Don't leave me now.......

“Ooooh, babe, Don't leave me now.  Don't say it's the end of the road. Remember the flowers I sent.” The opening words the eleventh track of The Wall by Pink Floyd, a rock opera, telling the story of Pink, a man who builds a metaphorical wall around himself, isolating him from the rest of the world.  Living in a belief that he is everything and no one would ever wish to leave him, no matter the treatment he meats out to others.  Some organisations are like that, living in an isolated world.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was a member of a golf club that, on hearing I was thinking of leaving, threw its collective arms up in the air and shouted, “please don’t leave we will collapse in a few months if you do”, I would not be impressed.  Were they really relying on me as a member to keep them afloat?  Is it my money that keeps them afloat as they haven’t been able to raise enough from the other members?  I know I pay more than anyone else, but is the club in that bad a shape?  Or is it the talent, they would lose my talent at doing things?  No one else in the club apparently can do the things I can.  Or is it, well you can see where this is going.

So imagine my shock horror and surprise when I read today that leaders at Davos fear 'Brexit' may be death knell for EU. Yes, European politicians are pleading with Britons to vote "yes" and keep the union intact

Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, said the whole of European civilisation is under grave threat and the region must stick together in its own self-defence, warning that the departure of the UK would be a fatal blow. "It would be a tragedy," he said.  Really?   Yes, he really did say that, "civilisation is under grave threat". I had no idea that the UK was that important, so important that civilisation itself could collapse.

What really makes me suspicious of such statements is, if they were true, David Cameron could be asking for absolutely anything he wanted in these so called negotiations.  But he’s not.  He is only asking for some piddly little things everyone knows the European leaders will wring their hands over only to come and say, “ok David, you’re a hard bargainer, we give in”.

If it wasn’t so important it would be laughable.  And I’d be leaving the golf club to its own devices rather quickly.

How do businesses operate?

I often wonder if it should be a rule that an MP must have worked in a business before they can become an MP.  Why do I say that?  Well, at the end of the day an MP is voting to spend money created by businesses.  And shouldn’t they understand how the productive sector of the economy actually works before they spend the money it generates for spending on worthy things like treating the sick, caring for the elderly and infirm, and yes, helping those overseas who live in such dire poverty no one on these islands could ever imagine befalling them.

You do wonder some times when you have Labour’s new policy chief, Andrew Fisher (who supported the Class War party at the last election),  saying “If a company isn’t paying its staff £10 per hour...” you should “ban them from paying dividends to shareholders".

Never let it be said the Labour party doesn't have a sense of humour. However, people who mortgage their houses to set up business didn’t quite see the funny side.   Simon Walker of the IoD described Mr Corbyn’s proposed assault on the relationship between a private company and its shareholders as “bizarre and damaging”, adding “paying a dividend is not an immoral act".

Don’t get me wrong, a labourer is worth of their hire.  But the problem is Mr Corbyn’s concern for the low paid, while worthy, doesn’t take into account, (or horror of horrors, is unaware), that dividend payments are a vital contribution to pensions or that the prospect of such a payment ensures continued investment in British companies. It is, in short, the kind of policy idea that could only have come from someone who has never once had cause to consider how businesses operate.

Clearly none of the Labour front bench do.  So it looks like, fail to pay the £10 rate under a Corbyn-led government, the heavy hand of the state will essentially seize your company.

The idea that such an environment would be conducive to job creation is so insane it could only have come from someone who doesn’t understand how businesses function.

Do you speak English?

Two headlines to ponder.  Only one of them was actually published.  Guess which.

David Cameron's Muslim women policy 'lazy and misguided'.   Or:  David Cameron's Muslim women policy 'seeks to help integrate non English speaking Muslim women into society'.

Of course, in case you needed some help, it was the former that was the BBC headline. Well there you are, he must be if the BBC says so.

But wait a minute, the interesting thing is there was zero balance in the BBC coverage on its web site.  Not a single quote backing his view.  And yet there are many who back his view.  So why are they not given equal prominence in the article?  And in a headline. Well, it’s beyond my pay grade to speculate why.  But it does leave an  uneasy taste of censorship.

It’s nothing new of course, kicking the messenger.  Back some 20 years ago I was sitting on a Home Office funded enquiry into why there seemed to be no integration between indigenous and Muslim business leaders.  One of our key findings?  Not enough English spoken by the Muslim people, particularly women.

But when I suggested we ask the Home Office to fund a pilot scheme to get more Muslims, particularly women, learning English, I was branded a racist.   

Plus ca change.

Who creates aparthied?

Two months after the Paris attacks, Belgium is in the midst of an anguished debate about Islamist radicalisation. There's anger in Molenbeek - the Brussels district that was home to three of the attackers - at government plans for house-to-house searches.

And a former senior police official has warned that Belgium's failure to integrate its Muslim minority has created a de facto "system of apartheid".

And a former senior police official has warned that the Muslims minority’s failure to integrate into Belgium has created a de facto "system of apartheid".

Now, if you read that quickly you will think I have repeated myself.  But I haven’t.

So which is right?