Rosa Parks Day

Cicero has just come off the phone and in a very exasperated, highly agitated and deeply frustrated mindset. And sometimes this is not a suitable mindset to be in when musings have to be written.

In essence Cicero is being advised to accept the way things are and deal with the world as it is, not the way he would like it to be. In other words Cicero has been asked to put up with shoddy service, a poor customer experience, a take it or leave it attitude.

‘This is just the way it is’, Cicero has been advised, ‘and you and I are not going to change it’.

Those of you fortunate to have Cicero’s acquaintance will know that comments like this are akin to a red rag to a bull.

This appeasement attitude does not go down well. And one would have thought that given the history of appeasement in this country, and it does have a wee bit of a bad reputation, there would be more people willing to stand up for what is right and to be the change the world they want to see rather than bow down in front of might.

And what was Cicero’s response.

It was challenging, forthright and obstinate. Would you have expected any less? And no doubt at this point your sympathies are switching from Cicero to the person at the other end of the telephony instrument.

Let us put this way-the person with whom Cicero was conversing had simply called to tell him the date and time of an Apparatchik meeting, a meeting which Cicero was expecting sooner not later. They were not expecting to get a lecture on Rosa Parks.

Hopefully if you are reading this you will know who Rosa Parks was. But in the rare event that there is someone who out there who doesn’t, Rosa was a black lady in the south of the United States who sat on a seat she was not entitled to because she was the wrong colour. And as a consequence helped to bring about the end of de-segregation.

And for this act of disobedience, this act of rebellion when right stood up, or in this case sat down, against might, she earned the title ‘The First Lady of Civil Rights’ and her very own day in the calendar.

She did not accept that she could not bring about change.

She did not accept that the status quo was immutable.

She did not accept things as they were.

We can all be Rosa Parks and sit on the wrong seat on the bus just because it is the right thing to do. We can all stick our head, even on the smallest of issues, above the parapet and say ‘hey hold on a bit here, but this is wrong’. We all have the right to stand up for what is right against might.

It might not make for an easy life but because unreasonable people adapt the world to themselves, and not the other way round, all change and all progress depend on people being unreasonable.

Cicero will tell you now that Apparatchiks and others in positions of power and influence won’t like it one jot if we sit on the wrong seats. But as Rosa Parks proved the wrong seat is usually the right seat in the end.

And so today’s challenge, be Rosa Parks.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper.

Taxed enough already

The more astute among you may have noticed that Cicero is not a big fan of Big Government.

Big Government usually means that a lot of people have to find ways to keep themselves employed so they dream up more and more ways to intrude and to take over our lives, depriving of us all responsibility for looking after ourselves and each other.

And Big Government means high taxes which means we lose the right to spend our hard earned bawbees as we would like to spend them. Instead people like the Two Caesars, their Acolytes and an army of Apparatchiks think they know better than us how our bawbees should be spent.

And so Cicero hates Big Government with a passion.

And too often our political leaders, when looking to score cheap points from the Plebian Mob, and here Little Ed and those left over from the Last Lot are especially good at this, seem to think it ok to bash publicly and seek to tax more those of us fortunate enough to have some bawbees in the bank for a rainy day.

This is so wrong.

For when it comes to tax it needs to be recognised by us all that not only are we all in this together but those with the bawbees are in it far deeper than most.

It is now calculated that the top 1% of all earners in this country pay a whopping 30% of the total income tax take. No your eyes are not deceiving you, 30% of the income tax we all pay comes from 1% of us. Indeed the top 10% now pay 55% of total income tax receipts and half of us contribute 90% of everything that is received.

Hopefully eye watering numbers like that show that we are all truly in it together. It is however doubtful whether Little Ed and his sidekick Little Ed 2 will see the justice, or maybe the injustice,  in these numbers. No doubt their friends at Unite think such numbers can be ‘improved’.

But before anyone seriously advocates this, consider this.

In 1979 when the top rate of income tax was 83% the top 1% only contributed 11%. In other words a fair for all but regressive tax system means that tax yield from the wealthy increases. Cicero bets Mr McCluskey and the Little Eds never thought of that in their determination to fight class war.

Maybe we should have a flat rate tax system and see what happens.

Cicero has long argued that it is not the rate of tax people pay that we should all focus on but the yield. By doing this there might be less heat and noise when tax rates for the rich are reduced; less hypocrisy from Nick Nick and his promise breaking party; and more tax paid. And surely that is what we all want.

Though maybe too it would be nice if Big Government became a mite smaller with fewer job creating taxpayer-funded Apparatchiks feathering and protecting their own nests and gold plated pensions. That would be a real win-win.

And one final thought-why is it that no one out there wants to pass comment on Cicero’s musings? We know these words are being read but you can’t all be shy. Go on, say something-you know you want to. It’s easy and so long as it’s not rude it will be published. Comment here or via Twitter @cicerospeaks. Cicero looks forward to hearing from you.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper. 

Whose data is it anyway?

Now it is a well-known fact that Cicero, although getting on a bit now, has the brain the size of a planet, which is good and bad. Good because his insights are always worth listening to. Bad because he doesn’t always suffer fools gladly. 

It is important to know this because he sometimes wonders whether the Apparatchiks who run and deliver many of the services that our hard earned taxes pay for, deliberately recruit from the intellectually challenged parts of society.

Not everyone, of course.

Cicero does recognise that there are some ferociously bright Apparatchiks. It is just that they tend not to be public facing and as a consequence when it is our misfortune to have to deal with these people, let us just say that their intellectual capabilities can be stretched to the limit.

Here is one example. There are however many to choose from.

For reasons that are too boring to explain, Cicero is currently enduring a relationship with a Local Apparatchik. To this person Cicero has entrusted a wealth of personal data and information without fuss, security checks and other bureaucratic niceties and nonsenses that Apparatchiks normally insist on. This bit is like a breath of fresh air.

Now this is where it gets interesting.

Cicero then decided to request a copy of the information that the Apparatchik and his cohorts held about him to ensure accuracy and veracity. This, he and the rest of the citizenry, are fully entitled by law to do.

But at this point the informality that characterized the gathering and collecting in of his personal data disappeared. To be replaced by a ruthless Kafka-ism that only Apparatchiks are capable of.

For in order to get back the data that Cicero had already supplied, Cicero was now required  to produce his passport or other photographic proof of identity and 2 bills with address details on.

Naturally Cicero queried such bureaucratic nonsense.

‘Data protection, mate’, was the response. A lazy excuse for Apparatchik thinking if ever there was one.

So let us get this right.

Cicero was required to provide photographic proof of identity to an Apparatchik he had never met or was ever likely to meet. And to provide proof of address to prove he lived at an address that he had provided.

And the really sad bit about this tale-the Apparatchiks with whom Cicero was trying to converse with this through this over-engineered bureaucracy failed to see the logic of his argument. And they wonder why we challenge their right to a taxpayer-subsidised over-stuffed pension pot.

In their defence increasingly many people in many industries are resorting to hiding behind nonsenses like security, health and safety and data protection to justify inaction, poor customer service and sloth.

These excuses justify nothing.

And to expose such sloppy thinking just ask which data protection principle or health and safety condition they are referring to when they quote and resort to Nanny Legislation such as these. Their defences will melt like butter when challenged in this way.

Cicero has taken issue in this way with the Apparatchiks with whom is he dealing and is currently challenging the Head Apparatchik. Maybe he is the brightest of bright sparks and can see the folly of his people. Or perhaps not. Time will tell.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper.

Power to the people

Cicero is feeling guilty. And fears he may be giving his devoted and loyal readers the wrong impression. And he would like to make amends.

You may from recent posts be left with the impression that Cicero has something against this country’s Apparatchik class and that in his eyes these people can do no right. But in this post Cicero would like to suggest that those working to create wealth can at times be prone to much silliness too.

A few weeks back Little Ed, to much gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts from the Two Caesars and their acolytes, promised when speaking to the Last Lot, that should the Last Lot become the Next Lot after the Two Caesars have sought the judgement of the Vulgar Mob, that they would pass a law to cap energy price rises. A very relevant topic given the inflation busting price increases that our energy companies have just announced.

Now clearly such a law is more beneficial than debating and legislating to tax carrier bags to save the odd polar bear. Even if it will have the same effect as Canute as trying to stop the waves. You can’t buck the market. You can’t nationalise capitalism by getting them to pay for it. You really must stop listening to and reading the works of Pater, Little Ed.

Now such nonsense is bad enough. But it was trumped by the nonsense of one of those affected. A classic case of shooting yourself in the foot. 

Little Ed’s Marxist cant, while loved by the Vulgar Mob not unnaturally, was received with distinct unenthusiasm by those whose job it is to risk their capital to extract the oil and gas from the ground and to transport this vast distances so that we might keep our lights on, homes warm, and our offices and factories working at full stretch. Freezing prices artificially for 2 years will destroy investment, destroy jobs, destroy the economy. You might win some cheap votes, they warned, but such a policy will lead to blackouts, food riots and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

And while Cicero might agree with the sentiments, such dire warnings might have been a wee bit over the top.

And no sooner had their apocalyptic warnings started when, in a brazen piece of marketing cheek, and it was not a bad piece of marketing, one of their number announced that it was not possible to fix your energy prices not for two years, which would clearly result in the end of civilisation, but for 4 years.

The Marketing Head Honcho who signed off this campaign clearly was not cc-ed into the Armageddon memo.

So silliness is not just an Apparatchik monopoly.

So re-arrange these words into meaningful sentences. Pot black calling kettle. Left right hand doing not what hand knowing. Billy a who’s silly.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper. 

The yoof of today

As you know Cicero is well ancient.

He has seen generations come and go, the ebb and flow of fashion, and changing cultural, moral and philosophical mores. And if he was to rely solely on our august and venerable Fourth Estate for his news and information he would be holding his head in despair and concern. Fortunately Cicero is more pragmatic and realistic and refuses to let the supposed decline in our moral welfare as illustrated through the news headlines get to him.  And nor should they you.

Pick up any quality newspaper, so obviously that excludes the paper they call ‘The Grauniad’, any day of the week and you would quickly gain the impression that in this country our young people, and by that we mean kids less than 16, are doing nothing but getting pregnant, injecting drugs or turning up at school drunk. Some of them no doubt doing all three at the same time. And no doubt much more depravity besides.

Nero, Caligula and other depraved Roman Caesars of Cicero’s acquaintance would be proud of the yoof of this Green and Pleasant Land.

In denouncing our yoof the baying hounds of the Fourth Estate are led by the Daily Mail, whenever they are not having a go at Li’le Ed’s Pater.

So when you read on a daily basis that 5000 kids are turning up at school drunk; that every girl sits their GCSEs pregnant or when breast feeding; and that hundreds of thousands of 14 year olds have tasted coke, and we don’t mean the diet kind here, at least once a week, you do start to believe that the yoof of today are running amok and that our moral fibre is on the point of collapse.

And if you don’t believe Cicero on this, have a look at the Daily Mail today…or tomorrow…or the day after.

Now in Cicero’s humble opinion such statistics have a serious flaw that makes the data spurious-the numbers are generated by asking the yoof the last time they had sex, got drunk or intravenously injected.

In other words some researcher approached some acne ridden yoof and asked them these questions.

Now Cicero doesn’t know what you were like when you were a spotty adolescent, and Cicero can barely remember what he did and thought last week never mind when he was a pimply yoof, but does it not occur to anyone, and especially to those who ply their trade in the Fourth Estate, that the yoof might make especially unreliable witnesses? Has it not struck the finest of our investigative journalists, even those in the Daily Mail, that the respondents to these surveys might be exaggerating to impress?

Imagine the kudos a 15 year old would get among his peers by admitting that he is regularly drunk and that he can drink anyone under the table.

Naturally a 14 year old will acquire additional swagger by publicising that he or she is a 3 times a night kind of person.

And of course a 13 year old would look and appear older in front of his mates by letting any Tom, Dick or Harriet researcher that he was a total coke head.

And it is on the back of such dubiousity that tomorrow’s fish wrappers generate their lurid headlines. That our Apparatchiks and their policy makers develop their policies. That Mr Tonbridge Wells declares that he deplores the yoof of today.

And that is why Cicero can be more optimistic when he sees these headlines. Quite simply they are wrong.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper.

Sandpit bullies

Did you read the news over the past few days that Uncle Sam’s finest Special Forces Action Men had stormed their way ashore in Libya and Somalia and taking prisoner a so-called leading Al Qaeda operative? 

What did you think?

Did you cheer that another alleged terrorist had been taken out?

Or shrug with indifference? After all it happened in a land so far away and did not seem to involve anyone from This Green and Pleasant Land.

Cicero is quite frankly appalled at such brutish and bullying behaviour and wonders if this sets a good example.

Now let Cicero be clear at the outset.

He is not soft on terrorists. He could never be described as a Bleeding Heart Liberal. And he has only ever read ‘The Grauniad’ once and that was by mistake. So he does not take the line that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

However he does believe that no one and no country is above the law. And he does not think it right that Uncle Sam, or anyone else for that matter who purports to be a stickler for the maintenance of the law and due process, has or should have the right to wade ashore like modern day Milk Tray Men and just kidnap a stranger and whisk him out the country to be water-boarded or whatever.

This just isn’t right.

Surely there is a process for this sort of thing.

And if there is Uncle Sam must learn to use it and not just think it can do whatever it likes, wherever and whenever it likes, excepting of course with Russia, China, North Korea and Syria, where different rules seem to apply.

 Indeed Cicero is reminded that a few generations back the Brits were very good at taking on with their gunboats and Maxims people whose armaments amounted to no more than spears, pebbles and raw fruit. 

Uncle Sam seems to have learnt this doctrine of warfare. Libya and Somalia, yes. China and Syria, no.

Cicero has a vague recollection that Uncle Boris has a running dispute with Uncle Sam’s diplomats over their refusal to pay the Big Smoke’s Congestion Charge. Seemingly they think they are still back in the 1770s and are alleging ‘no taxation without representation’.  It will be tea in the Thames next.

But maybe Uncle Boris should take a leaf out of Uncle Sam’s play book.  

And send across our own Milk Tray Men to storm ashore in Washington and seize the Congestion Charge recidivists and whisk them out of the country before they can say ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’

Would that work?

To right it wouldn’t.

Firstly we in this Green and Pleasant Land play by the rules, at least most of the time and we don’t bully.

Secondly it is doubtful if in these economically straitened times if we could muster enough Milk Tray Men to do the job.

And thirdly Uncle Sam wouldn’t like it. Bullies so hate it when people stand up to them. And should we dare to stand up to Uncle Sam, even if we could, we would never hear those words, ‘The Special Relationship’, again. Although on reflection Hugh Grant did seem to get away with it so it might be worth a try.

But in Cicero’s book those who aspire to export freedom, democracy and the rule of law, must live up to those same standards or perish by them.

Thoughts?

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper. 

On the right track?

Last week Cicero spoke, and spoke so eloquently, about motorways. This week we are going to speak about trains and about one train in particular, HS2. This will be the last time for a while we will be communing about transport issues. Promise.

As we mentioned in my previous post Cicero is currently plying his trade and sharing his wit and wisdom with the lucky folks in the heart of this Green and Pleasant Land, pretty close to its supposed heart, in fact.

In this corner of the world the Angles and other tribes who have pitched their tents here are much vexed with the Two Caesar’s plans to build a high speed rail track through their gardens and fields. This plan has produced a highly contagious outbreak of Nimbyism for which there is at present no known cure though the finest scientific minds are currently looking into this. And naturally they are mightily displeased with the Two Caesars and their plans even though the plans were originally initiated by the Last Lot.

Now Cicero has many talents and skills and a wide spread of knowledge on very many topics but he would be the first to admit he is no transport expert. But this does not stop him from pronouncing and sharing his thoughts on this topic or any other with which he has scant knowledge.

Given this it is worth stating at the outset that to date Cicero has avoided succumbing to the outbreak of Nimbi’s and can this take a more detached view of the of the rights and wrongs of this issue for I have no skin in the game, other than as a taxpayer who will no doubt be funding this construction extravaganza. And possibly as a potential traveller who might choose to use the service to sojourn to the Big Smoke from time to time.  

My starting point in this debate is to admit that I know nothing about the topic, whether it economically stacks up though when did that last stop us doing things our Caesars wanted to do; whether or not we need the capacity that it is claimed we need; or whether there are better things we might do with the apparently obscene amounts of money it will take to build this Hornby Train Set.

But, and this is not something few realise, other than HS1 which links the Big Smoke with the land where Johnny Foreigner lives, we have not built any new train track in this country since the 19^th century which is even before Downton Abbey. So surely if we are going to build a new train line it is only right that we build the best, most up to date and most modern we can afford? After all if we were setting out to buy a new car we wouldn’t be looking to purchase a Model T Ford, would we?

It surely is not possible to run a modern 21^st century economy able to compete with modern and fast growing economies like Brazil, India and China (and possibly even Scotland once it discards it colonial shackles next year)  on a 19^th century infrastructure. Maybe those with Nimbyism think we can.

Finally we elect our leaders to lead, for good or ill, that is the strength and weakness of democracy, but we pay the Two Caesars to lead. So get on with it. You have looked into this and decided that this is the best thing for us to do. You have had experts with brains the size of planets to examine the issues and you still think we should do this. So in the words of my old friend, Aristotle, albeit in Greek, ‘lead on and just frigging do it’.

Those of you with higher active listening skills may have discerned Cicero’s previous subtle pronouncements that he is not usually favour of the Caesars spending his bawbees on State business but indubitably the Two Caesars will be relieved to know that this plan has Cicero’s blessing.

But what do you think? Have you a bad case of Nimbyism? Or even worse Ludditism?

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper.