The Pension Burden: The single biggest line item in the welfare budget is the state pension (exceeding £145 billion). Protected by the “Triple Lock” mechanism—which ensures pensions rise by inflation, average wage growth, or 2.5%—pension spending has climbed steadily despite high inflation waves.

As a Pensioner I want my Pensions to retain their purchasing power. If they don’t I get poorer, which is not an attractive prospect! To do this the pension provider needs to link the pension to inflation. In my case my pensions from my employment are linked to the Retail Price Index. My State Pension is linked to the (usually lower) Consumer Price Index. We can argue about which index to choose (there are others) but the principle is the same. My pensions are broadly inflation proofed.

The Triple Lock uses the State Pension as a vehicle not just to inflation proof payments but potentially to increase the purchasing power of the pension. The link to “average wage growth” effectively says that if wages and salaries increase more than inflation so should pensions. This makes little sense. We pensioners have no right see our pension income keep in line with the earnings of those in employment. Why should we? 

The 2.5% alternative, only to be applied in low inflation or low wage growth times, is equally perverse. This implies that pensioners should see their pension income exceed inflation or wage growth by an arbitrarily applied percentage. In other words get richer compared to those in employment. 

Over the past 14 years in only four of them has inflation been the determining factor for pension increases:

•  Average Wage Growth: 6 times
•  Inflation (CPI): 4 times
•  The 2.5% Guarantee: 4 times

So in effect the “Pension burden” has increased and governments have facilitated increases not justified by inflation. 

Many argue that the UK State Pension is too low, for example when compared with other European countries.  However the overall UK retirement system relies much more heavily on occupational and private pensions than many continental European systems. That said it is certainly the case that The UK generally provides a middling-to-below-average state pension by European standards.

So there is a strong argument that the State Pension is too low. But, in my view, there is no case for distorting the annual pension increase system to correct this. The quantum of the State Pension should be under review at all times and changes made , but only when it is judged that we can afford them. So stick with mandated inflation proofing, but scrap the triple lock! 

I was, back in 1986, in a very small way personally part of the initial opening up of the People’s Republic to the West economically. I was based in Hong Kong and my multinational employer had decided that “China is very Big” and that we should invest substantially. I was part of the team.

Frequent trips to Beijing and elsewhere convinced us that these were people we could do business with. Tiannamen Square in 1989 was a setback but within months links were reestablished. China clambered swiftly up the learning curve and the West salivated. It was both a massive market for our exporters and a huge labour force for companies and brands seeking to manufacture more cheaply offshore. Think “Apple” – and countless others.

Ideology played little part in China’s commercial success and exceptional growth. Politically it did not modify its totalitarian system. It was under no meaningful pressure to do so. In effect economically it became a mixed economy with State and Private Enterprise working together. The State was hugely important for major infrastructure projects especially transport. Airports and high speed railway lines were constructed on an astonishing scale – essential in such a vast country.

There has been a pragmatic focus driving China’s success. The preposterous days of the Cultural Revolution are a distant memory. As are the bicycles and Mao suits. The old villain’s portrait still hangs In Tiannamen Square. Perhaps as a warning not to revert to the horrors off the past!

The Corrib gas dispute was not really “resolved” through a negotiated settlement that satisfied all sides. Instead, it was resolved in practice because the project was eventually completed, the remaining legal challenges failed or were settled, and gas production began in December 2015.  

What was the dispute about?

The controversy centered on several issues:

• The decision to bring untreated gas ashore through a high-pressure pipeline near homes in the Rossport area.
• The location of the onshore gas processing terminal at Bellanaboy.
• Concerns about environmental impacts on Broadhaven Bay and surrounding habitats.
• Claims by local residents that consultation was inadequate.
• Wider political objections to Ireland’s licensing and taxation arrangements for oil and gas companies.  

The conflict became nationally famous after the imprisonment of the “Rossport Five” in 2005 and years of protests by groups such as Shell to Sea.  

How was it ultimately resolved?

The outcome was gradual rather than dramatic:

1. The project was modified. Shell and regulators made a number of design and routing changes to the pipeline and imposed additional safety measures.  
2. Court challenges were exhausted. Some legal actions were settled while others were dismissed by the courts, allowing construction to continue.  
3. The state continued to support the project. Successive Irish governments regarded Corrib as strategically important and maintained regulatory approval.  
4. Gas began flowing in 2015. Once production started, the practical objective of stopping the project could no longer be achieved.  

Has opposition disappeared?

No—but it has changed significantly.

The original campaign to stop the pipeline and processing plant effectively ended when the infrastructure was completed and became operational. The large-scale protests that dominated Irish news in the 2000s have largely disappeared.  

However:

• Some former campaigners remain active on energy, environmental and climate issues.
• Criticism continues regarding the state’s oil and gas licensing terms and the fact that Ireland has no state ownership stake in Corrib.
• Former Shell to Sea activists have shifted attention toward issues such as fracking, LNG imports and fossil-fuel policy more generally.  

There is also still a lingering sense of grievance among some people in north Mayo about how the project was handled, particularly concerning policing, compulsory acquisition of land, and community consultation. The dispute remains an important reference point in Irish environmental politics.  

So the short answer is: the project went ahead, gas production started, and the immediate battle was lost by the opponents. But opposition did not completely disappear—it evolved into broader environmental, energy-policy and local-justice campaigns.  

Paddy Briggs involvement

Paddy Briggs was a former senior Shell executive who became a critic of Shell’s handling of the Corrib project. Around 2010 he publicly discussed internal Shell documents and argued that Shell had relied on political connections and had mishandled community relations. One of the documents he highlighted was a 2003 Shell management meeting record questioning whether the company had sufficiently well-placed contacts with the Irish government and regulators.  He published his views in the public domain – “The Tragedy of Corrib”

His interventions were important in three ways:

1. They reinforced opponents’ claims that the project was not simply a technical planning issue but also involved questions about political influence and corporate power.
2. They generated media attention at a time when the controversy was already a major national issue.
3. They strengthened public skepticism toward Shell among people who were not directly involved in the Mayo protests.

However, there is little evidence that Briggs’s revelations directly changed the project’s outcome. By the time his criticisms became widely known, the central issues had already been fought through planning inquiries, court cases, regulatory reviews, and years of political debate. The key decisions remained with the Irish state and planning authorities, which ultimately continued to permit the project—albeit with modifications, including a rerouted pipeline and additional safety requirements.  

In other words, Briggs’s contribution was more significant in shaping public perception of the dispute than in determining its final resolution.

A useful way to think about it is that the Corrib controversy had several overlapping arguments:

• Safety and environmental concerns (pipeline route, pressure, Bellanaboy terminal).
• Community and policing issues (Rossport Five, protests, compulsory acquisition).
• Political and governance concerns (whether government was too close to Shell).

Briggs’s interventions mainly affected the third category. They added weight to allegations of undue influence, but they did not overturn the planning approvals or stop construction. The project still proceeded and entered production in 2015.  

Among former Corrib campaigners, Briggs remains a respected figure because he was seen as an insider who validated concerns they had been raising for years. Among supporters of the project, his role is generally viewed as politically significant but not decisive in the actual regulatory and engineering decisions that allowed Corrib to go ahead.

This analysis was substantially written by AI (ChatGBT)

Edward J. Mishan’s 1967 landmark book, The Costs of Economic Growth, was revolutionary. He was one of the first mainstream economists to argue that rising Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could seamlessly coexist with a decline in human welfare, fueled by unpriced “spillover effects” (externalities) like pollution, urban congestion, noise, and psychological alienation.  

Yet, you rarely hear Mishan’s name or his specific framework cited in modern economic discourse. The phrase “Costs of Economic Growth” hasn’t vanished because the problems disappeared; rather, the discussion was completely hollowed out, rebranded, and fragmented for several distinct reasons.

1. Rebranding as “Sustainability” and “Climate Change”

The most prominent reason Mishan’s broad critique is rarely discussed in his own terms is that environmental economics absorbed and narrow-focused his ideas.

 The Shift: Where Mishan looked holistically at the social, psychological, and physical toll of growth, today’s discourse is overwhelmingly dominated by carbon footprints and global warming.

 The Effect: Mishan’s qualitative anxieties about the “loss of quietude” or the “frantic pace of life” have been replaced by quantifiable metrics. Instead of debating the inherent costs of growth, modern policy focuses on “green growth” or “decarbonizing GDP”—accepting the premise of growth while trying to engineering away its worst atmospheric symptom.

2. The Rise of the “Degrowth” Movement

Where Mishan’s specific vocabulary does survive, it has been radicalized and renamed. The modern “Degrowth” (or post-growth) movement occupies the space Mishan carved out, but it approaches the problem through a highly politicized, neo-Marxist, or eco-socialist lens.

Because Mishan was a traditional welfare economist from the London School of Economics who used rigorous market-failure frameworks, his precise, methodical critique gets drowned out by the more polarized, systemic climate-justice rhetoric of today.

3. Mishan’s Anachronistic Cultural Conservatism

Mishan did not just critique pollution; a massive portion of The Costs of Economic Growth lamented the psychological and moral costs of a hyper-consumerist society. He argued that endless growth fostered a frantic, commercialized culture that destroyed:  

 Traditional communities

 Local craftsmanship  

 “Spiritual peace”

Critically, he linked this commercialization to the rise of what he saw as a fragmented, overly permissive, and hedonistic society. This blending of radical environmental skepticism with deeply traditional cultural conservatism makes his work an awkward fit for modern political camps. Left-leaning environmentalists are alienated by his social conservatism, while right-leaning free-marketeers reject his anti-growth economics.  

4. The Specialization and “Mathiness” of Economics

Mishan wrote in an era when economists still penned sweeping, philosophical, and deeply literate treatises accessible to the public (similar to his contemporaries E.F. Schumacher and J.K. Galbraith).

In the decades following the 1970s, mainstream economics underwent an aggressive shift toward hyper-mathematical modeling and hyper-specialization. Broad, existential questions like “Is the pace of modern life destroying the human spirit?” were pushed out of economics departments and relegated to sociology or philosophy.

5. Institutional “Growth-Mania”

Mishan coined the term “growth-mania” to describe the absolute consensus among politicians and media that a rising GDP is the ultimate proxy for societal success. That mania proved incredibly resilient.

Because national debt frameworks, pension systems, and employment models in modern economies are fundamentally designed as pyramid structures requiring continuous expansion to survive, admitting that growth itself carries net-negative utility is a political non-starter. It is far easier for a politician to discuss “inclusive growth” or “sustainable growth” than to confront Mishan’s thesis that the engine itself is flawed.

The Bitter Irony: Mishan’s core economic tool—Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA)—is used by every major government today to evaluate infrastructure and environmental regulations. Yet, while governments use his methods to value a human life or calculate the damage of a new highway, they routinely ignore his macro-warning: that adding up these individual “progress” projects can still result in a society that is poorer in the things that actually matter.

Note: this article was written by Artficial Intelligence (Gemini) !

THIS BLOG WAS ENTIRELY WRITTEN BY AI (Chat GPT)

Sociologists generally agree that social class still matters a great deal in 21st-century Britain, but many argue that the traditional threefold model — “upper, middle and working class” — is no longer sufficient on its own to explain modern inequalities and identities.

Why the traditional class model still matters

The classic British class structure developed around wealth, occupation, education and inherited status. Many sociologists argue these divisions remain visible today.

1. Wealth and income inequality remain strong

The gap between rich and poor in Britain is still large. Ownership of property, private education, inheritance and elite professional networks continue to give advantages to some groups over others.

For example:

• People from wealthy families are more likely to attend elite universities.
• Home ownership strongly shapes financial security.
• High-paying professions remain dominated by people from privileged backgrounds.

This supports the argument that an “upper class” still exists, especially among those with inherited wealth and influence.

2. Occupational divisions still shape life chances

Employment continues to affect:

• income,
• health,
• housing,
• political attitudes,
• educational outcomes.

Manual and insecure work is still associated with poorer life chances, so the idea of a “working class” has not disappeared entirely.

3. Class identity remains culturally important

Many people in Britain still describe themselves as working class or middle class even when their jobs may not fit older definitions exactly. Accent, lifestyle, education and cultural tastes still carry class associations.

For instance:

• private vs state schooling,
• regional accents,
• attitudes toward culture and politics,
• social confidence in elite settings.

Sociologists influenced by Pierre Bourdieu argue that “cultural capital” — manners, tastes, education and social networks — has become just as important as income.

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Why many sociologists think the old model is outdated

Although class still matters, experts argue that Britain has changed dramatically since the industrial era in which the old model developed.

1. Decline of traditional industrial working-class jobs

In the 19th and 20th centuries, class was closely tied to factory and manual labour. Britain is now mainly a service economy.

Many people work in:

• retail,
• hospitality,
• care work,
• technology,
• freelance or gig-economy jobs.

These occupations do not fit neatly into old “working” or “middle” class categories.

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2. Growth of precarious employment

Some sociologists argue a new class has emerged: the “precariat” — people with insecure, temporary or low-paid work.

This idea is associated with Guy Standing, who argues that insecure employment creates new forms of social instability that older class categories fail to capture.

Examples include:

• zero-hours contracts,
• delivery platform workers,
• unstable freelance work,
• rising housing insecurity.

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3. Expansion of education blurred class boundaries

University attendance expanded massively after the late 20th century. Many people now hold degrees but may still experience insecure employment or low wages.

This weakens the old assumption that education automatically produces middle-class security.

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4. Consumption and lifestyle complicate class identity

Modern class divisions are also shaped by:

• housing,
• consumer habits,
• media use,
• cultural preferences,
• social mobility,
• ethnicity and gender.

A skilled tradesperson may earn more than a graduate office worker, making occupation alone less reliable as a class indicator.

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Major modern sociological approaches

The Great British Class Survey

One influential modern study was the 2013 Great British Class Survey conducted by the BBC and researchers from London School of Economics.

The study argued Britain now has seven classes rather than three:

1. Elite
2. Established middle class
3. Technical middle class
4. New affluent workers
5. Traditional working class
6. Emergent service workers
7. Precariat

The researchers argued class today depends on:

• economic capital (wealth and income),
• social capital (networks),
• cultural capital (tastes and education).

This reflects how modern sociology sees class as more complex and multidimensional than older models.

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Marxist perspectives

Sociologists influenced by Karl Marx still argue class fundamentally depends on economic inequality and ownership of wealth.

From this perspective:

• the wealthy capitalist elite still hold disproportionate power,
• workers still depend on selling labour,
• inequality has intensified under modern capitalism.

So while occupations changed, the core class conflict remains.

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Weberian perspectives

• status,
• education,
• credentials,
• lifestyle,
• power.

Following Max Weber, many sociologists argue class is now linked not just to wealth, but also:

This approach better explains why two people with similar incomes may have different social status.

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Overall evaluation

Most sociologists would say the traditional categories are partly relevant but oversimplified.

They remain useful because:

• inequality is still strongly structured by wealth and occupation,
• elites retain major advantages,
• class continues to affect life chances and identity.

But they are less adequate because:

• work patterns have changed,
• identities are more fluid,
• education and culture matter more,
• new insecure social groups have emerged,
• ethnicity, gender and region intersect with class.

A common conclusion among contemporary sociologists is that Britain is still deeply class-based, but class itself has become more fragmented, complex and difficult to define using the old “upper/middle/working class” model alone.

“In Britain and America the masses were…faced with little alternative to the existing , well-established political parties. Nor,with a few exceptions, did they look for any. In Germany , “political space” was opened up for the Nazi breakthrough by the prior fragmentation of support for the parties of centre and right. In Germany, therefore, the economic crisis ushered in … a fundamental crisis of the state. The battleground …was the state itself.” Ian Kershaw

The above is quoted from Ian Kershaw’s biography of Hitler which describes the collapse of the Weimar governments run by traditional parties and the filling of the space by Hitler and the National Socialists. At the time Britain and America didn’t succumb to such a large swing to the Right. But today the US (under Trump) is well along the very hard Right path. And here in Britain we are also turning to the extremes in particular the Reform Party which like the Nazis in the 1930s has a simple, unsophisticated anti-establishment and populist appeal.

At the risk of being accused of following Godwin’s Law the referencing of the growth of Hitler replacing establishment politicians seems legitimate to me. Founding new Parties of the Right, in Germany, Italy and Spain was a direct cause of the Second World War. And in Germany it led directly to the Holocaust. Hitler had learned from his botched coup attempts in the 1920s that only a democratic route to power would succeed.

In modern day Britain UKIP, the “Leave” campaign and now Reform have positioned themselves well to the Right of the traditional parties. In Germany in the Weimar period as the economic crisis deepened many industrialists and conservative elites became fearful of communism and labour unrest. Some began supporting the Nazis as a bulwark against the political left. Whilst this hasn’t happened to any great extent yet in today’s UK the Right (and increasingly Reform) has significant support and funding from business.

The link connecting big business and the underclass that brought Hitler to power we see increasingly in Britain – and it has its modern origins in Trump’s America. Before the 2016 US Election Jeremy Paxman visited Detroit to find impoverished voters saying that they were going for Trump. Their choice was driven by despair. The irony is that Trump was funded by fat cats who, with some justification, saw him as more likely to fund their wealth and privilege. And yet the very poor and the unemployed still overwhelmingly voted for him.

Here the typical Reform voter is a “cultural traditionalist” who is economically anxious, distrusts big business as much as big government, and feels that the current economic system rewards the “wrong” people. Despite that the Party bigwigs include millionaires, an the supporters include rich industrialists like Bamford.

It simplistic to call the 6.4m voters ( 18%) who chose the Nazis in 1930 as just a “protest” vote. Similarly the 2.5m (25%) Reform voters in 2024 were doing more than making an anti establishment protest , though many were certainly doing that.

The line from Hitler to Trump and “Reform” is contentious to describe, for obvious reasons. But the voters in 1930 did perceive that the Nazis represented an alternative to the “established” centre parties , as Ian Kershaw put it. In Britain if not (yet?) in America Reform is an alternative (like it or not). WB Yeats forecast it in 1919:

Expenditure on Welfare is broadly Government providing certain citizens in need with wherewithal to spend. What they spend it on is not specified but it is likely that it will be on essential goods and services – certainly if the welfare is well directed to those genuinely in need. Welfare is generally seen to be driven by idealistic motives, and it should be. But there are also significant macroeconomic benefits.

Consumer expenditure is generally good for the national economy overall — in fact, it’s one of the primary drivers of economic growth in most modern economies. It’s the lifeblood of demand. Without sufficient consumer spending, businesses contract, jobs disappear, and growth stalls. In effect money diverted from taxpayers to expenditure via Welfare payments collectively provides a “demand side stimulus”.

Historically the debate has often been seen as a “Guns or Butter” choice. Perhaps the best known use of the phrase was in Nazi Germany. In a speech on January 17, 1936, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels stated: “We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of peace, not without arms. One cannot shoot with butter, but with guns.” Referencing the same concept in the summer of the same year another Nazi official, Hermann Göring, announced in a speech: “Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.^”

The ongoing debate in Britain is essentially a “Guns or Butter” debate. Kemi Badenoch’s recent comments made this crystal clear. She said “So why won’t Keir Starmer fund our military? Because he is too busy spending your money on benefits.” In other words she was unequivocally siding with Goebbels and Gōring in choosing guns rather than butter. In choosing to reduce demand stimulating (and of course morally decent) welfare spending and spending the cash on weaponry.

Opposing the actions of the Israeli government, driven by the obsessive Netanyahu, is not, in itself, antisemitic. The point is that it can be. The problem is a combination of malice and ignorance. Antisemitism is maliciously vile and, often, based on ignorance

Not every attack on Israel, be it verbal or actual, can be factually characterised as an attack on Jews. “Jew Hate” as Times correspondent Stephen Pollard calls it. But most of us do not oppose Israel because it is predominantly a Jewish state nor Netanyahu because he is a Jew. 

Israel’s barely disguised ambition to expand the state permanently into what are predominantly currently Palestinian areas is wrong and grotesquely so. But to say this can invite the charge of being an antisemite. 

What is needed is education. Focus not on Israel’s legitimacy as a homeland for Jews, which is what it was and is, but on its status as a democratic state – the only one in the region. Then ask how such a state can be so abusive of human rights to destroy Gaza and to seek Lebensraum on such a scale. And show how this is not because it’s Jewish but because its leadership is currently so malignant. 

The “power dynamic” , used in Matthew Syed’s piece in The Times today, is a good descriptor closely related to “Entitled” , the title of Andrew Lownie’s excellent book on the former Prince Andrew and his former wife. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Neither Andrew nor Max Verstappen , another misuser of power according to Syed, had absolute power but they arrogantly thought they did. And that’s enough.

The concept of “Noblesse Oblige” has taken a bashing recently. By fair means or foul, accident of birth or serendipity some people benefit from the power dynamic. In the much older phrase they think that they can walk on water. You do indeed see it in the Oval Office at the moment. This is what used to be called “Position power” where some in high office think they are relieved of the requirement to be decent, or honest, or truthful – even legal. Remember Richard Nixon’s “If the President does it it’s legal.” That is Trump’s mantra.

High achievers are a special breed and success rarely comes from humility. There are exceptions, but not many. The extraordinarily high achiever Elon Musk seems to think that his preeminence in one field gives him insights on everything. In fact it just gives him a platform to spout nonsense from time to time on subjects he knows nothing about. That denigrates him. We see it also with rich men in football from the comparatively benign Alan Sugar to the frankly scary Jim Ratcliffe. Stick to the knitting chaps! 

The argument in favour of exploiting indigenous hydrocarbon reserves is actually much stronger than the one made in The Times leader today. Power generation, which they focus on, is the one part of our energy mix where substitution by renewables is practical and well underway. Wind and Solar, along with biofuels and waste, can replace gas almost completely over time in this sector augmented, as they say, by limited use of gas-fired plant for flexibility.

But energy consumption is about a great deal more than making electricity. Substantial oil and gas consumption is simply not open to conversion to renewables for practical or economic reasons, or both. Aircraft can only fly on oil fuel. And that’s not going to change. Sea-going vessels like container ships, cruise ships and ferries likewise. A significant minority of our railway network cannot economically be electrified and will remain reliant on diesel-powered trains

. The use of gas boilers for heating our offices, hospitals and, especially, our homes will remain for the foreseeable future. Replacing them is possible, but a very long term project. Similarly commercial road transport will remain predominantly oil-powered for decades. And the switch from petrol/diesel to battery power for private cars is a much longer and more problematic challenge than many suggest.

Oil and gas together comprise over 70% of our Primary Energy consumption. If we are going to need oil and gas for a very long time (we are!) it makes total sense to use our own indigenous resources. This improves our energy security and our balance of trade and reduces costs.