And That's Why I'm a Conservative

This piggybank represents perfectly the reason why I am a Conservative.  Just recently this piggybank had been absolutely chock-a-block full of copper coins. These have been counted and are now safely put away in a real bank. But it hasn't always been this way and the story goes like this. In 1990 My wife and I had just got married. Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister, John Major was the Chancellor and I bought this piggybank from Wigan market. Since 1990 the piggybank has been regularly emptied when times were hard and we needed, quite literally, every penny. On one occasion I remember being so hard up that we had no money other than the coppers we’d collected in this very piggybank so we emptied it then raised the sum total of just over £4 which was just enough to buy some milk bread and a few other essentials to tide us over. As we built our lives and our aspirations were becoming a reality, the piggybank was emptied less and less until it was just never emptied. I remember that grey rainy day in Wigan carrying the pot pig back to our 1st marital home, flat above a chip shop, thinking "wouldn't it be good if this was full of money right now". Over 20 years later, I now know what it feels like to have this piggybank full of money and it feels good! To be honest when the piggybank is full of copper coins there isn't as much cash as it feels, and believe me it's chuffing heavy. It's not the amount of money that is important here it's the fact that aspiration is real and can pay off. Aspiration is knowing that determination will pay off in the end. It’s often like 2 steps forward and one step back, just as this piggybank has had to be emptied on many occasions when times were hard but eventually, through grit and determination, you start to succeed more than you fail and the piggybank stops being raided and starts to fill. To me, the day that I went to my piggybank to drop in 2p coin and found I couldn't because there was no more room was a sign that my life had become a net success. Starting from less than nothing and building your life using your own efforts and energies is very much in tune with Conservative political thinking. The reward of hard work is filling of the piggybank and the safety net of a welfare state is being able to raid the piggybank every now and then. Raid it too much and you run out of money completely, then you’re in real trouble. The piggybank is very much still in use and already has a few coins in it. No doubt over the years it will have to be emptied as you can never tell what life holds but perhaps in 20 years the piggybank will be full again.

And that's why I am a Conservative.

Uncharitable Charity

Water for Kids www.waterforkids.org.uk

I don’t respond well to the hard sell. I was accosted in Leigh Town Centre today by ‘charity workers’ for a well known charity trying to persuade me to sign up a regular direct debit. I already give more than the national average to charity and I choose which charities I donate to. Whenever I give I could keep receipts and declare the donations to the tax man. It’s easy to do and I’d get that rare joy of getting money back from the HMRC. But I don’t, I always make sure that I sign over gift aid so that the tax relief, to which we are all entitled, goes to the charity. Gift aid is a way of making sure the charity gets even more money for their good work. It is most definitely not a way of giving money back to the giver. For large donors to even suggest they will reduce their charitable donations because they will no longer get a rebate from the exchequer for doing so is, well, uncharitable. If it isn’t clear now then it should be made clearer that there is not, and never will be, any limit on the amount anyone can donate to charity. There is not, and never will be, a tax imposed on charitable donations. But in these austere times the country can no longer afford for the largest donations to be made out of untaxed income. The Coalition must not give in to the populist call or the weakness of the Lib Dem component. Tough times require tough decisions and capping the relief on the largest donations to charity strikes me as not a tough decision but eminently sensible.

The picture? A charity very close to my heart. Water for Kids providing safe drinking water to the kids in developing countries who need it most. Donate  ..... and don't forget the gift aid!

Budget 2012 takes the axe to Health & Safety regulation - 150 years in the waiting

Stephen Fry quipped the most sophisticated joke I’ve ever heard during an episode of QI. It was about Peter Bazalgette being responsible for putting s**t back into our homes after his Great Great Grandfather, Joseph, went to so much trouble getting it out. Peter Bazalgette is responsible for TV productions such as Big Brother and Deal or No Deal while his ancestor built the London Sewers and Thames embankments. Joseph Bazalgette not only put a stop to recurring cholera epidemics but also exported his engineering expertise around the world. What a great chap, but it’s his extraordinarily unregulated approach to health and safety that is most impressive. He applied the simple methodology lost on modern day regulators; he cared. With 112 people killed constructing the Hoover Dam and 60 killed building the World Trade Center you’d be forgiven to think many hundreds would have died during the construction of Victoriana’s largest engineering feat during a period of regulatory laissez faire. In fact there were 10 deaths, all of which weighed heavily on Bazalgette’s conscience. We know this because hand wrote a letter of deep remorse to the relatives. His compassionate nature meant that the welfare of his employees was of utmost importance and, as a consequence, there very few deaths and serious injuries in this monumental 19^th Century project. What would come as a surprise to the regulators of today is that he managed this without a single health and safety regulation. Of course people are killed and injured at work, and for that there has to be a punishment to fit the crime and for that we have the Health and Safety at Work Act. This Act was emerged from the Heath Government and is the best Act ever made … ever. Its requirements are clear and succinct and the sanctions are proportionately punitive. With a sprinkling of supporting regulations and plenty of guidance this is all we needed. Then the rest of the EU caught up with the UK and we’ve been forced to adopt directive after directive requiring regulations covering, in minute detail everything from going up ladders to using an electric drill. Continental Europe’s codified legal system brought in 6 sets of regulations just to catch up with the UK’s one Act of Parliament. Europe’s system of codified law is completely incompatible with the UK system of common law. This is the problem and the solution must be radical. We must stop blindly implementing EU directives in some cases word for word. The EU needs to accept that the unique way that British law is formulated means that hundreds of EU directives can be implemented by referring simply to the Health and Safety at Work Act and this is no hyperbole. Court judgements, codes and guidance are the defining features of our legal system and do not need to be replicated into yet more regulations. The Government’s drive to deregulate can be given a major boost by simply persuading the rest of the EU that we do things differently over here but just as effectively. If we are insistent on staying in the EU then the EU need to accept this and let the UK implement directives in its own way.

Tanker Drivers - Health and Safety has Finally Gone Mad

By profession I’m a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner. To some this is the person who dons white hat and coat making shopkeepers’ and restaurateurs’ lives a misery, to others it’s the pedantic jobs-worth costing businesses a fortune in unnecessary health and safety regulation.  It’s none and both of these depending on your point of view. True, I’ve closed down restaurants and forced businesses to act and had many in court to answer to the Judge and Jury. In none of my cases could Health and Safety ever been accused of ‘going mad’. Approaching 100% of the cases we read and hear about in the news have been the result of ever risk averse insurance companies or a fear of being sued in our increasingly litigant society. 

The decision by the tanker drivers to take action because of health and safety leaves me simply astounded. The Unions accuse oil companies of compromising the health and safety of the drivers. We have yet to hear exactly what compromises have been made and exactly how safety has been affected. My suspicion is that, yet again, health and safety is being used and abused to further a cause without foundation. The blindingly obvious suspicion is that the move is a political one hoping to replicate the events of September 2000 when the country was brought to a standstill from spontaneous refinery blockades. The very thought that tanker drivers’ T&C’s have been altered so much that safety is at serious risk is laughable - and I’m qualified to say that!

Tanker Drivers - Health and Safety has Finally Gone Mad

Bankers Bonuses, Pave the streets with carpet?

Bankers bonuses have surfaced again. We are justified to get angry. Bankers have been too comfortable in their risk taking and left nothing in reserve. As the saying goes "there are  none as blind as those who don't want to see". And this perfectly describes the slow motion car crash of the financial merry-go-round we've seen since the Credit Crunch kicked off in 2007. The truth, though, is that banks are now performing well and better than expected in many instances. RBS has turned a thumping loss into a profit and started contributing Corporation Tax which it hasn't done since its near collapse. Other banks, too, instead of record losses and collapse we are now seeing profits and in some cases huge profits. These profits have been made by doing exactly the opposite of what they did to cause the credit crunch. Cautious lending, retaining funds and steady growth. Yes, some would argue that lending is too cautious and growth too steady but, nonetheless, their fingers were burned and there seems to be an overwhelming desire from them to keep cool. What does this have to do with paving the streets with carpet? I'll explain. As I am not (yet) in political office I still have the luxury of courting unpopularity. Let's pay the bonuses in full and be glad about it. In fact let's encourage the banks to pay more! Many years ago I asked my Dad what he would give to charity if he won the pools. He said he would give nothing but would carpet all the streets in town. He was obviously being metaphorical but this was his attempt to explain economic dynamics. The carpet fitters would get a huge amount of trade, they would have to employ extra people, they would all be paid and they would spend their new found wealth. The shopkeepers would have to buy more stock to fuel demand and factories fill their order books to supply the retailers, etc., etc. I was gobsmacked, all this because some lunatic wants to carpet the streets. With Bankers being paid huge bonuses we get double bubble. They increase their spending power and, however frivolous, the money they spend stimulates the economy. As most of these recipients will be on the highest rate of tax, we, the taxpayer, get half the bonus as PAYE. Their frivolous spending will account for another 20% to the taxpayer in VAT. If the banks continue to refuse to be persuaded to lend more money then keeping the bonuses in the bank will add to their profits and we only get 28% of that as Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax or Stamp Duty Reserve Tax. So withhold the bonuses and we get a smaller cut. The unpalatable truth is that the Banks MUST pay big bonuses, in cash they are the only businesses that can.

Happiness is the Little Big Society

St Wulfrum's Church

I think I've found the happiest place in the world. It isn't a Buddhists inner sanctum of calm nor is it a enchanted woodland populated by unicorns and fairies. It is a quite unremarkable church hall in Grantham. The event was to celebrate Bob Jeffreys’ 50 years of dedicated service to the choir of St Wulfrum's Church and, as a former Choirboy I decided I couldn’t miss it. On the 3 hour drive to the church I stopped in the usual roadside services; Costa Coffee, McDonalds, etc.  I was anonymous but thought nothing of it. It was only when I arrived at the church hall that I realised just how impersonal everyday life had become. Here I was, for all intents and purposes, after a 30 year absence, a total stranger and yet was welcomed as a friend and within minutes chatting with a cup of tea and all the cakes I could eat. The contrast between the impersonal commercially chained world and the friendly community welcoming any passer by was palpable. This is not to say that I'm against the likes of Costa coffee or Big Macs, I’ve had my fair share and no doubt will continue to do so, it's just that we must remind ourselves from time to time that there is a community out there which can give you far more than just calories and refreshment. Happiness and well-being is so intangible it can almost seem unreachable in today's fast-paced modern society but if we stop and look we will find that there are other St Wulfrum's Church Halls across the country which are ready to give not just the tea and cakes but also the all too elusive happiness which, in this day and age is increasingly difficult to find. As this is my Tory Story blog there is a Tory spin I can put on this. This is all to do with the Big Society and I think I’ve discovered that the reason why so many find it difficult to identify what the Big Society actually means. The irony is that it isn't big at all, it's small and difficult to see. It’s these small communities within communities watching out for each other working together to make life a little bit more bearable in these chastened times. By the way I was wrong, St Wulfrum’s church is far from unremarkable. It is the most amazing church you will find anywhere and dominates the Grantham skyline. If you’re ever in Grantham, when you’ve checked out Margaret Thatchers old shop, visit St Wulfrum’s, you won’t be disappointed.

Revealed - Labour's Economic Policy

A Big Black Hole

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