Jubilee Debt Campaign: Vulture Culture

Bankers are not alone in profiting on other people’s misery.

Vulture funds seek to profiteer by buying up the debts of heavily indebted poor countries at a cheap price, then trying to recover the full amount, often by suing through the courts. At least 54 companies, many based in tax havens, are known to have taken legal action against 12 of the world's poorest countries in recent years, for claims amounting to $1.5 billion. This means money released by debt relief is going into the pockets of wealthy investors, not spent on health and education. [Jubilee Debt Campaign]

Today the Vultures Bill passed its second reading, but the Tories slowed its progress. If you are not aware of the Jubilee Debt Campaign please check it out. It is worthy of support.

http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/

Bankers

If I had received taxpayers’ money to ensure my survival through a severe financial crisis I would feel duty bound not to reward myself for success in advance of re-paying my debts, with interest, and certainly not if I were still making a loss. Not so Bankers.

They have regularly used other people’s money to line their pockets so manna from heaven is no more than they have come to expect. In their world, deductions precede credits in same day transactions, in advance if a payment is due on a non-working day, while credits have to await clearance for days even in this electronic age, often putting people in the red giving rise to unauthorised overdraft fees out of all proportion to the amount involved.

The Royal Bank of Scotland which is 84% owned by the tax payer has paid over 100 bankers a bonus of £1m or more, a sum more than most people earn in a life time of hard work particularly those caring for others.

To justify their greed Bank chiefs say they have to remain competitive. Not as competitive as the thousands they have put on the dole as they compete with one another for scarce, often low paid jobs to provide any income at all to support their families.

How kind of the Chief Executive of the RBS to waive his £1.6M bonus having to make do on his £1.2m salary. I see that the CEO of another huge loss maker, Lloyd’s Banking Group, is kindly waiving his bonus of £2.3m and the top brass at Barclay’s have given in to pressure to forgo their bonuses while still paying out £2.3bn to their staff.

The “loadsamoney” days of the yuppie were offensive enough; today’s extravagance at other people’s expense is an obscenity too far.

Don’t Care Hospitals

It is noticeable when driving in Britain today that our roads are unclean. I don’t throw litter out of my car window or drop it for others to pick up. I don’t know anyone who does but clearly there are many people who do. They don’t care and have little thought for others.

Even people paid to clean the roads no longer do the job properly now that they have been mechanised. Previously a man with brush and shovel cleaned the streets. Now street cleaning vehicles, probably air-conditioned, pick up litter just in passing, leaving behind what their brushes don’t reach.

The same attitude is evident in some of our hospitals where modern technology leaves patients wired to monitor everything but their general wellbeing. Wards have been left dirty causing serious, life-threatening infections while nurses and doctors have to be reminded to wash their hands.

In the worst cases patients have their food left out of reach with nobody to feed them, their prescribed drugs left on bedside lockers and their bedding in disarray resulting in undignified exposure. Having scraped congealed food from supposedly clean surfaces and excreta from under the finger nails of a “Barrier Nurse” patient – just a note on the door! - the findings of the independent inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust will come as no surprise to anyone who has been affected by the lack of care, especially of the elderly, in some British hospitals today.

Hospital Trusts may have become driven by targets and cost-cutting but as any ‘old-school’ nurse who was properly trained in nursing care on the wards rather than in college knows, many of the current problems are the result of changes in training and nursing practice.

Gay “Marriage”

Reports that Gay and Lesbian couples could soon be allowed to “marry” in church strike a wrong note. According to The Times, “senior bishops in the Lords have [said] that they will support an amendment to the Equality Bill next month that will lift the ban on civil partnership ceremonies in religious premises. The amendment would remove the legislative prohibition on blessings of homosexual couples and open the door to the registration of civil partnerships in churches, synagogues, mosques and all other religious premises.”

Advocates of change will be quick to point out that a blessing is not a marriage but that will not stop a blurring of the ceremonies. In June 2008 The Telegraph reported that two male Anglican priests exchanged vows and rings in a ceremony that was conducted using one of the church's most traditional wedding rites. The report continued, “Although some liberal clergy have carried out "blessing ceremonies" for homosexual couples in the past, this is the first time a vicar has performed a "wedding ceremony", using a traditional marriage liturgy, with readings, hymns and a Eucharist.”

The introduction of civil partnerships righted a serious wrong but that is what they are. To blur the distinction between a civil partnership and a religious ceremony in which marriage is proclaimed in the Anglican Marriage Service Preface as “the foundation of family life in which children are born and nurtured” is nonsense. Civil partners “in good times and in bad, may find strength, companionship and comfort, and grow to maturity in love” but they are not “married”.

WANTED!

public spirited, second class (rail) citizens prepared to work anti-social hours, usually away from home, with non-negotiable salary and restricted allowances, interested in an unique opportunity to help run other people’s lives.

Provided you are not a peer of the realm, ‘established’ clergyman or a complete lunatic (other restrictions may apply) with £500 to spare and you are a British, Commonwealth or Irish citizen you could consider election as a Member of Parliament for one of the 646 seats in the forthcoming General Election.

You must be over 18 years of age and be nominated by ten parliamentary electors of the constituency in which you wish to stand. By not submitting yourself to the rigours of any political party selection process you would be an Independent candidate joining other do-gooders with disparate ideas and no cohesive policy for restoring Britain’s greatness.

If you are an independent-minded eligible person who has not been certified insane and you have no hope of a peerage just find ten eligible voters to nominate you. Others, especially female candidates, may wish to apply to the Church of England where few restrictions appear to apply.

“Political Stunt” v. Tory Stunt

The conference arranged by the Secretary of State for Health to help build a consensus on plans to pay for care of the elderly has been branded a “political stunt” by his Tory counterpart. Their preferred option was for a stunt involving a 'R.I.P. Off ' poster campaign to frighten people into believing that a no vote for them would result in a £20,000 “death tax”.

So we have another political football match being played out while the vulnerable have to watch from the side lines. As one old boy in a care home remarked on the BBC ‘News’ last night, we’ve worked all our lives paying taxes and insurance so the Government must provide care for us in our old age. True, but the problem of funding has to be addressed to achieve a consensus of all parties.

In that spirit reports suggest that the conference drew wide praise from charities, local authorities and experts who attended. The preferred option appears to be a progressive estate levy which takes account of people’s ability to contribute rather than the scare mongering £20,000 compulsory tax referred to in the poster campaign. But the Tory stunt had the desired effect. When asked, two-thirds of people favoured everybody contributing to the cost of those needing social care but when asked if there should be a “death tax” to pay for it two-thirds responded negatively.

That is no surprise but if they had been asked if they would rather pay a progressive estate levy than risk selling their homes to pay for nursing care no doubt there would have been a different response. But to be fair the Tories have offered an alternative, a voluntary insurance scheme! Fine for the super rich who can easily afford the insurance cover and get away without paying tax while the poorest are likely to lose out.

“Political Stunt” 1 – Tory Stunt 0. Time for a real consensus please.

6 o’clock shadow

To say that I was disappointed by the presentation of the ‘BBC News at Six” this evening would be an under-statement. It was more worthy of The Sun than the Great Britain institution it used to be. The pattern was repeated at 10 o’clock.

There were ten items in the bulletin including ‘The Weather’ giving an average time of three minutes for each item but as ever, not all warranted equal coverage. Quite rightly in my view East Enders was bottom of the pile with the often repeated clip of Den and Angie’s impending divorce looking rather hackneyed now that such events are common place in our modern society. To be fair I am not a fan of current Soaps. They compare miserably with At the Luscombe’s in the glory days of the wireless though Compact did make a valiant effort before becoming irrelevant when scenes of rape, murder and violence became the norm.

Plaid Cymru and the Green Party must have been over the moon to find themselves temporarily relevant on the National scene with the prospect of a hung parliament – the last thing we need. Coverage of the disturbing annual Japanese slaughter of dolphins came after that but before Prince William’s photographic achievements. At least that project was in aid of CRISIS so no complaints there.

Previously we had the latest from Afghanistan where our troops are putting their lives on the line but less important news now that closer to home there was a tragic family event necessitating focus on the now compulsory floral tributes left to wither and die on the pavement and supplemented by standard statements from distressed neighbours and their children as a substitute for direct intrusion into the family’s grief.

The third item covered funding for care of the elderly as though it were something that only happens to others. But it was probably placed correctly given the state of the economy and how best to deal with debt repayment. - Different advice had been offered by a group of economists writing to the Financial Times in response to advice to the Government from a smaller group who had previously advised the opposite. No surprise there when you can get 11 opinions from 10 economists.

So what more serious story could take us six minutes into the headline news? An ex-Gillette sponsored golfer making a fourteen minute apology for being caught playing in the rough. Carefully stage managed, only the select few were gathered for this sombre event. The rest, including the BBC reporter were kept half a mile away in which case he may as well have been in a room next door waiting to hear ‘the apology the world has been wanting to hear’. What world do these people live in?