Fed up with austerity Britain? Sadly, you ain't seen nothing yet

The canny chief executive, on reaching the top of the greasy pole, makes the shock discovery that he has inherited a total disaster.

The company’s profits are immediately trashed by massive write-offs, its workforce slashed and expectations comprehensively lowered to a level from which even a halfwit should be able to engineer some sort of recovery - for which the new boss will naturally be richly rewarded.

This Year Zero strategy was surely the only sensible option available to whoever was unlucky enough to win the UK General Election of 2010: a vote that any sensible politician should have done their utmost to lose.

Losing: something to smile about properly at long last

Incredibly, the incoming Coalition did not seize the golden opportunity to make our lives an utter misery straight away, in the admittedly faint hope that we would have forgiven and forgotten by the time of the next election in 2015.

They have now been in power for almost three years, and the confiscation of my family’s child allowances has only just kicked in. Wealthy pensioners continue to trouser unneeded winter fuel payments, while whole swathes of Government expenditure on health, education and overseas aid remain ring-fenced against cuts.

Small wonder that the deficit remains stubbornly high, the national debt continues to climb, and economic growth remains a fond memory. But not to worry, because our leaders are fixing the things that really matter: imposing yet another reorganisation on the NHS and restricting the freedom of the press (which, in the current state of the industry, seems about as meaningful as slapping a preservation order on a snowman).

Our collective memory is short, and any reminder that this Government is dealing with problems not of its own making is now the cue for loud jeers. Hence the likeliest outcome of the next election is the return to power of those who did so much to create the mess in the first place.

Balls. Nothing more to be said

No wonder that electorates elsewhere in Europe, faced with similar choices, tick the “none of the above” box by voting for comedians instead.

Despite their failure to grasp the nettle in 2010, it is increasingly hard to see what the Government hopes to gain by continuing to pretend that “the medicine is working” and things are going to pick up any time soon. It isn’t, and they aren’t.

This week’s confiscation of bank deposits in Cyprus (an island that still drives on the left but foolishly abandoned its pound for the euro in 2008) could well be the taste of things to come for all of us as the mad European project continues to unravel, with potentially dire consequences not only for prosperity, but for the very peace that idealists proclaim as the European Union’s crowning achievement. 

A typical Cyprus ATM

Retrospectively imposing a 110% tax on all bankers’ bonuses, and perhaps hanging a few of them from lampposts, might help relieve our feelings, but it won’t actually get us out of the economic mire in which we find ourselves. Nor will trying to borrow even more money in the hope that we can somehow spend our way out of the hole.

Sadly we all need to adjust our fond hope that life is going to get steadily cushier. “Living standards” across the board need to come down until we have settled the bill for the criminal folly of the debt-fuelled artificial boom of the Blair years.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. Our material expectations have risen massively in my lifetime. We are warmer, fatter, longer-lived and more richly entertained than ever before in human history. But I see precious little evidence that we are any happier as a result.

It will come as no comfort to a better-off Cypriot saver to be reminded of this, but life is extremely short and the important thing is to try and enjoy it to the best of our ability. People can be blissfully happy working for a pittance for a cause they believe in, while even billionaires can fall prey to suicidal misery.

I for one would appreciate the Government finally admitting that we all are going to get considerably worse off for the foreseeable future, so that we can focus on learning how to smile with gritted teeth.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

2010 assessed

My contribution to the double page spread in The Journal's nebusiness section featuring “Thoughts on 2010” from the Great and Good of the North East business community ... and, for some reason, me:

As usual, 2010 was a year mixing the entirely predictable with the genuinely surprising. Some events, like the emergence of a Mr Miliband at the head of the Labour Party, managed to combine both.

I regret that I failed to include the Icelandic ash cloud in my helpful list of forecasts a year ago, but at least I was spot on in characterising the 2010 General Election as one not to win. It turned out that the great British public did not want anyone to win it, either, setting the scene for the first coalition Government of my lifetime.

My estimation of “Dave” Cameron as a political operator has shot upwards as he has deftly saddled Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats with the blame for so much of the ensuing unpleasantness, though admittedly they have not helped themselves either by breaking explicit election promises or choosing to shimmer around the Strictly Come Dancing floor in white tie and tails while rioting students are running amok in the capital. Louis XVI and Versailles spring to mind.

One thing I got badly wrong was expecting the pain of tax rises, spending cuts and job losses to impact straight after the General Election. Clearly we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Scarborough versus the Med: no contest

Whatever you think about the ConDem coalition, you must admit that the weather has perked up a treat since they took office. The only snag being that the letters pages will soon be full of global warming true believers bleating “I told you so.”

As the weekend sun beat down, the two sides in the British Airways dispute came close to beating each other up, the Icelandic volcano probably just paused for breath and many of us reflected that our jobs are hanging by a gossamer thread that George Osborne and David Laws are about to slash. So why on earth risk booking a foreign summer holiday when there are seaside guesthouses the length and breadth of Britain desperate for our custom?

You will discover the answer to this in August when you are sitting inside a grim, graffiti-covered Victorian shelter with sodden chip wrappers blowing around your ankles, watching the rain stream down the cracked and filthy windows while several OAPs shout at each other about how they have known worse, albeit only that time the Alton Towers log flume malfunctioned so spectacularly during their annual coach trip.

“Real Blackwaterfoot weather” we called it in my family, after a less than successful childhood holiday on the Isle of Arran. Every drenched afternoon the cheery (by Scottish standards) lady hotelier would raise our spirits by promising that, on the morrow, we would experience “real Blackwaterfoot weather.” And so we did. Several inches of it, often coming at us horizontally.

Still, at least there will be plenty of time to read the newspapers. They will be full of true believers’ valuable insights into the freak downpours, often including the words “I told you so.”

Yet I would not have it any other way. I hate going abroad, me. Not because of xenophobic prejudice. I simply hate going anywhere.

If I absolutely have to take baby Charlie on his first summer holiday, as I am told I must, I fancy St Abbs in Berwickshire. It did for me when I was his age, and look how I turned out. Yes, all right, not the strongest of arguments, I know.

Mrs Hann counterbid with Majorca, Minorca and Corfu (cunningly weaving in two former British colonies, I noted, in the hope of sparking my interest as a historian). So naturally I trumped her with the ultimate holiday destination anywhere on the planet: Scarborough, the Queen of the Yorkshire Riviera. I think I’ve just about forgiven the council for tarmacing over my favourite crazy golf course to create a car park. There are others. Along with a castle, beaches, gardens, cliff tramways, theatres, pubs, a Sea Life Centre, a miniature railway and the grave of Anne Brontë (who was to the Haworth sisterhood what Zeppo was to the Marx Brothers). They took her to Scarborough for her health. What an advertisement.

Seriously, I know you will think I am taking the mickey, but I love the place. What could be better than watching a load of grown men steering miniature warships around the lake in Peasholm Park to recreate one of the great naval battles of the Second World War? It seemed bizarrely old-fashioned when my dad first took me in the early 1960s. How wonderful that it is still going on to enthral (or baffle) my son half a century later.

My wife argues that Charlie needs to get used to aeroplanes, and would prefer a beach with reliable sunshine. I say the days of mass air travel are over. Dani (as I call our new ConDem conjoined PM) has already scrapped the third runway at Heathrow. We are all going to have to get used to holidays at home and the memorable disappointments of real Blackwaterfoot weather. You will laugh about it eventually. Do remember that I told you so.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.