The Tom Sawyer Principle (Politics)

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

I have to say I'm mortified at your figures. In the sixties--as I recall--you weren't expected to live much beyond the retiring age (if you were a man, women retired at sixty then). Now everyone clings on to get a telegram from the Queen, including very nearly the Queen.

Can you explain it? Immigration of young people? Widening the workforce? Women not retiring at sixty? You're a chartered actuarialist with Scottish Widows, Wiley, tell all.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Don't know, it's probably because they are keeping to roughly the same formula.

You have to keep in mind that Scandi systems and Western Europe are paying at a level (150%) above average monthly cost of living, whereas we pay (120%) above average cost of living. Still, we are more generous than the Eastern Europeans.

[Mick Harper]

Zat explains nuzzink.

"Scottish Widows? There's a lot of dead wood in your actuarial department. And by the way, I'll take a couple of the younger ones off your hands especially that sloe-eyed one in the hood. Yes, that's right, the one who got sacked when she became a cult figure and demanded a pay rise. You Scotch, careful with your money, I like that. You got taken over shortly after, as I remember."

[Mick Harper]

Here's the weirdest thing. Peru has built the biggest, most modern airport in Latin America at vast expense. Madame El Presidente proudly cut the ribbon this very week. But her government had omitted to build any transport links between her capital and the airport and had to re-open a couple of emergency bridges over a ravine to get cars through.

What did they think an airport was for? Airplanes refuelling on their way to somewhere else? I am more than usually baffled. We do things differently here. We build, at vast expense, new links like the Elizabeth Line that aren't even needed.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Presumably Peru didn't have 19,963 prior planning meetings.

You can always fix these things later.

They just cracked on.

Bravo. Well done.

[Mick Harper]

I agree. It's the people spending two weeks in the Arrivals Hall before heading for the Departure Lounge I feel sorry for. Not forgetting to get their Incan knick-knacks in the Duty Free shop en route.

"Nice holiday, dear?"
"Restful."

[Mick Harper]

Do you know what gave birth to the modern consumer society? It was when (in Britain, but no doubt it was the same elsewhere) the government lifting all restrictions on credit facilities in the nineteen-fifties.

Ever since the birth of civilisation in Sumer c 3000 BC, people had to save up to buy consumer durables. That meant a life without consumer durables while you saved up for them. Once you could just sign on the dotted line, you could have the consumer durables while you saved up for them. Simple really.

[Mick Harper]

Oddly, this was the mirror equivalent of one of the greatest advances in penological practice. In 1872 the British government (but no doubt others too) abolished imprisonment for debt. HMG took the view that, as with the granting of credit, it was entirely a matter for people to sort out amongst themselves. It was no business of the state.

AE-ists should be thinking of other ways shackles can be lifted in this simple but revolutionary way. The legalisation of drugs would qualify if it hadn't already been thought of.

And areas of life where shackles might usefully be introduced, of course.

[Mick Harper]

Sorry to go on, but it fits. In the nineteen-fifties there were agonised debates about freeing up 'the never-never' as credit schemes were called. These arguments were not primarily about whether people might fall into debt-traps, things of that sort.

It was anxieties about whether the consumer-boom that was sure to follow would exacerbate British balance-of-payments problems. Britain was so ravaged by war damage, it was argued, the country could not produce even the derisory level of gadgetries that could be bought for ready cash. If Britons could buy whatever they liked, whenever they liked, our imports would skyrocket, the pound would nosedive and it would be like losing the war all over again.

It took another thirty years before it was realised this was no business of the government's either. Stuff came in, stuff went out, the floating pound took it all in its stride. It didn't matter a monkeys one way or the other.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

In the nineteen fifties and sixties the British government did something no other country even thought about doing. It built--at astonishingly vast expense and in an unprecedently quick time--a coupla power stations

[Mick Harper]

When It Hits The Fan (BBC R4)

This is the weekly guide to the world of PR conducted by a coupla distinguished practitioners (though one of them is an ex-editor of The Sun). This week they were discussing how to get an honour. There are dozens of PR outfits who offer this service. It's fifty thou for a knighthood for example--that's what you pay the PR company, what you have to lob in the direction of one or other party that controls who gets an honour comes on top of that.

But due to a string of scandals, even that is no longer enough. You have to provide examples of 'good work'. That can be difficult if you're the sort of person who needs an honour to hide the villainous methods required to get shedloads of new money in Britain today. Just handing over a few million to charity is much too obvious. (Though you have to do that.)

No, you turn to a different PR company, one that specialises in connecting aspirant honour-seekers to the sort of 'good work' top people think is top work.

[Mick Harper]

About Time Too

I have been arguing for years that HMG and the police are stuck in an AE timewarp, concentrating on crimes they are familiar with. Meanwhile the crims have moved on apace. I also pointed out that you will never get either HMG or the police to move at any pace so it is time for citizen's action. I received this today