Smooth Operator

'Teflon Tony' was at it again, as we suspected. The polished and well rehearsed performance of our former PM showed he has lost none of those skills that kept him at the top of his game in politics.

Even his admissions on Fern Britton's show that if he had known that WMD were not in Iraq, he would have still gone to war and just spun the evidence to give a different excuse, was laughed away as if he had been tricked by some skilled advocate rather than a weekday second rate presenter.

We learnt nothing more than what he was prepared to let us know and it was presented as if there was a compelling moral cause to his actions.

Faith is a great gift - it allows you to break circular arguments by providing a neat end point. The fact that Blair had faith meant he knew, no matter what the reason he invented or knew, that he was right to invade Iraq. He would do it again in a heartbeat for another reason - faith told him he would be always right. You cannot challenge faith; there is no logic, no evidenciary reasoning, no rational thought process, there is just a blind and utter belief in what you want to do or something to be.

Blair has buckets of faith - so much so that he has made it a past time to tell us all about his pious beliefs. The warning signs are there for us all to see - faith is not a reason to start killing people. Wars down the generations have relied on such stuff but we are developed, mature and intelligent humans - we need more of a reason to start killing one another.

If we don't, then this world is forever cursed with the burden of religion.

No other species on earth from the single cell structures to the most advanced primates have a concept of a God or worship - they may have pack leaders or alpha males but they do not have Gods. That sort of tells you something about the limitation of intelligence - it gives the ability for us to question, reason, invent, discover but then 'draw a line' under the whole thing when the answer does not coincide with evidence. From planetary motions, to disease control to evolution - faith has challenged humans every step of the way.

Tony Blair never cared whether Saddam Hussein had any WMDs or chemical weapons, nor if he could launch any within 45 minutes. He was more concerned in following his fellow believer in faith, George W. Bush. This week Blair declared, in his clinical knowledge and expertise, that Saddam Hussein was a psychopath. It was a clutch at a straw that at least most would believe.

But that is not what the UN 1441 stated - the grounds for armed intervention were not there. Blair knew that a second resolution would never be passed as both Russia and France at minimum opposed them. So he threw in his lot with the US and would do the justifications later when he was called to account.

The Chilcot Inquiry was advertised as the definitive inquiry into the war, we got nothing. All the evidence in the inquiry to date points that war was unnecessary and that the intelligence around it was deeply flawed at best and, at worst, lies.

We will never know the truth as faith stands in our way.

What Happened To Labour?

I am not sure what has been the most obvious in the last 24 hours, a) the fact our economy is about as healthy as a 40 a day smoker or b) that the gap between rich and poor has not been as high for 40 years.

Either way, it begs the question - what happened to Labour? In my youth, I may not have agreed with the rantings of Neil Kinnock, Michael Foot, Dennis Skinner, Arthur Scargill or Tony Benn but you could not fault them for their deep conviction that there was a fundamental inequality in our society. Now, after 12 years of a Labour Government, we find we have the usual defunct economy but also the largest gap between richest and poorest, the least opportunities for our children, and an apparent breaking, if not broken, society that still makes distinctions between sex and gender despite there even being an Equalities Minister and employment laws as tight as a duck's backside.

The reality is that we sit passively reading that bankers at Goldman Sachs will have to make do with only £1m per person this year, we look on with indifference that bosses' average pay is now over five times that of the wages of their average worker and despite the presence of a myriad of laws employers still discriminate on the grounds of race, religion and sex. We may think things are different - but they aren't. You only have to see the rise in the BNP to understand that Britain is not moving forward in its thinking or the clamour to congratulate France on banning the wearing of Burkas by Muslim women.

Then again, we are at war with Muslims and their way of life. We are currently occupying two Muslim countries and we are having another eternal inquiry into why we invaded one of them as it posed no threat to our nation. It's little wonder why people in Britain remain largely anti-foreign, let alone racist.

We convince ourselves that the Taliban are the epitome of pure evil because of the way they treat women and hold them back, yet the recently released figures show clearly that as a society we fundamentally undervalue the contribution of a woman doing the same job and that the opportunities to progress for women are far less than those for men. We have even made the white male worker a class that is oppressed in the media.

I can't say that I know answers to such a complex situation because on the one hand I want a safe place to live, more opportunities for local people to work rather than have more migrant workers in this country, employ the people I think can do the job rather than be told that I must favour certain sections of society, earn as much as I am able and pay less for the failings of others. On the other hand, I know that I am part of the problem. I sit hear and listen to the spoutings of a Government that has failed us through window dressing policies and talk but did little to rectify the underlying problems and I think to myself, 'Well at least I'm ok, despite how much I disagree with their so-called achievements.'

And that about sums it up - as long as we have our Sky TV, a place to live, iPods, 42" TVs, places to eat and pubs to drink in plus the money to support it, we are fat and happy. Who cares about the kids in poverty in this country or the starving in Africa when partners at banks average £1m a year and are furious they are being victimised? It seems Labour doesn't - that party of social equality of old has wooed and knighted bankers as good as anyone and footed the bill when they got so greedy that they broke the country.

We are a society that will gladly fight for the right to watch violent films, make sure our kids have the latest PC games extolling the virtues of stealing cars and defending the right of anyone to do what they want on the internet yet criticise people for having beards, wearing Burkas and being tough on criminals. We are a society that will happily go to war based on false information, then cook the story to justify it when the lie is discovered yet allow countries we 'free and democratise' to have corrupt Governments because it suits our agenda.

The fact is, as a society we haven't really moved very far forward at all. The Labour Party, which once had a passion to tackle such issues, has got as fat and as happy as the society it governs.

I would hate us to get back to the old days of rampant strikes and high powered, politicised Unions that dominated Labour's rise which contributed to the death of the British manufacturing base but I can't help thinking we needed some of those old principles about a better society, because what we have is more polar, discriminatory and broken than it has ever been.

Well Worth The Wait?

A few hundred £billion later on bail outs and £200bn of Quantitative Easing (QE), a fiscal stimulus package worth a few bob, and all the 'right decisions' have 'apparently' been made?!

What do we get for all that money? 0.1% growth in the final quarter of 2009, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Granted, they may 'sex up' that figure later but the reality is that the much-anticipated recovery that Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown got us all salivating over is hardly worth a thing. Given that we spent all that QE money, we had the effect of Christmas buying and pre-VAT surges, the fact of the matter is that we hardly showed a jot of growth.

The majority of the fiscal stimulus has been spent, now we are on the artificial lifeline of delayed spending cuts in order to tackle our ever increasing borrowing - we are in the red zone on the economic barometer. We are in dodgy credit territory and the Government's strategy of 'Hope' in terms of growth has been like a like a firework's touchpaper fizzling out with no bang.

One economic commentator from the FT previously described the economy as like being lit by firelighters and causing a momentary flash of burning but once the firelighter burnt out discovering that the economy is merely glowing not burning.

I said it before - I believed the Government used the strategy of throwing enough manure at a wall in the vain hope that some would stick in terms of the amount of money they spent. There was no focus, no target, no knowledge of the return on the money - just spend as much as possible and hope things would right themselves, all because a bunch of failed Investment Bankers advised them to do so.

It leaves the Government's fiscal policies both before the financial crisis and after in tatters - they were as bad dealing with the problem as the hubris shown in pre-empting it. No lessons have been learnt, banks have not been reformed or restrained, bonuses are being paid as high as ever in the City and bankers still being revered despite the pathetic windfall tax which makes little or no effect.

0.1% represents an economy in crisis still and we have little left to throw at it and a massive budget deficit to deal with. If this is 'prudent' economics as Gordon always told us he was expert in, then we are surely on a slippery slope to ruin.

If I were the Chancellor, I would be almost embarrassed to mention this figure. This is not good news for businesses continuing to hold in a survival pattern, hoping for an upturn.

Recession? What Recession?

Pah, it's only been since the April-June quarter of 2008, but the longest recession since records began is expected to have officially ended in the final quarter of 2009. Or, at least, that's the script as the same was expected last quarter.

According to Lord Mandelson on Radio 5 Live this morning, we have had less house repossessions, less unemployment (about 850,000 jobs lost), had less company liquidations, had only 6% contraction of the economy and faired better than other G20 nations during the recession - heck, we have hardly sustained a scratch to our way of life. In fact, under the Conservatives of 20 years ago, the recession then lost 2 million jobs.

The difference, of course, is that we have a record budget deficit of £178bn and rising. That and the fact that we have made no cuts to public expenditure - in fact, we have spent like crazy and not lost any public sector jobs at all. We have spent a few hundred billion rescuing banks and we have printed £200bn of new money to buy our own National Debt. What we have done is created a FALSE economic situation and mitigated the effect of the recession on real things like public expenditure by spending and creating money that we didn't have - and we will all pay dearly for that over the coming years.

Gordon Brown believes he has made all the 'right decisions' in this crisis but the real reckoning has been staved off to a later date. He has created a dreamworld, a fantasy of where we actually stand so that he can try and win the election.

It's an artist's impression rather than a financial one as the creativity of Lord Mandelson is evident wherever we turn. The figures today are pretty meaningless in the context of how much this crisis has cost Britain and the taxpayers. The pain has been delayed and that will costs us all even more.

The Second Coming of Swiss Banking?

President Obama has launched one of the biggest reforms of the bank system for many years as he bids to try and grab the money back that bankers have lost.

The plan is to claw back over $100bn which seems a great deal of money but in the great scheme of things it represents but a fraction of what the US has had to spend to save the banks and actually is not a massive amount compared to the profits banks are earning again. Just over the weekend, the bank that claims it does 'God's work', Goldman Sachs, has capped its partners' pay at £1m a head - a move seen as akin to wearing sackcloth for a year in the City. In the UK, we have the bank roll tax which may raise around £500m if we are lucky. Yet despite the fact that bankers seem to be getting off lightly, they are actually squealing like stuck pigs at such perceived 'unfairness'. The mantra seems to be, 'You can't live with us, but you can't live without us.'

It's the classic gun to the head situation in the UK - allow us to earn or we will move elsewhere.

The elsewhere is increasingly looking like Switzerland. The traditional old stuffy, discrete and positively criminal image of Swiss bankers of the past as they provided an anonymous and impenetrable home to illicit money, far from the hands of taxmen, the Swiss banking industry is not what it used to be. But for a land-locked country with no real other source of income other than banking, pharmaceuticals and chocolate, it always punches above its weight and has even won the Americas Cup.

City rumours are that the Swiss are in town murmuring in the ears of disgruntled bankers telling them that there is a welcome in the green valleys of Switzerland, where the individual tax regime is very accommodating. The cost of living may be high, but why worry when you are earning the kinds of money people of your calibre deserve?

A collective sigh of relief may be exhaling around the City - it's a bit of a trek for the Americans but they will find somewhere closer and maybe join the real casino boys in Cayman Islands or Bermuda, but the message is that there are willing homes for these poor wretches to rise again - and be richer than they are now.

'Be careful what you wish for,' say the bankers. Good riddance, I say.

Industrial Disease

The Gabby Logan Show on BBC Five Live this week shows how the insurance industry ducks its responsibilities and allows many people to die long before they pay out.

There are two direct repercussions to this - 1) the person dies a particularly uncomfortable and painful death without any financial support and 2) the pay out is automatically reduced after death even though relatives will have shouldered the cost of care. Both are terrible but the latter is a belter - once the unfortunate person dies then only if there are dependents alive will the pay out be the nearly the same as the award to the suffering person. If not, then it is reduced as non-dependents are supposedly in less need of the money - a nice way to save cash. Dependents are defined as spouses or children under 18.

This is not rocket science. The expense associated with making a claim is huge and it is a lengthy process. As a family, we experienced this when my father was diagnosed with mesothelioma after working all his life for the same company, BP. His only interruption in service for the company came from a stint in the Navy (seconded to the Merchant Navy) during WWII. Despite this, and his being able to pinpoint the most likely period of his employment with the company when he got most exposed, the company denied and denied it. Fortunately, we found the insurers quickly, engaged a good lawyer and claimed. My father, after so long a service with BP for whom he sacrificed a great deal working all over the world and away from the family in places like Alaska and Aden, was heartbroken that his employer turned their back on him, when all he needed was some contribution to things like a downstairs shower or wheelchair.

Even after we had found the insurer, the process outlived him. As he fell to the worst part of the illness, he asked us to pursue the case as he was so upset that his company would deny him. Eventually, an award was made. We had a meal in his honour and opened a bottle of his favourite wine, Barolo, after his service in Italy for BP where he suffered a life threatening car crash after too many hours on the job commissioning a troublesome refinery and where our mother suffered a stroke at an early age. We bought a piece of machinery for the hospital in Swansea where he was treated which would make life a little easier for fellow sufferers - and it says something that a small unit at that hospital needed such kit for such a rare disease - and a bench at the Nursing Home for the terminally ill that he spent his final hours in.

I will not go into the disease other than to say it is the most virulent of cancers which is caused by asbestos and affects the lining of the lung - it is inoperable and terminal in all cases, yielding a terrible death.

Insurance executives should read such articles and view programs on it and think about how they would like to die. If they should contract such a disease from the negligence of their employer, then the one thing they would want is some comfort and help during their suffering.

That is the one thing insurance companies in these cases do not give. I have no sympathy or respect for that industry in total. Faceless executives betting and profiting on misfortune and making it onerously hard to get access to what is rightfully claimed. You need a cold heart to be successful in it - and most are.

The Public Sector Bonanza

If we needed more evidence that costs are spiralling out of control in the Public Sector and that it has not, in any way, shared in the need to cut costs to reduce the budget deficit, the article in yesterday's Daily Telegraph said it all.

A small, but prominent paragraph on the front page indicated there is now a record gap between Public and Private Sector pay which is over £2,000 on the average salaries in each sector.

I have beaten on about this but the Private Sector has borne the brunt of cost cutting and job losses in the last year while the Public Sector has remained fat and happy, negotiating unrealistic pay deals and sitting on overly generous pension schemes. The Government has postponed any cost reviews until after the election and our borrowing as nation rises daily - it's as if people who control these things either don't get it or, worse, don't care .

The Public Sector cost is a massive ticking bomb and the longer we leave tackling it, the worse it will get. Meanwhile, as National Debt goes onto the open market, credit agencies around the world will be questioning the British ability and appetite to deal with its growing public costs and repayments.

As we, the taxpayer, contemplate the price of all this, it is encouraging to know that right in front of our faces, our 80%+ publicly owned bank, RBS, is a principal lender to Kraft to acquire Cadbury - which no one seemed to know until after the deal was struck, while Mandelson now wants to see the detail as he wafts it through to conclusion. Further, those banks, who we bailed out are enjoying a wonderful resurgence as the wider economy still struggles - prompting new, higher pay deals and wonderful profits.

You couldn't make this up - the taxpayer gets the entire bill for economic failure to see banks whooping it up thanks to our generosity, while the Public Sector gets fatter because costs are not cut which could save the taxpayer some money.

Having just got my Corporation tax demand within minutes of posting my accounts and still waiting for my personal rebate since October, it seems that taxpayers have become the new 'Bank of England'.