Tuesday, 21st March, 2023 [Day 1100]

Today is the first day of Spring and it did not feel particularly spring-like as there was a bit of a blustery wind coupled with some pale sunshine. Nonetheless, one gets the feeling that the year is definitely ‘on the turn’ as the various flowering cherry trees are on the verge of bursting out all over. Meg and I were looking forward to what our local Waitrose staff call the ‘Tuesday morning glee club’ which is a fairly accurate description. We were delighted to meet up with two of our pre-pandemic friends in what is looking like a regular Tuesday morning fixture and we exchanged gossip on a variety of topics until it was time for us to do our little bits of shopping and then go on our way. When we got home, I ensure that Meg had her fair supply of food, drink and medicines before I changed into my Pilates gear and walked down into town. The class went as normal with only three class members altogether but we had a relaxation period at the end of our session as we typically do half way through and at the end of our six weekly group of lessons. Getting home in a blustery wind proved a little troublesome as I was manipulating a rucksack, my Pilates mat, my hat and two light bags of shopping but all’s well that ends well. When I got home I prepared my typical Tuesday lunch of fishcakes and quick-cook vegetables and then settled down for a newspaper read and a rest.

The Boris Johnson dossier has at last been published so now the battle lines are drawn for the mammoth committee meeting tomorrow afternoon. In the dossier there is an admission that Parliament was misled but the whole thrust of the Johnson defense is that this was not done knowingly or recklessly and that all his statements were made ‘in good faith’ It is also argued that he always followed the advice offered to him and to suggest otherwise is to impugn the integrity of anyone who advised him. As Johnson himself argues in his written evidence to the committee, published today, it was ‘unprecedented and absurd’ to claim that relying on assurances from ‘trusted advisers’ was ‘in some way reckless’. So the stage is well and truly set for a piece of remarkable political theatre which will occupy our TV screens for about four hours tomorrow afternoon, starting at 2.00pm. No doubt, each side is incredibly well rehearsed and all of the arguments are well known by now but will there be one damning moment of truth revealed tomorrow afternoon? We shall all have to wait and see.

The Johnson affair was totally outshadowed this morning by the Casey report into the Metropolitan Police, whose findings are about as damning as it is possible to be. Baroness Casey was appointed to review the force’s culture and standards after the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, in 2021. During the course of her review, another Met officer, David Carrick, was convicted of a series of rapes, sexual offences and torture of women. The 363-page report condemns the force as institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic, referencing racist officers and staff, routine sexism, and ‘deep-seated’ homophobia. Some of particular findings of the canteen culture make one’s jaw drop. For example, a fridge which contained samples which were critical for the successful prosecution of rape cases was lost when the fridge was not maintained and the samples were effectively lost. In addition, some of the initiation rites described were enough to turn one’s stomach, such as urinating on new recruits as an initiation ceremony. Young female police cadets were regarded as fair game and as ‘easy conquests’ and hence hd to repel repated advances from fellow officers. Both the Commissioner of the police and also the Home Secretary though have distanced themselves from Baroness Casey’s view that the racism, sexism and homophobia were ‘institutionalised’ and the failure to accept this word may well mean that any root and branch reform of the Met is doomed from the start. The Met was also accused of institutionalised racism at the time of the Stephen Lawrence enquiry (black teenager killed by a white gang decades ago) so nothing much appears to have been learnt in the meantime.

Now that the meeting between Putin and Xi is over, the analysts are busy examining the sequelae of the meeting. The two leaders are both frustrated with America. Putin has felt betrayed by the US for a decade since NATO’s intervention in Libya. President Xi is fed up with America’s decades-long dominance of the world order and eager to replace it with something more congenial to China’s interests. But although there was a lot of carefully orchestrated bonhomie on show between the two leaders, there is now an acknowlegement that Putin is in effect a vassal state of China and that Xi undoubtedly holds all of the aces. There is some evidence that the Russians are seeking a supply of Chinese weapons but the Chinese are sitting on their hands at the moment, conscious that they have to play quite a careful political game, appearing to support Russia but not actually doing very much.

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Monday, 20th March, 2023 [Day 1099]

So Monday morning dawned as a generally gloomy day but we thought we would get ourselves up and breakfasted before we made any more explicit plans for the rest of the morning. Eventually, as it was inclined to drizzle, we decided to make the best of the morning and a little trip out by making a visit to our local Morrisons. This is a store that we used to frequent before the arrival of the Aldis of this world and it is still worth the occasional visit for the variety of produce and household goods on sale there. Once we made our way there, we bought a few food items that we know are not stocked in our normal shopping haunts and then came home to have some elevenses at home. It was soon time for the Politics show that is broadcast on BBC2 after midday and one of the items dominating the airways was the forthcoming appearance of Boris Johnson before the Privileges committee next Wednesday afternoon. Boris Johnson has submitted a dossier of evidence and I have heard stories that it is both 50 and also 500 pages long. Assuming it is 50 pages long, it is said to contain the text of various WhatsApp messages which appear to reinforce Johnson’s claim that he was acting ‘legally’ at the various parties that he undoubtedly attended. But this claim might not be all that it seems as the context of the WhatsApp message is significant. It has been mentioned that one of the messges indicated ‘the line to take’ which is scarcely the same as the strict adherence to the lockdown policy. The Committee of Privileges has said that it intends to publish the Johnson evidence in full but this has not been done so far and may not even happen until tomorrow. No doubt, members of the committee and perhaps even the lawyers advising them, will ensure that the document is well and truly perused before they contemplate releasing it to the public. Although Wednesday’s hearing will no doubt be compulsive viewing for many of us, it is predicted that the whole hearing which is televised live may well be 4-5 hours in length altogether. This is evidently going to be quite a marathon session for Johnson who will no doubt have his legal advisor (Lord Pannick) sitting by his side but the responsibility for answering the questions will be Johnson’s alone. One of the contributors to the BBC2 Politics progrmme this morning made the observation that Johnson is notoriously poor in mastering the details of a brief. It may well be that his, by now traditional, tactics of bluff and bluster may convince some of the committee for some of the time but in the course of a 4-5 hour examination by MPs which will be quite unlike the exchanges found across the floor of the House of Commons that Johnson may well make a crucial slip or, at least, display a lack of openness and integrity. In all probability, Wednesday may well be a bit of an anti-climax unless a real ‘smoking gun’ is revealed because the committee may well spent some weeks of discussion and wrangling before a decision emerges. There are three factors that may work to the eventual undoing of Boris Johnson. The first of these is that the committee may not wish that it is guilty of some kind of whitewash, particularly after it has published an interim report indicating that there may well have been four occasions when Johnson misled Parliament (whether intentionally or not remains a matter of conjecture) The second factor is that in the country as a whole, Rishi Sunak is generally reckoned to be doing a reasonable job having secured the Windsor agreement on the application of the Brexit conditions to Northern Ireland. By contrast, Boris Johnson’s star is fading and it is probably the case that apart from fervent supporters, he is losing support for his cause overall. The third factor is one of the mot interesting. This is that Rihi Sunk is going to allow Tory MPs a ‘free’ vote (i.e. unwhipped) which means that MPs can vote according to their conscience. This factor, along with the votes of all of the opposition parties, is likely to be the undoing of Johnson.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump appears to be in more than a spot of bother. It could well be, that as he warned his supporters the other day, he will be liable for arrest next Tuesday because of payments long denied to ex-pornstar with whom he may have had a brief fling – if that is the right word. Trump’s supporters have indicated that they might surround his residence to attempt to prevent any arrest being made. There is also news on the street that Trump supporters are arming themselves with the type of rifles that would enable them to shoot down any police helicopters that may be brought in to arrest the ex-President. In view of the mob that ran amok through the Capitol building about two years ago, this seemingly mad activity might yet come to pass. The legal authorities are still to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant and how it is to be served so the news from across the Atlantic may (literally) be explosive.

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Sunday, 19th March, 2023 [Day 1098]

Today proved to be an interesting day for a variety of reasons. After listening to the obligatory Lorna Kuenssberg politics programme whilst having our Sunday morning breakfast on our knees (a Sunday morning ritual), we were in two minds about our Sunday morning excursion. One option was to prepare a flask of coffee and go the park if the weather was quite fine whereas the second option was to frequent Waitrose. Our dilemma was solved for us by a timely telephone call from our University of Birmingham friend inviting us to meet with him at Waitrose which invitation we readily accepted. Altogether we spent a couple of hours in each other’s company and one of the topics of conversation was to the extent to which languages with which we are familiar have words within them that are not susceptible to a ready translation whereas some other popular exressions may well be misinterpreted. The prime example of the former concept is the German word ‘schadenfreude’ whih is best rendered into English by the phrase ‘a malicious delight in other persons misfortune’. The second instance we heard on the TV the other day when the French president Macron met with Rishi Sunak and called him ‘mon cher ami’ A literal transation of this, word by word, would be ‘my dear friend’ which would apper to imply some degree of intimacy which should not be conveyed by the words. A good translator would translate ‘mon cher ami’ as ‘my good friend’ which could well be used by friends all over the world. And, of course, the example sprang to my mind when one of our former Spanish students asked us what the English equivaent was of the political concept ‘coup d’etat’ only be told that we use the French phrase in English as we do not have an exact equivalence. By the time we got home, it was all rather late to cook our chicken legs which I always prefer to be well-done to keep any potential salmonella infection at bay, so we raided the freezer for a quiche which we had instead with carrots glazed with honey and some broccoli.

After lunch, I sat and read the Sunday newspapers at my leisure but we had on in the background the classic film, Brief Encounter, shot in black and white in February, 1944 (i.e. before the end of WW2) but premiered in November after the war was over. Whilst I listened to the dialogue in the background, eventually I allowed myself to watch the last fifteen minutes which are emotionally intense and riveting. I think critics will argue for years about the characters and the scenarios captured within the film but I will admit that it is always worth watching from time to time, even if it has been seen before. We have a good prospect of natural history films, not to mention Rugby catchup, which is going to keep our attention until well on into the evening. One way or another, the Ireland vs. England match did not get recorded on our PVR yesterday afternoon so I will enjoy the summary a day later.

All eyes will be on Westminster on Wednesday afternoon when Boris Johnson will appear live before the Committee on Privileges. The interesting question is whether Boris Johnson, in David Cameron’s words, will eventually escape ‘like a greased piglet’. First of all, this committee has already, in an interim report, concluded that Johnson ‘probably’ misled the House of Commons i.e. lied. But Johnson is Houdini-like in his ability to escape from almost impossible political situations. He is likely to be helped by the fact that Sir David Pannick, a top lawyer funded by us, the taxpayers, has produced a large dossier with several counterclaims. The Sunday Times reported he will point to a series of previously undisclosed WhatsApp messages from senior civil servants and members of his No 10 team showing that he had relied upon their advice when he made his statements to Parliament. He will also publish messages which show that other senior figures in Downing Street believed the gatherings were covered by the ‘workplace exemption’ in the lockdown rules. By itself, this may be enough to allow Johnson to escape. An important actor is not whether Johnson misled the House of Commons (which he did) but whether he ‘knowingly’ misled and this is incrediby hard to prove. The committee may try to have it both ways by finding Johnon guilty, as it were, but by issuing sanctions which fall short of the expulsion for the number of days necessary to trigger a potential recall by the electorate. I still think that on the balance of probabilities, that this will be the most likely outcome.

We may be on the verge of another banking crisis. Credit Suisse is being taken over by UBS, another giant Swiss banking group, but given the inter-connectedness of the banking sector, one always gets the feeling that there are several other banks feeling the pressure but keeping their heads under the radar as it were. A number of small banks in the USA have already gone under but once a contagion starts and investors in banks panic, where does it all end? I fear that there is quite a lot more to this crisis that the authorities are desperately trying to contain.

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Saturday, 18th March, 2023 [Day 1097]

Today was one of those days when we knew we did not have to dash out for anything in particular, so we each had a leisurely shower followed by our normal cooked breakfast. The weather looked gloomy and a little rainy so we decided that it might be a good idea to make a lighning visit into Droitwich to Wilko, my favourite hardware store. After we picked up our Saturday newspaper, we did make a trip into Droitwich and the fates must have been smiling upon me because the little tray/table that I knew that Wilko stocked and of which I needed to make use was in stock. So this was one of those occasions when Meg stayed in the car whilst I made a quick dash to get what I wanted from within the store and then it was a case of getting home amd having our somewhat delayed elevenses at home.
After this, I gave my newly acuired little tray/table a quick dab of polish and then installed it where I wanted it to be and it slotted into place exactly how I intended and wanted. We knew that today was going to be the final day of the 6-Nations rugby and the two critical matches were Wales against France during the afternoon and Ireland vs.England in the early evening. This latter match only starts at 5.00pm in the afternoon so we have decided that we would not even start to watch it but we would rely upon the PVR recording the match in its entirety and we will watch it when we get home after church. I had temporarily forgotten about the earlier Scotland vs. Italy match and after we had made our ourelves a pasta/ curry lunch, we thought we would watch the last 10 minutes of it. Italy were only five points behind Scotland and in the closing minute or so of the match, the Italians were only inches away from the try line. If they had scored a try under the posts and then made a simple conversion, this would have been the first match that Italy had won in the 6-Nations championship. After being awarded a series of penalties and then deploying the tactic of ‘tap and go’, the Ialians assaulted the Scots try line again and again but eventually a technical penalty went against them. From this, although the clock had gone over the 80 minutes but in Rugby, the match does not end until the ball goes out of play, we saw the spectacle of a Scotland breakaway try in which the backs and wingers ran the full length of the pitch and scored a try at the oher end. So the final score did not reflect how close the Italians had come to actually snatching their first victory. As I remember it, something rather similar happened in the Italy vs. France match as well.

As I flicking through the channels, I noticed that on BBC2 they were showing the film of Dr. Zhivago. Now alongside Amadeus, this is absolutely our favourite film of all time. I think we first saw it in about 1967 in Leicester Square in London so the film is now over a half cntury old but still compelling in its story telling, cinematography and the quality of the acting, not least from Omar Sharif, Julie Christie and Tonia Chapman as I remember them. So this is going to be a real treat for us to watch tomorrow afternoon. Before lunch, there was a ring on the doorbell and it was our friendly next door neighbour, just popping round to see how we were were doing. We have a long standing invitation for them to pop round for an afternoon tea but so far, things seem to have happened for both of us to get in the way of this happening. Our neigbour had one of his wife’s relatives staying with them for a few days, but we promised ourselves that as soon as their little engagement was over, we would both really try and find the time for our long planned cup of tea and a chat. Tomorrow, if the weather is as fine as it turned out to be this afternoon, Meg and I will make a visit to the park which has been a little neglected by us these days. If however, the weather is really wet and rainy, then we shall see our University of Birmingham friend in the Waitrose café as we often do on Sunday mornings. In the last few days, we have noticed that two sets of bloom can be witnessed. First in the hedgerows, there is plenty of white blossom of what I think is hawthorn but when I mentioned this to friends in Oxfordshire the other day, she thought that in that part of the world it was probably blackthorn. But there are several flowering cherries up and down the Kidderminster Road and this is really a sign to us that spring is well and truly on its way. Next weekend will see a combination of the clocks going back, the start of the lawn mowing season and my son’s birthday all of which almost coincide with each other. I must remind myself to get some freshly drawn petrol so that the lawnmover gets off to a trouble-free start as well.

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Friday, 17th March, 2023 [Day 1096]

Today we leapt up relatively bright and early even though we still felt a little tired after the journey of yesterday, but it was not a stressful one. As we had not done our normal weekly shopping yesterday, I went off and did it this morning. After this was unpacked, we cooked our breakfast and then received a mobile call confirming that we were due to meet our University of Birmingham friend in Waitrose at the usual time this morning. So we made our way there and sent a very happy hour or so, discussing amongst other things the contribution that radio has made to popular culture. There was a reason for this because our friend goes off to a French discussion class once a week and this week he had been designated to lead a discussion group, in French naturally, on this topic. Of course, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of any one medium historically but in discussion we did the best that we could. I suggested that one might start to address this topic by looking at the continuum that can be observed when we had a monolithic broadcaster and only a few channels to listen to (the early days of the BBC) whereas today we have a multiplicity of stations, methods of listening to them and massively divergent messages emanating from each. Then when we returned home, we cooked a bought fish pie complemented by some vegetables and cooked in the oven.

This morning as I did my weekly shop I bought some plums, shipped from I know not where, but evidently what the supermarkets tend to somewhat coyly declaim ‘Ripen in bowl’ which means that the fruit was picked unripe and they hope that within the passage of time and the absence of a cold store that they may, with a bit of luck, ripen sufficiently to be edible. To be honest, the plums were reasonably edible of the one we tested so the rest might turn out OK. When we were students, we rented a maisonnette on top of a row of modern shops, one of which was a Spa supermarket. Evidently, we did not have to go far to do our shopping but in those days, in the mid 1960’s, one used to await the very earliest potatoes of early spring which I think were sourced from Egypt. Then we progressed as the crops came to fruition first from the Canary Islands (off the coast of Africa) and then I think to Cornwall and the Scilly Isles and eventually these would give place to our own ‘First Earlies’. Of course, nowadays the potatoes are kept in a cold store, sprayed with a chemical to inhibit early sprouting (or ‘chitting’ if you were a gardener) before they are released on an all the year round basis. So being nostalgic, I did prefer the days when fruits and vegetables were only available in their own season and not all of the year round.

Some interesting news about the settlement of the NHS unions and the government have emerged today. Yesterday, the story was being put about that the whole deal would cost £2.5bn. But today Downing Street has admitted that the one-off payment offered to frontline workers on Thursday will cost £2.7bn, while the 5% pay rise will cost £1.3bn. It is also being said that a 3.5% pay increase had already been factored into the existing budget before a new deal was put to health unions, leaving ministers scrambling to find the rest. When asked where the money will come from, the PM’s spokesperson said ‘areas of underspending’ had been identified but I would expect that the NHS will squeezed to fund some of the settlement via so-called efficiency savings. As a result of the talks yesterday, the same model is being used in the teachers’ pay negotiations so it looks as though after weeks of refusing to come to the negotiating table, the government have already concluded that inflation is on the way down and therefore they can afford to actually start talking to the unions after some weeks of delay.

There is also news this afternoon that the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for the arrest of Vladimir Putin on the grounds of the illegal transportation of Ukrainian children into Russia itself. It may be years, if at all, that Putin is ever brought to trial but there are some practical implications. The most important impact of the warrant is that Putin could, in theory, be arrested as soon as he leaves Russia, although countrries to which he travels may be reluctant to actually hand him over. No doubt, the ICC is hopeful that the issue of a warrant and therefore the labelling of Putin as an international criminal may be a litte lever to assist the Russian people in ejecting him as President. But given the hold of the media and the absence of meaningful ‘normal’ opposition to Putin, such a hope may be a vain one. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, is to visit Moscow shortly but as China does not recognise the ICC, then this warrant will not trouble the Chinese in any negotiations they have with the Russians. So far the Chinese have supported the Russians but it is possible that their support may wear a little thin.

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Thursday, 16th March, 2023 [Day 1095]

Today was a day to which we had been looking forward for some time because we were scheduled to visit our close friends in South Oxfordshire for a lunch time appointment. We picked up our newspaper and then made steady progress along the M40 and A34 towards the point at which we pick up the road tht runs close by our friends. But then I missed the ring road link around Oxford which always a little tricky to negotiate. So then we had to have recourse to our SatNav and finished off with a detour around Dicott until the SatNav route coincided with one that we already knew. So we were not delayed by much either in terms of miles driven or time elapsed but only our coffee break was a little delayed and was taken only a few miles short of our destination. Our friends were as friendly and welcoming as always and we had a wonderful meal of chicken. But the thing which is always interesting to observe is that friends live in an area where some red kites are often to be seen. They have quite a large conservatory built onto their farm house and as well as being delightfully restful, it is always possible to observe the local wildlife. So after each meal, the left over bones are left out on a bird-table and the sharp eyed red kites note this and then swoop down with unerring precision to avail themselves of the bones with hardly a pause in their trajectory. After a wonderful lunch and chat, it was reluctantly time for us to start our journey home but our friends very kindly donated to us a couple of lanyards for which we will now have a use. In the course of our post-prandial chat, it emerged that our friend had written a biography of his own father and I was lent a loan copy of the book. This I am sure I will find fascinating because I already know a fair bit about my friend’s interesting life but his father was (literally) a ‘closed book’ until now. Whilst on the subject of artificial intelliegence, our friend demonstrated the use of his Google smart speaker. I have never used one of these before but my friend let me have a go. I asked for the salient features of Wittgenstein’s philosophy only be told that, regretfully, the system could not understand my question. The journey home was uneventful and fairly straightforward apart from the fact that half way through the journey, the rains started and this intensified as we proceeded northwards. We arrived in Bromsgrove almost on the dot of 6.00pm and it was really raining hard when we got home. Nonetheless, our arrival home was greeted by one bedraggled Miggles (neighbourhood cat who has adopted us) and who no doubt thought that a lttle titbit might be forthcoming.

As we drove home, we heard the news on the BBC4 PM programme that a settlement had been reached with the health service unions. The offer consists of a one-off payment of 2% of their salary plus a COVID recovery bonus of 4% for the current financial year 2022/23, and a 5% pay increase for 2023/24. It will apply to key NHS workers including nurses and paramedics but not junior doctors, who are involved in a separate dispute over pay and conditions. From the government point of view,framing the offer of a one-off payment has the advantage of ths sum not being consolidated into the worker’s basic pensionable pay. It also means that it is possible to disguise what has actually been paid in settlement of this year and therefore allows the government a certain degree of face saving. But tonight, on the Channel 4 news, we learnt that a settlement had been agreed between the Department of Health (as quasi-employers) and the unions. On the other hand, it has emerged that despite the fact that HM Treasury was present throughout the negotiations, they have not agreed to fund the £2.5 million that this will cost. There is some talk that the NHS itself might be asked to cough up some of the money (even though it cannot be afforded) but it is also possible that the Treasury may be able to fund some of the bill from ‘departmental underspends’ at the end of the current financial year. This does rather sound like the Treasury equivalent of finding some money that has fallen down the back of the sofa but the fact that a settlement has been agreed at all cannot be unrelated to the fact that we had a national budget yesterday. Sky News reports that the walkouts in the NHS have also created a very specific political problem for the prime minister who has made reducing waiting lists one of his five key pledges – a target he will not be able to hit whilst workers are on the picket line. So, it is no surprise that this is the area that has been the focus of the most intense negotiations. There is also the prospect that a similar deal can be negotiated with other groups of workers such as teachers and, in the fullness of time, striking junior hospital doctors who are just ending their three day strike the impact of which must have been traumatic.

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Wednesday, 15th March, 2023 [Day 1094]

Today was the day before we made our little trip down to Oxfordshire tomorrow so we picked up our newspaper and then called in at Waitrose to take along one or two little offerings for our friends. We settled upon a bottle of liquid sunshine and some interesting succulents in a very original (heart-shaped) container. Then we journeyed on to the park where we were determined not to stay too long, even though the weather was not particularly unpleasant. We stayed on our usual bench just long enough to have a swift cup of coffee from our flask and then immediately struck for home. We know that today was Questions to the Prime Minister immediately followed by the Budget statement so we ensured that we were sitting in our places, warmed by a cup of chicken noodle soup, before proceedings kicked off at 12.00. PMQ was fairly unexceptional with the usual knock-about with the sequelae of the Gary Lineker affair still rumbling on. The Budget statement had been well trailed and so did not contain many surprises as the provisions for extra support with child care costs had been by and large released to the media for a day or so now. In years gone by, it used to be the case that the Budget was kept well and truly under wraps until it was delivered on Budget day. But a practice seems to have grown up over the years whereby any news that was considered to be ‘good’ is comprehensively leaked a day or so beforehand. I suspect that all of this is part of a deliberate strategy to make a budget more attractive by making the same announcement in effect more than once so that the government can get the credit several times over. One of the features of Budget day is that a very full and detailed document, full of graphs, diagrams and statistical tables, is made available online as soon as the Chancellor of the Exchequeur gets on his feet and starts to deliver the Budget. There are some MPs, and an army of other analysts, who are well used to burrowing away into the ‘small print’ and the fine detail of Budget statements and there are often little time bombs ticking away that somehow did not get included in the full speech delivered to Parliament. Sometimes this news can take hours, or even days, to trickle out when MPs and others have had the chance to read and digest the full import of the Budget statement. For example, the Chancellor had made great play of some of the measure deployed to get people back ino work. But the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) has published figures that show that over five years, some 110,000 people may be encouraged to rejoin the labour force. But given the amunts of money that are to be spent, this policy may prove to be a case of spending quite a lot to achieve only a little and there may well be similar instances of this type that get slowly revealed. As you might expect, there was one provision which is already exciting some attention. By abolishing the limit on the size of pension pots (the current limit being £1 million!), then there will certainly be a benefit to quite well paid hospital consultants. On the other hand, the extremely wealthy will benefit enormously from this as the numbers of people who can accrue more than £1 million in their private pension pots must be extremely small.

Meanwhile, there are some economic storm clouds that are gathering as a result of the failure of the American bank, Silicon Valley Bank. It looks as though a certain amount of contagion is spreading across the Atlntic already. The FTSE 100 and other major European stock markets have taken a beating as concern over the health of US banks crosses the Atlantic. London’s blue chip index lost £75bn in combined market value by the close after suffering its deepest fall, on a points basis, since the early days of the COVID crisis. One would hope that our banking system should be sufficiently resilient to withstand these shocks, but we can never be quite sure given the interconnectedness of financial institutions these days.

I see from a display stand in the newsagents that next Sunday is the day when the nation is to celebrate ‘Mothers Day’. Over the years, I have thought that the whole impetus behind this day was largely driven by an unholy alliance of greetings card manufacturers, chocolate makers and florists. However, if I think back to my childhood in the 1950’s, we lived in a largely uncommercial environment but our primary schools encouraged us to make our own Mother’s Day cards. Also we were encouraged, particularly if we lived in or near the countryside, to pluck some early spring flowers (if there are any) and to make a small bouquet and this I am sure we did. Towards the end of the month, though, we have the Eastertime sporting events which tells us that the year has turned. I think that on very rare occasions, it was quite possible for the Boat Race and the Grand National to fall on the same day but this a pretty rare occurence.

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Tuesday, 14th March, 2023 [Day 1093]

Tuesdays come around like the proverbial clockwork and we always look forward to our Tuesday mornings. Meg and I were a little delayed this morning but nonetheless we had our breakfast, picked up our newspaper and then got ourselves into Waitrose at our usual time. There we met up with two of our Tuesday morning regulars and quickly engaged in our normal chat. One of our friends has a Dutch sister-in-law. We asked if she would ask her sister-in-law about ‘Black Peter’ who is a traditional companion to St. Nicholas, but the Dutch feel a little ambiguous about him these days. According to Wikipedia ‘The Zwarte Piet character is part of the annual Feast of St. Nicholas that is celebrated on the evening of 5 December (Sinterklaasavond, which is known as St. Nicholas Eve in English) in the Netherlands and elsewhere. This is when presents and sweets are traditionally distributed to children. The holiday is celebrated on 6 December in Belgium. The Zwarte Piet characters appear only in the weeks before the Feast of Saint Nicholas, first when the saint is welcomed with a parade as he arrives in the country (generally by boat, having travelled from Madrid, Spain).‘ In the past, characters used to dress up as ‘Black Peter’ donning medieval garb and blacking their faces but, as with the Black and White Minstrels show in the UK, probably the Dutch feel that this tradition has had its day in these times when we celebrate diversity and is best forgotten. After our normal jolly chat, though, we went on our way around the store, each of having little bits of shopping to get done. Then it was a case of getting home and, in our case, getting prepared for my Pilates class which takes place at midday on Tuesdays. As I walked down into town, it was a delightful, almost spring-like day and I noticed that several of the flowering cherry trees were just on the point of bursting into bloom. I suppose that in biological terms, when there is a mild spell following a much colder and frostier period, this stimulates part of the plant to start the blooming process. The most likely time to reach peak bloom is between the last week of March and the first week of April so I suppose the second week of March for flowering cherries to start to bloom is about right. In any case, it is a real harbinger of spring. Being interested in the origins of words, I wondered about the origins of ‘harbinger’ and I discovered that ‘harbinger’ has been used in English since at least the 1100s. It comes from Middle English, from a variant of the Old French herberg(i)ere, which meant ‘host’ and was equivalent to the verb herberg(ier), ‘to shelter.’ Harbinger was originally used in English to refer to a host or someone who provides lodgings.

We are due for a couple of interesting Wednesdays. Firstly, we have the budget tomorrow in which it has been trailed that the pension pot limit of £1 million may be raised to £1.8 million. If this pre-release of information is correct, then it may have a considerable impact upon the relatively well-paid consultants within the NHS. These may be persuaded not to take a premature retirement from the NHS as,if they were not to retire early, they may well have been adversely impacted by the pension cap limit of £1 million (reduced in a George Osborne budget from £1.25 million in 2015). But the following Wednesday may be the real date in our calendar. Boris Johnson is due to appear in person before the Privileges Committee at 2.0pm in the afternoon and the committee hearings will be broadcast live. The Committee already has sufficiently documentary, witness and photographic evidence to come to a conclusion that Boris Johnson probably misled the House of Commons but it may be a fight for his political life. The Committee have to decide, though, whether Johnson ‘knowingly’ misled the Commons and this is a very hard thing to prove. Even if the decision goes against him, the MPs will to have to decide on the penalty. In most cases this would be an apology to the whole House of Commons, held in silence and with no interruptions. But in severe cases, the committee can decide an expulsion for a number of days from the Commons. If the days are 10 or more, then the electors in a constituency will have the right to demand a ‘recall’ elction, and given his smallish majority, he is likely to lose this in the present climate. If I had to make a prediction at this point of time, it would be that the Privileges Committee find him ‘guilty’ but pull their punches somewhat by suspending him from the Commons but for a number of days less than ten when a recall might be triggered. There are some further technicalities in that the Privileges Committee will have to report back to the whole House of Commons for ratification. All MPs will then vote to ratify or disagree with their conclusions and any recommended sanctions. Now this might be gripping television in just a week’s time but the Committee itself may take some to argue amongst themselves before a conclusion is reached.

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Monday, 13th March, 2023 [Day 1092]

This morning dawned wet and windy and it was not the kind of day that naturally welcomed you outside, but the weather was surprisingly mild once we eventually did venture out. After a leisurely breakfast, Meg and I went in the car to pick up our newspaper and then ventured onwards to a ‘Home and Garden’ type store. Here I was hoping to find something that would act as little miniature speaker stands and I did find some small, clear perspex-type containers that would suit the purpose for which I had them in mind. My first thought was to add a level of tape to them but eventually I thought they would look all right in their natural condition so I have put them in place and can now forget about them. Just before we left the house, the news came through that Gary Lineker and the BBC came to a ‘modus vivendi’ which seemed to be very sensible. On the one hand, the BBC committed itelf to reviewing its guidelines and how the issue of non-salaried, freelance presenters should be handled. Gary Lineker, for his part, indicated that he would refrain from any tweet that might be seen as controversial until the BBC review is completed and new understandings were in place. Incidentally, this might be extraordinarily difficult to draft but the BBC has to make the effort. Meg and I started to watch the Politics program chaired just after midday by Jo Coburn. I have the greatest respect for her as a journalist and as a presenter because she does not allow her own personality to become part of the debate (a common failing, it has to be said). But the whole panel discussion started off with the question ‘Did the BBC cave in to Gary Lineker?’ which question was no doubt framed to be a good discussion point but to my mind completely reduced a complex issue to a sort of boxing match in which there had to be winners and losers. I felt that the BBC for its part was taking the view that guidelines cannot be set in stone but have to be adapted to changing environments (not least one in which the social media is so much more prominent). On the other hand, I am sure that Gary Lineker may have felt that he could have had a wiser choice of words and had not fully appreciated how the thrust of his tweet against the rhetoric that was being deployed (not least by our own Home Secrtary) could be weaponised. Long term opponents of the BBC (and some who are not) feel that Lineker might have been making a direct comparison between the present Goverment and the Nazi regime of 1930’s Germany. So each side to this particular dilemma probably realise that they need to move closer to each other and to find a common, negotiated position and this is what has transpired. The attention may now shift away from Lineker and towards Richard Sharp, the chairperson of the BBC who is currently under investigation for his role in securing a huge £800,000 loan to Boris Johnson and whose future may now be in doubt – and we may be talking says here rather than weeks or months. Keir Starmer describes Sharp’s position as ‘increasingly untenable’ as Rishi Sunak offers lukewarm defence of BBC chair so the omens do not look good.

This afternoon, we had a quiet afternoon watching a wild-life film on BBC2 (which makes a welcome change to the ‘Dream Home in the Country’ type programs that seem to be on every single day) One of our congregation called round from the church to collect our box in which we are meant to collect contributions for the missions but which we make sure has some contribitions inside before it is emptied. Then we had a good read of the Sunday newspapers which we did not have time for yesterday as well as today’s Times. The problem is, though, that a lot of current concerns have been rather taken over by events as the Lineker affair becomes resolved.

We may just have averted another bank collapse. This time, it is a small bank specialising in loans to hi-tech companies (Silicon Valley Bank) whose parent company has just gone belly up in the United States. For the short term, a buyer has been found (HSBC who are buying the bank for £1). The Bank of England has given certain assurances i.e. that it would not face onerous anti-money laundering checks for its new customers and that it would not have to take responsibility for any previous misconduct at SVB UK. However, these are the public assurances, but I wonder how much secret money has sloshed through the system but disguised from public view. This is not difficult for the Bank of England to disguise in that HSBC will be the technical owners but the Bank of England might have given HSBC hidden assurnces that helps to finance the whole deal. Also, the question must be asked as to how many more ‘unexploded bombs’ are lying around in the financial system, because whereas one bank may have got into difficulties, it is a fair bet that other banks in these troubled financial times might be experiencing similar problems.

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Sunday, 12th March, 2023 [Day 1091]

After a delayed breakfast, Meg and I watched the Lorna Kuennssberg show to glean the latest from the BBC/Lineker affair. It seems to us as though the BBC is moving rapidly to repair whatever damage has been caused and hopfully we shall see ‘normal service will be resumed as soon as possible’ which is always the message put about when the BBC had a break in transmission. Incidentally, it is interesting how rarely that takes place these days. We had a quick mobile call from our University of Birmingham friend to confirm our meeting in Waitrose just before 11.00pm. Altogether, we spent the best part of two hours in each other’s company which cannot be bad. There was quite a lot of going down memory lane, I am afraid, but our friend and ourselves tended to have similar experience and the resolution of issues when we were at work – which was 15½ years ago in my case. Then he asked me various details about this blog such as ‘Why do you do it?’ to which there was no definitive answer. I think that the short answer is that I started this blog at the very start of the pandemic lock-down (as I thought it might be an interesting social history) but when the pandemic ended, I just carried on. Anyway, after our pleasant bit of socialising, it was case of getting home and cooking the Sunday lunch which today was relatively straightforward as we used the other half of a cooked gammon joint which I had frozen about a month ago and just needed thawing, slicing and adding to some of my onion gravy.

This afternoon was rather taken up by watching the Ireland-Scotland 6-Nations rugby match. This match was surprising close and very hard fought in the first half with only one point separating the two sides at half time. But then as you might expect from the top team in the world at the moment, the Irish gradually extended their lead despite some injuries and forced substitutions but as a match it was entertaining and far from the foregone conclusion that you might have thought before the match started. We have a good evening of entertainment lined up for this evening and we always enjoy the Andrew Neil show which is normally on about 6.00ish as the level of questionning and analysis tends to exceed that on some of the political shows over the weekend. In this evening’s show, for example, I saw Andrew Neil comprehensively take apart Victoria Atkins who is a Tory Treasury Minister. Neil kept pressing his question why it was that the UK economy had failed to reach pre-pandemic levels and we were alone amongst the G7 economies in not being able to recover lost ground. When asked a series of more technical questions (e.g. debt to GDP rtio) she did not know the answer and had to confess to not knowing. Eventually in sheer desperation,she volunteered that we had the NHS to pay for and this was why the UK was doing so badly. Andrew Neil reminded her that Italy, too, had a national health service to which answer was there none. I should imagine that the politicos at Conservative Central Office must have been squirming in their seats at Atkin’s absysmal performance and I predict that she will never be allowed near a TV studio ever again this side of an election. As we have been so busy what with one thing or another this Sunday, I have scarcely got round to reading any of the Sunday Times but no doubt this will wait a little, unless overtaken by events.

This week we have the budget on Wednesday which does not have the level of interest that it used to do. It is interesting that two particular issues have crept up the political agenda about which ‘something needs to be done’ but it is not really a question of dispute between the political parties. The first of these is childcare costs in the UK which are the highest in Europe and twice the European average. These costs are now so enormous that childcare is completely unaffordable for many couples. The average cost of sending a child under two to a nursery for 25 hours per week (part-time) has risen to £7,729 per year (52 weeks) and this figure would wipe out the part-time earnings of many young women. The deterrent effect of this is hard to overstate and is acting as quite a drag on the UK economy. Another major factor is the fact that many older workers have disappeared from the labour force even though they are not yet of retirement age. It looks as though half a million workers, predominantly in their 50’s and early 60’s, have now left the labour force. Some of this is due to redundancy of older workers who then fail to find unemployment. But a major factor is a sharp increase in health-related conditions, some of them associated with the pandemic, as a result of which work is increasingly difficult. Budget watchers will no doubt see that the Chancellor may announce some measures to alleviate these two problems but they are very likely to be of the ‘sticking plaster’ solution rather than anything more fundamental.

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