Northern Power Failure

1700 jobs are to go in Redcar, with the closure of the Teeside steel works. The response from the government is a 'taskforce' and a 'steel summit'. I can see the long grass from here. It doesn't help that there isn't a single Conservative MP in the urban NE of England. Biblical justice sees power being excercised on behalf of the vulnerable, not simply wielded by the strong. A 'Northern Powerhouse' worth the name wouldn't let Redcar go to the wall.

They Didn't Think It Through No 19, Sunday Trading

Ministers will challenge the Church of England to support the biggest shake up of Sunday trading laws in a generation to help boost high streets and cut shopping bills for every household in Britain.

Under plans unveiled in a consultation today, local authorities will be given the power to prevent large supermarkets from opening longer in an attempt to revive Britain's high streets.

The Government will encourage councils to use the new powers to help town centre stores at the expense of larger out-of-town shops.

thus spaketh the Telegraph, amongst others. 

So lets get this straight. The Conservatives want the church's support in a plan to make Sunday identical to every other day, apart from in out of town supermarkets. Though that in turn will be up to local authorities, who may or may not use the powers they've been given.

Implicit in the plan is that supermarkets and out of town shopping are undermining the high street. That doesn't just happen on Sundays. It seems bizarre to pick on a few hours in the week on the most common day of rest as the saviour of the high street, when there are 6 other days already to work with. And the idea that a local authority can resist a supermarket is laughable - council are already bowing the knee to big money over the planning laws, rather than fork out thousands to fight court cases. Can we really see the big supermarkets taking it lying down when some puny District Council steps on their toes?

And then there's the maths. Or the 'maths', to be pedantic.

The government calculates that relaxing Sunday trading laws will lead to £1.4billion worth of benefits to the economy a year and increase the amount people spend by as much as 12.5 per cent.

I may be dense, but where exactly is that money going to come from? The entire argument around Sunday trading is based on economics - fair enough you say, trading: the clue's in the name. As though how we organise economics doesn't have any impact on anything else. There are other valuable activities beside shopping - worship, sport, relaxing, having time with the family, having a rhythm to life which includes a communal day of rest etc. There's no monetary value on this, so the governments calculations are one-sided. The only maths they've done are on what might be gained by extra shopping hours, not what might be lost in the process. 

Once we know the economic cost of people being fat, depressed, divorced and in debt, then we'll know the true cost of 'liberalised' Sunday trading. There is a price, and the people lobbying or legislating for this change won't be the ones paying it:

Retail and associated workers are hardly well off, and it is they who will pay the price of longer opening hours on Sundays. While most of their bosses will still enjoy weekends off, many retail workers already find they have no choice over Sunday working. They have lost, for a large part, the premium payments they enjoyed at first. In addition, they will face more childcare costs, which will probably be more expensive on a Sunday, or lose precious family time.

So it's a No from me. But blogging about it is a waste of time, far better to engage with the newly-published consultation about the proposals. 

Update: here's what I've put in the only bit of the consultation where you can actually write anything:

1. More Sunday opening means more Sunday working. For us as a church, meeting on a Sunday, this will compromise some of our members, and reduce both the quality of mutual support which members receive, and the church's capacity to act for community benefit. Our church provides a valuable service to the community, as well as a place of worship and Christian fellowship for its members, with preschool groups, lunch club for the elderly, support for local schools, 2 youth clubs, many hours of home and hospital visiting, and voluntary time and money given to the local food bank, debt counselling service and Street Pastors. Extended Sunday trading is likely to deplete the congregation because some will not be able to attend due to work commitments. It is also likely to make membership of town centre churches more costly, as the local authority will quite naturally want to levy parking charges. The church is a key component of the 'Big Society' and relaxing Sunday trading laws will undermine some of the social and community good the church provides. 

2. Sunday is an important day of rest and socialising. Moving to a 7 day a week pattern of working, with no difference between one day and any other, will undermine family life and social cohesion, by denying families and communities a shared day of rest for leisure, worship and recreation. More people will be excluded from family celebrations and community events because of work commitments. 

3. As a church we are involved in debt counselling and relationship support. Any changes to working practices which  result in couples spending less time together, or facing increased financial pressures, will put more demands on us as an organisation. It is claimed that the changes will result in increased spending on the high street - where will this money come from? There are other things for people to do with their leisure time than shop. 

4. The changes will undermine trust in politicians. David Cameron said this earlier in the year: “I can assure you that we have no current plans to relax the Sunday trading laws. We believe that the current system provides a reasonable balance between those who wish to see more opportunity to shop in large stores on a Sunday, and those who would like to see further restrictions.” This legislation is a clear breach of that statement, and would provide a strong signal to the public that politicians cannot be trusted to keep their word. Trust in public life is a vital commodity, and this undermines it. 

5. Your consultation document presents a very one-sided argument. The only thing is has to say positively about Sundays as a day of rest is that its' important to some religious people. I don't think this is the reason why the changes are opposed by unions and the Association of Convenience Stores. Sunday as a day of rest is valued by millions of workers, small business owners, and their families and friends. 

6. Workers rights are very poorly protected. To be able to refuse Sunday working, you are proposing that someone remain in continuous employment at the same place for 21 years. The courts have already decided that nobody can refuse to work on Sunday for religious reasons (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9770825/Christians-have-no-right-to-refuse-to-work-on-Sundays-rules-judge.html), there is no protection for workers rights offered here at all. The experience of workers who try to opt out of Sunday working for family or religious reasons is very mixed.

7. I don't see any evidence that you have fully done your research. There are no figures on the likely impact on participating in sport, religious activities, Big Society social capital activities, parenting, tourism etc. For example:How many people will be unable to take part in next year's Yeovil Half Marathon (held on a Sunday) because of work commitments? In turn, how much fundraising will charities miss out on? And therefore how many jobs will be lost in the charitable sector? And what knock-on costs will this create for public sector bodies?  etc. etc. There is no calculation of the likely costs of childcare at a weekend (likely to be at a premium), and what kind of costs and benefits will be applicable to workers. By only presenting data around retail sales, you only seem to have taken account of one side of the argument. Either this proposal is poorly researched, or you have deliberately skewed the background information in the consultation. 

Justin Welby on Wealth, Tax, Sin and Business

"I'm strongly in favour of the creativity of wealth and jobs and risk taking and all that goes with that," 

"[But] with wealth comes power and with power comes a temptation to misuse power. There's a reality of the human condition, which Christians call sin, what the Bible calls sin - don't misuse the power you have through wealth."

"But you don't throw the baby out with the bath water and say that business is bad, you say that there needs to be solidarity and that there needs to be a regulatory framework that does not allow the abuse of power but gives the freedom for creativity."

Justin Welby, interviewed by the BBC in advance of a speech this evening on the economy.

There's also a prod at the whole Boots boss/taxes saga 

"There has always been the principle that you pay the tax where you earn the money. If you earn the money in a country, the revenue service of that country needs to get a fair share of what you have earned."

update: here's the full text of the speech. 

update 2: the CofE's daily news digest has links to the media coverage of the speech, 

Angry Men

Paul Mason, Channel 4 economics editor, finally lets rip
Well done that man. Why are there no prosecutions for this?

Here's another one, if you think that Russell Brand is genuinely upset rather than just stirring for effect.

Opinion polls show the vote declining for both major political parties, it's almost as though the electorate doesn't trust anyone to run the country. We need more angry men, and women.

Future of Britain Report: a Tick for the Archbishop and an Opportunity for the Church.

The recently published 'Future of Britain' report backs up Justin Welbys comments about the recession being a depression. Page 1 of the report claims that the results:

“support the suggestion that Britain has entered a depression as far as our outlook and expectations are concerned”

There are all sorts of fascinating things in the report - unfortunately not available online at time of writing, but if you email them for the findings then they seem pretty helpful. Here are a few of them, and some comments...

1. Mindful consumers
One of the effects of the recession has been to make people think again about how and where they spend their money:

We have fallen out with big companies. We no longer trust them, we don’t want to work for them and we’d much rather deal with local, ethical, established community-focussed businesses. (emphasis mine). 

If you swap 'business' for 'organisation', then that sounds like quite an accurate description of a local church, or at least of a local church that's doing a good job. So perhaps there is an opportunity here to reconnect with people. 

2. Flexible working and living
In another section, there are questions about how people see the future, and how jobs, qualifications, residence etc. will shape up. 

-          62% think a job for life is a thing of the past

-          53% see themselves changing jobs every couple of years

-          54% envisage changing where they live in order to get work

-          47% see being self-employed as being more attractive than working for a big company

-          44% think that most jobs in the future will be created by entrepreneurs

This should give churches pause for thought. We are already seeing these trends, but it looks like they are accelerating. How does a 'permanent' church thrive in a place where jobs and residence are temporary? 

A few thoughts:
 - we will have to become much better at welcoming new people into communities, and into churches, and reduce the 'probation' period before folk get the chance to use their gifts and skills in the life of the church
 - with a greater value on autonomy and entrepreneurship, can the church become more enabling, giving people more leadership responsibility and support?
 - is there a place for 'temporary church', pop up congregations which aren't designed to last forever? Do we need a few more tents and a few less temples?

3. Good Company
And finally: part of the survey looked at what sort of businesses we would like to work for, or deal with as customers. The first affects how we look at ministry, the second how we look at outreach:

The Ideal Job: is one that is secure, fun, relaxed, financially rewarding and flexible. Given that we're dealing with a lot of volunteers, so the 'financially rewarding' isn't such a big part, is this how are churches are to work or volunteer for?

The Ideal Company to buy from is one that is ethical, flexible, well known, secure, established and local. I personally think that or church is probably more flexible than it appears, and think we score fairly high across the board. A good local church fits very well the profile of the kind of company/business/organisation that people like to engage with as customers. 

Again, there is an opportunity here. Maybe what is missing is that church engagement with most people is based on our issues rather than theirs. The Bible is packed with teaching about wellbeing, finance, ethics, community, environment etc., all the issues that people say they care about. But how often are we heard talking about these things? Nobody else will do this for us - the media reporting of this report is evidence enough: 2 newspapers used it to sneer at the church, whilst failing to mention that the church is 6 times more trusted than the media. 


the findings are based on interviews with over 2000 adults. 

Centre for Social Justice - watch this space

The Centre for Social Justice, the thinktank set up by Iain Duncan Smith, published a poll yesterday to flag up a new project which could underpin future Conservative social policy. The headlines from yesterdays press release point to possible areas of policy focus, for example:


Family breakdown and the decline in the importance of marriage are cited by the public as key causes of the serious social problems facing Britain, according to a new opinion poll.

The survey found that 55 per cent of people – the equivalent of 25 million people across the land – say at least one of their local communities is plagued by broken families, crime and poor schools.

Some 60 per cent say that over the last few decades, marriage has become less important to society and that is having a damaging effect on the country.

And with 89 per cent agreement, the public identifies better parenting and stronger families as the key to mending the broken society.

We haven't seen that phrase 'broken society' for a while, I'm glad it still has some currency because it's still true, perhaps even more so in some places since the Coalition came to power. I also wonder why the CSJ needs to report again on families and parenting when it's already done so in a fairly meaty way, and only seen a few of its recommendations taken up.

Christian Guy, (his name, and who knows, perhaps a personal description too?) the head of CSJ, also flags up poverty as a key focus:  we have brought together a genuine team of experts with frontline poverty-fighting experience to help us draw up a new social policy blueprint to tackle the challenges of the 21st century."

A longstanding CSJ theme has been, in line with Conservative (and Libdem) policy, that local/voluntary/community solutions are better than those delivered by the state. The government is starting to  promote and support 'community franchise' approaches in key areas of social policy. Remember David Camerons 200,000 'problem families'? The money for that is going to local councils, who have to identify local providers who can deliver results. The local contract in South Somerset has gone to a church-based initiative, who are now fielding requests for information from other parts of the UK. Chris Graylings' ideas for mentoring recently released prisoners are based on the same model, and Sure Start is about to head the same way. At the same time organisations like the Cinnamon Network are promoting 'franchise' models of community engagement for churches - projects set up in 1 place, but which can be replicated in many settings without reinventing the wheel.

Update: this is all the more significant as a report today shows that one of these projects, using charities and businesses to get the long term unemployed back into work, has failed quite badly. 

This is a bit of a brave new world - it's been a long time since we looked elsewhere than the state to 'sort things out'. It's an interesting model - comparisons to the US and Victorians are wide of the mark, provided the state remains in place as a guarantor of quality and resources, even if delivery is left up to the voluntary or private sector. Labour co-opted many charities as arms of the state, throwing funding around with gay abandon, thus making many voluntary groups just as state-dependent as the people they were trying to help. Ironically, the Conservatives are actually taking this further. I hope this is as far as they go: devolving funding and activity may work better, but lets hope this isn't a step towards the state withdrawing completely, leaving the voluntary sector with all the caseload and none of the funding or policy leadership.

I hope the CSJ are going to be truly radical, and challenge everything which brings poverty and family breakdown. 24 hour opening, deregulation of Sunday trading, increasing shift work and unsociable hours all limit the time which parents and families can spend together. Extending parental leave at the beginning of life is good, but that's then rather undermined if, once little Johnny/Joanna is 1, the parents never see each other, or their child, because they're both working daft hours and the kid is in childcare from 7.30am to 7pm every day (the opening hours of our local nursery). When asked to draw a picture of the most significant person in their life, how many 3 year olds will draw their childminder or key worker?

And why are the parents both out to work? Because the average house costs 9x the average wage, compared to the 3x it did back in 1990. Everyone who got in on the property bubble? We did that. Yes, the state could have held things back, built more houses, told the banks to be more responsible about mortgages. But there's no way out of this without substantial pain, and at the moment new buyers are getting most of it. If the CSJ can find a solution for this (and make sure that all new homes have space for a family to eat together round a table, rather than the TV) then they'll have done something really radical. If we're serious about family breakdown, then the economic and 'free market' factors have to be brought to heel: not everything that business wants is good for families. There is no such thing as a free market, someone always has to pay. Part of the governments job (and ours too) is to identify the vulnerable parties in that equation, and protect them.

Prophet of the Day: the President of Uruguay

Think of a world leader, politician, or indeed anyone in power that you know, who gives away 90% of their income.

Tricky. But there is one: the President of Uruguay. He has personal wealth of just over £1000, which takes the form of an old VW Beetle, and living off 10% of his official salary means that his regular income is about the same as that of an average Uruguayan.

I was struck by this quote, from his address to the Rio 20+ summit earlier this year, on development.

 "We've been talking all afternoon about sustainable development. To get the masses out of poverty.

"But what are we thinking? Do we want the model of development and consumption of the rich countries? I ask you now: what would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of cars per household than Germans? How much oxygen would we have left?

"Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet."

So though I'm as mystified as the next person about how we're managing to create jobs in a flatlining economy, it's actually good news. We have to find a way to prosper that doesn't involve ever increasing consumption. One day, the Chinese will stop making cheap tat for people to market to us, and then what will we do?

And full credit to the Uruguayans for electing a guy like that to be president. We might indulge someone who gave away 90% as a harmless eccentric, or a funny story for the end of the news, but would Brits ever elect someone that radical and challenging to be PM?

Double Standards

A couple of media stories:

Powerful piece on our double standards over abortion law, in the light of the paralympics.

Natalia Partyka was born without a right hand and forearm. She won her first international table tennis medal at the disabled world championship when she was 10. She has won more than 30 medals since. Steve Brown is Great Britain’s wheelchair rugby captain. Following an accident he broke his neck and trapped his spinal chord and is now paralysed from the chest down.

Both these individuals smash the convenient myth that aborting a disabled child is an act of mercy that cut shorts a miserable, undignified and frustrating life. This specious argument is incessantly advanced to justify Britain’s abortion law, which allows abortion up to birth if the child is “severely disabled” (but in practice covers easily corrected conditions such as cleft palates).

And a bizarre reaction to the latest retail sales figures. "The feel good factor from the Olympics failed to inspire spending" said the British Retail Consortium. It's a peculiar idea that automatically links feeling better to spending more. How many people, after watching Mo Farah win his second gold, immediately jumped off their sofas and though 'right, I'd better get down to Tesco and buy something' as an integral part of their celebrations? 

There's something insidious about the suggestion that our response to anything significant ought to be shopping. Is that all we are? The government thinks so: it's rumbling about making the Olympic extension to Sunday trading hour permanent. Good to see the boss of Sainsbury's speaking out against this last month. What a dismal Olympic legacy that would be.

The Dead Euro Sketch

I simply have to link to this.

Mr. Pralino: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this Euro what I purchased not 11 years ago from this very bank.
Banker: Oh yes, the, uh, the Maastrict Blue…What’s,uh…What’s wrong with it?

Mr. Pralino: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. ‘i’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!
Banker: No, no, ‘i’s uh,…it’s resting.

superb stuff. All together now 'I'm a Eurocrat and I'm ok.....'

Fame at last

Robert Peston @Peston retweeted to 155,049 followers:

davidmkeen david keen

@Peston all getting a bit Pythonesque "Nobody expects the Spanish debt position"

Jun 13, 10:48 AM via web