Monthly Archives: June 2024

Chapter 9 Children and Education

©GeraldineBanksJune2024

Unlike work which people seem to hate, School Days on the whole by most people are remembered fondly. Of course some hated school and just wanted to get out of it or experienced bullying or unacceptable behaviour from those in authority. For a lot of people from Nursery age to maybe about the age of ten or eleven, learning and being with your class mates was enjoyable. Once the terrible teens arrived with the pressures of exams and growing up maybe the perspective changed.

The key to a good education system is recognising that learning can be enjoyed by everyone, perhaps not all at the same time , in the same way. There is no homogenised analog that will teach everyone and everyone move forward at the same pace. There are many environmental issues that make learning difficult for some. That certainly doesn’t mean that they should hop off the Education bus and never get on it again.

Again, we have a media that tell us all about top grades, top results, not to worry if things go wrong at exam results time, that it’s not the end of the world. Look at Jeremy Clarkson he’s a millionaire journalist (or is it billionaire journalist)and he didn’t do well at whatever exams he sat.

When I was exam taking age , there was never this interest in how you did in exams, you did them got your results and then saw what you could do or not do with them. Looking back the important thing was not to be put off by them or on the other hand to think that somehow with top results , you were a top person. They did not define you and they shouldn’t define anyone now. I didn’t need the likes of Jeremy Clarkson to tell me that .

Looking at the employment situation , it is probably a good idea that the leaving age for school is now 18 years of age. Though I feel sorry for the teachers who have to interact with pupils who have no real interest in education and who want to get out into the real world and earn money to do the things their parents were able to do. What do the teachers find to interest them?

Well it’s a better alternative than the misguided suggestion that National Service in the Army, Navy or Airforce would be a good option for those who don’t want to sit at a desk and learn. Maybe a more productive avenue would be big manual labour projects that are needed, eg. road building , house building or renaturing landscapes that have been destroyed by said road building or house building projects. Anything that improves the environment and makes the world better for everyone.

The great opportunity is that , young men and women who have had enough of school and want to do something; that in their mind; is more useful, could have access to work, and could choose to return to education after a period of time, should they so wish The current economic model that says their labour is worthless is wrong. There are a lot of jobs that need done and there is money in the economy to pay for them.

What is sad is making generations feel that there only option is to be a burden on the state. They didn’t make the grades in exams and for whatever reason they were not comfortable sitting at a desk. Well find out what they are good at , gardening, knitting, coding, cooking, arranging flowers , looking after animals ,painting and decorating, the possibilities are endless and the work useful. Not only that we need these things done to make our world a little more beautiful. That is the only form of National Service I want and if it is done with a universal income more the better.

The benefit system just isn’t working, and it frightens me that so much effort is being put into reviewing it and changing it. Universal Credit and whatever disclosure comes with it , seems totally humiliating. The attitude seems to be if you are claiming benefits then you must be trying to fiddle the state. It’s a bit like the culture at the Post Office which made Sub Postmasters out to have their “grubby hands in the till”. Yet weirdly we say the Police can do no wrong, which blatantly is not true. That is the effect of perception and we must drill down and actually see what is going on in reality.

The reality is that we offer apprenticeships which may or may not teach young people valuable work skills. Has the National Vocational Qualification improved the general state of affairs for people wanting to learn. Is there any data on it? Do they have surveys that ask the young people how much their NVQ in Customer Service benefited them? I would suggest that a lot of this data gathering if it has not already been done could be a good practical exercise for young people interested in applying information technology. Perhaps young people could look at the benefits system too and suggest a better alternative.

The vast majority of young people do not have access to the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, which encourages initiative and develops young people. Yes it’s a great idea but it’s elitist. The fact that it motivates and encourages young people is great, but we need a broader, government supported programme with the same ethics as the Duke of Edinburgh scheme or indeed the scouting organisations,

This is one of the greatest benefits of the IT revolution. Access to education is possible for everyone and can be lifelong. So stepping back on the education bus at thirty , when you have discovered something that you are passionate about learning is quite possible and beneficial to both the candidate and the world they are living in.

We need to move away from a Command Economy that tells us from above via Civil Servants and Government what we should and should not do , and instead makes the resources available to people both young and old to use their skills , intelligence and application to make the world a better place. That is the best economic solution to education and will by far achieve the best cost /benefit result.

Why am I not hearing this from the Electioneering Politicians?

Chapter 8 The Health of the Nation

©GeraldineBanksJune2024

I must put down my phone and ignore the current election tittle tattle and look at the Health of the Nation, or even Global Health. Journalists and Influencers tend to concentrate on the extremes of Health and Diet. The poor old NHS in the UK has to deal with the reality of a nation who either don’t understand how their own bodies work or think a pill will cure everything .

Healthcare work is a vocation, it is not a job. The people who do it well are definitely motivated to care for people. Yet everyone in Europe and even the World (well particularly America) , will recognise that the NHS is now one of the biggest Businesses in Europe and indeed all the talk of Privatisation of Healthcare comes from those who see it as a “Business Opportunity” not an organisation to look after the Health of the Nation.

Currently in the election debacle , there will be people who want to be elected who believe the only solution to being able to pay for the NHS is to privatise some of it’s more lucrative functions, oh and I should say to leave the expensive, potentially crippling expensive bits in the public domain. That’s entrepreneurship eh?

In some areas, eg. dentistry this feels as if it’s already happened. There are fewer and fewer dentists willing to take on NHS patients and an increase in insurance backed Dental Policies from the Private Sector. The joke is , you ask a NHS patient on the cost of their dental care (and actually it is quite a lot of money) . It is quite out of reach of people on low income or the unemployed.

Are teeth and appearance important to people, does it not affect their lives? Yes, probably in all areas. It’s as good as putting a stamp on someone’s forehead, saying

“I’m poor”

Let’s face it if you want to appear on television, your teeth will need fixed, if you want to be a pop star, you’ll need your teeth fixed.( The late great Shane McGowan of Pogues fame being the exception) .

Will the candidate at a job interview who has a nice smile and fresh breath do better than the one who doesn’t smile and has bad breath. So whatever administrator pressed the button on reducing the amount of care available for Dental Work may have indirectly affected the mental health of a significant portion of the population and reduced the effectiveness of the economy.

My point being is that the NHS as an entity should have a positive impact on the total population. It drives me mad when Celebrities go on about that ‘s it a “National Treasure” and that when they had a problem, that the NHS was there to sort it out like no one else could have done. Even Royalty sometimes needs the NHS, though for security reasons they tend to use the Private Sector. These people are only looking at what it does for them and not the total population. This is not what Aneurin Bevan intended.

The NHS is now the biggest employer in Europe, they lap up excess labour in the market in the UK. I for one, once temped in the Finance Department of a local hospital. One night when I finished work and was going home at 5 pm I found out my motorbike battery was flat. I was rescued in the hospital car park by the AA (formerly known as the Fourth Emergency Service). The man was full of praise for the NHS and me.

” I couldn’t do what you do , you’re amazing”. He beamed as he set up the leads to start the battery.

Not wishing him to be mislead , I told him I only worked in the finance department and I tried not to let my cynicism shine through. Where I worked was actually over staffed, incompetent and the proportion of administrative management roles far outweighed the cost and numbers of “caring roles”.

Not many workplaces offer paid non-working days to their staff , I thought to myself. As he drove away , he was so happy that he had helped one of the “good ones”. I was thinking if only he knew. I was close to leaving the job , because the bullying was so bad. One women had me lined up for debt collecting role that she didn’t want to do. There was no future for me there.

There is the rub though , we love our NHS and we like to think it’s the best in the World with the best hard working caring people in it ( bit like the Post Office eh?).Well it is really , the amount of good work that Nurses ,Doctors and Health Care Professionals want to do is amazing. I just wish we’d let them do it. Instead it has turned into the greatest Bureaucracy on Earth, separated into individual Trusts run by Chief Executives on phenomenal salaries and part-time Board members also on large salaries, contributing their opinions on how to run a hospital or health centre having no knowledge or experience of running or working in either. What happened to the ” National ” bit?

Somehow Paula Vennels after the debacle in the Post Office managed to get a plumb job advising a NHS Trust, thankfully she was removed from the role , but how and why was she appointed in the first place. How many of these types of predatory leeches are in the National Health Service, that’s not to say that there aren’t good leeches , cleaning wounds and stopping clotting in the real NHS. Medicine is amazing , let it be amazing and get rid of all these hangers on.

So what is the solution, we all want the NHS, we all want it to do well and for it to excel at what it does best. Caring for the Nation’s Health. Well actually there is really good work going on , particularly in the realm of preventative medicine. The Well Men and Well Woman initiatives, to help people understand how to help themselves are really forward looking.

We can look after ourselves and our health, by eating well and not abusing our bodies with drugs and alcohol. Education is part of the NHS’s role, not lecturing people or refusing to treat them should things go wrong. We should look at the numbers, most people do want to be healthy and if you give them the right information and support will make an effort to .

There is a manageable cost to that , perhaps all these TV Doctors who have successful media careers in the Private Sector because they saw a need and an income stream. They saw a niche and they pursued it . Now the NHS has Apps and programmes encouraging more people to take an active interest in their Health. The TV Doctors were acting like Public Health Broadcasters, paid ones of course, however, if you can’t afford the TV Licence or the Netflix Subscription , then you have your NHS.

Increasingly Mental Health has came into play, I’ve noticed this particularly in the various workplaces that I’ve worked in. It always makes me laugh, that the very people who cause unnecessary stress in the workplace are the very ones who are put in charge or communicating the “look after yourself strategy”.

However, once we enable people to feel comfortable in their environment, to earn enough money to live and to have decent housing and basically a “life” a lot of these mental health challenges will go away, saving the NHS a fortune. It is, afterall ,the NHS who picks up the pieces when mental health challenges become unmanageable.

So there comes the Economic Rub, the NHS is being targeted to be privatised at the same time it’s users are being challenged by an economy which leaves them feeling economically unstable, whether it’s because they can’t afford their rent, their food or because they have turned to unhealthy support systems such as as drugs or alcohol just to survive which I covered in Chapter 3. In other words the NHS doesn’t stand a chance unless those who can look after themselves.

The real job of the NHS is to look after those who cannot look after themselves and that I’m afraid is a cost that will always and should always come out of the Public Purse. The Private Sector does not care whether Mrs Smith down the road needs a coronary by-pass in order to survive. Their AI will tell them that she isn’t part of the plan for the future and that the cost is prohobitive , so best let her illness run it’s course and anyway she didn’t listen to the advice she was given. That is how the private sector thinks.

The private Sector have extended that thinking, so that anyone who does not meet their criteria of being rich, good looking , thin and superhuman really just has to get on with it and that well if they are that unlucky they are unlucky. Perhaps next time , they’ll place a bet on Ladbrokes on the chances of their survival.

The NHS on the other hand was created to let more people be able to live well and survive crisis’s where it’s humanely possible to treat them. The two philosophies are so different it is impossible to see them combine.

Let the NHS do what it’s best at , and stop trying to run it like a business. The Nation’s Health is it’s business.

Chapter 7 Employment , useful or not?

So here’s the rub, what motivates people and is motivation dangerous when it’s used by others to achieve objectives that benefit the few and not the many. For example , encouraging students to study so hard for what . To compete with each other, when indeed what we should be trying to do is educate to improve things as a whole. What really is the difference in getting 80% in an exam and 85%. Both candidates are obviously very good, yet one ( the lower one) might end up on the scrap heap. There must be an economic law that says that this is a waste of resource.

Despite the idea that hard work gets results, with the influence of computers and the future role of Artificial Intelligence ,this may no longer be true. I myself like manual work, it gives me a good feeling , I can see the result of my efforts. Also I enjoy being given time to do a task and complete it , sometimes to perfection..

There can be a joy in work.

The only thing is everyone seems so unhappy in work. No one wants to be there. We’re just in it for the money ,we tell ourselves, and we ask for more money as we are so unhappy and that is the only thing that will make us happy.

Meanwhile, and this is my “turd” theory of Economics, the turds rise to the top. Ruthlessness and skullduggery by seemingly innocuous middle managers can turn into manipulative, self-serving profit seeking behavior , which takes it’s toll on the workforce and the standards within any organisation. You know what I mean , don’t you?

We blame the organisation, the corporate entity for whatever ills it has bestowed on us. Unfortunately it’s the people within those organisations that cause the problems. Some say Unions need to exist to solve this, but in my experience Unions are just as bad as the middle managers who will agree anything for their next pay rise. Union representatives are paid by the union , but whether or not they have a big enough budget to change things eg. help an employee with a legal claim on the company or a dispute,or even a health and safety issue is doubtful.

The Union Representative on the whole is powerless and it is the goodwill of the Company that they work for that enables them to have a role, attending meetings with executives and being first to know of the planned redundancies or closure of the factory , whatever it may be.

Union Representatives are basically harbingers of bad news, the CEO’s want to announce good news themselves. That’s nothing to do with the Unions, it’s the Corporation that has brought success.( and therefore deserves the reward).

Surely an insurance scheme that could help employees who need financial backing to pursue a claim with employers would be a better option .Free legal advice would also be helpful and it would no longer be under a banner of them or us. An employee resource that when things go wrong , there is somewhere to go to with the financial backing to address it. I would think that would stop many of the abuses. in the work place. Is any Government willing to put this in place?

There is no need for these massive powerful Unions who appear at Political Party Conferences and treat their members as if they are tied to one particular belief. Everyone has moved on from that. What employees want is to be treated fairly and with respect and when things go wrong to be able to address it without incurring huge fees or having to refer their case to an ambulance chasing no claim no fee firm of solicitors.

But what about the future, will there be any jobs for people to do. Of course there will be. We need things done, we need to have a reasonable standard of living, we want to have decent leisure time. We need things to” work” and therefore we need to work and we need to be paid for that work. No amount of Artificial Intelligence is going to solve that.

The argument that these hammering, plumbing, connecting, rubbish disposal, documenting, data analyzing, cleaning, health care and counselling, the list of jobs and needs is endless. The prospect that these tasks will somehow replaced by AI is ridiculous. And the business model that has some Computer Geek Mogul earning some God-Like Fortune by solving the difficulty of actually employing people is unattainable pie in the sky. We need people and we need each other.

Yet the Media will write endless articles about us being replaced by robots. I have real experience of this, my first graduate job was working in the Car Industry in the UK. The office had about one hundred and fifty people in it , it was like a chicken coop. Many years later all those roles were subcontracted and the office was maybe down to about twenty people. It made sense and in truth was inevitable.

During my chicken coop office period; robots were replacing manual workers on the shop floor , they were impressive beasts and the best solution for repetitive manual work. They were the future , and they were part of a manufacturing revolution in the Car Industry . That made sense. Please note we no longer manufacture cars in the UK in the quantities we used to , mainly because we were too expensive and despite robots taking over production to reduce labour costs production was moved to other Countries where labour was perceived as being cheaper. So the fact was they still needed labour, so the Robots didn’t save the day.

However not every manual job is so repetitive; and we are beginning to realise that mass production is becoming irrelevant and not necessary. The requirement to have masses of anything is becoming redundant and I can assure you when that demand drops and increasingly ( as happened in the electronic industry) the market is flooded and people are happy having the next best thing rather than the latest technology , or indeed as will increasingly happen ; recycled technology. Then Chief Executives start panicking and cutting costs. The workers go first and then the Executives who of course award themselves a big exit payout for managing the crisis.

The view that digitising and analoging everything saves time and reduces costs in the fields of the Arts and Literature is worrying .It also homogenises everything and takes the colour out of creativity . Are the only people who are inventive nowadays coders? I think not.

Infact, they are the least likely people to come up with an original idea, because their whole element of work is based on discipline and repetition sat behind a computer following a strict set of rules to achieve their goal. Not your average worker behavior.

So just as the top executives can’t see past their spreadsheets telling them that the only way forward is to reduce costs and that employing real people is wasteful and requires too much investment. Economists should be looking at the benefits in human input , creativity and honest working together and not this false team work, stab in the back, keep the competition at arms length philosophy that the workplace has turned into.

Can it be quantified , of course it can, we have for too long worked on a model of cost cutting without recognising the benefits of working together and accepting that there are jobs that need done , that they are valuable and that the quantitative benefit of working together is better value for money than some chief executive screwing employees into the ground by making them work harder for less benefits. Then running off with a pot full of cash and bonuses

I would say I haven’t notice this approach in any of the election manifesto’s, our options are more of the same and not anything new. Whoever gets in still sees the people as inconveniences and are looking for some miracle Truss and Kwarteng style economic wizzardy, where wealth trickles down and bankers and computer scientists will solve all the world’s problems. It just isn’t going to happen.

Chapter 6 Lobbying.

So here we are, the election is to be held on the 4th July and I’ve reached the halfway point of my Chapters. Apologies for Chapter 5’s whiff of righteousness about Alcohol and Drugs and the wish to escape every day life. Chapter 6, however falls into place nicely ;as we most probably all want to escape at the moment. Which brings me to lobbying.

Currently, it feels that there is quite a lot being lobbed at us. Least of all Nigel Farage and the onward march of Right Wing influence in Europe. Until the election. I had quite forgotten about Nigel Farage, he was just another expenses fueled, politician and journalist with purely self serving motives of whipping up ill thought out policies and prejudices. A one man band , a self-made millionaire( an economic success) .Using his so called charisma on a certain element of the British Public that most people in the quite United Kingdom would rather ignore.( No one likes to believe that people can hate others quite so much.)

Still here we are and he has jumped on the bandwagon and became a Leader of a Party with the Orwellian name of “Reform” “.Horrifically , if Reform could host enough candidates , then within a few weeks old ship mate Nigel could be Prime Minister. The previous leader of Reform was pushed aside and Nigel took over for this election, because Nigel is a good lad and very good at lobbying.

Lobbying can be good or bad depending your point of view on what is being lobbied for. I suppose it’s another form of persuasion and has been used by many through the centuries to achieve their aims, whether it’s a Royal Court arranging an advantageous marriage in medieval times or following on from Francis Drakes introduction of tobacco , the cigarette industry pushing back at the lobbyists successfully arguing about the implications to people’s health of smoking tobacco.

Lobbying in the Houses of Parliament is rife and as and industry has grown over the last fifty years to such an extent, that for many it is a full time occupation. It probably does contribute a fair whack to the gross domestic product. So perhaps that is a benefit. How much has lobbying affected the Government decision making process to the detriment of the General Public? Quite a lot I would say.

We seem to have forgotten that our vote should be the first step in policy making, but it is most definitely not. We elect our representatives who may indeed be lobbyists themselves with their own interests or have lobbyist sponsors.

On getting a seat in Parliament they immediately begin representing the views of their sponsors or indeed their personal beliefs. Apart from booting them out at the next election, we have no influence on what they choose to say in Parliament or indeed in the way they use their influence by having a seat in Parliament. Are there checks in place, if so , they don’t seem to be used very often. Perhaps a commons committee has been examining them for the last decade.

Hence, increasingly we’ve had the scandals of MP’s and House of Lord’s representatives doing deals for favours or asking questions in Parliament or indeed arranging meetings with key ministers. Some of whom actually specified how much there efforts can be quantified in monetary terms per hour.

For two hours “work” , ten thousand pounds. Well great for GDP , if they spend it in the UK, but how about if the spend it on renovating their French holiday home. I suppose it’s helping the European economy.

Sadly, though lobbying has implications far beyond , grubby politicians lining their own pockets and handbags .Increasingly lobbying is a profession and a full-time occupation What happens when the lobbying interest is from another international government . Have you ever felt perhaps that “News” is a bit one sided , that you end up listening to European news stations to actually find out what is happening in the World. That is the power of the professional paid lobbyist. They can start World War Three if they want , or they can at least make everything feel more unstable.

Ever feel that the media doesn’t seem to be able to say as much as they used to particularly during election time. The interviews and the debates all seem so insipid. There are no facts, only rhetoric. It’s like it’s been sanitised or as I like to think lobbitised. Voter beware is all I say.

Chapter 4 The Economics of Celebrity, National Lottery and Charity.

©GeraldineBanks2024

Have there been any economic studies about how Celebrity Culture , National Lottery and the Charity Sector really benefit the UK’s Gross Domestic Product ? Or are these sectors regarded as ancillary events and not part of the economic establishment . I turned to Google for the answer.

Firstly Celebrity and the Power of Attraction.

Celebrity Power

The involvement of a famous figure in the advertising campaign of a Brand can rapidly change customer perceptions that boost brand loyalty and consequently , improve stock prices.

Improve stock prices! No mention of GDP, so it might increase revenue for a specific product, eg. if the Celebrity likes to wear Orange Trainers, then the sales of those Orange Trainers will increase.

But does the sale of those Orange Trainers improve the Economy for everyone or only a select section of the Public. The Trainers can be sold at a premium price, due to the Celebrity Association. This price may exclude lower income families ( psychological implications) and also the profits made from the manufacturing and sale of said Orange Trainers will go to Companies who are making use of low income labour and poor working conditions in the Countries where these products are made.

Let’s face it how many products that start being manufactured in the home Country end up moving abroad. Dyson Hoovers being a prime example. This was the cost reducing ethos for a long time, one which basically crushed the manufacturing industries in Countries that followed it. Hence the emphasis on Construction jobs to keep low skill level people employed.

There is a high likelihood that the Orange Trainers are imported and the Shareholders of said Company are Global. So, depending on tax rules within the Country , then the profits may never benefit the Country where the Orange Trainers are sold. The perception though is that Orange Trainers are wonderful and that lower income earners will do everything they can to “own” a pair.

Thus the growth of wearing of the Orange trainers will be exponential and low income workers will be willing to work overtime or unsocial hours to earn money for them , which leads to firms being able to keep their head count down ( a constant corporate objective ) while basking in the profits that their “essential” product has brought them. Meanwhile the costs of the trainers will impact the Retail Price Index and have the potential to cause inflation and so cause a correction in the Economy for example to increase interest rates and make everything more expensive.

Suddenly the Beckham’s faces become less attractive don’t you think? Celebrity Culture has sku’ed the economy creating a need for something that does not exist and actually causing price inflation, unemployment and unsocial working hours . All in the name of keeping a Brand alive.

The National Lottery

Next , the National Lottery , The Postcode Lottery and all the Charities that now have their own Lottery, soon I have no doubt, Local Councils will introduce one to help with their running costs.

It’s harmless isn’t it , a few pounds every week, and you could end up a being millionaire. Fat Chance. The betting odds are so far against you. Yet you can buy tickets online , you can create an account. You don’t need to go out of the house. Your numbers can be chosen randomly for you or if you feel it will reduce your odds of winning you can have the same numbers each week.

The advertisements for the National Lottery are on TV, radio and in supermarkets and post offices throughout the UK. They say why not? You might win? Don’t be so negative, someone’s got to win , why not you. I believe they even have a National Lottery show on a Saturday Evening for the numbers to be chosen. I’ve never watched it and quite frankly I can’t be bothered researching if it’s still on. It was only a vehicle for Celebrities looking for a gig on a Saturday night. Definitely a connection there with Celebrity and tempting the punter to buy into the desire to win.

I’ve bought a few lottery tickets in my time, but I’ve never deliberately bought a scratch card. I’ve been given scratch cards in Birthday Cards which is quite fun. I don’t get it though actually buying these dreadful printed cards, what is that stuff you scrape off , is it plastic paint, does it decompose in the environment? Are the inks safe and where do most people throw them when they find out they’ve lost. I’ve watched a woman carelessly put one in a dog bin and thought , well she doesn’t care about anything does she? It’ll either be incinerated or go to landfill. It’s consumerism gone mad. Give her a dedicated refurbished mobile phone that she can scratch away on a touch screen forever if she wishes.

I’m pretty certain lottery tickets aren’t recyclable either, the paper has a coated feel and the inks must be permanent and not water soluble. I wonder where they all end up?

Doubt if the Government and the various Charities involved in running them will ever get rid of their ” Cash Cow” Lotteries. It’s really up to the consumer to decide that they are a waste of time and energy and the return in momentary pleasure is just not worth it.

To an extent, some years ago that did happen, there was definitely a lot of cynicism about the National Lottery, people were just not winning anything and gave up. Which is why the National Lottery have had to invent new options to play. Lotto, Set for Life; Euro millions; Thunder ball ; Hot picks ; Euro million Hot picks and Instant Win.

A lot of human time, energy and creativity has gone into ensuring that hard earned cash is frittered away in the name of good causes such as the Covent Garden Opera House. A summary of the Beneficiaries are Health Education, Environment and Charitable Causes( 40% )Sport( 20%) Arts (20%) Heritage(20%). I wonder if the Houses of Parliament will be refurbished with Lottery Money?

The Government Contract is awarded every 10 years by the Gambling Commission with a fixed 10 year license, providing the licensee with a clear period for investment planning. ( Sounds like a Pension Fund? Read on……).

The current incumbent was appointed 1st February 2024 and is Allwyn Entertainment Ltd who is a subsidiary of Allwyn AG who bought out Camelot and are Europe’s leading Lottery operator The takeover of Camelot was financed by the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund. In essence a lottery ticket purchase in the UK is helping a retired Ontario Teacher which is I suppose a form of Charity allowing for Canada’s struggling economy.

In summary, the sales and marketing of Gambling in the UK is controlled and promoted by all Governments whatever party. It’s a cash cow and the population are bombarded by earning from risk. Yes it’s fun , but wouldn’t it be nice if the odds were a bit better. As for Celebrities, they’ll do anything for a quick buck, we need to start saying no to them, they are no better or worse than us.

Chapter 3 Homelessness and New Builds

©GeraldineBanksJune2024

The image above says two things to me, it says “here  the keys to your new home “or it says, “Your home has just been repossessed, and you can no longer live there.”

Forty years ago, the banking rules allowing people to buy property were relaxed, and Adam Smith and Milton Friedman’s theories on free markets were unleashed on an avaricious property buying public. The bankers had a field day, and property became the be-all and end all. House prices started going up and, in truth, don’t seem to have ever stopped for properties in the right location.

The percentage of the population that owns a first home worth a million pounds has grown significantly. (Not even going to mention the second homes).

There is a housing shortage, so we must build more houses and people must accept that they will be living closer to each other, and that their  lives  will be disrupted while  the infrastructure, such as water, sewage ,power and broadband are laid to these new properties. To hell with any sort of planning, build , build, and build.

What is the real economic reason for this, is there really a shortage of housing for high earners? Is there really a shortage of housing for low earners?

Builders are just not interested in building houses for low earners, they want to build minimum four beds with garages, really they want to make big bucks, so they want a price tag of say £500,000, so they can make a 50% or 60% profit. That is the economic reality.

Councils can try as hard as they may, to negotiate an element of social housing , but building a property that will sell for £120,000 is hardly worth getting out of bed for if you are a builder. There are bigger fish to fry.

We are building new builds for people who are already on the property ladder and wish to upscale or downscale ( depending on their time of life). If you are close to retirement , you are probably thinking of a low maintenance bungalow.

It’s like private club, if you are on the ladder then you can play the game. If you are trying to get on the ladder then it’s a slippery slope unless you have help from your property owning relatives.

Hopefully the economists are doing surveys on this and there is a Think Tank that says low earners will never be in a position to own their own property and that they have been excluded unfairly  from one of the key economic indicators of success in society.

Actually , no, I don’t think that study has been done , or indeed the report written, or if it has they are being very quiet about it.

Getting back to the basic building blocks ,the real reason for continuing to build more houses for the rich is to keep the poor working. We are building new builds purely to employ labour in low-level jobs.

Building site workers on the whole are well paid and work at all sorts of jobs, not just skilled trades , like bricklaying , electricians and JCB drivers , but the ancillary staff, the humpers and dumpers or  as they are known the CSCS Green Labourers Card holders.

Without CSCS, you can not work on any building site, whether for housing , road infrastructure, or any municipal project. I suppose it ensures that the people working in locations that are inherently dangerous do not endanger themselves or others, which, considering the Construction Industry has a high accident rate.

Still,a lot of those Labourers will have few or any qualifications and will leave school to work on building sites.Unless we build and do infrastructure jobs(like repairing potholes),there are  no jobs for them.

I suspect the government realises that and hence Build,Build and Build.Also Building is like the Brewery Industry,there are a lot of  Political Grandées from all parties who have an  interest in the construction Industry.

The late Lord McAlpine, being one of them who ended his days running a Tuscany  Bed and Breakfast with his young wife , his Company McAlpine’s was found to have a database of  blacklisted CSCS workers who would not be employed on any McAlpine sites either because of a history of  Union Activity,or because they had raised concerns about Health and Safety at work.

Please don’t tell me  people like Lord McAlpine don’t have an interest in  controlling workers  and, therefore, the labour market.

Free movement of labour my foot. House Building for profit and employment for the lowly qualified,an economic success story,sponspred by lobbyists , political grandées and politicians alike.

Mind you, those building workers are the lucky ones(when they are working,they have a reasonable income).If you are on a low income and living in the private rental market,you are one monthly payment away from being homeless.

A reality that came close to me when my next-door neighbour had a no-fault eviction served on her. There was nothing she could do,despite not wanting to move out, she had to.I was very shocked.I didn’t know how much the law had been changed in favour of buy-to-let landlords.

Another  lady told me that her daughter had moved in with her boyfriend and was renting out her house.The agent handling the rental  told her that the daughters new tennant who had just moved in 3 months prior at an agreed monthly rate should be asked for an increase in rent to reflect the market value.The daughter said there was no need as the rent was covering the mortgage.The increase was nothing to do with the market,but was  been driven by a  greedy agent who wanted more for is fee.A Microeconomics nightmare.

In other words,there is a dangerous instability in the rental housing market,backed up by legislation put in place over a number of years and free market beliefs that anything goes.

The buy to let model simply does not work,as even on the supply side ,if the landlords have overstretched themselves and aren’t able to pay either for repairs or indeed their mortgage loans due to increased interest rates. Then, the property will be sold or repossessed.Resulting in more instability.Surely the economists could have produced a predictive model for this?

The answer my friend  is blowing in the wind.

We have had numerous governments who haven’t cared about what happened to people who weren’t part of what they perceived as the elite ,and now those people are  exposed to potential homelessness. 

There are no signs of a solution other than making buy to let Landlords bankrupt themselves, trying to do what social housing used to do  with public funding.

The costs of providing four walls and decent living conditions , whether in the private sector or the public sector, are the same.

There was no benefit in putting it into the hands of non-professionals and amateurs.We need social housing, not for profit, and that supplies decent living conditions for all.It’s a basic human requirement.

Anyone fancy living in a barge?