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Jonathan Ross’ agent has announced he won’t be seeking to renegotiate his contract with the BBC. Although Ross claimed his decision was ‘not financially motivated’ this is an important lesson for all senior managers who often accept without question what remuneration consultants tell them: if you pay an employee you value a ridiculous £18 million over three years the employee will no longer need to work having received the equivalent of several lottery wins. For years the BBC operated on the basis of ‘treat them mean, keep them keen’ until the executives realised that remuneration consultants (Towers Perrin et al) would give them, as well as the stars, an excuse for massive pay rises. Many years ago, when he was still cheap financially rather than with his gags, Canon used to have Jonathan Ross host corporate events. They didn’t think he was talented but loved the way he pronounced ‘Rank Xerox’. He still isn’t talented, but we can agree that Ross and Mark Thompson, misguided Director-general of the BBC, are both ‘Rank’.
 A true professional Adam, Isabel, You have certainly provided you client Trafigura with such excellent advice. I am sure you must both take great professional pride in your jobs and enhance your firm’s reputation suppressing reports like this:
http://88.80.16.63/leak/waterson-toxicwaste-ivorycoast-é2009.pdf
Leading directly to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura
and this:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/5417651/british-press-banned-from-reporting-parliament-seriously.thtml
and this:
http://order-order.com/2009/10/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament/
and this:
http://richardwilsonauthor.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/the-parliamentary-question-carter-ruck-and-trafigura-dont-want-you-to-see/
and this:
http://www.northumbrian.org.uk/2009/10/the-trafigura-question-carterruck-dont-want-you-to-see/
and this:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=44460&c=1
as well as a guaranteed front-page in the Guardian and other newspapers when the injunction is inevitably overturned, followed by leading billing on Channel 4 news and Newsnight.
It is rather fortunate that we have ethical, fair-minded lawyers like you sleeping happily in their beds knowing they have helped prevent injustice and safeguarded hard-won freedoms rather than those other materialistic solicitors who might chase high-paying clients. I recommend that you give a talk at your children’s schools telling them about your poorly-paid jobs championing what is right.
I am sure Balliol and Jesus must be very proud that they have produced lawyers such as yourselves, and given the excellent publicity you have generated for both Carter-Ruck and Trafigura, I am sure students of such renowned academic institutions will be queuing to join your illustrious organisations.
Again, I am sure Trafigura will be delighted at the results of the high-quality media management advice you have provided, which I am sure was exceedingly good value for money.
Regards.
You have certainly provided your client Trafigura with such excellent advice. I am sure you must both take great professional pride in your jobs and enhance your firm’s reputation suppressing reports like this: http://88.80.16.63/leak/waterson-toxicwaste-ivorycoast-é2009.pdf Leading directly to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura and this: and this: http://order-order.com/2009/10/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament/ and this: and this: http://www.northumbrian.org.uk/2009/10/the-trafigura-question-carterruck-dont-want-you-to-see/ and this: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=44460&c=1 as well as a guaranteed front-page in the Guardian and other newspapers when the injunction is inevitably overturned, followed by leading billing on Channel 4 News and Newsnight.  Isabel Hudson: What a lawyer It is rather fortunate that we have ethical, fair-minded lawyers like you sleeping happily in their beds knowing they have helped prevent injustice and safeguarded hard-won freedoms rather than those other materialistic solicitors who might chase high-paying clients. I recommend that you give a talk at your children’s schools telling them about your poorly-paid jobs championing what is right. I am sure Balliol and Jesus must be very proud that they have produced lawyers such as yourselves, and given the excellent publicity you have generated for both Carter-Ruck and Trafigura, I am sure students of such renowned academic institutions will be queuing to join your illustrious organisations. Again, I am sure Trafigura will be delighted at the results of the high-quality media management advice you have provided, which I am sure was exceedingly good value for money. Regards.  Fraudster Madoff Bernie Madoff was today sentenced to 150 years in prison for defrauding thousands of innocent victims. When his Ponzi scheme was rendered unsustainable by the financial crisis, the exposed Madoff admitted his guilt and stated he was too ashamed even to seek his victims’ forgiveness.  Gordon Brown Yet Madoff’s theft of £40 billion ($65 billion) over two decades is amateur in comparison with Gordon Brown’s masterly and on-going heist. In May 2009 alone, Gordon Brown’s government managed to spend £19.9 billion more than it received in income. At that rate, every two months Gordon Brown’s government will steal more from future generations of British taxpayers than Bernie Madoff managed in twenty years. Gordon Brown’s government spent more than £26.75 million more than it received in income in each and every hour of May 2009. That is £331 for every adult, every pensioner, every child in the UK. In just May alone. Whatever happened to the abolition of boom and bust which Gordon Brown proclaimed ad nauseam as our ‘prudent’ Chancellor of the Exchequer? Gordon Brown was as qualified to be Chancellor as Bernie Madoff was to be Chairman of NASDAQ. Yet Gordon Brown and his Ponzi-scheming Cabinet continue to claim that taxes will not need to rise and that government expenditure will not need to be cut despite the dire state of the public finances. Worse still, he tries to smear all of those who acknowledge the truth. Gordon Brown’s United Kingdom is rapidly becoming Fiscal Fantasy Island. Gordon Brown and his Party are dishonest. They treat the electorate with contempt, like idiots indeed. Perhaps we were idiots to believe their lies three times. But, we now know the claims to have abolished boom and bust were ridiculous. We know that prudent governments have to balance their books. We know we can’t afford to go on holiday to the USA or Europe because the pound is so weak. We know that the rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer. We know that huge, vast, enormous sums of money have been wasted on non-jobs and quangocrats. We know that the OECD is forecasting that the UK economy will contract by a massive 4.3% this year. At least Bernie Madoff had the decency to admit he was a liar and a fraudster. The Grand Jury of public opinion will almost certainly convict Gordon Brown and his accomplices at the General Election. And, even if Gordon Brown manages to hoodwink the electorate, he will not be able to deceive the financial markets: watch the pound plummet if the global markets even imagine that the Fiscal Fantasy Island Fraudster could be at the helm of UK plc for another five years. Hard to see the idea of holding an inquiry in public ‘whenever possible’ as undesirable, isn’t it? Unless of course, the war was started by your party contrary to your party’s and public opinion. And if the British public was misled about the intelligence justification, purpose and legality of the war. And if the war was a total strategic failure which destabilised the region, split key alliances and demoralised and overstretched the UK’s armed forces. And if the war has cost the UK taxpayer more than £6.44 billion. And if the war made us hated as Bush’s poodle, not just amongst the Muslim masses but also amongst our allies globally and our Muslims at home. And destroyed our reputation for defending civil liberties and opposing torture. And saw us fail to oppose rendition. And, most importantly, the war cost the lives of 179 British troops and thousands more Iraqi civilians with, of course, the loss of homes and limbs of thousands more, Iraqis and British alike.  Indy whitewash We should learn the lessons of the Hutton Inquiry into the events surrounding the death of David Kelly. Any thinking person knows now that Kelly was right when he said the intelligence was sexed up, and that Gilligan was acting in the public interest to report it. Yet the report cleared the government and castigated the BBC and Gilligan, forcing the resignation of an excellent Director-General and Chairman, contrary to all the evidence. How could this whitewash happen? Hutton claimed that the public would interpret ’sexed up’ as meaning an outright lie rather than exaggeration, and hence what Gilligan reported was ‘untrue’. Talk about splitting hairs for government advantage. No wonder the Independent ran a blank front page headlined ‘Whitewash?’. Why does this matter for the new Iraq inquiry? Well, the author of the Kelly whitewash, Lord Hutton, made his career in Northern Ireland, that province of the UK where the intelligence community, the judiciary, courts without juries, internment without trial, the police, the military, the SAS and dirty tricks and politicians merged into a dirty primordial soup. Lord Hutton was made lawyer for the Northern Ireland Attorney General in 1969. Hutton defended Britain in the European Court of Human Rights when it was found guilty of torturing internees without trial in 1978. Lord Hutton represented the Ministry of Defence during the Bloody Sunday inquiry. Can any of you spot a pattern? The Guardian summarised Hutton’s past best when it quoted the republican Danny Murphy on the Hutton whitewash:
So, where does this lead us? What relevance does this have to the new inquiry into Iraq? Question: Who is the chairman of the new Iraq inquiry? Answer: Sir John Chilcot Question: Past form regarding Iraq? Answer: He was a member of the Butler Review, boycotted by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, into the handling of the intelligence used to justify the war. The Evening Standard called it Whitewash (Part Two). Question: How did Chilcot make his name? Answer: As Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office, in the primordial soup referred to above. Question: Any other interesting things about Chilcot? Answer: Chairman of the Police Federation, Staff Counsellor to the National Criminal Intelligence Service, Staff Counsellor for the Security and Intelligence Agencies. Conducted reviews of Royal and VIP security (1999) and the Castlereagh Special Branch break-in (2002-3). Question: Where is Castlereagh? Answer: No surprise,it is in Northern Ireland. So, let’s just wait for Whitewash (Part Three). It looks inevitable. An extremely well-informed source within a leading NHS trust has spilt the beans to cantankerous on how NHS trusts, and the NHS in general, have managed to hide the fact that the number of managers in the NHS has been growing out of control. Here is how the statistics are manipulated: when compiling the number of administrators and managers within the NHS, it is considered routine to exclude personnel who come into any clinical contact with patients. However, many of managers in the NHS have transfered into management from nursing and often wish to maintain their professional registrations, as a personal safety measure should the wheels fall off the NHS gravy train. So, they see patients for perhaps a few hours per week. Yet many NHS Trusts are counting them as 100% clinical staff. Why does this matter? Well, because the Department of Health sets targets for manager:clinician ratios. Claiming that managers are actually clinicians increases the number of 100% non-jobs that can be created. Does this make a difference in practice? Cantankerous can provide an example which shows how it does. A ‘top-performing’ NHS Trust recently asked managers to cut costs. An admirable manager went back to the Trust executives with a plan to cut unnecessary managers. However, she was told that the Trust was ‘undermanaged’ and that it needed more managers to achieve Foundation status; whilst she might have been expected to be congratulated on her efforts, she was in fact berated. Quite disgracefully, as happened at Stafford Hospital, the Trust Board was more interested in achieving Foundation status than maintaining high quality standards: the manager was told to sack nurses instead, irrespective of the impact on patient care. For the Trust Board it is statistics and their status that matters, not patient care. The way that the statistics on management within the NHS are compiled really matters. PS Cantankerous would really like to know what ‘undermanaged’ means. Cobra Beer, owner of the lager brand marketed as ‘less fizzy’ and thus somehow more suitable for curries, went bust at the end of May. As Cobra struggled to survive around 100 staff lost their jobs. Cobra owed unsecured creditors a staggering £75 million. The brewer Wells & Young’s, which manufactured the ‘Indian’ beer not in India but Bedford, was owed many millions of pounds. So, given some expectation of natural justice, we would expect Cobra’s owners and investors to lose control of the business they failed to run properly; the business to be sold to new owners who might have the skills and strategy to make it a success; the trade creditors who made, distributed and promoted the beer to get whatever value remained to recompense them for their work. Life is not that fair, and certainly not in the world of the ‘prepack administration’.  Karan Bilimoria gets his hands on liquid gold Cobra Beer was controlled, until the end of May, by Lord Karan Bilimoria. Bilimoria was nominated for his CBE in the same 2004 Queen’s Birthday Honours List as the infamous Sir Fred Goodwin, who ran Royal Bank of Scotland into the ground. Subsequently upgraded, the now Lord Bilimoria seems as adept as Goodwin at ensuring his own personal enrichment at the expense of his employees and creditors. The phoenix Company that has risen from the ashes of Cobra with indecent haste is 49.9% owned by a certain Karan Bilimoria, with the remainder purchased by Molson Coors. Meanwhile, the people who ran the adverts or bottled the beer are left without payment, as the sacked employees are left without jobs. Lord Karan Bilimoria always seemed to run Cobra Beer as a personal promotional vehicle. Bilimoria appeared to spend more time on speaking engagements than running the business, and the judgement and emotional security of any person willing to become Chancellor of Thames Valley ‘University’ must surely be questionable. When cantankerous examined the Cobra balance sheet, a few years ago now, there wasn’t enough surplus cash to pay a telephone bill. The last, truly last, set of accounts showed that the Company lost a staggering £15.9 million on a turnover of £34.1 million; growth isn’t hard to achieve if products are sold for half the amount that needs to be charged to break even, never mind make a profit. That a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) was vetoed by the credit insurer of Wells & Young’s, which actually did the work of brewing the beer under licence, indicates that legal action may be likely. It is hard, at first glance, to see how Cobra was not trading while insolvent or how its auditors, PWC, managed to repeatedly give it clean bills of health. As an aside, cantankerous could never understand the point of attempting to turn Cobra into a global brand when the US rights were owned by a rival. While the discussion of moral hazard is often restricted to economic principles and banks, and while everything should be done to salvage businesses, what happened with Cobra Beer can’t be right. Yes, trading partners should not have been so foolish as to allow themselves to become so exposed to a company with such woeful financial performance, but when businesses are restructured it cannot be appropriate to reward incompetence at the expense of suppliers and employees. What was Cranfield School of Management thinking when it awarded Bilimoria its 2008 Entrepreneur Alumnus of the Year award? And cantankerous really can’t understand why Molson Coors would want a businessman with the record of Bilimoria to own 49.9%, and be Chairman, of a business in which it has invested £14 million. Lord Karan Bilimoria wins the June 2009 Waster of the Month award for wasting:
Tory MP Nadine Dorries writes on her blog today that she fears an MP suicide:
Of course, MPs aren’t grown-ups responsible for their own actions, are they? cantankerous thought the Tories were the party of self-responsibility? cantankerous heard Dorries this morning on the Today programme and she sounded somewhere between melodramatic and hysterical. Nadine needs to get out a bit more.
cantankerous doesn’t trust salary review bodies either – remember the bankers’ remuneration committees were awarding huge pay rises whilst the bankers were destroying their shareholders’ businesses and destabilising the financial system. Review bodies, inevitably, are packed with, and hear evidence, from ‘people like us’. The simple truth is that MPs have one idea of what they are worth whilst their electorate has quite another. Given that none of the major political parties have any problems attracting potential candidates, it is difficult to see an economic justification for any pay rise at all, particularly when the cost of MPs’ outrageously generous pensions is taken into account. And, 650 MPs is simply too many. Perhaps successive Prime Ministers have lacked the backbone to address that issue too? cantankerous is rather looking forward to returning to his alma mater, the University of Cambridge, tomorrow. So, for those thinking of visiting, a few tips:
2. You’ll see signs all over the town proclaiming that there is isn’t just an old University in Cambridge. What should be said is that there is only one decent university in Cambridge. I always pity the poor graduates from Anglia Ruskin University, some of whom pose for posterity outside King’s in their gowns and mortarboards (the giveaway since Cambridge does hoods not boards) pretending that they have just graduated from somewhere else. Remind yourself that Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge is the former technical college at which Tom Sharpe taught. It inspired Sharpe to write the Wilt comic novels, where Wilt, a lecturer at the ‘Fenland College’, is driven to despair by his stupid and disinterested students. 3. Outside term, some of the Colleges make rather nice, and quite reasonably-priced, rooms available. Even to tourists. A more central and more authentic way to see the town. And much nicer than the overpriced and tacky B&Bs. 4. Don’t expect too much of Cambridge beyond the University. The University dominates the town. Think a world class university with Harlow attached. Not quite as bad as Harlow perhaps, but not much better either. 5. Try Dojo, a fantastic noodle bar, for lunch. It is reasonably priced, and conveniently located on Mill Lane, off Trumpington Street, between Queens’ and the Fitzwilliam Museum. And its convenient for King’s too, but much better than the tourists traps on King’s Parade. Gordon Brown is now proposing that Yet Another Quango (YAQ) should regulate the House of Commons. Yet the House of Commons already has a regulator – the electorate. This proposal threatens to create a topsy-turvy democracy, where an unelected YAQ lords it over the sovereignty of Parliament. We’re got enough problems with Brussels never mind YAQ. Are MPs panicked by the thought of a new regulator, or does their terror derive from the knowledge that a General Election must be called within the next 12 months and that their jobs are at serious risk? We all know the answer to this question. A strong and independent Speaker protecting a legislature which takes itself seriously, transparency of operation, and a competitive electoral system are the safeguards we need. MPs need to have a genuine fear of losing their seats at the next General Election. Given the strength of the party system, it takes remarkable derogation of duty to trigger either deselection or defeat at the opinion polls. Due to the battle against Marxist infiltration of the Labour party, it is virtually impossible for local Labour parties to deselect their parliamentary candidates. It is easier for the Conservatives but still not straightforward. If the political parties fail to allow local people to deselect undeserving or unpopular candidates, we may have to move to a primary system as there is in the United States, or else risk the stability of our political system. Many MPs and journalists have been worrying about the damage that the Telegraph’s daily exposés are having on the reputation of Parliament. Iain Dale, writing about his friend Nadine Dorries’ treatment by the Daily Telegraph, questioned, as have many other commentators, for how much longer the media frenzy can continue:
Iain Dale later wrote that he had refused an offer to appear on a programme discussing which group is worse: bankers or MPs? Yet this question really gets to the heart of the matter and stimulated this article. Quite simply, cantankerous doesn’t believe the public will tire of MP-baiting until there is a general election. The truth is that, until recently, the British public couldn’t have cared less about MP’s expenses, Fred Goodwin’s salary, the sustainability of the bubble, the inflation-busting ‘total compensation packages’ of the public, private and media sector elite, or even the tax avoidance of the super-rich. The public believed that the good times would go on forever on the never-never, that house prices would go ever higher, that PFI was magic, that unemployment was only for the unwashed and that Gordon Brown had really abolished boom and bust. They even believed that half the country could work for the State and get paid more than the private sector without the government’s finances spiralling out of control. Members of the public and Members of Parliament believed they, indeed all of us, could be selfish and we’d all be richer and happier. Of course, the public now knows the truth, and this week MPs have been forced to see it too. Yet the public is unable to achieve the change it wants and that we all know is unavoidable. It wants a general election and it wants it now. It doesn’t want the unelected and tarnished Prime Minister it had foisted upon it. The media bloodbath will continue until the polls open, with the blogosphere ensuring that the media and political elites cannot close ranks. There is no Oliver Cromwell to tell this rump of a Parliament that ”You are no Parliament”, that:
These are fascinating times. When Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, way back in 1987, said that ‘Greed is Good’ audiences were shocked, even years into Thatcher’s revolution. Today, after the Blair years of selfishness, greed and corruption, the tide has turned. The oft-predicted Middle Class Tax Revolt is underway; it is not simply concerned with an unjust tax burden, it is about restoring ethics and morals in the public sphere. Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments has become as important reading as his The Wealth of Nations. MPs have been mystified as their claims to have ‘obeyed the rules’ have been derided by the public. Quite simply, the concept of right and wrong, as well as consideration of what works, has returned to the politics of the UK, after an absence of more than a decade. Now, the political parties must respond. |
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It is sad that some MPs have disgraced themselves so seriously that some might contemplate suicide. However, it isn’t that successive Prime Ministers lacked courage, Nadine. Rather, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown understood all too well that MPs are not thought to be good value by the public. Opinion polls have consistently shown that the public believes MPs to be overpaid rather than underpaid – and narcissistic and overly partisan too. The public is also smart enough to know that it does not want to attract candidates who are too greedy and selfish to represent them in Parliament. Public opinion will not tolerate MPs paid what MPs think they are worth.
1. If you ever get an invitation to hear Alison Richards, the Vice-Chancellor of the University speak, don’t bother. She is perhaps the worst public speaker cantankerous has ever heard. cantankerous had to go to a second oratorical performance simply to make sure she really was as bad as he thought she was the first time. Unfortunately, she was. Now, if she is speaking at an event that is otherwise worth attending, cantankerous either does iPod or pub. It is worth reminding oneself that the Vice-Chancellor’s job is to administer rather than to inspire. Which is rather fortune with Alison Richards in post.