Unacceptable Corporate Blackmail

Imagine the following scenario:  The British government and other political leaders receive threats from a small group of wealthy men that unless they keep allowing them to squeeze money from the general population for the foreseeable future, these men will cut off the power supply to the UK.  It sounds like a plot from a spy novel of the 1970s, but is in fact the situation that the UK is in today.  It is not SPECTRE but the six main power companies who are making such threats.  Back in September leader of the Labour Party said at the party conference that if Labour won the next general election, which will not be held until 7th May 2015, they would impose a 20-month price freeze on the charges for gas and electricity supply to consumers.  Now, at the time it was still 19 months until the election and there is no guarantee that Labour will win.  However, just making this policy statement was sufficient for the leaders of the the 'Big Six' : British Gas, EDF, E.ON, npower, Scottish Power and SSE to say such a policy would lead to blackouts. 

Given that four of these companies are foreign owned; they said that they would withdraw from the UK market place. EDF belongs to the French government; Scottish Power is owned by Spanish company, Iberdrola; E.ON is German and npower is owned by RWE of Germany.  They blame the wholesale prices, even when these are falling; they blame the taxation raised to try to promote sustainable energy initiatives, they blame everything except their own greed.  These six companies have made made more than £2 billion (€2.4 billion; US$3.22 billion) every year for the past four years, rising to £3.74 billion in 2012.  This year prices to consumers on both gas and electricity are rising by an average of 9% whereas wholesale prices have risen between 1-2%, so it is likely that they will exceed last year's profits this year.  They claim they only make 5% profit on what they sell.  When this is generating billions of pounds of profit, year after year, you could fall to 1% profit and still be incredibly wealthy.

The complaint from the power companies, is that they lack capital for investment.  However, it is clear that if rather than paying their chief executives and their shareholders big sums they actually invested in the business this would be not an issue.  Phil Bentley, CEO of British Gas, led got a salary of £1.3 illionm in 2010, plus share options worth £2.7 million at the time.  Ian Marchant  of SSE got £1.2 million, plus £126,000 bonus in shares and 330,000 shares worth £4 million at the moment; his pension in 2011 was worth £6.1 million.  Johannes Teyssen, CEO of E.ON, has salary of £860,000 in 2010 but including bonuses and share options raised this to £3.6 million.  These are just the men at the very top, not the numerous executives and managers beneath them who all receive generous payments which could pay for all the power going into a small town for a year.

Once again, today, as reported on BBC Radio 2, npower has spoken out saying blackouts are inevitable unless Britain has a 'more stable' political context.  Now, this to me, sounds very like a company trying to dictate Britain's government, it can be taken as suggestion that democracy is too troublesome for the power companies and something like a dictatorship which panders to their greed and lets them keep ramping up prices for consumers, year after year, unchallenged would be better.  If a foreign politician said something similar you can imagine the outrage.  A few weeks ago the wife of an executive from an energy company said that there needed to be a 'serious conversation' about investment and more money coming to companies for it.  I said that her husband should simply be arrested for threatening the British state.  Why can someone tweet a joke about terrorism and be arrested and yet, these company executives can come on the television and radio week-after-week and continue to threaten damage to the UK economy without even being challenged let alone arrested?  It is clear that there is one rule for the hyper-rich and one for the rest of us.  The cockiness after the first assault following Miliband's speech in September is apparent that now the power companies feel they can begin to try to shape the political context too.

Yes, there are major problems with generating electricity in the UK.  There are two key sources of this.  Both the Labour governments 1997-2010 and the current coalition have failed to drive ahead with developing new power stations of any kind.  They vacilated because they are torn between making sure enough electricity is generated and their obligations to sustainable energy.  Surprisingly, unlike our European neighbours, especially in Germany and Denmark, Britons are largely hostile to sustainable energy approaches.  The campaigns against wind farms are far more extensive and successful than any campaigns against nuclear, gas or coal power stations being built.  Greed does have an impact as EDF held out for its set price for the electricity it will generate from the nuclear power station it is building.  The price will be £89.50 per megawatt hour once the station is complete, twice the current level.  Of course, this is blackmail.  The cost to the consumer can do nothing but rise, but there is nothing that government let alone the consumer can do to resist this.  We can switch suppliers, but it is a cartel.  Some smaller companies are appearing but as yet they cannot challenge the marketplace the way was possibly fantasised about when private companies were allowed this oligopoly. 

We have to commend Miliband for his bravery in standing up to the companies.  It is certainly a vote winner.  However, with the corporations now making political points and in fact trying to threaten any future government both in terms of what policies they will permit it to adopt and indeed the entire 'political scene', we can argue that democracy is being eroded before our eyes.  I was concerned during the Blair regime especially with the attacks on human rights in the UK, that this process was happening or that it would be driven by the Murdoch empire.  However, I had overlooked that other big corporate players were happy to follow in the footsteps of News International and try to shift the political patterns more to their liking, and, indeed being pretty successful about it.

Utility Company Holding On To My Money

The behaviour of utility companies has been a perennial concern of mine, prompted when the deign to send me a bill: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2007/05/uk-utility-companies-cash-vampires-of.html  The constantly rising prices are well known to everyone in the UK and cause real difficulty for millions of people, even when we are having an incredibly mild winter like we are at present.  It is ironic that global warming may be sparing the lives of thousands of British elderly people.  Utility prices rise whenever there is some crisis that increases the cost of gas and oil and that they do not decrease when these costs fall; our monthly combined gas and electricity is now equal to what our quarterly bill was in 2008.  In addition it is clear that the six power utility companies are running a cartel unchallenged by anyone.  All their prices rise by approximately the same amount at the same time of the year with an increase of around 20% in 2011, well above the increase in pay and even general inflation.

What I am focusing on today is not simply the rising prices, but in particular the way customers are treated.  There now seems to be an accepted way that service providers feel they can treat you.  They are not compelled any longer to even provide a service for what you pay them let alone one which is timely and efficient.  This applies to things like telecommunications and rental property as well as other utilities.  If you are disgruntled with them, you find it difficult to break a contract that they insisted was the only terms you could sign up for and they feel free to levy all kinds of charges to get away from them even if they are failing to provide the service.  I have also noted before how these days you pay in advance for so much and how this actually works against people being efficient in their usage of gas and electricity because with the fixed monthly rate you do not see any gain for yourself especially if on rental contracts of less than two years that are so common:  http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2010/06/annual-utility-bills-no-incentive-to-be.html

I live in a house in which we economise as much as we can in terms of utility usage not simply in an (often fruitless) effort to keep bills down but also because we are aware that humans are causing damage to the world through excess usage of finite resources.  We tried to have solar panels installed but out roof proved to be the wrong shape which suggests to me that people should be working on all kinds of shapes of panels if we are really going to make a break through for renewable energy.  The halving of the government incentive to have panels installed is damaging in so many ways, notably in raising unemployment in the private sector which is supposed to be soaking up job losses from the public sector and slowly down an improvement in our 'fuel security'.  Fuel security is something the British government has been obsessing about at least since the 1960s and focuses on how Britain can ensure it has enough fuel to power its industry and domestic sector.  As Britain moved steadily away from the consumption of domestically produced coal from the mid-1960s down to 1985 and the North Sea oil reserves were depleted there was a renewed awareness of a need to secure sources of oil in countries friendly to the UK.  This is nothing new and was on the agenda particularly 1967-73 where turbulence in the Middle East led to the cutting of oil supplies and then a substantial price rise which ended the post-1945 economic boom for good.  Fuel security has been what has motivated US and UK involvement in Iraq, probably in the Libyan revolution too; British involvement in Nigeria and US concerns in Venezuela.  The complicating factor compared to the 1960s that China too is securing fuel resources by heavy investment in any country which will accepts its money. 

Government subsidies to install solar panels right across the country would secure and increase jobs as well as help reduce the UK's fuel insecurity through reducing dependence on fossil fuels from countries which might not like us.  As I have noted before: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-if-uk-had-handled-oil-shock-of.html  Britain gave away its lead in sustainable energy.  However, in Derby recently I saw a line of small scale turbines on the roof of an office building that were providing electricity to the building.  Britain lags behind building wind turbines along motorways the way the Germans do and can be achieved without even having to upset the powerful pretty-England lobbyists.

Anyway, solar power is currently out for our house.  This means we remain dependent on one of the six companies and their authoritarian approach to pricing and charges.  For the last twelve months we have paid £140 (€167; US$217) each month.  Our consumption of gas has risen probably due to the cold period in January compared to 2010 but our consumption of electricity has fallen.  In 2010 we ended the year with £277 in credit, i.e. we had paid them £277 more than was due for the amount of gas and electricity we had used.  I contacted the company, Scottish Power, to ask for a refund but was told that was not possible as our consumption might rise.  So, they were saying that they were holding this money to hedge against us suddenly consuming more.  This makes their statements that readings are important so that we 'only pay for the fuel you use' utterly ridiculous.  Instead we are simply giving them a set amount of money and they take out what they feel they need. 

The invidious nature of this has been revealed this year.  For 2011 we ended the year £582 (€692; US$902) in credit to the company, so they now have an additional £305 of mine for fuel of theirs I have not bought.  On this basis the more fuel I save this year the larger that sum will rise.  I have enough credit with them to pay for all our gas and electricity until mid-April 2012.  However, if I stop paying penalty charges will be levied on me.  You might think that on this basis they might reduce my standard monthly charge, but no, it has been set again at £140 per month.  I guess I should be grateful that the monthly charge has not risen but I am resentful that the company is holding on to my money gaining interest on it in their account when that is money which could feed my household for more than two months.  At the rate we are going within two years I will be paying a whole year in advance for my fuel.  I can see that is in the utility company's interest but it is certainly not what the majority of us would consider good customer service. 

You have to step outside the world of utility companies and their warped mindset to see how greedy and twisted their approach is.  Imagine I went into a supermarket and when I arrived there they took £140 from me.  I then proceed to spend £100 on food.  When I reach the till, rather than be refunded the £40 that I have not spent, the shop holds on telling me that they need it just in case more than two years from now I might suddenly spend some extra on one of my trips.  Surely if I do then they can charge me more.  The amount of cash that utility companies must be holding for resources they have not provided to the customer must be in the millions.  They do not seem to be investing it in improving their provision and they are certainly not reducing prices to customers.  Fuel poverty now affects 5.5 million people in Britain up from 3.8 million at the end of 2010.  Partly this is due to the fact that household incomes fall as all costs rise, pay in many cases is actually falling and unemployment continues to rise.  To me it seems that the only way I can get my money back is to say that I am leaving Scottish Power and moving to another company, presumably, though I have not put this to the test, they would be compelled to pay me back the excess money they have taken from me.  Much of the focus is on the price that we are charged for the utilities we use, but pressure also has to be brought to bear on companies for how they charge us especially for fuel we have yet to use.

P.P. 09/01/2012
Well, I am pleased to say that by threatening Scottish Power with moving my account to another provider they have agreed to refund me £440 in two stages.  I received the £40 last week and should get the £400 by 17th January.  They have also reduced my monthly payments from £140 down to £90, thus by the end of the year I will be £1040 better off.  Now, that is a reward for using less gas and resources and has come at just the perfect time to deal with all the New Year bills.  What is irritating is that it has taken pressure spread over two years plus a threat to move my account to get my money back when, in my view, they should be attentive to these things and do them unprompted.

Rooksmoor's Manifesto

Recently, an anonymous commentator said that when discussing political issues I only criticise and never put forward positive suggestions.  See: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2010/05/dark-days-return.html  The person asked where the 'The Rooksmoor Manifesto' was.  In fact I put forward lots of suggestions for making Britain a better place, but I recognise that these are spread across numerous postings and it would take even regular readers time to root all of them out from the different postings which include them.  I have eschewed the title 'The Rooksmoor Manifesto' despite the wonderfully 17th century feel to it, mainly because it seems too much like the title of a Robert Ludlum novel.

My politics are very simple.  I am a democratic Socialist who favours European integration.  I know people say Socialism is dead and certainly there is no political party that I can find in the UK at present that embraces the kinds of policies I favour.  While I feel that British democracy is ailing, because of the ever-growing resurgence of the ultra-wealthy and the privileged, as yet I have not gone far enough to begin advocating revolution; I believe democracy can work well in the UK it just needs attention.

I take a lot of my lead from former MP and minister, Tony Benn.  I never held the anti-EEC/EU views that he did.  However, I believe that certainly since the era of the Social Chapter as part of EU's legislation, even he has moved to see the benefits of European states working together and that the EU can be far more of a benefit to ordinary people than the 'capitalists' club' that its predecessor the EEC was seen simply as.

I accept that, since 1974, it has been highly unlikely that any candidate standing on the manifesto I outline below would be elected.  The central ground of British politics has moved so far to the right since the advent of the New Right ideas in the mid-1970s.  However, I see myself as being in the position right-wing British Conservatives must have felt themselves to be in, in the period, say 1945-72, in perceiving the 'mainstream' of politics as ignoring their concerns.  Yet, their time came again, and such views have been in the ascendant in the UK certainly since 1976.  There was a brief period 2008-10, when, as regular readers of this blog will know, I had a feeling that the financial crises were bringing politics a little more back to the kind of Attlee Consenus policies that I favour.  The UK, the USA and other states seemed to be embracing Keynesianism once again.  Under Obama, the USA is likely to stay with such an approach, whereas Britain has rushed headlong into even more virulent New Right/monetarist policies than even Margaret Thatcher was able to pull off.  Some commentators have noted that this was aided by the fact that Tony Blair's impetus came very much from the Thatcher Consensus and his support for policies such as private intervention in hospitals and schooling, with increasingly selectivity in education, formed a solid foundation for David Cameron's government's far harsher policies.

Before going into an outline of the policies I would pursue if elected Prime Minister, I would draw your attention to the fact, that, whilst they may appear to be embedded in 'Old' Labour attitudes, many of the policies I outline have actually been put into place in neighbouring European states, quite often under conservative governments.  Much of this stuff is not radical, it simply stems from a rational approach to making a country not only function more effectively, but, vitally, having a fair society with opportunities for all, not simply those who are already very wealthy or are privileged.  My prime motivation behind all my policies is to create a Britain which is safe for all of its citizens no matter what their background; has a firm economy which all benefit from not just the richest and that is not classless but allows all people to rise by ability rather than by connections.  I do not see any political grouping in the UK working to such an agenda.  I have no expectations that they will in my lifetime, but I remain an optimist.

The Manifesto
Fiscal and Economic Policies
1) The outline of income tax is presently (using the rates for the 2010/11 tax year, our current one) no tax until you earn £6,475 then you pay 20% on earnings up to £37,400; then 40% on £37,401 to £150,000 and then 50% on everything over £150,000.  On dividends you pay 10%/32.5%/42.5%.  These rates are a legacy of the Brown government's approach and have not been tweaked by the coalition.  From this year on your personal allowance, the part you can earn tax free, will fall by £1 for every £2 you earn over £100,000.  So, once you earn above £112,950, you will pay tax on everything you earn.  My approach would maintain many of these ideas.  I would have a personal tax allowance of £10,000 as proposed by the Liberal Democrats, then a 25% rate on £10,001-£20,000; 28% on £20,001-£30,000 (80% of the population earn below £31,000 per year);  33% on £30,001-£50,000; 43% on £50,001 to £150,000; 53% on 150,001 to £500,000; 63% on anything above £500,000.  The personal allowance would be reduced as currently once you earn beyond £50,000 per year.  These rates will apply to dividends of these levels too.  Given the plans outlined below, the government will need more revenue.  These figures are low compared to historic ones.  In 1979 the basic rate of tax was 33% and the highest rate was 83% (yet business prospered); in the mid-1960s it rose from 38% to 41%.  Rather than hammering people on benefit, greater efforts would be put into chasing down the £17 billion in unpaid tax.

2) Value added tax (VAT) would be at a basic rate of 15%, but higher for specific goods, notably petrol and cigarettes with a graduated extra VAT on alcoholic drinks dependent on their alcoholic content.

3) No boss of a company would be permitted to earn more than 20 times the salary of the lowest paid worker in that company or contracted by that company.  If the company has staff on the minimum wage, £5.93 per hour from October 2010, then the highest a boss could earn in that company would be £240,600, still a pretty decent salary.  Those bosses who did not feel that such pay was sufficient to keep their 'talents' in the UK could leave, though there would be restrictions on how much capital they could extract from the UK at one time.  If this means many ultra-wealthy leaving the UK, then it will be better for the long-term health of the British economy no longer blackmailed by their capriciousness.

4) Bosses would benefit from the fact that the minimum wage would rise to become that defined by the Council of Europe Decency Threshold which is 60% of average net earnings.  In the UK the current national average salary is £31,000 (though far less in some regions), giving a minimum salary, on this basis, for full-time work, of £18,600 per year (compared to £12,300 on the current rate) allowing bosses to earn up to £361,200 on the '20 times' rule.

5) In Belgium employees receive 14 pay cheques per year, even in South Africa they get 13.  I would make it compulsory that all employees earning less than £40,000 per year would receive 14 pay cheques per year, with doubling up in June and December as in Belgium.  This would apply to part-time workers too.  This would help in many ways by stimulating consumption, increasing savings and reducing the risk of house repossessions as employees will have been able to put more money aside, compared to now when many individuals and families spend all their monthly income in a month due to high rent, food and utility prices.  Of course, for some people having 2 extra pay cheques will lift them above £40,000.  This would be permitted for a year and after that period their salary would have to have risen to at least £40,000 and then the extra payments would stop.  If their pay is cut then they would again become eligible for the 14 payments per year.

6) Companies will be barred from having more than 10% of their employees on temporary contracts.  Temporary employees will receive the same rights as full-time employees after working for the company for 3 months rather than 1 year as at present.  Companies would not be permitted to lay off a temporary worker and then put someone else into the same position unless a period of 9 months has passed.  This would stop companies simply laying workers off after their initial period so as to avoid having to grant them full employment rights.  This happens too often and leads to too much instability for individuals and the economy.  In addition, despite what companies think, this constant 'churn' of staff actually damages the efficiency of their business, due to constant training and enculturation of new staff.

7) All companies with more than 5 employees would be compelled to have representatives of the workforce on the company Board or the equivalent in smaller companies.  This policy has been in place for fifty years in Germany and has benefited the country's economic growth.

8) There would be a charge on all financial transactions with a rising scale dependent on how risky the activity was.  This would be combined with far more stringent regulation of merchant banking.

9) Banks would be compelled to hold the coverage of reserves that they have to in Spain, the success of this has been seen in the prosperity of Santander.

10) The government will have control of the percentage of their bill that credit card users have to repay each month.  Since the abolition of hire purchase regulations has the government really had any control over consumption, certainly beyond high-value items as large as houses.  Regulation abilities of this kind could have been very useful in the 1990s to slow down consumption and reduce pressure on inflation, let alone heading off personal credit difficulties.

11) The government would not only set the base rate, but also the upper limit of interest charges.  Anyone exceeding such charges, such as 'pay-day loan' companies would be treated as loan sharks and face criminal prosecution.  Financial support would be given to the establishment of more mutual building societies and credit unions across the whole country, though often on a very local basis.  Nationalisation of a bank would occur far sooner than has been the case in the 2000s, for example, Northern Rock would have been nationalised two years earlier than it was in reality.

12) National insurance of 10% would be payable from earnings of £5000 upwards and would have no upper limit on payment.

13) The UK would join the euro immediately and the bulk of the British population will be able to see immediately more easily how much more they pay for food and other essentials compared to citizens of neighbouring countries.

14) Nationalised banks would, in particular, be encouraged to provide low-interest loans to start-up and expanding businesses.

15) Capital Gains Tax would be 10% up to £2,500; 20% £2,501-£10,000; 30% £10,001-£30,000; 40% £30,001-£100,000; 50% £100,001-£500,000 and 60% on £500,001 and above.  There would be no 'allowance', so the rate would be imposed on all the money which brought the total above that sum.  For example, if you gained £20,000 then you would pay 30% on the entire £20,000 not just on the last £10,000 above £10,000.

16) For UK citizens who keep large sums of money abroad, I would introduce the US system, i.e., if you have above a certain sum, I would say £50,000 (in the USA it is around US$87,000), in a bank in a country where the tax rate is lower than in the UK, then you must pay the difference between that tax rate and the rates prevailing in the UK, to the British Treasury.  If your money is in a country with the same or higher tax rate then you pay nothing to the UK.  If you do not comply with this rule, then you will be stripped of UK citizenship within 3 years of your money going abroad.  This is no different to US policies even under George W. Bush, so cannot be considered to be a radical policy.  However, it is estimated that by using tax havens, wealthy British citizens save paying £10 billion in tax.  Stripping a person of nationality and making them stateless is usually forbidden but would be permitted for people penalised in this way.  Given their wealth they would have no difficulty in getting a new nationality somewhere else.

Housing Policy
1) Stamp duty would be banded in an attempt to slow the apparently inexorable rise in house prices.

2) Limits on rents would be introduced on the basis of the council tax rating of the house.  Tenants would be granted greater rights, for example, to be given at least 3 months' notice of the repossession of a property when the owner has defaulted on the morgage.  Fixed-term tenancy contracts would be banned, with either the tenant being able to leave or the owner to ask them to leave with 2 months' notice.  These policies and the limits on rent rises will help people move more easily to where work is available.

3) All tenants would be permitted to have repair work done to the property themselves, having taken at least 3 quotes, and charge this to the owner, who would be compelled to pay for it.

4) No owner would be permitted to leave a property for longer than 3 months without seeking tenants for it.  Empty properties must be kept in a decent state, along the lines of regulations in New York, otherwise the owner will be fined.

5) Like other property owners, banks and building societies will be compelled to rent out or sell repossessed properties within 3 months of taking them back rather than leaving them empty until the local price reaches a set level as they currently often do.

6) Councils and housing authorities would be assisted in building a mix of social/affordable housing, both for direct renting and for shared equity purchase.  This would particularly be supported in areas facing depopulation due to high house prices.  Access to this housing would be on the basis of economic standing not on age or ethnic grounds.

7) All private housing developments above a certain size, will be compelled to build social housing.  The neglect of this often causes problems for those in the more expensive properties anyway, as seen in Milton Keynes where due to local resident opposition to social housing, the supermarkets have to bus in staff from 30Km away.  There would be a ratio such as 1 social house per 10 expensive houses built.

8) Companies abandoning a site, will be compelled to demolish any unused retail/industrial buildings and return the site to a standard suitable for housing to be built on it.

9) There would be a nationwide scheme to insulate every house currently with insufficient insulation.  Once this was complete, solar panels would be installed on every suitable property, not only residential but also industrial.  There would be incentives to assist with this and it would create jobs at this time of employment need.

Social Policy
1) There would be free childcare for all working parents until the child is 16.  Those with the money would be free to opt out and use private provision.  All childcare would continue to be monitored by OFSTED.  Such a policy would free up many parents to work.

2) As currently is the case in Scotland, everyone would be entitled to free residential care once they pass the retirement age, again people are free to opt out and buy private provision if they choose.

3) The retirement age would rise immediately to 70 and stringent anti-ageism policies would be enacted.  The SERPS pension approach would be re-introduced and pensions would rise (or fall) with the cost of living.

4) All health care will be free at point of usage.  Again, people are free to opt for private care.  However, all doctors practising in the UK would be obliged to work for the National Health Service to the number of hours currently required by Belgian health authorities for their doctors.

5) All municipal sports facilities, especially swimming pools, would be free to users.  Private sports facilities charging a fee and requiring membership would be permitted.  All museums and public galleries will have free entry, though visitors could give donations if they wished.

Constitutional Policy
1) All elections across the UK would be run on the basis of proportional representation as they already are in Northern Ireland.  Parties would have to receive at least 5% of the vote to be represented in the Westminster Parliament, the level they have to achieve in Germany.

2) The monarchy will be abolished immediately.  Instead, a directly-elected President, accountable to parliament, would be introduced, able to be elected twice for 4-year terms.  The powers of the President will be the same as those of the President of Germany.

3) The House of Lords would be abolished and be replaced by a Senate elected by the regional assemblies every five years.  Noble titles will remain but grant no powers, they would simply be courtesy titles and rewards, as at present.

4) The Supreme Court recently introduced will remain.  It will have the power to prosecute members of parliament, the Senate or the President, if necessary.

5) British regional assemblies would be re-introduced.  They would be elected, not appointed as they were before, and their regions would be far smaller than those of the regional assemblies that existed in the UK until 2010.  All large cities would have their own assemblies and directly-elected mayor because (despite Boris Johnson) this approach has worked well in London.  Taking large cities out of the assemblies of the surrounding countryside would also secure a voice for more rural regions of Britain and those with particular local interests, for example, Cornwall.  Any border town that wished to join Scotland or Wales would be permitted to do so following a local referendum.

6) Anyone who wishes to be elected to parliament, the Senate, as President or to the Supreme Court or is to work as an advisor to the government for more than 6 months, must be resident in the UK and pay at least 90% of their total tax bill in the UK.  You may say governments need foreign advisors and they will still be able to use them for specific projects or advice, but the bulk of people in all branches of government will be UK domiciled and taxpayers.

7) Local councillors will receive a set salary the way MPs do.  This would mean that ordinary people could become councillors in a way in which they cannot do now and this would end the domination of local politics by prosperous business people who have vested interests which are often not beneficial to the local population more broadly.

Infrastructure
1) The railways and all utility companies will be immediately nationalised.  State control will not be on the model of previous UK control but like that of France.  The fact that the French state-run electricity company, EDF, was until recently, a very successful company in the UK is a good indicator of the benefits.

2) Second or Standard class travel will be abolished, everyone will have the chance to travel first class in so-called Harry Perkins carriages.

3) All freight being carried over 100 Km must be carried by railway.  This policy was in place in Germany in the 1980s and enable greater profitability.  Heavy goods vehicles could be filled at special depots near the ports to enable this freight to be driven in countries still permitting long distance road haulage.

4) Britain was the leading country for wind power in the 1970s a position it foolishly gave up.  To rectify this we must increase wind power to the level seen in Germany if not in Denmark.  Brownfield sites, such as along motorways should be used and attention paid to the environment when constructing wind farms elsewhere but it must be recognised that wind farms are far less intrusive than a nuclear, oil or coal-fired power station.  As is happening in Scotland now, wave power must be adopted with all vigour.

5) Incentives will be given to increase the use of hybrid and electric vehicles, and new compressed air vehicles with charging/refilling points all over towns.

6) 4x4 vehicles will be banned except for people working in agriculture or specific industries and living in particular areas, certainly not towns and suburbs.  The maximum permitted capacity of motorcycles on British roads would be 750cc and of cars, 2 litres.  More powerful vehicles would be permitted on race tracks and private land.

7) All drivers must be re-tested every 5 years.  HGV drivers have medical tests every 5 years after they pass 45.  I am talking about an entire test to ensure they still have the abilities to drive safely.  Many car drivers seem to have quickly forgotten the basic requirements of driving and a large part of the Highway Code.  The 'P' sticker would be introduced as in other European countries, and drivers would have to have it on their vehicle for the first year after they have passed their first test. Being awarded any penalty points while carrying the P would mean having your licence removed and you wouldhave to sit the test again and start again with your P year from the date you passed that second test. Drivers under the age of 21 would be limited to vehicles of 1 litre capacity or less.  No-one under the age of 21 would be permitted to ride a motorcycle of more than 50cc and no-one under the age of 25 would be allowed to ride a motorcycle of more than 125cc. 

8) Anyone wishing to drive a rental box van, even for a few minutes, would have to have already passed the CPC test that commercial van drivers have to pass for vehicles of 3.5 tonnes and above.  The reason for this is that there are few drivers more hazardous than people who have hired a van for a day and then proceed to drive it as badly as they drive their car and yet with all the added weight and visibility issues.

9) Sat navs already alert drivers to the fact they are exceeding the speed limit for the road they are travelling down.  Such systems will be installed in all vehicles in the UK and would remain on at all times when the car is being driven, even if the driver is not using a sat nav to find their way.  Cars from overseas coming to the UK would have to install such a device on entry to the UK at the entrance port.  Speed limiters are already installed in certain commercial vehicles.  These would be compulsory on all road vehicles of any kind driven in the UK.  The maximum speed any vehicle could be driven on a UK road would be the same limit that you can drive on a UK motorway, i.e. up to 10% above the 70mph speed limit, that is 77mph.  In time, I trust that these two systems could combine so vehicles' speeds would be limited to adjust to the road they are on, i.e. that they could not exceed 33mph in a residential area or 22mph where the 20mph limit is already in force, as in most of Portsmouth.  Of course, speeds would now be measure in metric, giving 123 kph, 52 kph and 35 kph as the maximum speed in these three examples.

10) As in parts of Belgium, lorries would not be allowed to overtake other vehicles.  I would make an exception if the vehicle was going slower than 10 mph below the speed limit for on A roads or smaller road and 20 mph less than the speed limit of motorways.  This would stop the ridiculous 'races' between lorries moving just 1 mph different, which so congest much of the UK's motorways.  Of course, with increased rail freighting the numbers of lorries on motorways would be reduced.  Vehicles pulling caravans would be restricted to 50mph as they were in the 1970s.  Coaches would face the same restrictions as lorries and so would not be permitted to charge along at 70mph and disrupt motorway traffic by regularly overtaking.

11) Anyone charged with using a mobile phone while driving will have the phone seized and destroyed and would be banned from driving for 1 year.  Cyclists, skateboarders, roller- and inlineskaters would be barred from wearing headphones of any kind while travelling on the pavement or road, at the risk of an on-the-spot-fine and seizure and destruction of their electrical equipment.

12) The Post Office will remain in/be returned to state control.  There will be subsidies for post offices in small villages in which even in this internet age they serve a vital role.  Ultimately BT will be renationalised and provide reasonably priced telephone, television and internet connections.  Private companies will be permitted to compete with it in all of these areas.

13) There will be state provision of internet connections of the highest speed feasible across the UK.  Some regions such as Cornwall, as yet, have very poor broadband provision, just at the stage when other regions are moving to fibre optic provision.  Rural regions need excellent internet connections to prevent isolation and allow the development of a range of employment in those locations.

Defence and Foreign Policy
1) All trade, especially arms trade, will cease with dictatorships.  This includes China.  I accept that this will damage the UK economy, but despite the wishful thinking of the 1990s, China has made no steps towards democracy and still has an appalling human rights record.  It has become a neo-imperial power and is supporting unsavoury regimes across the world.

2) The UK would scrap all its nuclear weapons immediately.  There has never been any point in having them and they have been an immense drain on the British economy for far too long.

3) The UK will never again be involved in military action which is not sanctioned by the United Nations, except in the case of direct threat to the UK and its dependent territories.  The UK military, like that of countries such as Eire and Norway, will be predominantly focused on UN peace-keeping activities and the nature of its forces and equipment will be focused on such work rather than as a nuclear 'Power'.  Unless NATO similarly changes, the UK will either leave the organisation dealing with its members on a bilateral basis on defence issues if these should arise.

The Law
1) The permitted level of alcohol or narcotics in the blood while driving will be reduced to 0.

2) There would be no change to the categorisation of drugs.  'Legal' highs would be made illegal if this had not already been done.

3) Anyone killing or injuring someone while driving will face the same terms of imprisonment as a person killing or injuring someone with a blunt instrument.

4) No-one who assists someone in dying who has made a living will requesting such assistance, will be prosecuted.

5) Facilities for the support of rape victims will be increased rather than cut back, as at present.  The identity of those accused of rape or physical or sexual harrassment, especially when that person is a teacher, social worker or in a medical/caring profession would be kept strictly secret until the time when they are convicted, if that is the case, and indefinitely if found not guilty.

6) The constabulary system of policing will remain.  Watch committees formed from members of the local council will be re-introduced to oversee local policing.  Regional assemblies will scrutinise regional police activities.  Chief Constables, however, will be appointed by the Minister of Justice.

7) In the case of the death of anyone at the hands of the police or through being run over by a police car, an immediate criminal investigation will be launched.  Hopefully such cases will be less common than in recent years, but if not, a specific national Internal Affairs unit will be created.

8) A prison building programme will be launched to provide places for 100,000 prisoners with a limit of one prisoner per cell.  Prisons will be constructed, as in the USA, in areas of high unemployment to create jobs.  Brownfield sites would be favoured as will the demolition, in stages, of any prison built more than fifty years ago and the construction of a modern prison on that site.  All prison services will be taken back from private contractors.  Detention camps for asylum seekers will be closed immediately and used instead as low security prisons for criminals.

9) Legislation incompatible with the spirit of human rights legislation, notably introduced supposedly to combat terrorism, would be repealed, in particular the RIPA which has been terribly abused by local authorities.  The UK would not extradite anyone to a country with a bad human rights record or the death penalty (including the USA).  No evidence acquired by torture is permissible in a UK court and no official from the UK must have any involvement in torture anywhere.  Any UK citizen committing torture or being involved in the carrying out of torture anywhere in the world, is liable to be prosecuted by the British legal system.

10) The import, let alone the planting and growth of GM crops or livestock, or the products of these, would be banned in the UK.

11) Steps will be taken to criminalise tobacco.  In time, as with other harmful narcotics, it will only be available to addicts in restricted quantities on prescription.

12) The approach to the restriction of alcohol through price rises and limits in terms of availability along the lines of the policy adopted in Sweden will be introduced.  Both this and the tobacco measures will not stamp out use of these substances but will reduce the human and financial costs of them.

Education and Society
1) Given that anyone who has attended state school since the mid-1970s, over 22 million people, has learnt metric measurement, we will finally eliminate all imperial measurement from British society.

2) As announced by the previous government, all children are expected to remain in full-time education or training until they 18.

3) The school day will be lengthened, so reducing parental dependence on childcare.  The curriculum is already crowded, so additional time at school will permit the extension of sports activities to reduce obesity and greater engagement with cultural activities such as art, music and drama.  Despite the longer school day, teachers will have the amount of preparation time within the school day increased, initially back to the level of 1975.  With better funding for schools and more teachers trained this will allow a better rotation of teaching staff and more specialist teachers, for example, in modern languages, to be available at all levels of education.

4) SATS tests will be abolished in England as they have been effectively in Scotland and Wales.  Pupils are far too heavily examined in Britain especially aged 16-18.  The AS qualifications would be scrapped.  A levels would be replaced by the International Baccalaureate, which is already popular in parts of the UK, notably Oxfordshire.  GSCEs would be adjusted to allow a better feed into the Baccalaureate. The new curriculum being introduced in Scotland would be reviewed with the possibility of it being introduced across the UK as a whole.

5) Fee-paying schools, notably the so-called 'public' schools, will be abolished; their facilities will be turned over to local education authorities to use for the benefit of the community.  Selective education on any basis bar religion, will be scrapped.  Grammar schools and academies will be compelled to return to being comprehensive schools.  All faith schools will have to adopt a liberal selection policy and will be compelled to follow the national curriculum in all aspects outside specific religious practice, notably in terms of PSHE lessons.

6) Universities will be funded by graduates paying a supplementary tax of 1% above the standard rate for their earnings category for the rest of their lives, including if they are on taxable benefits; i.e. paying 26% for earnings £10,001-20,000; 29% for earnings of £20,001-30,000 and so on.  Whilst at university, students will have all fees and a subsistence payment, paid by the government.  Students wishing to take postgraduate courses will also receive such funding but will incur additional increments of 1% supplementary tax up to a maximum of +5%, for each course they take.  Fees will be set by the government on institutional and course basis.  Courses in teaching of scarcity areas, in nursing and social work will be free to students, with no tax repayment.  Along the lines of policies in the USA, students taking medical degrees can have these funded by the state in return for working where they are needed for five years following graduation.

7) Between 150-180,000 pupils have been turned away from university places for 2010/11, many with very good grades.  I am aware that many commentators want a return to more elitist higher education and question the need for jobs such as nursing and police roles to require a degree but the UK has to be aware that it is competing in a global market where degrees are the norm.  I would authorise the construction of 6 universities in parts of the UK currently without one.  There would be control over who was permitted to run these universities so that we did not see the problems that occurred with academies.

8) A key problem in the UK has been the snobbery against vocational qualifications.  It is impossible to legislate against such snobbery and there is a sense that certain professions should not be graduate professions.  However, for the benefit of the country we need to raise standards and introducing degree level requirements is an aspect of this.  I would advise the revival of BEd. and BA QTS degrees to allow people to go direct into teaching.  I would advise the creation of other specialist degrees such as those for nursing.  Rather than having all universities chasing after classic subject areas, we should laud the fact that 50 of the staff animating 'Avatar', including the lead animator, were graduates of Bournemouth University, the largest number drawn from any UK or US university.  Combined with having technical and working representatives on company boards, slowly we might be able to reduce this unhealthy snobbery against vocational qualifications.  It must be noted that they should not become simply training courses for specific companies but allow students who take them to be flexible.

9) No-one would be permitted to own more than one media resource, for example, only 1 newspaper or 1 national radio channel or set of combined radio channels covering Britain or 1 set of television channels if there are 5 or less channels in the set. News International could either own the Sky television channels or one of the newspapers they currently own.  Virgin Media, for example, would not be permitted to buy any newspapers.  Owners of media resources would preferably be a consortium rather than an individual.  Anyone in the consortium could be a foreigner, but they must be resident in the UK and being paying UK tax or have to give up their control of the media resource. 

10) The licence fee for the BBC services would continue to rise as it has done over the past decade.


I expect many of these policies will be unpopular with commentators, but they are as legitimate in their conception as the policies being driven through by the current government, which, in my view will harm the UK for decades to come and bring so much suffering to the British people now and in the future.  My policies seek a re-balance back towards the rights of ordinary people to live their lives and be judged on their abilities and how they behave not on the basis of what bed they were born in.  In addition, I feel, that whilst retaining the identity of Britain, these policies would help it get out of being fixed in the past and instead become a modern country suited to tackling the challenges of the future, rather than constantly harping on peculiarities of the past as if they were glories of today.

Annual Utility Bills: No Incentive to Be Economical

It has been a while since I have moaned about UK utility companies, but then I received my water bill.  In the old days, i.e. before the 1990s, you paid a flat rate for water consumption based on the size of the house.  This meant that large families packed into small houses benefited and single old people tended to lose out.  Then with the privatisation of water companies in 1989 many of the numerous water companies began to compel tenants and new owners of houses to have water meters fitted.  They generally set the tariffs far too high and in the early 1990s there was a rocketing in the number of people having their water cut off, mainly these families who had benefited under the flat rate system, many had to wash at relatives' houses and there was a disproportionate impact on the hygeine of children.  The regulator set up in 1989, OFWAT, the coloquial name for what since 2006 has been Water Services Regulation Authority, reined in these extremes, and to a great extent most of us have become used to water metering. In many areas, like where I currently live, rather than water supply and sewage being handled by the same body they are now covered by two different companies.  Where I used to live there was one company for both and the sewage charge was 10% of the water charge.  Where I am now the sewage charge was initially set at 108% of the water charge and now that I have been here more than a year it has fallen to 95% of the water charge.  Basically I am paying for all water I use, twice, even if I tip the water on to the grass or down someone else's drain.

The difference between water meters and gas and electricity meters is that as a consumer you cannot read a water meter yourself.  Recently combined the charge for my gas and electricity was raised by £25 per month, and I received a statement that my consumption of both had risen.  I accepted, given the snowy winter that consumption of gas had gone up but given that we had switched off one of the two refrigerators we had in the house, I found it difficult to accept that we had been using more electricity.  I contacted the supplier and sent in my own readings.  The revised bill showed a fall of £25 per month over what I had been paying for both fuels combined last year, so about £50 less per month than I would have been charged if I had not challenged the bill, so saving up to £600 per year.  It turned out that because we had moved from a set pattern of heating during the winter and only switched it on and off when we felt cold, our consumption of gas had actually fallen, despite the snow, and our electricity consumption was down by about 20%.

We are very frugal in our house and do not flush the toilet until it smells unpleasant, two people usually use the same bath water and most of the time we shower.  We now wear our clothing for many days or even weeks to reduce the amount of clothes washing we do.  We no longer grow vegetables so do not water the garden any longer.  We probably do not smell as nice as we once did, but it keeps water consumption down.  You can imagine my surprise when I found my water bill was more than trebling from £3 per month in 2009/10 to £10 per month in 2010/11.  There is no way that we are using three times as much water as last year.  However, unlike with the gas and electricity I cannot see the water meter (it is buried under the concrete at the front of the house) and am reliant on whatever figures the water company sends.

A major part of the problem is that you are not actually charged on the amount of water, gas or electricity you have used, you get charge for an estimate of what you will use in the year coming. If you do not stay in a property then you gain no benefit from being economical with any of your utilities as they will not see your lower consumption of the resource until after you have left, so you might as well be profligate with your water, gas and electricity because no matter what you do you are going to get charged for it.  This greedy approach from utility companies works against any 'green' steps we might take to reduce our carbon dioxide 'footprint' or use less water.  They give no incentive for you to be frugal, in fact the complete opposite.  As frugal consumers, we lose out.

As you can see from the examples above, the charges the utility companies demand often seem to be conjured out of the air rather than based on real consumption levels.  A few years back I rented a five bedroomed-house with a woman and her infant son.  Previously seven adults had lived in the house.  When we received the water bill, the company felt it necessary to tell us that our consumption was 'excessive' and that we should use less water.  We asked how as three people, one only a child, we were using more than seven adults had done.  I accept those seven adults may have been smelly but as I have shown, we are very economical in our consumption.  It seems this time the figure has been conjured out of the air.  I could accept a small increase due to investment or repair costs, but a 230% increase seems mad.  Naturally I have challenged the water company, but not having my own figures I am unable to base my challenge on measurable figures.

Generally at the end of the year we find we are in credit to all the utility companies, including the telephone companies.  Until we move out of the house we do not receive this money back and usually it is rolled on into the next year.  All the time the company is holding our money not for anything we have actually bought for them, simply on the basis of what they say we will use in the future.  It gains interest (however small at the moment) while it sits in their accounts and we are deprived of that money ourselves.  I certainly advise everyone to challenge their utility supplier.  Privatisation was supposed to create a competitive market in utilities but in fact has simply created a cartelised one in which the deal for the average consumer is very poor.  For now, however, the companies do seem to yield if you challenge them, and like me, by simply emailing them you could save yourself £600 or maybe more, per year.  What needs to happen though, and is very unlikely to do so given the new government, is utility companies be compelled to have charging systems that in fact encourage frugal consumption, rather than as at present have systems that encourage not to give any thought to how much you use because you know you are stuck paying the same rate whatever you do.

Extreme Weather; Extreme Behaviour

As many commentators have noted during the recent snowy and icy weather, the trouble in the UK is not that we experience extremes of weather, and in fact what we have seen is considered normal in many neighbouring states (remember London is as far North as Moscow), but that we do not experience them often enough.  For comparisons we have to look back to 1981, 1963, 1947 and beyond rather than, say, 2006 or even 2001 which other countries could draw comparisons with.  This applies to all 'extremes' of weather in the UK.  The hot summer of 1995 could only be compared to 1976, 19 years earlier.  The bulk of the weather in Britain is tepid and this allows us all to forget how to cope when it gets a little colder, hotter, wetter or drier than has been the case in the past decade.  Combined with this is the tightness of public funding especially at a local level as councils have been facing constraints really non-stop since the mid-1970s when 'cuts' first became a common phrase for British local authorities.  So, given that you are likely to only have harsh weather in winter one year in twenty or thirty, it is clear that it is a gamble they are willing to take to save a little money in not buying salt or grit and keeping it in storage and the necessary lorries maintained. 

The other factor is the privatisation of so many public services in the UK. Why would a train company risk being sued by stranded customers or penalised for a string of late arrivals by trying to run a comprehensive train service.  In a hot summer, it is far easier for water companies to declare restrictions on the use of water and to reduce the water pressure than for them to spend money to repairing the high level of leakages in the British system which means around 25% of British water is lost compared to 14% of French and 10% of Dutch.  Greed and penny pinching make it far harder for the UK to be adaptable when something slightly different occurs.  Of course, we have just finished one six-year war and are still in the middle of one that has now be raging for coming up to its ninth year (almost as long as the First and Second World Wars combined) so costing millions of pounds in resources and a constant haemorrage of British people through death and injury.

Anyway, given the context that the weather and the response of the local authorities, who I acknowledge do the best they can with the resources they have, creates, how do the British people respond to it?  Well, this goes to 'extremes' as well.  People talk of the 'Blitz spirit' or the 'Dunkirk mentality', once again having to rely on nostalgia for a war that ended 64 years ago (in fact going back 69-70 years to those specific events) rather than finding anything of merit from the British public in those intervening years.  It is fascinating how with a single snowfall British people suddenly start talking to each other.  I know the weather is a common topic of conversation but it seems that it needs to really begin disrupting people's lives before they break through to talking to their neighbours let alone strangers.  Even among colleagues I have seen a change.  Those stranded at home yesterday did not sit in front of their radiators whining they were out checking on elderly people, fetching food and helping people dig out their cars.  In some ways the British cannot be stirred from their apathy unless it is by a 'crisis'.  It has to be a tangible crisis, as the failure to alarm us all about terrorists in the early 2000s showed, something which is intangible will not stir us, it has to be immediately visible and physical and so snow and floods in particular flick the switch in the average Briton's head.  Ironically, it seems, in my experience, and I accept that is very limited, to even push aside the usual whining about immigrants, dole 'scroungers' and so on and emphasise for many people the commonality of humanity. 

A new focus of complaint, however, are those who warm us about global warming.  There is a saying 'one swallow does not make a summer' and the same can be said in this case 'one snowfall does not mean there is no global warming'.  The climate does shift steadily, we know the 11th century was warm enough for people to farm on Greenland and the 17th century cold enough for people to have bonfires on the River Thames but within those periods there were hot or cold, dry or wet seasons.  As a spokesman for the Met(reological) Office noted on BBC1 yesterday, even if in 20 years when the global temperature is 2-3oC warmer we will still get snowy winters.

This beneficial, communal spirit which gets turned on by 'extreme' weather does have a counteracting behaviour too, sometimes among the very same people.  Britons are, on the whole, very selfish and often find it difficult to comprehend that anyone else may have equal and/or different needs that have any validity let alone greater validity than their own perceived needs.  This is most apparent when British people drive.  The bulk of British drivers want no-one else to be on the road and if there are other drivers, for them to get out of the way.  They see themselves as driving in a bubble, looking only a short distance ahead rather than what they are in fact, a cog in a complex machine of traffic.  This situation has worsened and drivers now often do not feel obliged to signal, they complain at attempts to make them stick to a speed limit, and in my experience, these days occasionally feel it is appropriate to drive on pavements if it can get them where they 'need' to be, that little bit quicker.  They take no responsibility for their actions, always blaming the others, especially if those others are cyclists or pedestrians. 

Rather than tempering this behaviour the snow has apparently exacerbated it.  Partly, I think, it is accentuated by the fact that 4x4 drivers, who assume they should be granted a superior position on the road at normal times, actually have it in such slippery conditions so apparently legitimising their arrogant attitudes and the fact that they are driving so far removed from the road.  Ironically, talking to a man this week who lives in rural Devon, he said that now the 4x4 drivers have conditions which suit their vehicles many drivers are too afraid and lack the expertise to use them properly and so end up blocking village high streets.  Despite the conditions many drivers are going too fast and are impatient with people trying to get over icy patches or going up and down hills cautiously.  In my office we discussed how one car was tipped on its side on a road.  Even stunt men find this a challenge, it is not the result simply of ice and snow unless the vehicle has slid sideways off a particular camber, it is achieved by driving too fast.  Too many people in the UK speed in normal conditions and apparently have no appreciation of the stopping distances needed even on dry roads let alone on icy ones.  Speeding among too many people, including, it seems newspapers like the 'Daily Mail' (complaining this week about the £15 increase in speeding fines to pay compensation to victims of other crimes, seemingly forgetting that speeding is a crime and that people who speed are criminals), is not seen as a criminal offence, rather it is perceived as a right, one that even outweighs commons sense.

The occasions on which such behaviour becomes insane is in the attacks on workers driving snow ploughs and gritting lorries.  Interviews last night with such drivers showed that they had had objects thrown at their vehicles on some occasions smashing the windscreens.  Apparently this stems from frustration that the roads have not been sufficiently cleared or not soon enough or that side roads are neglected or routes in rural areas cannot be kept open constantly.  Attacks on the gritting vehicles is like shooting yourself in the foot because you are tired from walking.  Yet, to too many people it apparently seems rational behaviour.  However, perhaps it is unsurprising in a country where ambulance and fire fighting crews are attacked when carrying out their duties.  If you have a problem with the services protest to the people who actually control it, vote for someone who will adopt a different policy, do not attack the people trying to deliver a life saving service, doing an ordinary job like the rest of us, under tough and dangerous circumstances anyway.  Think about it, someone who drives a gritting lorry has to get up early on the coldest days of the year and drive constantly in the most hazardous conditions.  Less severe, but equally moronic is the people who rush to overtake gritting lorries and snow ploughs.  Think about it.  If the road did not need a plough or gritting, the lorry would not be there and before a lorry has passed over a particular section the road is likely to be even more dangerous than usual, and you want to hurry on to that untreated road surface?

The other unhelpful thing is the attitude of employers who are given privileged opportunities to whine about how much the weather is damaging the economy.  It is the same whenever there is a bank holiday, they are allowed to come on to radio and television and produce some huge figure about how badly industry is missing out by people being off for a day or two (in the case of bank holidays, of course, the UK has five fewer than the next nearest number in the EU and many of our competitors have many more than us.  I imagine only the fact that the additional 2012 bank holiday is linked to the Queen's diamond jubilee that has meant no complaints from business leaders about it).  Apparently the snow is losing business £600 million per day.  Of course fuel utility companies and even many supermarkets (given the British tendency to stockpile food at any hint of a crisis) are actually benefiting from the cold weather.  The new twist is the complaint from employers that too many schools have closed too quickly and so compelling parents to take time off to look after their children. 

What the employers forget (or choose not to notice) is that often teachers cannot afford to live anywhere near the schools they work at because house prices have risen far faster than teachers' salaries over the past forty years and schools are fearful of being sued if any child has an accident even in good weather so are terrified they will get a slew of litigation if children slip over in the snow.  Added to this, much investment in school buildings and heating facilities has been neglected over the past thirty years, there are regular reports on the poor conditions many schools actually are in, so it is unsurprising when their aged boilers pack up or single-glazed classrooms are too cold to study in.  None of these considerations is allowed to get in the way of employers yet again telling us we are lazy and negligent and so are costing the country money (though of course not reducing their salaries or bonuses a jot).  Hassle from employers makes many people feel they must get on the road to reach their work, often adding the hazards and accidents.

Extreme weather shows how shabby the UK's infrastructure has become from decades of cuts and when this is combined with an unassailable belief that satisfaction of all individual wishes is the only legitimate concern, it creates 'crisis' that neighbouring states must look upon with bemusement/amusement. I wonder what happens in places like western Normandy and Brittany which, like the UK, benefit from the Atlantic warm currents that stop the climate being as cold, most winters, as, say, northern France, the Benelux countries and Germany.  In these regions of France they must have mild winters but the occasional harsh ones too, yet I never hear Cherbourg or Rennes or Brest grinding to a halt when this occurs.  I suspect it means keeping things in store that you might only use once per decade, but at least you know they are there.  I guess to it stems from an attitude which is not all 'me, me, me' when harsh conditions bite.  I may be wrong and would be interested to hear from people who have had experiences in these regions.  I have certainly travelled around Belgium in the winter when the temperature is often -10oC or worse without difficulty and without the madness that seems to affect too many Britons whenever snow comes.  The weather might be extreme for the UK but let us hope that negative extreme behaviour can be moderated and the positive behaviour become normalised rather than needing extreme weather to trigger it.

P.P. 12/01/2010: One contributory factor to schools closing that I had missed, but is now being reported widely, are the league table ratings around percentage of attendance.  This means that if a school opens and say, even a third or a quarter, in fact anything more than about a tenth, of its pupils cannot get in then it slides quickly in terms of its standing for attendance.  I should have remembered the messages that I have seen coming home from the school that the 8-year old who lives in my house attend.  The headteachers writes of figures like 92.4% attendance and a drive to get this figure higher.  It is unsurprising then, that heads shut the school and so have that day null-and-void for the statistics rather than risk dropping even a 1-2% and so looking worse than last year when we had a mild winter.

Another point of behaviour that I forgot to mention is drivers using their fog lights when visibility is good.  Many drivers, even now where there is a lot of thawing going on, certainly in the counties I have been driving through, seem to assume these lights are simply 'bad weather' lights.  They forget that on frosty days often the air is far clearer than even on rainy days and so there is no need for fog lights.  You can be fined if you have them on when visibility is more than 50-100 metres.  On the back fog lights can be up to 30 times more powerful than normal rear lights.  I know when you are driving up and down valleys on foggy days you go in and out of fog and may be excused for leaving them on in clear patches, but some people switch them on just when it is cold and frosty, every one car in ten I passed this morning had them on and there was not a scrap of fog on the 190Km I covered.  I do wonder, if, as with drivers who keep full beam on at all times, whether these drivers actually know how to operate the functions on their cars or get stuck with a certain setting.

The Blank Face of Service Providers

These days what I am going to describe is such a common event that it seems weekly to fill consumer advice programmes on the radio and television and columns in the newspapers, without anything fundamentally changing. As this blog is about expelling thoughts and tensions from myself, I make no apology for running through the example that I have just had a brush with and added it to the millions of unheard cases that should be condemning so many service providers but they seem able to ignore with impunity.

The key problem of service provision in the UK is fixed contracts. They cover everything from rent to power and water to mobile phones and televisions and even services to those things such as mobile phone ring tone downloads. Of course, it is a given that if you can tie in a customer for a long period of time it is beneficial for your business. Their payments only marginally decline over time given the current low rate of inflation, but your cost per customer falls every month they are locked into you. The biggest cost to a company is the set-up so if you can spread that cost over a year, then it is better for you. We are supposed to be living in an era of consumer choice, but to a great degree this is a fantasy. There are numerous price comparison websites for all kinds of goods and services even telling you where you can get the best rate for your gas and electricity, but switching is made as hard as humanly possible.

Business over the past decade has recognised it can get away by having contracts that make it very hard for customers who want to leave. Again this stretches right from individual landlords right up to multi-national companies. Their ideal situation is when you are compelled to pay for a service you are no longer receiving. In my life I have been fortunate to encounter this only a few times, being expected to pay rent on a house even after other tenants had moved into it or it had been sold to someone else and to pay for a television service even when I had moved 190 Km away from the television to an area where the company does not provide a service. For a company this is an easy way to make money and if the customer simply stops paying you, well then, you hand it over to a debt-collection agency who wrecks the customer's credit rating and piles on additional charges. This is an excellent deterrent for the service providers who feel no guilt over taking money for no service. The story is such a common one of contemporary Britain that it must be known in every household. Yet what choice do we have? If we want energy to our houses, if we want to watch television, in many areas we have to sign up for such contracts, let alone if you simply want to rent a house. The options are limited and it is difficult to avoid getting locked in such a contract. Back in the 1980s this approach was reserved for time-share salesmen in Spanish resorts and was condemned in all quarters and yet by the 2000s such techniques have become mainstream for service companies.

The thing that makes it even harder is that when you try to leave a contract even when it is coming to an end you face a blank wall. You find you cannot get the numbers for the company to cancel your contract. There are numbers of how to set up an account and in some cases I have had to pretend to be starting a new account just to get into the system and then be re-routed to the correct number for cancelling. Call centre staff are robots. They are locked into a pattern which means they can take no initiative, they can only simply take you down paths that their bosses allow and often this does not include cancelling contracts. Feel sorry for them, they are simply the human extensions of a harsh machine. The companies want you to give up, to keep paying for a service you are not receiving, that is great for them. I have not seen any analysis, but I do wonder how many millions of pounds are paid each year by people for services they no longer want or, in fact, in many cases can no longer use. Think about it, if many service providers need this 'free' money, how bad is their business actually doing? Of course few bosses in the UK run businesses to be successful and to thrive, they simply run them in a half-hearted fashion to generate enough cash to drain off for their bonuses. Back in the 1980s they said the average British company lasted 40 years, these days the average must be a lot shorter. As figures around leakages from water pipes have shown yet again this year, you can make huge profits pretending to provide a service and in fact doing it very poorly. The UK economy rewards inefficiency and poor customer service very richly.

So, what is the recent case in my own life that has triggered off my complaint today? Well, back in the early 2000s the woman who now lives in my house bought a TiVo, which was one of the first hard drive video recorders. They came from the USA and apparently 32,000 units were sold. You had a subscription with the company which sent downloads over the telephone to permit you to know what programmes were coming on. It had some novel features that later systems have not included such as the 'wish list' which meant that the machine recorded all programmes, for example, featuring particular actors or comedians or movies by specific directors. TiVo faced increasing competition in the UK once the Sky+ system was introduced. From 2003 TiVo stopped supplying their set-top boxes in the UK but there is a vibrant owner community and second hand market. Ironically the technology developed by TiVo was taken up by Toshiba and Sony and Sky bought out TiVo's service side in the UK, partly to eliminate even its ailing rivalry to their own system. You do not have to look far on the internet to find people singing the praises of the TiVo system and even people who dumped Sky+ in favour of it. Of course, Sky has the clout and TiVo is dying in the UK, it is the case of VHS beating Betamax again, in the UK the worst system always seems to win out. Fortunately Freeview boxes now come with a hard drive and this is all that is stopping the UK having another monopoly based on poor service and less sophisticated equipment. Sky the child of tycoon and manipulator of countries' politics, Rupert Murdoch, is always the worst company to allow to have a monopoly.

Anyway, coming back to TiVo, now handled by Sky. The box belonging to the woman in my house was second hand when she bought it back in 2002 and had had constant use in the seven years since (even TiVo fans said it was one of the older ones with capacity a fifth of the later ones). So back in April it broke down entirely and rather than persist with it she switched to a recordable Freeview box supplied by BT. Then she tried to cancel the subscription with TiVo/Sky. The customer service number has been disconnected and even searching the internet repeatedly for numbers all she could find was ones that connected her to Sky (naturally there is no physical address you can write to). Of course, that should have been simple, but if you ring Sky about accounts you have to enter a Sky account number, which, of course, being a TiVo customer and not a Sky customer, she did not have so her calls never even got near a human. Sky had not thought to write to TiVo customers to tell them of the changes or how they could contact people about their accounts; not even, quite surprisingly, to suggest they switch to Sky+ perhaps because they knew no TiVo user would willingly make a switch to a worse system.

The woman then simply cut off her payments to TiVo hoping they would just terminate her contract. This is where the fixed contract problem kicks in. She no longer has a TiVo machine (I threw in on the municipal dump for her) and has not downloaded any of their services for three months; since the machine broke she has been unable to do so. However, Sky keep demanding the payment and this has run up payment-refusal charges by her bank to her. In addition, knowing that such companies ramp up debts for unpaid bills quickly and then send in nasty people to collect, she was terrified, desperately searching the internet for some clue as to how to cancel her contract. Finally today, by pestering Sky customer services down phone numbers that do not need you to enter a Sky account number she was able to get a TiVo phone number and finally after three months effort stop the contract (or she hopes she has, we will have to see if this the case). She has had to pay up for the three months' bills outstanding, which are paying for nothing as she has received nothing at all in that period from the company, plus the charges levied by the bank. Of course, having a blank face, making it impossible to contact them, works in Sky's favour. All over the country people are paying for services they are not receiving and cannot get out of. This may seem like ingenious business but in fact dents consumer confidence and simply fuels bad business practices.

If I was in Peter Mandelson's position, I would have brought forward a raft of consumer protection legislation. In fact I would go back to Margaret Beckett, back in 1997 when she became the first Secretary of State for Trade and Industry under Tony Blair (Mandelson briefly had the role in 1998 before it went to Stephen Byers) and say that New Labour, with its consumer-focused, modern party attitude of the era of service sector industry, needs proper protection, especially as back in the late 1990s new areas of trade notably via the internet were expanding. All companies should be compelled to make it easier to extract yourself from contracts. They should be compelled to have physical addresses you can write to, in order to do this. No company should be allowed to charge for a service that the user can no longer access. There should be a limit on all fixed-term contracts, such as you should be able to get out of any contract with 3 months' notice. I know rental contracts that even if you give immediate notice you want to leave the house, you will have to pay for a further 11 months for a house that you are no longer living in and most often has other tenants in it. This set of measures would have made a nice punchy package of legislation for the new government to show the people of Britain it was on their side. It is not revolutionary and actually would have encouraged good companies. Instead bad, nasty, greedy companies have been allowed to come to the fore and the blank face approach is a key weapon in their arsenal in squeezing every last drop from consumers in return for poor service and in fact, increasingly, often, for providing nothing at all.

Of course, this is not even a 'what if?', it is a fantasy, it was never going to happen. Blair only got into power with the backing of Rupert Murdoch and Murdoch's reward was to not to have to face any legislation that would have hampered the intimidationg business practices his company seems to relish. How close Blair and Murdoch were has often been revealed, for example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jul/23/newscorporation.rupertmurdoch
Even as prime minister Blair was flying out to address Murdoch's News International as if he was a private citizen that you can hire for after dinner speeches rather than leader of a country. Do not even get me started on how Murdoch has more control over legislation in the UK than the average government minister: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/murdoch-set-to-back-blair--for-a-place-in-his-boardroom-409652.html

You could tell that no minister under Blair would go anywhere near true consumer protection with such a businessman who loves underhand business approaches in such a strong position in regard to the British political scene. Thus, twelve years on, millions of UK citizens are suffering from being manhandled by service companies that feel it is fine to take money for services they are not providing and to make it so difficult for customers to escape from contracts. This is not going to change in the UK while politicians are so shackled to unscrupulous business people. Ironically Murdoch does not like David Cameron, because Cameron inherited his wealth rather than made it himself. Trapped between the interests of inherited wealth and wealth through hard-pressure techniques, the average British person is simply something to be squeezed into debt. On this basis there is no choice at all at the next election, neither of the leading parties will do anything to help you as a service consumer.