BP Political Blow-out

I continue to be shocked by how supine are reports about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill by the world’s media.
I was pleased to see that President Obama’s brother was recently denied entry to Britain for being a criminal, a sanction that should equally apply to the President himself.
For the Deepwater Horizon disaster is far more political than environmental.
The current spill is not large in relative terms. Much more oil escapes into the Gulf of Mexico from natural fissures in the seabed each and every year, and has done for millions of years. A similar explosion on a rig owned by the Mexican Government in 1979 released at least three times as much oil in shallow water, some of which washed on to Texan shores.
The truth is, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is not just physically complex but is laced with more political corruption that in any other oil region -- more than Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Azerbaijan put together.
BP is well up to the task in all other regions of the world, but its exemplary safety standards are continually vetoed by it’s US subsidiary, backed by pressure from the local trades unions and oil services giant Halliburton (which has inappropriate influence within the US Government and to whom BP had subcontracted the drilling).
The Americans think they know best.
In any other part of the world the domino series of failures that led to the Deepwater Horizon explosion would just not have been allowed to develop. For that reason the American political establishment is fully culpable, and gives the Third World a bad name.
The US Government should be indemnifying British taxpayers and investors for losses incurred by BP, not the other way round.

Deepwater Horizon

I find the media reporting and reaction to the oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico astoundingly amateur.
The resources being brought to bear by Sunbury-on-Thames based BP are truly remarkable.
In contrast the response of the American Government -- including their President -- is a complete joke. And the British Government could afford to show a bit of backbone and stick up for it’s economic interests.

BP has 1,100 vessels involved, and 22,000 people working on the containment exercise, including a whole series of largely experimental solutions until one cures the unprecedented problem. Whilst these methods worked successfully to plug the wells blown by Saddam Hussein in Kuwait, they’ve never been tried before at 5,000ft depth of water.
The final solution maybe another two months away when a relief well is able to plug the well bore 16,000 feet below the surface, with a backup relief well two weeks behind that, in case of any snag.
In fact all the skills needed to cure the problem are entirely within the private sector, and the almighty US Government is completely out of its depth.

Obamacare: Pyrrhic Victory

So American Democrats have invested all their political capital in forcing through a healthcare plan against the wishes of most hard working Americans.
The hugely bureaucratic new system will cost an arm and a leg, with little benefit for the so-called uninsured. In fact it will cost them too in the form of compulsory levies.
Just like in Europe before the advent of socialised healthcare, and as in America today, no one was ever turned away from hospital for want of emergency treatment and without the means to pay.
By all means address the two key issues of insurers blacklisting clients with “pre-existing conditions”, and capping claims resulting in two million medical bankruptcies per year.
But don’t bankrupt the entire US healthcare system in the process.
And don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for the guy!

Daylight Saving Time

It’s at this time of year that I reflect if Europe were serious about climate change then our clocks would go forward this weekend.
America has been doing this for four years now, and it is an entirely cost free measure (and probably even saves lives on the roads in the evenings).
It is also logical because the length of daylight is now much closer to when we’re all agreed about putting the clocks back at the end of October.

Healthcare Choice

Last week I had a routine screening test at a top London Hospital -- something which a third of American adults have done, but you’d be lucky to get under Britain’s free NHS.
Everything was wonderful after the initial indignity of being frog-marched to the cashier to present my credit card. (They have a lot of Middle Eastern clients whose approach to settling bills is more relaxed).
At £1,200 for a four-hour stay, it made my prawn sandwich lunch the most expensive in London.
At least the Labour Government still allows people the choice to spend their money on healthcare, instead of say exotic foreign holidays. Though I remember Labour even banned those in 1966 when you couldn’t take more than £50 abroad each year -- documented in your passport.

Palin for President

Having watched a recording of the 40 minute keynote speech by Sarah Palin to the US National Tea Party Convention last weekend, I saw America’s first woman president in the making.
Her voice was a little shaky at times, but that just added to the authenticity.
My favourite sound bite was “How’s that hope-y, change-y thing workin’ out for ya?”
But the phrase that stuck in the throat of the liberals was her referring to the teleprompter president, for that’s all Obama is.
You can tell it hit home, because all the liberal left could criticise her for was having a few keywords scribbled on her palm. What a puerile jibe!
I think it’s significant that whilst left wing orators rely so much on teleprompters, most conservatives are able to address their audience without a full script. So much more genuine.

Brown Could Win

There's one election I don’t mind Brown winning, and that’s the one taking place today in Massachusetts.
If Republican Scott Brown beats Martha Coakley in the race to replace Ted Kennedy as senator, then the Democrats lose their ability to steamroller their controversial healthcare plans.
Remember the US Government spends the same proportion of national income on their equivalent of the British NHS. And in addition most people have health insurance, which gives them a vastly superior level of healthcare.
Nationalising the American healthcare market can do nothing but jeopardise that advantage.

China

People are worried about the ascendancy of China.
I had a brief taste of China when I saw Aladdin at the Theatre Royal Windsor last week -- a show that I recommend, more so for the supporting cast.
We need not fear the Chinese who are fatally flawed as a people. Often in history they have made technological advances, always to let themselves them down.
I believe countries get the government they deserve, and the fact that they live under totalitarian rule is merely a result of them being too feeble as individuals to revolt. The English were never going to kow-tow to Hitler, and though the Americans are too conformist to my mind, their elections are too frequent to allow a dictator ever to take over.
One thing I can never understand is why we allow China to vote and to exercise a veto on the international stage (e.g. at the United Nations and the Copenhagen Summit) when they are denied democracy at home?
So should we embargo Chinese goods? Well, if I can find stuff of equal quality I buy cheaper from elsewhere. But if there’s a saving to be made, then we’re better off buying the cheapest, even from China.

End of the Noughties

As the decade ends we’re one step ahead of the Americans for a change.
We British have a name for the era just past -- the Noughties -- whereas the US still can’t decide. Maybe it’s a decade they’d rather forget, and I wouldn’t blame them.
Welcome to the Teens.