A Brief Rant and a Cup of Tea

For how much time should a government help a company to make a foreign sale of high-tech goods?

According to the EU, not very much time at all, really, and certainly with no subsidy.

The French, it goes without saying, have masterfully ignored all these rules pretty much forever, particularly when it comes to things that go bang. During the Falklands 'conflict', I was terribly unamused to find out that France was continuing to sell Exocet missiles to Argentina despite all declarations to the contrary.

First they posted them to Israel, where they were taken out of the box, put in another one and mailed to South Africa, from where they were forwarded to Comodoro Rivadavia, unloaded, plugged onto Aerospatiale Super Entendards (makers; French; users: France, South Africa, Argentina) and chucked at British ships, to some effect.

One day, I must also have a rant about the 'hidden' links between France, Russia, Israel and South Africa. Diamonds, anyone? Not to mention the world-wide failure of journalism to bother keeping track of such 'power lines', resulting in most of us having no idea how things happen. I wonder who benefits from that state of affairs?

Right... as to the initial question, here in Britain, the answer apparently is 'a generation'. That's how long the Ministry of Defence has been working on the Al Yamamah arms contract on behalf of British Aerospace. Seriously. A friend of mine was a civilian in the MoD in the 80s, and she was wholly devoted to this project, 365, from 1987 until the day I lost contact, 10 years later. And they're still doing it.

Leaving aside all the discussions we could have about selling arms at all, and who we DO sell arms to, and WHY, there is one point I want to make.

THOUSANDS of UK public employees have been working on this deal, and continue to do so, at the taxpayer's expense, to ensure that a UK-based multinational earns megabucks and thus stays in existence. The Government (and there's been several of them now) would probably argue that they are, in effect, supporting a national asset, and thus the nation's interest, by the back door.

This is balls.

Twenty-two years and counting. How many worker hours? How much money? That's far more important than whether or not BAe was given a slush fund in order to 'entertain' their Saudi clients at a cost of 100s of millions of pounds. And let's not get me started about the Tanzanian Air Traffic Control System.

Here's the point. We are all being hoodwinked by a bunch of morally rotten bureaucrats who are so convinced of our stupidity and antipathy that they are certain they can wave buckets of crap in our faces and we'll never even notice.

Pass the tortilla chips, there's another reality show on...

By the way, whenever you are grumbling about how utterly f****** awful an experience international departures from UK airports has become, you should remember that the business responsible, BAA, is one that thinks it's really cool to have a trading name that is a meaningless acronym. Yup, BAA USED to be the publicly owned organisation called the British Airports Authority, and, asides from allowing the flourishing of the hugely funny criminal organisation known as Heathrow baggage handlers, they didn't do too bad a job. Then they got privatised by The Blessed Margaret, and, in a marketing stroke of genius, decided that they would continue to be known as BAA, but that it wouldn't stand for anything. Believe it or not, they even commissioned a large advertising campaign to promote that message.

And they are still a bunch of twats.

Which takes me finally to another acronym. The SQA. The Scottish Qualifications Authority.

I worked there for a while as a 'consultant'. My work was funded by the European Social Fund. I was told to log my time by activity about a year after starting. I pointed out that I did this anyway on my invoices. No good. I pointed out that I couldn't guarantee that specific blocks of time were spent on specific documents (I was working on about 100 at any one time). Don't worry about it, I was told. Just make sure the time sheets were filled out. What about the backlog? Make it up, I was told. Make it all up. Then append your signature so that you are responsible for your spending statement. Up yours, I said.

I should have seen this coming. There had been warning enough in the matter of the Clingfilm.

It was against Health and Safety to carry hot liquids around the offices in open containers (i.e. mugs). we were, therefore, instructed to use Clingfilm to cover our mugs. Quite how effective a piece of preventative action this was, I couldn't really say. But we did as we were told.

Then the catering personnel (a contractor, naturally) complained that we were using all their Clingfilm up, and they didn't have a budget with the SQA for Clingfilm use. Well, responded, the SQA, we're not going to foot the bill, and you need the Clingfilm to cover the sandwiches you prepare for us, so...

So the contractor hid the Clingfilm, obliging us all to break H+S rules.

A meeting was arranged.

If you use our Clingfilm, explained the contractor, you break health and safety, because we use it to cover your sandwiches, and your employees are getting their filthy fingers all over it.

Oh, said the SQA.

Stuck in-between a rock and a hard place, they did what any quango would do - they refused to reach a decision.

Me? I brought in a camping mug.