Let's think about retirement

I was in the company of some school teachers recently.  One of then, a deputy head, said she was getting in the retirement mode and hoped she would be able to exit the profession soon on an early retirement plan.

I said nothing as it would have betrayed my astonishment.  Why could an intelligent person think it was ok for a taxpayer funded person to retire at 60 while the people who paid her salary all along (and her pension) will have to work till at least 65?

This is a common problem with people who work in the taxpayer funded sector.  They really don’t understand where the money is coming from to pay them.  The money is not coming from government, government is just a conduit.  All the money is from the private sector and the people who work in it.  As I’ve said before, no person working in the public sector can ever pay for themselves.  The most they will contribute to their own job is the taxes they pay.  Which leaves the other 60% to be found somewhere.  And even that is a false position once you deduct the contribution we all have to pay for health, roads, police, fire etc.

I was relating this conversation to someone very senior in the thinking of the future for the Scottish economy.  I was surprised and delighted to hear his thinking and mine agreed.  That included every 7 years teachers should take a sabbatical in the real world to find out what it is they are actually preparing their children to enter.

But our collective joy was brought down to reality when we considered “which political party would dream of taking on the educational establishment?”  None we mused.   

It’s like the NHS.  We all know it’s a total basket case that is utterly out of control.  Yes, there are very hard working people in the NHS. But they are being betrayed by unions, political parties and some, but not all, clinicians who will not put their head above the parapet and say things need to change radically.   

Until people are brave enough to lift their voices and state the obvious, that things like education and health are in a bad state and that we should stop kidding ourselves otherwise, we will be stuck, going nowhere, lacking in innovation.  And slowly but surely we will continue to sink these once great “sectors” as we all argue about the things that are ultimately meaningless.

What is official?

SpaceX made history last night by landing a Falcon 9 reusable rocket that had shortly before been in orbital space delivering satellites.

Still, we await the first “official” landing in this mode.  After all, it seems only when it is paid for by the taxpayer can we call it official.  Take last weeks ascent to the heavens by Tim Peake.  It was the “first official” flight into space by a UK citizen.  Never mind Dr Helen Sharman did the same journey to space some 24 years earlier.  But she was funded by the private sector and Russia.  That obviously doesn’t count in some people eyes.

Dr Helen Sharman and her space suit

Something rotten at the heart of football culture

Eden Hazard.  Is that the name of a town in the Mid West of the USA?  Or a type of manoeuvre by a downhill mountain biker?  Or is it a knot used by ice climbers?  Well, it is of course, none of these.  It is the name of the person behind the collapse of a football club called Chelsea.

It was Mr Hazards behaviour on the pitch that was perhaps just the touch paper for all that has followed since culminating yesterday with the departure of manager Jose Mourinho.

The story goes like this.  Mr Hazard tackled.  Goes down like a sack of potatoes.  Writhes on the ground like he has been pole axed by Tyson Fury.  Referee thinks he’s not play acting, apparently with the player asking for support, and waves on medical support.  And of course, the moment a medical person steps on to the field, the player has to leave the field for treatment leaving Chelsea down to nine players for a moment.   

The Chelsea manager is not pleased a player has come off and takes it out on his medical staff for going on. 

But where does the real blame lie in this incident?  Well for me with Mr Hazard.  Did he think that by staying on the ground he could buy his team a few extra seconds.  Well, if he did, he miscalculated.  The referee, did he perceive the injury was not really an injury but a bit of play acting to gain advantage?  Well, if he did, he dealt with it well by having the player leave the pitch.

Sometimes you do wonder why these players get paid in one week what it takes a nurse 5 years to earn.  It’s the same with off side.  You see players waving their hands in the air to appeal.  On the vast majority of occasions they simply don’t understand the rules. Or are they trying to influence a decision in their favour even when they know it was the right decision that was taken in the first place?

Similarly when the ball goes out for a throw, you often see players gesticulating that it’s their throw when it clearly is not. Or are they trying to influence a decision in their favour even when they know it was the right decision that was taken in the first place?

Now with each of these things there really are only two ways to look at it. They attempting to cheat or they don’t know the rules of the game.  The interesting thing is you see the behaviour of these footballers being mimicked week after week on the playing fields across the UK as children copy such behaviour.  Just go watch and you will see. 

Trying to con the referee and failing to learn the rules (I am being charitable with my interpretation that they are uneducated and not cheats) is utterly unacceptable in players who some seek to laud as role models. 

Ultimately, it is not the Mr Hazards of the football world we should be pointing the finger at, though their behaviour, no matter how you look as it, is pretty distasteful.

In any organsation it is the culture that those who are at the top create that is to blame.  If you ever see a problem with culture, always look at the leader.

The tide has turned

It was the strangest of arguments put forward by Sir John Major.  If we left the EU we would be in “splendid isolation.  Really?

Britain’s central role in the United Nations, NATO, Commonwealth, OECD and any number of other multinational organisations would be entirely unaffected by leaving Europe, and thus would hardly leave her “splendidly isolated”.

Indeed, given we are one of the largest trading nations on the planet, people would be beating a path to our door to do deals.  Deals we cannot currently do as the EU won’t let us.

When people put up such spurious nonsense I always say three initials.  BMW.  Do we really think if we leave the European Union, which none of us actually voted to be in, it was the European Economic Community (not a Union) we voted for, that BMW would say, “well, that’s it, no more selling cars to the UK”?  Its most lucrative market.  No, I don’t think so either.  Mercedes too, and Peugeot and Citroen. Those who pontificate over the politics of EU membership have no idea that there is a real world out there where people trade, irrespective of barriers made by politicians. They are the ones living in splendid isolation.

What is not unsurprising is the polls out today by Survation and Lord Ashcroft.  If the tide hasn’t yet turned in favour of an exit, it sure is getting close.

I’m going to stick my neck out.  53% will vote to exit.  And the EU will go to a Court somewhere to say it was not a legitimate vote and we can’t leave.  Let us hope I am right on the first bit.

Why do we vote at elections?

Ahead of today shadow cabinet meeting, the Labour leadership said 75% of party members it polled over the weekend had opposed bombing.  What this was meant to infer is quite clear. The views of the membership of the Labour party should take precedence over the constituents that the MP has been elected to serve. 

But reflect back to election night.  And why do we vote?  We vote to elect someone to represent the constituency.  No MP on election night is elected to serve a political party.  They are all elected to serve the constituency of wherever that has just voted for them.  Not to serve one interest group but all the constituents who have put them there.   

So it is worrying for democracy when the leader of one of the largest trades unions that backed Jeremy Corbyn for leader now says that MPs who don’t vote with his view should look forward to being deselected form their seat.  In other words he is saying, vote as the Union tells you, not in a way where you have listened to all the arguments in debate in the House of Commons and then decide what you believe is best for your constituents.

One little aside if I may. Some nine years ago I tipped Hilary Benn to be Labour leader after I heard him speak at the G8 Gleneagles Summit.  Passionate, well thought out and a great communicator.  Watch this space.