Happy 2017

1861 was a lousy year for the United States.

It started with southern States tumbling over each other to get out of the Union. Then in April civil war broke out. That was followed in July by the inexplicable conversion of the major Union victory at the First Battle of Bull Run into a catastrophic Union defeat (though it should be said that the notions of ‘major’ and ‘catastrophic’ would have to be significantly revised later in the war).

It’s no surprise, then, that on 31 December diarist George Templeton Strong wrote:

Poor old 1861, just going. It has been a gloomy year of trouble and disaster. I should be glad of its departure were it not that 1862 is likely to be no better.

155 years on, I feel we can safely echo Strong’s words. Particularly as 1862 turned out not only to be no better than 1861 but was, in fact, considerably worse. A feat 2017 is likely to repeat with respect to 2016.

The year just ended was one where many people, tired of the consensus that has predominated since the Second World War, decided that building bridges was no longer the way to go and we should have some new walls instead.

In June, the British people voted to turn the Channel once more into a moat rather than a mere waterway. Those who knew the sixties and seventies will remember the troubled times in which a former imperial power struggled to find a new vocation. By joining what became the European Union, Britain seemed to find one: no longer merely a diminishing force in the world, it would be a major contributor to the emergence of the Continent as a world power.

In deciding to leave, it has chosen to go back to the time of its decline. Those were the days when Britain was regarded as the sick man of Europe, plagued by poor productivity and constant strikes, where only the wealthy could enjoy a good restaurant meal or a holiday abroad. The nation steadily sank through the economic league table, with Italy at one point celebrating il sorpasso, the moment when its economy overtook the UK’s.

The EU turned that around, but it also opened the doors to immigration from Continental Europe. Those arrivals continue to play a vital role across the British economy, in the health service, transport, farming and catering. Such, however, is today’s fear of the outsider that most voters preferred to give up on the benefits of EU membership in the hope of controlling immigration. Ironically, the hope is likely to prove vain. The loss of benefit, however, will be real.

The American vote, however, was far more significant than Britain’s. It’s sad, though constitutional, that the victor took nearly 3 million fewer votes than his adversary. Donald Trump’s lack of a popular mandate is, however, going to have no impact on the way he exercises power in a democracy.

He’s the wall-builder extraordinary. Not that the one he promised, along the Mexican border, is likely to be built. Even if it is, he’s already made clear that much of it will be fence. But that’s part of his style: he feels he can make any promise he wants, without being bound to deliver – presumably, he has convinced himself that his intentions are pure and, in our post-truth society, honouring his word matters less than getting into a position in which he can mould it as he feels it needs.

His principal concern seems to be to make a friend of Vladimir Putin and an enemy of China. Whatever he does with physical walls, he has a metaphorical one in mind which will include Russia on his side and China firmly on the outside.

Aleppo: handiwork of Trump's pal Putin and his mate Assad

Putin has shown himself to be a strongman and supporter of strongmen, such as Assad in Syria or his new-found friend in Turkey, Erdogan. It’s telling that Trump wants to be associated with that club, perhaps because he also rather likes the homophobic, patriarchal and autocratic views it represents. If so, the US is going to become a considerable less pleasant place to be if you’re gay or a woman (how long will abortion remain a right?) and a great deal more unpleasant for African Americans, Hispanics or Muslims.

Meanwhile, we’d better hope that his attitude towards China represents another promise he has no intention of keeping. If he sticks to the collision course he’s plotted so far, the Trump presidency risks being not just bad but terminal.

Oh, well. George Templeton Strong survived 1862. He got through the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination. He saw the US reunited and prospering. We too may need to keep our nerve and nurse our patience and wait for better days to emerge in the future.

It happened for Strong, so it could happen for us.

In the meantime – happy New Year!

Miscommunication

He seemed bright, alert and attentive, the young man in front of me.

Part of my mind was less concerned with my reason for being in the supermarket or the information he was failing to give me, but with the voice and accent in which he was failing to give it to me. When I was young, a man of African or Caribbean appearance would be most likely to talk with a strong West Indian accent (which was hardly surprising, since he was highly likely to be from that part of the world).

These days, however, if his accent is foreign, it’s usually Nigerian (also unsurprising since he’s most likely to be from that great West African nation).

This young man spoke with a perfect English accent. Which was equally unsurprising, because he was clearly entirely English.

However, my passing thoughts on the extent of assimilation of the Caribbean community into mainstream British society, satisfying though they were in themselves, had to take second place to my more immediate supermarket needs. He was an employee, though his obvious intelligence led me to suspect on a temporary basis while preparing or pursuing a course of advanced study, but despite his intellectual abilities and the fact that we spoke the same language, at every level both literal and metaphorical, we were manifestly failing to communicate.

“You want pet supplies?” he checked with me.

“Yes. You know. Pet food. And such like.” 

I was slightly irritated at myself for the reticence to state why I was there – to buy some pooper scoopers. It was a pleasant day, full of light and unseasonably mild. It was an upmarket shop. Did I feel that any allusion, however peripheral, to excrement was out of place in those circumstances?

“Pet food?”

Was he being deliberately obtuse? I was beginning to lose patience.

“Yes. Pet food. Perhaps this branch doesn’t stock any?”

He smiled at me. With, I felt, a slight touch of incredulity. Was he making fun of me?

“What kind of pet food are you after?”

He seemed to be slowing his diction, as though I needed to be talked down to, as though I was slow in understanding and had to be patronised. By this stage I was beginning to get seriously irritated. He seemed such a pleasant young man but I could see no justification for this kind of behaviour.

“Any kind of pet food would do,” I replied with what I hoped was a sufficient level of brusque haughtiness. Or possibly haughty brusqueness. But I felt either would do.

He didn’t reply but merely looked at me with what struck me as little short of pity. It was bordering on the offensive.

But then, suddenly, a nasty thought came to me. With some dread, I turned slowly to look behind me. And my fears were confirmed. Stretching each way, as far as the eye could see were shelf after shelf of cat food, dog food, probably hamster and rabbit food, sanitary materials for cats or for dogs, leads, bowls, brushes, whatever you might desire in that line, including, inevitably, pooper scoopers.

Ah, the shame, the shame. The sheer embarrassment

“Ah,” I said, “I see.”

As a reply, it was, I must admit, inadequate. It lacked the verve and wit I like to convince myself I cultivate.

“I’m sorry,” I added, though I didn’t feel it improved my comment particularly.

“No problem,” he assured me, demonstrating that he was as polite as he’d seemed before his incredulity had got the better of him.

“I hadn’t noticed,” I continued, struggling to try to justify myself.

He nodded and smiled again. But he was already moving away to his left, reminding me that he had work to do. I’d wasted quite enough of his time.

In any case, I had no desire to prolong the conversation. I grabbed the packet of pooper scoopers and made for the tills as quickly as I could.

I treasure the lesson, though. Miscommunication can be painful. Even embarrassing. But it isn’t always the fault of the person you may at first think.

British soaring salaries

Great economic news. At last.

It seems that salaries are soaring in Britain.

Well, OK, not everyone’s salaries. In fact, I might have to go so far as to admit it’s not even most salaries. To be perfectly honest, it’s only the salaries of the top managers of British businesses that have been soaring.

Still, at least it’s good news that someone’s doing well in harsh times. Isn’t it? And it’s spectacularly well, apparently: an 82% increase in eleven years.

Our best and brightest
Or best paid, at least

Sadly, a new report suggests that these senior executives don’t deserve their remuneration. That the performance of their companies doesn’t justify it. Hard to believe, isn’t it? I mean, what sort of company would pay its executives a salary they haven’t earned? After all, top salaries are mostly set by people who know what they’re doing: top executives from other firms. Whose salaries are set by those whose salaries they set.

How could a system that carefully attuned and balanced go wrong?

I don’t move in such rarefied circles. Over a long and colourful career, I’ve had the privilege, or at least the experience, of working for several fine companies in which I’ve reported to execs a couple of rungs down from those outstanding individuals on their seven-figure salaries. These are the men (all have been men) paid in the low to mid six-figure range (in pounds) – so between 5 and 20 times median earnings, as opposed to 40 times and more.

It has been edifying to see how remarkably they perform. I have, for instance, observed the following admirable leadership techniques.

The Excel Predictor This is a method for forecasting changes in earnings. “Changes” in this context, a prediction, always means growth, unlike a review (swiftly followed by a justification and often redundancies) can mean decline.

The method requires locking an executive or three in a room somewhere with a desktop computer and an Excel spreadsheet. This allows them to calculate just what new sales need to be generated to reach the level of growth they wish to achieve.

I was once asked, seriously, whether it wasn’t reasonable to forecast ten sales of a product with four salesmen.

“That’s less than three each in the year. One every half year and a couple extra. That’s hardly a demanding target, is it?”

“How many sales did we have last year?”

“Two.”

“So you’re looking for a 500% increase?”

But that was nit-picking objection. Two and a half sales each was hardly a massive mountain to climb for experienced salesmen, was it?

We forecast ten sales.

And took one.

The Important Meeting Sometimes executives extend their discussions beyond the claustrophobic circle of three or four gathered around a computer. Indeed, there are some for whom the more important the question, the bigger the meeting. And the longer it lasts.

I’ve sat in meetings of 15 people that lasted the entire day – eight hours. Something in the region of £7000 in costs. The question was how to meet the company’s demand for 30% growth in our division.

We debated how we could win more sales of our existing products. We then discussed what new products we could dream up. We discussed what it would take to build them and sell them. We then discussed all those things over again, three or four more times.

To at least twelve of the people present, it was perfectly clear that the target was unachievable. But the other three were the executives who had foregathered around a computer. They eventually put in a plan based on achieving the desired level of growth.

In the event, the division saw revenue shrink instead of growing. But that wasn’t a problem. Several junior staff were made redundant.

The Gifted Individual There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’, I’m told. But there’s a big ‘I’ several times over in the ‘Inspired Individual endowed with unique Insight’.

Have you ever had the privilege of working with one of those? No? You don’t know what you’re missing. Just hope that your career will give you the opportunity yet.

These characters are mostly self-taught, but what they’ve learned by applying their Intuition (another ‘I’, you see) to a couple of textbooks they’ve glanced through, enables them to outperform any mere professional with years of experience on top of solid training.

This means that if they win no sales for a couple of years, and the product they champion is bug-ridden and incapable of performing to specification (a fact not entirely unrelated to the sales success), it is entirely due to the ineptitude or downright indolence of their more junior colleagues.

The answer to the problem? A few redundancies among those low performers.

I’m sure the people who stand even further up the hierarchy than these fine executives, are at least as outstanding in their work. It’s therefore beyond me to understand how anyone can think they fail to earn their colossal salaries. These are the men on the pinnacles of our economy – who are we to doubt them?

On the contrary, shouldn’t we be enthusiastically supporting the moves of our present enlightened British government to hand more of the management of our public services over to them?

Perhaps we could pay them a little more for taking on that responsibility.

Brexit and Malaria and what they have in common

An old friend of mine was an intensive care specialist at a prestigious hospital. He told me of a case he once had to deal with, of a wealthy business man who went hunting in Africa every year. All had gone well for ten years but in the eleventh he’d returned suffering from malaria in an advanced state and spent several weeks in Intensive Care, much of the time close to death.

“But,” my friend asked him, “didn’t you take anti-malaria tablets?”

“Not this time.”

“You mean, you always had before, but just decided that this year you wouldn’t?”

“Yes,” replied the patient, “you see, I never had any trouble in the previous years, so I decided I didn’t need them this time.”

Christmas this year was fun. As well as many English friends and relatives, we also saw people from abroad, mostly from other countries of the EU. We took full advantage of the opportunity to do so since, in two or three years, it may become a great deal harder. 2016 has turned into the year of the wall: Trump won office in the States on a promise to build one, England and Wales voted to retreat behind new barriers to separate them from their nearest neighbours.

So, though fun Christmas was also poignant.

Still, I’m assured by Brexiteers, not least on Twitter, that I’m wrong to see Brexit as anything but an opportunity. It seems that it will give us the chance to strike some exciting new business deals.

Presumably that would be impressive deals, like the one that allows us to trade without customs or other barriers, with the world’s biggest trading block, embracing over 500 million people and three of the world’s top seven economies. That would be the rest of EU. The organisation to which we still belong, for the next two or three years, and which absorbs over half our total trade.

We can get out and strike some new deals with major economic powers. Like Bahrain, recently visited by Theresa May, and worth 0.3% of the EU’s Gross Domestic Product.

Bahrain: ideal post-Brexit partner, worth about 1/300th of the EU
And the labour practices are a great model for the times
when all those pesky EU regulations have been swept away

Still, she also went to India, whose GDP is about 44% of the size of the EU. Per head of population that’s only one-seventh of Germany, but let’s not get pedantic about matters of detail.

Anyway, we’ve been a member the European Union for 43 years, and we’ve barely notice the trade benefits. Why should we need them now?

It’s just like malaria tablets. Take them, and you never get malaria. And if you never get malaria, why bother to take the tablets?

Labour Pains

The Labour Party’s travails continue. The French call it the ‘parti travailliste’ which seems particularly apt these days. Though the Labouring Party works as well.

The latest blow is the departure from parliament of Jamie Reed, Labour MP for Copeland in Cumbria. It’s a blow not because he’ll be particularly missed – I’m sure I’m not alone in having reacted to hearing his name with the word “who?” No, the damage is that it forces another by-election on the Labour Party, and a difficult race.

The odd thing is that he justifies his decision to leave parliament, for a job in the nuclear industry, by claiming it will allow him to do more for his community than he could as a Labour MP. That feels to me like arguing that burning down a house is the best response to not being able to fix the leak in the roof. But Reed came from the nuclear industry in the first place and he may view it as less toxic than I do.

Sellafield, in Jamie Reed’s county of Cumbria
An easier place to help the Community, apparently, than Parliament

He says it’s not about money. His pay will be higher than as an MP, but only marginally, he claims. Some cynics, however, have suggested that it may be more a matter of job security. The rumours persist of a possible snap election in May and it’s possible Reed is so uncertain of winning his seat back that he prefers to take a job with a better guarantee of tenure.

Others might feel that the people who say that aren’t so much cynics as realists.

There are two reasons to feel a little concerned about a possible snap election.

The first is that, as many commentators have pointed out, it’s likely to be first and foremost a Brexit election. We know where UKIP stands on Brexit: they want Britain out of the EU the hard way – out of the Customs Union and Single Market as well as the European Union itself, bravely forging ahead in a world where foreign nations will applaud British grit, see the far greater opportunities offered by a 70-million strong population over half a billion, and rush to sign new trade deals on terms massively favourable to the UK.

The Tories are far from clear where they stand, except that they’re absolutely resolute that Brexit means Brexit. But since no one know what Brexit means Brexit means, supporters of the hard position can fancy the Tories are on their side, but so can supporters of a softer exit, with Britain staying at least in the Customs Union, possible even in the Single Market. All things to all voters, or at least all Brexit voters, an enviable position.

The Liberal Democrats have also come out for an explicit position. They oppose Brexit altogether. It’s a courageous stance, since it appeals only to the 48% of the electorate who voted to stay in the EU. Still, they’re alone in taking that position, so that trend in the electorate’s all theirs, and when you’re on 8% in the polls, 48% must look highly attractive.

That leaves Labour. Its spokesman on Brexit, Keir Starmer, has taken a highly intelligent position. He accepts the electorate voted to leave and accepts we therefore must. He however feels we can sensibly argue for a soft exit which will damage the economy least.

Unfortunately, his position is not being echoed at the very top of the Party. The leader, Jeremy Corbyn, maintains a Trappist silence. His closest ally, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell, says little though a few weeks ago he did talk about the great opportunities offered by Brexit.

Those cynics we were talking about before, among whom on this occasion I count myself, suspect this is because they are temperamentally inclined to the Leave side, but had to hide the fact since they were at the top of a party committed to remaining in the EU. However, these are people who make it a point of pride to be strictly honest in politics, so the cynics like me must surely be mistaken.

Sadly, though I know that, I can’t free myself of the nasty suspicion.

The result is that the top of Labour Party, which is the bit most voters look at, is firmly glued to the fence. They neither back Brexit nor oppose it. That means they take a symmetrical position to the Tories: rather than all things to all voters, they are no thing to any of them. And it shows.

At this stage of the 1992-1997 parliament, Labour had a lead of 20% in the polls. It went on to win a comprehensive victory at the next election.

At this stage of the 2010-2015 parliament, Labour had a lead of around 2 or 3%, but went on to a depressing defeat.

A few days ago, a fellow Labour Party member took pleasure in pointing out to me that the Conservative lead had fallen to a mere 7%.

There’s a great line in the film Sully about everything being unprecedented until it happens for the first time. All the precedents may be against Labour winning from this position, but the unprecedented can always happen.

Still. Sounds like Jamie Reed doesn’t feel that way. But maybe he’s a rotten old cynic.

Saying goodbye to Lionel Blue

As a young man in my first job, I suffered from the same problem as many my age: I found getting up in the mornings a terrible pain.

I invested in a radio clock. It was tuned to BBC Radio 4 and set to come on at 7:00 if I was feeling virtuous, 7:15 if I was feeling tired, which was more often the case. Either way, I wouldn’t get up but remained in bed, marginally awake, vaguely aware of the Today programme telling more all the latest ghastly happenings around the world. Just as it does still.

It was only at ten to eight that I would finally spring to life. Why? Because that was when ‘Thought for the Day’ came on, the Today programme’s five-minute nod to religion, when someone speaking for one or other of the many faiths, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, or any other, gave us a snippet of holy thought designed to inspire and uplift. I found the tone sanctimonious and altogether far to forcedly cheery for the time of day, and from complete inertia I would leap into action and across the room to turn off the radio.

It amazes me still that I was somehow able, day after day, to be up, semi-washed, fully shaved, dressed and on the train to work at 8:12, even though the station was ten minutes walk away. Or, as I frequently discovered, a five-minute run.

Many years later, I found myself doing a great deal of driving for work. That meant listening to a lot of radio and, since I couldn’t be bothered to turn it off for five minutes, that included ‘Thought for the Day’. Little by little I came to appreciate it more: even if the speakers were sometimes immensely irritating for their obviously self-conscious wisdom, the wisdom itself was (occasionally) real.

No one, though, was as enlightening and also entertaining as Rabbi Lionel Blue. Every ‘Thought for the Day’ I heard of his was a joy and often insightful.

Lionel Blue, 1930-2016
He'll be missed

The one that sticks in my mind told two contrasting stories.

Blue was a hospital visitor, taking religious consolation to the sick and dying. Visiting one terminally ill man, he was struck by the attractive woman sitting in a waiting room near his ward. Told that his wife was with the patient, Blue took a seat near her. A little while later, the wife appeared and went up to the woman who had impressed him.

“You can go in now,” she said.

Blue later learned that she was the mistress, and the wife was leaving her a moment to say goodbye to her dying lover.

The other story concerned a funeral he attended in Paris. A wealthy middle class family was burying a son who’d died of Aids. There were many mourners in attendance, but one was conspicuous for his absence: the young man’s gay lover, in whose arms he had died, forbidden by the family from attending the burial.

For Blue, the first instance was a clear breach of all conventional morality, but in his view it was infused with love. The second conformed entirely to standard behaviour but, he felt, was untouched by love. He was well-placed to judge, as the first openly gay Rabbi in Britain, and a man who had suffered for his homosexuality as a young man. “To my surprise,” he once said, “my 70s are nicer than my 60s and my 60s than my 50s, and I wouldn't wish my teens and twenties on my enemies.”

To Blue, God was present in the first encounter, absent from the second.

That attitude sums up blue. Religion was a matter of love and of consolation, not of blind application of cold, inhumane regulation. It was something human, that spanned religions – he was closely acquainted with Christianity and no stranger to churches – and felt that faith was inherently bound into daily life. As he said:

Praying privately in churches, I began to discover that heaven was my true home and also that it was here and now, woven into this life.

It must be no surprise that a man of such attitudes was as much a friend of laughter as he was of love. He would end every ‘Thought for the Day’ with a joke. 

He died on 19 December, sadly impoverishing the legions of those who favour tolerance and moderation, at a time when we need them more than ever. So, in tribute to him, let me end with a similar joke, though not one I think he told.

A man climbs a hill to commune with God.

“Lord,” he says, “what is a million years to you?”

“A minute,” replies the Lord.

“And how about a million pounds?”

“A penny.”

“Could you give me a penny, Lord?”

“Certainly. In a minute.”

Best wishes to you, Rabbi Blue, and all our gratitude for the gentle kindness you gave us in a life well-lived.

Banning the Muslim veil to protect Western values

On 29 November, the lower house of the Dutch Parliament voted for a partial ban on the burka, the full-face covering veil worn by a minority of Muslim women. If the vote is confirmed by the upper house, the veil will be banned on public transport, in government buildings and in schools.

On 6 December, Angela Merkel, preparing her run for a fourth term as German Chancellor, told the conference of her party, the Christian Democrats, that she too favoured a partial ban.

“The full veil must be banned,” she declared, “wherever legally possible. Showing your face is part of our way of life. Our laws take precedence over honour codes, tribal customs and sharia.”

Angela Merkel at the CDU Conference

Holland used to enjoy a reputation as one of the most liberal countries on earth and, despite the irruption on the scene of a number of hard right-wing parties and individuals – none more so than Geert Wilders, now leading in opinion polls – it retains much of the structure of a highly liberal nation. Merkel has also emerged in the last few years as one of Europe’s most liberal leaders, most notably with her decision to allow a million refugees to enter the country – a decision, incidentally, which she now says will never be repeated.

France and Belgium have already banned the burka and even the niqab, the form of veil which leaves the eyes exposed. Such veils are, it seems, deeply disturbing to Western societies. We are used to seeing faces (part of our way of life, as Merkel says). A covered face is hostile or even sinister, marking the criminal covering his features to avoid identification and capture. During the Northern Ireland troubles, an icon on both sides was the man in the balaclava, the clothing of choice of killers in either camp. 

Faces hidden from sight make us uncomfortable. Discomfort is never easy to bear. It seems that even liberalism finds it difficult to withstand. The developments in Holland and Germany suggest it has a fatal tendency to give way when made uncomfortable. 

That, however, leads to the heart of the Muslim veil conundrum. If liberalism backs down as soon as it’s faced with a perturbing difficulty, what is liberalism worth? Or, putting it another way, it’s easy to tolerate things we’re comfortable with; it’s when we deal with things that make us uncomfortable that our tolerance is truly tested and we have to prove whether it’s genuine or not.

These matters all became personal to me a few weeks ago at a badminton club where we play most weeks. A new, beginner joined. And she came in a niquab.

She’s covered head to foot. Her sleeves are held in place by loops over her thumbs. Her leggings reach down to her shoes. Her only exposed flesh is on her hands and a strip around her eyes. 

Playing badminton with someone dressed that way was certainly a new experience. I suppose it initially felt odd. But it quickly became commonplace. We were all struck by her speed around the court, by her accuracy, by the strength in her wrists. She plays a great deal better than most people who’ve played as little as she has.

When we shake hands at the end of a game, as is the convention, she won’t shake mine or that of any other male player. So what? She smiles (a smile with the eyes is far more telling than one just with the lips). She repeats the usual compliments we all give each other – “good game”, “well played” (the latter always with the subtext, “not quite well enough for us”).

She is, in fact, one of us. If we feel uncomfortable about her dress, what gives us the right to inflict our feelings on her? Her dress codes does us no harm, and it doesn’t hold back her game. What on earth business is it of ours?

I’d go a step further. If we imposed a Muslim veil ban in Britain, she would no longer feel she could come out and join us. She’d be forced to stay at home and give up on a form of exercise which must do her good and which she evidently enjoys. While she’s with us, incidentally, her husband’s looking after the children. That’s a form of equality between the sexes that we, in the West, generally criticise Islam for not displaying enough.

In fact, banning the veil far from integrating our friend more closely into Western society and into an adoption of its values, would hold back her assimilation. In other words, it would produce precisely the opposite effect of what we claim to seek. I fully understand the need, for security reasons, to be able to demand that burka-clad people show their faces to suitably empowered authorities such as the police; I see no reason why Muslims should be forced to abandon the veil generally in public.

One right no constitution in any country guarantees, is the right not to be made uncomfortable. If learning to overcome some slight discomfort in ourselves protects important rights in others, and helps to assimilate different communities better into our society, why shouldn’t we make that effort?

It’s my feeling, and I have personal experience to back it up, that a Muslim veil ban would be a completely unnecessary, illiberal and intolerant measure that would undermine, rather than upholding, Western values.