillors, knew that of few of them were not too trustworthily, so we were alert, we were consulted and we consulted in our turn. I believe that this is the cheapest, most effective, and easiest way of changing our governing system, for the sake of the man in the street, not those who control him. If you have councils up and down the country, properly run, and fulfilling all the requirements of the local people, then the burden on central government is cut down to size, and a requirement that 600 plus MPs would no longer pertain, not to mention the burgeoning civil service, and the spin doctors. Government is there, like the captain of the ship who supervises, coordinates and deals with problems without the ship, and if the system is applied to government as a whole, it will be more efficient more easily vetted and more economical.

  • Perhaps my objections ring a bell with you.

    They are not all political, but unfortunately the greatest of them is a person in the government. I take strong exception to Lord Mandelson being part of the government. Firstly because he is unelected, secondly because he has had to resign on two occasions for the sort of thing the current fuss is about. Thirdly because now he has become once again a power to be reckoned with as he was previously, when he was a spin doctor. I am firmly convinced that he has had a strong influence over Gordon Brown, is a stronger character than Brown, and is now being talked about as the deputy leader in fact if not in name, that I translate as leader, and a reason why Brown feels confident that he can remain in office. To extend this objection I believe that so-called spin doctors should be prohibited from being a permanent part of a government machine. Advisers are another matter entirely, they are brought in for a specific job, especially as no one is omniscient. If however, a speechwriter also becomes a speech composer, which I believe is currently the case, when certain MPs speaking off-the-cuff are so poor, while their written speeches are of an exceedingly high standard, this should be curbed. If the country has voted the government in, then the government should govern, not be a tool for other people who influence them, possibly with their own agenda.
    Do you object very strongly to finding yourself talking to somebody halfway across the world, with a very strong accent that can be difficult to understand, when all you want is a telephone number of a friend in the next street, or maybe help with the problem of a new gadget that you bought? This of course is part of a wider objection, the transference of a lot of our work and much of manufacture abroad. These again are cases where the government seems totally oblivious of the long-term effects of these cost-cutting exercises, which only advantage those doing the cost-cutting, not the country as a whole.

    I am so often disappointed these days, when I have been persuaded to buy a boxed meal, or a meal in a tin, and when I start to eat it and discover it is absolutely objectionable. The fact that there are so many on the shelves, implies that a high proportion of those buying them are happy with them. I can’t believe that I am alone in finding both the quality and the tastes of these substitutes for an old-fashioned meal, to be substandard. Periodically pictures, as part of advertisements, show presumably highly educated dieticians designing and testing new meals. I just wonder whether my taste buds are singular, or whether those of the testers are more to do with profit than culinary excellence.

    One last gripe. I have always found it ludicrous, that people can fly large quantities of produce halfway round the world for a price at point of delivery less than it costs to produce it in a field 3 miles away. People are making our lives ever more complicated because they want us to take pains in ensuring that we have recycling, we are careful with our electricity usage, we buy cars that have low carbon emission, and yet we can feed the atmosphere with waste gases from all this transportation. Perhaps this credit crunch will bring a bit of sanity back into our lives.

  • We do not use our imediate history as a tool

    There were great changes made to our political system in the 70s that have been continued on a sort of broad-brush principle ever since. In particular it was the way in which things that were really serious and affected us most, were centralised. The reason I feel is that those in charge have not had the experience that the older generations, who have seen and recognized the pitfalls of these changes, have had. There has been a steady move away from careful, considered change, to the sort of changes that have now been perpetrated causing the credit crunch and political meltdown. These latter are clearly the result of those in charge having more interest in their own aggrandisement, than that required by their responsibilities. One glaring example was the removal of the matron from the hospitals, and turning hospitals into trusts, where those required to operate the system had less say than they had previously. I have been warbling on for three years in this vein, with no change at all, and others have been doing the same, It therefore seems that we need to have a mechanism, similar to a referendum, that addresses certain aspects of our lives, and that we, the average citizen, may contribute in a reasoned manner, rather than by extravagant rhetoric.

    We have by the very nature of this discussion, a tool that can be used, providing that somebody, or some people, have the wish and the energy to run a series of referenda covering topics that the general public feel need attention. I refer to the Internet. I give you one basic example to make the point. Three years ago not only I, but the press as well, were constantly writing about the growth of debt being allowed to build, unmonitored, and unrestrained. Warnings were given and not heeded. If we had had, at that time a website devoted entirely to taking public opinion on a question and answer, tick the box, basis, I believe that we wouldn’t be where we are today because the majority of people, and in particular those over 60, a reasonable portion of the country, would have been totally averse to the overspend. If the Telegraph is prepared to do as much damage as it has to our political system, then perhaps it might offer some readdress by sponsoring such a tool. I firmly believe that this will be a winner, because people would feel at long last that their opinions were of value, and they were not just a cipher, a statistic on an electoral roll.

    By the number of people who read on this blog the number of pages they do, I feel that what I say appeals, I know that others are also saying the same thing, but by the same token, it still seems that we are being ignored where it matters. This post therefore, will be ignored also

  • On a lighter note, mix and match

    It seems that everybody on TV and on the Internet is advising the world how to save money in the credit crunch, so why should I be different? Some of what I write here I have probably touched on previously, but for the sake of those who have not read it, I repeat myself. My mixing and matching first started when I was making a rather good quality home-made wine, 10 gallons at a time, using liquid yeasts which are no longer available, and gave the brews the distinctive flavours of the yeasts, even if the quality was not quite the same. It was then that I discovered that almost invariably mixing two different wines could produce a drink which was better in flavour, and possibly body, than either of the ingredients. One caveat is that you must drink the mixed wines on the day they are mixed, as chemical reactions debase the flavour in time. Since then I have mixed and matched mustards to suit particular sausages, brown sauces to replace one taken off the market, that made cauliflower, chopped fresh greens, and frozen vegetables bearable, when I was on a health kick.

    Now it is the turn of a cheap whisky that is to my taste and has all the merits of a good Malt. I’m very fond of malt whisky, not all, but quite a few, but they come at a price. Prior to Christmas 07, I was looking for bargains in malt whiskies in our local supermarket when I came across one at the incredible price of £14. It was called Glen Moray. When I got it home I discovered that it was very sweet as it was made partly of honey. Being frugal, I decided to experiment by blending it with an average blended whisky from a supermarket. This I did methodically, as I do when mixing, by taking rough guesses at the percentages of the different ingredients, and in this case there were only two. I had an enjoyable half hour, using small liqueur glasses, tasting and changing until I found a drink to my taste, which ultimately turned out to be, in a 24 ounce bottle, 7 ounces of Glen Moray, and 17 ounces of the blended whisky. Whether this is to your taste is something you might like to find out for yourself. A word of warning, there are some bottles of whisky in the bigger supermarkets containing a litre and a half of the blended whisky at a very reasonable price. It is my experience that combining this with Glen Moray is perfectly viable, but you cannot depend upon the flavour of each successive bottle of the blended that you buy to be similar to the previous one, and so it is wise if you’re using a litre and a half, to measure one mixed sample, as you may have to adjust the mix to taste.

    I can’t spell slanta, so down the hatch, or as my Jewish friends will say ‘enjoy’.

  • My final word on Westminster and perks in general

    I have seen some rabble rousing in my time, but I don’t remember anything as distorted, and engineered as this that we are suffering at this time. It is not a game, it is our political future which has been ripped apart, often unreasonably, and it will not be possible to put it together overnight. I am convinced that there is a worm in the apple with a ploy as yet unclear.

    All along I have beseeched my readers to stop and think. I do so again. We have known ever since the EU was instigated that the people in Brussels were milking the gravy train hand over first to the tune of hundreds of millions. We have been aware of the fact that not all countries obey the rules in the way that our civil servants seem to need to do. So why are we so surprised that this is a similar tradition, because that is what it is, and has clearly been in vogue in Westminster for years. This holier than thou, washing of hands, sheer hypocrisy has got to stop. Over my life I have rubbed shoulders with petty crime, malfeasance, and left. Don’t tell me that you have never done anything that is on the margins of theft. For example paying a tradesman cash because he wouldn’t do the job if he had to present a bill and thus pay VAT, or something similar. In this instance you are conniving to steal money from the government, but a lot of people will condone it. Don’t tell me that you are as righteous as these people who are writing in the press, preaching on television, and who are creating this expose, would appear to be. I have seen teachers taking pencils and books from school for their children to use at home, I have known the people in sweet shops who considered it their perk to steal the odd bar of chocolate. The list is endless, and the higher you go in the value of the circumstances, so the so-called ‘perks’ get greater. If you read through my blog I cite dozens of instances of people bending the rules to their own advantage, it is nothing new, and if we were honest we would not be so surprised in this current case.

    Please, just stop and think, and decide if this furore is really justified to the level it has reached, and could not have been dealt with in a more sane way, with a lot less damage to all of us.

  • Rules for the very rich, the rich,and the poor

    I fear it is not only the government but the other parties as well, who have double standards. The people in charge of the banks, who through their actions orchestrated the credit crunch, and in most cases are still in office, are being paid now, presumably, by the public purse. At the same time MPs who, not necessarily through criminal intent, but by the accepted practices over years and decades, have been found to have digressed, are merely being pilloried, required to refund, and worse still, generally running around like chickens with their heads cut off, because they find the opinions in the media, generated for gain, with no concept of the damage that is being done to the whole of our political system. at a time when what we need is cool, and considered judgement, react, instead of thinking for themselves critically and with judgement before acting.

    I wonder if I, just an ordinary citizen, had been discovered by my employers to take company money and use it for my own purposes, I would be allowed to refund it, get a smack on the wrist, a nod and a wink, and get a job somewhere else, or would I find myself in front of the Beak, trying to justify my actions so that I wouldn’t be sent to jail. Interesting?

  • A hairbrained idea that might just work.

    Lateral thinking concerning Parliamentary elections, prompted this, and the way government, local government and advertising’ promulgate their information, on the assumption that everybody is on the Internet. It creates a two-tier system where some are disadvantaged. We have all seen it. The cleansing department no longer posts its arrangements through the letterbox, but relies on you finding out when the collection is, from the Internet. The National Health Service and many other services seem to operate on this misguided basis that we all have access to the Internet. If people consider libraries, Internet cafes, and using other people’s computers, then the assumption is accurate, but life just isn’t like that.

    The other day I phoned in the reading on my electricity meter, and was amazed that the whole business was carried on electronically as if I was talking to a young woman. There were no problems the whole thing went smoothly. This made me think that the tedious business of going up to a school to make my mark in an election seems archaic. The whole idea of course is that everything has to be secure, but when parts of the United Kingdom work on the principle of ‘vote early and vote often’, I feel we should harness the system used by the electricity board. As far as I know we all have a Social Security number. If we were to add to that the year of our birth as two digits, our initials and three more digits of our own choice, have it recorded on the electoral roll, I feel that this, accompanied by the typical questions that were asked by the electricity board, would be adequate to provide security. We could telephone on voting day, to a number provided for the particular candidate of our choice, dial that number, answer the questions, and our vote would be cast. The phone calls, to prevent gerrymandering, would be recorded. All the calls would be local, and if there was some problem with the telephone traffic in high-density areas, even with alternative numbers for the same candidate, people could be given periods of time in which to vote, because they would have access to a telephone be they at work, at home or even visiting, through the day, I believe it will be to the interests of the voter, make counting a lot easier, and would not require this army of volunteers throughout the day. One even greater advantage would be that the thorny problem of referenda, either selective, or general, would be easier and cheaper to apply.