Royal Mail sell-off / Vectis Radio

Between 12-1pm on Tuesday 20th August, the first of regular slots will air on Vectis internet Radio www.vectisradio.co.uk
A number of subjects are in the pipeline to be tackled and the first will be privatising of the Royal Mail.

In the studio will be the show host and station controller Ian Mac, also Arthur Reeder who is an authority on the history of the Royal Mail and yours truly. It is fair to say that all three of us are against the relentless selling off of every scrap of family silver our nation once possessed and the surrendering of commercial sovereignty that has inevitably gone with all the assets stripped out. Now it's the turn of the RM to be sold for a one-off cash infusion to the exchequer under the command of a breed of witless politicians incapable of seeing beyond the ends of their own noses.

The number for the studio is 01983 240666 and people with a strong opinion are welcome to call. If you work for the Royal Mail and have a view you may like to call in and have your say. Should your call be pro the sell-off, you'll need to have your argument well sorted.

Garlic Festival / interesting attitudes

The weekend just gone was the annual Garlic Festival that takes place on the Isle of Wight when food with a garlic theme, entertainments such as Darth and his chums stomp about to light-heartedly menace children, bands play, people sell their wares and various crafts are on display. It's a good weekend and much fun is had by all.

 

This year as last, I took a small round table, a box of books and some paper flyers with the hope of drumming up interest for the project. Some old friends were met it's always nice to catch up, and some very interesting and at times fairly intense conversations were struck up with new faces. I found that most of the people spoken to of my own generation were pretty much onside the moment they knew what my project is about, which is in a nutshell, no faith at all in Britain's leadership to do the right thing by ordinary people and families, and the need to stop the rot for the sake of all. 

 

Speak of the need to put the country back on its feet and the natural reaction is to ask 'what would you do about it?' At which point I would reach for my folder to show the person my 3 diagram depiction of a healthy versus an unhealthy economic model. It is the series that opens the SNM website and depicts a human body with the arterial system and vital organs, and the analogy with Britain and its economy. In a nutshell... fully functional vascular system pumping oxygen, nutriment and fighter cells to feed and fight off disease around a human body = good health. Within the analogy the UK landmass is the 'body' and the economy the 'vascular system' whilst cash flow is 'lifeblood' and the major institutions such as education and the NHS are 'vital organs'. In diagram three 'fiscal tumours and leaks' are added such as benefits culture and payments to the EU, and without exception, everyone I showed it to instantly got it and said it works. The analogy is just one amongst a host of devises and ideas promoted within the book and that demonstrate that this project is about walking the walk as opposed to merely talking the talk.  

 

Two attitudes come across were especially interesting. I had the privilege of speaking with a number of students working towards various degree courses, politics and business studies standing out. They got it I'm pleased to say, and that is the most rewarding result of the weekend for me. Our young and what they are set to inherit from my own generation that has screwed up so badly, is the whole point of this exercise. Their generation is on the verge of taking control of the nation and they need to go forward with open eyes and minds, and if they do... (I was going to type 'things can only get better' but thought better of it) The reaction gained from switched on young people tells me where a prime target audience for this project is... students, schools, colleges and universities.

 

The other attitude encountered was less convivial. On four occasions I noticed someone skimming through or reading properly the flyer or back of the book and sought to strike up a conversation with them only to get the brush off. A man and woman strutting about wearing blue 'Team NHS' t-shirts were especially snotty which was mega disappointing as I would have expected such people to get it. Maybe they got the wrong idea, that my suggesting we ought to repair this broken country got interpreted as right-wing so maybe of the worst sort of nationalism? For the benefit of the dismissive to the point of being rude  I'll state the aims of this project...

 

Not right-wing, not left-wing, but slap bang down the middle. A system designed to work for the majority. Unity, cooperation in the common interest, democracy and meritocracy. The word meritocracy speaks for itself. Gender, race, class religious affiliation not important. Plain enough?         

From sideways on and from underneath to get around lazy thinking

Yesterday (6.8.2013) I spent an hour and a bit at Vectis Radio discussing some of the subjects I should like to get my teeth into once the regular slot begins in two weeks time. My intention in a nutshell, is to tackle issues not from the usual bull at a gate perspective, but sideways on and from underneath, in order to get under the surface and figure out what has really gone on. We have so many problems in this country, many of which are festering for lack of understanding; which is the reason I put so much effort into the writing of my book Sheep No More.

Close to the end of the phone-in Clare who is to the right of Mussolini called. After a bit of toing and froing the subject under discussion became 'industry' and how Britain is now so industrially feeble in comparison with the past. Clare came out with the bog standard argument to be heard from one end of the nation to the other over the past three decades. 'It's all the fault of the Unions' Arthur Scargill and Red Robbo etc who did all the damage and should be cursed for it.

Irresponsible Trade Unions undoubtedly did do enormous damage, but it was thirty years ago when wildcat strikes were being called over disputed tea breaks and resulted in Thatcher pulling the teeth of the movement. Other than funding the Labour Party and occasionally jumping up and down a bit to little or no effect, the unions today are a spent force.

In the years since, thousands of British workforces have been thrown on the scrapheap and millions of jobs have been decanted abroad. The country has had its skills base pretty much trashed, we're awash with imports, run an out of control benefits culture because redundant workers and their families still have to be fed, watered and housed, and the economy is a complete, total and utter basket case, regardless of what Cameron and Osborne would have us believe. Economically we're in a shocking mess, which cannot be down to trade unionists post 1984 when the miners were pummelled. Forget shallow, consider the following 'tools' commerce has employed in the quest to get at the truth...

Cheap labour was identified abroad, the exploitation of which would allow a massive increase of mark-up, to benefit management and shareholders.

Corporate use/abuse of the benefits system as nothing could be easier than to 'dump' an inconvenient British workforce onto the system and then employ your new cheap as chips workforce abroad.

Pay the bulk of your British workforce the minimum wage and advise them how to go about claiming tax credits, meaning that the exchequer subsidises big business methods.

Employ tax avoidance methods using loopholes and tax havens elsewhere to avoid paying corporation tax.

Zero hours contracts whereby workers are entitled to no sick pay, holiday pay or maternity leave.

Internships whereby people desperate to kick-start a career are forced to work for nothing.

And remember... We're talking 'Big Business' here, the leading lights of which went to the same public schools as our political masters and they conduct much of their business on the same golf courses and masonic lodges as our leading politicians (and I don't have a problem with freemasons by the way, I'm just telling it like it is). Be aware also that when membership of the EU is concerned the people who have the most clout are the very same ones who've used all those damaging tools to rip the heart and soul out of Britain and its communities whilst making fortunes for their greedy selves. Think about it, paraded in and out of TV and Radio studios are senior businessmen who tut-tut at the idea of leaving the EU because doing so would damage their business interests. Well I for one want the country to be run in the best interests of the people, not some bunch of sharp suited spivs and foreign shareholders.

In case you're wondering I am no socialist and I'm not too bothered about trade unions. I simply want my country to be put back to rights and for our kids to have a future. Achieving that makes it necessary to get the blinkers off and view reality, as opposed to putting in no effort to get beneath the surface. All the fault of the unions? Very lazy thinking that!      

Cunard... Invensys... Sunseeker... pigs & troughs.

Cunard, the subject of my last posting, is a graphic example of the rampant asset stripping to have afflicted Britain over the past thirty or so years. Today another piece of our once proud commercial heritage ships out as Invensys who make control systems, is snapped up by the French outfit Schneider for £3.4 billion. A month ago Sunseeker was sold to the Chinese for £300 million, it being a highly successful company whose products are in demand by the rich and super-rich the world over, it being a company that did not need to be sold and ought not to have been, but was, for one simple reason. Britain's senior commercial and industrial management has morphed from the best in the world when the country was strong and stable, to now becoming the worst of any 'advanced' nation, to the point that these people blight our nation. Always alert for an opportunity to asset strip, they'll dive into a trough of foreign cash the moment it is slid beneath their insatiably greedy snouts, regardless of the consequences for workforces, communities, and national interest. We were told in advance that Schneider intended to sack much of the British workforce once it took control and that they are after the research, patents, and market share, and yet that clearly understood knowledge cut no ice with those doing the selling. As for our worse that useless politicians... standardised silence, as always.

At some point we are going to have to bite the bullet and set about fixing 'Broken Britain' and journalists have a vital roll to play in that regard. Question these people. Highlight the fact that Britain's senior political and commercial leaders have effectively 'divorced and separated' themselves from the populous, with disastrous consequences for the national interest and for all of our children's future. If any journalist would like some help with material I should be very happy to assist. Check out chapter 9 'Deindustrialisation' of my book Sheep No More for starters. Within it the forces and attitudes at work are exposed and made sense of from the perspective of Mr Ordinary. Sussing out what has gone wrong with Britain really isn't difficult. Truly!