Christmas Eve

Will Santa come for me?

May you all feel the excitement of Christmas.

WILL SANTA COME TONIGHT?

“Will Santa come? Will Santa come tonight?”

“He might. He might.

If you are good, he might.”

“Can I stay up and see?”

“No. He will not come for you or me

if we do not sleep . He’s too busy to meet us all.”

“And will he come for us?

If you go to sleep – he does not like fuss.”

Tonight, by the lights of the tree,

there is, at last, some grown up time for me.

The cake is iced. The wine is spiced .The carrots diced.

The pudding’s steamed. The brandy butter creamed.

The turkey prepared awaits. And yes, I did clean the plates.

The tree is up, the table laid,

the cards are out , though the credit card’s unpaid!

So shall I soon with gifts a plenty

mount the stairs to deliver twenty?

Do I dare to tread the stair?

And will it creak?

And will it make a noise that upsets all those Santa ploys?

I need to know if they slumber before I arrive with my lumber.

If they are still awake what dreams will go?

Or do they know? And is their belief just all for show?

So tonight by the magic tree there is need of more time just for me.

I will wait – and struggle to keep open my eyes

And wrestle with the morality of eating Santa’s mince pies.

My adult mind is full of Christmas chores

The cooking times, and the cards through neighbours’ doors

Drinks with friends to come – but not that cheap red

Which would give me a headache as soon as I got to bed

I was once a child too excited to sleep with a torrent of thoughts about what I might be given

Hoping that it was a toy beneath the wrapping

Should I peep? –Not more socks or hankies, preferably something to be driven

So could Santa still come for me? Drowsily I dream as if I were eight

Hoping that Santa would not be late

Like every little boy there is of course a much wanted toy

So will Santa come tonight? He might, He might.

If you sleep well and if you believe

Only if you believe. And only if in your family Love fills the hours you will be spending.

It could be the true Santa on the stair

Or it could be someone from an empty chair.

So will Santa come? He will. He will.



Wokingham Choral carols

I greatly enjoyed the Wokingham Choral Society’s carols on Saturday 17th.

They sung well, and encouraged audience participation in some of the well known ones.

I would like to thank all who organised it, and to wish them a very happy Christmas with their families and friends.



A tale of our inflationary times

Once upon a time there were three little Central piggy banks. Or to be more accurate, at three very different times  three  little Central piggy  banks were set up. First came the smallest one, the Bank of England. There was next the biggest, the Federal Reserve Board. Much later  there was the youngest one, the European Central Bank. 

 

They all had misleading names. The Bank of England is the Bank of the UK, not just England. It went in for understatement or historical lethargy about its name . The Federal Reserve Board is the Central bank for the whole USA . It has kept its old name too as a memory of how the dollar helped drive integration of the states of the Union through its federal approach. The European Central  Bank is not the Central Bank for Europe but just for some countries that joined. It launched with glorious overstatement. 

 

By 2000 the three Central piggy banks thought alike and started to hot things up. They all asserted they were very important and independent. They denied that the states who owned them and who appointed their top people had any influence over what they did. Armed with this moral right and their cleverness they allowed a massive bubble in credit, fancy derivatives and bank lending. By 2007/8 it was so extreme they decided to stop it. In doing  so it caused a Great Depression. There was the noise of a large banking crash. 

 

The governments were not very happy about this. Several of them were criticised  by angry electors who blamed them rather than the banks. So the banks and the governments got together and blamed everyone else in finance apart from themselves. Electors threw out the governments anyway. The top people in  the three little piggy banks kept their high salaries and important jobs.

 

The three little piggy banks reckoned they needed to try something new as the public might get cross with them as well as just sacking the governments. So they decided to make themselves very popular by printing lots of money and driving down interest rates. All they had to do was create a big figure in an account and then go out and spend it. And so they did. They were not very imaginative shoppers. They decided to spend all their newly made money on buying up government bonds. This meant all those who owned these bonds got richer as the prices went up, and some had lots of money to spend when they sold their bonds to the banks.

 

The big bad Inflation Wolf stood outside the doors of the little piggy banks. These were wise piggy banks who had learned from the old story of the three little pigs. All their banks were built of  stone or steel  so they did not fear the Inflation Wolf. They told him he could not blow them down.

 

A small number of monetarists told the piggy banks if they printed lots of extra money there would in the end be a big inflation. The banks ignored them .

They got away with the money printing for a bit. They were lucky because the commercial banks were all so damaged by the banking crash and by new rules stopping them lending so much, money stayed under reasonable control despite the printing. Even the  monetarists were not alarmed either all the time money did not grow too much.  The wolf got fed up with waiting.

 

When there was a new disease spreading fast around the world governments decided to lock down large parts of their economies and order people to stay indoors. Once again the little piggy banks cranked up their printing presses. The governments were so grateful as it meant they could borrow billions to give to people so they had some money when they could not work. Everyone agreed this would not be inflationary.

 

Unfortunately as the economies were unlocked and recovered quickly the little piggy banks kept on printing. Why stop now they asked? it makes us popular. There is still no inflation. The monetarists stirred and pointed out that  now there would be a big inflation because the new money was leading to lots more money around . The little piggy banks thought they were silly and  carried on printing and buying up bonds at ever higher prices. 

 

The bad old inflation wolf had learned a few tricks compared to his ancestor who had landed up on the fire by going down the chimney of the third  little pig’s brick house. He saw that whilst the litttle central piggy banks all had strong steel or stone buildings, they had very weak finances. They were buying many times as much in bonds as they had capital. If as he thought they started to lose money on all those very dear bonds, what would happen then? 

 

And so it proved. A great inflation took hold just as the monetarists had warned and the wolf had  hoped. The little piggy  banks decided they had to do something about it, as suddenly they were no longer popular . People had believed them when they said they knew what they were doing and there would be no inflation. So they did what they do best. They blamed the  big inflation on  a  nasty war though prices had been surging well before it started. Then they decided to  create a recession to make things cheaper again. This meant they would lose huge sums on all those bonds they had bought.

 

The wolf licked his lilps  about all those losses. They were going to run out of money and have to leave their strong buildings. In each case the losses would amount to far more than the capital the banks had. If they were normal businesses they would go under. But said the little piggy Central Banks, we are not normal . We do not have to worry about losses. The Bank of England had a good answer to the wolf. They had a guarantee that all their losses would be paid by the taxpayers, so they were financially secure. The Fed said we can just create more dollars. The world needs our dollars so we will just ignore all the losses and print what it takes to pay our salaries. You will not get us Mr Wolf. Which left the European Bank at a bit more of a loss. So they said most of their losses would be sent to the member state national banks , sparing the European Bank  the problem. If the member state banks  ran out of money they would need to get it from their governments.

 

Mr Wolf is dismayed outside the three little piggy central banks. It looks as if they are cleverer than him after all, just as the third little pig outwitted the original Mr Wolf all those years ago. The little Central piggy banks will live on, with the taxpayers having to pay colossal bills for their latest mistakes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Proposed changes to National Planning Policy

I have received the letter below from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities:

Dear colleague,

Proposed changes to National Planning Policy

In my Written Ministerial Statement of 6 December I said that the Government would publish a National Planning Policy consultation before Christmas. This consultation has been published today on gov.uk.

The consultation sets out specific changes that we propose to immediately make to the National Planning Policy Framework to swiftly deliver the Government’s commitments to building enough of the right homes in the right places with the right infrastructure, ensuring the environment is protected and giving local people a greater say on where and where not to place new development.

We know that the best way to secure more high-quality homes in the right places is through the adoption of local plans. At present fewer than half of local authorities have up-to-date plans (adopted in the past five years). Our proposed reforms create clear incentives for more local authorities to adopt plans.

In line with my Written Ministerial Statement on onshore wind, also of 6 December, we are consulting on a more localist approach to consenting onshore development, which provides local authorities more flexibility to respond to the views of their local communities. This will support local decision making and commitments made in the British Energy Security Strategy.

The consultation includes changes to:
1. make clear how housing figures should be derived and applied so that communities can respond to local circumstances;
2. address issues in the operation of the housing delivery and land supply tests;
3. tackle problems of slow build out;
4. encourage local planning authorities to support the role of community-led groups in delivering affordable housing on exception sites;
5. set clearer expectations around planning for older peoples’ housing;
6. promote more beautiful homes, including through gentle density;
7. make sure that food security considerations are factored into planning decisions that affect farm land;
8. and enable new methods for demonstrating local support for onshore wind development.

The document also calls for views on a wider range of proposals, particularly focused on making sure the planning system capitalises on opportunities to support the natural environment, respond to climate change and deliver on levelling up of economic opportunity, and signals areas that we expect to consider in the context of a wider review of the Framework to follow Royal Assent of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

This consultation is the first stage of a broader programme of reform. The government will publish another consultation on the detail of wider changes to the NPPF next year, reflecting responses to this consultation and across other areas of planning policy.
Finally, this document also sets out the envisaged role for National Development Management Policies (NDMPs). These are intended to save plan-makers from having to repeat nationally important policies in their own plans, so that plans can be quicker to produce and focus on locally relevant policies. This document calls for views on how we implement NDMPs and the Government will consult on the detail next year ahead of finalising the position.

The consultation will be open until 2nd March 2023 and I encourage you and your constituents to respond before that date. The Government will respond to this consultation in Spring 2023, publishing the Framework revisions as part of this, so that policy changes can take effect as soon as possible.

With every good wish,

Rt Hon Michael Gove MP
Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Minister for Intergovernmental Relations



Cut costs now to lower state borrowing

The government says it wants to get borrowing down. Here’s a reprise on measures they could take urgently to reduce the excess spending.

1 Strengthen the law and admin actions to stop illegal migrants

2. Move migrants out of hotels into better value accommodation

3 Speed up decisions on migrants so those who are asylum seekers who can stay can get jobs and get on with their lives

4 Stop paying farmers to not grow food

5. Cut sending overseas aid to international bodies to spend without our control

6. Stop energy subsidies to higher income households

7. Lower subsidies to the railways by requiring improved timetables and smarter working to win more fare revenue

8. No further net increase in civil service numbers

9. Pause free smart meter roll out

10. Stop Councils buying up “investment “ property in their own areas on borrowings