Some of you, I know, think I'm barmy to advocate the drastic reduction of
the rail network
Keep it simple, Darling
All environmentalist common sense seems to argue against me.
But the signs continue to accumulate that the costs of bringing the entire rail network
back into safe and efficient use will be politically unsustainable.
Drastic cuts will have to be made, and the policy emphasis shifted to highway
improvement. The top international civil engineers Bechtel warned this
week that the
£6.3 billion estimate to renew the main West Line from London-to-Glasgow would
double, to £13 billion. And the costs of getting a Railtrack settlement with the shareholders continues to escalate too.
With only 7% of all passenger journeys tmade
by rail, principally in (and to and from) the wealthy South East,
Labour's
political Armageddon is rapidly approaching.
Would you be prepared to commit
these resources, just to preserve the rail network?
Drop me a line
> < Top
Incomprehensible maze of pension provision
One of the tragedies is of spin is that the public, having been spun the
anticipatory story, rarely get to read the real thing. Having been
spun the Government line on pensions, on Thursday, I did not catch any full report of what
actually happened on Friday (see
The spinning must stop!
)
I picked up only the next day's Guardian leader
A Pension Labrinth
Andrew Smith
, in his first
(and first-spun) speech as Pensions Minister, spoke
of the "incomprehensible maze" that confronts workers today.
Andrew - hold onto that phrase! Because it contains the clue to what you should do now.
You should create
a simple and comprehensible State pension system.
You
should renounce the Government's love affair with the private sector in pension
provision, and create a simple two-tier system of State provision. Stand
back, and take a look a simple, customer's eye view of the situation. And I
mean simple.
You should
continue with the present means-tested Minimum Income Guarantee, linking it to
(say)
15% of the individual average wage. And should introduce a decent
Old Age Pension pitched simply at
twice that level, namely 30%
of average wage, for
those who make NI contributions for their full required period.
Labour's message should be a simple one -
-
"If you
fritter your life away, and do not save, you will get just X% of the average
wage, when you are old. We will help you, because of your membership of
this society - but the support will be minimal. If you pay your NI to the full, you will get a
State Old Age Pension of 2X%, double the minimum guarantee. In addition, you will get the fruits of any
private savings you have been able to make."
Everybody
would understand that.
The incomprehensibility is itself a grievous
wrong, and a source of anxiety and insecurity. It is your destiny to grasp
the nettle, and disperse it. You must devise a differential system, which
moves dynamically according to the success or failure of the wider society -
that is why the promises must be made in terms of proportions. And the
guarantee to everyone should be identical, regardless of means. Old age is
the Great Leveller, a sobering antidote in our society to the ravages of
youth and ambition.
I would
understand
if you were extend the full-entitlement service period, to (say) 43 years, which
would help the sums a little. That would mean a full-pension
retirement age of 67 or 68, for some people, although it could be tapered for
earlier (or later) retirement. But you must not let yourself be
bamboozled by the mumbo-jumbo of the actuaries profession - they can prove
conclusively that anything is too expensive. This will be a test of
our (and your) political leadership: we must decide what our
fellow-citizens are entitled to expect, and then find ways of delivering to a
new Pensions Promise.Let me know what you think
Drop me a line
> <
Top
Socialism, or Protectionism
The Russian Duma (Lower House of Parliament) is just
about to ban "foreigners" from the ownership of farmland in
Russia. The Bill is of momentous importance, because its primary purpose
is to confirm, at long last, that farmland can be the subject of private ownership.
That has been constitutionally in doubt since 1917, when private property rights
were collectivised by statute - indeed, this ambiguity has been one of the
factors inhibiting the rise of the Russian market economy, during the 1990s.
The institutions of private property are fundamental to the success of
capitalism, after all. So the
omission is at last going to be made good.
Yet the new property regime
will cause mayhem. Gorbachev, realising the key strategic significance of
the land ownership issue, struggled (at the time of perestroika) to retain the
principle of State freehold, to be combined with long-term private leases.
That would have been (for me, given my politics) the ideal solution.
Just like Henry George, and the socialists of the 1880s... But
Gorbachev lost to Yeltsin, and Yeltsin sold the pass. It was decided that
land would be the subject of private freehold rights. Yet the tussle
continues, seemingly in a different form.
There are those who seek
by this ban, to prevent the onward march of globalisation and of the corporate
sector, in true George Monbiot manner. There are others who see the
new Bill merely as a means of retaining Russian assets for Russian capitalists,
restating the timeless Russian suspicion of the foreigner.
Taming the Corporations >> My
Welsh socialism >>
No symbolic message here, except the transient nature of weblogging,
the evanescence of our opinions. But you must admit: it is a pretty picture...