Big Watch - Pay by Cheque

 

“Big watch - pay by cheque,” was often what the, probably long-suffering, local population might have ascribed to the young Royal Air Force pilots undergoing flying training at the several flying training schools in England in the 1960s.  Less than 20 years after the end of WWII, there were plenty of pilots about.  Lots of new ones, like me, and lots of veterans with lots of stories to tell.  Like larger-than-life John Buckland who frequented the Woolpack on Tuesday Market Place.  With his MCC tie and an inexhaustible fund of ripping yarns, the Lancaster pilot and decorated Pathfinder, became an interesting attraction for the Saturday lunchtime customers.  More so, even, than the landlord’s voluptuous wife Pam who knew full well what she was expected to display when asked for a bottle of White Label Worthington from the bottom shelf.  John Buckland always paid by cheque, cash being somewhat vulgar. John knew just the chap to supply me with a little beauty of a second-hand car – “just the ticket,” he assured me.  Paying for the car by cheque was not an option but cash would secure the best price.  Fortunately, for me, my account with Lloyds Bank Limited, Coxs & Kings Branch of 6 Pall Mall SW1, was in the same state as it had been since being opened upon enlistment in HM service – somewhat overdrawn.  So, for me, cash payment was out of the question and there was no deal resulting, thank goodness.  Others were not so lucky before John Buckland, exposed as a ruthless trickster, slunk away.  Almost, that is, because a year or so later he was spotted in London by Mac Hart, the landlord of Foldgate Inn at Stradsett.  Unfortunately, in the ensuing chase John Buckland gave Mac Hart the slip and that was that – Mac never got his money back.  These days I almost never pay by cheque.  I bank online and make all my transactions online.  With the expansion of contactless payments, I have installed a payment facility on my phone so now, at check out, I can just wave my phone at the reader and get on my way.  Confirmation of the transaction is almost instantaneous so there is no need for a receipt.  John Buckland would have had a hard time today.  Neither are there many big watches about – letters to the Telegraph report a spate of thefts from the wrist in broad daylight. At least they don’t seem to be cutting off the arm with a machete which, apparently, happened to hapless car passengers leaving their limbs draped out of the window in downtown Angeles City next to Clark Air Force base in the Philippines. I’ll probably start wearing my old aircrew watch and leave the Rolex in the safe.

Having just volunteered for a PCR test with the Zoe app I was horrified to learn I tested positive and am now isolating for 10 days.  Never volunteer for anything, particularly, “research into the common cold at Porton Down,” was good advice to us as recruits but I have ignored it in retirement.  To relieve the impending boredom of isolation perhaps I shall invest in a smart watch – just the ticket?  Modern technology will monitor my blood oxygen level, heart rate, and blood pressure and alert me to any deterioration to my current good health – almost too good to be true?  And, when I am allowed out again, through the wonders of near field communications, I shall be able to install my payment app on my watch and simply wave my wrist at the card reader as I pass by.  Big check, pay by watch – how about that?

Driving Licence Anxiety

 This looks like useful information:

SIR – John D Frew (Letters, August 23) seeks to prove the status of his driving licence. This can be done on the DVLA website under “View or share your driving licence information”.

This only requires the licence number (which he would have if he is renewing) and his National Insurance number. The status of his licence will promptly be revealed and can be shared with anyone else who needs to know, such as car hire companies.

Martin Hodson
Loughborough, Leicestershire

Blurred Boundaries and Bluster

 

On 8 Jun 21, The Boundary Commission for England (BCE) published its initial proposals for new constituency boundaries. There is an eight-week consultation process, ending tomorrow.  A “statutory distribution formula” means that England will be allocated 10 more constituencies than at present with each constituency containing about 69-77000 voters.  Presumably the BCE remit did not include an assessment of whether today’s Parliament was fit for purpose?

The proposals for this part of Yorkshire see my constituency, Selby & Ainsty, being split, respectively, between new Selby and Wetherby & Easingwold constituencies whilst our neighbours, Elmet & Rothwell are abolished and their wards distributed, apparently, randomly.

Whilst the BCE proposals were available for all to see on their website, my own party conducted a consultation of their own.  I came by a copy of “Submission of the Conservative Party regarding the Initial Proposals of the Boundary Commission for England for the Yorkshire and the Humber Region,” on Tuesday 27 July 2021 and noted that, “we cannot emphasise enough how important it is to get members of the public, community groups, etc. to write in support of individual elements of the proposals.”  It was also clear that it was CCHQ policy to withhold these proposals until 26 July 2021.  Doubtless, many Conservative Party colleagues, who could have been consulted along the way, will feel dismayed that they are now being invited to fall in behind a fait accompli by the deadline of 2 August 2021.

The subject proposals are presented in detail and a great deal of effort must have been expended in their compilation.  That said, in the limited time available for scrutiny, the proposal itself appears to be something of a dogs’ breakfast and seems to ignore the knock-on impacts on adjacent territories.  On the other hand, it scores, demonstrably in party self-interest.  This is disappointing at a time when our party seems to be very short of recognisable policy initiatives in key areas such as:

•         Paying for Covid and controlling spending
•         Dealing with the hospital back log
•         Catching up with lost education
•         Social care reform
•        Illegal immigration control
•        Energy sustainability
•        The reality of Net Zero aspirations

not to mention “levelling up,” whatever that means.  Voters could be forgiven for getting the impression that MPs were more interested in shoring up their positions with what looks like old-fashioned gerrymandering than dealing with current social and financial challenges.

For what it’s worth, the BCE proposals, at least, have the merit of equalising the electorate numbers in the respective constituencies.  But, if we are not going to address the fundamental issue and radically reduce the total number of MPs overall, one may ask what is the point of tinkering with boundaries within the existing Westminster behemoth?

Meantime, this morning’s Sunday Telegraph may make uncomfortable reading for CCHQ.  Janet Daley, talking about the triumph of slogans over policy, concludes with the advice, “there may be some quick routes to getting the electorate on your side but treating them like idiots isn’t one of them.” Simon Heffer opines that, “it will require a Government with strength in its convictions – and the confidence to face head-on the messy reality of post-pandemic Britain.”  That’s just how Mushroom sees it in this decidedly messy part of Yorkshire.

 

 

 

 

 

Bowing to Racist Pressure

Last year, I took exception to a “Black Lives Matter Statement” signed by the Chief Executive, the President and the Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group of the Royal Aeronautical Society, which was published in the July 2020 edition of Aerospace, that learned Society magazine.

The Society had used the death of George Floyd in America to make its own statement “about racism and injustice towards black people.”  Incontrovertibly, the Society stated, “we will not tolerate racism, social injustice, or inequality.”

However, at the same time, Society appeared to admit to “hidden institutional or systemic bias across our wider networks” which, on the face of it seemed imply that the Membership were complicit.  I urged the Society to publish examples and evidence of these injustices, specifically, so that members may do what they can individually by way of remedy.  Otherwise, it seemed to me, that all Members and Fellows were pleading guilty to racism and injustice by their association with the Society.

I did not receive a satisfactory answer to my letter although the Society, patronisingly, recommended their diversity training programme to cure my ills.  I do not know what motivated the RAeS to assume an automatic posture of contrition but it was particularly disappointing that, “in seeking to promote the highest professional standards and provide a central forum for sharing knowledge,” I felt that the Society’s response to the Floyd affair, if one had even been necessary, had simply been a band-stand of fashionable slogans.

On the same subject, the online abuse suffered by some members of the England football team has been, rightly condemned and, I understand, all of four alleged culprits have been charged.  But, amidst the barrage of self-righteousness and before we admit that our country is irredeemably doomed, could somebody please tell me where else in the world there is generally more tolerance to minorities than in the UK?  

Manipulation of the News Movement

 

When the media manipulator Kamal Ahmed was sacked during a restructuring by the BBC, Mushroom shed a few crocodile tears.  Ahmed’s shameful manipulation of trade data during the Brexit debacle was allowed to stand despite a lengthy exchange between Mushroom and the know-alls at the BBC so ever serve you right.  By ditching Ahmed the BBC was dangerously exposed since the BBC News Board was left marooned without a BAME representative.  Presumably, the BBC argued, without a minority ethnic representative, the quality of news would be deleteriously affected?  Although, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t noticed much difference in the BBC news output as a result so, with Ahmed gone, it looks like win-win.

Unfortunately, Ahmed seems to have fallen on his feet and has co-founded a new platform called the “News Movement.”  Apparently, News Movement is intended to deliver “trustworthy and objective” information, through “high impact” stories which hold “the powerful” to account.  Deciding what is important, which of the powerful to target how to make an impact should be right up Ahmed’s editorial street.

Green Road to Ruin

 

The government said it would cut carbon emissions by 78 per cent from their 1990 level by 2035, instead of 2050 as previously intended. I wonder whether the PM has been inspired by Princess Nut Nuts and her coterie? Anyway, it’s a great idea, and who could possibly object to a policy of saving the planet except for one important detail: who pays?  I am sure our Government will get round to telling us what it will cost, not just the impact on our outgoings but on our future way of life. Perhaps we shall be treated to a solemn announcement from the spanking new, and now, apparently, unnecessary Downing Street media centre?  When we are let into the secret and the political machine has measured the reaction, I suspect an element of electoral pragmatism will be injected into further climate virtue gestures.  Meantime, they may care to start with a scan of Roger Scruton’s superb Green Philosophy subtitled, how to think seriously about the planet.  Scruton argues, convincingly, that top-down solutions to climate problems are destined to fail.  It is public spirit that will carry us forward:

“But whence comes public spirit? It comes from patriotism, from love of country, from a sense of belonging and of a shared and inherited home. It comes from believing that this problem is our problem, and therefore my problem, as a member of the group. That belief disappears when anonymous bureaucracies confiscate our risks, and pretend that they can regulate them to extinction.”

But telling people what is good for them seems fashionable these days, just look at the incessant diatribe from the Archewell Foundation, “uplifting communities.”  Come to think of it, whoever is driving the headlong rush to green virtue may already be finding the Downing Street policy straitjacket too constraining and might and feel, like Megan and Harry, that they should strike out on their own.  How about “The Greenswill Foundation” as a megaphone?

 

 

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

 

I only met him by accident, in the early years of this century at the Royal Aeronautical Society in Hamilton Place.  I had attended an early evening lecture and, afterwards, the corporate sponsor had extended generous hospitality to the participants.  A big crowd lingered after the event, wine flowed freely and the noise level rose accordingly.  During conversation with some colleagues, I caught sight of an old friend at a distance and, after due interval, shouted my excuses to my colleagues and made my way through the throng towards my old friend.  Arriving at my friend’s circle I was immediately conscious that the company was trying to tell me something, but nobody said anything.  Glancing round for a clue, the person on my right who had a decent space on his left into which I had just inserted myself, became strikingly familiar.  I remember beginning to blurt out an apology for my impertinence but HRH would have none of it – he called upon my friend to introduce me and then continued the joyful banter as though nothing had happened.  What a charming man he was!