Society

People, politics, tech, money, sport, work and entertainment all intertwine to make up today’s ever-changing, crazy, delightful and frustrating society. The majority of my second-hand-views are about life within our society and, with a left-of-centre stance, there’s bound to be something here that gets your goat. When it does, buy a bundle of tibs, donate one to my charity of choice, Stay Close to Neve, and get it off your chest with a retort – better out than in. Have fun, be good and keep at ‘em.

one rule for one

Carl - November 14, 2010

Regular readers will already know this Government’s current doyen Sir Peter Green and I are not the best of friends. Not content with extracting obscene tax-efficient (aka tax-avoidance) dividends ‘to his family’ he’s now been caught with his hands in the company pension pot. Upwards of 24,000 workers at Bhs have received a warning letter notifying that that, because of a £148m shortfall in the pension fund, they may not receive their full pensions. Now, I accept that’s nothing new in today’s day and age but if Sir Philip had made one or two more disciplined and less self-centred decisions then this would not be the case. In 2003, he took the (then) unusual step of extracting £214m in a […]

one a day, every day

Carl - November 10, 2010

The other day I came across the best bits of The Lost Diaries by the parodist Craig Brown and I’ve got to share one or two with you: 10 August 2002, Paul Burrell – Until now, I have said little about my relationship with Her Majesty, but the truth must now outweigh the need for me to protect her little secrets. Her majesty was a lovely lady. She thought the world of me. She would often call on her nights off. I got used to that tell-tale knock on the door. She would drum out the opening bars of the national Anthem with her clenched fist. That way, I knew it was her. I’d open the door and there she’d […]

tories have it right

Carl - November 2, 2010

Yep, you heard that correctly and I have to say that they’ve got it exactly spot-on with regards to the elderly within our society. Broadly speaking, the cuts have left the OAPs untouched (other than obviously being the predominant receiver of a significantly diminished health service) and they will continue to enjoy the winter fuel allowance, free bus travel and, provided they’re over 75, a free TV licence, even though these benefits cost the rest of us almost £3.7bn a year. And who in their right mind would resent them these token offerings for a lifetime’s tax contribution? The mean and stingy can be heard arguing that, as just 14% of pensioners are now in the bottom fifth of income […]

driven to distraction

Carl - October 29, 2010

I have used my mobile whilst driving. There, it’s out. I try not to, but yes, guilty as charged, your honour. But of course any calls I may have taken were all absolutely essential, probably relating to national security or some such, and I HAD to take them. Unlike everyone else who is just gassing to their pals about what to wear at the party tomorrow. The modern car has a list of distractions as long as your arm, all designed to make driving feel like sitting in the comfort of your living room. Drivers are now totally isolated and we’ve made cars extensions of our homes. They’re comfy, heater on, iPod playing, sat-nav sounding, noise controlled little boxes and […]

what’s it all about

Carl - October 27, 2010

…Alfie! A freeze in the basic and 30-hour working tax credit. A 10% reduction in claimable childcare costs. A freeze in the savings credit element of pension credit. A rise in the state pension age to 66. 60% off the budget for building affordable homes. Higher rents for social housing tenants. Massive uncertainty within the Public Sector both in terms of service provision and job security. A 15% reduction in daylight hours and rainwater to be rationed at source from 2012. OK, I made the last two up but you get the general picture that pain and grief is on the way in bucketfuls. But how do I know? If redundancy were imminent, or I was on incapacity benefit, or […]

pass the hanky

Carl - October 25, 2010

I’ve mixed feelings about The X Factor. I know I shouldn’t watch it, let alone enjoy it, but I do. Yep, I realise it’s low-brow, lowest common-denominator, car-crash TV that manipulates me wildly into believing it’s not all a huge set-up but I just can’t help myself. Come 7.30pm on any given Saturday I’m there salivating like a Pavlovian experiment, tuned in and ready to tuck in with, it would seem, most of the country. There’s no doubt the programme is cunningly crafted to create tension, drama and suspense and it can become thrillingly addictive. But I have one nagging doubt and it won’t go away. I worry that we are creating a generation that expects fame and fortune, success […]

mind the gap

Carl - October 23, 2010

In the earlier ‘vive le france’ article I posed the question of what would it take to immobilise the UK’s population into a unified and formidable force? And it’s one that I’m pleased to announce, I can now answer. Last week, the Twitterati and Facebookers forced the management of a multi-national company into defeat. This victory of democracy over autocracy was scored over the crucial, life-threatening and socially enhancing, question of the Gap logo, which the company’s management had the temerity to tweak. A little. Tens of thousands protested online and, within a blink of an eye, Gap backed down, reverting to the original logo. Phew. The lunatics truly are running the asylum. What on earth do the management think […]

vive le france

Carl - October 23, 2010

We’ve all heard the one about France being a great country apart from the fact that it’s full of the French but I like the French for one reason, and one reason alone. They love a good dispute and haven’t lost the ability to get off their Gallic backsides, march purposely down the closest rue and shake their fists at the powers that be. Viewed from across le manche, their current fury over the proposed pension reform is a little hard to get a grip on. They face the same economic crisis as all of us do and the same tightening of the belt is going to be necessary. But everything we accept with indifferent resignation and a shrug of the […]

learning not earning

Carl - October 18, 2010

Many of you will already know that I live in an isolated and privileged world where my household staff polish my rose-tinted spectacles daily whilst serving me lashings of 1940s life generously sprinkled with a liberal helping of Bevan’s idealistic philosophies (surely in this celebrity-chef-obsessed day and age it should be ‘drizzled’ with – ed?), but wasn’t there once a time, not so long ago, when higher education was seen as a social good, enriching our whole society, rather than merely enhancing an individual’s prospects for a greater salary? It was about learning not earning. Just a few short years ago it was at least billed as more about the UK producing a skilled, adept, intelligent and knowledgeable workforce, one which […]

one down, 108 to go

Carl - October 15, 2010

If there’s one thing we all learned from the last election it’s that if you claim you’re for everybody you end up being for nobody. All parties attempted to rally the nation, and especially middle England, with appeals for unity in the face of adversity but none succeeded enough to win a majority. To do that you obviously have to divide and conquer. Set your stall out for a group, a large enough group, woo them and you’ve a chance. Apparently the group everybody wants is the C1s. The C1s are lower-middle class, earning £20-40,000 and it’s these which kindly Thatcher and Major their victories, who defected to Blair and whom Cameron is now desperate to win back, lock, stock […]