A Bank for all Seasons

As we enter the season of bankers' bonuses isn't it heart-warming to see leading bankers settling for a modest million or so? How public spirited of them! And how characteristically useless of government to allow this when the state - our state - has such a huge stake following the bail-outs. But I for one do not want to hear any more spoutings from ministers about this. Will we get action? I doubt it. I fancy I know the real reasons. They are not flattering to our political system or to our economy - such as it now is - but this is a topic for another time.

But there is something that even laggardly leaders could do quite easily and that is to allow the revival of municipal banks. Not only would trustworthy and simple services be offered as they once were but in taking business from the commercial predators they would act as 'exemplar institutions'.

'Security with Interest' was the motto of the late lamented Birmingham Municipal Bank from its foundation around 1916 right up to its closure on 31 March 1976. Many people recall the MB (and still cherish their ageing passbooks) and the security that it offered with the City Council guaranteeing deposits.

As readers of this blog will be aware, I’ve been campaigning for the re-establishment of the Birmingham Municipal Bank for some years. Never was it needed more than now. There is a desperate need for a real alternative operating on near-forgotten principles of service with fairness and responsibility and without profiteering and exploitation.

The idea would be to offer complete security to small savers and fair and consistent interest rates for saving, to encouraging thrift – even explaining what this is to some younger people today. As well as security with interest (note the order) there are other mottoes inside the old headquarters building on Broad Street reflecting virtues worth re-adopting today such as: “Saving is the Mother of Riches” and “Thrift radiates Happiness”. In other words real prosperity comes through saving in a trustworthy institution and satisfaction as well as wealth results.

The Council no longer owns this building, but there are plenty of alternatives, especially as the Council is reducing the number of buildings it occupies. Furthermore, a Birmingham Municipal Bank could keep both money and jobs in the city and be the means through which the oft-suggested ‘Brummie Bonds’ could be issued to allow ordinary folk to support civic projects (the new Central Library would have been a good example) while offering a secure return.

There will be some way to travel however since Government legislation since 1976 makes the establishment of civic banks difficult and restricts the services they could offer. But a start could be made with a savings bank (as was done in 1916) with the scope broadening later if lobbying of the Government to restore former powers proved successful. This would be complementary to existing Credit Unions, which perform valuable if small-scale services but which are not everybody's cup of tea. And while it is true that the commercial banks could attempt to stifle such an initiative (as they tried to do in 1916) any such resistance could be overcome with a bit of political will.

Birmingham could lead the way again – just as it did in 1916 and indeed in the earliest days of commercial banking. We are often told that the City should distinguish itself. What better way than by knocking aside the obstacles and putting people first with the renaissance of our own Birmingham Municipal Bank? A bank for all people and, striking the right moral tone, for all seasons. Perhaps if the Government's bribing and propaganda result in an American style executive Mayor in Birmingham they could get this underway as an early initiative. One can live in hope!

That Essential Difference

Western societies including our own are becoming increasingly dysfunctional - and I'm not talking about soap opera families. It is not just the mutant version of capitalism with which we are afflicted and which functions for the benefit of speculators, bankers, other disloyal outfits and the top few percent of the population, but our political system too.

One absolutely vital ingredient of a democratic political system is having the right amount of difference - i.e. that the options placed before the electorate represent real alternatives that would lead to different trajectories and outcomes for society. But these days in this country you can hardly get a tissue paper between the major policies of the main parties. There is a sense in which they work together too much - rather as an informal political cartel forever looking over their shoulders and using the same focus group approach equally devoid of principle, courage or even a sense of economic history.

What does it matter who gets elected if the policy choices are austerity, austerity or austerity? And of course it will not work. Cuts push the domestic economy down and as countries, being each other's export markets, pile on the misery it is no use looking abroad. That only works if the others have different, more sensible and effective policies on which we can take a free ride. That isn't going to happen. Instead we have national and international economic prescriptions equivalent to the 18th century medical 'cures' of leaches and bleeding. If the patient isn't recovering - then bleed some more.

For our distant cousins in the United States of course the political situation is the reverse. Their political system has been rendered dysfunctional by the capture of the Republican Party and much of the media by elements holding extreme right wing views and fat wallets. Checks and balances built into the constitution produce policy deadlock when faced with idiotic policies and a relentless refusal to compromise. Their Founding Fathers did not like the idea of political parties - you can now see why - and did not foresee the blight of doctrinaire intransigence with which their system is now afflicted.

The big worry is that short of a catastrophic upheaval here and elsewhere there is no evident solution to all this - not even in the medium term. Elections need to matter, the common good should be to the fore and loyalty to community and country should permeate our economic as well as our social life. That's the essential difference we need today. Can it really be too much to ask or has the mutation taken that deep a grip?

Wildfowl Food for Thought

In cold snaps such as the one we've been having recently many of us like to ‘do our bit’ for wildlife by feeding the ducks and geese who of course are very enthusiastic about this as shown in our photograph of the pool at Priory Fields in The Shire Country Park.

Quite naturally, most of us feed the birds with bread - which they soon gobble up - but in excess this may not do them too much good. In fact, if all that the ducks got to eat was bread, they could starve! One reason for this is that bread swells in their stomachs making the birds feel full and therefore stopping them from eating the healthy, natural food that they need for proper nutrition.

The feeding of white bread also upsets their diet leading to a Vitamin E deficiency and a protein excess causing a condition known as ‘Angel Wing’. In this ailment one or both of the birds’ wings droop and turn outwards with an excessive growth of flight feathers, thus crippling the bird and stopping it from flying.

Rotting bread can also cause other deadly diseases and encourage parasites, particularly a duck enteritis that, with a single outbreak, can kill all the birds in the area. Bread can also cause potentially serious impactions of the bird’s crop (the pouch in the bird’s gullet).

So whenever you can, feed the ducks instead on waterfowl seed (which also has the benefit of floating) or corn, pearl barley, sunflower seeds or, best of all, worms and slugs from your own garden!

Commemorating Tolkien

Today is the 120th anniversary of the birth of JRR Tolkien. Each year JRRT's birthday is marked by enthusiasts in a simple way. If you would like to join in, then at 9pm by your local time, face West, raise a glass (contents up to you!) and make the simple toast to 'The Professor'. Tolkien, ever modest, would probably have been surprised by this and the efforts that are made by local communities to commemorate and mark his legacy. Here in Hall green of course we have the famous Middle-earth Weekend in May and the Museum and volunteers are working steadily to enhance the visitor experience at Sarehole Mill which was so important to Tolkien in his early years when he lived nearby.

Work has been completed on the extension of the path by the side of the millpond and quotation requests have been made to millwrights regarding the repair of the sluice gate. The main issue here is silt and a possible breach would mean major internal flooding. A heritage Lottery bid regarding de-silting of the pool will be made after April when it is expected that the Mill will be part of the intended city-wide Museums Trust.

As presently understood, the transfer would relate to the museum area, mill and pool and not the recreation ground. Attention will need to be paid to the (dormant) Sarehole Trust which technically held the mill and all of the land including the recreation ground. There would also need to be approval by the Council's Trusts and Charities Committee (which has oversight of all such trusts) for the transfer.

The former Rangers area that had been used for storage is now being cleared and alternative use could be made of this. In the medium term the building could be used as a shop and for visitor reception. Such a use would be volunteer dependent and that there were management and staff related issues to be resolved.

Work is also well advanced on the reconfiguration of the third floor regarding the enhanced Tolkien display area. Environmentally sympathetic 'earth paint' had been used for the attractive painting that forms part of the greatly revised display - the picture alongside gives an impression. The Tolkien panels are being completely re-written and discussions with the Tolkien Estate and Harper Collins as regards permissions are in hand. A newly produced short film on the Mill would also be on display here.
Reconfiguration of the middle floor is underway with a focus mainly on the history and people of the Mill (including the Miller and Matthew Boulton as well as Tolkien) with two or three panels on this subject. There would also be maps and a natural history feature.

On the ground floor the film would again be available for those for whom access to the third floor is too difficult. There will be four panels on Tolkien, two of which will give a timeline and two will relate to Tolkien and the wider Birmingham area.

The Bankers' Tale

I wrote the piece below three years ago and it needed very little modification to suit the start of 2012 rather than 2009.

Definitions from the Birmingham-compiled Cobuild dictionary:

Hangover:

1 If someone wakes up with a hangover, they feel sick and have a headache because they have drunk a lot of alcohol the night before.

2 Something that is a hangover from the past is an idea or way of behaving which people used to have in the past but which people no longer generally have

As the grey dawn of another New Year broke I recalled, while progressing towards Canterbury some years ago, finding an apparently centuries-old but timeless manuscript. Taking the form of a coarse lament and dedicated to a friend named Geoffrey, it seems that the writer is still disinclined to mend his errant ways in the New Year:

Abed at noon,
ill-slept and indisposed
to rising yet.
And yet ten hours have passed
since last
my reddened eyes saw light.
Pulsating head indeed exceeds the beat of racing heart.
Oh me! And how
my troubled bowels
do vent their airs of grace devoid
(and needs must I avoid their pungent path!)
And as to work,
upon my soul I shall not shirk
one day of toil,
lest I forfeit a quenching cup
of grape’s intoxicating oil.


My researches suggest that this verse may have been written by someone in a much reduced, distinctly sub-prime condition, used to extravagant living on ill-gotten bonuses from casino capitalism and reckless money lending. In the spirit of a New Year let’s hope nonetheless that he completed his journey and, however reluctantly, gained enlightenment and reset his moral compass in a Damascene transformation from which the other 99% of society would benefit.
And let’s hope as well that in 2012 we shall all suffer fewer economic headaches and live in times of declining austerity.