Category: Morality

How big bankers became outlaws

[This is another Guest Post from Patrice Ayme which appeared on his Blog on the 28th April.  It has been slightly modified by me. Ed]


Celebrating Goldman Sachs, while acknowledging that it is far from being all their fault.

Point One: We are living in a state of law. Supposedly.

Point Two: That State is democracy, the rule of the demos, the people. It is not the rule of the bankers. Supposedly.

Point Three: Political leaders have recently given PRIVATE unelected individuals, the bankers, the means and the right to create money, the money everybody uses, through debt, ex nihilo, starting from PUBLIC funds  (Called, somewhat misleadingly, the fractional reserve banking system.)

Point Three contradicts the union of Point One and Point Two. Power is supposed to be exerted by the people, but money is power. Big bankers create money at will, with the complicity of the political leadership. So they create power at will.

Thus, the present system incites (big) MONEY CREATING BANKERS TO BECOME GANGSTERS, and then OUTLAWS.

It is as simple as that!

Thus one needs to get rid of the private fractional reserve PUBLICLY funded money creating system.  The situation has been rendered worse in the last decade by the blossoming of synthetic derivatives which are out-of-this-world bets which could not possibly be paid back.

Synthetic derivatives of derivatives transformed a 300 billion dollars loss in real mortgages into a potential exposure of 24,000 billion dollars, thanks to the leverage of the derivatives squared.

Then political leaders, accomplices with the bankers, offered to pay the 24,000 billion dollars, on behalf of taxpayers, leaving the economy in tatters.

Not all is lost: Goldman Sachs got its entire 2008 profit, 13 billion dollars, from taxpayers, through AIG, thanks to US politicians, and the USA loves a winner. Love and dove, there are still many a feather to pluck.

By Patrice Ayme

P.S. Synthetic derivatives are, mathematically and philosophically, a generalization of the license of the privately managed, publicly funded, fractional reserve system, thus proving further, if need be, how erroneous the latter can be.

P.P.S. The fractional reserve system ought to be kept, to provide the capital needed, simply it ought not to be anymore the province of a small private oligarchy gaming it.

The aroma of British politics!

Such a shame that British electioneering couldn’t be honest.

Well, the British General Election Campaign meanders along towards the final week before we are put out of our misery on May 6th.

Sadly, the main topic of interest has been the success of Nick Clegg in the Leaders’ TV debates. The new young face on

Nick Clegg

the block has proved once and for all the huge power of television. Not one single Lib-Dem policy or personnel changed during the debate, yet the mere appearance on the telly of a new, personable kid on the block has rocketed his party up the ratings.

Well, not exactly rocket science, but sobering all the same. However, more importantly, most policy discussion seems mired in a series of scare-mongering ploys along the lines of, “Don’t vote for that lot or this terrible thing will happen.”

Yes, perhaps this is the stuff of all elections, but this one should have been a bit different since

A) it comes after a long period of power held by the Labour Party and whichever way it goes will mark a historic change and,

B) the stakes are so high as Britain hovers on the edge of joining the economically-challenged PIIGS [Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Ed.] of Europe.

We desperately need a government that can take us safely away from that particular event horizon, but to choose one rationally, we need the “truth” about what really needs to be done to reduce debt.

But sadly, we seem infected by the Greek syndrome, an ability to see the bleedin’ obvious, which is that nobody can live beyond their means for ever, much as they might like to.

So, we’re having to look for “the truth” further afield, to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), for example. According to them, the cuts in public costs will have to be as deep as any made since World War II. (Oh, and thank you to Labour and the banks for jointly getting us into this sorry mess.)

Here’s a brief quote from that BBC link:

The UK faces the deepest spending cuts since the late 1970s if the three main parties are to meet their budget commitments, new analysis suggests.

The years between 2011 and 2015 must see the largest cuts since 1976-80, according to a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

Here’s Stephanie Flanders, the BBC’s Economics Editor writing in her blog:

They may disagree in public, but privately they couldn’t agree more. On the single most important issue facing the country after this election, our politicians think it’s better to keep us in the dark.

WHERE is the party explaining this clearly and unambiguously to the people? In other words, TELLING THE TRUTH?

I don’t see it. Neither of the big, old dinosaur parties are being straight with us. The Tories are proposing to spend even MORE on the NHS, (National Health Service) that sacred cow that nobody dare speak any ill of, while Labour seem to be promising to spend more on just about everything despite our £163 billion borrowing this year.

Why is this? It can – I submit – only be because they don’t think the public will understand and accept “the truth”.

If party A tells the truth and admits the cuts in public services will be deep and involve some pain and party B LIES and says it will “preserve frontline services” (the Labour line) then they (Party A) fears the public will not buy their version and opt for whoever promises them a fantasy instead, or in other words a gradual recovery without too much pain and in particular for themselves.

So, there is deep cynicism and an extreme economy with the truth from all parties who fear a voter backlash if they tell it. This is rather a sad reflection on the Labour Party’s proud boast of “education, education, education” of 1997.

Apparently, the British public is so stupid that they can’t be trusted to believe the truth when they get it. Of course, this could possibly be because they are so UNUSED to getting it and moreover because this policy of spinning smoke and mirrors worked so well in previous Labour victories.

Clear as mud!

By Chris Snuggs

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good!

Iceland’s ash casts an enigmatic spell over Japan

It seems that there has been nothing else on the news following the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajokull
in Iceland, which was of particular interest to me  because on the 10th April I was flying from New York across the southern area of Iceland on my way to Rome, since which time I have passed through the UAE and Singapore on my way to Japan.

My work replacement was due to arrive on the 18th April after a holiday in the Mediterranean, but the flight which he was on was diverted into Paris because UK airspace was suddenly closed. He managed to continue his journey by train, ferry, car, taxi and bus but was then stuck in England. My duty had to continue but there seemed little point in propping up a hotel bar with other crews, so I decided to turn the situation into something positive.

After an exploratory trip into Tokyo, it was Paul, our Editor in Chief who put me in contact with his sister and her husband in the city, and another friend who suggested I should jump on a train and go to Hiroshima to see his son, who I know, so my travels started.

The transport system in Japan is extremely well organised with instructions and information well displayed in English along side Japanese. Everything is clean and modern, and runs to the second! At short notice I decided to make the journey to Hiroshima in this once in a life time opportunity, and there was the famous bullet train a monster of modern technology, which runs on banked rails at steady speeds of 400 kph.

Mount Fuji - Japan

We sped along through ever changing countryside. Initially the skyline was of mainly high rise buildings which changed to two story properties once we were out of town. The new leaves of spring and the famous blossom of the plum and cherry trees, and the quick glimpse of a Japanese water garden. Industry is mixed with small allotments, and tiny houses, roads and rail lines raised from ground level to make everything fit, and above that cables and wires, because of the threat of earthquakes, and past the stunning Mount Fuji, white with snow against a blue sky.

I never met such polite people, and on the train the guards and girls who pass through the carriage with drinks and food bow when they enter and leave. They are so well dressed and smart. No graffiti here!

Familiar Japanese trading names on local buildings, and strangely a huge Union Jack flag. I wonder how there can be so many buildings and parking areas full of cars ,but seemingly no people in view, but many large span bridges arching across hill sides to join places together.

Through Kyoto where there seemed to be a lot of energy being used, for purposes that were not immediately clear. College students in smart suits with white shirts and blue ties, passed quietly through the train. I noticed each time they had left the train at a station they took their rubbish with them, and put the seat back in the upright position!

The A-Bomb Dome

At last after four hours we arrived at Hiroshima, which today it is a lovely modern city of which to be proud. There is just one damaged building standing in a stark fashion at the waters edge which is all that it takes to remind us of such devastation and the Garden of Peace, there to allow some quiet reflection.

I took a 45 minute boat ride to Mijajima, now a World Heritage site. This beautiful island is probably 15 miles from Hiroshima, and there amongst the beauty of the trees and a 500 year old shrine wander the deer, quite happy to sit as people pass by.

My thought as I came away from Hiroshima was that all leaders of any country with any connection to Nuclear weapons or power should be made to attend the A-Bomb Dome and reflect. As all the plaques say this must never be allowed to happen again.

By Bob Derham

Papal spokesman loses marbles

Not quite the best way to manage one’s ‘news’.

Fr Raniero Cantalamessa

I’ve been trying to think of the right word, and I think I’ve finally managed it – “stupefying”. This is in connection with Fr Cantalamessa’s remarks comparing the current criticism of the Roman Catholic church hierarcy with anti-semitism, this in relation to the on-going child-abuse scandals that are rocking the Roman Empire.

I don’t like to kick a man when he is down, and Fr Cantalamessa is clearly challenged on a wide number of fronts, including cerebrally.

The Catholic Church is in a totally indefensible position on the abuse front; the Pope himself is accused of failing to take action (always the easy course) in his earlier career when presented with clear evidence of wrong-doing.

No, the only possible reaction was to assume great humility and sorrow and issue grovelling apologies.  No doubt the usual politicians’ standby soundbite would not have gone amiss: “Lessons have been learned.”

I give  Fr Cantalamessa some credit for saying what he thinks instead of passing his comments through a gruesome PR spin merchant, but unfortunately he has got it completely wrong. And it’s no good the Vatican claiming that these remarks “did not represent its official view”. They were after all printed in full on the front page of the Vatican’s own newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano.”

As Peter Isely of SNAP (survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) put it much better than I could:

“They’re sitting in the papal palace, they’re experiencing a little discomfort, and they’re going to compare themselves to being rounded up … and sent in cattle cars to Auschwitz? You cannot be serious.”

Porr old Fr Cantalamessa should get out and about into the real world a bit more.  Someone should send him a copy of Mother Theresa’s biography or “Five Chimneys”

Has he seen “Schindler’s List”, even though what was shown there was extremely mild compared to the horror of the reality?

Sorry Fr Cantalamessa, you score nul points on this one ….

By Chris Snuggs

Why do we cheat?

Behavioral Economist concludes that most people cheat.

In a very interesting video on the website TED, Dan Ariely, Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, explains his research into why people think it is okay to cheat and steal.

Here is Ariely’s presentation from YouTube:

From his research, he concludes the following:

  • A lot of people will cheat.
  • When people cheat, however, they cheat by a little, not a lot.
  • The probability of being caught is not a prime motivation for avoiding cheating.
  • If reminded of morality, people cheat less.
  • If distanced from the benefits from cheating, like using “chips” instead of actual money in transactions, people cheat more.
  • If your in-group accepts cheating, you cheat more.
Dan Ariely

I quibble with the interpretation of some of his findings, which may justify a separate post on how people perceive what they do and do not know, but there are always issues of this sort with a given research project.  Where I draw the line is when he expands his conclusions to include all of Wall Street and the stock market, which is totally beyond the scope and nature of his research.

On what basis does he draw this conclusion?  As explained in this short video (as I have not read his book, though I’ve read excerpts and am familiar with the study upon which the book is based), Ariely claims that because stocks and derivatives are not in the form of money, they “distance people from the benefits of cheating,” which leads individuals who engage in the stock market to cheat more.  He alludes to Enron as proof.

This is almost too silly to spend a lot of time on trying to discredit, but I fear that a lot of people who hear his talks or read his book may be lulled into accepting what he says about the stock market as true.  But it is not! Enron is the exception, not the rule.

Companies who issue stocks are raising money to provide a good or service that is valued by society; they are rewarded by profits.  Investors who buy and sell stocks, trade derivatives, and invest in portfolios are trying to make their money go further. They are trying to earn a return on their savings.  Cheaters do not survive in the stock market, unlike the “consequences-free” classroom in Areily’s experiment.

On the other hand, these factors are in glaring abundance in the government:  politicians never “see” the taxes they spend as the hard-earned income of the citizens. And the “benefits” of cheating, including power and privilege, are amorphous and vague, and couched in the so-called morality of “doing the greater good.”  I’m surprised Ariely does not condemn the federal government using the same logic as his does the stock market.

His last take-away from this research project?  That we find it “hard to believe that our own intuition is wrong.”

I think Dr. Ariely ought to apply that caveat to the conclusions he draws about his own research.  Very interesting, very compelling, but his interpretation of the results as they apply to the stock market falls victim to the very same biases that he claims to find in others.

by Sherry Jarrell

Let there be markets

Here’s a novel idea – make markets be markets!

I apologise for the rather trite sub-heading but it was a bit of attention grabbing to promote the results of a recent conference called Let Markets Be Markets.  It was published by the Roosevelt Institute and had one very impressive line of speakers.

One of the speakers was Simon Johnson of Baseline Scenario fame, a Blog that Learning from Dogs has followed since our inception.

Here’s 8 minutes of Simon pulling no punches.

If you want to read and watch other presentations, then Mike Konczal’s Blog Rortybomb is the place to go.

As this Blog has repeated from time to time, this present crisis is a long way from being over.

By Paul Handover

Stop Flaunting Sexuality Please

Oh, this is really clever! Not!

I was stunned the other day to read this:

In the latest development in his campaign to show how dramatically the Tories have changed, David Cameron has published the party’s first-ever official list of openly gay MPs.

The Conservatives say they have 20 openly gay candidates standing in the Election. Of those, 11 told party chiefs they were ‘happy’ to be named in the first authorised list of gay Conservative candidates.

David Cameron

Homosexuality is no longer – thankfully – a crime.  It has always existed and no doubt always will. It is therefore – logically – a normal feature of human society. Isn’t it time to accept it as such and stop flaunting it constantly in the media? Can we not keep private those parts of our lives which are private? Do heterosexuals go around flaunting their heterosexuality?

Why on earth does a potential government-forming party feel obliged to publish lists of people’s sexuality? Why do I suddenly feel as if I am bizarre in thinking that one’s sexuality should be something private? Personally I haven’t got the faintest interest in other people’s sexual inclinations. Like religion, it should be personal and not eternally flaunted in the media.

And it is all illogical. Either homosexuality is normal or it isn’t. If it is (as it is), then why the constant need to bang on about it, as for example in the Tory party? What on earth has it got to do with running the country? Are the Tories supposed to be better-qualified to run the country the more homosexuals they have? Is there a point at which having TOO MANY becomes a negative point? Would they then start to proclaim how many heterosexuals they had? On a personal level, I keep my sexuality to myself. It is nothing to do with you and certainly not with running the country.

It is analagous to sex in the media. It is overdone. The endless superficial titillation and flaunting of sexuality is demeaning of the Human Spirit. Sex is – or should be – a private matter. It’s better that way. It is more mature that way, but the media – and now the political parties – sink to the lowest denominator instead of focusing on what really matters.

Please, please give us some politicians with common-sense.

By Chris Snuggs

The EU and the European Taxpayer

Integrity? Here is your quiz question for today:

Which international, taxpayer-funded organisation has an unelected crony of the British Prime Minister in a high-level post (though not the highest) who earns more than the President of the United States and double the salary of Hillary Clinton?

Clue!

Yes, you’re right. It is the European Union. This is an organisation of member states that in principle is supposed to be

Baroness Ashton

about creating a free, democratic and open market in Europe. It has turned into a proto-state (in the eyes of the Brusselocrats) which – therefore – has to have a “Foreign Minister”, in this case Baroness Ashton.

This is a person with very little knowledge of international affairs sent by Gordon Brown to Brussels because he couldn’t afford to lose Peter Mandelson or David Milliband. This is a person never elected to any public post, yet who receives a vast salary and benefits package higher than that of ANY of the Presidents and/or Prime Ministers of ANY of the member states of the EU.

As “The Daily Mail” points out, in addition to this very large salary the Foreign Minister also enjoys an extraordinary raft of other benefits:

“Her basic pay of £250,000 is double that of her U.S. counterpart, Hillary Clinton (who’s on £124,000). And on top of that, Lady Ashton is entitled to a raft of benefits including a £38,000 yearly accommodation allowance, £10,000 annual entertainment budget, two chauffeurs, plus thousands of pounds more in sundry allowances and – if she survives – a pension of £64,000 pa (three times the average salary in Britain) plus a “golden handshake” of over £450,000.”

All this goes hand-in-hand with billions spent on the new EU “diplomatic service”.

But hang on a minute! The EU is NOT A STATE!

The EU has no army! Baroness Ashton as “Foreign Minister” can decide on practically nothing that the key heads of government do not agree to. So what is going on here? Is all this vast waste of public money in a time of financial crisis either A) the bloated pretention of Brusselcrats who have a delusional idea of their own importance or B) another brick in the wall which one day WILL be a United States of Europe.

One can see how the thinking goes: “We’ll set up a “Foreign Ministry” so big and powerful that one day they will just have to agree to creating a single state to justify it. And of course the more it costs, the more important it obviously is and therefore the more powerful we ourselves will be. And naturally, the more jobs there will be for us to go to on the Brussels merry-go-round.

Of course, it is both A AND B. And how can they afford these humungous salaries? Well, because they can get away with it. In theory they are accountable, but in reality? How many people even know who their European MP is? Once you get onto the Euro Gravy Train it disappears out of sight. Nothing the voter says or does seems to stop the bloated upward creep of salaries, allowances and pretentions.

How ANY Brusselocrat can justify such a ludicrous salary for an unelected and essentially unimportant  “minister” is a mystery. The main justification seems to be “self-interest”. The EU is NOT A STATE. States have Foreign Ministers.

It is dishonest and amounts to theft of public funds. But that is not the WORST of it. The saddest thing is that it damages the morale of those who – like me – used to believe in a Europe united but not “statefied”. I want a free and open market. I do NOT want a United States of Europe. But this is where they want to lead us, and – like a black hole – each year sees a tiny creep in that direction, or in the above-mentioned case, a BIG creep. I also do not want a venal, money-grabbing, bureaucratic elite in Brussels which makes 80% and rising of British law.

Once again, one wonders if delusional pretentions will bring the whole edifice crashing down and the baby go out with the bathwater …

By Chris Snuggs

The Planet’s Resources

Who do the Earth’s raw materials really “belong” to?

So once again the Falkland Islands have hit the headlines, and as usual for the wrong reasons. The British have given the green light for oil exploration around the islands and Argentina has resisted by imposing restrictions on shipping movements, if not (yet) an all-out blockade.

Who knows where this one will end? It could either fizzle out or erupt into another full-scale confrontation, since big issues are involved, and none bigger than nationalism, for Argentina claims the islands as “its own”.

The history of the Falkland Islands is long and complex, but the idea that Argentina has any fundamental right to these islands is surreally silly. Argentina is owned and ruled by descendants of the Spanish, who took over the land that now forms Argentina (a state in its own right only since the early 19th c) as part of the European colonisation of the world. By all means let us return the Falklands to their original owners, except that the first people to settle there were French for a start. And if you are going to adopt the principle of returning land to its original owners, then we can look forward to most of the population of Argentina returning to Spain and returning the land to the Indians, can we?

The other argument often advanced is that “the islands are near Argentina”. Well, I don’t know when these people last looked at a map but 300 miles isn’t exactly “near”. But in any case, if we are to adopt nearness as a criteria for the reapportioning of land then I look forward to England once again reclaiming France, a mere 21 miles away. And what on earth is Corsica doing as part of France? But of course France must have the Channel Islands, as they are very near – and so on. “Continental shelf”? “We own the land under the sea?” Go down this route and we’ll need a whole new generation of map-makers.

When all the idiotic, overblown, childish and nationalistic guff (which sadly  led to many hundreds of dead in the 1972 war) is stripped away from this debate, we are left with two fundamentals:

  • the right of self-determination
  • the way the Earth’s resources are used

As for the first, there have been British people living on the islands since at least 1833. They have – as I believe all people have – the right to determine their own fate.  This is called self-determination. Unfortunately, it is a noble principle to which the world all too often pays only lip-service. The nation state has become an entrenched, solidified system, mostly because it confers great power on the leaders of each state, who – especially when democracy has not taken root – use the statehood to advance their own power and megalomania. Statism has for centuries run roughshod over people’s fundamental rights. Iraq was a “state”, but one where the Kurds (denied their own state by British cynicism) suffered cruelly under the jackboot of a fascist psychopath. That the British eventually helped to remove this monster (suffering enormous criticism from in particular the country that inspired the world with its own Revolution in 1789) is only a tiny compensation for the original injustice done to the Kurds. They are by no means alone; minorities all over the world suffer in different degrees from arrogant statism: Tibetans; Basques,; American Indians and Australian aborigines among many others. Yes, injustices were done centuries ago, but you cannot wind back history, or where would it end?  How would Europe cope with all those Yanks for a start if they gave the USA back to Sitting Bull’s descendants? Apparently, we all came originally from Africa. Should we all return there and leave our countries empty?

Well, on the Falklands are Brits, and Britain did them the honour of allowing them freely to choose whether they want to be annexed to Argentina. This would in fact give them innumerable advantages, plus of course potentially-disastrous disadvantages. As trust is in short supply, these people prefer not to take the risk and so remain British. That is their right. In refusing to discuss “sovereignty”, Britian is doing no more than strike a blow for self-determination. To give Britain its due, it has pursued the same policy – albeit modestly – towards the (in the eyes of some of them) oppressed Welch, Scots and Irish.

So much for fundamental 1. The Argentinian case is pathetic.

What about the RESOURCES question?

Well, resources are another area where the state jackboot falls with great weight. We all breathe the same air, share the same sun, the same water; but where the stuff under the ground is concerned, it’s every state for itself. Yet casting aside state arrogance, isn’t it ridiculous that state A can derive vast wealth from “its” oil, gold or whatever, while state B alongside it is mired in poverty and misery? So much for “share-and-share” alike. Even belonging to the same race is no help; while some Arabs built extraordinary palaces and Audi Quattros made of solid silver, poor Somalis, Yemenis, and even Egyptians are mired in abject poverty. (Check out this Arab Palace in Dubai, and Mugabe’s presidential palace in Zimbabwe, which is by no means untypical of poverty-stricken Africa)

One day, in a joined-up world which recognizes that we are all brothers, we will share resources “fairly”. Britain could show the way by offering to share any oil resources with – not only Argentina – but all of Latin America (though we could leave out Venezuela …) What a blow for brotherhood that would be!

By Chris Snuggs

Laughing Latins

Mr Sepp Blatter demonstrating how a foot may be placed in a mouth!

John Terry

Sepp Blatter, or Blabber as he is more affectionately known, is never at a loss for words, and generally good entertainment value.  However, this week he surpassed himself with a pontification of pretty unsurpassing silliness about the moral values of South-Western Europe.

For those who do not follow the minutiae of British football, John Terry, Captain of the English football team, was unfortunate enough to have his name dragged through the media in connection with his adultery, or as some alleged, serial adultery. Now the question of whether it is anyone else’s business what the Captain of England does in his “private”  life is an interesting one, but  I am today more concerned with Blabber’s response, and two things struck me about it in particular.

Here’s a quote from a piece in the UK newspaper The Guardian.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter has claimed that in some countries, John Terry would have been applauded rather than sacked as national team captain for having an alleged affair.

First of all, I am puzzled as to why Blabber feels he can elect himself as spokesperson for the whole of “latin” Europe? He is a football functionary, not a moralist. I must say that had I been latin I would have found his remarks offensive. As an Italian lady was quoted as saying: “If my husband slept with my sister I would not find it in the least amusing or applaudworthy.”

Secondly, let us suppose – for the sake of argument – he was right to say that

Sepp Blatter, FIFA

latins would have applauded Terry’s behaviour.  This would mean that the vast majority of European Catholics were totally and utterly hypocritical. After all, “Christians”, nominal or otherwise, still go in vast numbers to churches for weddings, baptisms and funerals, don’t they? Here in Bavaria, whenever you pass someone in the street you say “Gruss Gott.” Is Blabber really saying that all these people just take the easy bits of Christianity and laugh at the tricky stuff, like adultery, rich people and eyes of needles, treating their neighbour as thy brother and so on?

And that IS in effect what he said. Insults don’t come a lot grosser, do they? In fact, this was a DOUBLE WHAMMY. First he insulted all of Catholic Europe and simultaneously he insulted all the Anglo-Saxons by describing the furore over Terry’s philanderings as “Anglo-Saxon in nature”. And of course, the term “Anglo-Saxon” is one of fairly strong abuse, especially among the French elite.  This by the way has always amused me, since most of the Germans started off as Saxons, and the Germans are very PC, whereas the British certainly are not PC, even if half of us originally CAME from Saxony!

As for adultery, well, let’s be clear, it isn’t “good”, is it? OK, “There but for the grace of God go I.” , “Let no man cast the first stone”, “Forgive and Forget” and so on, but for society it isn’t really desirable that people should treat their marriage vows as casually as Blabber seems to think half of Europe does, is it?

In Britain for a start (but we are not alone)  there is the lowest level of marriages for over 100 years and very high levels of divorce, This isn’t “good” for society, is it? And of course, I’m thinking especially of the children involved.

And when you marry, you make vows. Do these now mean nothing to people like Blabber, who thinks that Catholic latin Europe would laugh at Terry’s adultery?

Well, people in positions of power and responsibility should reflect more before they speak, because many lesser mortals may make the mistake of giving their remarks a credibility they do not deserve.

And of course, the Captain of England is a role model, and – possibly unfairly – not only on the field.

By Chris Snuggs