Bankers & Politicians

The otherI was just reading the BBC News website when I saw an item about Dr Liam Fox. He says that he wants to return to the front bench, he realises he was careless but has paid the penalty.

The chutzpah of the man is almost unbelievable, he is clearly totally corrupt politically and thinks he hasn't behaved badly. Is it the same attitude that the bankers have? Somehow they are so important and successful that they can do no wrong, when they make a mistake it is merely careless not wrong. We saw the same thing happening with MP's expenses, it was just an oversight!

What have I done wrong

I got this e-mail, can someone tell me what I done wrong

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The Useless Lords

  Once again the House of Lords have failed Britain and democracy. What is  their excuse this time for letting through the totally iniquitous bill about health. They cannot oppose the House of Commons, the democratically elected chamber.

 The difficulty is that the members might be democratically elected but once elected they behave totally undemocratically. There was nothing about health service reform in either of the coalition parties manifestos, in fact David Cameron went so far as to promise that there would be no top-down reforms.

  Clearly Clegg, over Tuition Fees, and Cameron over the health service are unreconstructed liars. Surely it is the job of the Upper Chamber to protect the public from such unsavoury behaviour. The need for a proper upper chamber which can take on the dictatorial House of Commons is greater than it has been since Lloyd George set about the early reforms. 

  There are two issues which need to be addressed, one is the professional MP who will do anything to claw their way up[ the ladder. This will get even worse with a smaller house since even more of the winning side will be part of the pay roll debate. 

  The second issue must be the role of the public school boy, it is not surprising that both Clegg & Cameron are public school boys who obviously believe that behaving honourably to the public is of no consequence, after all the lower classes are just there to be used and abused.  This government shows a complete lack of interest in the poorer members of society, it is all very Victorian.

   If Britain want to move into the 21st century it needs to do two thing urgently, create a proper upper chamber and get rid of the monarchy, at least the hangers on and houses they seem to have access to.

Sex or Money

Reading about the Fox  & Werritty affair one begins to wonder quite what the connection is between them is. They seem to have met when Werritty was a student at Edinburgh and he was studying politics and policy. So  that they met was not surprising  what is surprising is their continued relationship.

   If it was just the case of Fox taking him under his wing as a young man with potential one would be less surprised, but by now we would expect Werritty to be a Tory MP, not apparently hanging on to Fox's coattails in the is strange way. Je could have been appointed as a special adviser. Many ministers appoint young people as their gofers. But Fox did not do that so what is going on?


 My suspicious mind thinks of only two possibilities, one is that Werritty and Fox are involved in some complex financial scam and that Werritty does Fox's dirty work so that Fox can appear to be uninvolved for political purposes. The other scenario and one that seems more likely to me, is that they are lovers. It is probably still true that within the Tory party such behaviour is frowned on, at least if it is public. Fox is a darling of the right wing and that section of the Tory party is more given to homophobia that the more Liberal wing.

  If this were a novel the reality would be that Werritty is the love child of Fox whom he fathered when he was 16 but that is definitely life in a novel but it would make a great story and Fox might even come out of it with some credit!

Growing old

   It has interesting sign of growing old is in the next few weeks I have invited the 60th birthday party at 70th birthday party and an 80th birthday party. I conclude that I  am now old.  To be honest I felt  that when I got to  my 70th birthday.  It is in the recall three score years and ten that made me feel that way I certainly didn't when I was 40 or 50 or 60.

 One of the problems of getting old is that politicians seem so  young and innocent but I'm not sure that you can use the word innocent about politicians. Mind you it does not seem just longer young politicians arm badly behaved I was listening to the debate in the House of Lords on the housing and was just amazed at t6he dishonesty some of the Peers showed. they seem to be attending that somehow competition and the market will improve the standards of healthcare.  This fails to understand how the market works, it works because those which are incompetent fail and replaced by better companies. the problem with this model in the health service is that by the time company show itself in the incompetent many would die or be mutilated by the incompetence.

 To introduce such a radical changes without properly modelling what might happen is quite frightening and shows either an arrogance or ignorance which is quite frightening. When will those who rule us learn to think through the  affects of their decisions and rather than jumping to ideological conclusions.

  This means me back to the theme of age. Some of us as we grow older and learn to think that consequences of our decisions are often not what we expect. so we try to think more carefully about what might happen when we do something it can sometimes they want to cautious and unwilling to take risks, this can also be a serious danger but the combination of both serious considerations of decision, as well is taking considered risks should lead to much better decision making..

  I am trying use the software package Dragon naturally and sometimes seems to try to tell me what I'm trying to say when not Sign anything like I am. For example does "same" sound anything like "Same"? At perhaps when you speak in the voice of an old man who programme just cannot cope.

  That is an old man I'm very concerned about the health service because I live much longer when demands of anything much greater and I would not like to think that decisions were taken about my treatment by how much profit the doctor is going to make out of his advice.  I believe that George Bernard Shaw considered this problem in one of his plays that perhaps someone who reads my blog and tell me which of his plays it was.

How do polticians get away with it

 Liam Fox has not been found guilty and has not been found innocent, so there is an enquiry into his behaviour.  If he was  a teacher or doctor or even a policeman he would now be suspended until the decision was made.  But Dr Fox as a politician and a minister so somehow he is allowed to continue carrying on his duties as a minister despite the fact that there is an enquiring into his behaviour. so the next few months whilst the  enquiry takes place he can go on using his office and behaving as he wishes.

  It is just interesting that MPs and politicians somehow think they can behave in the worst way than any other public servant.  It's just because they recognise that they are a very unimportant people so that they cheat and behave improperly as a matter of no import.  It has been the same with  respect to their pensions and to their behaviour on the fiddling expenses.  Perhaps we will get no one to respect politicians until they learn to behave honourably.

  On a completely different note I was thinking about the governments policy on whether people who are ill can work. One of the difficulties is that the government can't really know. So why not let employers organisations make the decision,  Obviously if the tax payer is footing the bill they will make  more & more people unfit for work. So any funding for people who are not fit enough to work should be paid by employers from a payroll tax. That way they would have an incentive to help people get back to work. They might even find that flexible working for those with health problems would be a really good idea.

The weekend

Someone asked me what were my plans for the weekend. Well the weekend was as planned. It involved palyng bridge on Saturday evening, driving to Peterborough at midnight. We, that is most of the family and then part in the great Eastern Run. My wife and I only did the 4k run.

I am trying to use Dragon naturally to type this blog but it does not seem to be working very well.  I will persevere in the hope that it begins to learn the sort of language that I use and not writing simply random phrases. it is not like the word run and the kept typing of Ron. it seems slightly odd error but it is only a computer and we all know that they are not very bright.

I just say the word "back" and it took a has an instruction so I then have to find a draft of this blog, fortunately I did.  What I was going so was was "back" the run.  I managed to do the the race in 28 minutes which isn't too bad for an old man.  This year I am 70 but because the race is a week later year I will be 72 I really ought to do it again.

I have been following the saga of Liam Fox with some amusement and a slight sense that we have no sense of behaviour of politicians in this country.  The discussion seems to centre around whether or not he has broken the ministerial code but it seems to me that he has behaved improperly irrespective of whether or not broken the code. How can he allow a friend to use his office and then take him around the world meeting people as if he was part of the ministerial entourage when the individual had no official position.  It might just have been Mr Fox being a nice to an old friend with no possible for all the advantage for himself but it is still unacceptable behaviour for a minister.  If he makes such poor judgements about matters of this nature it makes it very difficult to have much faith in the quality of his decisions as a minister.  It is interesting that he was recently blaming ministry of defence officials for the problems of the Armed Forces but perhaps these officials are not his friends and so he rather uses them as scapegoats to get himself off the hook. Fox should resign immediately and they do not understand how Cameron allows him to stay irrespective of any further investigation.

When I started this blog I did say that it would be rather random thoughts of an elderly mathematician I think this particular blog lives up to my byline.

Local shopping

A few days ago I ended up chairing a meeting of the St Augustine's Community group, http://www.staugustinesnorwich.org.uk/. One of the Green councillors brought up the issue of a group who have set up a small holding just outside Norwich, http://www.norwichfarmshare.co.uk/share-our-vegetables/how-does-it-work/. You join and do a few days voluntary work and get a box delivered weekly to somewhere in Norwich, in fact quite near St Augustine's St.

It sounds very good but my wife pointed out that  in the local shopping centre, Anglia Square,  there is a local greengrocer. If we got our box would we stop buying stuff from them, presumably  the local produce would not have oranges and bananas. We also have a good local butcher. if we want to keep the community going we need to have local shops and there will only be local shops if we all shop  locally.


On the Saturday there was a celebration of Magdalen Street and many of its local shops. It was fun but the weather was probably too good, people went to the coast. instead. One difficulty was that they set up the music under the flyover, obviously a good protection against the rain but the effect of the traffic noise made it hard to hear.

All I can say is try to support your local shops, though it is hard when they aren't very good!