A Trip to California

Two weeks ago, I set off for an overnight trip to London to stay at some friends' place before   flying from Heathrow on a trip to California the next day.  Over the next week or so, I hope to recount the experiences of my first trip to the USA and specifically to its most populous state.

One of the regular topics on this blog is the overcentralisation of the country in the capital and Heathrow, in particular the decision to build a third runway, has been criticised previously. There were no direct flights from Britain's sixth busiest airport direct to San Francisco, and the indirect flights were as expensive as the direct flights from Heathrow.  As such, I was forced to use the busiest international airport in the world despite my disdain for it (although I was also travelling with some friends who were based in London).  Even more worrying, originally it looked like we would be flying by BA from a BAA airport; a recipe for disaster if ever there was one.  However, our incompetence meant that we missed the cheaper BA flight and ended up flying Virgin Atlantic - a blessing in disguise in my opinion.  While BA epitomises the third-rate Thatcherite-Blairite capitalism of privatisation of a publicly-owned service to monopolist profiteers who run it down to the point that it is now a dodgy pension fund which does a bit of flying on the side, Virgin Atlantic represents capitalism at its best; entrepreneurs building a business from scratch and delivering a decent product to attract the masses.  Let me say, the flight did not disappoint either; having not flown long-haul since the early 90's, I was amazed at the choice of food and entertainment, over 60 movies and numerous tv shows, numerous games that can be played some against other passengers and even a phone, e-mail and text-message service from the flight (the latter for a premium of course). Discussions with my friends who are temporarily staying in California seemed to confirm that Virgin was indeed better than BA in this respect.

However, flying from Heathrow still left me with the problem of getting to London for a mid-morning flight, which being a weekday could have proved rather expensive had the friends I was flying with not generously offered to let me stay over at theirs.  This left me with the option of getting to London by train either pre-booking via Virgin trains for £7 each way, or using the £19.50 super off-peak with Chiltern railways. Unfortunately, Virgin trains tend to be closer to BA than Virgin Atlantic, and the risk that I would miss the train back to Brum by flight cancellations meant I was prepared to pay more for the slower but more flexible ticket by Chiltern trains, which has the added advantage of leaving via the far superior Birmingham Moor Street Station rather than the overcrowded concrete mass that is Birmingham New Street.  The Chiltern line is really two local services; a local service from Birmingham Snow Hill to Leamington Spa, and one from Bicester to London Marylebone.  Hence the train left packed and pretty much emptied by Bicester, only to fill up again the closer we got to London.  We seemed to stop at a ridiculous amount of stations (I think it was 27) meaning the entire journey took 2 hours 14 minutes instead of the 1 hour 24 it would take from New Street to Euston. Once in London, I had to face the tube.

Life would be a lot simpler for the majority of the country if we used the extra capacity at regional airports rather than putting all our eggs in the baskets of London airports and in particular, London Heathrow.

Heath-Go

The decision to build a third runway at Heathrow is another example of bad London-centric government. There are arguments a lot wider than the simplistic environmentalism vs the economy dichotomy perpetuated by the government and the green lobby; there are some specific issues about the very positioning and nature of Heathrow as well.

Heathrow is based on a Hub and Spoke model, which is fine if you are flying packages around the world, but goes against the trends of passenger flights over the years. For example, when I used to fly to India in the 80s I used to have to take a coach to London, a plane to Bombay International, a taxi from Bombay International to Bombay Domestic and finally a plane from Bombay Domestic to Goa. The whole journey used to take around two days. The last time I did this journey in 1999, I flew direct from Birmingham International to Goa and it took eight hours on a charter flight (only double the time it once took me to get home from work on the infamous day the gritters of Birmingham went missing). I have not flown from Heathrow since 1990 and from London since 1994. Now that I have got the option, I want to fly from Birmingham (or somewhere else relatively closer). For example, in 2006 I flew to Munich and it took around an hour. It would have taken me four times as as long to get into London to make that flight.

Ignore the Airbus A380, Boeing (who actually make money rather than being subsidised by the European governments) have been concentrating on smaller planes for more tailored flying and the budget airlines tend to be the most successful at the moment, flying full planes to smaller airports.

Heathrow also lies in an awful position to the West of London meaning flights come in and go out over Greater London to the continent which is far from ideal. A new airport (as some have suggested) on an artificial island at the mouth of the Thames Estuary would in my mind be a better solution.

A new runway at Heathrow is set in the old business mentality. An alternative would be to develop the smaller regional airports to take more of flights and/ or a high speed rail link as the Conservatives have suggested. I would like to see Heathrow closed or scaled down with a new purpose built airport replacing it. Yet again the rest of the country is being ignored while the government defends the one-trick wonder British economy that is the financial sector in London. A new airport would be a brave decision, whereas a third runway is just the easiest one.

As for the governments argument that they want to defend British jobs during the current economic crisis, given that it will take around five or possibly more likely ten years for the new runway to be built, one wonders how long they expect the credit crunch to continue.

Adapted from my comments on the Stirrer Heathrow new runway and terminal approval thread.

The Thatcher-Blair Endgame?

The government owns 58% of RBS, and 100% of Northern Rock, both previously private banks.

Meanwhile, we pay water rates to a private monopoly. Six private energy firms control the market for gas and electricity. The railways are run as essentially private monopoly enterprises. Air Traffic control and defence research is part privatised. There has been increasing privatisation of schools and the NHS, including PFI where money for capital projects is borrowed from the private sector (at rates higher than we would have been able to borrow from the government). The telecommunication industry is completely in private hands, despite BT's dominance stifling competition.

It's a funny old world.

One Sector Avoids Inflation...

Despite spending millions of pound on the war on drugs, the price of heroin, cocaine, cannabis resin and ecstasy have fallen according to a report by an independent think tank.

Is there no way we can link the price of drugs to oil? Or perhaps we can get some of our energy companies to deal in this lucrative business; it surely would not take too long for drugs to be too expensive for regular users.

Socialist Choice

Unlike some bloggers, the People's Republic was glad that Northern Rock was taken under state ownership earlier this week. The only criticism would be that it should have happened sooner. The Conservative Party have started bleating that we are back to the nationalisations of the 70's which wrecked the economy. Personally, I am just glad we are not back to the botched privatisations of the 90's in which they sold off the family silver to their rich mates below cost price in terrible deals for the taxpayer and the consumer.

As far as I can see it there were three choices: leaving Northern Rock to the mercy of the market; a botched privatisation in which the taxpayer would have underwritten the debts while shareholders of the takeover company pocket the profits; or nationalisation. Now, there is a lot to be said for the first one and this would be the choice for anyone who truly believes in laissez-faire capitalism. However, the Conservatives preferred the second option, in which the rich would make money with any mistakes covered by poor old Joe Public through taxation. For them, this is true to form. The privatisation of water under the Conservatives left us with the worst of both worlds, with shareholder profiting from a monopoly industry (just try phoning Severn Trent with a query and timing how long you wait; in proper capitalism, you would close your account and take your business elsewhere). Then they sold of our railways on the cheap in such a way that there was no competition on any given route, thus offering no incentive for lower prices and better services. Gas and electricity almost worked, until you take into account the latest price hikes. With the telephone networks, BT's size and control of the networks leaves them with an unfair advantage; remember how they held back broadband? How anyone who genuinely believes in free markets can support the Conservative position is absolutely beyond me. Unfortunately, botched private/ public partnerships and private protectionism also became the bedrock of New Labour's economic theory; trying to sell off the Tote to their horse-racing mates was just one of the examples that springs, not to mention the many failed PFI ideas.

The reason why I believe in the third option above is that the credit crunch is unprecedented, in recent years at least. The whole market seems to be affected, and the main central banks are so concerned they have come together to try and limit the damage. The first option is an acceptable way of doing things, but would have left many customers anxious as their life savings (although protected by regulation) faced an uncertain future. The third option at least protects the consumer and gives some stability to the banking sector. It is not without its downsides however. After all, will some banks decide to gamble recklessly with other peoples money, safe in the knowledge that if they mess up the government will come in and save the day? I personally do not think banks think like this, but it does raise the precedent of state intervention in such circumstances.

For those of us with a soft spot for socialism however, the best thing about this privatisation is that it allows us to play the free marketeers at their own game. I can choose to bank in a nationalised industry, which at the moment offers some very competitive savings rates, safe in the knowledge that the savings are guaranteed. For once, it is not the shareholders getting the best deal. It is the ordinary man on the street.

I think I will go and open an account in the bank which I own through the Government right away.

PRoBrum Right-Leaning?

I love these kind of quizzes which map out your position on a two-dimensional political spectrum and compare you with current parties and political leaders past and present. I find them useful because I struggle to find a mainstream political party I fit in with These quizzes give me an opportunity to find out what the differences are. I am surprised to be right-leaning in this version, but I think part of the problem is that it defines neo-liberal politics as being right-wing, an opinion I disagree with (I believe free-markets are a centrist position that have been adopted by the right due to the success of socialist economics during the middle part of the twentieth century). A previous version on an American Scale had me as a Democrat.

Comparing myself with the 2005 UK political spectrum I am closest to the Liberal Democrats which I have always suspected, but this can be misleading due to the fact that the party is polarised between the Liberal and Social Democratic founding traditions. Thankfully, I am on the opposing side of the quadrant containing the BNP.

Interestingly nearly all modern political leaders are in the same quadrant as the two main parties, authoritarian neo-liberals. Is this because this is the most practical form of politics? I hope not. I think it shows that politicians are inclined to award themselves too much power as it keeps them in work. I believe most people who take this test will find themselves in the libertarian half of the chart, indicating to me that the growing chasm between electorates and their leaders does not involve positioning on the traditional left-right political spectrum, but is instead a failure by current governments to recognise that most aspects of life do not need to be legislated over, and that citizens must be given the freedom to live the lives they choose to live.

Hat-tip to Some Random Thoughts.

Usi 9mm

There has been a lot of discussion recently about foreign takeovers of British football clubs. My opinion is that if football is a business, as we are constantly being told it is, it cannot protect itself from globalisation which is a natural part of free-markets. Having said that, we don't want any old Johnny Foreigner running our clubs. There must be a certain probity about the character of any potential investors.

I believe the two Birmingham clubs have done well here. I doubt any Villa fan would want to go back to the bad old days of Deadly Doug. Randy Lerner, as well as having a great name for a student of sex education, has humbly said he is a steward of the club and it appears that the club is finally moving in the right direction after many years of neglect. There are a few question marks over Carson Yeung, not least as to whether he will actually take over at St Andrew's, but he seems to have an understanding of the city and football and could be an important contact in the emerging superpower that is China, giving the city and the club access to the huge Premier League marketing potential available in the country..

Other cities have been less discerning however. Manchester City have allowed the former Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Sinawatra with his questionable record on human rights to take over the club. Meanwhile in London, the probity of the Arsenal-owning hopeful Alisher Uzmanov has been questioned recently by quite a few blogs concerned at his recent efforts to silence certain online critics, which affected among others Tim Ireland and local councillor Bob Piper's fine weblogs.

Many club owners are now saying foreign investment is vital to be able to compete at the highest level. However, should we be more careful about the types of people who are taking over our national sport?

One Out All Out

I may be a bit annoyed at not getting my public sector annual increment in pay, but you have to laugh; UNISON are balloting their members on strike action over the issue, but the process of sending out ballot papers have been delayed... because of the postal strike.

Isn't it ironic.

Prince of Formats

Prince gave away his new album Planet Earth free with the Mail on Sunday today, to cries of protest from the music industry. How can he slap in the face the shops that have built his career they cry. Why will people buy a CD by a top artist for £10 when they can get one for free?

All completely irrelevant. The music industry has been deliberately trying to hold back new methods of distributing music in vain attempts to try and make more money. They seem to delude themselves into believing people actually want to buy CD's; they don't and the tide has been moving from CD's to digital downloads for quite a while now. Of course, the music industry hate digital downloads, not because much of it is being done illegally (as a response to the music industry trying to hold it back) but because they can charge us much more for a CD for very little reason. Instead of us buying a track we want for 79p from iTunes, they insist on filling the CD with up to three B-side songs we do not particularly want so they can put it on a portable medium and charge us five times as much for it. A CD only costs about 50p to make, but after all the marketing, packaging and salaries are paid for, suddenly the cost shoots up to around £4 for a single, or £10 for an album.

The truth is the music industry is becoming irrelevant. The Internet has democratized music. Artists that would not have been give a chance by the "experts" provide their music on sites like Myspace to people who are prepared to listen to it. No longer are we told what we can listen to by middlemen making a quick buck out of other peoples talents. We can decide what we want and pay a reasonable price for it, if there is a price at all. It is an example of good capitalism (giving the people what they want) defeating bad capitalism (big business restricting the market and bumping up prices) - and long may it continue.

What about the music shops and the middleman? Well they will just have to get used to it. They can either embrace it and continue in the business, or they can die out.

After all, you can't stop progress.

Brown Blows Last Budget

Gordon Brown delivered what was likely to be his final budget yesterday and the People's Republic remains unimpressed. The consensus is that the headline 2p income tax cut actually means the poorer are paying more tax due to the abolition of the 10p rate. PragueTory claims anyone earning less than £17935 more than £5000 is actually paying more tax (not taking into account any tax credits). Not like the Tories to give a damn about the poor, and not like me to agree with them. Circumstance makes strange bedfellows.

This time last week HP stopped producing its sauce in Aston, Birmingham and moved production to the Netherlands where corporation tax has recently been cut to 25.5%. In what can only be described as shutting the door after the horse has bolted, Brown cut corporation tax to 28p yesterday, making up the shortfall by tightening up the rules and raising taxes on small business. We are still quite a way off Ireland's corporation tax rate of 12.5%.

Oh and tax goes up on beer by 1p a pint on Sunday.

Better tank up before then...

Saucy? Not in Brum

This is the 100th post on the blog and unfortunately yet again it is bad news. Heinz are planning to close the historic HP sauce factory in Aston, moving production to mainland Europe. It comes after Peugeot announcement last month of the closure of the Ryton plant that currently produces the outgoing 206, and a year after the infamous Rover closure that nearly took the Labour government with it.

When added to the many NHS Trusts in the area who have announced job cuts (including Sandwell and West Birmingham and the Women's Hospital) it appears Birmingham will have to reinvent itself again.

Train Planes and Automobiles

It appears that car production may be returning to Birmingham as the lease on part of the Longbridge site is renewed by new owners Nanjing automotive. Around 600 - 1000 jobs may be created to build the MG TF sports car. If the business cannot be resurrected however,they have an option of canceling the 33-year lease in 6 months.

Meanwhile a plane nearly crashed in Birmingham airport as it came into land. The Mahan Air plane from Iran had to 180m six miles from the airport when it should have been at 500m.

We always seem to have problems with the transport in this city.

Birmingham Becomes Biggest Fair Trade City

Birmingham became the biggest fair trade city yesterday, a fact which seems to have been completely missed the national press. Perhaps they were still covering the fall-out of Live 8 in London earlier this year which did absolutely sod-all for the poor, but resurrected the careers of quite a few has been pop-stars.

Fair trade can be controversial but is based on the idea of giving the producers a fairer price for their products, rather than it being swallowed up by faceless multinational corporations. On the other hand, multinational corporations can invest a lot of money in the developing world making the countries richer.

I'm sure they won't mind a little competition though.

Fuel Crisis? What Crisis?

We cannot end this week without saying a big thank you to all those people who tried to bring the country to a standstill through selfishness and stupidity by panic-buying fuel ahead of the planned protest that didn't materialise on Thursday. Ironically, on the day of the motorway go-slow prices were slashed by the supermarkets which meant that these idiots had actually filled their tanks with overpriced fuel.

I always thought there should be a tax on stupidity. I guess taxes on motorists are the closest thing we've got.

Birmingham "not in Premier League" of European Cities

David Milliband visited the City today ahead of "no-holds barred" conference on what Birmingham needs to compete with similar European cities. While making the comment above, he praised Birmingham trailblazing move to bring culture to the city ahead of many other cities in the country, but said that it was not enough alone to make a city great. He also pointed out that although the city has a great sense of identity, this was not necessarily enough to make a directly elected mayor work.

Although it is refreshing to see a minister speak frankly (and for that matter take an interest) in the city, we at the People's Republic believe that a directly elected mayor is needed for the Brum. For a start, there are far too many councillors, and as the biggest council in Europe, we need a problem solver similar to Ken Livingstone with who the buck stops. The right candidate with a proper vision could revolutionise the city's economy, and put us where we belong in the country and in the wider European picture. We hope these no-holds barred talks produce an outcome that Birmingham needs.

After all, it could be the first step to independence.