Penny Bizarre ?

OK we’re in a recession, a credit crunch. These are “hard times”, and there’s economic doom and gloom ahead. So no surprise to see that top UK store and perennial favourite Marks & Spencer are having their share of misery as well.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8056809.stm

“M&S cuts dividend as profits fall” reads the headline; on the day that the 125-year-old retailer said it had decided to rebase its dividend payment to 15p a share from the previous level of 22.5p. Shares later lost more than 8% of their value in response to the news.

I’m no economist but I couldn’t help wondering whether this news was quite as bad as it seemed

Annual pre-tax profits fell to £706m from £1.1bn the year before. Quite a drop eh ? But wait a minute - £706 Million pounds – and remember that’s after paying the wages of every employee – they’ve still taken more than £10 for every man woman and child in the country. I wish my company was doing that badly.

Total sales actually rose 0.4% to £9.1bn. – which gives a profit margin of 7.7% - not bad at all. Certainly not compared with what you’d get putting your money in a building society.

But it’s not good enough for the high flying M&S, and they’ve taken a "tough but necessary" decision to close 27 stores, and lose 1,200 jobs in a move to make things better.

I wonder how necessary that really was ? Let’s say the 1200 people were paid an average of £30,000 pa – probably much lower, but it makes my calculations easier, and takes a rough estimate at “on costs” on board. So 1200 jobs would cost them £ 36 000 000 a year – barely a scrape off that dreadfully poor profit of £706 Million. In fact if you took that off the profit you’d be left with a profit of £670 Million – in other words reducing it by around 5%. So assuming that if they did this they’d have to reduce shareholders dividends by 5% as well, then they’d cut them to – well actually about 14 pence instead of 15 pence.

So which is best ? – losing 1200 jobs and giving the shareholders an extra penny a share, or keeping the jobs, and giving them a penny less ?

Well you can see how I’m thinking, but I may be wrong. I certainly am not an economist, my calculations are sketchy to say the least, and I have always heard very good things about how M&S give back to society, and how they treat their employees.

I do feel though that our society is missing something. We’re trying to measure the success of our businesses purely in terms of money. We’re forgetting that money is really only a token to be exchanged for “good things”. Sometimes those good things can be provided in ways that money can’t buy in the usual sense – good things like job security; like economic stability.

I’m not suggesting that M&S share holders aren’t entitled to make a profit, but I know that if M&S was a co-operative, their profits today wouldn’t be seen as disappointing – they’d be seen as fantastic.

I feel that too often businesses judge themselves by how much better they are doing than last year – not how much profit, but how much more profit, and perhaps not even how much more, but on how quickly the rate of increase is improving.

Perhaps what they should really be asking, is – Are our customers satisfied ? Are our employees happy to work for us ? and finally - Have we made enough profit ? because more than enough, can be greedy.

In short I feel that businesses should have a social conscience and should consider it a part of their mission plan, to promote social cohesion, and communal well being.

Idealistic ? I think so – but worthy of consideration I think

Gurkhas, Gordon Brown & Football supporters - musings on a week in politics

As a Labour supporter I wasn't particularly happy at the Government’s defeat on Wednesday over the issue of residency for Gurkhas . Also the flurry of blog postings variously either defending Gordon Brown or calling for a new leader were hardly evidence which pointed to a 4th term in office.

That many of responses on these blogs were also dominated by nihilist trolls after this didn't help much either. We get a lot of talk among politico net newbies these days about "Internet memes" - well the one that sprang to mind on Wednesday was "all your base are belong to us" !

Or if you prefer football jargon : I felt like the away team had taken our end ! Put in plain English, a bad day for Labour.

It needn't be like this. Gordon Brown was until fairly recently, widely regarded as the best chancellor for years, but now in a world where global capitalism is thoroughly discredited who gets a bad time ? The Capitalists ? No – the Labour chancellor who spent year after year counseling against boom and bust economics – but now he's somehow responsible for the whole world's mess.

We're also in a period where Labour leaning blogs and websites are really stimulating sensible and informed discussion about politics - involving voters and politicians on more or less equal terms. It’s certainly connected with me in a way that I’d have never thought possible – the very fact that I’m writing this at all bears testimony to that. Three months ago I would not have.

Great times then ?

No - instead we get Labour lambasted (with some justification) because of "smears" in the McBride-Draper affair, but meanwhile the odious Guido Fawkes site still dominates headlines and pumps out it's infantile bilge. In a rare visit to the site yesterday I found the Prime Minister referred to as a "twat" – which is presumably a pithy high brow intellectual gem of wisdom that went right over my head. Other sites too have a similar level of discussion and if we’re going with the football theme, they’re not dissimilar to the kind of forums that say :

“Man U suck !”

“No they don’t they rule – Chelsea are crap”

“F*** off Man U are Sh***”

“No you F*** off – Chelsea are scum”

You get the drift – no logic, no debate, just childish vitriol – often not even connected with the events of the day or the comments under discussion. No room for any consideration of opposing points of view, or even any real acknowledgement of concurring points of view”

Commenters and bloggers of this kind should be like fish in a barrel - easy to shoot down - and yet they're continually making negative waves for the incumbent Government with apparent immunity.

To come back to yesterday’s defeat in parliament; giving greater rights of residency to Ghurkas should have been a feel good story for Labour. It has obvious public support potential and offers an opportunity to make pseudo-racist media grit their teeth and welcome some foreigners, all relating to a fairly inconspicuous bit of business. But clearly the proposals didn’t go far enough – and look what happened !

Did no one think to look on Facebook and see how many people were shouting up about the Ghurkas ? - the public support was certainly obvious to lots of other people. It’s an episode that gives an impression of the Government being out of touch with the public.

The other self-inflicted non-story which shouldn't be doing damage, but is, is the petition to get Gordon Brown to resign, on the Government’s own Downing Street web-site.

Again there are parallels with football – it reminds me of the web poll which suggested that Wembley Way be renamed after a Scottish footballer, and the other poll deciding that the new stand at Manchester City would be named the Bell End. Who is moderating the PM’s web site ? It's not restricting free speech to have rules that say "Don't diss the PM on his own site !" . The net result is that a fairly lame schoolboy prank, ends up making the Prime Minister look silly, and steals the headlines .

But sad to say I can't help but feel there are more banana skins in the pipeline. This week we had announcements from Harriet Harman on equality legislation hinting at positive discrimination (as has been already negatively spun by the Daily Mail), and also word from Jacqui Smith on internet service providers and phone companies having to keep a record of all web, email, and phone contacts (Daily Mail ). Leaving aside debates about these issues, it seems clear to me that both of the provide potential for controversy both inside and outside the Labour party – which frankly it could well do without just now.

Positive discrimination hands a free shot to the BNP in run up to the Euro elections. I haven't seen the details of the proposals and I suspect many haven’t - but when has that ever stood in the way of a nasty Daily Mail story ? Whilst I appreciate the difficulties that exist in some spheres, of promoting minority groups to take up a more realistic and greater representation of roles within those spheres, theres a very strong argument that says that discrimination in favour of one group, is discrimination against another. In the current climate, the press would (will) have a field day with this.

Similarly the internet & phone proposals will be seen to put the party that champions freedom of information, on the backfoot on that very issue. The Labour party is traditionally seen as one that promotes libertarian values, that doesn’t want individuals to be under surveillance and constantly checked up on – so this will be an area that will be exploited by opponents – and will inevitably get mixed in with the confusion on ID cards.

Note I’m not passing any comment on either of the proposals – I’m sure there are very good reasons for them, and pluses and minuses in both. Yet it’s so obvious what the media will latch on to : “powers to discriminate in favour of women and black job candidates” and “Yesterday's consultation document made no attempt to hide the fact it was considered the most 'effective' way of spying on our every move”

In the current climate these are weak areas for Labour to push to the forefront, amid a not very benevolent press culture. If they win the next election, then they’ll be able to debate the finer points.

So that brings me finally to the issue of leadership of the party – should Gordon Brown resign ? Should he be forced out ?

Well we’re back to football again – if the team’s not doing well : Sack the manager ! Well sacking the manager sometimes creates a long term improvement. Sometimes it creates a short term bounce, and sometimes it creates a short term dip. It always creates a difficult transition time – which any team/party could do without in the run up to an important game/election. I don’t think you should sack the manager if you can help it.

This manager/Prime minister though looks nervous. The much trumpeted faux pas yesterday on leaving the chamber too soon – trivial in itself, was indicative of a man under stress. He also looks nervous – odd even – on the videos on YouTube – which seem stilted. It seems odd that a man who could be on prime time television more or less any time he wants to be chooses to use a means of making his announcements more attuned to Al-Qaeda than to the British Government. I couldn’t help wondering if Osama Bin Laden were watching this in his hideout somewhere saying – “Well it looks like him, but maybe it was filmed a few months ago, and we think the audio has been overdubbed – it could have been filmed anywhere”.

But I’m not going to go calling for resignations. What I would call for is for the Labour Party to recognise the seriousness of the situation, and demonstrate the leadership and verve which brought them to power in the first place.

There are elections to be won – not lost ! – Does anyone really want to return to the greed and arrogance of the Thatcher years ? Does Gordon Brown being made fun of by a juvenile website make me forget that this high spot for unemployment in Labour’s tenure – was actually the low spot of unemployment for the Tories ? Do we really believe that the cure for woes inflicted by corrupt greedy capitalist bankers and financiers in the current economic downturn will be to elect the champions of the rich and selfish elite ?

I don’t think so – but then not everyone is as interested in politics as I am. Some will need more persuading. The time is ripe for some very strong leadership from Gordon Brown, and indeed the rest of the Labour Party : Cometh the hour – cometh the man ! (as they say on Sky Sports !)

Stuff that gets my goat : Mandates for government

I heard some Tory on the radio yesterday, I'm sorry I didn't catch his name - I think he may have been someone well known. Although the daftest thing he said was about how the Daily Mail was too left wing ( The mind boggles !), what intrigued me more were the comments on how Gordon Brown has no mandate to be leader since no one voted for him in person as Prime Minister. I didn't catch the full broadcast, but do know that other Tories have similarly harped on about this. Tory MP Douglas Carswell for instance recently blogged about this : http://www.talkcarswell.com/show.aspx?id=641
I am stating the obvious I know but just for the record :

• David Cameron was not leader of the Tories at the last general election - it doesn't undermine his position as leader of the opposition.

• We don't elect ANY prime ministers in this country. We elect members of parliament, and by tradition the Queen approaches the leader of the largest party in parliament to form a Government. This usually means that the leader of this party becomes PM.

• If there's a change of leader mid-term then the Queen does this again - and it tends to be the new leader who becomes Prime Minister. Not really a surprise to anyone. Not the electorate anyway.
  

• The Tories know this because that's how the last Tory Prime Minister, John Major, first became PM

You don't need a degree in politics to know any of this . It's pretty elementary stuff. Come the next election things might be different. I'm sure the Tories hope so. But until then Gordon Brown's mandate arises out of the still rather larger number of MP's elected from the Labour Party as opposed to any other party; from the Labour Party's selection of him as leader, and from the Queen's decision to ask him to form a government and her acceptance of that government. OK it's not perfect, and some people may not like it, but that is the UK version of democracy as applied to Labour, Tories and all other parties. So let's not hear any more prattling on about not having a mandate.

Tweeting my way back to Labour

One non-politician’s take on the promise and the peril of social networking

The following was originally posted on Labour list on Sunday 12th April,

and is the first post I've made to a political site. Coincidentally it was the first post on Labour list following the breaking of the "Smeargate" events, which gave a slightly scary twist to things. It also means I'd change the odd bit of what I said now as well - maybe I'll post that later.

Note that this is my original unedited version - Labour list cut out some of my bit about trees at the end. I suspect this might possibly have been because of Guido Fawkes repeated references to Dead Tree Journalism, not that I really ever look at what Guido Fawkes says.

I’ve read a great deal recently about the way in which new technologies can be harnessed to provide new ways of communicating between the electorate and the political parties. As a Labour supporter most of this has been via Labour supporting websites, and I’ve been struck by the importance which seems to be being attached to blogs, Twitter, Facebook and so on – and the feeling that if Labour can get a strong foothold in these media it will give the party a strong leg-up come the next general election – and hopefully all the other elections.

Is it true ? Will it work ? And if it does what implications does that have for the future ?

I’ll start with the positives.

I’ve posted on email lists, and discussion groups for many years – rarely anything political - I’m a computer geek, football supporter, and a special school headteacher – most of my ‘on-line community’ has been around those interests.

Several months back I opened a Twitter account. I’d heard about it & thought I’d give it a try. The only person in my email contact list that I found on Twitter though was a colleague who works in politics – a previous contributor to this blog. She didn’t have anyone following her either – it all seemed a bit pointless telling each other what we were doing – (especially as we already knew from Facebook anyway !).

Then suddenly I was followed by a total stranger. Scary in real life – but also felt odd on Twitter. I checked his profile – he also followed my colleague, so I followed him as well. He was clearly interested in politics, and after a week or two I clicked on a few interesting people on his list. The rest as they say, is history – things sort of snowballed.

Within weeks I was hooked, commenting on MP’s blogs, getting into mini-debates with politicians in the middle of the night, and being surprised to find that many MP’s actually followed me, and replied to my tweets, and were actually interested in what I was saying. I was even motivated to blog a couple of things myself when I had the time.

A couple of months on, I would now say that from being passively interested in politics, and passively supporting the Labour party, I am now relatively in tune with what’s happening in politics, and an active contributor to the Labour debate – albeit on a small scale. I can’t ever see myself knocking on doors or stuffing leaflets through letterboxes, but if I can contribute my thoughts, then maybe it will help. Who knows, one day I might even join the party !

One thing is certain, I’m no floating voter – and my ‘X’ is in the bag come the next election ! So if this can be replicated among the millions of others like me, then Twitter, and similar new technologies will prove powerful indeed.

I can’t help but wonder though if many of the things that make this phenomenon so attractive are transitory in nature. It’s really great being followed by an under-secretary of state, but I wonder whether it would be so great, or possible if that person had 20,000 followers rather than the 200 or so that she has now, or if her staff team helped her to respond to 13,000 people that she follows instead of the 100 or so, which I’m fairly sure she responds to personally, at the moment. The number of people could presumably grow very large indeed.

Many Tweets also point to political blogs, which in turn have comments – and once more, there is a point at which the number of comments made starts to detract from the quality of the debate and discussion taking place. I wonder how many people reading this have been fairly recently converted to being Facebook users, but are now using it less often – not because they don’t have many “friends” – but because virtually everybody they know is on there, and it’s not so much fun anymore. In the same way – even in the space of a few weeks – I’ve realised that some websites where I used to be able to spar amiably about obscure philosophical points, are fast becoming soap boxes for people who seem to have little else to do with their lives but drown any sensible discussions. They’ve always been there, and they are entitled to be there – but now there are so many more – and their presence stymies debate, and discourages contributions from those less confident and with less definite political stances. Dealing with this without censoring free speech is a tough challenge indeed.

So I can envisage that Labour’s apparent embracing of new technologies – Labour 2.0 anyone ? - could ironically be a victim of its own success, if it isn’t able to deal with the vast amounts of user generated information that will transpire if current trends continue.

In the past, publishing anything on the web has for me personally, raised questions similarly to those of trees falling in distant forests – if no one reads my blog, does it still make a noise ?

In the near future though unless we think very carefully, the question will be – if all the trees in the forest fall down at the same time, how will anyone know whether any individual tree actually made a noise ?

My feeling is that we should be starting to think of that now – and looking not so much to Labour 2.0 – but to Labour 2.1 Service Pack 2

Jade Goody

It is of course always sad when a young woman dies of cancer. However I was not pleased by Prime Minister Gordon Brown's "tribute" this morning.

Gordon says ...

"She was a courageous woman both in life and death and the whole country have admired her determination to provide a bright future for her children.

Well whatever one's opinion of Jade that clearly isn't true. She's drawn both praise and criticism for her actions as she's approached death; and there's clearly some scope for debate about how courageous she was in life. Her treatment of Shilpa Shetty was not courageous - it was the action of a cowardly bully.

I am pleased that Jade apologised for her actions on Celebrity Big Brother. Actions which did not, as the BBC reports, result in her "being accused of being racist" - No - she was witnessed by millions systematically and collaboratively bullying Shilpa Shetty in a racist way. It happened, it was real and it was very unpleasant.

As I say though, I'm pleased she apologised, and it's clear that her actions since then have been far more praiseworthy than many of the ones before. The public reaction to the way in which she's conducted her dying days can be likened to the parable of the lost sheep - more joy in heaven over one sinner etc etc - although I'm no Christian, this is very understandable.

Her plight has also raised awareness of cervical cancer across the whole country, and I think her efforts to provide for her family after her death are admirable. I genuinely comiserate with them in their grief.

Let's not kid ourselves though Gordon - Jade will not be "remembered fondly by all who knew her" - there'll be plenty who have some far from fond memories.

too blagged to blogg

All this blogging is all well and good ... but sometimes I'm just too tired.

Sort of makes me wonder how these MP's do a day job as well as blogging. I certainly have a problem doing both !

Enough already I have (real) work to do !

Peter Mandelson, the Daily Mail, and Affronts to Democracy

I've never really done a political blog - so let me know what you think. This episode really wound me up - so here goes ...


On Friday 6th March I got a 'tweet' telling me that Peter Mandelson had had green custard thrown at him, with a link to a video. The video was a close up, showing a woman - who I now know to be Leila Deen simply walking up to Peter Mandelson, with a cup of what looked to be a hot tea or coffee, and throwing it in his face. It was then obvious that it was a thick green substance - and will be forever known as "Green custard".


The speed with which the video was out on the net was astonishing - I'm guessing it was less than an hour. My initial reaction was one of annoyance - I feel it is simply wrong to do this to anyone. I would feel extremely distressed if someone did it to me - even more so if the massed ranks of the UK press were watching the whole thing.


All things considered though, stuff like this happens, and hopefully falls from the public eye quickly. In the grand scheme of things it's a mere blip - not very relevant. What really annoyed me though was the way in which several media outlets reported this. The worst - but by no means the only - offender was, I felt, the Daily Mail.


Their front page assertion on Saturday was that Leila Deen had cheered up the whole country by throwing green custard on Peter Mandelson, and Leila of course had decided that her reason for doing this, was that Peter Mandelson was an affront to Democracy.


Well sometimes I instinctively feel that some Mail stories are incorrect, however this time I KNOW that this one is - because she certainly didn't cheer up the whole country - she didn't cheer me up for one !


My understanding is that for democracy to work, then people should be able to go about their business, expressing their opinions, and casting their votes, without threat. Threat of violence, and threat of psychological intimidation.


There is a logic that follows from Leila Deen's actions that goes like this : She could just as easily have thrown paint stripper or acid - or a bomb, therefore we need to surround politicians with top security; therefore we need to make sure that anyone who attempts any action like this is subject to instant and extreme justice - so we need to make sure we stifle any attempt at making dissenting noises - by anyone.


So next stop totalitarian police state.


And for those who'd say that we already have one - think again ! I wonder what might have happened to Leila had she chucked custard at one of Robert Mugabe's advisors, or Hu Jintao's or dare I say it - Barack Obama's ? I sincerely hope that she wouldn't have been beaten senseless, shot, or simply thrown immediately in jail (which many would argue she should have been) - but somehow I wouldn't put money it.


Imagine for one moment what the Daily Mail would be printing now if Peter Mandelson had thrown the custard at her instead ?


But I don't follow this logic.


In the country where I live - the United Kingdom, I have briefly met not one, but 4 Prime Ministers - 3 of whom were serving at the time. They were merely passing encounters - but I feel that it's indicative of the openness and democracy that we enjoy that I was able to do this - and not kept at arms length by police and soldiers.


I've also met and had conversations with at least six members of parliament, including a party leader, and interacted with several more via internet and email facilities. I'm not a politician mind - I'm just an ordinary joe.


So it strikes me that the affront to democracy is not from Peter Mandelson, but from Leila Deen, and the Daily Mail. It is only because we live in an open and democratic society that she's able to pull pathetic stunts like this. To suggest also that there was no option to this 'direct action' - that all other means had failed, is plainly ridiculous - she could even have sent him a message on Twitter for god's sake ! Now OK- no doubt she'd say that he'd ignore her requests - but that really is what Democracy is about. We elect people to make decisions for us, not because it is a universally fair way of doing things - but because it is the fairest we can get in an imperfect world. Politicians get lots of requests - it's their job to do what they think's best - not to try and do what everyone suggests they do , which is clearly impossible


Sometimes those elected decision makers appoint people to the unelected House of Lords, and sometimes they appoint those members to positions of authority - that's the way the Government works - We should respect it whilst it remains the way we do it, and if we don't like it - then vote for someone who will change it, or get someone to vote for you and change it yourself.


It isn't easy - and progress is undeniably slow - but I promise Leila Deen - it is whole lot more effective and more democratic than throwing custard at people because you don't agree with what they say !

First Post

I'm intending to blog my opinonated drivel here - so mostly politics with a bit of whatever gets my goat thrown in