Where now

   I have just been for a run and was horrified to see a school open. I think the unions should do a name and shame list. All those schools that have kept open, the school was Angel Road Primary, probably technically junior & infants, but let us not be pedantic. Yoy can tell it is a really up to date school, I just checked their website and this is the opening announcement
"Please note school is closed to pupils on Thursday 30th June & Friday 1st July 2011 for Professional Development days"


  Don't the people who run these schools realise that they are just playing into the hands of the Tories. It has always been quite simple, the Tories are about keeping the rich rich and if possible richer. What happens to everyone else is irrelevant, if they get poorer why worry. The serious question is why they persuade so many people to vote for them. It has seemed to me that they are either stupid or greedy. Stupid is clear but greedy, well they think they will become rich if the Tories are in power.

  We see them operating in this way, they have just given Mr Branson £400 million pounds. He really needs it. What will happen to that money, it will end up salted away in Mr Branson's off-shore accounts, which I think is appropriately in British Virgin Islands Of course this doesn't just mean his profits but when many of his companies go bust no one gets paid and he just salts away on money he has taken out of the company. For an old version of his antics see http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/dec/12/digitalmedia.broadcasting. For a more up to date version see http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2011/07/virgin-enterprise-off-to-geneva-to.html

 So why do people like the head of some schools want to support a right wing government which is trying to screw him, and it is a him, and most of the parent in his school?

Enterprise & the public sector

  On Saturday I went to see the play "War Horse". It is a totally stunning piece of theatre. a large cast, needs a big stage and it was packed, it was a Saturday evening the people next to me had booked in May and this was the first day, 6 months later, that they could get 4 seats in a row. The puppetry of the horses was brilliant and the goose was brilliant, how can you get so much expression into a flapping piece of wood. All of this to tell a moving story about the tragedy of war.

  By now you might be wondering what has this got to do with enterprise and the public sector. The play began life in the National Theatre, a national subsidised enterprise. If one believes those of the right it cannot produce anything new and exciting, only the prrivate sector can do that. This is such clear ly rubbish that wonders why so many people keep repeating it as if it were true.

  One of the key arguments for austerity is that if the public sector has a large share of the GDP then this will stifle innovation and new developments. The argument is invented by the rich to justify keeping rich and has very little justification. As I have argued before and will probably argue again two of the most revultionar developments in the last 25 years have been the internet and the web, neither of which had anything to do with the private sector.

Swiss Gnomes

    I am old enough to remember when countries were held to account by the "Gnomes of Zurich". If they weren't happy the country went bust!  Now it seems to be the "markets". The investors who buy Greek or Italian bonds charge interest, presumably they charge interest because there is a risk if they underestimated the risk they is the penalty and market discipline says that you go under.  But not for the lords of the finance houses, not only do they pocket the profits, they pass the losses onto the people whilst keeping the profits to themselves, a great we win you lose game.

  But what are the European politicians playing at? The Greek economy is about 5% of the EC, so if the EC wants to bail Greece out there is no difficulty but of course the Greeks are the undeserving poor and they must be punished. An effective solution might be to pay off the Greek debt and then throw them out of the Euro, this would mean they could devalue  and get their economy up to strength. All those form rich Europe could pour in and go on holiday.  This would give the Greeks a chance to sort themselves out. One of their problems, as with Italy, is the large size of the black economy with people using cash and avoiding paying tax. That will not be changed overnight so the austerity measures might keep the "markets" happy briefly it will have no long term impact. Just remember it took the second world war to get Britain out of the effects of the great depression, not sure anyone wishes to repeat the exercise!