Monday 30 July 2012

JOBS UNDER THREAT FROM OLYMPICS ?

Today is the first test of the way in which the Olympics will disrupt normal life for working Londoners. 'Transport for London', the body which oversees the capital's trains, buses and road system has already warned commuters that they may well face delays as priority on the roads is given to the transient 'Olympic family'.

One wonders how everyday employers will react when staff turn up late for work. Will they be understanding and forgiving, allowing that the dusruption is short term and in no way the fault of their staff, or will they threaten and cajole ? Will staff find their pay stopped and their jobs under threat if they don't 'pull their socks up' ?

Only time will tell.

Saturday 28 July 2012

BRITAIN'S OLYMPIC EMBARRASSMENT.

Thank God the ludicrous nonsense of the opening is now over and we can get on with the Games.

Inevitably the media, in pariticular the BBC, has come out in whole-hearted support of the overblown tripe that was served up last night. The BBC, of course, has a vested interest in lauding this rubbish given that it is broadcasting every last moment of the Olympic extravaganza, but why every other outlet seems also to have fallen prey to the jingoistic euphoria defeats me.

This once great country of ours now has little to celebrate, at least in its modern guise. Being reduced to a parachuting Queen accompanied by James Bond, and David Beckham driving a speedboat along the Thames says more about modern Britain than anything else possibly could. We are a country obsessed with trivia and celebrity.

What the rest of the world made of this drivel is anyones' guess. Kenneth Branagh pretending to be I K Brunel reading Shakespeare made little if any sense and a horde of dancing nurses and bouncing patients was a pretty poor representation of the real state of our NHS. What little I saw of this supposed spectacle left me cringeing with national embarrassment.

Let's hope that our athletes can redeem us with some genuinely great performances.

Thursday 26 July 2012

MARSTON'S RETAIL AGREEMENT.

The recent furore over the legalities and moralities involved in the payment of taxes is something I find a little bewildering. It is surely illegal to evade taxes, that is, to deliberately falsify accounting records so as to reduce one's tax bill, but it is not illegal, nor in my mind immoral, to use lawful means to achieve the same end. If the tax man doesn't like it, he can always act to close so-called loopholes in tax law, otherwise he, and others, should keep quiet.

While all this fuss is going on, we have to remember that HMRC routinely enters into arrangements with major companies which reduce their tax bills. According to yesterday's 'Daily Mail' neither Google nor Vodafone pay much, if any, tax in this country as a result of accounting arrangements which HMRC must have approved. Similarly, I'm aware of a scheme being operated by the brewing and pub operating company, Marston's, which seems to break all of the rules while apaprently having been given the 'green light' by HMRC.

Under what they call their 'Retail Agreement' Marston's enters into purported tenancy agreements with pub landlords under which the landlords are supposedly self-employed and running their own businesses. Marston's pays all of the pub bills except for staff costs and the council tax for the associated residential element of the property, and simply take back about 80% of the pub's net takings after VAT. Marston's say that they will be responsible for all building maintenance and that they will ensure the properties are maintained in an excellent state of repair. So far, so good. 

However, Marston's is also the sole supplier to the pub business and can determine the levels of stock to be maintained; astonishingly and despite this, the cost of stock that becames unsaleable, for example, real ale beyond its shelf life, is a charge to the retailer. Marstons also sets all of the retail prices through their computerised stock control and till system; I'm even aware of prices having been changed without any notice being given to the landlord. Marston's provides a degree of training, though very little as far as I can tell, and landlords have to agree a business plan with Marston's and are subject to close managerial oversight from them. Marston's determines the opening hours of the business and the pubs have to be operated strictly within rules laid down in accordance with an Operating Manual provided by them. All takings have to be paid into a Marston's bank account every 2 or 3 days and the landlord is required to submit a weekly invoice in order to claim their share. The sole source of income for the landlord is Marston's.

Marston's would no doubt argue that the agreement actually gives the landlords more say than this but, in practice, it does not. Marston's operates these outlets as if they were managed houses and the landlords were their employees, while claiming they are not. This allows Marston's to avoid paying the minimum wage and to avoid paying National Insurance; they also have no responsibility for any staff employed in the pubs, even though such staff appear to be employed using Marston's stationery and are paid through Marston's payroll system.

When it comes to buildings maintenance, Marston's are to say the least reluctant to spend any money. One local pub of my acquaintance has a kitchen which has been condemned and another has one that is wholly unsuitable; Marston's are unwilling to do anything about these situations, meaning that the landlords are unable to develop their businesses in ways that they might wish. Both pubs have other maintenance issues that Marston's have refused to deal with. In one case, the landlord was driven to call in the local environmental health officer in order to compel the company to fulfil its obligations; that landlord has now been given notice. Pubs on this agreement which are able to sell food are tied to menus and products supplied by Marston's.

Where all this leaves us is with an arrangement, presumably approved by HMRC, which allows Marston's to avoid paying the minimum wage, avoid paying national insurance and avoid the other responsibilities of employing staff. That the arrangement is in flagrant violation of HMRC rules governing what is and what is not self-employment is blatantly obvious. The earnings of the landlord and his family are generally such as to entitle them to claim tax credits to a significant extent, meaning that the tax payer is also subsidising this arrangement to Marston's benefit. The landlords I have spoken to also seem blissfully unaware that their free accommodation should quite probably be treated as a taxable benefit, this not being something that Marston's have highlighted, and declared on their tax returns and tax credit claims.

Is this right ? Is it moral ? Indeed, is it legal ? Is this just a tax and responsibility avoidance measure ?

Sunday 22 July 2012

BBC NEEDS TO BROADCAST PROPER NEWS, NOT DRIVEL.

Listening to this morning's BBC Radio 4 news at 9 o'clock, makes me wonder why we bother with 'News' on the BBC.

For the last week and more, we've been assailed by increasing hysteria about Bradley Wiggins winning the 'Tour de France'. Not that he 's actually won it yet and he won't until later today, but this inconvenience hasn't prevented the BBC from reporting, daily, that he's going to win it. Today's news broadcast was no different and was even repeated on television on "The Andrew Marr Show", with interviews and all. Since when have future events of this type become news ?

The BBC followed the non-news about Wiggins with an item about President Obama visiting the site of the recent shooting in the US; not that he's visited there yet, but he will do so later; this is not news. Item three was yet another non-story, something about a commemoratory day in Norway for the shootings there a year ago. How is this story worthy of being included as the third most important news story of the day ?

Finally, we arrived at  an item of real news. Increasing unrest in Syria has to be a serious concern to the whole of the Euro-Asian world and yet it ranked as only the fourth most important item in the minds of the cretins who determine such things in the BBC. It may be that the crisis in Syria is becoming a bit boring for the bright young things who run the BBC, but this is one of the few international news stories of the moment; for it to be relegated to only fourth place, after 3 non-stories, shows how little the Corporation values genuine news coverage and how much it panders to populist and sentimental tripe.

Sadly, it was then back to a story of little importance, the resignation of Rupert Murdoch from a number of directorships within his 'NewsCorp' group of companies. That Murdoch is 81 and well past retirement age seems to have been ignored and, in any case, why is this worthy of being considered national news ?

A story which seems minor but is probably an indicator of the ways in which successive governments in this country show a total lack of common sense came next. A Fijian man who served in the British Army for 13 years and has married and made his home her, has been told he must now leave the UK by 9th August. Having served in Afghanistan and Iraq, he left the army in June but a fight he had with a colleague in 2010 is deemed to give him a criminal record; accordingly, the Border Agency, an organisation of dubious quality and ability, has said he is debarred from settling here. That this is a grotesquely unfair judgement must be abundantly clear even to the jobsworths of the BA, but the real story has to be the utter stupidity and incompetence of its staff. One can only hope that this man who has given so many years to this nation will eventually have his application to stay approved by someone with a brain cell.

The Beeb then progressed from the insane to the desperate. Today, temporary trading laws come into force for the duration of the madness that is the Olympic / Paralympic farce.All shops, including the largest supermarkets, will be allowed to remain open on Sundays for the same hours as during the other 6 days. Small convenience shops are unhappy as they can see their customers drifting away to the larger shops and, no doubt, many of the staff of the larger stores are finding themselves under pressure to give up their Sundays. All of this is in an attempt to maximise the financial benefits of the Olympics though I fail to understand why longer Sunday opening hours will increase takings; surely this will only spread the existing spend over more hours. Of course, visitors here specifically for the Games may benefit, but they're likely to have only so much money which they'll spend, or not, regardless of the Sunday opening hours. The rest of us will just have to grin and bear it.

The last item deemed worthy of inclusion in the BBC's news was the death of the once beautiful actress, Angharad Rees, at the age of only 63. This story doesn't actually make it onto the headlines on teletext (not teletext noe, I know, but what else do you call it ?) and one would have to ask why it should. I well remember being enthralled by her portrayal of the elfin 'Demelza' in the serialisation of Winston Graham's 'Poldark' series on television in the 1970s and I still have videos of the programmes; Angharad was perfectly cast and must have been a fantasy 'love' for many, but she was, in all honesty, a minor actress. Her death at such a young age saddens me greatly and will encourage me to have another look at the great series, but it no more warranted inclusion in the country's main news broadcast than would have the demise of any of our bronze medal winners from 
the 1976 Olympics.

After listening to this broadcast, do I feel enlightened about the world and what's happened in the last few hours ? Are you 'avin' a larff ?! Three items were not even news, Bradley Wiggins, Obama and Norway; the amended Sunday trading laws was a reminder of something decided a long time ago, and the items about Rupert Murdoch and Angharad Rees were too minor to be included in a limited national news broadcast. Only two stories, about the Fijian soldier and trouble in Syria, were worthy of inclusion. What a joke.

Thursday 19 July 2012

NUISANCE CALLERS NEED SHOOTING.

What can we do about the 'cold calling' that plagues us ?

I signed up with the Telephone Preference Service years ago, and still I receive these unwanted nuisance calls. Some, perhaps many these days, are from abroad, often with strongly accented callers claiming to be Sarah, Charlie or some other western name, although they are almost certainly Gita, Gupta or Sanjeev in reality. These calls can't even be barred as they leave no number; we just have to endure them.

Calls from UK numbers can, of course, be barred though this doesn't seem to deter them. The companies involved in ignoring the TPS rules simply use other numbers to annoy us from. If my caller display shows a message such as 'International' or 'number wihheld' I tend to ignore the call; however, if a number is displayed, what to do ? It might be a genuine call which is ignored at my peril, so I usually answer - 'Can I speak to Mr/Mrs *****' comes the cheery voice. 'Why ?' or 'And who are you ?' says I.

The almost inevitable next line involves something which makes clear the caller is marketing something - insulation, PPI reclaims, or whatever. I hang up, or tell them, politely to go away and not bother me again. Do they take any notice ? Of course. So, in the end and in an attempt to make an impression on these most annoying of intruders into my private life, I tell them, loudly, to 'F*** off'. They feign indignation as I close the connection.

At least they know they've really p***ed me off and I bar the number as well, for all the good that seems to do. What I really want is something that can shoot them through the telephone wires - any clever inventors out there ?

Sunday 15 July 2012

St SWITHIN HAS A LOT TO ANSWER FOR !

The traditional story says that if it rains on St Swithin's Day, July 15th, it will rain for the next 40 days.

Having experienced nothing but rain for the last 6 or 7 weeks, today it has been dry. Does that mean it will not rain tomorrow, or the day after ?

If only !:-(

PAUL NURSE : GREAT SCIENTIST OR ANOTHER FOOL ?

Listening recently, and very belatedly, to the 'Dimbleby Lecture' given by Sir Paul Nurse I found myself revisiting a number of issues I've previously pondered.

Sir Paul is an 'Old Boy' of my own school, not that that is anything to brag about. We both attended Harrow County School for Boys, Sir Paul 3 years or so before me, and we both had some of the same teachers. Indeed, Sir Paul made reference in his lecture to the inspiration he gained from his biology teacher, Keith Neal, who also taught me. Our careers seem to have diverged from school days with Sir Paul going on to win a Nobel Prize and become President of the Royal Society, the most prestigious scientific organisation in the world, as well as receiving a knighthood while I remain ........................... . I hold no grudges and have no envy :-)

During his lecture, Sir Paul made reference to the great benefits that science has bestowed on mankind to date and sought to assure us that it could continue to do so into the future if our education systems were adequate. There is no doubt that many countries can meet this latter criterion even if our own cannot. He laid great store on the 'scientific method' by which new discoveries are held to be nothing but theories until properly and rigorously tested. He also laid great emphasis on the advances of medical science in the last century, a field with which his own research is closely associated.

While I have little argument with what Sir Paul said, I do have some issues with some of the things he left unsaid. Specifically, he referred to research into genetically modified crops, gene therapy and stem cell research  without referring to the unfolding disaster story surrounding antibiotics. You may well ask what is the connection between these seemingly disparate issues and I will explain.

We are constantly told that genetic modification carries no dangers, that doctors can, in future, cure assorted diseases through the manipulation of genes and that stem cell research is the basis of eternal life. What no one talks about, at least in public, very loudly or in a way that the general public understands, is that previous ventures into such areas have been less than wholly successful.

When antibiotics were first brought into general use, no one gave any thought to the potential Darwinian consequencs; that is, that the bacteria would become immune to their effects. When steroids became the drugs of choice for various conditions, no one thought they would end up being too dangerous to use routinely. These treatments were advised by scientists, no doubt the best of their day and acting in the very best interests of society, who have been proved to have been wrong in very important ways.

Today we are being asked to accept the word of today's best scientists that GM crops, gene therapy and the rest, are the way forward; we are being told that they carry no danger and are essential to our survival. Are today's scientists so arrogant that they can afford to ignore the lessons of history ?

Everything has its place in the ecosystem in which we live and that includes the nasty little bugs that sometimes kill us; it also includes us, and we trifle with this order at our peril. For every bug we wipe out, another will take its place; for every bug that is destroyed by an antibiotic, another will aries that is immune. This is evolution as described by Darwin and it has yet to be shown as being anything but immutably true.

Paul Nurse talked of the prevention of illness and even seemed to suggest the prevention of old age; in these aims he is horribly misguided. Human kind needs change in order to progress and part of the mechanism of that change is death; to try to extend human life beyond a natural span, by artificial means, is a step too far and will result in some as yet unknown reaction from the natural world. The increasing use of a battery of vaccines and drugs will, ultimately, result in the rise of viruses and bacteria that are new and resistant; we already have seen the rise of HIV and the occurrence of the human version of BSE. Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics to such an extent that there are fears we will be unable to combat ANY bacteria in a few years time.

Where Sir Paul actually stands on these issues was difficult to determine. On the one hand, he praised the scientific method, which should exclude the occurence of disasters arising from inadequate research and short-term actions, and on the other he appeared to be promoting the achievement of the very goals that this same 'short-termism' seeks.

Many years ago, John Wyndham wrote a number of books that attempted to deal with some of these isses. In the 'Day of the Triffids' he showed what might happen if specially bred ( = genetically modified) plants became out of control; in 'The Chrysalids' he explored some of the potential horrors of a post nuclear world. Wyndham was writing more than 60 years ago and yet his messages ring loud and clear today - we mess with nature at our own risk.

I AM A CELEBRITY : I AM NEWS.

I often think I am alone in my hatred of the current 'cult of the personality' that is so beloved by the media and, it seems, a large part of the population as well. Thankfully, one or two people have managed to convince me otherwise.

Why is it that the news is so often  filled with stories about the doings of an assortment of non-entities who simply happen to be 'soap stars', pop singers, models and the like ? We are also fed far too much about the personal lives of the monarchy, politicians, assorted sports people and others whose only claim to fame is their celebrity; few of these people ever contribute anything of real value to the nation, let alone the world.

The 'News' is frequently peppered with stories about what will, or may, happen today, or tomorrow, rather than about what has already happened. More often than not, this includes drivel about celebrity weddings, pop concerts, football matches that have yet to take place and similar non-events that are somehow considered to be 'News' already.

In recent weeks the 'News' was filled as much by what might happen at Wimbledon or in England's next football match as in what had actually happened in the real world. Why is this ? Why are people so interested in being told about what hasn't yet happened rather than in hearing about the real news ? Is it really the case that the bulk of the population is so shallow and stupid as to be more interested in what might be about to happen in the fictitious 'Coronation Street' or 'Eastenders' than in what has happened in the real world ? Is the bulk of our population really so moronic ?

I fear the answers to all of these questions are the ones we would rather not be true and I fear for our futures as a result.