The Penny Hasn't Dropped

It is difficult to compare the issues of bank bonuses and MP expenses but somehow there is a link.

I have just read some guff about entangled photons and being able to teleport their states to one another. It gives some credence to the Star Trek teleporter but in reality, the teleporting of matter has not been proven, just quantum state information. Why do I mention such complexity in an article on bank bonuses and greedy MPs? Well I think the state of mind is linked, perhaps even teleported to one another.

Many MPs have railed against the investigation by Sir Thomas Legg. In effect, he has imposed some regulation on an unregulated system - and MPs don't like it. They accuse him of changing the rules when he would insist all he is doing is setting some sensible benchmarks by which to measure whether claims were reasonable or not. How on earth he allows people like Jaqui Smith, Hazel Blears, Geoff Hoon and others to go scot free is another question. But in a way, on a smaller scale we have the bank bonus syndrome.

Goldman Sachs are one of 3 banks who have reported enormous rises in profits in the last quarter. They have set aside no less then $5bn for staff bonuses which would pay out on average $172,000 per employee - the total estimated to be paid for this year will be $22bn in bonuses. It seems no one has learnt anything and there is a huge anti-regulation body within banks. The argument goes that banks must be able to compete for the talent that is capable of yielding such profits. I suppose MPs would say the same - if MPs couldn't make a few bob on the side then who would want to be one?

It is the base attitude that is the same even though the amounts of money are hugely different. Bankers just do not connect themselves with the last year or so of financial chaos that was the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Having lost hundreds of billions there were few casualties, hardly a hiccup in earnings and within months the same people who lost the money are rewarding themselves with even bigger bonuses.

MPs have the same layer of thick skin too. They simply do not understand that honest, law abiding and decent people have a fundamental issue with an MP claiming even a penny for dry cleaning, gardening or kit kats let alone being allowed thousands of pounds for such things. Cleanliness is a personal choice and expense - it's ridiculous to believe that the taxpayer gets any value from paying to clean someone's moat or flat. Yet MPs simply don't get it. When someone as intelligent as Ann Widdecombe, who does not even draw her second home allowance, argues in favour of MPs who are cheesed off just because the 'sensible' limits are applied retrospectively then you know MPs are out of touch with the electorate.

The similarity between bankers and MPs is that they believe that their own world is a real one and correct - and they don't see what it has to do with the external world. We all have a stake in banks and the financial system. If it fails, our money goes down the swanny - so the answer to the question about what has it to do with us, it has everything thing to do with us. Should RBS or Goldman Sachs fail as a business then we are all directly affected in some way, some more than others.

These banks have a duty of compliance to normal rules. They have the best of both worlds right now - they can gamble billions and if they win, they can reward themselves astronomically. If they lose, we pay to reward them astronomically.

It is as simple as that in banks. For MPs, every single one of them are beholden to us. We vote for them, they represent us, we pay their salaries, expenses and allowances. It should not be down to Party leaders to question or sack them for abusing expenses, it should be for the people to decide as that's who foots the bill.

These worlds operate around us as if we can have no access or have a say. It is time we did. Our money and futures are at stake. Banks have a duty to maintain stability but they are run like Vegas betting shops manned with people who believe they have talent but have no more skill than the average punter at Joe Corals. MPs are much the same.

The time for change will pass us by once again and these issues will haunt us well into the future, because the wrong people are making the rules.

Microsoft - Crunch Time

If you are an executive at Microsoft right now, the next week or so is going to be pretty crucial.

On 22 October, Windows 7 is launched, the much vaunted latest version of the operating system. It is a crucial release because Microsoft, for the first time in its history, saw a backlash at its last major operating system release, Vista, when many large corporate customers decided to stay with the then current version, XP and still have. There were many technical reasons why customers did this but it caused tremors deep within Microsoft - was this the first ever user rebellion?

News yesterday will not have cheered Microsoft people. Google announced record quarterly profits at $1.6bn, a full 27% up on the same quarter last year and a clear sign, according to their Chairman, Eric Schmidt, that Google had exited the recession. A clear sign for the economy, perhaps, that the worst is over. But Microsoft people are hunkered down - after beating, cajoling, strong arming and any tactic they could find, they could force many home users to take Vista, but they could not force big customers to use it. It has now left them a massive problem.

The majority of PCs bought up until recently, came with Vista burned on the machine but they also had a downgrade option to XP. It meant a bit of fiddling around, but many users opted to go back a version of operating system to use a better, more established version. Clearly, Microsoft wanted to move all its development dollars to applications and a future based on the Vista lineage and so it had to make a huge gamble.

Here is the gamble - to benefit from using Windows 7, you can only upgrade from Vista. For all other users, you have to buy a new operating system, either with a new PC or just outright. It is not a gauntlet laid down by Microsoft to corporate customers, it is a simple, 'I told you that you had to move to Vista, now pay the price.'

Microsoft has been accused of massive arrogance in its stance on many occasions, introducing new versions of products where the file formats cannot be read in all versions causing big issues in the past. They have also been accused, more regularly, of hubris. Their products are still buggy with many simple things still recurring in products that have been within them for 10 years. They have been accused of stifling innovation as their products, with such a stranglehold on users, they force people to use the their products only.

Google were not the first company to come from nowhere and take Microsoft on but they are one of the few that avoided their usual responses to stifle competition and get not just a foothold but are now as big as them. The search engine was the linchpin but Google's view on the web challenged Microsoft's control of the PC from the opposite way. Google grew by revenue off the web, not the PC and it is its mantra today - and boy, have they been proved right.

For Microsoft, the next period in their history will be a white knuckle ride. They are going back to their base of PC users and they are basically waving a corporate two fingers at them to move to Windows 7 or get left behind - there is no intermediate choice. For Microsoft it is vital that users follow them as they cannot afford to keep developing products on multiple versions of their operating system - they have to get people to upgrade. Gone are the days of incentives on this - it's pretty succinct punch in the face.

I'm an XP user. I know that when the time comes I will be taking advice on what to do. The whole arena of operating systems has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. Now is as good a time as any, when I face paying for a full new operating system, to consider the advantages of Microsoft over its competitors or vice versa.

When was the last time we could have said that?

The Economics of Debt

Any small businessman will tell you that debt is a huge burden. It is not only that the interest cost is a drain on money that can otherwise be invested but it is the notion that once you have a debt, it is damn difficult to get rid of it.

Other businessmen think debt is fantastic. From it you can leverage huge profits and it is the principle behind many private equity fuelled buy outs. For a small capital outlay, vast sums of money can be borrowed to buy companies which can be later sold with a disproportionate amount of profit from the risk going to the private equity house. In the purchase of Boots, private equity outlayed less than a few hundred million while raising £9bn.

Debt, in that sense is good. Philip Green used a pile of debt to pay himself a one-off dividend of £1bn tax free. Debt, in plenty of senses then, is good.

But for the average business, the problem with debt is that it has to be productive in terms of increasing profits. Without a huge boost to profits, cashflow does not sustain the interest payments and so you have to borrow more in the hope that your business will catch up. In the end, it can be good money after bad as the implosion inevitably comes as the debt gets ahead of the business. For small businesses, debt is only good for working capital and generating more cash, beyond that it is a millstone.

So how do Government's view all this? The US just closed out its fiscal year with $1.4 trillion of debt, the highest national debt since 1945. As former Head of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, observed this is the most worrying aspect of the US economy. The equations start getting explosive in his eyes as more money is required to pay interest on the debt and you end up borrowing more just to pay the interest - the priority has to be to bring that debt down.

There are a few ways to do this. First up, you can get the economy growing, which is why there is so much debt there at the moment as the US tries to use more debt to stimulate the economy. This is exactly Greenspan's issue - using debt to stimulate growth can go horribly wrong and it's exactly what small businesses fear - if the revenue streams do not come through fast enough to bring much needed cash, then pretty soon you end up borrowing more. The second way, is to sell assets which has been the recent domain of the UK Government. The problem is that beyond gold, countries usually do not have easily 'liquifiable' assets. In Britain's case, we no longer have large golden stakes in large companies, we have the stakes in the banks but they are all still under water while other things like buildings and debts are not so easily sold. One thing we did not have was gold to sell. Such asset sales, as a small businessman would know, tend not to add much to the coffers to reduce debt - in our case it may be a few company cars, maybe a building, furniture or plant facilities. Asset sales of this type are usually done in desperation, like pawning jewellery in the face of credit card debt. Inevitably you are a buyer's dream and so you will never get full value for your assets as the British Government will soon find out.

Further, selling assets as a business means you have less to bargain with for the future and for a Government, once it is sold that's it - gone. The final way to make inroads into debt is to make cuts in the budget. Small businesses know all about this. Wastage is the first port of call but usually there is not a massive amount of 'wiggle room'. Certainly, the end of month pizzas may go, fresh flowers in reception, travel is fairly game forcing salespeople and managers to think hard before travelling and then looking levels of spend on things like flights and hotels. Then it gets nasty - the biggest expense for small business is the salary bill and that's where cutting can produce real savings. Of course, you are affecting your future capabilities but needs as must - for my money, it should always be the last port of call.

And so to Government. I argued yesterday that cuts can be made very easily - when you look around at the multifarious layers of Government and the associated lackies and cost, long before you start affecting public-facing services, you have vast layers of expense which are pure wastage. This is an easy starting point for Government and savings can be realised very quickly by canning external advisers, consultants, halting project overruns, getting rid of contractors, looking at layers of management and getting rid of many of them.

It has been pointed out that this recession has been felt almost exclusively in the private sector and that the public sector has done nothing to rein in cost, eliminate wastage or make cuts. Thus, the majority of the newly unemployed have come from the private sector. Yesterday, we saw positive results on the unemployment number as the rate of additions to the total seemed to slow and this had a small positive effect on the budget deficit forecast for the month. This could be a false dawn as the Government are going to have to start making some serious cuts - very soon and that means people hitting the dole queues from the public sector. It's crazy that it hasn't yet happened - but it has to.

My point in all this is that as small business people we know the economics of debt. It is a bad thing, particularly when markets are depressed. You can borrow in such times but it is usually out of desperation when in all reality, you should be cutting your cloth. Spending money in the hope things will come good, without a great plan for finding ways to grow, usually ends in tears as interest payments mount.

Alan Greenspan knows a thing or two about economics and I think he is right. Debt is know reaching the critical point - Britain is spending in the hope of an upturn and spending big. While you have to spend money to stimulate, you have to realise that in the background you have to make essential cuts.

It isn't as if we cannot survive if cuts are made - Britain is a bureaucratic monster with one of the heaviest public sectors in Europe. If we cannot find efficiencies in this structure then we ought not to be in Government, because as small businessmen we can see it all too easily.

The public sector is too big, too fat, has overly generous pension schemes and is a huge burden on our taxes and business - it has grown vast, inefficient, multi-level departments, which are mini-governments in themselves, over the last 12 years that has spawned regulation after regulation culminating in the last tranche of the farcical new Companies Act just last month which was years in the making, issued in 3 almighty sections and added really just 4 things of note to over 97% of the number of companies in Britain.

The waste is just awesome and shameful - and it needs to be cut, and fast.

It's Payback Time

If Silvio Berlusconi 'fingered' you for a particular role, I should think most of us would feel distinctly uncomfortable and start looking over their shoulder.

As David Mills has found out, there can be a high price for helping him out even if the initial rewards are good. So I wonder how Tony Blair must be feeling now, having just been endorsed by the Italian PM as the 'ideal' candidate for the new role enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty of EU Presidency. Currently, Mr. Blair is busy squeezing being a Middle East Envoy in between earning an estimated £12m since leaving office in 2007 in various other roles as writer, public speaker, non-executive director and adviser on globalisation to people willing to pay £2m a year for his wisdom.


Only the ratification of the Czech Republic stands in the way of the appointment which Berlusconi wants confirmed as soon as is 'legally' possible. The word 'legal' must send a shiver down his spine for the man who describes himself as, 'The most persecuted man in the world'. There are no suggestions of favours being called in although those with good memories will remember that the Blairs have enjoyed multiple free holidays at various Berlusconi properties in Tuscany and Sardinia. But as Tony's good friend, Peter Mandelson, knows there are always such things as free lunches and holidays on £80m yachts and the like. Just tell the public that you discussed the weather and they will believe you.


My memories are of Berlusconi smiling and greeting with a bandanna as his hair was busy being transplanted and dyed while dreaming of nubile young girls. It is as good as endorsement as Blair will get as Sarkozy and Merkel are rumoured to have not endorsed him while he is unlikely to get it from Chairman Brown.

Where's George W Bush when you need him?

Layer Upon Layer

I recently took part in a survey of what things I felt could be done to help Britain reduce its borrowing. Hold your horses - it was neither the front bar of a pub nor was it in the corridors of power. It was an online thing in one of the networks I use.

So the results are hardly likely to go anywhere. However, I have to say that some of the thoughts seem to resonate with those of others and the broad consensus of agreement is that there were many, many ways for the country to save money and reduce borrowing long before we actually impact services.

The first and most obvious way to reduce costs is simply to look at the layers of structure that exist both within public service departments and Government itself. Over 1 in 4 jobs are now in the public sector and this is warning enough. But when you start looking at the complex web of management structures and communication bridges, quangos and the like you suddenly get very depressed at the level and competence of the people that must be in there. Yet not a day goes past when some advert comes out for an overpaid interim to run some NHS Trust. We are breeding terrible grounds for long term bureaucratic money sumps.

So a starting point would be to review how many people we need in Parliament, the number of people to support these and start cascading the process. Very quickly we could home in on the number of MPs, the flunkies and mandarins, then the level of Local Councillors required, their staff and amorphous bodies around them, National Assemblies and their associated costs. Vast sums could be saved on the multiple layers of politician and the associated support infrastructure and people in pretty short order. Then we start looking at the departments around them and critically analyse who does what and why - the old time and motion study on public servants would bring into stark focus why Departments have spawned their own empires and management structures - Business Secretary alone has 9 junior ministers and umpteen staff - it's bizarre.

Don't start me on quangos and ancillary 'private' companies like the FSA or similar - vast staff who have proven they do nothing and cost loads. There are thousands of them, all stocked with the highest paid clever-clogs and never sensibly priced workers. It's all jobs for the boys and none deliver real value.

Associated with this is the whole costs associated with public service. In Wales and Scotland whole new prestige buildings were erected to house new assemblies when there were oceans of office space going begging - the costs, the salaries, the expenses so much of it unregulated. Then you start to look at the 'hangers on' - how many of these offices have associated external advisers, consultants, PR agents and the like running around on vast retainers adding little value to the everyday business process and our lives. Value for money is the key issue - it's not about making politicians or civil servants' lives easier it is about getting value for taxpayers' money. First to get the chop would be the army of investment bankers and lawyers advising on the current economic crisis - nearly £100m on them alone per year.

Then we could start looking at the layers of management in each department. Having experienced the NHS at first hand in the last few months, it is absolutely clear that money is not being focused in the right area. I have no qualms with the services provided, but when consultants have to beg for the prescription pad to administrators you know there is something wrong. The layers of management in such organisations are dreadful and unnecessary. The first thing these people would do is call in advisers to look at structures when in fact this is what private business does all the time. Management reviews are an everyday occurrence in business and if that's what the NHS is meant to be, then the managers should be capable and tough enough to do it. The amount of cash it could free up in the largest public budget is enormous.

Coupled with this is the vast wastage of money associated with budget overruns or badly implemented projects. It is not rocket science but you see £billions wasted on overly complicated IT and data projects, emergency service automation projects and the like. And so much focused in Police projects on how to balance budgets through revenue collection rather than focus on crimes. Value for money is the mantra here.

And again coupled to all this is the potential savings in salaries and costs associated with reviews. But it should go deeper. There is also recession on and wage negotiations have to be tough and tightly controlled while the whole bonanza on public sector pensions has to tackled before it cripples us completely. Why public service has such bias in terms of pay and conditions is beyond most people in the private sector who would kill for such fantastic automatic pay increments and pension schemes.

The target system is these departments is just a mess. While checking in waiting times may have gone down at the NHS, the chances of getting treatment quickly is minimal and highly trained people are focused on the simplest of tasks as they help hit targets. As we all know, hitting targets means money so more can be spent to hit the next targets which move you ever further from proper value for money. The whole service of Government is becoming a postcode lottery as incompetence seems to breed in certain areas.

Education is costing more and more and delivering less. How Ed Balls can smile is beyond me when you look at the basic deficiencies of entrants into the business world. They can text nicely on a phone but using written English defeats them while basic maths skills are beyond them. Looking at exam results, then the message is that we are producing genii. We are loggerheads with reality and what is required for future generations.

It's a simple matter but layers of management are counterproductive - we in business know this. Looking in at the whole public sector and you see layer upon layer of unnecessary levels of management whose tasks are to aggregate communication for the next layer up - in today's world of advanced communication that delivers nothing and hinders plenty.

The problem stems back to the central control issue. The idea that a Government has to control everything means that you have a cascade principle at work. Only partly in that structure do you get any kind of devolved thinking and its why we get so little value for money. Services in general are less but cost more - just take a look at local refuse collection. The amount of refuse being taken is decreasing, we have to do more of the work as individuals than ever before in sorting and if we should break the rules we get a criminal record. yet do we see a decrease in cost? It's just crazy. More and more talk comes about direct taxation for specific roads or services and it makes you ask, 'Then what have I just paid for in taxes?'

Value for money should be the credo for all taxpayers. We should be able to ask how our money is spent in wars, services, education, health, bank bailouts and other areas - we want to know why we are funding more politicians than ever, why are we supporting such generous pension requirements for the public sector and why are we paying for so many external bodies who deliver zero value?

All that happens instead is we sell off £16bn of assets no one cares about. It's a drop in the ocean in terms of what is required. Governing this country and delivering service has been an enormous sponge to cash over the last 12 years and no one knows how much we get back for the money we spend. It's time that rigorous reviews are done and savings identified fast. The IOD reckons at least £50bn per year can be saved on annual expenditure without cuts in services and I think they are undercalling it.

Waiting for the election will not help deliver the necessary savings in time. It needs to start now.

What Do SMEs Want?

The Government believes that banks are choking small businesses by not lending or setting criteria which are too tough. Banks say they're finding it hard to hit lending targets as customers are paying back more.

What do SMEs really want?

It seems that everyone knows the answer and continues to beat the drum. But because no one in the Government or in banks have run small businesses, they have no real idea what they need. They don't have any shortage of senior corporate figures piping up and telling them how much they want to earn or how bad education is (Terry Leahy of Tesco has done just that today). They have even employed Lord Sugar as some kind of Enterprise Tsar, whatever that rubbish may be. But no one in the Government would want to listen to someone like you or I. We don't get knighted or put into the Lords. We don't get to speak at the CBI and tell people how it is.

Small businesses account for 97% of all businesses in Britain and are the largest body of employers and we contribute disproportionately the largest amount of tax into the system through corporation and PAYE but we have the least heard voice. So it comes as no surprise that there is an argument between the Government and banks about lending.

So let's just think about this for a moment. Why is it that SMEs don't want to borrow as much cash as everyone thinks they should? RBS and Lloyds have set aside more cash, they have even put their most experienced bankers on hotlines. Why are SMEs behaving like spoilt brats and asking for credit and then not using it?

The main reason is that lending is seen as the way to prosperity by the Government. There is no other pathway. There is a good reason at a personal level because cheap and available mortgages allow us all to trade up or release equity to supplement our household income. No one could have survived the last 12 years if they had relied purely on their average household incomes and produced the growth we had - it came from freely available, ultra cheap and few strings attached credit. Banks fought over themselves giving it to us and we took it and used it prodigiously.

There was a ripple effect into SME business. Of course, in that environment of growth, businesses see opportunities and invest to grow by taking on people, marketing, gearing up new production, maybe expanding overseas. While the market is buoyant, the lower available credit was essential for companies to move forward.

Even now, at the heart of the recession, mortgages are critical as more people need to keep moving their earnings as wage increases are minimal and jobs are becoming scarcer. People are borrowing to maintain their lifestyle and maybe to survive. They are leveraging their own bank, again. It's a dangerous strategy long term as prosperity has to be geared to income ultimately but in the short term it is the only method the Government has to stand any chance of stimulating growth to cut borrowing. You can almost see the accident waiting to happen - borrow more to fuel growth to decrease borrowing. It's a cycle doomed to fail.

But small businessmen are a canny lot. They do not operate under the same mentality. Experience has taught them that in times of recession, borrowing to invest is not a priority. You may need to borrow to survive but that's different. Survival borrowing is not favoured by banks - after all, why would they want to give money to a company to save jobs or pay wages? That's the sort of thing that taxpayers do for banks but banks don't do it for businesses - oh, no. It's a simple credo, banks lend against some kind of collateral - so if you have assets in the business or you have a strong revenue book to show, you get money under nice criteria and although the cheapest business overdraft is around 13 times the bank base rate, let's face it 6.5% interest is the lowest for business borrowing for a long, long time.

The thing about small businesspeople is that we are naturally sensible. We do not operate like Government lackies would like us to. If sales are low due to a recession, we adopt a different approach. We cut costs, conserve cash and we attempt to decrease dependence on borrowing. Why? Because CASH IS KING. If sales are not coming through and growth opportunities are not there, we do not borrow more money, we cut our cloth. There is a simple reason - SMEs want to take advantage of the growth as and when it comes through to do that you must then have access to readily available credit at good terms. Borrowing in a recession for SMEs is either done out of desperation or because the business has spotted an opportunity created by the recession.

The truth is that the Government does not know how to run their own economics, that has been spectacularly manifested. So there is virtually no chance it understands the economics of running a small business. It has no adequate advice for SMEs and so they will continue to beat up banks and banks will do stupid things like put managers in call centres. It will not stimulate the credit.

What SMEs need is sales. Pure and simple, if there are not sales opportunities out there then there is zero point in investing in new people or production. The only other area where credit would be good is for those starting new ventures - with more people becoming unemployed more will want to try their hand at starting a new business. In general, starting a business in a recession is not a good idea. You only have to look at any High Street and count the number of shops now empty to know that buying consumers are still very nervous and businesses are unlikely to start taking small risks on new suppliers.

Of course, there exceptions to the rules. Many businesses like Cisco will tell you that they started business during a recession. Let's draw a line between book theory and practicality here. Cisco was started on the back of the waves of growth in the IT networking and infrastructure business. They were riding a future wave - true, they did that superbly but not every business has such a wave to rise. If you want to start a car repair shop, a nice clothes boutique, a barbers or a building firm, there are not those waves visible to invest against. Markets are generally depressed so you have to be able to pick where the future growth will come from and focus your business upon what you know you can do to tap into it. Simple statistics show that most businesses fail within the first year - in a recession that statistic gets worse. Banks will not lend money just to help people out in tough times, they want an investment idea.

Venture Capital is a very funny beast. Up until about a year ago, you could have had an idea about paper hat design for Outer Mongolia and they would have flown expensive people to you, to 'chase the deal'. Now they are all sitting on top of their masters' cash and working part time until someone presses the green button. It's not a question of pitching to them, it's a question of finding one who is in as most are on part time work.

The money is in the wrong place. If Government is hell bent on providing credit, then support new business ideas. VCs aren't putting cash down and banks don't want to support new ideas, Government should step in. I know Mandelson will say 'we are', but reality says Government is not and if it is, it is going into the wrong places. For a small time guy to borrow £10,000 to get a small business up and running, the facilities are simply not there whether they are the next Cisco or not. Like me, most entrepreneurs do it from their own means and we, of course, bet very carefully as we have too much to lose. If I wanted to expand my business today, there is not a scheme widely available and well publicised in Government anywhere that I do not have to fill in a ton of forms about my business to the nth degree and then wait six months for an answer. Borrowing should be a simple process. It is after all, a process of gambling and banks are very good at that when it comes to large complex sums that mean nothing to anyone else or serve no real purpose. As banks gamble in front of our eyes and conjure up £billions of profits, down in the real world it would be hard to get a penny of that profit to fund a new business idea.

So here's a thought. Government step in and say, for every new £1 of profit earned by investment banking of any type, 80% of it must be invested in small business funding with a new package of conditions to stimulate commerce. Call it a tax if you want, who cares. Bankers won't like it as it will dramatically cut bonuses but would it not create an impression that if you are going to make vast profits then make them out of something that does just a bit of good to the economy.

There are lots more things that could be done. But simply screaming into a High Street bank manager's ear 'Lend!' will not do it They do not have the experience or skill to understand business in the same way as an entrepreneur. You have to structure the whole conditions properly and borrowing is a mugs game for most SMEs today - they want sales. Stimulate new business ventures and there will be more sales for SMEs and their expertise and products.

Sales are what makes SMEs grow.

It's Just So Unfair

Life can be so unnecessarily hard sometimes. I mean it comes to something when you can't get a few grand of dry cleaning paid for by someone else or a bit of gardening or flat cleaning.

I should imagine there are a few angry people around tonight, feeling let down and cheated. It's not about the humiliation of having to pay money back, it's the principle of it. Heck, the Green Book of expenses codes could not be more clear - claim what you damn well like as it is down to your own idea of what is right. £116,000 is a snip when you think about the value for money we get from politicians. What is so wonderful is that the very people who make the stupid rules by which we have to live, don't like it when they are subjected to it. Try asking the Government to pay your dry cleaning bill or getting tax relief on your handyman. I got a call from HMRC today for being late with just one payment - they threatened legal action if it happened again. I am not kidding - all I did was select the BACS payment to go to the old sort code and account number at HMRC instead of the new one. I am sure Hazel Blears et al have not had similar calls despite their 'oversights'.

Anyway, one thing that has been unanimously applauded up and down the country is that pornography should be tax free. I should think many a lonely sales rep will want to present a few expense claims to HMRC and ask for 'relief'' on what their employer will not reimburse them for. As Jaqui's husband proved, they are essential for doing a good job and stimulating the grey cells.

You have to be some kind of person to be an MP or a Max Mosely. Life occurs to you in a very different slant to normal people. What is abhorrent to most sane, clean living, law abiding, tax paying people is perfectly natural to these people. Then take the Lehmans crew. A mere six European former executives are suing their former employer for £70m of unpaid salaries and bonuses.

The coffee machine is working over time but the aroma is not powerful enough. Hello, the bank is broke thanks to you guys - it was the largest corporate failure in history, thousands unemployed and taxpayers have stepped in to pick up the pieces. And you want money? That takes some front. One of them had only just started work there.

You have to laugh.

Meanwhile in the 'other' world where there are few gardens to charge for keeping, no dry cleaners and precious few meals let alone free ones, there are a few billion people sitting looking on bemused. How can sane people think the way we do? How can we justify going to war to defend this way of life? While millions starve and cry for help, we allow greedy people to take court action to extort money from people - £millions. The last 12 years of false profits and poor governing will be the biggest wasted opportunity in history. All those incredible £trillions could have solved the problems in Africa and the Third World in short order.

You have to cry.

This warped way of life is going too far. One minute banks are broken by their senseless activities, the next they pick up the very things that broke them before and trade them again for vast profits. Toxic debt one minute, perfumed profit the next. Profit from transactions that do nothing for anybody but the people who trade them. In Africa, it would be the same as creating grain from dry sand. They would be that rich if they could do it. They could eat.

One thing that has come out of the last two years is that for all our posturing as a civilised society, we are just a bunch of greedy, moral-less self interested and egotistical jerks - every last one of us. Africa can have what they want so long as we have our 42" inch TV, takeaway curry and a dream of a Porsche. They dream of survival.

For the bemused millions struggling to live, they must look upon us all as gorillas in a zoo. All muscle, hair, wind, chest beating and bullying - we are always right, we always get our own way and we get all the best things. And if we don't, we just fight.

One thing is for sure, we have the monopoly on bananas.