On the sixth day of Christmas...

2619

on-the-sixth-day-of-christmas

My true love sent to me: six geese a-laying. In the song, this seems to refer to the six days of creation.

The goose that laid golden eggs in Britain was our occupational pension system. Businesses would open a pension scheme run by independent trustees, encouraging workers to join it and putting in some money themselves. By 1997, Britain’s workplace pensions savings were larger than the rest of Europe’s put together.

The 97,900 work-based pension schemes that existed in 1997 have now shrunk to just 53,801 – and falling. Of those, 18,990 no longer accept new members, 4,354 are frozen, and 1,779 are being wound up. Less than a third of the 1997 figure are still active and open to new employee members. By the end of 2007 there were about a million less active members of occupational pension schemes than there were just three years earlier. Less than half of those who work in the private sector are now paying into a pension. At the current rate of decline, there will be no contributors at all by 2020. The demise of this once-thriving savings sector is one reason why more and more people now face hard times when they retire.

The sole person responsible for this is Gordon Brown. It goes back to the ending of dividend credits on advance corporation tax, which Brown slipped into his first Budget speech in 1997. It was a typical Brown stealth tax – one that few people understood, and which fewer would even notice until they came to retire many years later. And it has taken about £175 billion out of the pockets of pension savers and put it into the Treasury’s. That is equivalent to a tax of £16,600 on every private pension saver.

Film of the Year No. 2

2694

film-of-the-year-no-2

2. Lust, Caution

Wong is a student in Hong Kong in 1938. As her drama troupe becomes involved with the effort to resist the Japanese, Wong infiltrates the social circle of Mr Yee, a hated collaborator, intending to facilitate his assassination. The action shifts to occupied Shanghai, 1941, as Wong becomes Yee’s mistress. The conflict inherent in their dangerous, passionate relationship gives the film both its emotional core, and its title: Lust, Caution. The closer Wong gets to Yee, the more vital she becomes to the resistance – and the more difficult her deceit becomes.

Directed by Ang Lee, Lust, Caution is a brilliant, intense, and moving piece of cinema. It melds espionage, romance, noir and war into a seamless, epic whole that has rightly been hailed as his masterpiece. The acting is superb, the cinematography sumptuous, and the story astoundingly powerful. Most of the publicity surrounding the film may have centred on its sex scenes, but that is unfair. While they are undeniably explicit, and sometimes shocking, these scenes reveal far more than just naked flesh. Indeed, they say far more about Yee and Wong than simple dialogue ever could. Lust, Caution is a remarkable achievement. Watch the trailer here.

Blog Review 824

2693

blog-review-824

We expect the Lord Chamberlain, the Home Secretary, the Minister for Promoting Virtue and Punishing Vice, to be calling for censorhip. But the Culture Secretary?

It doesn't seem to be a stimulus proposal, rather, an all time expansion of government.

Perhaps it would be better to simply do nothing?

Adam Smith and the labour theory of value.....that he didn't in fact have one.

Life really isn't inescapably political.

A style guide aid to those wanting to write for The Guardian.

And finally, excuse us, but we're off to polish our egos.

On the fifth day of Christmas...

2618

on-the-fifth-day-of-christmas

My true love sent to me: five gold rings. It probably means the first five books of the Old Testament, but to me five rings means the Olympics, which are coming to London in 2012.

Well, they say that. But it's a typical government-led project, so who knows? The London bid for the games put the cost at £3,375m, but in March last year Tessa Jowell revealed that the cost had risen to £9,325m - a tripling of the costs in just a few months. Something of a black hole, which the hole-vaulting Culture Secretary explained as due to VAT, inflation, and a whopping £2,700m 'just in case things go wrong' fund (a figure larger than that the original estimate for building the entire Olympic Park). And that's unlikely to be the end of it, since officials are said to be working to a £12bn target. With the credit crunch, private financing and sponsorship deals now look shaky, and after Mumbai the cost of security has been ramped up, so taxpayers are likely to find the Olympics rather expensive.

Film of the Year No. 3

2692

film-of-the-year-no-3

3. Gomorrah

It’s not easy to summarize the plot of Gomorrah, mostly because there isn’t one. Rather than taking a narrative approach, the film simply follows a group of loosely connected characters around a grim Neapolitan estate ruled by the Camorra, the local mafia. Based on the 2006 non-fiction book by Roberto Savianno (who has been in police protection ever since), Gomorrah is a bleak, brutal film that pulls no punches and offers no easy answers. Indeed, such is the film’s commitment to realism that even Italian audiences needed subtitles to understand the heavy dialect it is filmed in.

If you sit down to watch Gomorrah expecting ‘the Italian Goodfellas’, you are going to be sorely disappointed. There are no characters to root for, and no compromises made for the sake of entertainment. And at no point in the film is it possible to vicariously enjoy the gangsterism being depicted. But that, surely, is as it should be. Real-life organized crime isn’t glamorous – it is a vile force that corrupts and destroys everything it touches. Gomorrah is a deeply powerful reminder of that. Watch the trailer here.

Blog Review 823

2691

blog-review-823

Minister announces a direct attack on free speech and insists that it is not an attack upon free speech. Just don't expect us to cooperate.

This isn't a new idea but that doesn't stop it being a very good one.

A look at how the BBC created its editorial line on climate change. Not, you won't be surprised to hear, a pretty sight.

Sometimes it doesn't matter which decision you make: just that you do indeed make a decision. Dithering simply makes things worse.

A report from the front lines of the green generating revolution.

Labour's campaign song all the way back in 1997 was "Things Can Only Get Better". And so it goes.

And finally, these aren't the seven best criminal capers of 2008, for the best are the ones that have gone undiscovered. 

On the fourth day of Christmas...

2617

on-the-fourth-day-of-christmas

My true love sent to me: four calling (or colly) birds, which in A Partridge in a Pear Tree are said represent the four gospels or the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Well, my true love is now breaking the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which makes it illegal to sell wild animals. It also demands that animals are given a suitable environment, diet and housing.

Regulations proposed under the legislation tell pet owners not to feed their dogs chocolate or let their cats sit on the toaster. Although feeding your dog chocolate is not actually a criminal offence, it can be used in a court of law as evidence of your guilt on other charges, which can leave you open to a prison sentence of a fine of £20,000.

Film of the Year No. 4

2690

film-of-the-year-no-4

4. Changeling

Who would ever have thought that Clint Eastwood, once Hollywood’s drifter/cowboy/anti-hero par excellence, would also become one of America’s most celebrated directors? And yet his recent filmography – Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima – really says it all. He still appears to be improving with age though, since his latest effort, Changeling, is undoubtedly his best to date.

The (true) story centres on Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single-mother in 1920s Los Angeles who comes home from work one day to find her young son, Walter, has disappeared. Some months later the LAPD (seemingly mired in prohibition-era corruption) find a child and claim it is Collins’ son. It isn’t. But when Collins’ tries to tell the police that they turn against her, insisting she is mentally unstable and an unfit mother. But what happened to the real Walter? Can he be found before it is too late?

Changeling is flawless cinema, and it would be surprising if it did not feature heavily in 2009’s Oscars. Jolie is superb, and Eastwood’s classical style and mastery of tone and atmosphere makes Changeling reminiscent of Roman Polanski’s 1974 masterpiece Chinatown – high praise indeed. It may sound like mere melodrama, but the narrative shift that occurs part way through the film turns Changeling into something altogether darker and more disturbing. It’s still showing in cinemas, so be sure to catch it if you can. Watch the trailer here.

Blog Review 822

2689

blog-review-822

Looking at charts of industrial output makes some think that this is the Great Depression Part II. Others think that looking at industrial production isn't all that important or informative.

The idea that government action opened up opportunity and competition is so ahistorical as to be breathtaking....

Something we forget at our peril, voluntary transactions benefit all of the participants in them.

The last time the government started throwing money around like a drunken sailor there was no corruption, oh no. But it does rather matter what you consider to be corruption.

Some thoughts on not spending money like a drunken sailor.

Rough figures, but some individual blogs seem to be getting about 15% of the web traffic of national newspapers.

And finally, the turth in a quiz answer.

On the third day of Christmas...

2616

on-the-third-day-of-christmas

My true love sent to me: three french hens, which in the song apparently represent the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. I'm not sure there is much of any of them around today, though.

On the faith side, we might be making progress. Dorothy Glenn of South Shields was told by her Housing Association to remove her four-foot Santa and Christmas lights in case it offended non-Christians. However, her non-Christian neighbours said their kids loved the lights, the Council repudiated the demand, and the Housing Association was forced to apologise. Councillor Ahmed Khan, who represents Mrs Glenn's ward, commented: "It's this kind of nonsense that sets race relations back twenty years." Quite.

As for hope, well, I don’t hold out much hope for our economy in 2009. And charity: it's remarkable how many things that should be done through charity are in fact done through coercion as government takes money out of our pockets to do them. And then take the credit, of course.

The trouble is, that when governments intervene, private funding dries up. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution found that in the 1800s, when it started to accept government money. It found that for every £1 it took from the government, it lost £1.40 in private donations. People couldn't see why they should fund something that the government was paying for. Now the RNLI proudly refuses all government money. Bravo!