Origin North West

This week the government has announced goodbye to compulsory retirement at 65 as of next year. It’s difficult to imagine why anyone would want to carry on working other than for money reasons. Some people claim to love their jobs and others don’t know what to do when they’ve retired.

The biggest reason against carrying on is that it is keeping younger people either out of a job or blocking a rise to promotion. In many cases older people are likely to have old attitudes, some of which might be good but many are probably not the way of todays world.

The average life expectancy is rising so people are retired longer and pension schemes are struggling to cope. Also as the ‘baby boomer’ generation goes out of the workforce there will be a glut of pensioners. Simultaneously there will be a drop in the workforce unless others are brought in from outside the UK. Yet there is unemployment of over 2million so how can there be a shortage of workers and if they have the wrong skills they must be being given poor guidance on training choices.

Overall removing the compulsory retirement age appears a good thing to enable people enough time to pay for their pensions for a shortened retirement period.

A week since the Emergency Budget was announced and the Coalition is getting on with its business.  Around it the media and the opposition are combing the details and creating nightmare scenario’s and rumours of discontent to create a wedge in the coalition.

Yet the main effects won’t be felt for around a year which is putting off the changes, similar to what the opposition want.

Some of the changes are uncomfortable like freezing public sector pay, but in the end that is certain to save some jobs.  Pensions will rise in accordance with earnings which has broad support.

The LibDem’s have got some of their policies such as a large tax threshold increase, significant capital gains tax increase while swallowing a moderate VAT increase, which they didn’t want.

The main beneficiary of the budget is business with decreases in corporation tax and employee insurance.

In October and next March the full changes will be announced and from the overall figures announced, these are likely to result in cuts that no-one will be happy about. Further amendments might occur caused by circumstances either good or bad but for now the announcement has taken some of the risk that the economy will destabilise and the financial markets have improved.

The Defence Review, Poverty Review, Pensions Review will be undertaken and provide evidence for the measures to be taken.

Overall the budget comes over as well balanced; clearly taking from the wealthy and giving more than taking from the poor.  It is recommended to the house.

Won 1, Drawn 2, Lost 1. Millions of pounds spent for little result and only 4 matches.

Six hours of football and under an hour of it was on the fringes of world class.  Probably an hour of it was Blue Square level and the rest mundane.

At the end of the day the players should be able to trap, pass, shoot, tackle, mark and think.  In South Africa it seemed they couldn’t. Blaming others and the set up of English football is only part of the answer.

Instead of root – branch let’s find out what Fabio wants and let him have what is possible. Continually sacking managers isn’t the answer.

Worrying signs from South Africa. Wayne Rooney booked for dissent in the opening friendly. Will the team come good, they might.  Then suddenly they’ll be expected to win it before being cruelly defeated.

After winning all their Group C matches they play Australia on June 26th and win on penalties.  In the Quarter Finals they face Argentina and win on penalties. Brazil play sweet football in the semi-finals but in the last minute an own goal deflection gives England a ticket to the final to play Nigeria.  The government then announces that it is cutting the England team and Brazil step in and win the World Cup. Wayne Rooney says he’s awfully disappointed but it’s one of those things.

Like a James Bond movie: Lord Triesman head of the English FA. A young lady, an alleged lover, with a tape recorder. Some candid comments between them. A Sunday paper publishes the comments. The Lord resigns from leading the World Cup bid.

Publishing facts isn’t a crime. Candid politicians might be thought to be a refreshing change. The unwise mistake seems to be mixing business with pleasure, ignoring the moral question and not knowing how the story was obtained. As far as known the participants are all on the same side, but seemingly batting against their own team.

The English World Cup bid has had a few problems and if a new leader is found with a common touch, like a David Beckham with political credibility, then all is not lost and this might turn into an advantage. The decision is due to be announced in early December.

In other matters, it was said that England lost a previous bid because ‘football’s coming home’ was perceived as arrogance. Yet quite a few papers have been using this term in the last week and it seems we never learn.

The hottest competition seems to be from Spain / Portugal. Yet Australia could be seen as a place needing a pull up for football, with Rugby and Australian Rules being more popular. Russia might also be a place seen as benefitting from wider understanding. England have a big job ahead to win the hosting of this event but the love of football, fine venues and commercial success of the Premier League is an appealing combination.

Well done, the debate was a success. Seems to be a consensus that Clegg, Cameron and Brown was the order of success, yet in reality there was no outright winner and no  outright loser and two more debates to go. That Nick Clegg could speak confidently and naturally, if not a bit fast, seems to have been a surprise factor for many. David Cameron and Gordon Brown made no significant inroads into each other.

Gordon Brown made a bit of a hit with his comment saying the Conservatives would cut police budgets more than Labour which seemed to surprise everyone, including David Cameron. David Cameron came back strongly with a story about a very violent crime and the culprit getting a short prison sentence. Gordon Brown has the handicap that he’s said he’ll do things before and somehow they never appear to be quite what was said as well as 13yrs of baggage. David Cameron has to show he is more than not being Gordon Brown.

Nick Clegg spoke of the increase in tax threshold being a new idea, that they will look for an alternative to a Trident replacement, opposed immigration limits and his seat in Sheffield was mentioned several times perhaps to distract from his public school background. Wasn’t particularly pushed as the other two were aimed at each other.

The next debate will no doubt take lessons from this and Nick Clegg might find the ride a bit bumpier.  Perhaps Gordon Brown will stop the smile that looks so patronising, David Cameron won’t stand with that distant horizon look, maybe Nick Clegg will appear less anxious about getting his points over. A better method of signalling who is to speak might help, at one point it appeared that David Cameron was left out of the debate. Someone has suggested the audience should be allowed to applaud – please no. Is there anything worse than the Question Time applause battles with someone so eager to get the first clap. Yet sometimes it can be a good feature and how to capture the good without the bad is difficult.

Disappointing that the biggest issue in week 1 of the election campaign is a 1% increase in National Insurance included in the budget and rejected by the Conservatives.

That over 50 top business leaders came out saying they were against it and it would reduce employment has been the flare that lit up the debate. This is said to be a reflection that business has fallen out with Labour after many years when they trumpeted its support.

There appears to be some simple arithmetic to support the business leaders case. National Insurance is charged from a very low wage level and a 1% increase has a disproportionate impact on business performance measures.  It could be the difference between profit and loss in these straightened times. Businesses have already driven efficiency as hard as they can.  The inevitable response must be to get it back either through not recruiting, shedding staff or increasing prices.

The government throws this back by saying the Conservatives will need to take the money from somewhere else and the business leaders are deceived. However as neither party has come clean on what they really intend to do about the deficits this seems like smoke and mirrors.   There seems to also be confusion that some people say the Conservatives are taking money out of the economy by rejecting this measure when actually it is the opposite. The government is taking money out of the economy with the measure and are paying themselves when they admit they are making inefficient use of taxpayers money.

Overall though it seems a minor issue has been blown into a major one and sub-plots have grown all around it. Lets hope it gets better than this although it probably won’t.

In Switzerland it’s illegal to keep a budgerigar alone in a cage and today there is a referendum on whether animals should have legal representation if they are mistreated.   I’m not keen on the latter but quite like the double budgie law and similar.  What better test for humanity and decency than how you treat those in a lesser position.

It makes me think of work. Our company would spend a fortune on management training but it didn’t change the standard where a manager would talk about anything on the phone while you sat twiddling your thumbs in his office, but as soon as his boss came in the phone was put down.  Then you’d listen while he roared with laughter at the slightest hint of a joke his boss made, while agreeing after what a fabulous chap he is even though neither of you were certain.  They weren’t all like that though, only around 80%.

Gordon Brown announced the Labour election slogan ‘A future fair for all’ yesterday and said the Conservatives ‘are not the party of the mainstream majority’.

An interesting statement about the mainstream majority. At the last election Labour got 38% of the votes and the Conservatives 34% yet Labour had 356 seats against the Conservatives 198.  It seems 4% of the votes creates a majority of 158 seats or about 25%.  Hardly representative and hardly showing that any party has a mainstream majority. The Liberals got 22% of the vote, their 62 seats representing about 10% of the seats.

It could be said Gordon Brown was right to put through an electoral reform vote recently. Yet there are several methods of electoral reform and it appeared Mr Brown had chosen one that favoured Labour just before it was likely to be of most use.   Seems to smack of one poor system being replaced by another manipulation. Seems what you’d expect in todays climate of deception.

The electoral changes are unlikely to get through both houses before the election. Although the next election has changed boundaries on many seats. This is because the city centre seats mainly held by Labour have become very small as people move to the suburbs. So re-aligning these is said to favour the Conservatives a bit. The Conservatives need a lot more than this to make an effect. Overturning such a massive majority as Labour hold is almost unheard of.

Labour have put faith in their slogan of ‘a fair future for us all’.   Doesn’t sound very slick, gets me a bit tongue-tied.  I could get ‘fair’ in my mind. The ‘us all’ bit sounds a bit absolute, like ‘we’ve abolished boom and bust’ and ‘British jobs for British workers’. Things you can’t achieve.  Although even after 13 years of power the Labour politicians in general have a more impressive appearance than the Conservatives although you could say the same about Labour in 1997. The biggest thing against Labour is that they seemed to fall into the trap of the most profligate credit card users and spent excessively so that Britain is the worst placed of any western major economy. Even to the extent that Britains future as a major economy is in jeopardy.  On the other hand there are a lot of new schools and hospitals, but it’s now like building a very large garage on your property and finding you can no longer afford a car.

Time of year to be thinking about getting over Christmas. Wonder why we buy so much chocolate at Christmas. My own worry is more about clogging up the veins as weight isn’t much of a problem.  I know I can put on weight like in my twenties, mainly drinking weight and when I stopped going to the pub 3 to 4 times a week I lost weight.

Ten years ago I joined a gym and did it on a monthly payment scheme because I thought I wouldn’t stay.  Yet I’m still there and in general go about 6 times a month. In the 10 years so many people have joined and lasted a couple of months and never to be seen again. They’re all convinced they’ll stay and some have told me their plans but soon fallen away.

My own experience in many activities is to keep it up you need a regular schedule that says, like, on Tuesday at 6pm I’ll be there. I found that doesn’t work for me at the gym. Other things come along, like you can’t eat first then go,  don’t want to do some heavy work and then go, don’t want to go to dig the garden get dirty and have a shower then go.  All I can recommend is to say that you will go at least once a week and try to fit in another so you do at least 6 in the month.

The other aspect is making a start after years of doing nothing.  Going to work and bragging you ran for 8 minutes at 8kph on the flat on a treadmill.  They must have thought me mad. Now I can run for ages but it took time and came in steps. Suddenly found I could up the speed and it felt great. Wish I were younger, need to keep the heart at a faily low level at my age, there’s a formula, and that limits my speed a lot.    I don’t do the other cardio-machines, like the step, bike, rotex or rowing  they give me pains where I don’t want them. Running at a slowish speed and a bit of stretching keeps me good and I can feel it every day.

Running for up to 30 minutes on the treadmill is more than most people want to do, and I did once have some girls loudly making comments about how boring that must be. You can watch TV and listen to music but I tend to think about things I want to do and if I want to give up, tell myself  just do another 5 minutes. How often can you fool yourself with this 5 minutes. I’ve done it loads of times. Near the end of the 5 minutes you’re thinking good nearly done but with seconds to go you say I’m fine I can manage another 5. Seems to work for me, must be mad.

Then there are the weights.  Doing the heavy stuff doesn’t appeal, 10 years on the weight-machines, using chrome dumb-bells (seem to be for ladies) and the mats (who’d have thought I do that after bad school mats and a cruel teacher). Never graduated to the barbell. With the number of reps building up the total the Technogym computer system at our gym tells me 10,000kg spread over different muscle groups is a good session for me along with 5km on the treadmill.

So I’d recommend finding a fitness centre and not being over ambitious or too enthusiastic, play it cool and keep going for the long term.

Should John Terry remain England captain is a question in the papers and many are saying he should resign. His wife and Wayne Bridge might have something to say but my own opinion is that he should remain England captain after a bit longer on the rack.

There are those who say the England captain has to be a person of honour and respect but I think they’re getting a bit carried away. Footballers aren’t exactly known for being saints and a quick check on past captains might be revealing. Far more damage is done by the weekly diving and shouting at the ref.

Others say he might lose the dressing room but he doesn’t seem to have lost the Chelsea one and I doubt many England players will be any different. They all want to win the World Cup and the second best captain must lower the probability or the manager has got it wrong.

In the last few weeks there have been property TV shows about housing in Australia and New Zealand seeming to be encouraging emigration. One of them even lists the vacancies at the end.  Are these sponsored by the Australian Government?  Seems an odd thing for a TV station to do, although money talks. Who’s paying?

I’ve been to Australia several times and spent well over a year there in the last 20 years.  It’s a great place and life is good, but on the other hand I’m British and leaving for good has never appealed. It’s a very long way  to go, a point that is only realised when you reach Singapore after a mammoth flight and find there’s another 8hr flight to go.  Aus is big on sport, mainly rugby and swimming, and I do like a bit of a run but the rest of my recreation is here and I haven’t thought I could find the same there in such a concentrated area.

These TV programmes are being shown in January and it looks very bright.  The Aus sun is so brilliant it makes home look dark even in the day.  I used to love it but I grew some cancerous lesions that needed cutting out and now don’t go out in it without full armour.  We still go as my wife has family there, but only in their winter now and the sun in Queensland is still bright. I notice Phil in the show doesn’t wear a hat in the sun  - obviously not Aus trained.

Overall the living is good in Aus but to me there is a lot more breadth and depth to life in Europe mainly due to concentration of populations and age, if that provides things that interest you.  It is possible to be a ‘boomerang  Pom’ who like both places and get homesick for both and come and go,  I’ve developed a sort of affinity with being there.

I watch the debate about Aus being a republic and don’t really want it to happen.  On the other hand it isn’t anything much to do with me.  Having read some of the alternatives and I can understand why it’s not easy for them to make the move.  Questions like is the head elected by the electorate or parliament or senate, or appointed and who by, power or no power, how long etc.  My own thought is they should just change the flag and leave other things as they are. Canada changed its flag and it isn’t apparent to the wider world that the Queen is still head of state. Their PM appears at all international functions under the Maple Leaf and how many look deeper. Canada does like to establish it’s own identity though as it has a big neighbour. So maybe just the flag, no worries anyway.

The government are hurredly introducing body scanners at airports following the Detroit incident where a passenger carried explosive chemicals inside his underwear.  It’s planned to select passengers from profiling and signs of suspicious behaviour.

The government keep warning us about the threat of terrorists and that they are looking for ways round our security. So why is this panic happening with lots of questions unanswered?

Can’t say I’m happy about the opportunity of standing in front of a screen with my arms above my head while someone eyes up every detail of me. It has a feel of the Third Reich.

With the governments record on security of data how long will it be before passengers start appearing naked on the internet or on sale.  What if your neighbour is scanning you?  How long will it be stored and do they know who they are scanning?  There are a lot of potential snags with this although the step in the direction of loss of liberty is the biggest.

It’s been announced that in the period before the next General Election there will be 3 debates on TV between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. These will be shown across Britain in turn on ITV, Sky and BBC.

Can’t say I’m sure what this will add.  Surely we’ll see and hear these 3 too often during the campaign. Don’t they appear on TV and in Parliament making the same points week after week.  Don’t GB and DC keep making the same barbed comments about ‘he wouldn’t have done anything’ and ‘he banished boom and bust’.  Doesn’t Prime Ministers Question Time every week in Parliament exercise a good deal of competitive verbal jousting. Party Political Broadcasts as well.

Add to that the other parties who are unhappy about being omitted. The SNP, PC, Greens and UKIP have a valid claim to be heard as loudly as anyone else. Surely if a party is qualified to have a Party Political Broadcast they are qualified to debate.

It most likely is that this is really a journalists feast.  Probably reading about it will be more interesting than actually hearing it unless one of the leaders takes on a nasty side or maybe develops a new and interesting tick.  Or perhaps one of the debaters has been doing something sleezy or will come out as gay during the debate.  Unlikely, so what sort of compelling TV is this for most of the population? 

It’ll be hyped as unmissable, and after all  I think I’ll have to take a look for that golden nugget one of them might have. Then if it’s 1-0-0 after the first perhaps it’ll be worth looking in for the equaliser.  Maybe only the last one will count for much. The campaign in swing everything looking great for one party, then can it be turned round in one moment in a debate. Bring on Gary Lineker.

The government doesn’t want to cut spending until the economy is robust enough to stand it. That sounds logical. On the other hand very big increases in spending  began this year and begin to accelerate like a shark lenders interest payments.

Since 2000 government spending has ramped up at a rate not seen before except in wartime. We all had a ball at the time and now we’re hooked. Like addicts, even today’s minor tweaks to the budget had the public sector unions perspiring at the collar. Yet public spending was well over double what it was 10 years ago even before the crisis.  Like the bankers, public workers have seen a bonanza from the government but don’t think they have and don’t want it to end.

It seems the government isn’t making any big decisions at this time. Today was as Mr Cable said about boilers and bingo.  Although if the government is playing politics what are the opposition to do as they might appear the evil wolf when in all likelihood there is little difference between what any of them will or can do.

The Irish government has today announced major cuts. Hopefully it won’t come to anything as big as that but it seems improbable that today’s announcement in parliament has any true relationship to what needs doing to the terrible UK  budget situation.

Yet I’ve lived through recessions before and uncomfortable as they are most of the population gets through relatively unscathed. Although when Mr Callaghan borrowed from the IMF in the 70’s the public sector unions revolted at what appeared to be minor pay restraint and in came Mrs Thatcher. With an election imminent Mr Brown isn’t going on that route.

Welcome to the new blog that is to bring an opinion on topical events as viewed from north west England. The opinions probably won’t be typical but they will be topical.

No axes to grind, only a few maybe, but no-one is paying me to do this.