The Communion Dispenser to go .......

I see that my old firm, The C of E, is catching up with technology at last.

16000 portable card readers are to be installed in Churches, Cathedrals and religious sites. 

I can see the offertory now, the hymn will have to be longer for a start as parishioners fish around for their debit cards, the sidesmen and women will stand awkwardly shuffling their ill at ease feet on the flagstones and then as the, largely elderly, congregation struggle to remember their pin numbers there will be lots of peeping from the machines, groaning from the congregation and discreet coughs from the celebrant who wants to get on with the main business of the day.

Still as American Express used to say, That'll do nicely.

But why stop there?

I remember a story, apocryphal? Not sure.

Published in Private Eye or Ian Hislop on Have I Got News for You? Not sure.

Richard Coles? Not sure.

But a vending machine was installed in a railway station in Italy so that pilgrims and other travellers if they had missed Mass that day could drop a coin in the machine and it would dispense the sacred host, a quick genuflection to the vending machine, a quick Hail Mary and the host was dispensed into your outstretched hands, Pax Vobiscum and off you go renewed, refreshed and ready for the trials ahead.

The tithing technology introduced by the Church of England's stewardship teams does however raise a variety of fascinating possibilities, not the least of never having to attend a church at all, ever again.

When the bell tolls, turn over in bed safe in the knowledge that whoever it tolls for, it tolls not for you.

If you have concerns laid, as evangelicals say, on your heart then relax, turn the over to technology. Internet Intercessions are the new way to communicate with the God of Facebook and Google.

Just write out your hopes, fears, prayers, confessions, press send and away they disappear into the ether where the god of the ethernet, the world wide web of divine concern and will attend to them, act on them or just file them but they won't be your concern any more, your work is done. 

No need to pray five times a day, no need for Mattins and Evensong just think rise, press send and have a great day.

What about the Churches inverted pyramid? That famous hour on a Sunday morning when communion is dispensed, the cash is raised and the Vicar does his or her, one day a week of work?

Well you can always check out the website: www.DIYConsecrate@CofE.UK

Open your computer, call up the site remembering your password, dutifulanglican, place the bread and a glass of, preferably fortified, wine next to the bread, press Consecrate and google, who promises never to do harm, works it's magic, although apple and Amazon will soon have alternative programmes, so you could have a form of digital concelebration, three times as effective?

And what of those occasional worshippers?

Sometimes called three wheeler Christians, Births, Marriages and Deaths, which in 'Beyond the Fringe' were unavoidably postponed because Alan Bennet's lugubrious priest was going on his holidays.

Well now, using the official web-site, avoiding the scam sites set up by Holy Trinity, Brompton and others, Christenings, Marriages and Funerals can be offered on-line to save both time and money, although all fees have to be paid digitally before you can download the relevant certificate, otherwise you remain unchristened, unmarried and worst of all unburied.
A modern forward looking internet savvy church, what's not to like?

Writing the Manifesto

I have received an email from The Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn inviting me to help write the Manifesto for the Next Election.

Well, happy to oblige.

Key points from the last Manifesto were:

Taxation

Public Ownership of Utilities

Education

Welfare

Increases to Police and Firefighters

A commitment to International Co-operation over Security 

The Manifesto was radical and raised questions about justice, fairness highlighted in the title,

For the Many, Not for the Few

The title is crucial. Increasingly over the last two Parliaments the Tories have ruled extensively for the few. The rhetoric about austerity is that we are all in it together.

But the evidence deeply contradicts this assertion.

Any independent observer would, as many have, will draw attention to the constant attack on the poorest in society, the exponential rise in the number of food banks, the constant attack upon and reductions in benefits paid to the poorest in society and those who are disabled, the massive increase in the number of children in poverty, the increasing numbers of people who, as evidenced on National TV, are earning their poverty, and the massive rise in the ratio between earnings in companies, between the shop floor and the Boardroom.

It is clear that the best mechanism for equalising pay differentials is via Income Tax, but as has been pointed out by The Institute for Fiscal Studies, whilst an increase in the threshold could raise significant funds, possibly as much as £7 Billion, and increase in the top tax rate could simply result in 'mass avoidance' resulting in a lowering of funds for the exchequer.

My preferred option has two distinct halves, a bit like Glen Hoddle's game of two halves.

The first is to impose a limit on the pay ratios paid by companies.

The Equality Trust demonstrates that in FTSE 100 Companies the ratio is over 200:1

Local authorities demonstrate more constraint at 15:1 and Charities even more at 10:1

In my Manifesto I would like to see a legally enforceable requirement to reduce these ratios. The figure clearly will be a matter of debate but a ratio of 25:1 across the board would begin to bring some element of fairness and justice into the workplace and demonstrate a tangible commitment to improving the life chances of the  many whilst imposing a fiscal discipline on the few.

The second significant factor in my Manifesto would be a commitment to a basic income for all. 

There is a debate about the basic income but writers and commentators from America to Europe as well as in the UK have argued convincingly that the basic income has very few downsides whilst actually increasing the life chances of the poorest in society. On must ask, what is not to like? The financial circumstances of the poorest will be enhanced and apart from the reduction in pay disparity ratios the financial circumstances of the few will not be materially affected other that in a marginal increase in taxes paid.

In my Manifesto Public Ownership would be key.

As a child born outwith the Health Service in 1945 I grew up in inner Manchester conscious that I had a share in public utilities. The water from the tap, the railway I took from school to home, the Buses I rode, the gas that warmed the house and cooked the food was British Gas and the electricity was a separate company, parcels were delivered by British Road Services and the Post Office and the Telephone were, like the BBC part of my birthright as a Citizen.

The came Mrs T and privatisation tore a path through our understanding of what a utility was it is marvellous how private companies, to use a phrase that I have used before, always seek to privatise profits and socialise costs, so the private companies are in fact heavily subsided from Virgin Trains to Water Companies to BT to British Gas, by the tax payer but the profits, which are not routinely re-invested, are paid to executives and shareholders of the companies in question.

The Labour Party in the Kingdom of Bevan fought tooth and nail to imagine, to implement and to introduce a National Health Service free at the point of need. The Tories fought hard against it.

In my Manifesto the NHS should have the privileged position of not even being debated it must be defended from the incompetence of Tory re-organisation, their version of the permanent revolution and the desire of Virgin to acquire and own everything all at once.

I would seek to return to a commitment, first seen in the immediate post war years, to the re-establishment of social housing. Good quality homes reflecting the old Parker Morris standards, built and maintained by local Authorities for the immediate and permanent benefit of their rate and council tax payers.

Any Manifesto must have a detailed and well thought out economic, social and political philosophy once my main Manifesto points have been agreed and adopted society would look more just, more fair and would serve the interests of the many over the few. Welfare would be addressed through the the basic income, as I know myself having lived with a partner increasingly disabled initially by Multiple Sclerosis and then by Breast Cancer the support that we received from benefits paid to cover the increased costs of living with the conditions, the support from Motability the pressing needs faced by those with disabilities often require the practical response of an investment that is both financial and heavily reliant on a network of adult social care and the third sector to enable life to be lived as fully as possible and enjoyed.

The security that we should feel living in our own home with friends and neighbours is crucial to well being. To be able to enjoy public spaces safely and without fear of attack, to be able to travel both within the UK and further abroad, to cross borders freely and to know that we can travel and arrive safely are all essential public goods and must be protected.

For this reason my Manifesto would disarm, cancel the Trident replacement, eschew all wars whether for regime change or otherwise and continue to work with partners within the UN and the European Union. Brexit is a self harming fantasy foisted on a gullible population by those who had much to gain and little to lose.

Well Jeremy I hope this helps and look forward to reading what you and your colleagues have made of it when the next Manifesto is published and I hope that the new document will be read by the many and not the few.

Who dares wins, who loses pays ......

So the non-budget is upon us.

The Chancellor will announce that things are getting better, we have a surplus on day to day spending and, apparently, the projected deficit of £50 Billion will be a miserly £40 Billion, so all's well in the Alice in Sunderland world of Tory fantasy.

'A great national effort' crowed the Chancellor's predecessor.

'All in it together' crowed the ex Prime Minister from his Shepherds Hut where he crafts both his autobiography and his million pound half hour speeches.

Really?

According to the Chancellor interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show, we're not out of the tunnel yet, there's light at the end so austerity continues.

It is crucial that we get national debt down he tells Andrew Marr.

So, on cue, there will be a further massive tranche of cuts in welfare benefits impacting on the poor, families, children and the disabled.

According to my recent tax return, as a pensioner on a fixed income, I have contributed significantly to Welfare Payments, Health Payments, State Pensions, and Education Payments. In fact almost two thirds of my tax contribution has gone to those elements of public spending, the amount I pay in National Debt Interest is approximately a fifth of what I contribute to Welfare.

Laughably the amount I pay to the EU budget can only be described as 'loose change', less than £20?

So the Captains of Industry can sit back and relax, the Bankers can carry on eating the largest slice of the Pie, Tax Exiles can continue investing their money in Tax Havens around the world, Conservatives can continue blaming the poor for their poverty and the Russians, the Chinese and whoever else with cash to spend, burn, lose or invest can continue buying up property in the UK.

Because the good news is that despite that light at the end of the tunnel the current account deficit must be reduced, the capital debt must be reduced and we know who is going to pay and how.

Austerity dear boy austerity!

But the truth, as even some Tories acknowledge, is that austerity is creating havoc with our public services.

Violence in Prisons is on the increase.

Waiting times in A&E are rising sharply.

As any driver knows roads are deteriorating to almost to third world standards.

Adult social care is approaching, if not in, crisis.

Use of Food Banks is rising.

More children are being raised in poverty.

After eight years of austerity public services are at breaking point.

The obverse of this coin as flipped by Labour's Shadow Chancellor is that investment in Capital Growth makes a lot of sense.

It would offset the need for higher interest rates, it would boost the construction sector, it would strengthen long term productivity whilst raising economic activity in the short term.

But we're all in it together, according to George Osborne ( I wonder if he still eats his burger whilst parked in a disabled space?) but that was never true and is not true now.

The price of austerity has been largely, if not entirely paid, by those who have most to lose through benefit cuts, stagnating wages, casual employment and insecurity, whilst the wealthiest continue as though austerity was of no concern to them, which of course it isn't, as any casual review of the FT's How to Spend It supplement demonstrates only too clearly.

As Dire Straits suggested, some work:

We gotta install ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these colour TV's

Whilst other people simply get 'Money for Nothing':

Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
You play the the guitar on MTV (substitute any number of roles and activities!)
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' get your chicks for free
Money for nothin' get your chicks for free

it is the shame of it really ......

Manchester in 1956 was a backward kind of place.

After a second attempt I gained my 11 plus and was offered a place at Manchester Central Grammar School in Whitworth street, Central Manchester, i.e. in Town.

I took a bus from Gorton where I lived or, occasionally I walked to Belle Vue and took a train I was 11 years of age.

In Manchester, in 1956, parcels were still delivered by horse drawn carriage and the streets were decorated with horse poo.

As a youngster I recall discussing my ideal job with friends on the walk back from school and with no clear career plans at that stage we all thought that the ideal job should pay at least a £1000 a year.

I recall the Music Master, a Mr Rourke, who as a first year I encountered in my  first music class.

We were rehearsing the school song Non Nobis Domine.

Now I am not and never have been much of a singer, I have a strong, clear, speaking voice, but when I try to sing my voice becomes weak and I am always out of Key.

Mr Rourke heard my tuneless drone beneath the otherwise tuneful voices of my fellow students and stopped the rehearsal, line by line he asked boys to sing which they did until he came to the line that I was in.

Isolating me, he asked me to sing, N n  n n on N n n n obis D d d d omine i ventured. Striking me at first on the left side of my head and correcting my fall with a blow to the right, Mr Rourke declared, 'Never sing in my presence again'.

So for my first year I sat in the music class reading silently .....

I guess that the shame of it really has followed me my whole life, 73 next birthday I love music, I love reading, but I still can't sing.

But the real shame of it is that it starts to feel that the moggmentum (if I may) or the maybottism (if I may) or the johnsonism (if I may) or the whole Tory project appears to be a heralding of a steady drift backwards to the world I thought had long been improved upon.

The horse drawn carts did leave a certain degree of pollution, although as soon as they passed his front door my grandfather would be out with a shovel, he had the best roses in High Street, Droylsden.

Today's pollution is a miasmic mist of asthma inducing diesel fumes, particulates and old fashioned smog.

But worse than that, the horse drawn delivery wagon, had to deliver at the pace of the horse, it was a slow and stately progress not DPD, UBS, Yodel racing at breakneck speeds with drivers literally under the cosh if they fail to maintain their delivery schedules which if they are to achieve their deliveries on time requires an Amazonian effort.

A salary of £1000 annually is of course now a laughable idea, even a £1000 a week would be perceived as a modest wage even though it exceeds the national minimum wage comfortably.

But the aspiration we expressed as 11 year olds in grammar school was not the £1000 per se, it was the idea of living comfortably, within our means and having a happy life.

Now we hear constant reports from the front line of poverty, children slipping back into poverty, food banks, evictions, a constant flow of negative aspersions on those living with disability compared with much housing in a city like London, even (so called social housing) being bought by wealthy investors, young people (generation rent) unable to join the housing market and meanwhile just more mealy mouth posturing from politicians.

For too many people, as I know myself when I was a curate and a Vicar in the Church of England, too much week or month at the end of the money is a soul destroying reality for too many people impacting their self image and well being.

And education, eventually the rage became overwhelming, in my school one student leaped his desk, knife in hand too attack a teacher, he was expelled and, I believe, became a Butcher.

Today pupils are not normally knocked sideways and then knocked upright again, at least not by physical force, but the regimentation of learning takes the fun out of education, sideswiped by almost routine 'mock' examinations and then knocked back upright again by the real thing, students succeed against the odds to learn more than how to pass examinations.

Teachers also struggle with a system that removes any sense of responsibility for the way in which they help a range of students, who they know personally, by name and nature, but who are viewed by educational bureaucrats as commodities to be processed.

I hear quite routinely of the challenges facing teachers in the classroom, the so called 'chalkface', many of whom are seeking to find ways of leaving their profession in order o find more rewarding challenges elsewhere.

It is the shame of it really that in our globalised world where so many are moving forwards to new prosperity and where the quality of life is improving, that here in the UK we have been hijacked by a small group of illusionists who seem to have taken the theme of the film Back to the Future quite literally.

As Buddy Holly sang, 'That'll be the Day'.