Weekly Commentary 26th May 2022

 

A view from Clough Brook Cottage

An weekly commentary on current affairs from an imaginary cottage in the Peak District.

An end to Partygate (hopefully)

A dangerous demagogue with Imperialist pretensions is rampaging through Ukraine with a bestiality not seen since WW2. As a result the world could be facing famine especially in developing countries. Total employment in the UK has declined by nearly 1m in the past 30 months. The cost of alleviating the impact of Covid19 is about £30bn. Inflation is steaming ahead. Yet what does the media in Britain talk about – minor offences related to Covid19 regulations. What a load of sanctimonious, hypocritical guff. I shall just give a couple of examples of media hypocrisy – Kay Burley of Sky News December 2020 – “I was desperate to go to the toilet” (of course she is still there – on Sky News!); on a different note but hypocrisy related, George Eaton of the New Statesman set up the late philosopher Roger Scruton by de-contextualising and removing parts of an interview (April 2019) – an apology was not given until July, by which time Professor Scruton had been removed from a Government appointment as the actions of George Eaton gave the impression that the Professor had expressed anti-Semitic views (he did not!). George Eaton is still at the New Statesman.

The Pandemic Regulations were created in haste and have poorly defined advice. They provided for Fixed Penalty Notices and relatively small fines. A “party” does not appear in those regulations. As is the established case Police Officers have discretion. Hence there is a high likelihood of differential application across the country.

The real criticism of the Government (and for that matter the Opposition) is that there is a distinct lack of strategic thinking beyond tomorrow’s headlines, poor planning and attention to detail in the application of policy. The news media should do much better than they have, so far, and prove themselves capable of rigorous analysis and criticism not pandering to Westminster “tittle tattle”.

Cost of Living

Yes it is a crisis but all crises should be put to good use. In the case of energy this means rectifying the faults in the present model of supply. This present model is based on the belief that the market is self regulating and therefore intervention in relation to the structure is not necessary. Actually the market has failed simply on the basis that it allowed far to many under capitalised retail and trading entities to exist resulting in multiple business failures. The measures today by the Chancellor (26^th May) are aimed at sustaining the existing (neo-liberal) model not reforming it. The retail and trading sectors of the energy market would be hard pressed to show any added value. On the other hand many of them support excessive executive pay, high dividends and profits which are drawn from a vital necessity (a public utility).

In an emergency, which this is without doubt, the requirement should be to take the opportunity for reform. First the country should enhance the role of the National Grid so that it becomes the Monopoly purchaser of electricity and gas for onward transmission to domestic customers. Second National Grid, in it’s new role would have to show transparently that rigorous international price comparisons had been undertaken. There would need to be for some time, price controls, dividend controls and excessive executive pay controls. The accounts of the retail and trading entities should have their accounts independently audited – the results of which should be made public. The Government should provide loans to these companies, perhaps over a 20 year period as their contribution to keeping prices down. I will not hold my breath for either the Government nor Opposition to do anything like this!