VIVAT REGINA ELIZABETHA!

Age shall not wither her, nor stain her infinite variety.  

  

Queen Elizabeth celebrates the
sixtieth anniversary of her coronation
on 6th June. Her matchless performance 
of selfless dedication to the nation are
indeed a reminder of the value of the
hereditary principle.

In these troubled times, the Queen
symbolises the value of continuity
provided by a constitutional monarchy,
untainted by the rough trade of politics.

Since the time of Magna Carta, the
paradox of our royal dynasty co-existing
with the progressive, democratic rights
of man has always defied rationality.

However, what is clear to everyone,
except the republicans, is that the
monarchy is a unifying influence,
promoting harmony in our complex,
multi-cultural communities, which
reflect the global reach of Britain's
imperial past.

We gain immeasurably from an
unpoliticised head of state.Those who
say otherwise should be careful of
what they wish for.

Queen Elizabeth: age shall not
wither her, nor stain her infinite
variety.

A COALITION OF COMPROMISE



Policies are not necessarily formed in the cerebral cortex.

The Chancellor's travails over how to
squeeze more from less in the public

sector reminds us that when sorrows

come they come not as single spies

but in battalions.

Each Tory compromise to appease 

Nick Clegg increases the muddle and 

likelihood that Ed Miliband and those

all too familiar names that spell disaster

will form the next government.

This they will hope to do with the

possible support of the potentially

politically promiscuous rump that is

the Liberal Democrats.

Polling just 11% in opinion polls, it's

a case of the tail wagging the dog, of 

George Osborne attempting to achieve

the impossible with one hand tied

behind his back.   

The daily confusion that is damaging

the Conservatives and the country

comes from inconsistencies that can

arise in a political marriage of

convenience.

It is a coalition that is beginning to

resemble a pantomime horse, with

policy and strategy formed not in

the cerebral cortex, but more at the

rear end.

ECONOMY - ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Liam Byrne - "There's no more money..."

George Osborne's task of balancing
the Government's books by seeking

a further 10% reduction in

departmental budgets is made even

more difficult by those within, who

are hostile to the concept of a

right-of-centre government and the

free market economy. 

As one former Labour minister

revealed, there was collusion

between Labour ministers and civil

servants to get as many contracts

as possible signed off before the

last general election. Its success

in achieving this can be summed

up by a note left by former Labour

minister, Liam Burn, to his Coalition

successor; 'There's no money left,

it's all gone'. It certainly had - an

annual surplus in public finances

when Labourtook office in 1997

becoming an annual deficit of

over £170bn by the time of the

election in 2010.  

Vince Cable also remarked " I

fear that a lot of bad news has

been hidden and stored up for the

new government." The £38.8bn of

waste identified could have been

just one example of the many fiscal

elephant traps set by union-financed

Labour to ruin the Coalition's

economic policy in the lead up to

the 2015 election.

It is, of course, quite possible that

such a mindset is part of a wider

pattern with regard to the leaders

of other groups, whose unrealistic

pay demands are manifestly not in

the national interest, but part of a

political strategy.

There are those on the Left who call
for legal accountability for the
directors of publicly-quoted
companies. This clearly already
exists under the Companies' Act
and the penalties are severe,
unlike in the public sector, where
there are no such sanctions.

APPOINT ON MERIT, NOT QUOTAS

Feminists who periodically raise the of
female quotas in senior appointments might
well ask what Margaret Thtcher's viewa
would have would have been on positive
discrimination, gender quotas, all-female
shortlists.The answer to the feminist lobby
from the greengrocer's daughter from
Grantham would, of course, have been
entirely unequivocal. She was the
ultimate role model of what can be
achieved by anyone, man or woman,
from any background, through applied
intelligence, determination and clarity of
vision.

Those who think otherwise often point to the

so-called glass ceiling, which can be an

expression of a desire for preferment on the

grounds of gender, rather than merit. Such a

notion does not bear scrutiny in these

challenging economic times when talent,

wherever it exists, is the most critical

determinant for restoring the country's

fortunes.

As Mrs Thatcher remarked "Remember,
everything is achievable if you work hard
at it." - a sentiment with which the record
number of women who are being appointed
to Britain's boadrooms would doubtless agree.

POWER CORRUPTS......

Nothing succeeds like success, nor                   

apparently does failure, if the obscene

pay-off with a £1.9m pension to Sir
David Nicholson, the failed head of the
NHS and former communist is anything
to go by. And while failure has always been
part of the human condition, failure in this
case is of a wholly exceptional kind.

The future for the 500 patients whose
lives were cruelly cut short by neglect and
incompetence is no more, their grieving
relatives unable to comprehend the deaths
of their loved ones at Stafford Hospital.

However, not so that for the one on whose
watch this nightmare was allowed to
happen. Undaunted by shame, Sir David
will collect a substantial lump sum and an
index-linked pension of a reported
£100,000 a year, having decided a time
of his own choosing to stand down.
Then, in common with colleagues who
have also left the hospital under a cloud,
he will doubtless be open to highly-paid
job offers and lucrative consultancy work.

At the same time, his wife, Sara-Jane
Marshall, a 34 year-old, former intern in
his office, will continue in her post as
chief executive officer at Birmingham
Children's Hospital on a salary of
£155,000 a year. It as been reported that
she was recommended for the position by
Sir David.

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, defends
the indefensible by saying that Sir David
Nicholson has been worth every penny, given
that his job has been incredibly complex and
difficult. Yet he has always had a reputation
for staying calm and maintaining a relentless
focus on what makes a difference.

As the Francis Report showed, at Stafford
Hospital it was a story of appalling
suffering. It happened within a culture
of secrecy, defensivenness and
performance targets. This was not
compassionate healthcare. It was a regime
devoid of humanity for which the head of the
NHS knows no shame. It was an intimidating
atmosphere of gagging orders and threats,
which hid the awful catalogue of events at an
institution that was rotten to the core.

The events at Stafford Hospital are thought
to be just the tip of the iceberg of what is
happening in the NHS. In Britain's
increasingly secular society, the NHS,
which employs more people than the
Red Army, is the nearest thing we have to
religion. It is based on the myth that infinite
demand can be funded from finite resources.

However, the NHS is not the only part of
the public sector where there is a serious
lack of accountability and a political elite
ignores the concerns of ordinary citizens.
It happened, for example, when a million
people marched on Westminister over
Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq on
the strength of a fraudulent dossier.

It was a similar story when the Labour
Government conspired to flood the country
with immigrants, in order to make Britain
an increasingly multi-cultural society
and improve its electoral chances.

A 2012 independent panel report on the
Hillsborough football disaster in 1989
when 96 people lost their lives and 766
were injured, revealed incompetence and
a total lack of accountability.There were
multiple failures by medical, emergency
services and public bodies, details of
which were kept from grieving relatives
and the public.

The BBC is a series of apparently self-
governing fiefdoms. It extracts some £3.5bn
a year from viewers under threat of
imprisonment if they do not pay the £148
annual licence fee. It has admitted that it
is politically biased and, as recent events
have shown, is a corrupt organisation,
broadcasting repeats and increasingly
inferior programmes.

Millions are squandered in the true,
unreformed, nationalised industry
tradition. Mediocre senior executives
receive outrageous golden goodbyes
and the public is powerless to change
an institution that is manifestly
unaccountable, protected by Royal
Charter.

It has just been reported that the BBC
has now discontinued a digital archiving
project, which would not have been fit
for purpose. They have said sorry for the
£100m write-off.

For over three hundred years, since the
abolition of the Star Chamber, the Fourth
Estate, has held governments to account
on behalf of the citizen. But this could be
about to come to an end, if the draconian
recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry
are implemented. This would be an end
of free-speech as we have known it, with
newspapers facing bankruptcy for
publishing that which the public has a
right to know.

THE EYES HAVE IT

The description 'swivel-eyed loons',

by an unamed source close to the

Prime Minster, directed at grass-root            

Conservatives, should not be

considered an insult. It was merely a

patriachal term of tolerance,

endearment almost, used by those who

are actually running the asylum at

Number 10. It refers, of course, to the

diminishing number of activists who

knock on doors in all weathers and

raise money to support the Party, but

apparently lack the intellect to

understand why David Cameron has

broken so many promises.They seem
increasingly to think that the Party he leads
has ceased being the Conservative Party,
becoming instead a kind of political theatre
of the absurd. The irony would certainly
not have been lost on another Feldman,
the late Marty Feldman, the great comedian.

MASCULINITY IN CRISIS

The somewhat perplexing narrative of        

the feminist Diane AbbottMP's lecture

this week in London at Demos about the

crisis of masculinity calls for a multi-
faceted re-definition of what makes a
man.

Feminism has and continues to re-define
the identities of young, mainly working-
class men, to whom Ms Abbott refers. In                 
doing so, middle-class followers of the
feminist movement have successfully 
skewed society to reflect their own,
continuing, Marxist, anti-male agenda.

Endemic since the 1980s, it is a process
that has been given added impetus by
accelerating economic and social change.
It has happened at a time when Britain has
been transformed from an industrial to
a mainly service economy, where
different, 'soft' skills are in increasing
demand.

The result has been the greater
empowerment of women in the
workplace over the past fifty years.
They have benefited from improved
educational opportunities and the
ability to control their fertility. It has
meant growing financial independence
from men, not only for those in work,
but also for young, single mothers who
have been prioritised for housing and
receive attractive state benefits.

Along with this has been the changing
perception of what is meant by a
nuclear family. It is a complex and
fluid picture. Marriage continues
to decline with 42% of marriages
ending in divorce. Serial monogamy
and cohabitation between single-sex
couples are common.

Gone is much of the stability and
certainty of family life in the 1950s.
In its place are more fragmented
environments, often devoid of the
influence of paternal role models,
which are so important in the
development of the male identity.

Feminist opinion-formers in
politics, education, and especially
in the media are not seeking a
comapact between the sexes, but
female preferment, in the form
of positive discrimination. The 
impact of the corrosive influence 
that the feminist lobby has had on
female attitudes to men has been
profound. 

In education, where only 12% of
primary school teachers are male,
the predominantly female culture 
cannot, nor in many cases would
it seek to, encourage the
development of the male identity
as such. Female characteristics are
seen as good, male as bad. Many
male graduates are put off teaching
by the threat of being falsely
accused of improper behaviour, the
consequences of which are often 
devastating.

Gender bias continues into
secondary education. Some ten
years' ago, Jenny Murray, presenter
of the BBC Woman's Hour, asked
a guest why boys outperformed girls
in GCSEs. She was told that boys 
responded better to the pressure of
an examination, whereas girls
preferred coursework. 

Murray's reply was that if that was
the system, then change it. It was
and the result of less rigour has
undermined the credibility of the
examination system in schools and
further up the learning process in
higher education.

This creates the backgound for the
the root causes of many of the chronic
social problems relating to young
men that Diane Abbott highlights. 
They leave school with inferior
qualifications, poorer job prospects
and face unemployment. Dismissed 
as potential husbands, fathers and
providers by young women who are
supported by the state, they feel
unwanted and express growing anger. 

Greater tolerance in society for
generalised 'men are useless'
statements, jokes, advertisements
and so on, than would be used to refer
to any other group, reflects a situation
for which there is an increasing
human and economic cost.

A significant cause of the problem
that society has with its young men
is, as Ms Abbott states, their bleak
environment. However, setting aside 
the various red herrings she throws
into the mix, in order to justify her 
thesis, a key factor is overlooked: the
role of feminism in creating that
environment. 

The Labour MP and misandrist
should be calling to re-establish a
more 'multi-faceted' notion of what
makes a feminist, one that seeks
equality and harmony in humankind,
not conflict between the sexes 



John Barker, MA, accepts commissions
to research and write articles on business,
economics and politics, together with
market research reports. Contact:Email:
executiveprofiles@btconnect.com



  




  

   

EU REFERENDUM - CAMERON'S FAILURE TO DELIVER

David Cameron's intention to publish a Bill 
commiting him to an EU referendum in an             

in or out referendumin 2017, is an act of 

appeasement to Conservative back-

benchers. It is the like of which has not

been seen since Neville Chamberlain returned
from Munich in 1938 with a piece of paper
promising peace in our time.

Canute-like, the Prime Minister wills the tide
of public clamour for the repatriation of
sovereign powers to Westminister to recede.
He will fail because people have no faith that
this promise of a referendum will amount to
anything more than that which he has promised
but failed to deliver in the past. It raises the
question of where Mr Cameron's inclinations
really lie - for Britain to be increasingly part
of an economically and politically disfunctional
EU, or set free to trade independently with the
world's emerging economies.

Refused parliamentary time to debate the

referendum by the Liberal Democrat Leader,
the strategy to introduce a private member's Bill
faces the twin obstacles, first of being selected,
then being filibustered out. All of which makes t
he exercise nothing more than a charade,
designed to wrong-foot Mr Miliband and
Mr Clegg on the question of the referendum.

This pointless spectacle can only increase the

disaffection of voters, of whom even fewer
than the 65% who turned out at the last
general election, may bother to vote in 2015.

DEMOCRACY DENIED

These are perilous political and economic
times. Is our parliamentary system in which
MPs will be denied the right to call
Government ministers to account during
the forthcoming seventy-six day summer
recess, fit for purpose? When the recess

comes to an end on 15th October,
Westminster then goes into the party
conference season, adding a further three
weeks to the political paralysis.

 It has been said that MPs need the long
summer break in order to think and to reflect.
Some may question whether time spent doing
so during present parliamentary sessions is
being used entirely effectively and call not
only for improved policies and strategic
input, but also an extention of the number
of sittings.

The Prime Minister and Opposition leaders
should undertake a review of the long summer
break, which may have been appropriate in
the early Nineteenth Century, but certainly
not now with the need to respond immediately
to unpredictable global events.

Public disenchantment with politics is at an
all-time high. MPs are seen as being increasingly
out of touch with those whom they are paid to
represent.The growing apathy of voters and
their disconnect from the political process
can be seen in declining turnouts at general
elections. In 1950, 84% of the electorate voted,
whereas in 2010 it was just 65% and nothing
suggests that this will change.

The mood of cynicism is the result of the main
parties gravitating to the ideological centre-
ground and those in the Westminster bubble
appearing to represent only themselves, rather,
that their constituents.

MPs expenses and failure to address the concerns
of ordinary people are fuelling resentment,
exacerbated by deep cuts in public spending. On
the state of the economy, Europe, immigration
and a wide range of other crucial issues, voters'
voices are not being heard and this poses an
increasing threat to democracy.

This feeling of disenfranchisement has prompted
people to ask if it is worth voting, a view that is
compounded by the fact that there seem to be few
substantive policy differences separating the
Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Labour.

However, this malaise will inevitably turn to
frustration and anger, as the pain of austerity
continues. Voters are turning to UKIP as the
catalyst that will address what is happening
in an overcrowded Britain, requiring strong
leadership, driven by principle, not focus
groups.

UKIP's star is in the ascendent, but for how
long? Long enough, it is hoped, to
influence the Conservative leadership to
dissolve its unworkable political marriage
of convenience with the Liberal Democrats.
It must do what it takes to stand any chance
of a working majority in 2015. Britain's
survival depends on it.





 

 
 

EU - MORE KNOWNS THAN UNKNOWNS

Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Defence Secretary,
observed at the time of the Iraq war that there are
things that we know and there are things that we
we don't know. So what are the knowns
and unknowns about Britain's EU membership
and how are events likely to unfold?

We know, for example, that in 1975 the British
people thought that they were voting for the free
movement of goods and services in a common
market. As we have seen, this was a fraudulent
prospectus. The EU's founding fathers obscured
their intention to create a federal Europe by
presenting it as a trading arrangement with
obvious economic benefits. They knew from
outset that this could never work without both
economic and political union. It was
surreptitiously planned that this would be a
gradual process, eventually arriving at a point
of no return.

The result of the deception can be seen in 
impoverishment and growing civil unrest on
the streets of southern Europe. Having
given up their original currencies, which
reflected the competitive state of their
economies, for the euro, these countries are
locked into a deeply flawed, one-size-fits-all
social experiment. The UK would be suffering
the same fate if Tony Blair had succeeded in
taking us into the single currency.

In Britain, we know that the tide of public
anger will, sooner or later, break the political
and economic mould imposed on millions
by an unelected and unaccountable EU
leadership. Growing exponentially, this is
a bureaucratic machine, which has become
the master, not the servant of the people.

It is inevitable that certain countries will
have to go through the painful process of
leaving the euro. They will become
competitive through a lower exchange
rate and growing their economies.Those
in northern Europe will develop a more
flexible relationship, against the changing
patterns of world trade.

The EU's approach seemingly to control
almost every aspect of its citizens' lives
reflects the features of a totalitarian regime.
Everthing from human rights and
immigration to employment law and health
and safety is dictated by Brussels. 70% of
all secondary legislation comes straight out
of the EU Commission on to the UK
government's statute book, without scrutiny,
or a vote.

Red tape, often gold-plated by civil servants,
has cost business some £700m over the last
two years and is seriously weakening its
ability to compete. The proposed
introduction of the so-called TOBIN tax on
financial transactions would be a devastating
blow to the City of London. It would undermine
its position as the world's leading financial
centre and result in further heavy job losses.

Where national referendums on EU
membership have been held the result has
not always to been the to the liking Jose Manuel
Barroso, President of the European Commission.
Where the vote has been negative, his response
has been "Let them carry on voting, until they
get it right". Herbert van Rompuy, President of
the European Council, appears similarly
contemptuous of the democratic process.

Taxpayers, especially in Germany and Britain -
the only net contributors to the EU - are
reminded that its accelerating budget has
not been signed off for eighteen years. And
while the majority of the EU's population
suffers, the bureaucrats certainly do not.
One eample, in particular, stands out.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the mono-
lingual, allegedly ineffectual, former CND
worker with a tendency to miss important
meetings, is an alarming case in point. The
EU High Represenataive for Foreign Affairs
and Security since 2009 will be paid £133,500
a year, 55% of her basic salary when her
five-year term ends next year, until 2017.

The transitional arrangement does not require
her to undertake any duties and her
compensation will attract a lower tax rate than
in the UK. In addition, she will be entitled to
a daily tax-free sum of £300 for sitting in the
House of Lords.

Lord Lawson of Blaby is right to advocate that
the UK should withdraw from the EU. He
believes that it would do so from a position of
relative strength. Nick Clegg's assertion that
3m jobs would be lost if Britain were to leave
the EU appears to be entirely without foundation.
The former Chancellor has said that "the relevant
economic context now is not Europe, but
globalisation. He "strongly suspects that there
would be a positive economic advantage in
Britain leaving the single market".

The UK has a £40bn trade deficit with the EU,
so what would be the logic of its members not
doing business with Britain? Here, Germany, which
shares many of our values, is a good example. For
every £100 Britain exports to Germany, it imports
£170 worth of goods and services. The Bundesbank
has stated that Anglo-German trade  rose to £153bn
in the first nine months of 2012. This makes the UK
Germany's key trading partner, heralding a special
relationship between Europe's two like-minded
northern powers. For both countries it signals a
lessening of trade links with EU and a developing
trend to embrace the wider world.

The UK sells more to the rest of the world than
it does to the EU. Last year, Britain's exports to
twenty-six EU countries decreased by 7.3%,
reflecting the eurozone crisis. Exports elsewhere
rose by 13.2% overall with those to China growing
by 26.3%. Emerging markets are the future.The
the largely insolvent countries of Europe,
with flat-lining economies and unsustainable
social spending, funded by debt, are the past.

It comes as no surprise that figures for the
analysis of the costs of Britain's membership of
the EU are difficult to come by.The last such
research was carried out by the Bruges Group in
2008. Then the cost was put at £65bn: £28bn for
business to comply with EU regulations, £17bn
of additional food costs, resulting from the
Common Agricultural Policy, £3.3bn - the value
of the catch lost when the Common Fisheries
Policy allowed other countries to fish in UK
territororial waters and £14.6bn gross, paid into
the EU budget and other EU funds (in 2011 this
had risen to £19bn). One fifth of this money
has either been borrowed from overseas' bond
holders, or produced electronically through
quantitative easing.

To return to Donald Rumsfeld's known and
unknowns, David Cameron has again promised
what he cannot deliver, an in-or-out referendum
on Britain's membership of the EU. He said that
proposed legislation in 2017 would be included
in the Queen's Speech, but issued a discreet
retraction because the Liberal Democrats would
not agree. Of course, all the indications are that
Mr Cameron will not be Prime Minister in four
years' time, so the question becomes rather
academic.

At the same time, the Prime Minister maintains
that he will succeed in achieving a substantial
repatriation of sovereign powers back to
Westminister. This seems unlikely, since all
twenty-six other EU members would have to
agree.

What appears likely is that Mr Cameron will
return from Europe with concessions that
amount to little more than the wholly
unacceptable status quo. Some believe that his
position on the EU is more in tune with his
political idol, Tony Blair, and question whether
he is in the right Party.     

 The main unknown about the EU, is how long
can its leaders defy the economic and political
laws of gravity. Will it implode, or proceed to
being a federal state with growing German
hegemony, as it  bears the cost of this
monstrous folly that is the EU?

WHAT IS A GRADUATE JOB?

 

Answer: Any job that is done by a graduate.

For the diminishing, fortunate few, it's a training
post with a major organisation in the corporate
sector, or perhaps in legal or financial services.
But these areas, once providing the certainly of
a well-paid, long-term, career, are being
transformed by the dynamics of change,
technological and financial.

For the many, however, it means compromise,
graduates taking jobs for which they are
over-qualified: the barrister, new from Bar finals
with £50k of debt, working as a Barista at Costa
Coffee, the finance graduate
from one of the elite Russell Group universities,
employed in stock control, the English graduate
shelf-stacker, the list goes on. And the competition
gets stiffer. UK universities continue to churn out
increasing numbers of young hopefuls to meet
Tony Blair's absurd 50% target for young people
going to university. As W S Gilbert observed in
The Goldoliers, "When every one is somebody,
then no-one's anybody."

The graduate job market is predicted to remain
weak throughout 2013, with employers receiving
56 applicants for every job, up 7% on last year.
Some 58% of graduates are in low-skilled
employment, or not in work. This makes the
1.027m 16-24 year-olds on NEETS - not in
education, employment or training, even less
attractive to employers at the low end of the
market.

While much of the problem should be seen
within the context of the continuing recession,
the need for structural reforms is crucial.  Training
more scientists and technologists is key to our
economic survival. David Willetts, the minister
for universities and science has just announced
a £950m initiative to fund the technologies that
will drive growth and improve Britain's ability
to compete.

Of course, this is to be welcomed, but accelerating
the growth of manufacturing - about 11% of GDP
in the UK, compared with China's 32%, South
Korea's 25% and Germany's 21% will take time.
Major investment in science and advanced
manufacuring will create graduate jobs. Given
Britain's still prevalent culture of attaching more
prestige to the professions, rather than making
things, begs the question - will there be sufficient
home-grown science and technology graduates
to meet the demand?  Or, will the familiar pattern
of importing talent be repeated?  In the UK 45% of
all degrees are in science or engineering.This
compares with China, 95%, South Korea, 75%,
together with Austria and Finland, each with
around 60% and Germany with 45%.

Closing the gap between education and the
world of work is key to getting more graduates
into employment. It seems that linking academic
study with vocational training is now being given
more emphasis through advanced apprenticeships.
For too long a university education has been more
about the Enlightenment than creating the practical
wherewithal for our society to create the wealth
needed to provide for its citizens. This is a tall
order in Britain, Europe's most populous country.