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PCU: the ‘captive state’ – a Britain organised under successive governments to suit the corporate few – grossly mistreats people like the late Stephanie Bottrill

May 13th, 2013

Following posts on Birmingham and Solihull websites, readers who have responded fall into two categories:

Some – living on average or above average incomes have been quite unsympathetic:

  • In her place I’d cut my coat according to my cloth
  • Would losing £20 be such a big deal?
  • These people are always whining.
  • The son’s approach to the Sunday papers was motivated by financial gain.
  • Think of the mothers and children cramped in one-bedroom accommodation.
  • She didn’t care about the trauma she would be inflicting on the lorry driver

Others affected:

  • are thankful that this issue has been raised,
  • have written about similar problems they are facing,
  • say that their grand-children will not be able to stay with them if they move,
  • point out that to a person with a disposable income of £77 – £20 is a 25% cut,
  • and that for a single person, £20 is the amount a person will spend on food bill – not including fresh meat.
captive state cover
PCU sees the captive state – Labour and Conservative governments alike, in thrall to the rich and powerful.
Many politicians are eager for the crumbs falling from these corporates – not usually in brown envelopes but in the form of declared directorships and also undeclared lucrative opportunities for family employment.
Two of many examples where the ‘captive state’ is easy on the affluent but bears down on people like Stephanie Bottrill:

The government commandeered taxpayers’ money to bail out other affluent bankers and HMRC created a “bespoke” tax arrangement for Goldman Sachs in order to resolve a “huge relationship issue” with the bank. It excused Goldman Sachs from paying £10 million interest on tax it had not paid. The government also commandeered taxpayers’ money to bail out other affluent bankers.

No parallel desire is shown to create relationships and help the poor and powerless.

The case underlines the need for a new (cross-party?) incorruptible politics designed to offer equality of opportunity and security to all its citizens – not just the affluent few.
cllrs jc, ss, cw
Do readers know of any energetic and innovative, public-spirited politicians likely to make a difference? Three named in the West Midlands are pictured above.

 

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Posted in Admirable politician, Banking and finance, Conflict of interest, Corporate political nexus, Democracy undermined, Government, Lobbying, Local government, Parliamentary failure, Taxpayers, Unemployment, Vested interests

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The good heart of the American people speaks – may their government listen and learn

April 16th, 2013
judy wicks2Is supporting local business more than a strategy for building resilient local economies?

Today the inbox brought the thought-provoking words of Judy Wicks, a board member of the NEI. Looking around evidence of her adventurous and constructive life was easily found online.

Her unusual slant on localisation was extracted from the 24th Schumacher Lecture which she gave in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

She argues that supporting local business is more than a strategy for building resilient local economies:

“Perhaps the greatest benefit of the local-living-economy movement is that by creating self-reliance we are creating the foundations for world peace. If all communities had food security, water security, and energy security, if they appreciated diversity of culture rather than a monoculture, that would be the foundation for world peace. Schumacher said, ‘People who live in highly self-sufficient local communities are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on world-wide systems of trade.’

As innocents die in Boston, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan and Pakistan, may sanity prevail!

 

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Posted in Advisors and consultants, Economy, Education, Environment, FOR THE COMMON GOOD, Government, Local government, Planning

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FOR THE COMMON GOOD: an economist who specialised in business investment and management speaks from the heart

April 11th, 2013

michael wilkesMichael Wilkes’ background is in academia and politics. He is said to have been the youngest professor of economics appointed at the University of Birmingham. After many years teaching business investment and management, he became a local government councillor and Deputy Liberal Democrat Leader in the city. Currently emeritus professor, he is working on the Birmingham Tolkien Strategy/Tolkein Heritage):

On another website he writes:

The distressed state of the economy is as much a moral problem as an economic one – although the economics alone are dire enough. Unless issues related to the absence of worthwhile values are resolved, the present circumstances are certain to persist, scandals will recur and the well-being of the population will continue to be neglected.

The values that are now regrettably lacking in society were once internalised by organisations as well as individuals. They were taken for granted and were largely unspoken. Citizens are now seen as gullible profits fodder fit for deception and exploitation rather than people to whom a genuine, valuable and above all trustworthy service is provided. The number of organisations that can be regarded as ethical is rapidly diminishing . . .

The key to the land of found content is a shared vision and a ‘citizenry of good intent’ in all their doings . . .

Before dismissing this as more head in the clouds ‘happiness theory’, note that he – like Professor Richard Layard – gives practical recommendations under the paper’s headings:

  • Regenerating the economy,
  • Getting there.
He affirms: “Outside of the governing class, the viperous sections of the press and the self-serving commercial elite, I believe that the willingness to work for the common good exists.” 

Do you?

Read two blogs and his paper here.

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Posted in Admirable politician, Banking and finance, Economy, FOR THE COMMON GOOD, Government, Local government, Media

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Soapbox 499: A ’new feudalism’ with a new dominant elite belonging to no specific community or nation

March 30th, 2013

 

99-3

On Soapbox for the 99%, Simon Baddeley writes:

Something awful is happening to the public sector. The role of the state in protecting the public good is being relentlessly diminished in front of our eyes – like the slow melting of the polar areas that so many deny.

We don’t recognise the form of this slow motion disaster and being too literal about what is happening can label us as alarmist even paranoid.

The blighting of democracy and especially local democracy works on the principle of death by an infinite progression of cuts against which it can be almost impossible to take a moral stand.

Yet what is happening is profoundly immoral – the result of political decisions.

The only growth is in the chasm between the very rich and the growing poor; the growth industries are soup kitchens and billionaires.

For its lack of transparency and lack of democratic control we have a ’new feudalism’ with a new dominant elite belonging to no specific community or nation, paying little or no tax and feeling (with honourable exceptions) no obligation nor attachment to any locality.

There are now 1293 imposed duties placed upon Local Authorities by central government, half of which have been imposed in the last 15 years leading – despite talk of a Big Society to a diminishing scope for localism and local initiatives.

Section 5 of the Localism Act gives the Secretary of State powers to remove obstacles to the General Power of Competence but the act contains 140 reserve powers which can be used against LAs.

We can see where the formal power resides. I speak as one long involved in local voluntary activity who will continue to do this so long as my health remains – but the world is becoming a nastier place and this is because that’s the way a small minority of unaccountable free-floating billionaires want it to be – supported by generously funded free market think tanks producing ‘objective’ proofs that how things are is how things ought to be.

Source: Thatcherism isn’t dead when all parties are locked into it.

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Posted in Admirable politician, Conflict of interest, Corporate political nexus, Democracy undermined, Government, Lobbying, Local government

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