PFI/PPP/GTF

Here's something that grabbed me by the sniffly nose today. Shanks, a company I always associate with the manufacturing of toilet bowls in Barrhead, have sold on their 'subordinated debt' and 80% of their equity in two of their contracts to former builders, now global investors, John Laing Investments PLC.

Before I go off on one about what exactly 'subordinated debt' is, let me reflect on the company John Laing PLC first. Founded near Carlisle in the early19th century they pootered about in Cumbria as successful builders until the arrival of John Laing Jnr, grandson of the founder. He built the company up to such a grandiose state that they had to flee Cumbria to ThatLondon. A deeply religious man, John Laing took business decisions based on his Evangelical beliefs, he introduced such pioneering ideas as paid holidays and annual staff outings, he nurtured staff and became that rare beast, a humane capitalist. In 1909 the company was on the slide, bankruptcy was inevitable. John Laing made a pledge to God, if his company survived and his employees saved from unemployment, he vowed for every pound he earned, to donate a significant percentage to charity. By 1978, the company was worth several hundreds of millions of pounds, Sir John (he'd been ennobled by this time) left a personal estate of £371. From being a small housebuilder Laing became the countries biggest construction firm, motorways, airports, reservoirs, hospitals, nuclear power station bridges...the very infrastructure of the UK. 

Fast forward a couple of decades, stock exchange flotation, FTSE 250 throw in a few mergers and acquisitions and we now discover that the company has divested itself of its construction wing and moved full on into the murky world of über-profitable PFI/PPP. In 2006 they were bought over by Henderson Group, who naturally kept the name, due to the kudos of tradition it brings. Not surprisingly Henderson Group are incorporated in the tax free Channel Isles, I suppose there's a connection to the building trade as their chief executive is called Andrew Formica...

So back to 'subordinated debt', now according to a chum who lives and breathes this nonsense on a daily basis, let me get this right, it works like this. In the case of a default, creditors with subordinated debt would not get paid until after the bigger debtholders are paid in full. Which means that subordinated debt carries more risk than unsobordinated debt...So far so confusing, in essence, due to the risk involved, the holder of the subordinated debt is entitled to charge higher interest rates.

Now as I'm a fan of The Sopranos and only the finest of gangster movies, you'll understand this resonates with me as a scene I've seen many time, where our poor anti-hero, degenerate, drunk, lost gambler takes out a loan with a low level loan shark, after missing a few payments, pliers are applied to teeth and a baseball bat to knee caps. Only when our poor hero finds his true love, sobers up, starts to get back on his feet, does he find that his debt has been sold onto an ever bigger more vicious gangster, ohh and as always there's an increase in the vig, aka the interest on the loan. 

Which brings us back to Shanks selling their PFI/PPP subordinated debts to Laing PLC. I'll ignore the East London Waste Authority and focus instead on Dumfries and Galloway Council. Simply because I was in the room some ten years ago when a senior council officer announced to the councillors and assembled guests, who were there trying to stop a tourist orientated incinerator, that he and a colleague had saved the council a fortune on consultants fees and had cobbled together an agreement with Shanks to deal with the councils waste problem. In short, for a substantial amount of money paid every year, for the next twenty-five years, Shanks would build an eco-deco plant which would negate the need for land fill. It wouldn't be a recycling plant but instead a plant that creates fuel blocks out of paper, plastic, wood etcetera. I asked at the time, what happens at the end of the 25 year PFI contract when the council doesn't own the plant and has no facilities to deal with the wasted. The then deputy council leader joked, that he, the officer, 'didn't care because he'd be dead in 25 years'. My retort of,  'Yes but what about my kids, how will they cope with the waste?' Was met with some embarrassed coughs and close up shoe inspection by the council officers and councillors.

So now we know that, the council tax we pay every month so that the council can collect our household waste gets taken to the eco deco plant. We no longer do genuine recycling, no blue boxes or bottle banks in D&G, everything to the eco-deco, where Shanks have just sold their subordinated debt and equity in the contract on to the City of London equivalent of the Sopranos.

I suspect that rumbling noise I hear every time I drive by the eco-deco plant to Carlisle, might just be Sir John Laing gyrating in his grave...


Here's an addendum to this fascinating tale (to me anyway) of high finance and rubbish. It's now rumoured that Shanks have divested themselves of this subordinated debt to tidy up the shop in the hope that the profoundly evil Carlyle Group come back sniffing for a buyout. Carlyle infamously count President Bush and his idiot son President Bush junior among their employees ooh and former PM John Major. The Carlyle group  really made a shitload of money when they bought up the former military and airforce bases which had been re-branded by the Labour Government as QiNetic. Carlyle made a 780% profit on what had been a taxpayer owned entity...

You just know PPP/PFI is wrong when vultures like this lot come sniffing around.... 

Bring on the heavy horses. Non political post, sort of...

Whilst perusing these internets today I was rather pleased to discover a friend had posted the following video clip, with the proviso that it had only been played on USA TV once.




Rather touched by the film but unsure what to make of a commercial brewery associating itself with such a tragic event, I was surprised after a glance at the comments below the video to discover that Clydesdale horses are synonymous with Budweiser beer in the USA. 

Seemingly Budweiser have been using them in promotions since the first crate of post-prohibition beer was delivered on the back of a dray towed by a team of Clydesdales to the Governor of New York and to President Franklin D Roosevelt back in 1933. The company have been running television adverts featuring the Clydesdales during every Super Bowl since 1967.  They are regarded as an American Icon.



Now ordinarily I rate Budweiser somewhere between our own fizzy pish cooking lager -- McEwan's or Tennant's, preferring perhaps those amusingly named Yankee beers of the seventies and eighties Schlitz and Colt 45, which seem to have vanished from our off licenses and supermarket boozeshelves, along with Sapporo and wur ain home-brews like 'Skol' and Double Diamond. 

However, I digress, as usual, the point I'm going to try and unsubtly wedge in here is that a huge American audience owes a massive brand loyalty to a beer, that has as its mascot, a big horse from Lanarkshire, Scotland. Little is made of the horses origins in the States, even those coves at the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia cite the big gee gee's origins as the farms of Clydesdale. Yet, we rarely celebrate it, or dare I say exploit the marketing potential of the quiet dignity of the big strong horse. I'm not suggesting we strap the Tartan Overlord into a pair of chaps, slap a stetson on his napper and send him and Hopalong MacAskill off on a goodwill tour of the States...but -- a closer association, with a beastie that is Scottish, at a time when our currency in the USA is particularly low thanks to the ongoing anti-Megrahi mince encouraged by wee Dick Baker and his pal Elmer Fudd, might see our fortunes rise a wee bit, subliminally or otherwise.

The sculptor Andy Scott immortalised the breed when he chose one to represent Glasgow, by placing his sculpture beside the M8 motorway. The inference being  that the city and the horse, both once used to hard work, were now better known for show and display. The splendid photograph below is David May's.

  
Rather surprisingly, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust still place the horsey in the vulnerable category. At one time there were believed to be 140,000 of them throughout the UK, by the 1950's we were down to 80 licensed horses. Thankfully as the horses were exported around the world the breed survives quite nicely today, with some 600 foals born every year in the USA alone, where they are hugely popular. Earlier this year, after Budweiser was subsumed by evil megacorps InBev, the worlds largest brewer, with no taste for tradition, they decided to drop the Clydesdales from this years Super Bowl advert. Needless to say the yanks went crazy, petitions were set up, facebook erupted into a cauldron of Clydesdale loving frenzy, and the horses continue as an American Icon...

It's time to wrap them in Tartan, feed them shortie and reclaim them.



 

The Hound of the Bakervilles...

Tomorrow an emissary of the evil empire is due in Scotland to prod, probe, provoke and preach to us on morality and expose our own craven weaknesses. Oh and Pope Benedict XVI is also going to be in town.


Yes, finally we see the result of America's strong arming step ashore and smite us with the arrival of a US Congressional staffer in Holyrood to conduct an investigation into the whys and wherefores of the Megrahi release. The anonymous staffer or staff (plural) are here at the behest of Robert 'Bob' Menendez the Democratic senator for the State of New Jersey, who in a desperate attempt to shore up support for the forthcoming mid-term elections has done his best to conflate the release of Megrahi with BP and their quest for Oil licenses in Libya. Petulantly ignoring the fact that the Tartan Overlord would rather exist on a diet of rice cakes than agree to a Prisoner Transfer Agreement to appease Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the shareholders of BP, this American-Hispanic Inquisition blithely sails on its merry way, casting aspersions on Scotland, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people. All the while ignoring the fact that the USA has by far the lions share of Oil licenses in Libya, and BP's license has sweet Fanny Adams to do with the Scottish Governments decision to release a dying cancer victim.

The most likely candidate to be representing Senator Menandez is a chappy straight out of West Wing central casting, step forward Mr Danny O'Brien.

  
Mr O'Brien, is Senator Menendez's Chief of Staff and wow what a number of staff this chappy has. In the financial year 2009-2010 Senator Menandez employed 58 people in his office, including Danny O'Brien. His staffing budget for the fiscal year 2009 was an eye watering $3,018,836 of which Danny O'Brien was alloted a mere $84,729.48. Danny boy is a previous White House staffer, former Chief of Staff to Senator Torricelli and former Chief of Staff to Senator Joseph Biden, the man who's now a heartbeat away from the Presidency of the USA. Ahh if only he was still by Joe Biden's side he could be the Vice President's Chief of Staff, ho hum, at least his new guy has the bit between the teeth with these pesky Scotch guys... In essence Danny is a smart operator, all the data I've read on him suggests he knows a good fight when he sees it and knows how to get his sleeves rolled up and get into the mire, I'll skip how he ran the Nevada campaign for Al Gore in 2000 or how during the early 1990's he err brought 'Democracy' to eight countries in Latin America and Eastern Europe, whilst working for the acronym boys...

Unfortunately for Danny, his supreme Eckness told Senator Menendez and his committee to travel and copulate simultaneously, thereby limiting the possibility of this Auto de fé spilling over into Bellahouston Park.   

  
Similarly Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill also told the US Senator's committee to go forth and multiply. Which sadly leaves Danny* (if it is he) to discuss matters with shadow Justice Secretary the snivelling, whining toad junior, Richard Baker MSP, as the sole representative of Scotland's political class. 

Whilst the Emissary of the Americano peoples will be steering the conversation towards BP, Oil, Libya and deals in the desert. Richard Baker will, according to the esteemed Press and Journal  be ignoring any mention of deals and deserts and instead suggesting that the Inquisition "should now concentrate their efforts on forcing publication of the medical records." Believing this to be a "much harder subject for the 'administration' to come up with satisfactory answers." For this snivelling milksop of an English public school educated boy to use his office, to direct the representatives of a foreign nation to make life difficult for the Scottish Government is beyond reprehensible. 

One can only hope that Danny O'Brien, on the face of it a sensible chappy, takes one look at the spittle flecked invective emanating from Toad juniors gaping maw and decides to ignore Bakers pleas to sign his DVD box set of the West Wing and take a wander over to Bellahouston Park to see what many of the Scottish O'Brien's are up to.

*In the interests of serendipity, I hope it's not Danny O'Brien who conducts this investigation, instead I'd prefer if it is Senator Menendez's wonderfully named Chief Counsel, Kerri Sherlock Talbot. I mean come on, Sherlock, Edinburgh, Conan Doyle...it all fits together...doesn't it?  

Only a game...

Just when it looked safe to start supporting Scotland again after our glorious and in no way painful victory over Liechtenstein propelled us to the top of our Euro 2012 qualifying group ahead of world champions Spain, it would take something monumentally stupid to deflect the Tartan army's attention off the field and on to a subject which serves to, ahem, rend apart the social cohesion that binds these British Isles...  

Yep you guessed it those benighted souls at UEFA have only gone ahead and given their blessings to GB and Northern Ireland fielding a Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics. Now please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this put to bed, when the presidents of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish football associations, despite Gordon Brown's wishes, signed a letter declining the invitation back in January 2009, in which they declared they did not want to participate nor wish to be rail-roaded into taking part. UEFA as ever willing to listen to their members have simply gone ahead and ignored them.

An English FA insider said, "UEFA have made the decision that the Olympic team will be Under-23 and there will be no over-age players. Ideally we would like Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to participate and there will be talks and an open invitation. It would be lovely for us all to get together and unite.
 

“However we fully appreciate the fears that exist about the seeding process, about the International Board, about the other nations’ participation in the major tournaments. FIFA and UEFA have given assurances they won’t be affected, but we suspect that that won’t be good enough.

“We have never had an Olympic team, but we will do now, even if it has to be England alone.”

Isn't that just dandy? According to Harry Harris of the Express, all that remains is to give the job to Roy Hodgson and young Steve Bruce (49) as a trial to succeed the current England manager...

Now I would imagine that should an influential Scottish football supporter take the lead on this and tell UEFA where they can stick their ball, that person might find his popularity rising among fitba fans and voters.

Warning possible seething sweary words ahead.

With BBC Scotland and just about every other Scottish media outlet more or less anointing Iain Gray as First Minister designate, following Alec Salmond's decision to drop the proposed Independence referendum from the forthcoming Parliamentary session. There seems to be a resigned inevitability that the SNP have no chance of forming the next Scottish government and that supporters of Independence had better just accept that the Tartan Overlord seems to favour a gradual, gradual approach to Independence and soon Labour will be back in charge leading us all to a socialist-lite Utopia.


There are a number of factors that have brought about this triumphalist way of thinking in our Unionist opponents. Long before May 2007, Labour and their Unionist sidekicks have used the 'when did you last beat your wife?' school of debate. Over the decades they've consistently spread the belief that the Scottish National Party are a mean spirited, Anglo-phobic minority party only interested in being insular and celebrating the more sinister side of patriotism. Naturally this is intended to, deter the electorate from voting for them, offend SNP supporters and minimise their argument, it does. We're constantly on the back foot, striving to be positive in the face of relentless negativity and having to tread warily in everything we say and do lest we be accused of fascism, racism or jingoism. Pointing out perceived historical injustices is branded the politics of whining. Trying to engage political opponents in debate, soon sees them resort to the usual repetitive dross, which equates to that of a scolded child, sticking their fingers in their ears and bawling 'I can't hear you'. 'We couldn't cope outside the Union', 'we're subsidy junkies', 'Scots will leave in their droves past the guard towers on the border', 'we're all face painted Mel Gibson acolytes' and so on. 

Personally, I've had enough of it, if ever there was a time for Salmond and his team to point out the normalcy and prospects of an Independent Scotland, and keep ramming it down the throats of the electorate and the opposition, then this is it. The wealthy New Labourite, Alastair Campbell once said, 'it's only when you're sick of saying the same thing over and over again, that people begin to hear you.' There's truth in that. The perfect example of this is David Maddox of the Scotsman's favourite phrase 'SNP Accused of', whenever this occurs, our government kicks into default position and politely and patiently tries to explain the rights of whatever malfeasance we've been accused of, we humbly offer our explanations and hope the feigned indignation will dribble away. It's become the mantra set by a narrow clique of happy clappy advisers. We need to speak, clearer, louder and more often again and again and again, till the hard of thinking start to listen. We need other voices to articulate what's going on, rather than the usual suspects. We need to demonstrate that the faith we put in the SNP  as a party of all the talents, is not wasted and left to fester.

I don't have all the answers on how we persuade our fellow voters that backing the biggest Independence party isn't the death defying risk our opponents say it is, but, as a keen history buff I do recognise the links of blame that will surface between now and next May.   

The following story in the Evening News gives the perfect insight to the tactics opponents of Independence will use. Prospective Labour Councillor Bill Cook, believes the path to defeating the SNP is the 'Megrahi effect'. We released him, we did it for BP oil, on Westminster orders, we've embarrassed the nation, the USA hates us, our name is muck, we pander to terrorists, in short we're utterly useless and sanity will only be restored when Richard Baker goes to Libya, grabs Megrahi by the scruff of his neck and throws him back into his Greenock cell to die of his pretendy cancer.

The 'Megrahi effect' will be dribbled out day-after-day until the poor bastard dies, and other than 'compassion' and 'higher authority' our Scottish Government have run out of excuses. The startling lack of clarity in defending the release or even proffering a nod to the possibility that Megrahi might possibly be a victim of injustice is left ignored and unsaid. Everyone and his dog knows that the pressure on the Scottish Justice System (not for the first time) by Westminster and Washington to achieve a conviction on either of the two Lockerbie accused was immense. It didn't matter which one, as long as the West had a hate figure to blame for the destruction, we could all go back to sleeping soundly in our beds.

The stakes have increased with the senators who are vainly attempting to conflate Megrahi's release with BP winning licenses to drill for oil in Libya. All the while ignoring the fact that US oil giant Occidental have an operation in Libya twenty times the size that of BP's, all the while ignoring that fact that non US citizen employees of Occidental were moved to the Libyan Oil agency when the UN sanctions kicked in, and conveniently moved back to Occidental when they were lifted. The shell companies that Occidental set up in Switzerland surprisingly continued operating in Libya during the sanction years are, guess what, back in Occidental hands. Some might say that the USA oil grab never really ceased during the sanction years. All the while trading in black oil with the man their government are convinced ordered the murder of everyone on board Pan Am 103.

Earlier today BP released the findings of their inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. No doubt these excuses will be rubbished, the senators will continue to use BP, Megrahi and the Scottish government as a blunt tool with which to bludgeon their way to re-election at the US mid-term elections. All of this duplicity, hypocrisy and underhand dealing serves to remind me of another event that happened in Scotland a mere five months before Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie. 

Piper Alpha.




Piper Alpha was owned by Occidental, the fourth largest Oil company in the world. I remember their repugnant 92 year old American chairman, Armand Hammer flying into Aberdeen offering $1.7 million to a relief fund and flying out the next day with his hands firmly in his pockets, never to return. A close friend of Thatcher and Prince Charles, Piper Alpha was a godsend to his debt stretched company. His insurance claim almost bankrupted Lloyds of London. The Cullen Inquiry laid the blame fairly and squarely on Occidental and a culture of corner cutting and profit protection. 167 men died 200 kilometres from shore because Occidental were too cheap to maintain safety regulations. The first explosion would have burned out and lives saved, had Occidental not continued feeding oil from the Tartan and Claymore platforms, managers were denied permission to cut the pumps, they could see Piper Alpha in flames, but still they continued pumping until the fatal second explosion, because to have shut it off would have meant several days work to restore operations and cost Occidental a fortune. 

As ever our Scottish media thirled to Westminster and America did little in the way of condemning Occidental or America, nobody called for sanctions against the USA, none of the Occidental executives were ever brought to justice or prosecuted for the 106 health and safety offences they breached. In short we grieved our dead and put our faith in the Scottish Justice system, which wholeheartedly failed us, yet again. 

To conclude, and I apologise for the length of this post, but not the utter pissed off-ness I hope you detect in my writing. The 'Megrahi effect' is in the process of claiming another victim, a man that Scotland should regard more wisely. Professor Robert Black posted on his Lockerbie Case blog that an American film-maker had approached him asking for permission to do an interview and give him an opportunity to give his reasons as to why he believes Megrahi to be innocent. As Prof Black's post reveals this was at first a convivial interview for the first hour wherein he answered questions succinctly and patiently, only to see the knife twist and all the vehemence of the vested interests come to the fore, with a camera man chasing Prof Black screaming 'How can you sleep at night?' As he correctly surmises, guess which part of his interview this American film-maker will use? 

The 'Megrahi Effect', how do we counter it, when our own government doesn't appear to have the balls to consider that something might be wrong with the Scottish Justice system? 

The Pontiff and a Parliament of Whores...

Suggestions by some scurrilous types that the Papal cavalcade when it traverses Edinburgh en route to meet Queen Brenda Windsor, Prime Minister Lord Snooty and our very own Tartan Overlord at Holyrood palace, will have to drive through the area of Edinburgh known as the Pubic Triangle, are surely at the whim of a good driver and a decent twat-nav. If the entourage manages to avoid the torrid display of strip joints, 'saunas' and Costas, there's bound to be the odd discrete red lit window on the Royal Mile that'll give the occasional Bishop or Right Reverend a lascivious come hither wink. Possibly there may even be a discount at some of the capitals many pole dancing clubs, for men with a small angry devil under their cassocks.

All of which serves to remind me of a recent trip to the Bodensee or Lake Constanz as we call it in English, wherein I saw the above beautiful lady, Imperia. If you've never heard of her allow me to enlighten you. In 1993 the good burghers of Konstanz (I know these crazy foreigners and their different names for their own towns) decided to commemorate the papal Council of Konstanz back in the 15th century by commissioning renowned sculptor Peter Lenk to create an outstanding art form to overlook the town and the Bodensee. 

The Council served to unite the Papacy behind one of three rival Popes and Pope Martin V was duly elected. Apart from starting the Hussite wars and banning Jews from selling Christian slaves (all other religions were ok) Martin V created a bit of a stir when the Council visited Konstanz between 1414 and 1418. During the interminably dull periods of ecumenical debate, he had a few opponents offed, notably Jan Hus, the radical free thinker and philosopher who was burned at the stake for daring to question the legitimacy of his Papacy.

He settled what remained of the Western Schism and stomped on any remaining rights of Paganism. The arrival of the Papal circus was a great boost to the local economy, having the entire hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church decant to Konstanz was the equivalent of hosting the Olympic Games, the World Cup and a Beatles reunion every day for four years. Konstanz was already an imperial city subject only to the Holy Roman Empereor, a neat ecclesiastical loophole allowed clergy to live affluent tax free lives, it was estimated that up to one quarter of the population claimed clerical dispensation. Add to this mix of lavish wealth, randy apostolic brethren a pornucopia of prostitutes, pimps, potentates and pederasts and Konstanz resembled a scene of unrivalled Bacchanalian orgies.

La Belle Madame of them all was Imperia, who had men wilting at her very touch. Herr Lenk, knowing that Emperor Sigismund had personally thanked the city of Konstanz, in writing, for providing 1,500 prostitutes for the period of the Council's stay, decided to take Imperia as his muse. Inspired by Honoré Balzac's novel, 'La Belle Imperia', he devised this homage to the greatest hooker of them all.

Imperia stands ten metres high on a rotating plinth, weighing in at a svelte 18 tonnes, in each hand she holds an effigy of Pope Martin V and Emperor Sigismund, both are naked except for their Crowns. 

   
She was assembled in place overnight, under cover in great secrecy. When she was unveiled the next day there was universal outcry from the good burghers, they had at least expected something a tad more restrained, devout and sacred, not some giant tart, with her boobs hanging out, holding up two naked old buffers. The Bishop of Freiburg almost fainted and had his advisor's send a strongly worded letter of condemnation. Demands were made to pull it down, plots of subterfuge from fundamentalist Christian groups threatened to blow her up and sink her in the Bodensee. The plinth is cited in the harbour which is owned by German Rail company Deutche Bundesbahn, who in turn told the critics to travel and copulate. To this day she is the foremost tourist attraction on the Bodensee and Konstanz, I'm reliably informed still has more than its fair share of cathouses. 

I'm not suggesting that Pope Benny avail himself of the plethora of pleasure palaces that infest our fair city, when he visits next week, just that the whole event isn't choked up with hypocrisy, that a Papal letter regarding the child abuse scandals is issued and that an explanation is given as to why Mass is being charged for and the Pope is allowed to wave at the people of Scotland and drive by the Scottish Parliament, but is not allowed to enter...Do I detect the cold dead hand of former Secretary for the State of Scotland, Jim Murphy MP?