WHO OWNS THIS PLACE? or THE TALE OF A POSTAGE STAMP

An extraordinary piece of legislation is currently being processed through Parliament, and with some urgency. It is designed to make sure that our postage stamps will always retain their “royal” character and the monarch’s identity. Why the panic? It is simply because the Royal Mail will shortly be up for sale, and of course a foreign bidder may well buy it out. Foreigners are not likely to pay too much attention to upholding some of our cherished traditions! I hope it gets through, or else there is no knowing what sort of nonsense might decorate our stamps.

This all sounds a bit facetious. But actually it is yet another straw indicating which way the national wind is blowing. The government has long made it a matter of policy that we are not really going to prevent national assets from going abroad; we don’t mind being bought up by the rest of the world. The postage stamp sale is saying that we don’t mind the substance being sold off as long as maybe we can just salvage a little pride.It's the image that matters not the substance (that's the bottom line of all policy now).

The big picture that all this illustrates is really very serious. I quote from a leading newspaper: “From water and power stations to roads, airports and rubbish dumps, more than a third of British infrastructure is now owned by foreigners. The Office of Fair Trading has done the first national stocktaking of critical infrastructure assets and concluded that more are owned by foreign investors than by the British Government”. We don’t own our biggest airports, or our ports. Imagine that! Rule Britannia not owning its ports. The majority of our power generation capacity is in the hands of French, German and Spanish ownership. “Not to worry”, says the OFT, “it keeps our prices down”. But in an economic or national crisis, what then? Such companies are not really there for the benefit of Britain, but for what profits they can make.

One could add to this take over of our infrastructure the extraordinary rate at which much of the best and most expensive property in the country is being bought up by foreigners, especially in London. Real estate is more and more foreign owned. “Britain never, never shall be slaves”, - but it looks as though we will be owned by others none the less!

On the other side of the coin it seems that Britain for a couple of decades has systematically put more and more eggs in the basket of the City and financial services. That is a very unstable bubble (nest?) indeed. It seems that everything of real substance is leaking away while the rich continue to gamble.

Is this too hard a comment? I don’t think so. It's a clear message of rapidly decining status and power.Contrast China. It’s a dire, dire waring of real danger, divine danger! It is a classic finger of judgement.

Bob


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