Patron Saints and Political Sinners

Mark Siara - Mon 21 Apr, 2008

The trouble with travelling down the middle of the road is sooner or later you will get flattened

Thoughts on the season for Patron Saints from Mark Siara:

We are well into the Patron Saint season here in the UK. It starts in early March with St. David’s when daffodils appear on the proud Welsh lapels (and rightly proud, too, looking at their recent sporting achievements). A couple of weeks later is the eponymous St. Patrick’s Day; a festival that does what no politician seems able to do and unites the island of Ireland. In the UK (and America too) this feast day seems to bring out the Irish in everyone, as green plastic bowlers, Guinness promotions and shamrocks seem to fill the pubs. Ironic in a way, as there is strong evidence to suggest St. Patrick himself was Welsh. In any event it’s a stark contrast to St. George’s Day, widely ignored across the length and breadth of England (it’s this Wednesday the 23rd, by the way). Maybe that’s because the idea of a Saint slaying a dragon is too far-fetched for our modern thinking, although it does give your local pub "wit" the chance to make well worn jokes at the expense of his wife/girlfriend/mother-in-law. And pity the poor Scots, who have to wait until the end of November to celebrate the life of St. Andrew, the Apostle and younger brother of St. Peter.

What all this highlights is how varied and diverse (or splintered and disparate, depending on your viewpoint) the present day United Kingdom actually is. Neither is it surprising given that the UK is basically four separate nations that have been in some sort of loose union for the last four hundred odd years. Add into this melting pot the effects of immigration, religion, culture, class, geography and wealth and it’s no wonder the country appears to be a patchwork of personalities. From billionaire football club owners in the North East to kidnap-faking Yorkshire families to one-eyed, one-handed, Muslin clerics. Or dour, troubled Presbyterian politicians: the UK has it all. Diversity. That’s a good thing, right?

And then there’s the economy; for so long it didn’t know which way to go - left or right, command economy or laissez-faire, nationalisation or privatisation. It’s like some drunken celebrity stumbling up the red carpet at a film premier. Unsure which side the press are on, they continually sway from one side to the other, occasionally falling over as they search for the best way through.

If you remember Britain in the Seventies you’ll know exactly what I mean. Depending on whether Labour or the Conservatives were in power would determine if an industry was to be owned by the taxpayer or the entrepreneur. Political dogma often overcame any kind of rational or financial considerations. The UK ended up going down a middle way - neither as left wing as the Russians or as right wing as the Americans. We’re British, so nothing too extreme for us, middle of the road will do nicely.

The problem with travelling down the middle of the road is that, sooner or later, you will be run over. In this case it was by the rampant juggernaut of globalisation and free market economics. With the advent of Margaret Thatcher in Britain privatisation became the norm, with the likes of British Telecom, British Gas and British Airways (are you seeing a pattern here?) all being floated on the stock market. The accusation that we as a country were selling off the family silver to pay the debts of the day was largely ignored.

This process continued largely unabated for about thirty years, partly through a shift in attitude from the Left, partly out of pragmatism - it’s expensive to buy a national railway or an airline. Or a failed bank. Right now I bet Gordon Brown would love to have one or two high quality nationalised industries on his books. A couple of flotations and, hey presto, the country’s deficit is miraculously reduced. Instead we have Northern Rock - the first renationalisation in over thirty years (if you ignore the British Energy bail out of a few years ago) and an additional £100 billion added to the (off) balance sheet.

So, what now for the UK economy? Is Northern Rock the start of a trend? Will there be further nationalisations down the line? Will there be a return to wholesale left wing policies? Unlikely, even as there are more calls daily for further government intervention as the layoffs continue and the bankers pray to St. Matthew (the patron saint of money managers - it’s true, honest, check it out). There’s no political will for such a thing anymore (not enough Dennis Skinner types left). In any case the politicians are too busy fretting about inflation, the housing market, the falling stock market and praying to Thomas More (the patron saint of politicians) for their survival at the next election. I would have thought St Dymphna (Patron Saint of the mentally ill - I’m not making this up) was more appropriate for many of them. Notwithstanding all that, the current issue for the British economy is not one of left or right, it is one of up or down. At the moment the trend is definitely down and the Daily Reckoning viewpoint is well known: get some gold or, as we may whimsically call it, the Patron Saint of Safe Havens.