Thursday, 11 October 2012
To Boldly TesGo
Has Dyas put his foot in it?
A Cambridge friend of mine is trying to convince Tesco's to reimburse money to a war veteran who was mugged in a Tesco Car park in Barr Hill, Cambridge. I believe he lost £700. I received a large group email about it. In my response I discussed how Terry Leahy had been on the board of Liverpool Vision, when I was there, and gave some evidence based views on Tesco's world of land banking, planning manoeuvres, supplier dealings, price dissembling, and so on. I also included a link to the Tescopoly website. Tesco has so far declined to help the veteran
I suggested starting a Facebook campaign for the veteran; and that if Tesco cannot support a mugged man, that we should mug Tesco by not shopping there. In suggesting the Facebook idea I was motivated (and referenced) a local campaign to keep Tesco off Liverpool's world famous Hope Street, which I belong too.
Unbeknown to me, the group email included the CEO's PA. The address was buried deep in the distribution list, and I did not see it. I know this as I've just had an auto reply. I'm not confrontational & seek appeasement over conflict, and whereas I have no denigrated Tesco in my email. I would not have copied them in by choice. I do not like Tesco and never shop there. That said I see some brilliance in their marketing and past leadership, and in this respect I admire Terry Leahy as a strategist and as a self made man.
We have never met, but I did write to him a few years back. See further down this blog) My inspiration was a hand delivered flyer to my home, that suggested I could be “more green” by shopping at Tesco. I took offence to this so emailed my complaints to Sir Terry. I included ideas on how Tesco could use their managerial skills to support local shops and food markets in areas of logistics and merchant acquiring. In a past life I’d had some experience of interactive retailing, working with companies like Woolworth's, WH Smith, Blue Square, and others. I believed I could share some ideas whereby Tesco could assist local retailers rather than undermine them.
I suggested too, that in due course Tesco would contract. My rational was that the green issues they were promoting in their product ranges would be undermined by the real green issue of environmental damage. As selling an organic carrot ignores the realities of an oil dependent supply, delivery, and car based shopper chains, increased fuel charges, the likelihood of waste taxes, suppliers issues, and increasing consumer localism.
Since then we've seen oil prices stabilise, but virtual death of many UK High Street, and real fragility amidst farmers and growers at the base of the supply chain. There have been other economic and social changes too, not least global financial crisis and an increase in on-line retailing. Tesco’s shares, profits, and market share, have all fallen this year. OK, they’re not collapsing, but I see this as a long term trend.
Who knows if I will be proven right? The future is impossible to own. But herein rest another problem as this is how all large corporates operate. They try to understand the past as a means to own the future. But as we all know life will always interrupts plans. I mentioned Woolworth's earlier. The first store in Europe was in Liverpool. Who would have though that they would be a memory, but they are......sadly
By the way who shops in Tesco and who shops local, and more importantly why??
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Hillsborough and Olympic Spirit
It is a very odd coincidence that as one fabulously received sports event is concluded, a second infamously offered event has emerged. The two could not be more different in perceptions and ideals.
The first was, the Summer Olympics; an event founded in ancient history upon humanist ideals of fair play and congregation. These were games to soothe stately conflicts, whereby competition, respect, and ceremony, replaced war. Greece was not a country at this time, but a collection of divided city states, that regularly fought with and against each other. But when the games began, wars were suspended.
This second is the release of papers on the 1989 Hillsbourgh Disaster. Hillsborough, was also a home to tribal rivalry; a famous stadium, to a famous football club, in a famous city state, in a fantastically proud county. But these days the name of Hillsborough resonates with suffering. And when the word is mentioned, most people do not think of sport, but of a place where 96 people died, for no other reason that they went out on a sunny afternoon to watch a football match and were horrifically crushed to death.
It is unfortunate for the great City of Sheffield that Hillsborough has joined a list of other UK places now associated with horror of tragedy. The list includes Aberfan, Dunblane, Hungerford, Lockerbie, Omagh, and so on. These are pleasant, non-newsworthy places, where good people have made homes for families, and lead simple, ordinary lives engaging in living, playing and commerce. But each place is now a metaphor for much darker events.
But Hillsborough is different. Despite the tragedies of these other places, each has arrived at some form of closure. Open and transparent inquiries were initiated to consider events, before, during, and after each incident. This helped people come to terms with what had happened and to learn lessons that might be avoided in the future. In some cases there were prosecutions.
But Hillsborough is different. Whist a public inquiry was launched and concluded; it proved unsatisfactory to public concern. It left undone errors, actions, and questions, about trusted state institutions without recourse to fair or reasonable answers. One word used about this was “whitewash.”
In response to this, some organs of the state, and some aspects of the media, sought to blame the victims for the tragedy. People, who in this case were predominantly from a strong willed city whose more recent historic strengths, arose from resisting those who had sought to divide the city and those, as we now know from recently released UK Cabinet papers, planned for Liverpool's managed decline and "closure" as a meaningful place.
So unlike the ancient Olympics, where city states came together to use sport as a panacea for war, here was a state that by way of a tragic sports event was splitting a community in what some might say was part of a much deeper and older cultural prejudice. A sort of prejudice war. To paraphrase a famous Millwall football fan song "Nobody likes you; and we don't care".
It's been said by some, including me, and most recently Andy Burnham, that there has been a form of state prejudice against Liverpool for many years. Some blame Mrs Thatcher, but in my view it precedes her, and in its broadest sense is a much deeper prejudice against the North in general. The roots are complex, but in my opinion it relates to the economic primacy that the North enjoyed following the Industrial Revolution. This was unappealing to the gentleman capitalists of the South who preferred finance over manufacturing, and internationalism over nationalism.
There was some rationale in this, with Britain being the predominant maritime nation in the world, and the inheritors of an Italian banking tradition that London refined to its own needs in the name of king and defense of the realm. But London financial institutions preferred the thrust of investing in overseas colonies than the mundane stability of investing in Northern factories. 250 years later, little has changed. There is, unfortunately, a class based and socio-economic divide between South and North, and I write this in the correct cardinal order, as the terminolgy and language is dissembling. There has never been a North-South divide, just a South-North prejudice. It arose from an irrational jealousy of the successes of the industrialised North, and indeed the Celtic fringes of the UK that followed a similar path.
In some respects this borders on intellectual racism, and I say this as someone borh in the West Midlands with a foot in neither camp. That said, the Midlands is being drawn into the debate, as according to recent CACI based economic evidence, the economic divide of the UK now starts in that well known Northern county of Gloucestershire. Set as it is, amidst the soft hills and dreamy spires of the Cotswolds, this is not the type of place that William Blake had in mind when he wrote about his clouded hills and dark satanic mills.
And let’s not forget the impact of London centric thinking on the UK's Celtic fringes either, some of whom want clear self-determination and governance. This could be catastrophic to Liverpool and the North, especially if Scotland achieves independence. The Norths proximity to an independent Scotland leaves it economically vulnerable, especially if the Scot's adopt a low corporation tax regime that makes it more tax-efficient for businesses to locate in Scotland rather than the North of England. All of this makes Scotland (as great a place as it is) a little to close for economic comfort.
Liverpool is a “Celtic City.” It is a city of the Welsh, the Irish, and to a lesser extent the Scots. It is a city of the oral tradition, the long memory, the spoken word, the flamboyant gesture, and the strength of neighbours. It looks after its own and does not fear emotion. But it is also a city of the English, Somalis, Chinese, Jamaicans, Poles, Italians, Russians, and more. These were people who came to Liverpool because they wanted to be a part of it. Hence the historic references to Liverpool as a “world in one city.”
But it is also a city of independent women and altruists. It has the sense of being a balanced city and it has also been called a city of gentlemen. In saying this is was also a city gentle women, with a history of women associated with women's rights and social democracy. It is altogether a different place historically to the place regularly parodied in the London media and popularist press, as its successful stewardship of the 2008 Capital of Culture proved.
I write this as someone not “from Liverpool”, but ”of Liverpool”. And I am proud to say this. And what I mean by this statement, is to say that modern Liverpool has helped me to intellectually formulate my ideas of what great cities are all about. They are not perfect places, but they always ask questions and seek new meanings, regardless of their highly complicated histories. They look forward, but recall their past. I can't say I ever once thought or felt like this when living in London as an anonymous insect amidst a hide and swarm of herding commuters and strange relations. I lived in London for some 20 years. I truly enjoyed the complexity of the place, but it was forever transient and slightly, oddly, weird. The barman in my local was different every week. I never knew my neighbours. I once picked a lady up who had fallen in the middle of Oxford Street and everyone passed her by. And when I was ill on the underground with hospital inducing food poisoning there was not a good Samaritan for miles. London was a place to hide. Liverpool is not like this. It took Liverpool to liberate me.
Liverpool’s cultural richness and global significance is extraordinary for what is predominantly a Northern provincial place, and it is empowering for people interested in urban culture to be associated with this past. It developed an international port from absolutely nothing alongside a most unlikely river. The port went on to have a huge influence on global trade. Because of this it developed an attitude to entrepreneurial inventiveness, and socio-cultural history that are possibly unique in the world, let alone the UK.
It pioneered thinking in areas of public transport, trade, public health, family rights, modernist architecture, science, and more. This came from the endeavours of its people, not because of benefits associated with being a capital city or seat of national government. It made people want to be here and developed a culture that in a variety of ways became global. I appreciate that my views might be regarded as biased, I will add that a city with a culture like this might be regarded as “chippy” if the external observer was outside Liverpool in the state capital or distant region.
But bad times followed good, and whilst Liverpool’s fortunes were deteriorating long before World War Two, the blitz did not help. But whilst commercial centres in the UK were always likely to be bombed, Liverpool’s role in the war was more complex as it was the focal point for what was the longest campaign of World War Two; namely the Battle of the North Atlantic. Liverpool became absolutely essential to the “defence of the ream” and a place from where many service people and civilian sailors left, never to return. But these were not just Liverpool people, or Empire people. They were people from many lands who fought for freedom and justice and for something called democracy. A democracy philosophically created by our Olympian friends in Ancient Greece, and whose ideals of democracy and democratic responsibility did not include the words "cover up” or “whitewash.”
Within the broad context of Liverpool's past, a further question has to be asked. It cannot not be ignored. Granted, it is esoteric and can not be truly answered. But if the events of Hillsborough had taken place at Stamford Bridge, Craven Cottage, or Wembley Stadium, and the victims had been followers of Chelsea, Fulham, or England, would the inquiry have been handled differently? In my view it would have been. The place, the immediacy, the marginal votes, the influential opinion of “celebrity fans” would have expected and articulated no less. That’s because these places and their status in the national hierarchy are very different.
One must also consider the context of Sheffield. Regrettably, and through no fault of its people, it became the epi-centre of a very different State level conflict. One where British policemen charged horses into striking Yorkshire miners. One cannot recall the horrific police actions at Orgreave Colliery, without also thinking about a British Bobby on a white horse at Wembley Stadium in 1923, when police equine action prevented a much earlier football crush. Such stories and parallels are painfully related across time and events. They are indicative of moral metaphors and societal changes that over a relatively short period of history seem difficult to comprehend in terms of their polarity of events, actions, and consequences. What impact events like this had on the morale and goodwill for the Sheffield and South Yorkshire police is difficult to say, but it seems deeply ironic that these events and locations relate and intertwine so extensively.
I was not at Hillsborough. I am not even a Liverpool fan. But like everyone else of my era, I can recall exactly where I was, and what I was doing, when the news first broke. And despite my having no interest in Liverpool Football Club, or knowing anyone immediately affected buy the tragedy, I recall the horror of the TV and radio coverage.
So it is good, and entirely proper that the true facts of this event have come to light. It is also good to see that decent ordinary “coppers” voiced numerous concerns about events leading up to the tragedy; concerns that were not only ignored, but “air brushed” from history. We must have faith in our police, and despite some bad apples and other recent stories, many "beat policemen" are decent people in a tough job. They are not unlike us in their roots and backgrounds.
But what of the British State? What went wrong, and why was it deemed preferable by some, indeed many, to cover up “the truth”? From senior policemen, to senior politicians, there was a succession of misinformation, ignored responsibilities, and (based on the recent report) untruths. Was this about guarded reputation, the fear of sacking, moral indifference, the potential loss of pensions, incompetence, or simple arrogance? Whatever the reasons, it is clear that the aftermath of that day could not be any more different to the Corinthian spirit of the Olympic ideal.
Six Olympic Games have passed since Hillsborough. And whilst the Games and their ethos have changed significantly over that time, the Games have always presented winners, and where cheating and deception has been knowingly found, it was rooted out and the perpetrators punished.
So whilst the Olympics (where the State of Corinth played a part and whose morals gave rise to the spirit of the Corinthian) has survived across thousands of years and has developed into a movement that encourages positive ideals, perhaps reaching its peak in London. Hillsborough has become a byword for excuses, lies, avoidance, and as of last week, criminal negligence and institutional indifference on an unprecedented scale. Perhaps also reaching its peak in London.
Whilst the pursuit of justice should never be seen as a sporting pursuit, it is right that when justice is denied, that a fair and natural outcome of this has to be the re-balancing between those who have lost and those who have not. Because there can never be a winner. It is clear that some in the South Yorkshire police have to lose and must be seen to lose. Whilst it may well be difficult to prove unequivocal police negligence at Hillsborough, due to the passing of time, the recent papers suggest that there is a very clear case to answer, that evidence was altered and statements made under oath were factually incorrect.
This has to be worth further investigation, and for those found guilty, sackings should take primacy over retirement. And to lend from and paraphrase a well known motto, this has to be “faster, sooner, straighter.”
The first was, the Summer Olympics; an event founded in ancient history upon humanist ideals of fair play and congregation. These were games to soothe stately conflicts, whereby competition, respect, and ceremony, replaced war. Greece was not a country at this time, but a collection of divided city states, that regularly fought with and against each other. But when the games began, wars were suspended.
This second is the release of papers on the 1989 Hillsbourgh Disaster. Hillsborough, was also a home to tribal rivalry; a famous stadium, to a famous football club, in a famous city state, in a fantastically proud county. But these days the name of Hillsborough resonates with suffering. And when the word is mentioned, most people do not think of sport, but of a place where 96 people died, for no other reason that they went out on a sunny afternoon to watch a football match and were horrifically crushed to death.
It is unfortunate for the great City of Sheffield that Hillsborough has joined a list of other UK places now associated with horror of tragedy. The list includes Aberfan, Dunblane, Hungerford, Lockerbie, Omagh, and so on. These are pleasant, non-newsworthy places, where good people have made homes for families, and lead simple, ordinary lives engaging in living, playing and commerce. But each place is now a metaphor for much darker events.
But Hillsborough is different. Despite the tragedies of these other places, each has arrived at some form of closure. Open and transparent inquiries were initiated to consider events, before, during, and after each incident. This helped people come to terms with what had happened and to learn lessons that might be avoided in the future. In some cases there were prosecutions.
But Hillsborough is different. Whist a public inquiry was launched and concluded; it proved unsatisfactory to public concern. It left undone errors, actions, and questions, about trusted state institutions without recourse to fair or reasonable answers. One word used about this was “whitewash.”
In response to this, some organs of the state, and some aspects of the media, sought to blame the victims for the tragedy. People, who in this case were predominantly from a strong willed city whose more recent historic strengths, arose from resisting those who had sought to divide the city and those, as we now know from recently released UK Cabinet papers, planned for Liverpool's managed decline and "closure" as a meaningful place.
So unlike the ancient Olympics, where city states came together to use sport as a panacea for war, here was a state that by way of a tragic sports event was splitting a community in what some might say was part of a much deeper and older cultural prejudice. A sort of prejudice war. To paraphrase a famous Millwall football fan song "Nobody likes you; and we don't care".
It's been said by some, including me, and most recently Andy Burnham, that there has been a form of state prejudice against Liverpool for many years. Some blame Mrs Thatcher, but in my view it precedes her, and in its broadest sense is a much deeper prejudice against the North in general. The roots are complex, but in my opinion it relates to the economic primacy that the North enjoyed following the Industrial Revolution. This was unappealing to the gentleman capitalists of the South who preferred finance over manufacturing, and internationalism over nationalism.
There was some rationale in this, with Britain being the predominant maritime nation in the world, and the inheritors of an Italian banking tradition that London refined to its own needs in the name of king and defense of the realm. But London financial institutions preferred the thrust of investing in overseas colonies than the mundane stability of investing in Northern factories. 250 years later, little has changed. There is, unfortunately, a class based and socio-economic divide between South and North, and I write this in the correct cardinal order, as the terminolgy and language is dissembling. There has never been a North-South divide, just a South-North prejudice. It arose from an irrational jealousy of the successes of the industrialised North, and indeed the Celtic fringes of the UK that followed a similar path.
In some respects this borders on intellectual racism, and I say this as someone borh in the West Midlands with a foot in neither camp. That said, the Midlands is being drawn into the debate, as according to recent CACI based economic evidence, the economic divide of the UK now starts in that well known Northern county of Gloucestershire. Set as it is, amidst the soft hills and dreamy spires of the Cotswolds, this is not the type of place that William Blake had in mind when he wrote about his clouded hills and dark satanic mills.
And let’s not forget the impact of London centric thinking on the UK's Celtic fringes either, some of whom want clear self-determination and governance. This could be catastrophic to Liverpool and the North, especially if Scotland achieves independence. The Norths proximity to an independent Scotland leaves it economically vulnerable, especially if the Scot's adopt a low corporation tax regime that makes it more tax-efficient for businesses to locate in Scotland rather than the North of England. All of this makes Scotland (as great a place as it is) a little to close for economic comfort.
Liverpool is a “Celtic City.” It is a city of the Welsh, the Irish, and to a lesser extent the Scots. It is a city of the oral tradition, the long memory, the spoken word, the flamboyant gesture, and the strength of neighbours. It looks after its own and does not fear emotion. But it is also a city of the English, Somalis, Chinese, Jamaicans, Poles, Italians, Russians, and more. These were people who came to Liverpool because they wanted to be a part of it. Hence the historic references to Liverpool as a “world in one city.”
But it is also a city of independent women and altruists. It has the sense of being a balanced city and it has also been called a city of gentlemen. In saying this is was also a city gentle women, with a history of women associated with women's rights and social democracy. It is altogether a different place historically to the place regularly parodied in the London media and popularist press, as its successful stewardship of the 2008 Capital of Culture proved.
I write this as someone not “from Liverpool”, but ”of Liverpool”. And I am proud to say this. And what I mean by this statement, is to say that modern Liverpool has helped me to intellectually formulate my ideas of what great cities are all about. They are not perfect places, but they always ask questions and seek new meanings, regardless of their highly complicated histories. They look forward, but recall their past. I can't say I ever once thought or felt like this when living in London as an anonymous insect amidst a hide and swarm of herding commuters and strange relations. I lived in London for some 20 years. I truly enjoyed the complexity of the place, but it was forever transient and slightly, oddly, weird. The barman in my local was different every week. I never knew my neighbours. I once picked a lady up who had fallen in the middle of Oxford Street and everyone passed her by. And when I was ill on the underground with hospital inducing food poisoning there was not a good Samaritan for miles. London was a place to hide. Liverpool is not like this. It took Liverpool to liberate me.
Liverpool’s cultural richness and global significance is extraordinary for what is predominantly a Northern provincial place, and it is empowering for people interested in urban culture to be associated with this past. It developed an international port from absolutely nothing alongside a most unlikely river. The port went on to have a huge influence on global trade. Because of this it developed an attitude to entrepreneurial inventiveness, and socio-cultural history that are possibly unique in the world, let alone the UK.
It pioneered thinking in areas of public transport, trade, public health, family rights, modernist architecture, science, and more. This came from the endeavours of its people, not because of benefits associated with being a capital city or seat of national government. It made people want to be here and developed a culture that in a variety of ways became global. I appreciate that my views might be regarded as biased, I will add that a city with a culture like this might be regarded as “chippy” if the external observer was outside Liverpool in the state capital or distant region.
But bad times followed good, and whilst Liverpool’s fortunes were deteriorating long before World War Two, the blitz did not help. But whilst commercial centres in the UK were always likely to be bombed, Liverpool’s role in the war was more complex as it was the focal point for what was the longest campaign of World War Two; namely the Battle of the North Atlantic. Liverpool became absolutely essential to the “defence of the ream” and a place from where many service people and civilian sailors left, never to return. But these were not just Liverpool people, or Empire people. They were people from many lands who fought for freedom and justice and for something called democracy. A democracy philosophically created by our Olympian friends in Ancient Greece, and whose ideals of democracy and democratic responsibility did not include the words "cover up” or “whitewash.”
Within the broad context of Liverpool's past, a further question has to be asked. It cannot not be ignored. Granted, it is esoteric and can not be truly answered. But if the events of Hillsborough had taken place at Stamford Bridge, Craven Cottage, or Wembley Stadium, and the victims had been followers of Chelsea, Fulham, or England, would the inquiry have been handled differently? In my view it would have been. The place, the immediacy, the marginal votes, the influential opinion of “celebrity fans” would have expected and articulated no less. That’s because these places and their status in the national hierarchy are very different.
One must also consider the context of Sheffield. Regrettably, and through no fault of its people, it became the epi-centre of a very different State level conflict. One where British policemen charged horses into striking Yorkshire miners. One cannot recall the horrific police actions at Orgreave Colliery, without also thinking about a British Bobby on a white horse at Wembley Stadium in 1923, when police equine action prevented a much earlier football crush. Such stories and parallels are painfully related across time and events. They are indicative of moral metaphors and societal changes that over a relatively short period of history seem difficult to comprehend in terms of their polarity of events, actions, and consequences. What impact events like this had on the morale and goodwill for the Sheffield and South Yorkshire police is difficult to say, but it seems deeply ironic that these events and locations relate and intertwine so extensively.
I was not at Hillsborough. I am not even a Liverpool fan. But like everyone else of my era, I can recall exactly where I was, and what I was doing, when the news first broke. And despite my having no interest in Liverpool Football Club, or knowing anyone immediately affected buy the tragedy, I recall the horror of the TV and radio coverage.
So it is good, and entirely proper that the true facts of this event have come to light. It is also good to see that decent ordinary “coppers” voiced numerous concerns about events leading up to the tragedy; concerns that were not only ignored, but “air brushed” from history. We must have faith in our police, and despite some bad apples and other recent stories, many "beat policemen" are decent people in a tough job. They are not unlike us in their roots and backgrounds.
But what of the British State? What went wrong, and why was it deemed preferable by some, indeed many, to cover up “the truth”? From senior policemen, to senior politicians, there was a succession of misinformation, ignored responsibilities, and (based on the recent report) untruths. Was this about guarded reputation, the fear of sacking, moral indifference, the potential loss of pensions, incompetence, or simple arrogance? Whatever the reasons, it is clear that the aftermath of that day could not be any more different to the Corinthian spirit of the Olympic ideal.
Six Olympic Games have passed since Hillsborough. And whilst the Games and their ethos have changed significantly over that time, the Games have always presented winners, and where cheating and deception has been knowingly found, it was rooted out and the perpetrators punished.
So whilst the Olympics (where the State of Corinth played a part and whose morals gave rise to the spirit of the Corinthian) has survived across thousands of years and has developed into a movement that encourages positive ideals, perhaps reaching its peak in London. Hillsborough has become a byword for excuses, lies, avoidance, and as of last week, criminal negligence and institutional indifference on an unprecedented scale. Perhaps also reaching its peak in London.
Whilst the pursuit of justice should never be seen as a sporting pursuit, it is right that when justice is denied, that a fair and natural outcome of this has to be the re-balancing between those who have lost and those who have not. Because there can never be a winner. It is clear that some in the South Yorkshire police have to lose and must be seen to lose. Whilst it may well be difficult to prove unequivocal police negligence at Hillsborough, due to the passing of time, the recent papers suggest that there is a very clear case to answer, that evidence was altered and statements made under oath were factually incorrect.
This has to be worth further investigation, and for those found guilty, sackings should take primacy over retirement. And to lend from and paraphrase a well known motto, this has to be “faster, sooner, straighter.”
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