It's all Blair, all the time at the moment, as our former PM finally undertakes his long-expected conversion to Catholicism. It would be unChristian to ask whether he is truly entitled to take this step, but that hasn't deterred a lot of people, including the lovely Ann Widdecombe, who is herself a convert to Catholicism. She points out that Blair's House of Commons voting record on a range of issues, including abortion and same sex unions, is hardly in accord with the doctrines of the Church. And of course, the Vatican has always been vocally opposed to the Iraq invasion.
Blair is a man who never seems to be troubled by the possibility that he may be wrong, so it's hard to see how he can feel at home in any organised religion. A number of years ago, Cardinal Murphy O'Connor asked Blair to desist from taking communion on the frequent occasions that he attended mass, since the Catholic understanding of communion is radically different from that of other denominations. (Our local priest compares it to the difference between blanks and live ammunition!) Blair acceded, but with very bad grace, penning a letter to the Cardinal in which he wondered "what would Jesus think about this"? For me, that really says it all about Blair's ego. It's to be hoped he adopted a humbler tone for his induction into the Church.
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Friday, 21 December 2007
Blair goes to the dogs
I didn't think Tony Blair could do anything to lower my opinion of him even further, but this certainly has. In case you can't make the link work, it's a White House promotional video in which our former PM congratulates two of the Bushes' dogs (no, not the twins) on being appointed park rangers.
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Hall of shame 2: media
And it's the Murdoch press again!! Buried on Page 2 of the Sunday Times for December 16 is a remarkable little apology. It seems that at the time of the MRSA scandal at the Maidstone hospitals trust in October, the paper illustrated one of its stories with a picture of a nurse in a filthy uniform. Well, actually, it was a fake photo, though this was of course not revealed at the time. The paper thought it was a picture of a model, and the uniform was in fact quite clean in the original photo, but through the magic of photoshop, or pehaps by rubbing it with their messy little hands, they made it look filthy.
That would be quite enough deception for me, but it gets worse. It turns out the impeccably-attired lady was in fact a real, live nurse -- but had never worked for the hospital in question! So the poor old Sunday Times has had to apologise "unreservedly".
The Sunday Times is part of the Murdoch group that has gleefully piled in on the BBC over its various misdemeanours. Let's see: BBC -- tinkering with the results of a poll to name the Blue Peter moggie; Sunday Times -- falsifying a picture on an important news story and damaging the reputation of an innocent woman in the process. Just for once, it would be nice to see the Beeb adopt Murdochian standards and run with this story at the top of every news bulletin until Christmas.
That would be quite enough deception for me, but it gets worse. It turns out the impeccably-attired lady was in fact a real, live nurse -- but had never worked for the hospital in question! So the poor old Sunday Times has had to apologise "unreservedly".
The Sunday Times is part of the Murdoch group that has gleefully piled in on the BBC over its various misdemeanours. Let's see: BBC -- tinkering with the results of a poll to name the Blue Peter moggie; Sunday Times -- falsifying a picture on an important news story and damaging the reputation of an innocent woman in the process. Just for once, it would be nice to see the Beeb adopt Murdochian standards and run with this story at the top of every news bulletin until Christmas.
Hall of shame 1: finance
Two egregious pieces of self-justifying bluster in the past week, both (as it happens) in the Murdoch media. First, Alan "the bubblemeister" Greenspan took to the op ed pages of the Wall Street Journal (subscription required to see the website), to pen yet another defence of his record as Fed Chairman, and to disavow all blame for the current credit crunch. Then Anatole Kaletsky used his column in the Times to defend himself against accusations that his analysis of said crunch is contradictory, in a remarkable piece that wound up advocating something that is logically impossible.
Greenspan's article was notable for his admission, for the first time as far as I can recall, that the extended period of low inflation enjoyed by the US and the rest of the world in the 1990s was mainly due to the surge in cheap imports from China, rather than his own mastery of economic lever-pulling. Maybe if he'd figured this out at the time, he would have realised that it was neither necessary nor desirable in the circumstances to keep interest rates artificially low, which only had the effect of causing the whole US economy to leverage itself to the hilt, setting the stage for the current problems.
On more familiar ground, Greenspan again says that there was nothing he or the Fed could have done to head off the crash, since markets always put an end to excesses at a time of their own choosing. It may be true that you can't exactly predict when a bubble is going to burst, but if you've fostered an economy built on the ready availability of cheap credit, you don't need to be a genius to realise that the likeliest time for it to happen is when you start raising interest rates. That's why you shouldn't let the bubble get too big in the first place. Greenspan is the Conrad Black of monetary policy: everyone else thinks he dunnit, but he is righteously convinced of his own innocence.
As for Kaletsky, hs thinks it is wrong for the UK and Europe to blame the US for the economic problems they now face, since they have housing market excesses of their own making. He may well be right about this (at least in the UK and Spain), though I don't recall him ever saying anything about it until the credit crisis hit. In fact, as I've said before, he was the leading advocate of the cheap money policies that got us into this mess, and the solution he is now advocating is....cutting interest rates.
Kaletsky thinks the US has got it right, allowing the dollar to fall, and the UK and Europe have got it wrong, with their currencies remaining too strong. This view is asinine. The big imbalances are between the US and China/India, but because of the intransigence of the Chinese, the US dollar is hardly falling at all against the Yuan. It's falling against the pound and the euro all right, which will no doubt give the US some relief. However, there is no policy known to man -- not even to clever people like Kaletsky and Greenspan -- that can result in the US dollar, sterling and euro all depreciating at the same time, unless and until the Chinese decide to float the Yuan. Interest rate cuts by the BoE and ECB will only slow the necessary correction in the US dollar -- and heighten the already-significant risk that inflation will reach nasty levels again. We can't blame Kaletsky for getting us into this mess -- Greenspan did that -- but it would be nice if he could at least think straight about it.
Greenspan's article was notable for his admission, for the first time as far as I can recall, that the extended period of low inflation enjoyed by the US and the rest of the world in the 1990s was mainly due to the surge in cheap imports from China, rather than his own mastery of economic lever-pulling. Maybe if he'd figured this out at the time, he would have realised that it was neither necessary nor desirable in the circumstances to keep interest rates artificially low, which only had the effect of causing the whole US economy to leverage itself to the hilt, setting the stage for the current problems.
On more familiar ground, Greenspan again says that there was nothing he or the Fed could have done to head off the crash, since markets always put an end to excesses at a time of their own choosing. It may be true that you can't exactly predict when a bubble is going to burst, but if you've fostered an economy built on the ready availability of cheap credit, you don't need to be a genius to realise that the likeliest time for it to happen is when you start raising interest rates. That's why you shouldn't let the bubble get too big in the first place. Greenspan is the Conrad Black of monetary policy: everyone else thinks he dunnit, but he is righteously convinced of his own innocence.
As for Kaletsky, hs thinks it is wrong for the UK and Europe to blame the US for the economic problems they now face, since they have housing market excesses of their own making. He may well be right about this (at least in the UK and Spain), though I don't recall him ever saying anything about it until the credit crisis hit. In fact, as I've said before, he was the leading advocate of the cheap money policies that got us into this mess, and the solution he is now advocating is....cutting interest rates.
Kaletsky thinks the US has got it right, allowing the dollar to fall, and the UK and Europe have got it wrong, with their currencies remaining too strong. This view is asinine. The big imbalances are between the US and China/India, but because of the intransigence of the Chinese, the US dollar is hardly falling at all against the Yuan. It's falling against the pound and the euro all right, which will no doubt give the US some relief. However, there is no policy known to man -- not even to clever people like Kaletsky and Greenspan -- that can result in the US dollar, sterling and euro all depreciating at the same time, unless and until the Chinese decide to float the Yuan. Interest rate cuts by the BoE and ECB will only slow the necessary correction in the US dollar -- and heighten the already-significant risk that inflation will reach nasty levels again. We can't blame Kaletsky for getting us into this mess -- Greenspan did that -- but it would be nice if he could at least think straight about it.
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
Sweating the small stuff
I had occasion to take the train from London to Newcastle on December 9, the first weekday on which the route was operated by a new franchisee, National Express. It was amazing to see how quickly any trace of the former operator, GNER, had been eliminated. It's a mystery to me how they could have painted out the GNER name on so many trains so quickly, and replaced it with their own. Apart from a few on-board announcements where the steward momentarily lapsed back into the old name, GNER was completely expunged.
National Express is, of course, going to repaint all of the trains in a new colour scheme. This ritual is one of the most pointless aspects of the whole ludicrous franchise system. But it seems as if National Express has a fine eye for the telling detail. In the first class coaches, GNER had coffee cups on every table, with the cup inverted on the saucer. On the return journey yesterday, the hostess went through the entire carriage turning the cups right side up. When I asked her what the point of this was, she replied that this was how the new owners wanted it done from now on. You never got that kind of strategic thinking with British Rail.
As it happened, December 9 was also the first weekday of operation for the new suburban platforms at St Pancras International, which I had to pass through on the way to Kings Cross. It cost a reported £70 million to fit out this 2-platform station, on top of the cost of digging the hole in the first place. Obviously £70 mil' doesn't go as far as it used to: for example, it doen't stretch to more than two escalators per platform. There was a queue to use the up escalator even before 7 am, so what it will be like when they eventually reach their 24 train per hour goal can only be imagined.
The new platforms are at the far north-west of St Pancras International. The tube platforms are at the far south east. I suppose this does give you a chance to take a good look at the refurbished Barlow train shed, which is truly awesome. Still, it takes some doing to come up with a location that is less convenient than the sewer-like Kings Cross Thameslink that it has replaced. More attention to the big picture, and less worrying about colour schemes and coffee cups, is my suggestion.
National Express is, of course, going to repaint all of the trains in a new colour scheme. This ritual is one of the most pointless aspects of the whole ludicrous franchise system. But it seems as if National Express has a fine eye for the telling detail. In the first class coaches, GNER had coffee cups on every table, with the cup inverted on the saucer. On the return journey yesterday, the hostess went through the entire carriage turning the cups right side up. When I asked her what the point of this was, she replied that this was how the new owners wanted it done from now on. You never got that kind of strategic thinking with British Rail.
As it happened, December 9 was also the first weekday of operation for the new suburban platforms at St Pancras International, which I had to pass through on the way to Kings Cross. It cost a reported £70 million to fit out this 2-platform station, on top of the cost of digging the hole in the first place. Obviously £70 mil' doesn't go as far as it used to: for example, it doen't stretch to more than two escalators per platform. There was a queue to use the up escalator even before 7 am, so what it will be like when they eventually reach their 24 train per hour goal can only be imagined.
The new platforms are at the far north-west of St Pancras International. The tube platforms are at the far south east. I suppose this does give you a chance to take a good look at the refurbished Barlow train shed, which is truly awesome. Still, it takes some doing to come up with a location that is less convenient than the sewer-like Kings Cross Thameslink that it has replaced. More attention to the big picture, and less worrying about colour schemes and coffee cups, is my suggestion.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Hands off the old bag!
We're pretty dedicated recyclers round our way. We compost kitchen and garden waste, sort cans, plastic bottles and newspapers into special boxes for collection, and make regular runs to the local dump to recycle stuff that the city doesn't currently pick up, like bottles and cardboard. We're not looking forward to the introduction of bi-weekly collections (and finding a home for another wheelie bin) next year, but no doubt we'll get used to it.
However, we're quite bemused by the Government's apparent intention to ban supermarkets from giving out plastic bags. Oh, I know this has already been done in Ireland, and I've read all about how the damned things take millions of years to decompose in landfills. But I can't see how either I or the environment will benefit from a ban.
The anti-bag slogan is "twenty minutes of use, decades to decompose". Is this really the case? How many people take the groceries home in a bag and then just throw the bag out? I'm sure that most people do what we do, which is to use the bags for collection of kitchen waste, hung inside one of those little bins that you attach to the inside of the cupboard below the kitchen sink.
What will we do if the supermarket bags are banned? We'll almost certainly start to buy the mini bin-liners that are sold for this purpose. We'll be throwing out just as many bags as before, except they'll be the higher-quality bought ones, which may well take more scarce resources to produce. So who benefits here? The supermarkets? Yes, they no longer have to buy bags to give away -- instead they get to sell them at a profit. The bag makers? Yes, they get to sell higher-quality bags to retail buyers, instead of selling cheapo ones at bulk prices to the supermarkets. Me and the environment? Hell no.
However, we're quite bemused by the Government's apparent intention to ban supermarkets from giving out plastic bags. Oh, I know this has already been done in Ireland, and I've read all about how the damned things take millions of years to decompose in landfills. But I can't see how either I or the environment will benefit from a ban.
The anti-bag slogan is "twenty minutes of use, decades to decompose". Is this really the case? How many people take the groceries home in a bag and then just throw the bag out? I'm sure that most people do what we do, which is to use the bags for collection of kitchen waste, hung inside one of those little bins that you attach to the inside of the cupboard below the kitchen sink.
What will we do if the supermarket bags are banned? We'll almost certainly start to buy the mini bin-liners that are sold for this purpose. We'll be throwing out just as many bags as before, except they'll be the higher-quality bought ones, which may well take more scarce resources to produce. So who benefits here? The supermarkets? Yes, they no longer have to buy bags to give away -- instead they get to sell them at a profit. The bag makers? Yes, they get to sell higher-quality bags to retail buyers, instead of selling cheapo ones at bulk prices to the supermarkets. Me and the environment? Hell no.
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