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item0036A 660, 661
660 16 March 2003
Early-morning E-mail
from Adam Somerset, Fabian scientist living in Aberaeron, on Cardigan Bay,
where my great-great-grandfather came from, and where he was Harbourmaster
in 1845…
To: RWE
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2003 6:38 AM
Subject: Re: Reaction to Strasbourg Visit 11/3
Dear Roger
I can always rely on you to provide some intellectual
whoomf,
brightening up 0615h on a Sunday morning.
With reference to Strasbourg -
I am not surprised at your response. However,
I am not so convinced that a structural readjustment is the
first step. I am still impressed by Mark Leonard's booklet
for Demos of the late 90's.
Without a doubt there has been a
sea-change in generational attitudes towards Europe - it is no longer
regarded as "abroad" (and
therefore filthy according to my
grandmother) - but as
"one of us". But the gulf between
what the Commission does
and what concerns our own citizenry is absolute. Health, crime
and employment are always top concerns - and in those sectors, the EU never
appears to rise above technical administration, for whatever reason.
The President never appears in UK or other national forums - there is no
sense of passion or purpose communicated or picked up by the
mass media (although that is, I accept, a whole other issue.)
Very surprised to hear of your regard for Warren Buffett. I
found myself on holiday 3 years ago, in a cottage, with a book
by his longest-serving lieutenant. What was interesting was
that Berkshire Hathaway's average holding period was over 10 years,
and that
he paid no attention whatever to the stock price.
My (biased) opinion is that the formidable collective IQ of
Britain's financial "industry" is solely focused on -
In your own sector, it is my understanding
(correct me if I am wrong)
Sainsbury step-by-step ceded market share to Tesco - if
the "analysts" ever cottoned on to this, I would be very
surprised.
Best Wishes
Adam S
=======================================
Sunday morning reply...
Dear
Adam
Great to hear from you - and you are right about the invisibility of
European institutions - I have proposed a remedy to that a bit further down
the page, now at the end of the piece "New Voices of Europe", which comes
from last week, pre-Strasbourg trip - I suspect, though, that the problems
with the conventional EU structuring (about to be consolidated, if the
Giscard Model is adopted) is that it presumes too easily that the
"correct"
conceptual model for the overall entity is that of the unitary "state"
(albeit in dispersed federal form). I suspect that the better
model would that
of the multilateral community of states, all negotiating hard,
working to decision
deadlines - and with weighted voting and qualified majorities (and with NO
vetoes...). It would be a "diplomatic model", rather than an
integrated parliamentary model - much more likely to command active and enthusiastic
participation by all the Member States, and to strike the right balance
between cooperation and la difference...
As for Warren Buffett - I do not really know enough about him to be a fan - I was only
observing that he now regarded the expropriation of company wealth by
fat-cat
executives as such a serious wrong that he was prepared to intervene to stop
it - and I say that will need structural corporate reform - mere shareholder
action will never be enough - so it could be a marriage of convenience
between the two Warrens, rather than of principle!
I share your view of "the City" and the "finance industry" generally - a
gambling den for which I have little regard, charging profoundly
exploitative fees for battening upon real businesses in their distress or
ambition.
Finally: as for Sainsburys - the statistics have always been ambiguous,
because of the growing percentage of non-food trade in every chain. I do
not think Sainsburys ever "ceded" first position to Tesco willingly -
neither size nor “first position” was never a JS ambition – after all, there
were 15-or-so Tescos in South Wales
before JS opened up their
first store here! Sainsburys were the ones who came from behind,
with a quality-based strategy
which Tesco and Safeway were eventually
compelled to follow – Tesco
eventually abandoned their pile-em-high, sell-em-cheap strategy, and even
developed their (more profitable) own
brand strategy, by way of
imitation of JS.
But the statistics have always been difficult to follow.
Comparisons
used to made (by the Institute of Grocery Administration, in
the 1980s) on the basis of grocery turnover
only, and JS may have been in the
lead there - but in terms of gross turnover (i.e.including non-food) Tescos have
always predominated (there were once huge Tesco Home'n'Wear
hypermarkets..and now things are moving back in the same direction).
Sainsburys' problem was never one of size or
market-share, rather of the
loss of innovative momentum as
Tesco's caught up with their quality
offer - JS Management under family-rule
became complacent, over-confident
(without understanding the real basis for
their historic success, which was more to do with historic luck than with
retailing skill...) That historic luck eventually ran out, and they
fell behind. Peter Davis, as the first great manager from outside the
family, is gradually regenerating that momentum.
Incidentally, I am delighted that he
has cocked-a-snook at the City’s PC
corporate governance brigade, by taking
over
the Executive Chairmanship.
The “Non-Executive Revolution” is simply the
City’s code for taking over power from real businessmen… The path to public-interest corporate reform does not lie in
fiddling about with Board structures, but with the radical reform of "the
corporation" itself, as a legal entity - see my
www.tamethecorporations.net
I wish Patricia Hewitt would learn that lesson.
Greetings, then
to my "ancestral" town of Aberaeron - it must be marvellous on this sunny Sunday
morning...
Roger WE
What about joining this discussions? Drop me a line
23 St Peter's Road
Newton Swansea SA3 4SB
Tel 01792=360673 FAX = 368399
mobile 079-6817-7564
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661
20 March 2003
Danger
Huckster at Work
 I am fed up with being told that Tony Blair is a man of
honour, a committed Christian, and above all a “genuine believer”. I heard
him live on TV, in the Commons on Tuesday.
And I saw only a huckster at work. A “huckster”
is one who uses “aggressive or questionable methods of selling” – and
that was Tony Blair last Tuesday.
-
First of all, this is an emergency of his own making,
his own scheming. This is not an external circumstance imposed upon him,
as the Falklands attack was imposed upon Margaret Thatcher, or the Kosovo
or Sierra Leone crises were generated by external events. With George
Bush, he has picked the fight with Saddam Hussein. Neither the French
nor German electorates faces the same crisis, thanks to the wisdom of
their leaders.
-
And second, having created the crisis himself, Blair
has abused his great powers of oratory by browbeating his audience into
submission by the use of disreputable, secondary argument. This is how
he set out his oratorical stall – I know, because David Triesman, Labour
Party Secretary, has sent to every Party member the full text of his
speech. All these arguments evade the key issues.
-
Having got this far, we cannot turn back.
-
We must go to war, to uphold the credibility of the
United Nations.
-
I know the terrorist threats, through secret
sources – we must strike now, trust me.
-
If we “back away now”, nobody will ever believe us
again.
-
If we “back away now”, we will be strengthening
Saddam.
-
Think of our armed forces – “brave men and women
of whom we can feel proud”.
-
And I will resign if you do not back me
These were all huckster arguments,
secondary arguments avoiding the primary issues – the classic refuge of the
weak advocate, putting a weak case. As the shepherd of his flock, Blair
knew that the sheep were now irretrievably penned-in by events, and by the
Bush timetable. He did not address any of the primary issues –
-
Why choose the threat of military aggression at
all in this case?
-
Even if the Bush is committed to the deployment of
overwhelming US force, what is the rationale for immediate attack? Why
should the search for a peaceful resolution through inspection not
continue?
-
Finally, Mr Blair, why have you locked your people
into this creeping commitment to support the use of overwhelming US force,
from which we now have no effective escape? Why have you led your peoples
into this awful lose/lose situation?
Blair did not address these questions, because he had
no answer to them. Full answers would have revealed the true character of
the whole seedy “Iraq Project”. It is a gruesome partisan device to enable
the Republicans to dominate US politics until 2008, and to suborn the US
State in the interests of US big business. It is not
Pax Americana. It is
not sympathy for the people of Iraq. It is a Republican power-play. The
UK’s tragedy is that our gullible leader has fallen hook line and sinker for
the Republican game-plan, - and has left us with no way out. The result is
a tragedy of many dimensions, all of which will now be played out.
What do you think? Drop me a line
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