There is a surreal air to this morning.
Osborne wants to sell Lloyds when it remains a bank out of control.
There's enthusiasm for the appointment of a woman as COO at the Bank of England with less mention of the fact that she comes from a high Tory family. If that is not the maintenance of the system, what is?
And last night I was at a Labour One Nation tax event where Chris Wales, who is credited as founder of the Oxford Centre for Business Taxation was arguing that all the discussion of transparency and international tax was a side show as there was little or nothing we could do about it and the real issue of concern Labour should be addressing was why there as a £10,900 annual capital gains tax allowance, which he thought a matter of more significance. As an exercise in trying to distract attention it was absurd.
The world faces real issues of enormous significance and the perpetuation of the status quo by a process of distracting attention from reality is the main agenda for too many with vested interests.
I'm not sure if that is surreal or depressing; maybe it's both.
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Both I think. We need to keep the main thing the main thing, not look to the left or the right (prophetic?) but keep our eye on the prize!
It is a classic enemy tactic to try to distract. The key is to know what to engage with and what is a fruitless exercise. That requires discernment. We should name it for what it is, as you have done here, but engaging with it is a different matter.
On that note, was there any hope coming from last night’s meeting or is engaging with the “main” parties to influence policy before the election now itself a fruitless distraction?
“…..Chris Wales, who is credited as founder of the Oxford Centre for Business Taxation was arguing that all the discussion of transparency and international tax was a side show as there was little or nothing we could do about it and the real issue of concern Labour should be addressing was why there as a £10,900 annual capital gains tax allowance, which he thought a matter of more significance. As an exercise in trying to distract attention it was absurd.”
The Right are so confident of their ability to frame debate in the media that they feel free to come out with idiotic remarks and get away with it without. If the Left used similar techniques then they would appear to come from Neptune as Norm Chomsky would put it.
Justin Welby in on the act too: “Mr Welby warned his audience, gathered at Queen Mary, University of London, in the East End, against exaggerating the recession by describing it as the toughest ever time for families and young people…I think the time of the winter of 1940 probably beats today in terms of a tough time for families and young people, when almost every building in this area was damaged or destroyed by bombing – let’s be real about this,” he told his audience.” Ignoring the slight fact that the very institutions put in place after The Blitz and WW2 by the very courageous post war leadership that DID give the UK a moral vision are now being blitzed themselves. http://news.uk.msn.com/uk-morally-in-very-parlous-state
Here’s Rowan’s response to the report by the Commission on Banking Standards for those that are interested:-
http://rowans-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/a-fudge-too-far-response-to-commission.html
Yes, this sums up the position precisely. Meanwhile Charlotte Hogg is appointed Chief Operations Officer of BoE by incoming Mark Carney. Apart from the family connections Richard has mentioned, her career has followed a path which can only deliver more of the same. Morgan Stanley, Experian and Banco Santander?
To add the odd cliché, surreal is the new real. If you want reality you will see it in Singapore, currently having a major smog event.
“Business as normal”
http://euobserver.com/news/120549
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/06/osborne-offered-to-reopen-wealth-taxes-debate-in-exchange-for-more-welfare-cuts/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=osborne-offered-to-reopen-wealth-taxes-debate-in-exchange-for-more-welfare-cuts