Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Rising food prices
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Source: David Monniaux, Wikipedia
I woke up this morning to the not unexpected news that food prices are rising. Particularly wheat. In the UK we are talking about yields being 15 per cent down. The dry spring and wet summer are the key factors for the UK. Drought in the prairies in the US and Russia have just compounded the situation.
Speculators are, clearly, going to do well out of this. It strikes me that a monkey could have speculated on this when the seeds were originally sown. I’m told that it will be hard for poultry and pig farmers as half of the grain crop goes to feeding these secondary sources of protein. I do feel that it is about time that the price of chicken and pork reflected the real world a little better. Maybe more of us can cut down or even eradicate meat from our diets. It is not going to get any better.
However, rising food prices do hit the poor disproportionately. The Guardian quotes Tim Lang, professor of food policy at London’s City University speaking on the Today progamme on the BBC. “Lang said the poorest 10% of households in the UK had seen a drop in food affordability of 20% in the last eight years and that this was also a “disaster for public health” as the price of healthier produce such as fruit had risen by 34% in the last five years. Lang, who coined the phrase “food miles”, said: “Most analysts think the long drop in food prices, of affordability, is over. We are now in a new world, a world of new fundamentals, not just bad weather this year but a long-term squeeze.””
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/10/food-prices-rise-wettest-summer
The great rail debacle
I’ve been a little busy recently. This blog has had to take a back seat, as it were. But this morning’s announcent by the Transport Secretary that the franchising process is flawed, is quite the most extraordinary admission and begs some comment. We do not know – other than what Richard Branson claimed (see post 15 August 2012) – exactly what these flaws are, but the implications are signficant.
First Group this morning found its share price down 20 per cent even though – as the Transport Secretary said this morning on the Today programme – the firm is blameless. Three officials from the Department for Transport find themselves suspended. The whole franchising process which currently has a number of franchise bids in progress is now disfunctional. And the taxpayer will have to foot the bill for the costs incurred by those who bid in the West Coast franchise amounting to at least £40m.
It is not coincidental that this admission comes now as Branson’s case was due to be heard in court. It was clearly going to be even more embarrassing to have the court reveal the shortcomings.
And let us not forget the nonsense that is rail franchising in and of itself.
Arctic sea ice
Source: NASA
My most recent blog entries have been a shade indulgent. I write about my holiday; actually, a rare occasion when I do not add an awful lot of CO2 into the environment. That said, the tandem’s manufacture probably added considerably to my carbon footprint. The holiday was made by the beauty of the natural environment fed by a powerful river (the Rhine).
It has been a long time since I have been a serious environmentalist. I cut my campaigning teeth with Friends of the Earth in the early 1980s; and I bought the Guardian newspaper specifically to read the environment stories. Today I am reminded – as a somewhat older man – that the issues have not only not gone away, but rather they have worsened. Our knowledge about what is happening has increased, but the denial across the developed world is not retreating.
What has actually reminded me? The Guardian newspaper has published a short article quoting Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University. This year has been catastrophic in terms of arctic ice melt. It is now down to a mere 3.5m sq km down from the previous lowest recorded in 2007 of 4.17m sq km. He predicts this will have retreated fully by 2015/16. “As the sea ice retreats in summer the ocean warms up (to 7C in 2011) and this warms the seabed too. The continental shelves of the Arctic are composed of offshore permafrost, frozen sediment left over from the last ice age. As the water warms the permafrost melts and releases huge quantities of trapped methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas so this will give a big boost to global warming.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-collapse-sea-ice?INTCMP=SRCH
FirstGroup ‘win’ West Coast rail franchise in the UK
I am no supporter of rail privatisation. I wrote my PhD thesis on the subject. But the award of the West Coast franchise to First Group and the arbitrary way in which the rail companies can raise the price of their fares – RPI+3 per cent, suggest that there is something dysfunctional – at best – in the way the railways are managed and structured.
I’m no fan of Virgin and Richard Branson (see https://weiterzugehen.net/2012/03/18/privatisation-of-the-nhs/), but as an opener, I would endorse Branson’s statement, released this morning, outlining the non-learning that the Department of Transport has shown over the franchise bidding for this important piece of UK infrastructure.
“The Government decision to award the West Coast Main Line Franchise to FirstGroup is extremely disappointing for Virgin, and for our staff that have worked so hard to transform this railway over the last 15 years. We submitted a strong and deliverable bid based on improving customers’ experience, increased investment and sustained innovation. To have bid more would have involved dramatic cuts to customer quality and considerable fare rises which we were unwilling to entertain.
We also did not want to risk letting everybody down with almost certain bankruptcy at some time during the franchise as happened to GNER and National Express who overbid on the East Coast mainline. Sadly the Government has chosen to take that risk with First Group and we only hope they will continue to drive dramatic improvements on this line for years to come without letting everybody down.
We won the franchise in 1997 with an agenda to change radically the way people viewed and used the train. At the time the track was run-down, staff demoralised, the service riddled with delays and reliant on heavy subsidies. We set hugely challenging targets to dramatically speed up journey times with modern tilting trains, increase the frequency of the service, improve the on-board experience; as well as double passenger numbers and return the line to profit.
We were told it was “Mission Impossible” and our plans were laughed at by critics. However 15 years later, despite continued problems with the track, we have achieved our targets. Passenger numbers have more than doubled to over 30 million, the fastest growth in the UK and world leading. We have the highest customer satisfaction of any long distance franchise operator and dominate the air/rail market between London and Manchester. It has been a remarkable achievement by an outstanding team who have successfully delivered on our promises.
I am immensely proud of our staff for turning the West Coast line from a heavily loss-making operation into one that will return the taxpayer billions in the years to come. Last year we paid a net premium of £160 million to the taxpayer and have created a franchise worth more than £6 billion which is hugely valuable to the country.
These achievements have counted for little – as this is the fourth time that we have been out-bid in a rail tender. On the past three occasions, the winning operator has come nowhere close to delivering their promised plans and revenue, and has let the public and country down dramatically. In the case of the East Coast Main line, both winners – GNER and National Express – over promised in order to win the franchise and spectacularly ran into financial difficulties in trying to deliver their plans. The East Coast is still in Government ownership and its service is outdated and underinvested, costing passengers and the country dearly as a result.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. When will the Department for Transport learn?
Interestingly before Virgin took over the West Coast there were more passengers using the East Coast than the West Coast. Now there are 12 million fewer.
Under our stewardship, the West Coast Mainline has been transformed from a public liability into a valuable asset for the UK, worth many billions of pounds. The service is a British success story and one to put up against rail companies around the world. It is a great shame that such a strong track record has been discounted in the evaluation process for one of the UK’s most important infrastructure assets. The country’s passengers, taxpayers and the West Coast employees deserve better. Based on the current flawed system, it is extremely unlikely that we would bid again for a franchise. The process is too costly and uncertain, with our latest bid costing £14 million. We have made realistic offers for the East Coast twice before which were rejected by the Department for Transport for completely unrealistic ones and therefore will have to think hard before embarking on another bid.
Our amazing staff have been the driving force behind the West Coast Main Line’s transformation and I am sure that for the last months of the contract they will all continue to run the high quality service that has helped win us many awards and attract millions more customers to rail.”
Olympic sponsors’ advertising
BA Hoarding, 7_8_12
The official sponsors of the Olympics have excelled in the fatuousness of their advertising. Take British Airways. BA has draped itself around the UK airports in which it operates and beyond. Annoying they certainly are. Take the one on the left. Not my best picture, I have to admit, but the point is well made. And it is a theme of sponsor advertising.
So, if you shout loud enough from the comfort of your own home, the athletes will hear you and hence do well. It is patently untrue. Even if I had a television and even if I cared to shout, which I do not on both counts, it does not matter how loud I shout, they will not hear me.
And since when has it been propitious for an airline to advise people not to fly and instead to watch television?
The McDonald’s campaign shares with BA the patently untrue theme of Olympic sponsor advertising. Clearly it is about ordinary
people who are proud, patriotic and enthusiastic, amongst other things. However, what are the indicators of the proudest mum? There are not too many mums who are not proud. I know mine was proud when I graduated, but to suggest she was ever the proudest would have been silly. There were a lot of proud mums at the graduation ceremony. I would not have liked to have tried to measure proudness on that day.
What is also quite interesting about the McDonald’s advertising is the tagline at the bottom: “We all make the Games”. There has been much debate about who can and cannot use the term “Olympics”. As a key sponsor of the “Games”, oddly, McDonald’s chooses to use the term “Games”, omitting the adjective that they paid so much to use!
Coming next…BP
Mars Rover successfully lands
source: nasa.gov
What a contrast between the noise of the Olympics and the awesome team achievement of getting the Mars Rover safely onto the Martian surface, first with a parachute and then with rockets. And then get some pictures of the planet before breakfast. The seven minutes of terror proved anything but. Though images from NASA’s control room showed the tension.
Breathtaking.
Let’s do the math: Mars Rover £1.5billion; Olympics: £9billion. That’s about six Rovers for an Olympics. Legacy…let’s see, but I suspect the science will endure in a way the Olympics will not. Plus, if we talk about inspiring a generation, surely Mars/planetary exploration top
s running fast?
And here is the image taken from a satellite of the craft decending to the surface being slowed by the largest parachute ever used in a space programme.
Olympic brand circumvention
Time to “celebrate” those who are trying to get round the exclusivity of all things Olympics. I’m not endorsing this. I would be no happier with alternative corporate behemoths sponsoring relative to the ones that are. But I do like spoilers.
Top of the list seems to be Google. Each day on the UK Google site used by millions each day is some cartoon image that 
Google-ises the olympics. Today’s is the swimming and I have reproduced it on the left – unless Google has a problem with that.
Puma is the natural rival to Olympics sponsor, Adidas. They have gone with Usain Bolt’s image who is sponsored by them. He also endorsed Virgin Media in a recent campaign. Haribo
(sweets) is trading on Union Jack packaging in contrast to official sweet, Cadburys.
Nike’s Olympic campaign is as good as they come (right). No Olympic colours, rings. No mention of London or the year. However, the postcode is remarkably Wimbledon where the Olympic tennis tournament is taking place. Nike has a good pedigree when it comes to ambush marketing.
source: thedrum.co.uk
I direct readers to The Drum, a website that has found a few good examples of circumvention. Again, I take an image from the website – square olympic rings with inverted letters for a tailor, of all businesses. There are many more to see on the website for amusement. Equally, Manifested Marketing (http://manifestedmarketing.com/), has lots of examples.
Olympics opening ceremony
I am going to be one of the moaners. This was a most ghastly show. Contrived, silly, over-engineered and incoherent. Or was it? Despite the Queen sitting in the arena, John Lydon could be heard singing God Save the Queen and then cut off before “she ain’t no human being…fascist regime” – but Boyle got it in. We were treated to a little bit more of the Sex Pistols when Pretty Vacant was segued like one of those 80s chart topping medley hits, ‘Stars on 45’. Then there was a big kissing scene – some of which might not have gone down too well in some countries taking part. It was deliberate, was it not?
Those were the high points. What is to be made of the NHS scene with children being looked after by larger-than-life dancing nurses in 1930s uniforms and read stories by JK Rowling? In front of David Cameron, was that a warning to back off? The NHS is now immortalised in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Now untouchable. Or was it folly and plain stupid?
Rowan Atkinson as unfunny Mr Bean distracting Simon Rattle from conducting the London Symphony Orchestra; Kenneth Branagh as Isambard Kingdom Brunel spouting Shakespeare; a forlorn Tim Berners-Lee and a desktop computer; Mike Oldfield, good grief; Mary Poppins; David Beckham as James Bond, etc. No sign of Richard Branson, Tony Blair. Very strange.
£27m
It is now Saturday and this ceremony still bothers me. I’ve had to find an antidote. I’m listening to the Manic Street Preachers and it is working.
I reflect on what Boyle was trying to do last night. The newspapers are full of glowing reports. It is clear with so many plaudits he has achieved only to vindicate further the organisers for the event. Boyle has effectively lanced the boil that is this event in the eyes of its critics. It turns out to have been a master stroke by Seb Coe and company to appoint Boyle as artistc director. He delivered the critics to their table.
And then there is the question the depiction of ‘our’ history and our acquiescence in the changes that lead inexorably to the innanities of love by losing a mobile phone! Rest assured, the linearity of Boyles depiction of us is not real. There is a lot of struggle in us.
I reflect that Cameron is not embarrassed over the NHS scene. He does not believe that he is dismantling the NHS.
It was sickening to see such a large role played by the armed forces, many of whom have been involved in conflicts that have killed and maimed the compartriots of athletes representing their country at the ceremony. Maybe that was British irony. It seemed to me at the very least insensitive.
It has been an awful summer of cod and ignorant patriotism.
G4S – Nick Buckles on the BBC’s Bottom Line
It was a weekend of undertaking a few dull jobs. On these occasions, I usually catch up with a backlog of BBC podcasts. I can recommend In Our Time discussing Camus. But I had not realised that Nick Buckles of G4S notoriety was a bit of a radio personality. On 7 June he appeared not for the first time on The Bottom Line with Evan Davis to discuss the theme of employment. And what a treat – untarnished by the recent Olympics failure with respect to the failure to recruit – here he is talking about the Olympic contract and the contracts of employees. Buckles_1_TBL_17Jun2012; Buckles_2_TBL_17Jun2012
G4S song
The spectacle of G4S gets worse by the day. Nick Buckles, G4S’s embattled CEO, was mauled yesterday before the Home Affairs Select Committee. He committed his company to considerable additional expenditure putting up the army and police in hotels and paying them bonuses on a par with London Bus drivers. All this to make up for the company’s failure to provide the necessary security staff for the forthcoming Olympics. Even though Mr Buckles has made himself rich by expanding this firm, one wonders whether the company’s success is because of him or despite him.
Adding insult to injury is the discovery of the G4S song that just makes one wonder and marvel at this firm even more. Whilst the tune has been unexpectedly removed from youtube, the song is out there! The BBC played it this morning, and I, courtesy of the New Statesman courtesy of someone on Soundcloud keeps the tune accessible to us all. I provide a link at the bottom of this page; however, here are the lyrics:
You love your job and the people too; Making a difference is what you do; But consider all you have at stake; The time is now don’t make a mistake; Because the enemy prowls, wanting to attack; But we’re on the wall, we’ve got your back; So get out front and take the lead; And be the winner you were born to be. G4S! protecting the world; G4S! so dreams can unfurl; 24/7 every night and day; A warrior stands ready so don’t be afraid; G4S! secure in your world G4S! let your dreams unfurl; We’re guarding you with all our might; Keeping watch throughout the night.
A Eurovision song contest winner, for sure.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/g4s-has-theme-song-it-awful-you-would-expect
Be informed 