Primeval Swamp of politics again

If Twitter was the primeval rain forest and I were the time traveler doing the tourist thing to gawp at dinosaurs, my footprint would pose no threat to the delicate butterfly. I know that I cannot exert influence on the great and good on Twitter any more than I can travel in time.

Yet occasionally I find myself on the periphery of a debate that I feel is so important, the 140 character limit cannot hope to convey my thoughts, let alone change minds. So it has proved with the horrible violence and rioting we see in the US at the moment. The synaptic tangents it set off highlighted uncomfortable parallels in what we are seeing here in the UK when it comes to democracy, Covid response and Brexit.

What set this off was my rather innocent suggestion that if Americans insist on calling these ‘race riots’ akin to those in 1968, then they are actually reducing the chances of bringing about real, meaningful change.

Leaping back 300 years or so ago, a little spat took place in one of the British colonies. Wealthy landowners took offense at being asked to pay their taxes and so rose up in violent insurrection. They took on the mighty British and won. Having won, they were then faced with the rather tricky task of defining how they wanted to be governed.

It was a turbulent time and I will take a simplistic view of the philosophy behind the discussion. Somewhere in this meandering morass of a blog there is a discussion about the competing theories of Thomas Hobbes and john Locke.

When Thomas Jefferson came to draw up the US Constitution, just having fought the British he didn't buy into the ideaof the Hobbes assertion that human beings are incapable of ruling themselves so need to be kept in their place by a dictator. So, the US Constitution was written from the Locke viewpoint that government authority is gained through the consent of the people.

Just in case, dear reader, you have any doubt, I must state for the record I abhor racism. It is a cancer of society that if it cannot be stamped out, must never be condoned or encouraged. I hate the use of any stereotyping that is used to suggest that another human being either through their choices or accident of birth can be considered as being inferior to another, they are just different. Diversity brings new and potentially interesting views into our lives; embellishes our culture; broadens our outlook and ultimately makes us stronger and better.

Now back to the matter in hand. The US Constitution was therefore drawn up based on the Locke principles of government by consent.

While the riots in the US ignited by the spark of Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, killing an unarmed black man, George Floyd. The anger that erupted seemed to stem from accusations of racism.

Yet, the root cause is not racism, that was just the flint that provided the spark. The problem in my eyes at least is that it was another example of what happens when you cease to police by consent. The founder of the British Police, Sir Robert Peel wanted to ensure policing by consent and set out principles of transparency, integrity and accountability to achieve legitimacy in the police.  

However, it isn’t just policing by consent that is the issue here, we appear to have lost focus on the need to govern by consent as well. Despite the Locke principles that are enshrined in the constitution, the need for government by consent appears forgotten. Instead we have a leader who appears to be operating straight out of a handbook written by Hobbes.

This is why we need to be careful about describing this as a race riot. It has a lot more to do with how the current art of politics is about encouraging tribalism. Elections in the US and the UK are being won and lost on it.

This is why describing the cause as racism is not only wrong but ultimately counterproductive. Racism only plays on the tribal images of us and them. It is how lazy (and ultimately dangerous) politicians get elected by using this tribalism and the language of populism. They make it all sound so easy and are quite happy to espouse policies that marginalize minorities if it gets them the majority the crave. 

Social liberals (of which I hope I am one), have been getting it all wrong for this very reason. We are outraged by racism and howl at the moon. What we should be calling out is the eroding of government by consent and the way that those in charge are playing the system to their own advantage.

I would love to say that this is a US problem. It is not. The UK has suffered from it as well. At the last election we had the Tory tribal call of get Brexit Done while Labour were evoking a class war. The Liberal Democrats, who should have been highlighting how they were the guardians of government by consent were politely trying to fight a battle that was already lost and remained puzzlingly silent on the need for consent.   

Now if you ever wonder just how dangerous this new Hobbes politics is, consider Covid. Lockdowns have been the cornerstone of attempts to battle the virus until there is a vaccine. Maintaining lockdown of a country is hard and relies on behavioral science to bring all of the population – not just some of the tribal elements together so that everyone obeys the rules. The US, UK, Brazil and Russia have not been able to hold the lockdown together for various reasons and it is no surprise that in terms of deaths they are among the world leaders.

What is worse, it is election year in the US. If everyone allows this tribalism to continue and not highlight the need of government by consent, we risk further erosion of any government and policing by consent.

UK Citizens Bonus

I believe that once the COVID19 lockdown is over, UK society will need to embrace a new social reality. The ‘old’ social contract between government and the people has been rather turned on its head by the necessary responses to the pandemic and there is recognition that the economic impact will require huge government intervention.

During the crisis, key workers have been the ones that have kept society functioning. Those key workers are often people who view their work as a calling such as doctors and nurses, where salary is not the key driver for their career choice and money isn’t a method of scoring success.

Other key workers, such as supermarket staff, drivers and binmen, have traditionally low-paid and often insecure jobs out of necessity and lack of choice.

An article in the Independent today suggests that up to a third of the key workers earn less than £10 per hour.

When all of this passes and we emerge from our cocoons into the new normal, I hope that we will recognize the moral injustice of this and do something about it. Indeed, should no action be taken, there will be palpable anger amongst the populous.

One answer would be finding a way to better reward the low paid and disadvantaged. I have long thought that as a country we have the wealth and ability to provide every adult of working age with an income over and above what they earn.

The government are now uniquely placed to take action on this. They are taking steps to try and mitigate against the economic maelstrom that will follow as the impact of locking down the country feeds through into the economy. They are seeking to provide mechanisms that will mitigate against unemployment, collapse of businesses and turmoil in the financial markets. They have pledged £30bn so far in funds, but have also offered loan guarantees to business banking lenders and recognized that they will need to offer bailouts to some business sectors.

So, how can we also afford to support the economy and correct the moral injustice of the low pay of our key workers?

The answer is to set up a UK Sovereign Wealth Fund. Income generated from this fund would be divided up equally between every working age British Citizen. To be clear, this Citizen Bonus would not be taken into account when calculating minimum wage rates, welfare entitlements, student loan repayments or pension payments.

Say the Citizen Bonus is £1,000 per head tax free. To some that may not seem a lot, but to a low paid worker on £8.75 an hour that could be the equivalent of 3 weeks wages. It could be the difference between making the rent or feeding the children.

The bad news that this would probably cost the UK about £30bn a year and therefore require a Sovereign Wealth fund in excess of £600bn.

The good news is that with a bit of nimble footwork, political will and deft project management, the government can start to seed the fund and in these unpredictable times are uniquely placed to kick start the wealth fund.

This is how:

•           Any government bailout to companies would require a company to lodge equity into the UK Sovereign Wealth Fund. This would be accompanied by warrants that would allow the wealth fund to purchase equity at a future date at a set rate, a method employed by Warren Buffett when bailing out Goldman Sachs.
•           The government have set up the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) that allows companies to borrow money from banks while the government guarantees the loan against bad debt. Effectively, the government is offering free insurance against bad debt. By insisting on an ‘insurance payment’ on each loan, this money can be used to seed the wealth fund.
• The current Bank of England (BoE) Quantitive Easing(QE) scheme can be amended to allow the BoE to use the money generated by QE to be sent direct to the wealth fund and be used to invest in equities, property etc. This would also boost the value of pensions and investments and help protect the insurance industry.
• Any direct business grants from central or local government would require the company receiving the grant to place a proportion of the value in equity into the wealth fund. This would include Research & Development grants.
• A change in Land Laws to make it mandatory that any income generated by UK land or property be paid to a UK tax domicile or UK incorporated company. A proportion of the extra tax revenue would be paid to the wealth fund.
• The law on trusts would be reviewed, especially family trusts, to ensure that when these trusts pass to a new generation of family, a small proportion of the investment will be passed to the wealth fund.
• The National Trust would be asked to pay a small levy based on profit to the wealth fund.

Now, I am not saying this will be easy. I am not saying it will be quick. It lays a foundation. It is sustainable. It means that everyone shares in British economic success and growth. It certainly seems to be a way to ensure that we recognize our key workers and to help lift people out of poverty.

Wouldn't it be nice if...

I have overdone the dried frog pills.

It is not my fault, I rather lost track of the doseage while watching on-line Taskmaster videos.

As a result, I started to have fantasy COVID19 leaders press briefing hallucinations. This, dear reader, isn't as horrific as you might fear. In fact, it is a synaptic tangent that you may wish to travel at some point.

Imagine the scene. Boris enters the 10 Downing street briefing room dressed in a "Who's the Daddy" t-shirt, Eric Morcambe shorts, long pink socks and sandals.

Boris waits while the various attendees on the videoconference sip water and recover from their swooning until he announces that he is going to do something different with the briefing.

Boris is going to leverage the collective wisdom of those attending to review the last four weeks and see if there are things that can be done to grease the wheels in way that will get this horrific journey over with a little bit quicker! Not only that, he is going to do it in the form of an Agile Retrospective!

At this point Matt Hancock enters the room dressed in a French maid outfit. OK, I need to pause writing and have more coffee to expunge that image for a minute. Please feel free to ignore or dress him in your outfit of choice.

Our esteemed Health Secretary then picks up some post-it notes and a dry marker before announcing that he is the scribe for the event.

Boris then throws open the floor to answer four critical questions:

• What worked well for us?
• What did not work well for us?
• What actions can we take to improve our process going forward?

OK, that first question comes as a curved ball to the assembled denizens of the press. After all, giving anybody positive feedback comes hard to hardened hack. That said, there are some things that we should probably say have worked. Social distancing has been followed; food supply chains maintained; ventilators designed, built and supplied; economic contingency plans implemented; critical workers are hanging in there despite the challenges; the British public are volunteering to assist in whatever way they can.

In fact, if I didn't have point to get to at some point before lockdown ends, I could probably produce quite a list of the things that have gone well up to this point.

What has not worked well? Now this is where the British Press come into there own. I can imagine that the list here would be quite large and headed by Testing, Testing and TESTING. Also quite high up there will be procurement of PPE. There would be others, but I have to admit that I would probably zone out and go and make a cup of tea and a sandwich while the press corps blow themselves out.

This is when my dried frog pill hallucinations really kick in. Just as they start on the last section about actions to take to improve, it becomes totally surreal.

The screen in the briefing room fills with my image, complete with a cornflake and tomato sauce sandwich in hand. Boris smiles. Matt Hancock curtseys. Boris asks me, what actions would I like to see to improve process.

Pausing only to wipe tomato sauce from my beard, I grab my chance.

- If there are issues with procurement of garnering specific skills or materials, why isn't there a central website which outlines what you need and giving people a contact point if they are able to plug a particular gap?

- There is quite a cottage industry started up making visors and PPE equipment if my social media feed is to be believed. How do people get the fruits of their labours to the people who need it?

- If there is an issue with washing and steralising re-usable PPE, why are we not opening up the industrial laundries normally used by hotels to provide the NHS with extra capacity?

- When the government is providing loan guarantees and bailout money to bigger companies, why is it not insisting on warrants and share equity that can be used to start a sovereign wealth fund that could, in future, be used to provide a #UKbasicincome?

- Could the common cold unit be used as a template to test volunteers who have had COVID19 to validate if recovery from the virus provides the immunity we all crave? 

I would imagine at around this point, the sight of me with aforementioned sandwich may prove too much for poor Boris and I would be cut off mid flow.

Still, I had my fantasy 5 minutes of glory in my fantasy press briefing. I, rather like Donald Trump, think that it all went very, very well and that the ratings will go through the roof.

The trouble is that the effects of the dried frog pills will wear off where as this lockdown is set to continue.

Getting the hang of it again

Right then, let's see if I remember.

I take my right forefinger and dip it in that special green gloop distilled from various exotic herbs and leaves gathered by Mattress Madge....

... Ooo that rather tingles, I wonder what would happen if I ....

No! Concentrate Simon.

Right, take the forefinger and let it wander over this keyboard thingy. That's it, this feels like what I used to do.

Look! words are appearing on the screen. They seem to be appearing in some sort of order. It's as if I am speaking to the world and I can sit here and pretend they listen, nod sagely and then go out and do stuff that will lead to the overthrow of an oppressive regime.

My word. That is rather impressive.

I set out just to show a few people that I am still alive and it leads to an evil dictator fleeing his oppressed people's wrath to start peanut farming in a sub-Saharan African state.

OK, if the Nobel Peace Prize people are out there, if you drop me an email, I will tell you where to send the cheque.

I am not dead.

I should point out to everyone that I am not dead. OK, so some parts of me don’t function as quickly as they did when I was younger, but all my bits are still in place and in working order (See Note 1).


However, I do realise that I haven’t posted much for a while. Poor Inspector Jones is still being perplexed by the odd and Archie McRamie is still missing. In fact, there has been very little movement or signs of activity anywhere on these pages.

The reason is that I have a new job in London. For you Merkins, London is the big city where the Queen lives. However, nobody there speaks like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins – unless they are an American who is trying to blend in with the crowd. (See Note 2).

So while, I’m at this, I should cover off a few other bases for our Merkin cousins. In my time in London, I haven’t seen a pearly king or pearly queen. There are not handcarts selling roasted chestnuts on every corner. Even though I work in the very heart of the city, I am not required by statute to wear a bowler hat (See Note 3). Chimney sweeps are noticeable by their absence and there hasn’t been a foggy day in old London town that I have noticed.

It is all a bit like believing what you see on Fox News or read in one of Murdoch’s Evil Empire newspapers. Part of you really wants to believe the myth you are presented with, but the reality is far more mundane, ordinary and less likely to put money in News International’s back pocket.

Anyway, I am continuing along my own sweet way. I will be posting the next part of “A Couple of Tenors Short” when I have finished doing some major edit work on the manuscript.

So until then, have fun everyone and.....




Note 1: All that is except for my appendix which is long gone. According to Wikipedia, this isn’t a great loss. Never being a member of the eats, shoots and leaves brigade, I have never really missed the thing.


Note 2: Speaking like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins while in London doesn’t help you blend in. In fact, if you dress up in a lime green, spandex body suit, wear fairy lights and talk to fellow passengers on the tube you will blend in better.

Note 3: I would caution anybody visiting London to avoid people wearing bowler hats. The only people I have seen wearing the things are invariably trying to part tourists from their Sterling.