Sir Alexander Belloc-Brayne reports from South Africa and keeps an eye on events back home.
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February 2007
Greetings from Cape Town, where the Belloc-Brayne travelling party is encamped along the banks of the Mount Nelson Hotel swimming pool, a traditional vantage point that has served us so well over many fact-finding visits. Strictly entre nous, I had been expecting a higher-profile reception than the hotel airport shuttle service, but Lady Belloc-Brayne says that we have been upstaged by President Hu Jintao of the People’s Republic of China on the latest leg of a long march to buy up Africa’s resources. The way I see it, however, the indigenous system of cheques and balances will help its leaders to keep the forces of neo-colonialism at bay.
The country has atoned for this diplomatic oversight with a decidedly friendly exchange rate, which local entrepreneurs, trade unions and the government wish to make even friendlier in order to address a trade deficit of US magnitude relative to GDP. According to a spokesman for organised labour, the inflationary outcome of further devaluation will be a problem only for the rich – an insight that will be of comfort to the Zimbabwean masses.
Must say that I am rather disorientated by the renaming of familiar places such as Pretoria (now Tshwane) and Johannesburg International Airport (O.R. Tambo). Lady Belloc-Brayne traces the rot back to a “transformation” process that began with decolonisation of the Mount Nelson Hotel, originally named after a British admiral but now honouring an icon of the liberation movement. Plus ça change… Her Ladyship says that next year we may well disembark at James “Jimmy” la Guma International Airport, christened after some obscure Bolshevik of yore. My sources tell me that the smart money is on Chernobyl if the Russians win the contract to build a nuclear power station in the Western Cape.
Incidentally, I do not agree with those who question the country’s readiness to stage the 2010 World Cup. Those in the know say that the project will be delivered, even at the expense of social housing and hospital construction – and quite right too! No sign of South Africa’s legendary criminality either, at the Mount Nelson poolside anyway. I dare say that we Britains could learn from an infant democracy’s riposte to crime and its origins. “Let us not be spectators,” quoth an African National Congress spokesman – a principle that is followed rather literally, if the number of public figures passing through the criminal justice system is any guide. I confess that I am intrigued by the consensus among local criminologists that crime prevention is not the responsibility of the police. That should reassure all prospective World Cup pilgrims.
Mind you, we British need not take a back seat when it comes to innovative crime-prevention measures. Lady Belloc-Brayne has thrown her weight behind plans to fingerprint every adult in the United Kingdom by 2009. The way I see it, though, the Government might be better advised to concentrate its forces on our feral juveniles. I do however support Mr Blair’s demands that those sentenced to Community Service wear “recognisable uniforms” emblazoned with “Community Payback” – a fitting punishment for cash-for-honours offenders, methinks. Well spotted, Belloc-Brayne! They may name an open prison after you back home.
It seems that our South African visit has coincided with a financial crisis involving an outfit called Fidentia whose Living Hands Umbrella Trust is £49m in deficit to the detriment of 47,000 indigent widows and orphans and some cash-rich departments of state. The case is “not the most complex” and may entail no more than the entanglement of trust property with the personal assets of Fidentia directors. Cherchez la dolce vita. I would have offered my expertise to the administrators but for the precedent of South Africa’s £126,000 p.m. national football coach being threatened with arrest for watching matches on TV without a work permit. Sometimes it is better to retire to the poolside and await the call.
Heartening news from the Green and Pleasant is that the London Stock Exchange has beaten off a takeover bid by the Nasdaq. However, our eastward-facing defences now look vulnerable, with the likely demise of the United Kingdom Independence Party which has been undermined by the unwitting adoption of the elastic Brussels accounting ethos. Wouldn’t surprise me if the Tories had not planted a few whistleblowers disguised as Europhobes in the UKIP camp. Equo ne credite, Teucri. I am intrigued by the failure of the £500,000 raised through a South-East call centre to reach the UKIP national accounts. The way I see it, the boy Cameron may just have foiled a unlilateral declaration of independence by Kent.
Sounds like it has been a terrific month for our Department for Work and Pensions, whose defiance of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s report into the maladministration of defunct final salary funds has been declared “irrational” by the High Court, despite lack of a causal link between its “inaccurate, incomplete, unclear and inconsistent” leaflets and losses sustained by scheme members – one of those balanced judgments that keep the mills of justice grinding. Strictly entre nous, my joy at a visible triumph of natural justice is only exceeded by my unease as a taxpayer. I have written to the Chancellor suggesting that the compensation process kick off with the surcharging of the Pensions Minister and his army of predecessors since 1997. Can’t fault the Financial Assistance Scheme though, which has spared no expense (£7m) in paying out £3m over 18 months to 871 out of 125,000 victims of busted pension schemes.
I must say that I still retain the utmost confidence in our financial protection apparatus which was thoroughly tested by the recent Department for Work and Pensions proposal to allow private sector employers to shed their final-salary scheme liabilities via lump sum payments to members calculated on rates of return that would name and shame the financial services industry. All credit to the Inland Revenue for declaring such payments taxable, to the Regulator for reminding trustees of their whistle-blowing duties and to The Actuarial Profession for wording the financial health warning. Shows that the system can seek and destroy any swindle launched from the unlikeliest quarters.
Something in my water detects an intellectual affinity between the ANC and New Labour governments, reflected in common policy initiatives such as ”inclusive housing”, “smart” ID cards and a mandatory contributory state pension scheme based on the knowledge that the poor value their future income above their present pay. In a waking moment during President Mbeki’s remarkable State-of-the-Nation Address I thought myself back home with Gordon Brown extolling an “efficiently-administered” social security system serving the seven million British households that have exchanged poverty for 50% income dependency on the State. Mind you, public administration is hardly an exact science, as demonstrated by our National Audit Office’s discovery that only £3.1bn out of the £20bn Gershon economies trumpeted by Whitehall bear scrutiny.
Must rush. Nurse is champing at the bit to try out her new zero-interest credit card at the Cape Town Waterfront, emboldened by the arrival of chip-and-pin technology in these parts. I am proud to say that postgraduate students at Cambridge University’s Computer Laboratory remain pre-eminent in the field of electronic payment security, having outwitted the foolproof chip-and-pin system and used personal details intercepted in mid-transaction to build their own working credit card. The Association for Payments and Clearance Systems insists that the manoeuvre requires the collaboration of internal and external parties. The way I see it, though, that problem can easily be overcome with a little cooperation between the Students’ Careers Office and the old boy network. Let us not be spectators.
