Home thoughts from home

I hope you'll forgive me if I bring my blog down to domestic matters while the tragedy of the Japanese earthquake aftermath continues to unravel. The immensity of the death and missing toll (17,000) and number who are homeless (over a million), the collapse of infrastructure, the sub-zero temperatures and the unfolding nuclear power station disaster - no wonder their Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, described it as the country's worst catastrophe after the 2nd World War and said that the whole nation would have to rebuild from scratch.

The home story that heated my sub-collar area most was the report that Westminster City Council have dreamed up a scheme to make it a criminal offence to give food or drink to homeless people and to fine people sitting on the streets £500. It's variously surmised that this is the first step to clearing up the streets of London before the 2012 Olympics, or preempting the expected increase in homelessness following changes in housing benefits. More charitable people wonder whether the council might have plans to provide shelter and food to the nearly 150 homeless in the area. Watching David Cameron giving his statement about Libya in the Commons today, I noticed sitting on the front bench next to Nick Noddy Clegg, Sir George Young, Leader of the House and Lord Privy Seal, who once famously, or infamously, defined 'the homeless' as "people you step over when you leave the opera". Words like "whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of water" came to mind and the reward, as far as I understood, wasn't a criminal charge. I'm not quite clear whether this is already a by-law or being considered. I sincerely hope it's the latter and will be dropped with the contempt it deserves.

Yesterday the BBC published research they'd commissioned from 'a leading firm of accountants' about the new rate of student loans. They concluded that if a student took out a loan over three years of £39,000 and had above-average pay-increases, he'd end up paying more than double what he borrowed. Apparently, according to the minister, this is half way between a credit card debt and income tax, and is "a good deal". It certainly is for the government. But I imagine loan sharks say the same!

I was pleased to see internecine strife amongst journalists when Panorama did a programme on the dark arts, in particular practised by The News of the World. This involved illegal phone tapping and computer hacking. A bit disturbing was the alleged obtaining of police information with money. Scotland Yard, we were told, had reopened the case. Hopefully they will be rigorous even in examining themselves.

And finally in the week when the BMA (the doctors' professional association) Council voted for a withdrawal and reshaping of the government's NHS Bill I was interested to learn that Richard Branson already owns a number of GP practices. I assume it's through Virgin Healthcare. I don't think my local practice could be improved, nor the services I receive, but I can believe that he might do a good job running services - though, come to think of it, I'm not sure that Virgin gives us a better service on our phones than the good old Post Office phone service used to. However the image isn't bad!

"Your surgery's either got it or it hasn't."

Please don't hijack care

First, an apology: I fell into the oldest trick in the politician's PR book, viz "When you've got some unpopular policy to announce, leak a worse version first and then when you make the real announcement people will think, 'Well, that's not so bad, is it?'" The cap on student loans is going to be "only" £9,000 per annum, but, unlike now, there will be an additional 3% p a over inflation to repay. It's still quite a hike from the present and still, of course, means students ending up in debt. Graduates on the national average wage of £31,000+ would pay 19.3% more tax than their non-graduate contemporaries, while paying off their loan. One mysterious (to me anyway) rule is that graduates will be penalised if they pay the loan off early.... (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ministers-set-to-unveil-tuition-fee-plans-2123847.html)

This week car manufacturer, Toyota, are having yet another recall, this time of 12,000 of their iQ models in this country (bringing the grand worldwide total over the past months to 10 million of various models). It's extraordinary how successful they still are. First it was a braking problem ("Keep your distance; the car in front is a Toyota"); this time it's a fault with the steering. I know they're not the only car maker to recall cars, but they seem to have more than their fair share.

It's ironic then that Care Services minister, Paul Burstow, should be so keen on another Japanese invention, Hureai Kippu. I don't know how likely it is to crash, but it's a very bad idea. In case you don't know, it means "Caring Relationship Tickets", and it's a way of rewarding voluntary carers with credits they could later redeem to fund their own care when they need it. So, for example, if someone were to shop for me or wash me or help me on the toilet - out of mere concern or love - they could log it and put it in a "bank" of credits for when they needed care. Good idea, you might think on a superficial level. However, there are two things fundamentally and profoundly wrong with this. 

One is that everyone, whether or not they've been nice or nasty, whether they've clocked up Hureai Kippu points or not, ought to be cared for when they're in need. Compassion should be free at the point of need. 

The other is that care, voluntarily and freely given, is just that. To link it to self-serving reward is to pollute its very nature. Certainly caring for someone else brings incredible personal reward, but as a by-product, not as its purpose. The caring professions, of course, are incomparable and I rely on them, but the care of those who stand to earn nothing from it is of a different order. To incentivise it would be to compromise it tragically.

I'm reminded of the prayer of St Ignatius of Loyola - which I think I learned in my brief career as a Cub Scout -. It would be an immense loss to abandon the profound principle of disinterested service which remains a beautiful part of our country's Christian heritage, even if so clearly enunciated by a Spaniard!

Teach us, good Lord,

to serve Thee as Thou deservest;

to give and not to count the cost;

to fight and not to heed the wounds;

to labour and not to ask for any reward,

save that of knowing that we do Thy will.

through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Thinking of volunteering, the episode of The Secret Millionaire on 17th October contained a good example. "Travel website entrepreneur and self-confessed geek Chris Brown confronts painful memories and undergoes a life-changing experience as he looks for people to help in north Manchester." Among the charities he visited was The Mustard Tree where Paul works. What Chris Brown found hard to get his mind round was when he offered £15,000 to Oscar, who works in the refuse centre and does up thrown out bikes and gives them to families who couldn't afford one. Oscar turned the money down, because he simply loves doing it. He does it out of love. That is worth the world. To give Chris Brown his due, he respected Oscar's decision. Let's hope the government gets the point too. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-secret-millionaire/4od#3129925

 

Figures and facts?

Wow, there was a lot of money talk last week, wasn't there? The winner of the eurolottery jackpot claimed their record £113 million + jackpot and wished to remain anonymous - which of course did nothing to stop the press from trying to winkle them out. They'll become only the 589th richest person in the country. That must say something about the level of personal wealth in the UK. Remember the expression "two a penny" (old money, of course!)?

And then there was the Wayne Rooney story, which ended up with him being offered a contract of something like £250,000 A WEEK to stay at Manchester United for five years. I think that's a total of £65 million (Oops! Almost put billion. £65,000,000). That's just wages - add to that sponsorship deals, Wayne - My Secret Love Story, photos, ads, interviews etc and I imagine you can more than double it. No doubt a cut from that goes to his agent, accountant, bodyguards etc, but even so it sounds a lot of money to be kicking about.

Then Mr Nicholas Clegg assured students that a cap would be put on the tuition fees. Good news - until they heard that it would be £12,000 per annum which would mean a total of £36,000 for a normal three year undergraduate course, and if, like me, you did a PGCE teacher training year, £48,000. That of course is paying for your course. Meanwhile students, being human beings, need to live somewhere and eat something and perhaps wear some clothes. A modest outlay, I'm told, would be about £6,000 p.a.. which would leave you owing £54,000 after 3 years, and £72,000 after 4 years. I heard a government minister telling us that this wasn't technically a debt, as you wouldn't have to start paying back until you earned a living wage and if you didn't finish paying it off before you retired then they'd write it off. I thought that was sheer sophistry. He failed to mention the interest that would be quietly ticking up like a taxi-meter year by year.

Two things strike me about this: one is that a few months ago said Mr Clegg was all for abolishing fees, and now here he and Mr Cable are saddling students with frightening debts. OK, I know - that's politics. The second is more fundamental. We are being told how intolerable the national debt is; that our country can't afford to service it; that the debt culture has been the root of our problems - and yet part of the answer seems to be to compel the younger generation into crippling debt at the beginning of the career. The message seems to be that the government approves of personal debt and, in fact, indirectly is using it to service the national debt.

Close to home, someone I love showed me an article by the Times' Personal Finance Editor, Andrew Ellson. I think Newscorp (which owns the paper) supports the government; and so the headline was striking: "Osborne's chainsaw slays the vulnerable". He writes, "Victims of the massacre abound, but among the carnage, a couple of groups stand out for having been particularly cruelly treated. The first is the sick and the disabled. There is little doubt that many who are fit to work languish on disability allowance. Yet the changes announced this week were not an attack on the workshy. We already know that tougher medical examinations will force people off incapacity benefit and on to jobseekers' allowance. But this week Mr Osborne chose to limit the benefits of those who pass the test and are considered genuinely too ill to work. After one year, anyone who is sick or disabled, who has more than £16,000 in savings or whose partner earns more than £150 a week, risks losing the benefit.  Some people argue that that is fair enough. They suggest that the state can no longer afford to help those who can help themselves, even if they are disabled. Perhaps. But there is an equally credible argument to say that the £2 billion saving could more reasonably have been found somewhere other than the pockets of the disabled. After all, assets of only £16,000 when you can't work are nothing.... Despite the impression given by Mr Osborne during the speech, the other vulnerable group that could suffer is poorer pensioners. Indeed the decision to discontinue the supplement to the Winter Fuel Allowance next year could cost more lives tan the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined" (Times 23.10.10).

It left me wondering about people whose illness or disability has forced them into early retirement before state pension age. Disability Living Allowance may be just the income-boost they depend on. Is that to be taken away if they've got modest savings, tied up maybe in their home?