Better Late Than Never - A Windfall Profits Tax

This week we had two major oil companies declaring extra high profits, Shell and Exxon. Exxon actually set a record high profit in the US for all industries, not just oil. There had never been a profit result that high before.

This blog in March gave the head of Shell, Jeroen van der Veer, the title of "an unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism" first awarded to Tiny Rowland by Edward Heath. My argument then was that van der Veer was trying to fight off any talk of a windfall profits tax. Big oil knew it had friends at the very top of the US political system in Bush and Cheney, but must have been a bit nervous in the UK of some of the Labour backbenchers.

A windfall profits tax on the oil companies was introduced in 1980 by Jimmy Carter on the oil companies who were gouging the public after the OPEC oil embargo. Now it seems that even some cabinet ministers in the UK are talking about it. See the BBC story "Ministers 'consider' windfall tax". Now the chances are that Brown will be against it, but for the next Labour leader in the Autumn it is important to get some basic Labour ideas across and this is one. Even Barak Obama is talking windfall taxes.

So will it be John Hutton who leads the first revolt against Brown in the government. Much as it doesn't taste very nice, the next Labour leader will be one of the Blair groupies, male or female, but it's not the person that's important but the policies that must change from the Blair/Brown Thatcherite ones in present use.

Credit where credit is due 2

Congratulations to the 19 brave Labour MPs who voted against the government on Post Office closures. It's going to be interesting to see Brown's response. Does New Labour seem to have far more Stalinist tendencies than old Labour?

Good to see Diane Abbott in the list - I enjoy watching her and Portillo with Andrew Neil on the BBC. Not surprised that ex-post office worker's union leader, Alan Johnson, isn't on the list.

Here's the full list - thanks to the BBC website.

Diane Abbott (Hackney North & Stoke Newington)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North)
John Cummings (Easington)
Andrew Dismore (Hendon)
David Drew (Stroud)
Frank Field (Birkenhead)
Paul Flynn (Newport West)
John Grogan (Selby)
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall)
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North)
John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington)
Eric Martlew (Carlisle)
Alan Meale (Mansfield)
Gordon Prentice (Pendle)
Alan Simpson (Nottingham South)
Geraldine Smith (Morecambe & Lunesdale)
Sir Peter Soulsby (Leicester South)
David Taylor (Leicestershire North West)
Mike Wood (Batley & Spen)

Elitism at Work

So Peter Hain resigns and Rose Gibb, who had already resigned, gets a £75,000 pay off. Rose Gibb was the chief of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust where up to 90 patients died due to a bacterial infection caused by poor cleaning. The cleaning problems were down to lack of staff. Rose Gibb was on a salary of £150,000. Alan Johnson made some noises about not paying her, but this was probably just to take our minds off the fact he didn't support his old friends in the postal workers union at the time. I don't want to take the cheap shots at Rose Gibb like Alan Johnson, the Murdoch tabloids can do that far better than either of us.

But... how can a government that made a point of giving the NHS so much more money than the Tories, and won the first Blair election against sleaze in the then Tory government, get into such a mess. It's the arrogance of the buggers that's get me. Peter Hain is not going to admit anything. Alan Johnson is not going to make any significant change to the NHS.

What is the problem with this New Labour. I suspect it's just a dose of elitism. They do trust the common people. They trust people like themselves, people who can be highly paid administrators in the NHS, not sisters, nurses and cleaners. The elite know better. Peter Hain can be as crooked as he wants because he is part of this elite.

Everyone wants to be a cavalier, nobody wants to be a roundhead. They all believe in their divine right to rule. There are no Levellers left. I'm no longer a revolutionary, but sometimes I wonder if the second British revolution is long overdue. We need a dose of common sense and commonwealth.

Or maybe Gordon Brown is like Oliver Cromwell's son Richard, just there to hand over power over to the cavaliers after his father's death. Just had a quick peep on Wikipedia. Richard Cromwell reigned for just 8 months. His enemies called him Tumbledown Dick and Queen Dick. What is it they calling Gordon Brown, Mr. Benn!

Golf Club Government

This Gordon Brown government really does represent its own class. The London ambulance driver and blogger at Random Acts of Reality says that GPs in the UK will get a 10% rise giving them an average salary of £110,000. At the same time other health workers are seeing a below inflation pay settlements. Well I guess they aren't at the club on weekends.

Alan Johnson, isn't this on your watch, or do you play golf too?

UK Post Office Workers

The Post Office workers have never been very militant. In 1971 Thatcher pushed them into a national post strike and beat them after 47 days. Tom Jackson was then their leader and a moderate left with nowhere else to go. Thatcher's government was in training for what was to come later with far stronger unions.

Fast-forward 36 years and we have Gordon Brown, New Labour and the ex-Saatchi and Saatchi spin doctor, Adam Crozier, doing it all again. Suddenly after years of not hearing it we are now told what "Spanish Practices" are. Come on Brown, if the worse you can say is they start work too early and then finish early then, no matter what spin you put on it, it is you and Crozier who are the aggressors.

Of course if your economic policies are Thacherite like Brown's then the destruction of basic infrastructure like the postal service is OK... but what about the Minister of Health? Alan Johnson, it's no good making statements about NHS administrators when old work colleagues of yours are in so much trouble. Didn't you ever benefit from these Spanish Practices? Isn't it about time you resigned from this government or are you totally without principles?

Alan Johnson

Why Klong Walking 2

Bad day today so got away before lunch and drove past where I usually walk to on the main canal. Parked outside Prawet police station and started walking from there. I had seen on the map outside the temple yesterday that there was a smaller side canal going north off the main canal not far from the police station. This is called Klong Mae Chan (Mother Chan Canal maybe? I will find out.) There were paths on both sides of this klong and I picked the left side. This was the correct choice as there was a section missing on the right side. See the picture below.


These paths are less travelled; the side next to me was a long wall sealing off a large new housing estate. Past that were the back doors to a temple called Wat Khun Mae Chan. Looked interesting and I will have to find the road to the front entrance one day. They had a covered boat house so canal transport must have been important once. Past the temple I crossed over a small road and the main eastern railway lines, under the new under construction skytrain and under the Chonburi motorway.

Ended up being a long walk as I wanted to get to the next road access so I could pick up the walk from there another day. The local authority was pushing this route as a cycle tour so the distances are more than a walk. The pathways don't seem in good enough condition for bikes to be honest. I had thought about getting a bike but I'm think walking allows me to think rather than having to concentrate on the path. I have trouble doing too many things at once now-a-days. I think a bit like Rainman or Forrest Gump. Probably closer to the former but Tom Hanks had the better lines as Forrest. "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you gonna get".

My brother was impressed by Gordon Brown at the news conference with George Bush the other day. I have too many doubts on him. I read a couple of years ago that there was no difference between him and Blair except he could talk Labour better. (Although Shirley Williams says Blair was very good at the "comrade" bit when he was searching for a constituency.) I don't consider there is much Labour in him at all. I'm reading a short book on John Smith and I think he still had some of the old labour principles.

Now I no longer think of the right of the Labour Party as my enemies but these guys now aren't really Labour. After the war Attlee, Morrison and Bevin led the world in a social experiment that is still something to be proud of. A little about me here. I left the UK in 1973 when Heath was the prime minister and Wilson still had anothet two years to serve after. Looking back I guess Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and the other guy (whose name nobody can remember without going to Wikipedia) must wished they had hung on a few more years.

And Alan Johnson, are you really going allow Crozier, who was responsible for hiring Sven for the England manager's job, to beat up on the post office workers, the people who elected you to the union job? Ernie Bevin you are not. Enough - I'm going to bed.