The battle of Delville Wood

In writing to my South African audience i wonder who knows of the Battle of Delville Wood. 

An epic story of courage and perseverance from the annals of the First Word War when a Brigade of South Africans took and held, under tremendous odds an important strategic position which although terribly exposed they held under not only continuous sniper fire but a bombardment which registered 400 shells a minute, minute after minute hour on end. It's hard for us these days to comprehend the conditions under which the men, many of them conscripts  with little or no experience, ordinary working men one day, the next fodder for the machine gun.

The call to arms on the British side reflected her role in the Empire and its a strange thing to reflect that in these days of condemnation and remorse towards the Empire and the supposed wrongs of exploration and mistreatment, people in there thousands volunteered to fight for Britain in her hour of need.

The South African Brigade, which composed 15% Afrikaners of whom many had fought fairly recently for the Boars against the British and the rest, the bulk, English speaking South Africans who were described as "men of the right kind of experience, troops of a high physical standard plus a high level of education and breeding". For 6 days and 5 nights this shell shocked, ever reducing group of brave men held one of the most pivotal positions on the Western Front. 

Of a total of 121 officers and 3045 men only 147 marched out. It's hard for us to understand in this age of questioning and evaluating how that generation gave of themselves unquestioningly.

Who guards the people

Listening to the business plan, which the owner of Sports Direct, Mike Ashley outlined to one of the Select Committees, one is struck by the desperate need for a method of better protection for "worker rights" in the UK. Of course the word "rights" is a tricky description since we see people claiming rights where one might think there should be none and the claim is preposterous.

Worker rights are not the sociological dream of people who feel that, in areas of human interaction, minorities in particular need protection. Worker rights are not a minority subject they effect us all in one way or another. They were won over decades of struggle and one only has to go back to the practices of 1930, of workers turning up at the gates of the shipyard or factory to learn if there was work for the day to realise how important respect for ones fellow man and woman is, especially if you employ them.
Mike Ashley along with others, operates his business on the 1930 precept that my profitability can be increased if I do not acknowledge that any of my workers (other than the managerial staff) have any but the most tenuous link with the company. 80% of his workforce are on a  "no guarantee hours contract" which means, as Mike Ashley wakes up in the morning and sees the sun shining he boosts his employment take on for the day and if it's raining and customers are more prone to staying away, he takes on less. His workforce are dictated by the contract to stand by and await his call, they can not fulfil other work opportunity or obligations, they are tied, on no pay to make themselves available.
I did a blog yesterday on Philip Greens role in bringing BHS down. His movement of money, his drawing of large dividends when the business needed the cash his disregard for the people who worked for him. The UK like any capitalist country is governed by people who wish to extract the maximum from the workforce with a minimal obligation. People who grow rich and powerful do so usually at least in part on the back of others. It's a natural law of commerce that for every winner there has to be a loser and this is where society and its governance comes to the rescue to ensure that the loser is not impoverished.

One of the major questions which has to be asked is, would our Parliament better protect the works and their rights than a "Union" of nations who drawn from a combination of backgrounds which not only define each nation but a cumulatively make the singular stronger. The regulations which emanate from the EU and the legal requirements which are binding on our Parliament also protect us. The question of whether our own blend of slow burn, hard won democracy won by the establishment giving ground slowly, under protest is more likely to advance our cause. 

Like our common law legal system it is based on the accumulation of previous judgements which then become an evolution of legal precedent. There is no written constitutions,  no set of constitutional rights on which to formulate the precedent only the slow acknowledgement of giving way when push comes to shove.

Would we were ruled by a more benign system but we are not and I wonder if the European Union isn't a better judge of what a citizen needs and should expect, than an Etonian elitist clique.  

British Home Store

Listening to a Parliamentary Committee investigation the sale of British Home Stores from Philip Green to Dominic Chappell, purportedly for a £1.00 , the murky world of finance and business is exposed. As an ordinary man in the street one is amazed at the nefarious routes, the complexity and the extent of the obfuscation that goes on in these deals. 

Before the sale, for a £1.00, a large property was to be sold for £30 million but was actually sold for £45 million and the difference appeared in the account of the person who had paid a £1.00. This is the opening salvo to explain how a man Dominic Chappell, who was in many ways a man of straw, was financially groomed to become the new owner of BHS by Philip Green.

Within weeks of the sale the BHS is put into receivership and thousands of BHS workers have lost their jobs and their pension rights. 

People who had worked for years at BHS were putty in the hands of Philip Green and his cohorts. Shifting large amounts of money around the Monopoly Board, which for the movers and shakers of The City, is their plaything.  Mr Green had over the years awarded large dividends payments to his wife who just happened to be domiciled in Monaco to avoid paying tax on the dividend, whilst not fulfilling his financial responsibilities towards the company and particularly towards the companies pension fund. No one is indictable, no one broke the law, no ones collar felt, it seems everything is normal, in the City.
My mind keeps returning to the reality of Mrs Wright , a 65 year old pensioner who is being charged a levy tax on her third bedroom which became vacant when her son moved away. 

The intensity of the investigation and the surety of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he is doing the country a favour as he roots out these "deviants" (Mrs Wright not Mr Green) who won't face their responsibilities towards the State  seems strangely unfocused when it comes to that segment of our society, 'the money men'.
We return time and time again to the inability of HMRC to pursue the Big City Rollers in their devious ways. The cosy deals between HMRC and Goldman Sachs, where the bank "agreed" to pay a minuscule percentage of what they owed the Exchequer and HMRC caved in and accepted the banks terms. 

I see the French are made of sterner stuff and are taking the same bank to court over unpaid taxes. The French always used the term to define us in our dealings on the international stage, "Perfidious Albion".

It was always so

On June the 5th "1975" the UK had a Referendum, whether to stay or leave what was then called The Common Market. Listening to the debate in the Oxford Union and the television coverage trying to convince the public of the arguments one way or the other one is struck, no amazed that if you had put a template over the one it would fit the current referendum debate to a tee. The stated hopes and the fears are identical.
The glib politicians, then as now, willing to exchange truth for half truth, or worse, without a smidgen of shame to discard honesty. Honesty was and is, not in vogue since we seem to be able, as Homo sapiens, to convince ourselves through sentiment that what ever the brain has convinced itself of, is sufficient.
Truth over such a complex landscape is variable. One man or woman's experience is different and the importance of some specific aspect of the benefit or loss to A, is less so to B.  
Intelligent men and women who engage in the business of persuasion, such as the politician should be discounted in a similar way one should always discount the work of the 'adman' or the public relations person when buying anything.
It's a sad fact of life that we can't be more even handed in our dealings with other people, we often become both defensive and antagonistic at the same time if our cherished ideals are brought into question. Lying to prove a point seems par for the course rather than re-examining the point you wished to prove. In setting out your case for convincing someone there will always be areas of weakness in your argument and we would do well to acknowledge them as weak-nesses and consider why they are weak rather than wish them away.
In this current Referendum "argument", since that is what it has descended to, an argument not a debate, I have yet to hear either side consider the other persons point of view.
Be it the economic argument, immigration and the stress on resources, the sentiment of being in charge of your own destiny, none of these complex arrangements are discussed in a rational balanced way. It's either black or white, no shade of grey, whilst in fact virtually all of it is 'grey' with elements of both effecting the outcome.
We do need immigration to keep certain of our services going but not the un-targeted,  un- controlled immigration that Schengen produces.
We do need to trade into the large population block which Europe represents but not to the exclusion of other markets. Britain has historically been a part of a commonwealth of nations and traded in what was known as the sterling area with countries across the globe. Other countries in Europe have not had this global reach and we suffer more than others in the EU from the enforced isolation which the rules of the EU impose on us.
Whilst the "Stay" Campaign claim that the BREXIT group can not tell us what economic  life will like in this country when or if we leave, it is equally true that the "Remain" 'status quo' people can not convince me that hitching our star to a shaky assembly of economically disparate nations, with clear structural economic fault lines, unless closer political union is sought (which of its self opens another can of worms), their proposition is no clearer as to a view into the future.
There is also the rights of EU citizens, especially the ones who are now being granted asylum from the war torn Middle East, to move freely from country to country which will, over time, distort our already distorted society.  

Big business trumpeting the claim of the EU is not a good omen for the ordinary man in the street. Globalisation has not been to the advantage of "the working man and woman".  It has divided the world into ever greater disparity and the national attempt to find solutions finds little or no support in the trans global boardrooms which now call the shots. Neo Liberal Western Capitalism seems to have won the day, until we have another seismic shock such as we experienced in 2008. The banks will fail because all the precautionary bullets have been fired and whilst we continue, unabated to leverage debt as if it were a positive commodity the day of reckoning is due to ravage what we assume is our entrenched entitlement.
It is my view cutting our cloth and relinquishing our historical position. Acknowledging our size and our mistakes, for instance in not keeping abreast with education, leaves us no option but to reappraise who we are. Our lack of economic clout (other than in the field of dodgy finance) and the perilous borrowing we undertake to appear solvent, must be brought under control. We can prosper, but as a nation with aims which fit us for our place in the new global dispensation. 

The transition that never happened

Countries such as South Africa have changed so drastically that there are few intrinsic  land -marks left. The iconic buildings are still there, the grand structures of government in Pretoria and Cape Town, the hideaways of the rich like Plettenberg Bay, the ribbon developments along the coast still have their occupants living the "good life", the food and the restaurants as good as anywhere in the world but the foundations of good governance have gone and with it the criteria that defines a country.
Of course it was always a false premise to judge the country on its predominantly white experience. The country we never saw, or never wished to see was all around but somehow we decreed the proclivity of its people was different to ours and so the standards in virtually everything was vastly different. There were no touch stones other than the relationship in the home where the domestic worker and the family was a small window into the heart of Africa.
Now with Government and the Parliamentary caucus behaving in the way they do,the last vestibule of a common cause is broken. The confidence and optimism that Mandela laid out has  broken, first by Mbeki and his denial of the cause AIDS, and his support for Robert Mugabe which seemed to denote a backwoods element in his make up and currently, President Zuma who represents a step back to the traditional tribal patriarchal chief.
"Africa for Africans" has become the realisation of many of the indigenous people and by that I mean the traditional construct of a tribal hierarchy and a bequeath mentality which demands unalloyed support.
The dream of western capitalism rooted in the foot of the African continent has perished. The dream of Cecil Rhodes and his mission to inculcate a political structure which moulded commerce with the rule of law and Parliamentary democracy has proved a mission too far.
This is not to say it is a wholly bad thing for Africa to Africanise itself especially if the people are willing to accept the functioning of omniscient rule in a tradition their grandparents and especially their great grandparents were fully at home with. In its day it created historical memories when African tribal leaders such as Charka took on the rule of the white man and defeated him in battle. The road to subjugation and a tin shack followed, especially during the Apartheid period when the African was belittled and besmirched by a system of governance which was totally alien to them. It was not a happy constructive time and in the sudo democracy represented by the pomp and circumstance of Parliament cheap words replace actions and the symbolism of a white man's construct never quite worked in their favour.
Perhaps it is better to tear it all down (like Jesus destroying the money changers tables), a revisionists move that takes into account the condition of all the people not just the successful.
Sadly like the poorly educated native in this country, the population is bewitched by elitist power and continue to support a clique who have the utmost contempt for them and only pay lip service to democracy when it suits their purposes.

The "R" Day draws closer

As we draw closer to "R" day we seem no closer to a decision as to "why" to stay or "if" to go.
Some people have been in no doubt from day one, they instinctively held a view and have remained firm. Their view to stay or go was based on a strong sense of either believing in the status quo or wishing to try something new because or a resentment of outside interference.
If Cameron hadn't offered the option I suppose the bulk of people would have continued with their lives immune to the arguments which have thrashed too and fro with ever more heat as we approach the day of the vote
This being a referendum its a binary decision taken with equal weight on each vote, no constituency weighting, no first past the post distortion simply a vote which the pauper and the captain of industry has an equal say.
One of the things which has become clear as we listen to the claim and counter claim, no one has a clear picture of the future effect one way or the other and everything is made opaque by the rashness of the competing claims.
If we come out the British as a nation will "not" fall apart. There are arguments to suggest she might even perk up and get about her business with a little more vigour. The spirt of the nation might coalesce around the sense that being independent, released from the parental strings, the decisions and the esprit de corps might, as it does in wartime rise up a notch or two and become competitive in a very competitive market place.
Watching Jamie Diamond that icon of Wall Street threaten us with pulling his bank out from the UK and moving it to Europe reminds us who we currently share a bed with. Global markets and Global market makers such as Diamond have in many ways made small nations like ours impotent and the thrill of the Brexiteer for gathering the leavers of our destiny into our own hands has to be modified by questioning which leavers and what destiny.
Can we be an outward looking nation on which the strength of our past success has rested and an inward separatist nation frightened of the changes we see happening to our nation and which will continue to happen in or out of Europe.
Is it worth the effort to swim against the tide of the collective market and multiculturalism or should we go with the flow and absorb a new parenthesis to describe what we have evolved into.  Nothing stays the same and I have no more faith in Boris Johnson as I have in David Cameron to fight our corner, so maybe we should define a new shape for the ring no right angles where we can get caught and have to fight it out, round all the corners so we can continue to slip and slide our way forward never needing to face our nemesis.

The coin is still in the air.

Crispa a name to conjure with. Bio engineering, the ability to modify the genome, an organisms complete set of DNA, including all its genes, in other words all the information needed to build and maintain an organism.
One of the targets of this new 4 years old science is the eradication of the mosquito. Not only can they modify the individual Mosquito's genome to make it impotent in the next generation. They are able to target the whole species through its proclivity to breed in this generation. In other words, in one foul swoop bish-bash-wallop the mossie is gone.
The ramifications of this are profound considering the effects of the disease and the human fatalities which the mosquito causes. In all of nature there is a balance in this giving and taking, this living and dying for whatever feeds on the mosquito will go hungry. Even the issue of illness and mortality amongst the people who become infected is an issue since the size of the population and resources available to it, one might wish away malaria only to be confronted by starvation.
Tinkering with "Gods" blueprint has profound implications regarding the modification of life forms and whilst eradication of genetic malfunction, babies born deformed, can and should be encouraged its a short step to designing the offspring for all kinds of nefarious ideas.
Brave New World or Nineteen Eighty Four come to mind. Babies bred in batches to perform specific tasks like worker ants, a caste system par excellence which even Milton Friedman might baulk at.
There seems no end to man's ingenuity. Knowledge is impossible to keep under wraps but the discovery of nuclear fusion nearly brought mankind to the brink and who knows what Kim Jong-un will do with his bomb.
Manipulating the building blocks of life such as the human genome has enormous ethical and moral consequences, we do not perform well on these finely tuned humanitarian questions since there is always two sides to the question and like the "Referendum" we are just as likely to come down on the wrong side.