Facing down trade union bullies

British Airways trolley dollies wanted to go on strike over the 12 days of Xmas. The Supreme Court decided the ballot had 'irregularities' and stopped it. So relief for passengers. I'm pleased for them, and delighted that the would-be strikers have been given a judicial caning. They think their pay isn’t good enough – even though they’re paid more than cabin crew on other airlines, by and large.

Well we’d all like job security and cushy numbers in this day and age, wouldn’t we? BA are fighting for their very survival, cutting costs wherever they can, just like the rest of the airline industry, and indeed like public and private companies all over the world. I work for a charity, and I’ve had a pay freeze (effectively a pay cut). Our pensions are about to be ‘reformed’, which no doubt means reduced. Do I go on strike? Do I hell. I get on with it because we’re in a worldwide recession and I’m lucky to have a job at all. Withholding my labour will have consequences for many disabled and vulnerable children that rely on our organisation. And there are also plenty of people who would do my job for a lot less money, and I well aware of it.

Watching the union UNITE doing their best to destroy their own industry would be hilarious for the irony if it wasn't for the fact that being unemployed is no better for society. Even people trying to commit suicide have the right to life. If you saw someone trying to jump off Beachy Head you'd try and stop them. Especially if they were going to leave their family destitute. But I suppose you can't stop some people.

Maybe UNITE think we’re still living in the 1970s when trade unions could shaft the public whenever they didn’t get what they wanted. So their plan was to inconvenience millions of people around the most important holiday of the year – when people want to see their children and families. Which would probably have been the death knell for BA as no-one would trust them again. The airline industry has never really recovered from 9/11; then we had a credit crunch and now we’re in a recession. The whole industry is on its knees. The arrogance of the unions is staggering.

I’m not against the right to strike. Everyone has the right to withhold their labour. Sometimes you may have to strike to protect yourself and your family. It’s enshrined in British law and (I think) international labour agreements. But this is not a health and safety issue or a protest against exploitation. It’s because cabin crew want better treatment. Don’t we all? I care more about the millions of passengers. Leaving them stranded to further the unions own pay is verging on the immoral.

For some unions, withholding labour has become a tool to brandish over any dispute of any kind, even when the consequences are totally self-defeating. It’s become the weapon of choice. The RMT in London Underground are a perfect example of this.

BA’s management quality seems to be poor. BA has been battered by the recession and by canny competitors like Virgin. It has a £3.7billion hole in its pensions. It is staring into oblivion, like many other famous carriers. We’re all finding it tough in a recession. When BA goes bust and the cabin crew are on the dole then just mayge they will have second thoughts.

BA still retains many of the characteristics of an old nationalised company, despite its private status. Its cabin staff are well paid compared to the industry average. They have nothing to complain about, they have it good. This could be the start of a return of union militancy, which does tend to rear its ugly head during hard economic times. The British economy is being kept afloat by cuts to the pay and benefits of private sector workers. Some public sector workers, by contrast, think they deserve some sort of special status. And of course they have their guaranteed pensions, which the rest of us have to fund. It’s high time to change that.

There are legions of unemployed who would jump at the chance to serve drinks on a plane and travel about the place getting drunk, or whatever. And they’d do it for less money. And they probably wouldn’t strike because they’d be glad they had a job in a recession. There are plenty of Polish girls who would join up I’m sure, and I’d prefer to fly with them anyway. They’re cuter.

Sports Personality : Oxymoron

I didn’t watch the absurd ‘Sports Personality of the Year’ award, but I heard that Ryan Giggs won it. Baffling. What did he win it for, exactly?

Not his personality, surely. Sports personality seems like an oxymoron to me. Giggs seems like a fairly nice bloke, without the arrogance of many footballers, but how this sets him apart from all other sportsmen and women I don’t know.

What’s the award for, exactly? It’s obviously not for ‘personality’. Is it for achievement? Improvement? Consistency? Comebacks? A combination of all the above? If so a far more worthy winner would have been Beth Tweddle, the gymnast; or maybe Jenson Button; or David Haye. World champions all. The award is basically a popularity contest. Giggs isn’t even the best footballer in the UK at the moment. He could win an award for longevity and consistency, but the ‘BBC Consistency and Longevity in Sport Award’ doesn’t have the same ring about it.

It does reveal the stranglehold that football has on sport in this country though. And that sport is now more about ‘personalities’ (whatever that means, exactly) than sporting prowess.

Sporting prowess in itself is completely overrated. So what if someone can swing a golf club better than me, or bounce a ball into a hoop more accurately? So what? Sports are arbitrary. There are many sports that don’t make it into the Olympics, that don’t have professional leagues, and yet are no less ‘sports’ in their own right. They roll a large cheese down a hill in the West Country somewhere, and when I was at school we played ‘penny up the wall’. I bet there are urchins in north London and West Country bumpbkins who perform these sports better than Tiger Woods or Ryan Giggs ever would. So what is there to admire about Ryan Giggs, exactly? Just a few hundred years ago football was basically a cheese-rolling contest between mobs of howling villagers. No different. It just got lucky. Why is curling an Olympic sport but cheese-rolling not?

We can admire sporting prowess only as escapism. Forget what really matters in life and admire the dribbling skills Ryan Giggs or the boxing artistry of Floyd Mayweather Jr. Yes, I agree that it is aesthetically pleasing to many and we can admire the skill, technique and dedication it requires. I like watching a great footballer or a boxer in full flow. I’m looking forward to Pacquiao vs Mayweather, and the World Cup next year. But…. if you remember that someone just made up these sports when they were bored, and then made up the rules of these sports off the top of their heads then it becomes a little less impressive.

In the last 30 years sportsmen have become transmogrified into commercial entities and ‘role models’. It inevitably ends in disappointment for all. Sponsors have cottoned on to the relentless human need to be entertained and diverted. The Romans understood this, providing ‘panem et circenses’ for the masses. .Even politicians get in on the act. The public play along and live their lives vicariously through their teams or players, getting swept up in the hysteria and often defining and dividing themselves into tribes based on loyalties to ‘their’ teams.

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award is an absurdity that attempts to elevate what is objectively ridiculous to an artificial and arbitrary position of value. When I have watched these awards in the past it’s always struck me how the sportsmen all look faintly embarrassed as they sit there being told how good they are at swimming up and down or running round in circles or whatever. They know that although it might be important to them, for everyone else watching their endeavours are just escapism.

Brazilian police makes ours look like saints

I was down at Stockwell tube station last Sunday. Outside I noticed a memorial to Jean Charles de Menezes, the young Brazilian shot dead by SO19 in 2007 in a case of mistaken identity. The police thought he was the terrorist who lived in the same block as Charles. I also read in the London papers that London Underground have agreed to allow a permanent memorial to Charles.

I feel sorry for the poor guy, and his family. The Brazilian expats living in London had a lot to say about the British police in the aftermath. After all, they did screw up their operation and killed an innocent man.

But today I read that Brazilian police murder three people a day, according to a UN report. Kind of puts poor Charles's death into perspective. Our cops are saints compared to Brazil's. If I were a SO19 cop I would have liked to think I wouldn't have made such an error. But I probably would have. When I worked at Scotland Yard as a civilian worker I met some of them and guess what - they're human. I was on the tube when bombers targeted it on 7/7 and I wanted them hunted down and killed, or slung in jail. I still do.

Perhaps Brazilians should campaign against their own trigger-happy cops, many of whom moonlight as members of death squads, instead of worrying about our lot. The police that day thought they were saving lives, and they did their best. Those who got it wrong should be thoroughly investigated, but the imperfect information they had on the day, and the context in which that day's events occurred, are very important. It was a horrible decision, whereas people who blithely criticise it never have to make a harder decision than what to have for their breakfast.

Brazil's image of salsa and football hides a very ugly reality. I would have thought that 48,000 murders a year in Brazil would encourage a sense of perspective.

Socialism vs Capitalism

Socialism is based on the belief that one man knows better than one million. Capitalism rests on the principle that a million men know better than one.

In a pure socialist system the state makes decisions for everyone. For this reason it is slow to obtain adequate information on the best way to allocate resources. In a pure capitalist one the many make decisions for the many. It is much faster - and as history has shown, much more efficient - at allocating resources.

We don't, of course, live in a purely capitalist society. We have a 'mixed' economy. Ever developed nation, from China to Sweden, has a mixture of the free-market and state control. The recent credit crunch and banking crisis has swung the pendulum towards state control. The debate is now about what style of capitalism we want. The debate between socialism and capitalism ended with the fall of 'communism' (which really meant state control of economies).

State control failed. It was unable to recover. Capitalism, by contrast, has shown itself to be remarkably resilient; constantly reinventing itself, bouncing back and lifting people out of poverty through wealth creation. Its most severe crises - the Wall Street Crash, Stagflation in the 70s, the dotcom bubble, the credit crunch, the collapse of Lehmans - have not stopped its march. It was capitalism, in one form or another, that lifted millions in Asia out of poverty. It continues to do so in China and India. It is the best economic system for Man: now, and in the future.

I don't believe, however, in complete and total laissez-faire. In any competition, you need an umpire. You need rules. And you need punishment. Imagine a sport where there were no rules. It would still have a Darwinian element to it, but capitalism isn't just about survival of the fittest. It's about confidence. Capitalism needs a neutral umpire to enusre fair play. If all players see, and accept, that there is a level playing field, then they will join in the 'game'. If the system has no means of redress, no fair play, then they won't even participate. They will probably resort to bribery and corruption, as they do in so many parts of sub-saharan Africa. Or Afghanistan. The system is untrustworthy, so why bother participating in it?

I'm not sure Britain's version of capitalism is well run, with the result that the benefits aren't as great as they could be. Take supermarkets: the big players run a cartel, squeezing suppliers and shutting out competition. There's not as much competition as there should be, which is part of the reason we have higher prices than many countries.

In the banking sector, the big players were making so much money, and giving so much to the Exchequer, that the then Chancellor Gordon Brown got into bed with them and wouldn't get out. I remember watching him give speech after speech at the Guildhall, in his white bow tie, praising the City for it's invention and profit-making. He showed no regard whatever for their balance sheets, their liquidity, their debts. His 'tripartite' system of regulation was a sham. Because finance is now borderless, there was no overarching, respected authority to act as capitalism's neutral umpire and just lawgiver. There still isn't, although some world leaders are trying to more closely coordinate their regulation.

Capitalism survives by a process of 'creative destruction': the weak perish, the strong thrive. But we can only benefit from this if the strong are constantly exposed to stiff competition and kicked into line by the umpire, whose loyalties must always lie with the consumer. In the case of the banking crisis, the consumers were ordinary investors and their pensions. Gordon Brown and others forgot - no, disregarded - our interests, so seduced were they by the City's profits.

Capitalism's failures can't hide the fact that it is the only system that has the ability to react quickly enough to consumer needs, which is the foundation of a successful economic system. Socialism cannot, because it is centrally planned. The many make better overall decisions than the few.

Bank bonus tax - why it won't work

So the government wants to clobber the greedy bankers, the former 'masters of the universe' who did so much to lead us to the financial Armageddon we're currently facing. It sounds like plain old-fashioned fairness: why should the rest of us struggle to balance our family budgets and keep our jobs while these guys reward themselves for making such a mess?

I appreciate the 'justice' argument. Reward people for success, not failure. We shouldn't be cowed by bankers threats to emigrate to Zurich if they're stopped from gorging themselves on bonuses. After all we own the banks now. It's our money. If they want to emigrate, let them. At least it won't be our money that funds the bonuses. I believe that the City is big enough to steamroller on. I think the message, distorted though it is by political populism, is sound: that bankers have a social function. They're the keepers of our money and they'd better be responsible. If they're not, they're out on their ear, bonus or no bonus.

I think it sounds fair. Especially as Alistair Darling has announced that the 50% levy on bonuses over £25k will fund the extension of a scheme offering 18- to 24 year-olds out of work for six months a job, training or an internship. But the problem is the bonus tax won't work.

It's absurdly easy for banks to duck the tax. They can simply pay the rewards as a salary; or they can give out shares instead of cash bonuses; defer the bonuses until the windfall tax period ends; or make their big earners self-employed. It may even be illegal to tax just one group of workers, though this is yet to be tested.

The City contributes 12% to Britain's entire tax income. Kill the City and you kill the billions they pour into the coffers of UK plc. If the government was serious about imposing discipline on the City there have to be stronger ways of doing it than - let's face it - an envy tax. Yes, the banking sector has sinned and should be given a damn good caning. Regulation should consist of red lines that the banking sector must not cross. Encouraging long-term stability in place of short-term profit would be a start. Separate out the domestic, 'vanilla' banking from the more exotic overseas investments, as Northern Rock failed to do. Insist that banks hold a big chunk of their holdings in cash. In other words take measures that make it illogical, and unprofitable, for banks to reward short-termism with bonuses. That would be more effective than a windfall tax.

It's not even crystal clear what exactly even constitutes a bonus. It's easy for banks to wriggle out of it. Darling's idea relies heavily on the banks themselves co-operating.

Britain is buried beneath a debt mountain and it's so huge that the government is bereft of ideas as to how to solve it. We may never be able to clear it. There are only two ways for a government to raise money: tax and borrowing. As Hamish McRae said in today's Independent: "The place it [the Government] has to go to raise these billions is the City; there is nowhere else. Yet it bad-mouths anything and anyone connected with finance. How bright is that?"

Pre-Budget Report: move over, Darling

Catching up on the PBR this evening: via The Evening Standard, BBC News 24 and others. Alistair Darling has the haunted look of a man who doesn't even believe his own propaganda any more. The Commons fell about laughing when he said that Britain was approaching these garganutan problems from....'a position of strength'. You gotta hand it to the guy, he kept a straight face while he said it.

I couldn't help noticing that a lot of the nasty stuff won't take effect until 2011 - ie after the next election. By then either the Conservatives will be lumbered with the consequences of it, or Labour will have squeezed home and the voters won't be able to do much about it.



We are up to our eyeballs in debt. Up to our temples. The upper reaches of our craniums. The levels are astronomical, unseen since people were queueing at the grocers with their ration books in the 1940s. It's the highest level of debt in the OECD. It's not the only problem, of course; output is continuing to fall (by more than the Chancellor predicted, of course) consumer spending is falling and unemployment, which has the greatest time lag in recession, will probably continue to rise. Labour have presided over the kind of mess that only happens, historically, once a century. No amount of spin will let the pirouette out of that.



If Darling was a little more serious about Britain's problems, he could have imposed much tougher treatment, as Ireland has done. They have similar problems, but their solution has been far more draconian: slashing public sector spending across the board, with no 'ring-fencing' of certain budgets and serious tax increases that leave no-one in any doubt that it's serious and the medicine will be very bitter indeed.

The Rules of Work - Socrates' Test of Three

As you will probably have noticed from previous ‘Rules of Work’ posts I am not a fan of gossip. Have you noticed how gossip is always about something negative? I mean, how often do you hear people say “Oh my God, have you heard what a successful and happy marriage Brian from accounts has?! Yeah, he’s been totally faithful to his wife!”

Gossip demeans both the target and the perpetrators. If you get a reputation as a gossip you will only draw in people whose energy is as negative as your own, and you will become less trusted by people. For a more elegant dismantling of gossips everywhere, you should remember Socrates’ “Test of Three”.

The philosopher Socrates (469 – 399 BC) was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great man came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him, breathless and excited and said “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?”

“Wait a moment,” the great man replied. “Before you tell me, I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called The Test of Three”.

'Test of Three?'
'That's correct,' Socrates continued. 'Before you talk to me about my student, let's take a moment to test what you're going to say.

The first test is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?'
'No,' the man replied, 'actually I just heard about it.'
'All right,' said Socrates. 'So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second test, the test of Goodness.

Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?'
'No, to the contrary...'
'So,' Socrates continued, 'you want to tell me something bad about him even though you're not certain it's true?' The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued, 'You may still pass though because there is a third test, the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?'
'No, not really.'
'Well,' concluded Socrates, 'if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?'

The man was defeated and ashamed, and said no more.

Socrates was a man of such principles he was prepared to die for them. You shouldn’t die for your job, but you can at least think about Socrates’ Test of Three before you go spreading gossip about your co-workers.

The Rules of Work - when you make a mistake...

When you make a mistake for God's sake don't try and cover it up. Ever.

I know everyone does it, but you shouldn't. Because:

(a) You will get found out. YOU WILL.

(b) You will find that you need to cover up your cover-up. And then you will need to cover for that cover-up. And again, and so on, until your story begins to fall apart.

(c) Your initial indiscretion will appear insignificant when set against the discovery by your peers or boss that....you tried to cover your tracks. Your original error will be all but forgotten when all people can think about is your apparent dishonesty.

My uncle, Gilbert, owns an accountancy business in Norway, which was bought by Ernst and Young. In his position as auditor it was his job to uncover coverups and errors that had been hidden. He was good at it. I remember him telling me how he would often come across documents that staff had simply hidden - physically hidden - in drawers, or under large piles of paper. If there was any kind of document that reflected badly on them or could have been used to expose a mistake, they just stashed it under a pile. And hoped it would go away.

So what should you do it you make a mistake? Well, try and correct it if you must. But if it's something that cannot be simply corrected then own up straight away. It's a funny thing: people who confess mistakes openly and apologise unconditionally and unequivocally are highly regarded - because they're seen as honest as trustworthy. More often than not, that outweighs their error.

When I worked at a publishing company in London, Taylor and Francis, there was a senior guy, the Group Operations Director, called Jeff. Once I remember he made what could only be described as a cockup. I can't remember exactly what it was, I think it was something to do with an upgrade of IT infrastructure. Anyway the next day an email from him went round to all staff, explaining what had happened, apologising and making clear that he was to blame and no-one else. Even though there were probably many in the IT department who were to blame.

Within a day everyone in the company was saying what a great guy Jeff was for 'fessing up like that, for taking responsibility, for not trying to hide the mistake or palm off the blame onto his underlings. He basically became admired. I remember thinking to myself at the time: Jeff got more kudos for admitting the mistake completely and unequivocally than he would ever have got if the system had actually been implemented smoothly and faultlessly. His admission of guilt seemed to have served him better than blowing his own trumpet at any success ever would have.

Senior managers are often practitioners of the hide-the-error tactic. Particularly when it comes to what is commonly known as 'cooking the books'. Remember Nick Leeson, the British, London-based trader who brought down Barings Bank? When he made a loss on his trades, instead of dealing with it transparently, or asking for help, he decided to hide the losses in a secret account he named '88888'. He believed he would make up the losses, so who needed to know? Sure, his bosses were at fault for not monitoring their traders, but he tried to hide his errors. He never made up the loss and became trapped in an ever-increasing vortex of losses and deception. Remember point (b) above: if you lie once, you will need to lie again to cover it.

Eventually his losses in account 88888 were so enormous that Barings collapsed and Leeson went to jail. He is now on the syllabus of every economics degree course in the world.

So remember Nick Leeson, Jeff and uncle Gilbert. If you make a mistake, just say so. Everyone makes mistakes. Even me.

The Rules of Work - get to your desk early

This is a crucial rule: get to work early. No matter what it takes, be early.


Why? Well it will be a less stressful start to your day for starters. There's nothing worse than realising you're running late, then trying to skid your way through traffic, or push past people on the train. I guarantee that once you're running late, everything will seem to go against you: the trains will go extra slowly, people will seem to deliberately get in your way, roadworks will appear miraculously in front of you. Isn't it great?

If you get to your desk at 8.45 when your day starts at 9.00 then you have a lesiurely 15 minutes to take off your coat, make a cup of coffee, log onto your PC. There's no rush. If you happen to have a heavy workload ahead of you then your morale will improve because you've started on a positive note.

You will get a reputation as someone who is hard-working and conscientious too, which won't do your career any harm. Hey, I'm sure you're a grafter anyway, but this extra brownie point won't hurt, will it? And, heaven forbid, if you like to chit-chat and gossip all day, then being the first (or one of the first) to the office each day gives you a little more leeway. If the worst comes to the worst and you find yourself in hot water with the powers that be at work, your hard-working reputation will stack some cards in your favour. It's an awful lot of pluses for doing very little really. Just get in early. It's not so hard!

But even if you don't want to sip coffee in the morning an early start will give you a chance to think and mentally prepare for the day. Your important meeting, your work relationships, any difficult or challenging task that requires you to focus but also relax.

The important thing is that getting in 10 minutes or so before your working day begins should be a habit. If it's a habit, it will become easy. A post coming soon will talk about how to achieve this.
Good luck. And don't be late!

The Rules of Work - keep your counsel

When at work, it's often wise to keep you counsel. Or to put it another way, keep your mouth shut.



I don't mean not speaking up when the situation demands it; keeping quiet when you're meant to be presenting to the Board is not the best idea.



What I mean is that making unguarded personal criticism of others, or 'letting off steam', can often backfire. If you think someone is rude, incompetent, lazy or awful in some other way: keep it to yourself. Be very careful what you say, and to whom. You might feel you are in trusted company - with a colleague you have known for years, and who has shared their negative impressions of people with you too. You might think your comments will go no further. But there's a problem.



First, your colleague will tell someone. When they in turn tell someone else, your name will come up. Maybe not maliciously, but suddenly you're linked to potentially harmfull rumours, or worse: it could be defamatory, offensive or even illegal. Ever heard of Chinese whispers?



There are a number of ways to deal with invitations to join in with general badmouthing, even if you think it is justified.



1. Use reported quotes. "Well, some people might think...." It sounds too obvious, but it works.



2. Be non-commital. "Hmmm". "Really?". "I see". "Ok, I didn't know that". You acknowledge what's being said but resolutely refuse to join in. This is the best strategy.





Gossip diminishes the perpetrators as well as the target. Think about it: if you have a reputation as a gossip, will anyone want to trust you? Of course not.











Nor do I mean refusing to converse with your colleagues - until recently I line-managed an Australian girl, Emma, who was so quiet it verged on the rude. When asked how her weekend was she would give a straight answer - but not reciprocate the question. When she left the team organised a leaving lunch for her; but even at her leaving 'do' she refused to engage verbally with any of the team! Everyone was left thinking she was just weird. I think, perhaps without realising it, she was just rude.

Scotland the Knave

I missed St. Andrew’s Day this year. As a St. Andrew’s Day present England could grant Scotland full independence from the United Kingdom. Not for the benefit of the Scots, but the English.

Scotland has sponged off the English for 302 years. When you do the maths, the benefit is almost entirely one-way: from the English, particularly those in the southern half of the country, to Scotland.

It all boils down to the pernicious Barnett Formula. This is the calculation that determines the amount that each region of the UK receives from Westminster. It was drawn up in 1978, under conditions of such secrecy that even MPs were not even told of its existence until it had been in operation for 2 years.

According to The Scotsman Newspaper, the formula dictates that for every pound the UK government distributes for spending around the country, 85 pence goes to England, 10 pence goes to Scotland and 5 percent to Wales. With five million people, Scotland now has 8.3 per cent of the UK population.

A 2008 report written by a former Treasury economist for the Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA) reveals that since 1985/86, public spending in Scotland has been £102 billion higher than if the country was funded at English levels. Government spending on public services in England was £7,535 per person in 2007-08. In Scotland it was £1,644 higher.

Scotland has free services not available in England, like NHS hospital parking, some personal care for the elderly and university courses without up-front fees. This is funded disporportionately by English taxpayers.

It wouldn’t be a problem if all UK taxpayers had the same political representation. After all, Scotland has historically had some greater needs than the rest of the UK, in particular in areas such as housing and healthcare. But Scottish MPs can vote on matters relating exclusively to England, at Westminster, whereas English MPs are excluded from voting on purely Scottish matters as they don’t sit in the Scottish parliament. This refers to ‘The West Lothian Question’ and it has never been satisfactorily answered.

So English taxpayers fund Scotland’s services. As Boris Johnson rightly said, “we give Scotland our money, they give us their Prime Ministers”. He could have added that English taxpayers have also funded the bailout of those Scottish banks, whose incompetence did so much damage to the whole British financial system.

The Scottish Nationalists, narrow-minded as always, claim Scotland would thrive as an independent country. Without England’s billions I doubt it. They point to Ireland’s success as a ‘Celtic Tiger’, ignoring the fact that Ireland’s growth was funded by….handouts and investment from the EU. In today’s climate that is unlikely to come Scotland’s way. In today’s economy, being a small fish is hazardous. Just ask Iceland.

Scottish Nationalists also maintain the fantasy that Scotland’s North Sea oil funds England. But the Taxpayer’s Alliance report exposes this nonsense. Even if Scotland were able to claim the majority of revenue from the North Sea, they calculated, Scotland would only have made a net contribution to the Treasury in five of the last 23 years. "Even taking account of oil, the underlying issue of English taxpayers funding premium public services in Scotland remains, and will become more serious in years to come," said the report’s author, John Denham.

It would be interesting if a study could be carried out to calculate, or at least estimate, the total financial flows from Scotland to England and vice versa since 1707 in total. A gargantuan task for sure, having to take into account tax revenues from all sorts of things, but a look at 18th and 19th century history makes it pretty obvious that Scotland was dragged into industrialisation and development by England.

Scottish nationalism is, of course, rooted in rabid xenophobia and prejudice. No nationalist movement can survive without the mythology of ‘oppression’. It needs ‘the other’ as an object of discontent, to justify its existence and foster a sense of grievance. In Alex Salmond’s case, it’s the English. The high ground of victimhood looks ridiculous though when all the facts point to the economic exploitation being the other way around.

Removed from its English host, an independent Scotland would act like any parasite that has been hacked off – it would wither. They would be reduced to selling haggis and whisky – putrid food and toxic drink. Some economy. It wouldn’t be England’s problem though. Scotland might even become a pool of cheap labour for England, as Mexico has been for the United States. They could forget about their free NHS parking as well, they wouldn’t have the English subsidy to fund it any more.

The Act of Union in 1707 was an act of political skulduggery, the result of economic and military pressure on Scotland by England. There was no referendum in 1707, but if there were to be a referendum now, all the signs are that Scots would vote to stay in the Union. I wonder why? Nothing to do with all the English money, is it? But there’s no reason to wait for them to make a decision. Just expel Scotland from the Union and watch them sink. Och aye.

Afghanistan and realpolitik

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
And the women come out to cut up what remains
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your gawd like a soldier

Thus spoke Rudyard Kipling about Afghanistan. The British are having a tough time over there once again, and it’s not just because they don’t have enough choppers or the right kind of body armour. The Americans seem not have fared much better and the other NATO contingents stay out of harm’s way as much as possible. Maybe they’ve seen the writing on the wall.

Obama has announced a troop surge. In a way he didn’t have a choice. During his presidential campaign he said that Afghanistan was a war of necessity, whereas Iraq was a war of choice. He became trapped by his own words.

The voices calling for complete and immediate withdrawal of NATO forces (or at least British ones, regardless) are growing louder. The argument comprises many of the following: we cannot ‘win’; we have failed to subdue the Taliban; Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires; our very presence is the source of the conflict; we are seen as invaders/imperialists; the 2001 invasion was unjustified in the first place; the campaign is immoral; it’s not worth the price in lives and money; it’s a quagmire; he Afghan government we are propping up is corrupt; and that the best thing for everyone will be to get out.


Before commenting I should spell out the reality that I have never been to Afghanistan. Nor am I an expert on the country. Neither, I suspect, are 99% of all commentators. Being an armchair strategist (or general) always carries the risk of wishful thinking, naivety, ignorance and myopia. No matter how I try, I cannot see things from the point of view of an Afghan – because I’m not one! But unlike some commentators, I don’t have an agenda.


First, a statement of some principles. I am in favour of liberal interventionist policies, but only when the overall strategy into which they fit is logical, the outcomes defined and achievable and the strategy into which they fit is governed by old-fashioned realpolitik. This is for the simple reason that if these conditions aren’t met, the mission to save the starving or the downtrodden will fail.


The invasion of Afghanistan, although not authorised by the UN, seems to me to have been justified because there was no doubt at all that the government of Afghanistan – effectively the Taliban – had indeed harboured people who proclaimed themselves to be members of Al-Q’aida. Now


I think we should be in that country doing nation-building but only if we are prepared to stay for 30 years and see it through. . The problem with these 'failed' states is they never leave you alone, even if you leave them alone - they export their problems, failings, ideologies and violence. It all depends on America anyway - if they don't want to do it, it's academic. The real reason Britain is there is because we're embarrassed by our relationship with the US and feel we have to pull our weight to justify our relationship with them. It's sad really. But given that the US military is the only organisation capable of undertaking, or at least leading, this task, we should judge the case for intervention on is own merits.


I think there's a middle ground - we could keep an eye on the country and prop up a friendly government without being overly-ambitious and unrealistic and trying to turn it into a model democracy like Sweden, or even Turkey. The country is too backward and under-developed socially, politically, economically to achieve that. The population has loyalties to tribes and ethnic groupings, not central Government. The government itself is corrupt and trying to change that is like trying to turn round an oil tanker. So why try and change that in such a short timescale? No-one thinks Afghanistan is a 'training camp' (whatever that means) for terrorists now. So we've accomplished our immediate aims. Just let them get on with it in their own way, intervene when necessary, provide education and aid and focus on narrow security objectives and promoting good governance. Seems to me we're trying to do way too much with far too little. And other NATO countries don't want to get involved, which is making it harder. And the Afghan locals are reliant on money from opium to survive so they'll never play along with our strategy of destroying their crops.


A better strategy would be to decriminalise opium and heroin in this country and buy up Afghanistan's entire crop. Use it to produce cheap pharmaceuticals for us. In Afghanistan the Taliban would lose a large slab of their income. Their farmers would want to work with us. Over here the illegal heroin trade would collapse. Addicts wouldn't need to steal and rob, they could go to NHS centres for fixes and alternatives and treatment. We did that in this country prior to 1971 and it worked very well.





You can't persuade a country to go from burquas to miniskirts overnight. We need a bit of old-fashioned 'realpolitik' over there - making alliances of convenience, safeguarding our own interests and respecting other countries' traditions and customs. Not nation-building - that feels (to them) like old-fashioned imperialism. You can't just say: "we'll only deal with people who are nice". None of the power-brokers in Af'stan are nice. They're all either venal, corrupt, violent, barbaric or psychopathic. The best we can do is push support for those leaders in Afghanistan who are – by the standards of their own country – honest, transparent, respect human rights and don’t subscribe to extreme ideology.