Sir Alexander Belloc-Brayne reflects on a month of legacy building, honours and a carbon-neutral festive season.
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Christmas Day in the workhouse..! Lady Belloc-Brayne has conscripted Nurse to put the final touches to her 2006 Carbon-Neutral Christmas Festival. Her Ladyship insists that it is technically feasible to power the illuminations with an army of garden gnomes fitted with windmills. The way I see it, the whole thing could just as easily be powered by the water feature in our garden at infinitesimal marginal cost. As usual, my advice has been ignored.
A month crowded with incident. Where to begin? How about with that splendid Pre-Budget Report! Characteristically deft of the Chancellor to clothe his retrospective taxes in a planet-saving afterthought. Mr Brown’s Air Passenger Duty hike has created more than a bit of turbulence in the aviation industry one hears, mainly over collection arrangements for paid-up travellers like the Belloc-Braynes whose embarkation dates fall after 31 January. Ingenious suggestion from the Treasury that the airlines absorb the extra cost. Now there’s a deterrent to casual commuting. Who says it’s only a revenue-raising exercise?
Of course Mr Brown will have shelved personal ambition to focus on weaving the mythology with which to clothe his fiscal legacy. Word is that he is set to raise £300bn to balance the State housekeeping account by selling any national assets not in pawn already. I have written to the Foreign Office (cc MOD) urging it to flog a few ancient Tridents to our new Iraqi chums post haste, both to defend their infant democracy and to provide us with a pre-installed casus belli. No missing WMD next time round! We know where the subs are buried! Pity we can’t backdate the deal to 19 March 2003 or earlier. Now there’s another idea…
The way I see it, though, Mr Brown’s monument is surely the elastic business cycle which contours to any consummation of the Golden Rule, real or imaginary. Nor should we overlook the NPSS Personal Account, which is preordained to be so spontaneously popular that its distribution will run on inertia selling alone. I may be unfamiliar with the finer points of modern financial product design but I recognise a “no-brainer” when I see one.
Nurse insists that we shall have to pay 4% of her wages into a retirement account or “make it worth my while” to opt out. A plague upon this “something-for-nothing” generation! Lady Belloc-Brayne prays that we may soon enter that particular phase of the political cycle when all government initiatives entail reversal of its past reforms – an established rite for halving the burdens of the Mandarins. The way I see it, we shall probably all have joined the “group-scheme in the sky” well before any prospect of delivery.
Be that as it may, I have reserved some scarce brain power for composing a sound-bite to the greater glory of the Pension Account. So far I have come up with “Sub-Stakeholder”, the ”pension to end all pensions”, and my favourite, the “Nothing-for-Something” Savings Plan (NSSP) which emphasises the singular quality that becomes more evident as one converges to the breadline – a metaphor for the New Welfare State where means justify ends. Well spotted, Belloc-Brayne! A consultancy at the Department for Work and Pensions beckons – at twice the private sector rate, I hear.
Strictly entre nous, Lady Belloc-Brayne thinks that I should be saving myself for the post of Guardian of the Laws of Cricket as recently advertised by the Marylebone Cricket Club in The Observer. Applicants need “a passion for the game and an excellent understanding of the Laws of Cricket. Legal qualification an advantage but not essential. Package to suit the best”. High hurdles indeed, but mine for the taking!
Surveying the bigger picture, I must say how reassured I am to see Mr Brown looking like a political heavyweight and demonstrating that he is not in the Cabinet simply to make up the numbers as it were. Mind you, Mr Blair will be a hard act to follow. Bliss it is to watch the diplomatic masterclass underway in the Middle East. A touch on the tiller in Iraq, a subtle detour on the Palestinian road map and…. thar she blows! Where shall we be without him?
Nevertheless it was good to see “Brown” Gordon turning up in Basra in mid-November, albeit in a dress rehearsal for the role of First Lord of the Treasury. Pity that Mr Blair did not think of despatching him earlier to confront the Mahdi (or the Axis of Evil in the modern translation). One can but speculate on the substance of the address to our troops. Pension Credit? Neo-Classical Endogenous Growth? My money’s on boom and bust – something to set the desert ablaze and raise the blood lust. G-d help Al Qaeda now!
Rather moved to view the Foreign Secretary’s anguish over the death penalty handed down on Saddam Hussein while somehow managing to sublimate her sorrow over Iraqi civilian deaths at the hands of the Axis of Virtue. “Any man’s death diminishes me…” but 57,000 is a crowd.
Have just returned from an emergency board meeting at Prodigal Life following legal opinion that Prodigal Bank penalties on unauthorised overdrafts may be unlawful and refundable, yea, unto six years back. Some boardroom outrage too over the Farepack scandal with the Daily Telegraph putting it about that pensioners can apply for debit-card “chargeback” on undelivered Christmas hampers worth £100 or more. I am glad to report that I exercised a calming influence on the Board by pointing out that Prodigal Bank customers are not the kind to pay for anything if they can help it. That’s why we give ‘em credit cards, for heaven’s sake! Close call, though! Pesky Telegraph seems to have fallen completely under the spell of boy-wonder Cameron.
Not all hand-wringing, mind. The Belloc-Brayne Model Portfolio has advanced a few points on a recuperating British Aerospace following discontinuance of the Serious Fraud Office’s cash-for-contracts inquiry. Her Ladyship is convinced that the 7,000 hardworking families of the House of Saud have given our SFO the proverbial forty-five minutes to get its tanks off their lawn and insists that it is premature of the OECD anti-bribery working party to indict Great Britain for not keeping its end up, especially after Lord Goldsmith’s seemingly self-fulfilling assurance that a prosecution of BAE had no chance of success whatsoever. Hear, hear!
Seem to have lost out on the New Year Honours List again to some Brown-nosed tycoons and the chief shoeshine boy to the Virgin Branson. On the other hand, Lady Belloc-Brayne’s fears that last year’s £150 donation to the Labour Party would come back to haunt us have proved groundless. Now there’s a thought… Sharing a cell with the PM’s Middle Eastern envoy might be just the thing with which to catch the conscience of the Government. There’s a flaw in the plan but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Never mind. Make a note, lest we forget:
Dear Lord L… Enclosed is a “loan” for £200. Pay it back whenever…. Already have a “K” so it will have to be a “big P”. P.S. Can you fix it for me to flaunt it before New Year?
Such a delicate moral line. Whereas one cannot put a price on honour, the same cannot be said of honours. I can honestly say that I don’t envy those who have to make these hard choices – only those who benefit from them.
Must rush. Nurse will be along any minute for a brainstorm on the Belloc-Brayne Carbon-Neutral Christmas Songbook. Meant to be a surprise for Her Ladyship, so keep it under your hat. Writer’s block has set in, alas. Any advances on
“May your days be gay and serene
And may all your Christmases be green”
