Government Efficiency, My Taxes, Quote for the month

DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency)

What Elon Musk appears to be doing to government in the USA is quite extraordinarily and probably illegal. Just as he did when he bought Twitter, he is sending small teams of trusted employees from his firms in to hijack the software and data which they will use to decide which 80% of employees they are going to fire. 

It's hard to imagine where or how this is going but I surprise myself by agreeing that radical change is long overdue. My own personal experiences dealing with administration relating to the recent deaths of my father, father-in-law and mother-in-law require extensive use of government services in 3 countries: UK, France and USA. All three have provided the most abominable levels of service so far. It feels as if old systems and practices have had decades of changes layered on top of each other until you get to a service today that scarcely functions, even with the manual intervention of armies of paid administrators. Let me give some examples:

1. USA

My father was in receipt of a US pension. Within days of his passing, I emailed the US Federal Benefits Office in London (who handle people based in the UK) to advise them. I sent them the required documents including his death certificate. No response other than an automated acknowledgement. I sent a couple more emails but still no response within their stated delay (2 weeks I think it was). So I tried to telephone them during the small window they are open for calls (I think it was certain Tuesday or Wednesday mornings only each month). I was put on hold, told to ring another number, put on hold and then cut off with a message telling me to email them.

After about 4 months I received a response from the federal agency advising me that the contents of my email had been noted and they would be in touch.

This is the envelope they provided to send a cheque to the USA

A month later, they sent a letter to my mother demanding re-rembursement of the pension money that they had continued to pay after I had first told them my father had passed away. They require us to send a cheque in US dollars in an envelope they have provided that does not have an address on it. There is a note to say it should be posted to the address as instructed on page 1 of form SSA-1372-BK-FC. I googled this form and it is entitled 'Advanced Notice of Termination of Child's Benefits' with a US address. Of course I am not going to post a cheque for $8000 there. I don't know what to do next but I guess they will be after us for the money!

These appear to be the instructions for posting a cheque to them

The thing is, that had they acted rapidly - perhaps asking me to fill in a few questions and upload a form or two to their online portal - not only would they have saved us all a lot of time, energy, frustration and hassle, but they would have saved the US taxpayer thousands of dollars in actual cash and in admin staff costs!!

2. UK

Working with our solicitors, we completed the government's 75 page from to apply for probate. All of my father's assets are frozen until this process is completed and any taxes due are paid. The solicitors sent the form by special delivery to HMRC and advised me that a code would be sent within 20 days. The code is then used to access the online account and proceed with the next steps.

From www.gov.uk

After the 20 days deadline has passed, our solicitors contacted HMRC. They said they had lost the document that was sent to them by special delivery (with proof of delivery of course). So the form now has to be sent again and we start again.

This reminds me of a very similar incident when I last renewed my UK passport a couple of years ago. I had to send both of my passports (the expiring UK one and my valid French one) in for the application which I did using special delivery with signature on arrival and they lost both of my passports.

3. France

Goodness where do I start? 

Well let's say that you have to inform dozens of organisations individually of a death, some in writing, some will accept electronic documents. The notaire has to produce an 'acte de notoriété' without which no assets can be released. This document is official confirmation of who the heirs are. We have been waiting over 6 months for this document so nothing much has happened yet. The only payment that is authorised is payment for the funeral up to a maximum of about €5800. 

So despite the fact we have posted about 25 letters and sent various organisations all sorts of emails, nothing has happened yet. We have been able to close some accounts and mobile phone contracts but it's not easy. I get the distinct impression that some organisations make it as hard as possible. Or maybe it's just the old fashioned bureacracy led approach in a digital world that makes it feel that way.

There is without doubt a very strong case for tearing up the old system (lots of paper) and designing a streamlined digital process for the 21st century. I sometimes wonder if I am going to need to get out my quill pen ink and seal to proceed.

"It became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, what we have actually, just a ball of worms, ... You've got to basically get rid of the whole thing ... It's beyond repair. ... We're shutting it down."

Musk talking about USAID 3rd February 2025

He is taking this approach at DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) and applying it more broadly.

My Taxes

I have to pay my taxes at the end of January each year. Soon after the government kindly sends me an email advising what my money is being spent on. Unfortunately, it doesn't itemise out all the money wasted on inefficient archaic bureaucracy, the type of which I have written about above. However, what it does illustrate very clearly is the vast amount of your money that is wasted on paying back all the money that our governments have borrowed to fulfil their ill advised and wasteful policies. Just think what we could do with all that money if we used if to benefit the people rather than to pay back loans. It's truly shocking, it's so much money!!! It's 11% of our state expenditure!! And then there's welfare but best not to go there!

How shocking that we spend more on our debt interest repayments that on educating our children! And on our country's defense! Something is seriously wrong!!!

Quote for the month

"It became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, what we have actually, just a ball of worms, ... You've got to basically get rid of the whole thing ... It's beyond repair. ... We're shutting it down."

Elon Musk talking about USAID 

3rd February 2025

What do these people all have in common?

André Breton, André Masson, Peggy Guggenheim, Max Ernst, Franz Werfel, Alma Mahler, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, Victor Serge, Heinrich Mann, Claude Levi Strauss?

These people plus about 2,000 others, had their lives saved by Varian Fry and his team (which included Mary Jayne Gold, Miriam Davenport and others) , who smuggled them out of Vichy France in 1940 via Marseille, Spain and Portugal.

The Agentic Era, My worries about AI, Quote for the Month

The Agentic Era

We are in the Agentic Era. We use agents, such as Google's AI agent Gemini, for more and more tasks.  There are more and more of them and the months go by. Big names such as OpenAI's Chat GPT was given a run for its money with the launch of the latest from the Chinese AI, Deepseek which caused a minor market correction.  Last month, Google produced a short video to show where this is going for the general public. What I like about it is that it demonstrates the use of AI in everyday tasks that most people will be able to relate to. Watch this four minute video which I think is informative:

My worries about AI

I have been reading a book called The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of Deepmind and one of today's most experienced AI experts. He is worried that AI could end up destroying civilisation as we know it. I have summarised some of my main concerns below.

Deepfakes everywhere - how will we know what's genuine? From fake news to fake videos, I think we are going to have to rely more on the 'established' press if we want to believe most of what we read. When we have Trump and his admirers already re-writing facts, AI's is able to do this far more powerfully than any human. Services such as the BBC's 'Verify' will become more and more vital for our understanding of the new (and our sanity).

How do you spot a deepfake?

I worry about the ability for criminals to get their hands on advanced AI that will shut down our technology and mean we can't access our money, our data, our lives. An example of this was in 2017, when the WannaCry attack shut down the NHS by exploiting a weakness in old Microsoft software. It caused absolute chaos. However, in the future, AI will make it far easier to identify weaknesses in almost any software. This worries me far more than the possibility that AI will take over people's jobs and start running the world. It won't. It will help people be far more productive in their work and will change the nature of work. Some jobs will go, others will be created. It will make us richer. Unless someone comes along and destroys all of our institutions and great companies by undermining the very software we use to exist.

This ransomware caused absolute chaos across the NHS

At the end of the last century we worried about the Millennium Bug. Now we should worry more about how criminals and evils states (like Putin) will attempt to destroy our civilisations by using AI to identify and exploit weaknesses in the systems we rely on every moment of the day. I hope that every government department and every private company takes this extremely seriously. It will take some serious international co-operation to control and regulate rogue AI. The chances are that the COVID-19 pandemic started from a Chinese lab leak. This is another area of concern where AI will boost our ability to produce new life-saving medicines. But with that comes the challenge of establishing very high lab standards to reduce the risk of accidental or intentional leaks.

Technology growth - We ain't seen nothing yet!!

It looks as if the speed with which AI transforms our world is going to surprise most people and it's likely that we won't be ready for it. Chinese AI seems to be open source which means anyone can copy it and modify it. Again I think we should be rapidly putting international measures in place to control its use and regulate for its mis-use. The key to success in this area is to work with our friends and not so friendly states to establish protocols that will protect us all.

Quote for the Month

In 2005, Vladimir Putin visited the 60th anniversary commemoration at Auschwitz, giving a speech in which he said it was “inconceivable to think that people are capable of such barbarity”

Hypocrite of the Century award goes to the evil Vladimir Putin.

Last Monday was the 80th anniversary ceremony of the liberation of Auschwitz on Holocaust Memorial Day. Putin was not invited.

Happy 2025, Generation Game Changers, British Cheese, France Falls, Brown's Bottom.

Happy New Year 2025!

Happy New Year! (Image created by Gemini)

Well 2024 was a terrible year for me and in my opinion for the world. I lost my father and my mother-in-law and the world suffered from wars in Ukraine and the Middle East (not to mention the humanitarian crisis in Sudan and the recent overthrowing of Assad in Syria). And politically we have seen more extremism in democratic countries than ever before in my lifetime.

Foe 2025, my wish is that we see peace in Ukraine (Putin has to be made to stop his madness) and a more peaceful Middle East where an evil Iranian regime is supporting several terrorist groups with arms and money.

I also hope that 2025 will be the year the world gets serious about regulating Social Media given the havoc it is wreaking on society and the damage it's doing to our young people.

Generation Game Changers

As we start 2025, I thought it would be interesting to list some of the new inventions that had a profound effect upon recent generations.

Prior to the 20th Century  we had Stone Tools, Fire, The Wheel and The Industrial Revolution.

My Grandparents (born early 20th Century)

The Telephone

My Parents (born just before WW2)

Penicillin and free healthcare

The affordable Motor Car

International Flights 

The Television

My Generation (born 1950s and 60s)

The Mobile phone

The Internet

Cheap Computers

Cheap overseas travel

Cheap Chinese imports

My Children (born 1990s) 

Smart phone and internet (next generation applications)

Working From Home

The start of Artificial Intelligence

Electric Vehicles

My Grandchildren (born 2020s)

Perhaps new medicines curing everything for dementia to cancers and AI powered robots helping in ways almost unimaginable yesterday! Hydrogen powered cars to replace EVs.

Cheese becomes a metaphor for Brexit

"British cheese is now considered some of the best in the world.

After a boom in artisan cheesemaking, Britain produces 1,100 varieties, double the total in France, and many connoisseurs argue it is now superior in quality too.

Which meant there were high hopes for British entries at the recent World Cheese Awards, which took place in Portugal.

But as the judging began, the British contingent noticed something untoward. Many of Britain’s cheeses, it emerged, had failed to pass customs, and were deprived of the chance to compete.

As a metaphor for Brexit, it couldn’t have been more succinct. Some had fun pointing out that one of Brexit’s architects, former Prime Minister Liz Truss, famously made a passionate speech about international cheese markets."

City AM December 3rd 2024

France Falls

In early December, the extreme left and right joined forces to bring down Prime Minster Michel Barnier's government, following his forcing through of a huge debt reduction budget designed to start to re-balance France's bloated state. President Macron took to prime TV to state that he would name a new PM in the coming days and would serve the remainder of his term (another 30 months).

"The underlying problem is that most French voters are unwilling to face economic reality. It is hard to see how this can be resolved. Until voters rediscover the merits of frugality, they will go on voting for the fantasies peddled by the extremes. 

Northern Europeans used to mock the PIGS —Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain—for their profligate ways. France has now turned porcine, while the PIGS have largely reformed."

This text is from The Economist 4th December 2024. Macron has named François Bayrou as the new PM.  I wish them luck.

Brown's Bottom

The UK eventually sold about 395 tonnes (12,700,000 ozt) of gold over 17 auctions from July 1999 to March 2002, at an average price of about US$275 per ounce, raising approximately US$3.5 billion.

This equated to about half of the UK's gold reserves and were sold at a time that gold was very lowly priced. Today's it is over US$2600 per ounce. Today the bank of England holds about 310 tonnes in reserve for the UK in addition to all the gold held for other owners.

This ill timed sale of British assets is now referred to as Brown's Bottom.

We are in the Agentic Era

More on that next month. Perhaps! 

Quote for the Month

"Rien n'est mort que ce qui n'existe pas encore 

Près du passé luisant demain est incolore"

"Nothing is dead except what does not yet exist 

Next to the shining past, tomorrow is colorless"

Guillaume Apollinaire in Alcools 1913

Image created by Gemini

Image created by Gemini

US Election, Useless Public Services, The Immigration Dilemma

The US Presidential Election

On Wednesday November the 6th, I got up to see that Donald Trump had won the election. I listened to his co-called 'Victory Speech' over breakfast. He spent most of it thanking his family, his staff and his supporters. He spent more than 5 minutes talking about how great Elon Musk is. In terms of policy he talked about building a wall, getting rid of illegals and fixing America, making it great again. There was no mention of Kamala Harris. It was high on motivation, very up-beat and low on content. Typical Trump. A High Conviction, Low Morality President of the United States of America.

I am less worried about what Trump will actually do and more worried about the messages that his victories send: if you want to win, it's okay to lie, to defame your political opponents, to create and endorse fake news, to make huge promises you can never keep, and so on. High on conviction, low on morality.

So why did America vote for Trump again? It seems that the answer is probably quite simple: 

"On CNN, around midnight UK time, a perfectly unassuming voter was grabbed by CNN as he left a polling station in Pennsylvania. Asked who he voted for he replied, “Donald Trump.” Asked why, by an almost incredulous reporter, he said “Inflation mostly, and the state of the economy.” Quoted from City AM.

It's the economy stupid. The current government is being punished for the high inflation and declining living standards that we have all seen (across most of the world) since the pandemic and the Russian war on Ukraine. I think the other big issue that swayed voters is his tough words on Immigration. 

Now let's see what he actually does. In politics, it seems, words speak much louder than actions.

Useless public services

It's not just in the UK. I need to sort out my late father's US state pension. I completed the online bereavement from on the US Federal Benefits website and received an acknowledgement. That was 3 months ago. So I emailed them and received an acknowledgement. Still nothing. So I tried to call them (they only open on some Tuesday and Wednesday mornings) and after listening to several minutes of spiel redirecting callers to their website and email service I got cut off as 'all agents are busy'. Twice. What am i supposed to do?

Then there's that tax we need to pay in France. The French government tax service sends an email inviting us to login to their website to pay the latest tax. But each time we try to login using one of their ID verification services we get this message:

'Please try again later, Error 400...' And guess who gets into trouble if they don't pay on time?

That's 2 hours wasted this morning by government incompetence. If only I could fine them the way I get fined if I do anything wrong. And pigs might fly.

I asked Gemini to create this image for me

The Immigration Dilemma Continues 

New figures show UK net immigration at even higher levels than previously published. 930,000 in the year to June 2023. 728,000 to June 2024. Here's the dilemma: we want to help genuine refugees including those we have taken from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan in recent years. We want our businesses and services such as the NHS to be able to fill vacancies from abroad when there are no suitable applications locally. We need our universities to subsidise local students by taking high paying foreign students. But we want far less immigration. If we can't get this right we will see increased support for the far right who say they will reduce immigration substantially. We are seeing this swing to far right across the western world. So what's the answer? 

This data is over 10 years old but I doubt it has changed much

Well, the longer term answer is Education. The short term answer is talk tough and provide utter clarity on which groups we let in and why (for example the public will support bringing in people for the NHS). Simultaneously implement a strong and highly visible package of measures designed to make UK residents who are not working and not retired join the workplace when they are able (e.g. training, benefits cuts, incentives, high level campaigns, etc.).

Quote for the Month

"To be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables"  Hilllary Clinton

Chanel to Sponsor Boat Race, The Biggest Number in the World.

Chanel to Sponsor the Boat Race

In its first ever sports sponsorship, Chanel has chosen the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race that takes place every Spring on the Thames in Putney. The sponsorship deal is said to be worth around £500,000.

The Chanel brand is associated by many people with its founder, Coco Chanel. Today Chanel is privately owned by the Wertheimer family unlike many of its rivals that are publicly owned. The history is interesting.

Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel was a talented designer and created the company before WW1. In 1924, she made a deal with the Wertheimer brothers (who owned Bourjois) and another businessman in which the Wertheimers would invest heavily to expand and sell Chanel No 5 perfume globally under the 'Parfums Chanel' business. Coco Chanel retained 10% of the shares.

They were successful and Chanel resented her minority stake. During WW2, French intelligence documents described Chanel as a "vicious antisemite" who praised Hitler.  With the Nazi seizure of all Jewish-owned property and business enterprises, Chanel decided to take the opportunity to gain the full monetary fortune generated by Parfums Chanel and its most profitable product, Chanel No. 5. The directors of Parfums Chanel, the Wertheimers, were Jewish. Chanel used her position as an "Aryan" to petition German officials to legalise her claim to sole ownership.

But the Wertheimers were a step ahead of her, anticipating the forthcoming Nazi mandates against Jews, and had legally turned over control of Parfums Chanel in May 1940 to Félix Amiot, a Christian French businessman and industrialist. At the end of the war, Amiot returned Parfums Chanel to the hands of the Wertheimers.

Coco Chanel and Pierre Wertheimer (date unknown)

Chanel spent most of the war living in the Ritz, socialising and frequenting the top ranking Nazis who stayed there, so there can be little doubt where her sympathies lay. After the war, her position was weakened by her behaviour and she went into hiding in Switzerland, rightly afraid of what the French would do to her.  This didn't stop her continuing her battle with the Wertheimer brothers which became a protracted legal fight.

Ultimately, the Wertheimers and Chanel came to a mutual agreement, renegotiating the original 1924 contract. On 17 May 1947, Chanel received wartime profits from the sale of Chanel No. 5, an amount equivalent to some US$12 million in 2022 valuation. Her future share would be two per cent of all Chanel No. 5 sales worldwide (projected to gross her $34 million a year as of 2022), making her one of the richest women in the world at the time the contract was renegotiated. In addition, Pierre Wertheimer agreed to an unusual stipulation proposed by Chanel herself: Wertheimer agreed to pay all of Chanel's living expenses—from the trivial to the large—for the rest of her life. She spent the last 30 years of her life living in the Paris Ritz!

Documents released 10 years ago leave little doubt that she was a Nazi collaborator through her lovers and her association with Nazi spies. She even worked for Walter Schellenberg, head of the Nazi Intelligence Agency.

Today the Wertheimer family still own Chanel which they have grown into an extraordinarily profitable business. At the end of 2023, Chanel employed more than 36,500 people worldwide.

The Biggest Number in the World?

$2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Google, like most good western companies, has withdrawn its services from Russia. In this instance it's YouTube, and various Russian pro-government organisations have been pursuing Google in court for the withdrawal of their services.

The fine that they are currently claiming that Google has to pay is such a large number that is equates to more than all the money that exists in our world!!

"Google has racked up some 2 undecillion rubles ($2.5 decillion) worth of fines in Russia after years of refusing to restore the accounts of pro-Kremlin and state-run media outlets, the RBC news website reported Tuesday, citing an anonymous source familiar with court rulings against the tech company.

According to RBC’s sources, Google began accumulating daily penalties of 100,000 rubles in 2020 after the pro-government media outlets Tsargrad and RIA FAN won lawsuits against the company for blocking their YouTube channels. Those daily penalties have doubled each week, leading to the current overall fine of around 2 undecillion rubles.

Undecillion is a number equal to 1 followed by 36 zeros. Google, whose parent company Alphabet reported a revenue of more than $307 billion in 2023, is unlikely to ever pay the incredibly high fine."

The Moscow Times 29th October 2024. Note that The Moscow Times has been designated an "undesirable" organisation by Russia's Prosecutor General's Office.

Google's name comes from the mathematical term a Googol. A googol is 10 to the 100th power, which is 1 followed by 100 zeros. So perhaps there is some irony here?

Quote for the Month

“I can’t tell you how to get rich quickly; I can only tell you how to get poor quickly: by trying to get rich quickly.”

André Kostolany, Hungarian investor 1906 - 1999

Lee, Figs and Having a Bad Day

Lee

It was good to finally get to see the film Lee, a factually accurate depiction of Lee Miller's war years as a photographer, played superbly by Kate Winslet. The film and Lee's life combine glamour, destruction, stamina and genocide in a way few others can.  Miller worked for English Vogue and through her force of character, persuaded the various authorities to let her take photos on the front line, a place strictly forbidden for women. 

Lee Miller staged this photo in Hitler's Bath, with mud from Dachau smeared on the mat

I visited the home she shared with her English Surrealist Painter husband, Roland Penrose, a few years ago. We saw their work, their home and the works of other surrealists who visited them regularly in their beautiful Sussex home. We met their son, Anthony Penrose upon whose book the film is based. A rare treat for anyone interested in Surrealism.

The Kitchen at Farleys with a tile painted by their friend Picasso

Fabulous Fig Fiesta

There's only one fruit that I know of that doesn't have worms, has no pips or stones, is unattractive to birds and insects and grows in abundance on a small tree making it easy to pick.

Oh yes, and when ripe it tastes divine, with rich deep red super sweet flesh. And you can eat the whole fruit, skin and all, if you want.

The second half of August and the first days of September are when my little fig tree delivers about a kilo of fruit every day. I eat them with my breakfast oats, for dessert at lunch and dinner and I make jam using only very little sugar (20%) as they are so sweet. I handle each fig as if it's special even if I am picking 20 or more every day. In Lidl they sell for 69 cents each, in Waitrose a box of 4 is almost £3. It's my late summer treat and through the jam I can share with my special friends and make the pleasure last for months.

Not a Good Day

Probably a co-incidence, but two bad events happened on the same September day.

I had parked outside the Post Office in Revel and as I pulled away, I checked my rear view mirror and there was nobody behind. What I didn't think to check was whether anyone would be pulling onto that street from the side street perpendicular to me. I slammed the breaks on and missed the car by a milimetre or two.

Then the following morning I discovered I had left one of the gas rings on the stove on all night. It was warm in the kitchen!

From now on I will take more care when checking to see if there are other cars about and when switching off appliances. Take more time to save far more.

Quote for the Month

"I know I'll be caught one day, but I shall have served. Let us hurry, and do great things while there is still yet time"

Louise de Bettignies, leader of The Alice Network in WW1. Her spying network saved the lives of thousands of British and allied soldiers. She was caught by the Germans and died in prison just before the war ended.

Louise de Bettignies (1880-1918)

Statue to Louise in Lille

The Demographic Time-Bomb. My Encounters with the Police.

The Demographic Time-Bomb

One of the most serious issues facing developed countries today is the demographic time-bomb that has started to hit us.

In most developed countries today, average life expectancy is 80 to 85.

Across the world:

In 1900 it was 32

In 1950 it was 47

Today it's around 73

What that means is that we have more old people and fewer young people. And that's a huge problem: not enough money to pay state pensions, lack of healthcare resources, lack of people available to work, extra tax burden on young people, etc etc. The problem really is massive and it requires big unpopular change to address it. But guess what: it was not an election issue in either the UK or France in the July elections and it is mostly ignored everywhere.

Our governments continue to ignore it for someone to deal with later. Look at fertility rates:

The only solutions, if we want to attempt to maintain our standards of living are attracting more young people and upping retirement ages. That means more immigration (incentives to increase fertility have always failed) and encouraging older people to keep working longer. Good luck with those! And the longer we ignore it, the worse it gets.

The Four times I have been stopped by the Police

I can remember four occasions when I have been stopped by the Police

1. When I was about 13 years old outside my house

I returned home but didn't have my house keys. A Policeman just happened to be passing and thought my behaviour - loitering outside my house - looked suspicious. He asked me for an explanation and then to accompany him down to the Station but I refused. I told him I was going round to the back garden and would wait for my parents to return there. He wandered off... 

2. As a University student when I was driving my car with friends in Manchester

I drove my car with a few friends to an abandoned building site in the city centre. We took turns driving my car and were having a lot of fun. The Police turned up and questioned us. As the car wasn't stolen and it was private land they left us alone.

3. On my way to work when I was exceeding the speed limit

I got stuck in some really bad traffic and was late for work. I tried to make up a bit by going too fast when I was free of the traffic. I got pulled over by the Police who gave me a warning, but no fine.

4. In Oxford with blue flashing lights - they thought my tax disc was out of date.

I was in a traffic jam in Oxford city centre and all of a sudden everyone started pulling to the side to allow a police car with a siren and flashing lights to pass. I was very surprised when it pulled up alongside me and accused me of having an out of date tax disc. In fact I had recently renewed my car tax and the policemen didn't recognise the new colour. They assumed it was an old one. When I politely explained their mistake they just turned around and walked away. No apology, nothing.

Quote for the Month

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” — Margaret Thatcher

The Starmer Tsunami and Paris 2024

A good UK election. The Starmer Tsunami.

In the UK we had, as expected, a very decisive result. 

What a beautiful map:

Election results by colour: Labour red, Conservative blue, LibDems orange

The new government intends to hit the road running and has outlined 40 new bills in the King's Speech that it intends to implement. It's an impressive list with only a couple of very left wing bills, presumably to keep the left of the party happy. 

The Downing Street briefing document about the king’s speech mentions 40 bills, many of which were not referred to by the king. Here is the full list.

Economic stability and growth

Budget Responsibility Bill
National Wealth Fund Bill
Pension Schemes Bill
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
Employment Rights Bill
English Devolution Bill
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
Better Buses Bill
Railways Bill
Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill
Arbitration Bill
Product Safety and Metrology Bill
Digital Information and Smart Data Bill
High Speed Rail (Crewe to Manchester) Bill

Great British Energy and clean energy superpower

Great British Energy Bill
The Crown Estate Bill
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (Revenue Support Mechanism) Bill
Water (Special Measures) Bill

Secure borders, cracking down on anti-social behaviour and take back our streets

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
Crime and Policing Bill
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill
Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill

Break down the barriers to opportunity

Children’s Wellbeing Bill
Skills England Bill
Renters’ Rights Bill
Football Governance Bill

Health

Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Mental Health Bill
National security and serving the country
Hillsborough Law (this will be a bill, but No 10 has not said what it will be called)
Armed Forces Commissioner Bill
Northern Ireland Legacy Legislation (this involves repealing the Northern Ireland Troubles [Legacy and Reconciliation] Act, but the No 10 says repeal will require passing a new, replacement bill)
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
Cyber Security and Resilience Bill
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill
Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill
Holocaust Memorial Bill

Draft bills

Draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill
Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill
Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
Draft Conversion Practices Bill

We can review progress as the parliament progresses to see how much of this they actually manage to get done. With such a large majority, they should be able to move relatively fast. It will be very impressive if they get much of it done.

We are now three weeks in to the new government and they certainly seem to be running with a gusto that was lacking before!

The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris - Opening Ceremony

The first Olympic Games in Paris for 100 years opened with a very memorable ceremony: for good reasons and bad ones. The highlights such as the golden hot air balloon, the dazzling light displays from the Eiffel Tower, the opening pyrotechnics, the boats on the Seine, Céline Dion, all look amazing in a 10 minute 'best of' video. However, there were complaints from Christian groups over the Last Supper scene, some considered Marie Antoinette's singing decapitated head in bad taste and above all, it was too long and too wet!

Personally, my only real criticism was the poor quality of some of the images because of the rain. The cameras were insufficiently protected so we had to watch some parts through a lens covered in raindrops. But congratulations to Emmanuel Macron whose speech was by far the best of the lot. It was only 14 words:

"Je proclame ouverts les Jeux de Paris célébrant la 33e olympiade des temps modernes"

President Emmanuel Macron, July 26th 2024

Comment te dire adieu? Two General Elections & a Quote from The Economist

Françoise Hardy: Comment te dire adieu?

Paco Rabanne, Françoise Hardy, and Salvador Dali in May 1968

Françoise Hardy born in 1944, died in Paris at the age of 80. A French singer, fashion icon & muse to designer Paco Rabanne. The famed gold Rabanne dress she wore in 1968 weighed 9 kilos, contained 1,000 gold plaques & 300 carats of diamonds. It was the most expensive dress in the world at the time and required four bodyguards.

Here is her 1962 hit Tous les Garçons et Les Filles. The year I was born!

Two General Elections for the price of one!

I don't remember ever having a General Election in the UK and France at the same time. And this time I should be able to vote in both of them!

The UK general Election is boring and is almost certainly a foregone conclusion: after 14 years of Conservative government, the people feel poorer, public services feel worse than ever and trust in politicians is at an all time low. The opposition Labour Party will win with a decent or very large majority. My wish is that during their tenure they bring some trust and respectability back to politics. I think Sir Keir Starmer may be able to do that.

In France things are nastier. President Macron called a very unexpected election after a poor showing in the the European elections for his party and a swing to the far right. It looks as if the far right under the leadership of Marine Le Pen and her protege Prime-Minister-In-Waiting Jordan Bardella, may get the most votes due to voter disappointment and immigration. There is speculation as to why exactly Macron called an election. Does he want to let them win so the country can see what a mess they will make?

FLASH UPDATE: French Far Right at Gates of Power following the first round of voting yesterday

In both countries there is the usual rich-bashing coming from the left. This graph shows that in the UK at least they already pay the lion's share of income taxes. In both countries taxes have been raised by the left to very high percentages for those lucky enough to earn a lot of money. The policy is never successful; the rich either emigrate or find legal ways to avoid it. But it can still make for a popular election campaign.

The richest 10% pay 60% of all income tax in the UK. Let's not frighten them away!

I listened to a speech by Paul Johnson, Director of the IFS, about their independent analysis of the party manifestos. What I found most interesting was his explanation for why, when taxes are higher than ever and spending on public services are at an all time high, do things appear to be so bad? The explanation is a £50bn increase in debt repayments and a growing welfare budget. We simply can't afford our debt at current interest levels and our anaemic growth rates and demographic changes (not to mention the energy price crisis) can't support the quality in services we would all expect to see.

Lower interest rates soon please.

In my view the single biggest issue facing both countries (and most richer countries around the world) is not even being mentioned. It is the demographic time-bomb we face: fast ageing populations and fewer young people in a society that is not geared up for this. It is already having a huge impact on healthcare and social services (as most people can tell) and fewer working people to pay for it all. And it will get much worse. More next time!

Quote for the Month

"If we had a vote on July 4th, we, too, would pick Labour, because it has the greatest chance of tackling the biggest problem that Britain faces: a chronic and debilitating lack of economic growth."

The Economist 

General Election Called, Fake Tory Tax Cuts, Trump is officially a Criminal

General Election Called 

"When Britain last held a general election, the country was still a member of the European Union, there had been no pandemic and the Conservatives had already been in power for nearly a decade."

The Guardian May 23rd 2024

That sounds like so long ago!! This was the newspaper's comment the morning after Rishi Sunak called a General Election. 

There was general relief across the country (apart from in the Conservative party) when the election was called. We now have to endure 5 weeks of electioneering and campaigning, with each party telling us how awful the other is and how much better they are. I am sure the vast majority already know who they are going to vote for. Most people are either lifelong supportes of one party, or have been so disillusioned by the last decade of government that they will switch this time. The result is pretty certain unless there is a last minute upset: on July 5th, we will probably have a new Labour government under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

It's his to lose

"Our prediction model currently gives them (The Conservatives) a less than 1% chance of winning the election."

The Economist May 23rd 2024

Fake Tory Tax Cuts

Jeremy Hunt has made a big deal of the "tax cuts for working people" he has introduced.  Perhaps there will be more in the run up to the General Election. But in actual fact, the cuts to National Insurance tax don't make up for the stealth taxes Sunak's government has introduced recently. The threshold at which taxes start to be paid have been frozen or reduced and in an era of high inflation this can have a dramatic effect. 

For example, the 'Personal Allowance' - the amount of money you can earn before you start to pay income tax has been virtually frozen since 2019, haven risen from £12,500 to just £12,570 in the last 5 years. Inflation over those 5 years has been about 20%. So for no tax increase, the amount at which you start to pay tax would have needed to rise by 20% to £15,000. So most people will be worse off, despite the so called 'tax cuts' announced with great fanfare by the government. Other allowances have been similarly frozen or in the case of Capital Gains and Dividends, slashed dramatically. For Capital Gains, the tax free annual allowance, has been slashed from £12,300 in 2020 to just £3,000 this year!

Total public sector current receipts expressed as a percentage of GDP in the United Kingdom from 1900/01 to 2028/29(in million GBP)

Why do our politicians have to be so dishonest? Why can't they say we need more money for X and Y, so we have to raise more tax?

I wonder how many people actually think they are paying less tax?

The total tax take has been increasing since 1992 as the chart above demonstrates.

Government revenue, percent of GDP (Source: IMF)

It's interesting to see in the world tax take map above (courtesy of the International Monetary Fund) the better places to live are the darker colours - where the tax take is highest!

It's time for the British public to wake up to the fact that if we want decent public services, we need to pay for them and stop trying to do it on the cheap. Just look at the darkest countries on the map - they have the best health services and public services generally.

Trump is officially a Criminal

The first of Trump's court cases has finally found him guilty on all 34 accounts of fiddling his business receipts to hide his payment to his Escort, Stormy Daniels.

Who would have thought that Trump was a liar, a fraudster, a criminal? Will it make any difference to his chances of being re-elected?  Probably not.

"This crime wave ends when Donald Trump becomes president. Believe me."
 

Donald Trump