Sticks and Stones

Today was a momentous day for British aviation and the airline industry, as Heathrow’s long awaited, and desperately needed Terminal 5 opened for commercial flights.

Whilst the day is a great accolade for the Terminal’s sole occupant, British Airways, it is a triumph for airport owner BAA. The project was delivered on time and on budget. Further more, all the UK taxpayers out there will be glad to know that it was funded entirely out of private money. Compare that to the Millenium Domes and Wembley Stadiums that used other people’s money to deliver something over-budged and late. Of course 2012 will be the real Doomsday for UK tax-payers when the Olympics, a purely prestige project for Ken Livingtone’s (and his others cronies) ego takes place.

So from today, millions of Brisith travellers, and international visitors to Britain will be able to enjoy their holiday or their business trip just a little bit more thanks to the new terminal. Even those not using it directly will benefit from the increased capacity in the other Heathrow terminals as airlines move around. (Though the teething problems associated with this move may be problematic).

All that remains now is for approval for Heathrow’s third terminal to be given, so that the UK economy will see a viable future, with a key part of its infrastructures expanding to meet demand.

UPDATE 18:31 GMT - I mentioned that teething problems may be problematic, but did not envisage this sort of trouble. The BA Operations Director has just announced that fligts out of T5 today will be hand-baggage only. He apologises (as he should) but does not say who is to blame.  Given the supposed extensive testing of the new terminal, with images of thousands of bags circulating the T5 system being shown on the news only weeks ago, one has to wonder how successful these tests were. A way to have avoided all this fuss if BAA and BA weren’t too keen on extensive testing would have been to make all outgoing flights from T5 today free, so that no-one has a major ground to complain if they are public volunteers. The cost of that may have been in the region of £10m, but given the £4.6bn terminal, it seems a small price to pay.

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Ten years of stable economic growth is often spoken about when admirers (himself included) assess Gordon Brown’s economic legacy as Chancellor. The previous ten years of growth have happened and are undeniable, but will the UK economy grow in 2008 and 2009?

Alarmists were (unsurprisingly) alarmed yesterday at the publication of the Bank of England’s first Inflation Report for 2008, when Governor Mervyn King warned that inflation was rising due to higher costs, demand was dampening and a technical recession (two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth) was not that far away from the Bank’s projections.

January’s inflation figures, released on Tuesday by the Office of National Statistics, showed the highest annual increase in CPI (the consumer price index) for seven months, and a change in methodology may push the 2.2% inflation rate higher once increased energy costs are accounted for immediately. RPI (the retail price index), which is broadly believed to be a more accurate representation of UK inflation levels (and hence benefits, pensions, student loans and a lot of pay deals are linked to it), was up to 4.1%.

With inflation on its way up, and with the Monetary Policy Committee mandated only to target inflation, the hopes by businesses of a US Federal Reserve type slash of interest rates are likely to be dashed. Even a moderate cut looks unlikely, with Mervyn King prepared to write his second letter of explanation as to why inflation is not on target in 2008. The government are hardly helping the situation by prudently applying fiscal policy either. Fuel duty was raised towards the end of 2007, and is set to rise by 2p a litre in April 2008, at a time when the real price of petrol has never been higher.

So with a government determined to tax somewhat irresponsibly, a Bank of England worried about inflation and consumers unwilling to spend, the prospects for growth in 2008 are bleak.

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We are always looking for new Contributing Authors. If you would like to write for Sticks and Stones, send us an email with the following components;

1. Write about yourself. This can be as long or as short as you like.
2. If you’d like to submit your CV, you may, but this is not required.
3. If you have a blog, link to it.
4. A sample blog post.
   1. It can be on absolutely any topic.
   2. It can even be one you’ve already written and published.
   3. It must be in the range of 200 to 500 words.

We’ve kept the brief very vague so as to not constrain you in any way. The application is meant to be very informal. Any more requirements would deflect focus from the quality of your writing, which is what we are most interested in.

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You can tell that you are not reading a news article by any western media outlet, because I proclaim that the people of Gaza are ruled by terrorists. No not militants, not freedom fighters, and not political activists, but terrorists.

Yesterday, UK television station Channel 4 aired a documentary entitled “Inside Hamas”, which portrayed how the “resistance movement” was adapting to becoming a government. Ultimately it was failing. It was leading a divided people, who it was prepared to oppress just to win a propaganda war. It also treats anyone who disagrees with it as an enemy. In one encounter a resident of Gaza proclaims that his treatment by Hamas made them “worse than the Jews”. The Hamas member who this was directed at was profusely insulted, and irate at being compared to the Jews.

So what has this got to do with them being terrorists? Last week the first suicide bomb in over a year hit Dimona in southern Israel. An elderly woman was killed and thirty-eight were injured.

Another suicide bomber, with 5kg of explosives was shot dead before they could commit further murder. Within hours, Hamas was one of the terrorist groups to claim responsibility for the attack.

Over the weekend, Hamas has continued launching Qassam rockets into the Israeli town of Sderot. Two brothers, aged eight and nineteen are amongst the latest to become seriously injured in these rocket attacks, which are directly orchestrated by Hamas.

Sderot residents are now protesting the lack of response from the Israeli government. Olmert who still faces criticism from his response to the capture of soldier Gilad Shalit in July 2006 (who remains captured), has been wary of his next step. Hamas seem to want a full scale war. They care not about the lives of the Israelis nor the Palestinians that would be lost if such a war were to happen, but could easily claim a propaganda victory. With Israel constantly portrayed at the aggressors, when dealing with a terrorist enemy who refuse to recognise its right to exist, it seems that a solution to this problem will not be easy.

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2008 will see the first ever Olympic games take place in China. This will be a spectacular sight, and will be a clear beacon showing how much China has progressed and integrated with the globalised world that exists today. Just looking around my desk at the moment I see a great many items that have been made in China, and looking at the news I see just how important China is to the global economy. So surely it is only correct that now, in 2008, we celebrate China’s emergence as one of the leading countries in the world, with an Olympic games?

‘No’, would be the short answer.

The reason is quite simple, and is demonstrated in a news item from today. Though China may be a global player in the world, it is still an undemocratic dictatorship, where human rights abuses are omnipresent.

Today we learn that any British athlete who dare criticises the Chinese regime, will be sent on the next plane home, under the auspices of the British Olympic Authority. So much for freedom of speech then? See today’s Daily Telegraph for more on this story.

It is here that the inevitable parallels are drawn with Hitler’s 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which were designed to show off the “mightiness of the Aryan race”. And yet, inevitably, at events like these the fallacies of evil regimes are highlighted. At Berlin it was Jesse Owens’ - an African American - many gold medals. In Beijing it may well be the expulsion of Paula Radcliffe.

Speaking of Olympic games run by dictatorships, where freedom of speech is suppressed and the public have little chance to express their dissatisfaction, did you know that the Ken Livingstone Olympics are taking place in 2012?

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