Who Gains From The Games?

If you need a light, the Olympic torch is currently careering round the West Country, if you’d prefer one as a permanent fixture, you can pick up your own on Ebay. The torches are valued at £495, but carriers have the option to purchase for £295, and are free to flog on after use. But best be warned, the bidding is barmy. I could find little available for under four figures, rising to around £145,000 for the bronzed brazier whose current owner is donating 75% of the cash to the charity Whizz Kidz. My advice would be the replica torch as a cupcake decoration for £1.09 plus postage.

All the pomp, and edible.

 That torch bearers have chosen to sell-on their illustrious cargo has angered some, which seems a trifle harsh. They will, after all, be some of the very few to make any money at all from the upcoming Games, so good luck to them.  

 Ok, it would be churlish to assume that an international festival of sport will not attract commercial opportunities and resulting income. However, the outlay is principally from the public purse, which is not where the profits will end up.  Indeed, opportunities have already been missed to generate some home grown earnings. 84% of all the souvenirs sold on the London 2012 website were not manufactured in the UK. Even the eleven million tickets for the Olympics and Paralympics, will not have been printed here. The multi-million pound contract went to an American firm based in Arkansas, and the tickets are being shipped 4,500 miles instead.

 To be fair, the contracts have been awarded to the most competitive bidders, but as the Games is essentially not a commercial entity, why does the bottom line have to be top of the agenda? Money sent abroad will be spent abroad, whereas, home grown contracts, even at a slightly higher price, would mean British wages feeding back into the system. It’s the kind of thing politicians would say, but finance finds famous friends. I did not “back the bid”, but surely if the country is footing the bill, it should benefit economically where possible.

 It’s hard to find exact figures for how much London 2012 is actually costing, but £11 billion seems a pretty reliable working estimate. For figure fans, that’s £11,000,000,000. Now, don’t get me wrong, that would only be an extravagant and senseless waste of resources if, for example, we were labouring under, let’s say, the deepest economic downturn in living memory. Oh, wait a minute…

Greece On A Slippery Slope

Angela Merkel has confirmed her commitment to the continued participation of Greece in the Euro project, but the German chancellor is starting to sound like a landlady whose lodger is behind with the rent, barely employable, and probably pinching her toothpaste. After nine days of trying to form a unity government, the only thing Greek politicians have agreed on, is that they don’t. Into this market-maddening maelstrom flies the newly inaugurated French President, and promptly gets struck by lightning.

 In Francois Hollande’s premier press conference with Mrs Merkel, the early exchanges were more abrupt than embracing. The Chancellor kicked off with the usual non-committal platitudes, concentrating on common ground not contrast. But Monsieur Hollande, maybe with an eye more to the domestic than the diplomatic, was keen to confirm that every option must be “on the table”. His hostess, one sensed, would have preferred that some subjects were brushed politely under it. With a second election looming in Greece, the French President was keen to reach out to its austerity-weary countrymen. “The Greeks need to know we’ll come with growth measures”, he said. The Chancellor, who might prefer that they just shut up and pay up, countered with: “The question is what one means by growth.” Not a full-blooded contradiction perhaps, but a pretty close cousin. If it had been a first date, there might not be a second, but these two don’t have the luxury of simply slating each other to mutual friends and avoiding each other at parties.

 When the Greek electorate go box-ticking again, on June 17th, the anti-austerity parties promise to prosper further. The result may be a battle of brinkmanship. Athens will attempt to alter the agreed austerity arrangements, aware that they may have over-stayed their welcome at a party they gate-crashed under false pretences, but the hosts don’t yet want them to leave. Whether the first socialist President of the Republic in almost two decades can convene sufficient policy compromise to encourage growth remains to be seen. Whether enough economic growth is even practically possible to service debt and still support public services is even less likely. Economists are now tottering towards the once taboo subject of a Greek exit from the single currency. Greece, in the Euro, is increasingly a sinking ship, with a choice between either accepting the bail-out, cuts included, or literally bailing-out.  

French Drive To The Left.

He’s balding, wears glasses, and lacks a supermodel partner, so far, but Francois Hollande has two things that Nicolas Sarkozy might covet, the keys to the Elysee Palace, and a couple more inches in height. The former Mayor of Tulle underwent a mini make-over before his successful presidential campaign, finding a decent tailor, some designer glasses, and shedding some weight. And Hollande’s more streamlined physique could well be useful when walking the tightrope he has now embarked on.

His victory is a lurch to the left, and a protest vote against austerity, the unwanted offspring of the financial crisis, that France reluctantly adopted as an antidote to the debt and deficit. Hollande however, favours the borrow-and-build approach, believing government infrastructure projects will provide work for an unemployed population numbering around 10%. As the freed-up finances filter through the system, it is hoped that workers will start to spend, and so save the state. A simple sell to the waiting workforce perhaps, but Germany’s Chancellor Merkel will not want to rework the hard fought Fiscal Compact, to accommodate these new Gallic grievances. However, is it fair to say that Monsieur Hollande’s demands in that direction weakened palpably as his soaring popularity made presidential success more probable.

The next scheduled meeting of EU leaders is on the 23^rd May, and the President-Elect’s pro-growth agenda may not be without its advocates. After all, Nicolas Sarkozy is the eleventh EU leader to lose his job since 2008, when Lehman Brothers went bang, and the rest of us started whimpering. Austerity is a bitter pill to swallow. If the symptoms we suffer are severe enough we may nod sagely and agree to the prescription, but ultimately when we don’t like the medicine we are likely to request a second opinion.

Back home, even Ed Miliband could not stop folk leaning back to Labour in the local council elections. Maybe if your Plan A is austerity, you had better have a back-up, as being right, in either sense, will be of little consolation when you’re back in opposition. On the other hand, while some are indeed turning to the left, there is no consistent political colour amongst the current victims of the austerity backlash. It may be less about political hue, and more about human nature. We will all acknowledge that we’ve over-spent, and the belt needs to be tightened, but when there’s no bourbon creams left in the tin, perhaps even the best intentioned will just vote for anyone who promises biscuits.    

Performance Related Apple For The Teacher?

That the Education Select Committee’s proposals regarding performance related pay for teachers have been described by the National Union of Teachers as “total nonsense” is not entirely surprising. That they were suggested in the first place sadly isn’t either.   

 
MPs should be aware of the common complaint from business leaders that the annual crop of graduates they are gifted, have grades where their brains should be. And the current tendency to teach to the test, where it exists, at the expense of a thorough grounding in any given subject, could hardly be improved by a system that links a pupil’s exam results, to whether their teacher’s next holiday will be Margate or Mauritius.

The discussed direction is allegedly aimed, on the one hand, at encouraging quality graduates into teaching. If so, it is a depressing deduction to conclude that the only inducement that exists is financial. If you want a sales bonus, sell stuff. What of job satisfaction? What of the vocational calling to impart wisdom and knowledge to the next generation for the general betterment and benefit of the population? Ok, I’m overstepping the marker pen, but if those entering education, or healthcare for that matter, do so under markedly different motivations than the graduates gliding into investment banking, then why plug the same pay structure? And if they don’t, why do we want them to?

 I applaud the idea of rewarding teachers that are “adding the greatest value” to the education of their pupils. However, when your eyes glaze over and you reminisce fondly on forgotten school days, you tend to feel most thankful to the characters that entertained and inspired, not raised your predicted grade average by 22%. They may be the same person, they equally might not.

 A stated aim of the new policy would also be to discourage under performing teachers from continuing in the profession, by preventing them from benefitting from the same advancement as their more successful counterparts. Under ancient practices, staff would automatically progress up the pay-scale, but this process was doctored under the last government towards a points based system which is already performance determined.

 Having your tonsils out does not make you a healthcare expert, and though most of us have been to school, few would think we could run one, let alone all of them. The government is right to seek to safeguard and improve the quality of public services, but there are lessons from the Health and Social Care Bill that have clearly not been learnt. Rewarding a decent nurse or teacher with fair pay, and the freedom to do their job without the threat of constant upheaval from the rolling whims of successive governments should not feel like radical thinking, but it’s starting to.