What did they think would happen? And what do they think will happen?

A year ago economists and the hapless Sunak government were optimistic about the UK economy. 

The end of 2023 had been miserable. High energy prices, persistent inflation, staff shortages causing problems everywhere and figures subsequently published would show that there had been a "technical" recession, with two successive quarters of falling GDP.

But by January the most optimistially deluded of the Tories felt that a golden scenario was in prospect: falling inflation leading to lower interest rates and rising real terms wages. Advisers suggested the economy was liked a coiled spring, ready to recover because of a combination of factors, with an outside chance of a victory in an autumn general election.

Now that outside chance was always a long shot and we may never know what on earth was in Rishi Sunak's mind as the wally without a brolly stood in the Downing Street rain calling an early general election. There was supposition that the economic outlook was negative rather than positive - interest rate reductions had been deferred by the Bank and maybe things were going to get worse rather than better.

They didn't actually get worse through the late summer. Inflation dropped to 2% (though it's gone back up a bit since) and growth was much improved at 0.7% in Q1 and 0.4% in Q2.  We'll never know whether a November election would have been closer, though one still couldn't imagine anything other than a Labour win. Just like in 1997, when the Tories had delivered 3 good years of an economy was going well, the electorate had long since made up their mind that they didn't want more of the Tories, even if there was nothing like the kind of love for Starmer as for Blair.  A couple of good quarters was never going to return Sunak to no 10.

However, at the start of 2025 there is none of the cautious economic optimism of a year ago. Growth was flat in Q3 - it fell in GDP per capita terms. Labour's mission for growth has stalled on the launch pad - indeed there are fears of recession. The cost of government debt (gilts) - the most important indicator of confidence in the government and the thing that sank Liz Truss - ended 2024 at 4.55% but has continued edging upwards and this week reached 5.4% for 30 year gilts, the highest rate since 1998.  For context the OBR projected rates 0.4% higher for 5 year gilts by 2030 as a result of the Reeves budget but we've already past that figure. 7% would be getting into Greece bailout territory.

The rate at which the UK can borrow matters because higher debt repayments on our mountain of public debt means higher taxes or less to spend on services. In order to maintain confidence the chancellor pledged to meet the latest version of the Treasury's "golden rules". At the time of her budget she had some £10bn of leeway, a figure the Institute for Government called 'small'.  The increase in rates has meant the leeway has disappeared. If rates go higher she would be forced to break her rule, cut services, or raise taxes. Raising taxes would break a promise from just a few weeks ago that the tax rises in her budget were a once in a parliament event and she wouldn't be back for more. Cutting services will go down a storm with the Labour left and result in lots of hand wringing all round. The Institute for Government said it was 'not clear' how Reeves would respond in the event of even a 'modest' revision to forecasts.

In the run up to the budget Mrs H and I commented to each other that Reeves looked as if she wasn't sleeping. We thought she was worried about the decisions in her big bang first budget. She looked even worse in the Commons this week:

There was a lot of crowing in the Daily Mail a few days ago about the situation the economy and Rachel Reeves find themselves in. To be fair, while the budget unsettled markets, this week's problems are more to do with the world economy, in particular the extra debt Trump's administration is likely to take on. It's a simple matter of supply and demand: more demand for borrowing pushes up rates. Lenders will generally see the US as the best risk, leaving other countries scrabbling around - and needing to offer even higher rates - to borrow as much as they want or need.

The bond markets have come to be seen as the primary factor in keeping the tendency of governments to borrow and spend in check, hence the term 'bond vigilantes'. Who are these vigilantes? Mainly everyday financial institutions like pension and investment funds. Your pension fund is highly likely to hold gilts, quite probably from several countries. They have no axe to grind politically and are simply trying to make good returns and manage risk for their investors. They aren't speculators like George Soros, who famously crashed the pound back in 1992. The bond vigilantes have become the ultimate protector of the financial probity of governments.

You can see from the graphic shown in the same Daily Mail article this week that there hasn't been a sudden loss in confidence in the UK. Yes, since Reeves's budget, rates have been similar to those immediately after the kami-Kwazi Truss budget, but not as the result of a spike as happened then, just an inexorable increase as markets adjust to the international situation:

The Mail's gleeful comparisons with Truss-Kwarteng debacle are way off beam. Gilt rates now are higher than then, but the margin over short term interest rates is small, with Bank rate currently 4.75%. In contrast under Truss 30 year gilts, at 4.8%, were a whopping 3% more than the then Bank rate. She pushed the gilt rate up by 2.5 percentage points - doubled it pretty well - and the sterling index (the pound's value against a basket  of other currencies) plunged 12%, whereas it has been relatively stable of late and is stronger since summer. 

False news in the Mail? Well the facts are right, it's the inference that's clearly incorrect. I'm not sure what the right phrase is for ignorantly - or deliberately - drawing the wrong conclusion. False news doesn't really fit - deception, misrepresentation perhaps? How about hoodwinkery? (Yes of course I just invented that).

So I have some sympathy for Reeves. But not a lot - much of what is happening was entirely predictable. And she did leave herself little wiggle room, when she could have held some comittments back. Like bunging the train drivers a big increase when they're already paid around twice their equivalents in France and nearly three times their equivalents in Spain, for example. 

So no golden economic scenario in prospect for her and Starmer. The latter of course is already significantly tarnished in the eyes of the public by the pensioners' winter fuel allowance cut (I expect this story to keep running with the current cold snap) and the rows over freebies for suits, glasses, gig and football tickets.

There are other indicators of economic problems. Not long ago there were a lot more vacancies than unemployed. But now there are only 1.8 people unemployed for every vacancy, almost what it was before the pandemic. The number of vacancies has fallen 29 months in a row. The boss of one employment agency called this a "slow motion car crash" and a sign of impending recession. "When I've seen this before, that's what's happened". And this is before the employer's NI increase kicks in, in April.

What I'm wondering is why on earth Reeves and Starmer thought giving a weak but convalescing economy one of the biggest kicks possible in the budget would do anything other than make businesses pause investment and recruitment plans. With tax already at historically high overall levels her budget was one of the biggest tax raising budgets ever. £40bn of new taxes made it bigger in real terms than Lamont's post ERM crash 1993 budget and much bigger than anything Brown or Osborne did. It also provided for significantly higher borrowing as well, £30bn of it. £70bn a year of extra spending, £40bn of it on day to day services and the rest increased capital investment.  Even the Guardian said it was a return to tax and spend on a massive scale, pushing the UK towards European levels of spending.

Which was like giving the economy a huge kick in the nuts while force feeding it a Red Bull sugar and caffeine rush. No wonder it has stumbled around feeling sick.

A lot of attention focussed on how Reeves chose to raise tax, mainly the employers NI increase. Large companies can deal with it. They can generally pass on costs in their prices. The multi-nationals are looking at which country to invest in, have long term plans and can be reluctant to change course abruptly. But the larger part of the economy, small and medium sized businesses, are in a different boat. One can't blame them for pausing while they see how they can get through what will, for many, be a difficult time. 

I've always felt Labour is happier dealing with big companies. They have a better understanding of that culture, with unions, collectively bargained pay and economic regulation. In contrast they've always seemed to me to have little or no understanding of why someone would start a business or go through all the hassle and risk of trying to grow it. At their heart they are more comfortable with a socialist collective type of economy. Add your own adjectives, such as sclerotic, perhaps.

I don't actually expect the economy to shrink, at least not significantly, despite Reeves's well aimed but badly thought out kick. For a start, the public spending increases in the budget will increase GDP in the short term. This is why the OBR's budget forecasts showed a bit of a short term increase in growth, followed by it weakening later in the parliament as the spending increases work through and the growth depressing impact of the tax rises is felt. I think it is more likely to stumble on, flatlining. Maybe Ed Balls can reprise his much used but then incorrect gesture from a decade ago, false news at the time. But now there's the danger of inflation remaining stubborn or even going back up a bit, risking the scenario known as stagflation.

Meanwhile in other areas than the economy Labour is already setting out on courses of action which will steadily erode the precious few gains and improvements made under the Tories.  The best example of this is education where Bridget Phillipson risks undoing the gains made in education not just under the Tories but the previous Labour governments as well. Somehow education was a notable success for the Tories over the last decade with large improvements in our position in international league tables for literacy, numeracy and science despite significant real terms reductions in funding. 

Controverially perhaps I feel much of the credit for this lies with Michael Gove. While that might be a name one hardly dares mention to any current or former teacher, the evidence is clear, though the credit is far from entirely his. The main reason, in my view, is that education has not been a political football since Richard Baker, Thatcher's education secretary in the late 80s, introduced the national curriculum and the "Baker" training days now known as inset days. As an aside, wasn't it astounding that teaching had precious little of what became known as continuing professional development before that? I recall the odd teacher going off for a sabbatical but keeping up to date back then seemed to be entirely ad hoc. From Baker onwards successive Tory and Labour education secretaries have built on their predecessors achievements rather than changing course. Labour introduced academies, now it threatens to water them down.  Phillipson, in thrall to the producer part of the process (i.e. in this case teaching unions), has set out on a path which is likely to erode these various achievements as well as being, in what folk had been saying was an out of date phrase but seems to have gained fresh legs, utterly "woke". I'm referring, of course, to decolonising the curriculum (there wasn't much colonialism in what I was taught in the 50s and 60s for God's sake - just teach history, warts and all and keep contentious takes like critical race theory out of it).  Though taking the decision to put schools into special measures away from Ofsted and giving it to civil servants probably presents greater danger.

Things have gone quiet on watering down industrial relations legislation (but it will come back) and of course we have the dogmatic pursuit of a net zero electricity grid by 2030 which no genuine expert thinks is any other than 'challenging'. Having had to be told by the US to ditch Huawei from our telecomms system we're now thinking of putting Chinese stuff in key elements of our disaggregated, renewables dominated grid. But don't worry, I expect periods of dunkelflaute (a German word for periods of windless, cloudy days in autumn and winter) are more likely to crash the grid in coming years.*

This scenario, with a limp and unenthusiastic economy, large pay rises buying off strikes with no reform or efficiency strings attached and things that work replaced with what the providers prefer to dish up is broadly what I feared and why I didn't vote for Labour in the last election. 

There are grounds for hope that Labour will prove incompetent at delivering damaging change. It's remarkable that so early in Starmer's term as PM he picked up the whinge of previous ineffective PMs and ministers by saying that the levers of power weren't connected to anything and the civil service was getting in the way. The difference this time was he then had to back down after the civil service unions complained. I'm sure the civil service and other elements are obstructive at times, Michael Gove's blob etc. But I've also always thought that ministers don't understand that, in many areas, the civil service is there to formulate policy, not to implement things in practice. Which is why bodies charged with doing that, like the NHS, exist. Those levers in many areas don't connect to anything because they never have.

A few ministers do understand that. Unfortunately, not the right ones. “The only minister who really knows how to work the system and get officials delivering what he wants is Ed Miliband, who has been there before,” a colleague of the climate-crusading energy secretary told Tim Shipman of the Sunday Times**. “And Ed is the one minister we don’t want to be a success if we want to win the next election.” 

There is grave concern about the economy flatlining and few Labour advisers now privately defend the decision to deny winter fuel allowance to all but the poorest pensioners. “The political mistake they made was in conflating toughness with strength,” the party veteran said. “They wanted to look strong, so they tried to act tough. But when you beat up on poor old ladies, you just look like a bully.”

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is the government’s best communicator, but the source said: “Wes always knows what to say, but it’s unclear yet whether he knows what to do.”

Until they figure out the right rather than wrong things to do, let's hope that's true. 

Some of the above draws on David Smith's column 'The coiled spring economy that failed to bounce back' in the Sunday Times on 29 December 2024, though he didn't quite as directly link it to Reeves's budget or use analogies like a kick in the nuts. The comment on the implication of a long term fall in vacancies also came from the Sunday Times business section. Smith's column this week was called The bond vigilantes are back - and that's no bad thing (12 January). I'd already written my paragraph on their significance by then but his helpful summary of the movement in bond rates meant I didn't have to look them up. 

Other sources:

Rachel Reeves' first budget is a clear break from the recent past, The Institute for Government review of the budget, was published on 30 October 2024. Note to their editor: it really should be "Reeves's budget"

Rachel Reeves goes back to the future with a tax and spend budget. The Guardian 30 October 2024

* Wind was our biggest source of generation in 2024, providing over 30% of our electricity. When I worked in energy economics 40 years ago we already knew that wind was the most practicable and economic of the renewables. However we also knew that guaranteed supplies were needed as renewables are intermittent. On some cold days earlier this month wind contributed a tiny fraction of its theoretical capacity, just a few percent of demand. Officials denied we were close to blackouts but there wasn't much resilience for, say, our biggest single source of supply (the interconnector with Norway!) dropping out. A Scandinavian politician had a vivid comment on Germany's energy policy with its over reliance on wind with insufficient base load generation which caused problems across northern Europe recently. He called it 'shit'. I doubt Ed Miliband will take note.

** Politics is notable for party colleagues also being rivals. The delicious and indiscreet quotes from Labour 'colleagues' are from Tim Shipmans's column '2025 will be a political shoot out. Which leader has most to fear?' in the Times on 4 January. This column also explained for me the debacle of the Tory leadership election. James 'not so' Cleverly was favourite to win it until, many believe, some of his supporters tried to fix who would be his opponent in the final run off. Cleverly’s camp think four of his supporters voted tactically for Badenoch, to keep Jenrick out, while Jenrick’s team believe one of theirs voted for Badenoch to keep Cleverly out. Without those votes switching, the run-off would have between Cleverly (42 votes) and Jenrick (40), with Badenoch (38) eliminated. D'oh, they're too incompetent to even frig their own leadership election!

1986 and all that - why did it go wrong and who was to blame?

1986 was a good but also difficult year for me.

I was still accommodating to being a northerner living in the south. Officially the southeast - Oxfordshire - though I daresay plenty of metropolitan types would consider that part of the country fairly provincial. After a significant job change which involved relocating and also having two young children I'd decided it wasn't appropriate to find a new football club to play for and had hung up my boots at the comparatively early age of 33. Oh, I was sorely tempted by the nearest club as we went past on our walks - a neighbour was at the club and the standard looked just about right. But I'd made a deal with Mrs H: new job, new house in a new area, one child under two and another due shortly after we were due to move. OK, finding a new club and playing football might not be entirely fair, love.

But then there was Everton...

No longer playing on a Saturday (no Sunday games for Everton then, kids) meant in principle I could go to more games, but relocating to the south increased the journey by a factor of twenty. So it was still just a few games a season. 

Everton was in the middle of its golden 1980s period, the most concentrated period of success in its history. They won the FA Cup in 1984, then the Division 1 (pre Premier League, kids) title in 1985 together with the European Cup Winners Cup. Everton were named 1985 European team of the year by France Football magazine*.

So Everton had a genuine claim to be the best team in Europe going into season 1985-86. English clubs were barred indefinitely from playing in the European competitions after the events at Heysel Stadium at the 1985 European Cup final, so Everton didn't get the chance to prove it.

On the pitch everything was going well. This was the "Lineker" season, Gary having been signed from Leicester in the summer of 1985. The season when we wore those strange but memorable shirts with a white bib, sometimes referred to as the "Lineker bib", as modelled here by Gary himself:

By the end of March 1986 Everton were two points clear of Liverpool at the top of the table with 8 games to go. Both Merseyside teams were in the FA Cup semi finals and a week later had both won, setting up the first all Merseyside F A Cup final. Everton were favourites for the double. What could possibly go wrong?

In the league Liverpool went on a great run, eventually winning all their remaining eight games, while Everton won five, drew two and lost one of their remaining seven leaving Liverpool two points ahead when the fat lady sang. The game Everton lost was at Oxford, in 1986 my nearest league ground. I got a ticket for the Everton end and went. Everton were strong favourites as Oxford were in the bottom three, though their team included John Aldridge and Ray Houghton, both of whom went on to play for Liverpool, and ex Spur Steve Perryman. It was a scrappy game, which seemed to be heading for a goal-less draw until Oxford scrambled a late winner, which proved to be important in their survival that season. 

However, a bit earlier in that second half, Prince Gary had been put clean through. A golden chance but the keeper saved. While goal-less draws away at Manchester United and Nottingham Forest were arguably equally to blame, those results weren't as damning and the Oxford game, with just three games to go, was decisive. The lost three points cost us the league. Lineker's miss is still fixed in my mind as I was behind the goal he was shooting towards. He seemed to scuff the ball, the keeper saved and we tumbled down the terraces as you did in those days when the ball came to the near end. The chance was gone and in due course the league was lost.

Lineker has noted many times how he had a difficult start at Everton (though only for a couple of games) with fans not warming to him instantly as crowd hero Andy Gray's replacement. I remember some in the crowd at Oxford groaning, with some critical remarks and others noting "but he's been great for us this season" as we stepped backwards to return to our spec on the terrace. Though Lineker won the golden boot that year with his 40 goals in 57 games and was the football writers' footballer of the year, Gary was and still is a little bit marmite for Everton fans.

Never mind, there was still the F A Cup Final. Against Liverpool. But now it was their double to play for.

I had a ticket for Wembley in the Everton end. And a much shorter journey! I headed off through the bucolic Oxfordshire countryside on a sunny May day looking forward to meeting up with friends from my old football club. However, they didn't show at the rendezvous (no mobile phones then, kids). It turned out their borrowed minibus had broken down several times on the journey from Merseyside, though they did get to Wembley Stadium with 20 minutes to spare.

The match went well, at least for the first half. Lineker scored to put Everton 1-0 up. Early in the second half Everton came close several times. Then Liverpool goalkeeper Grobelaar and left back Beglin got in a huge tangle, nearly conceding possesion at the edge of the penalty area. Words were exchanged and Grobelaar gave Beglin an angry shove in the chest. The Everton fans behind that goal, where I was standing, roared in confident derision - but I felt uneasy. We were only 1-0 up. Yes, this lot might look a shambles but there wasn't an hour gone. And before the hour had gone Everton right back Gary "Shagger" Stevens (so nicknamed by the crowd because of his reputation for, er, playing around) had conceded possession in the Everton half with a slack pass down the line, Yan Molboo (well that's how you're meant to say his name) threaded a pass through to Ian Rush and Everton's nemesis** had scored yet again to equalise. Rush got another as Liverpool prevailed 3-1. It was Liverpool's first ever league and F A cup double. And it should have been Everton's. 

This was an extremely bitter pill to swallow. A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions! But at least now, all those years later, I have a reason for Lineker's miss in the defeat at Oxford. 

My holiday reading this year included a chatty and very readable book by Lineker and Danny Baker called Life, Laughs and Football. In it Lineker confesses that, like many players, he was superstitious. He wouldn't take practice shots at goal the warm up feeling that he might "waste" a good shot. A bit like golfers who can't miss on the practice putting green and then have a nightmare on the course. If Linker had scored in the first half on a rainy day he would decline the offer of a fresh, dry shirt at half time as the wet shirt might be "lucky".

So, in the season he got 40 goals, Gary became very attached to the pair of Adidas boots he'd been wearing since the first half of the season. He would normally get through several pairs of boots in a season and this particular pair would usually have been binned long before the end of April. But this pair were clearly lucky. Though battered by the time he played at Oxford the boots had only four games to go to the end of the season, three in the league and the cup final. 

Except, when the kit trunk was unloaded in the dressing room Lineker's boots weren't there. The boots were 170 miles away on Merseyside and he didn't have a spare pair. This doesn't just sound bizarre now, it strikes me as a little strange even then. I admit that, as a player, I wouldn't travel to matches with a spare pair of boots but I did carry spare laces, as they often snapped. I was unusal though and team mates often bummed a lace off me. It didn't make any of them start bringing spares, after all Phil always had some didn't he? 

As a pair of boots got rather worn, I'd buy a new pair and break them in at training, reserving them till they were needed and eventually relegating the older pair to training duties. Surely the pros must have done something similar? Most of them would have been buying their own boots at that stage, probably even Lineker, though sponsored boot deals weren't far away. Nevertheless Lineker himself says it sounds amateur and shambolic given his team were going for the biggest prize in English football.

So he had to borrow a pair of boots. The nearest size anyone could come up with were half a size too big. That wouldn't be much difference in an everyday shoe but footballers like their boots to be snug. I certainly did, otherwise you can't "feel" the ball when you kick it. Lineker said he felt like he was wearing clown shoes. 

Anyway it was no goals in the borrowed boots and six more goals wearing them again in the last three games. Lineker writes that he's not saying the missing boots cost Everton the league. I'd say it wasn't necessarily the borrowed boots per se but lack of confidence due the absence of the lucky boots. Lineker notes that you can see highlights of the match on youtube (link below) but he says you'll probably notice his scandalously small shorts (see above) more than his oversize boots.

Even so, someone out there possibly cost Everton the 1986 league title. One imagines that some unsung kit man or possibly apprentice professional got it in the neck for not loading Gary's boots onto the Oxford bound coach.

There are two postscripts to this story.

After the Wembley final Lineker's lucky boots developed a split. But he was off to play in the World Cup finals that summer. So he sent them off to Adidas for repair and scored six goals in Mexico, winning the FIFA golden boot. So a double golden boot for Gary but no double for Everton. The boots are now in the Adidas museum in Munich.

But did Gary learn? No. By 1990, having completed his stint in Barcelona, he was a Spurs player  - and had a boot sponsor. The thing is, it wasn't a good brand. They were called Quasar, a new brand that I didn't last. One of Lineker's boots split before the match and, once again with no spare pair, he had to resort to cadging. This time one boot from a person who took the same size, which happened to be manager Bobby Robson. Lineker, wearing one Adidas and one Quasar boot, scored the only goal that night but with his head, not either of the boots.

Lineker says this reveals levels of amateurism that would induce fainting fits in the modern game. Though he says Jack Grealish's boots worn in the play off final that got Villa promoted to the Premier League in 2019 looked like a dog's chewy toy "so maybe a bit of amateurism continues in the higher echelons". 

I don't think so, Gary. I bet Jack had a spare pair back in the dressing room.

Still at least I now know there was a reason for Everton's defeat at Oxford and some of my 1986 pain. It wasn't just the guy with the big nose and outsized Adam's apple. It was Gary's boots.

Was that cathartic? No, I'm still traumatised.

* Why is a French magazine called France Football, one might wonder? Because that title is actually in French. The magazine, an authoritative weekly digest of world football published in French, was originally the bulletin of the French Football Confederation (Federation Francaise de Football, FFF, "le football" being the French for football or soccer) and has been published since 1946 but became an independent publication a year later. France Football had a European Team of the Year award from 1968 to 1990 when Adidas pulled out of sponsoring the award. It's still France Football that presents the prestigious Ballon d'Or to the world's best player of the year, which has more status than the equivalent FIFA award.

** The guy with the big nose and outsized Adam's apple, aka Ian Rush, scored twice in both the 1986 and 1989 F A Cup finals against Everton. (Yes, I was there in 1989 and that was painful too, but another story). Those 1989 goals took Rush past Everton's Dixie Dean as the record goalscorer in Merseyside derbies. Dean had 19 goals in 17 matches. Rush eventually bagged 25 but in more than twice as many matches as Dean. Some records only show Rush on 20 goals, excluding the five he got in the two legged Screen Sport Super Cup held between the clubs in 1986. This competition was meant to compensate successful teams for not being in Europe but was only held once. 

Life, Laughs and Football. Lineker and Baker. Arrow Books, 2020

Oxford 1 Everton 0 highlights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12_zuBWNTCw. To be fair watching this now, Oxford had more attempts on goal than Everton. Gary Stevens made a remarkable goal line clearance from a close range header and stand in Everton keeper Mimms made a superb save from another close range header. But both came after Lineker's "miss" when he took a very heavy first touch running on to a through ball with the borrowed boots and got too close to the keeper to lift it over him. He had a few other chances close to goal but didn't succeed in getting a decent touch on any of them. I think most neutrals would say luck didn't have much to do with the result but I still can't help feeling that, if Lineker had taken any of his chances that night before Oxford scored, Everton would probably have gone on to win the match. And with his lucky boots he'd have felt more confident than he looked. So I'm blaming the boots.

Who first used feedback on a recording?

Who was the first to use feedback, a sound that became a staple of rock music, on a recorded song? The thumbnail picture might have given it away, but it wasn't Pete Townshend or Jimi Hendrix. I guess it must have been someone we've never heard of, with a tiny bit of inadvertent feedback that got left in. But, in terms of deliberate use of feedback, it was John Lennon. At least according to John Lennon:

“That’s me completely,” John said in a 1980 interview speaking about the intro to ‘I Feel Fine’.

“..the guitar lick with the first feedback anywhere. I defy anybody to find a record… unless it is some old blues record from 1922… that uses feedback that way. So I claim it for the Beatles. Before Hendrix, before The Who, before anybody. The first feedback on record.”

I assumed it would have been John's faithful Rickenbacker* guitar that produced the feedback drone at the start of I Feel Fine but interestingly, it was done with a semi-acoustic guitar. You could listen here while you read on...

As the account in Wikipedia has it:

"I Feel Fine" starts with a single, percussive feedback note produced by McCartney plucking the A string on his bass, and Lennon's guitar, which was leaning against McCartney's bass amp, picking up feedback. This was the first use of feedback on a rock record. According to McCartney, "John had a semi-acoustic Gibson guitar. It had a pickup on it so it could be amplified ... We were just about to walk away to listen to a take when John leaned his guitar against the amp. I can still see him doing it … it went, 'Nnnnnnwahhhhh!' And we went, 'What's that? Voodoo!' 'No, it's feedback.' 'Wow, it's a great sound!' George Martin was there so we said, 'Can we have that on the record?' 'Well, I suppose we could, we could edit it on the front.**' It was a found object, an accident caused by leaning the guitar against the amp." Although it sounded very much like an electric guitar, Lennon actually played the riff on an acoustic-electric guitar (a Gibson model J-160E), employing the guitar's onboard pickup.

Later, Lennon was very proud of this sonic experimentation, making the remarks above in one of his last interviews. Here is Lennon with his trusty J160e and his muckers (hmm bit of an odd choice of phrase that when one of them's Macca):

That guitar is a very familiar sight for those of us of an age. Indeed, according to PMT online, a site selling music kit, the J160e is the only guitar that featured on every Beatles album.

The same reference has the story about John and George buying their original J160e's at Rushworth and Dreaper, the well known music store known locally as Rushworths, which rather sadly closed in 2002. The business started as organ builders, became a musical instruments supplier and, by the 1960s, was also one of the major record shops in the city. I used to buy my records there, well until Virgin opened and sold them cheaper, which probably contributed to the start of Rushworths decline. This is the rather grand building as it now looks:

By 1962 Lennon had set his sights on his first quality American guitar. The Beatles, up and coming but still scraping a living playing locally, had been signed up by the manager of another local music store, Brian Epstein. Which was just as well as Epstein co-signed the HP agreements through which Lennon and Harrison bought their guitars, or they'd just have had to save up***. Here they are collecting the guitars in Rushworths:

I find it fascinating that photos like these were taken and survived. Did Epstein even then have an eye on publicity? Or was it a relatively unusual purchase that Rushworth's wanted to publicise?

Lennon had two J160e guitars. Also just as well as the first one got nicked after a gig in late 1963. A Californian man bought it for $275 in the late 60s but was unaware of its provenance until many decades later he stumbled on a photo of Harrison with his guitar, which had similar markings to Lennon's. An expert was able to match up the serial number and wood grain markings to Lennon and the guitar was sold for $2.4M at auction in 2015. So as I Feel Fine was recorded in a single day on 18 October 1964 it was the second guitar that produced the famous feedback.

* producers are always looking for an ear catching start to songs. It rarely sounds right if the song starts straight off with the main riff or melody. I'm not sure why - it just doesn't, so few songs start that way. Lennon and McCartney were struggling with how to start She Loves You until Martin suggested starting with the chorus. But there's still an introductory drum roll from Ringo to signal "it's about to start". In the limit there's always "1-2-3-4..." - as in the start to the first song on the first Beatles album...

** some sources say it was the Rickenbacker. Ian McDonald's fabulous - and usually definitive - Revolution in the Head (Fourth Estate, 1994) says it was the Rickenbacker, the sound being obtained by striking the note with the volume switch turned down and then turning it up while pointing the pickups towards his amp, noting that Lennon was "inordinately proud of this in later years". However, while Lennon can be seen holding the Rickenbacker while miming the song in the youtube link above, I take that with a pinch of salt as Ringo is pedalling an exercise bike rather than pretending to play drums. Lennon used the J160e to play the main riff in live performances of the song (see link below). Lennon would have had both guitars with him in the studio so, while we can't be sure, I think we'll have to take McCartney's story as the most likely. Intruigingly, McDonald claims McCartney used feedback before Lennon on several tracks including She's A Woman though for the life of me I can't hear any. And why wouldn't Macca have said so in the quote above?

*** no credit cards in those days, kids. Far Out magazine has the story of Ringo getting his first set of Ludwig drums in April 1963, as the Beatles got ready for their summer tour. Epstein took Ringo to London's Drum City, Britain's first shop specialising in just drum kits and Starr picked a set with oyster black pearl finish. But Epstein didn't want to actually pay for the kit and attempted to hussle a free set in return for promoting the shop, on the back of the group's growing fame, Please Please Me having been in the top three for most of February and March. The owner, a jazz musician called Ivor Arbiter, wasn't having any of it, claiming he hadn't heard of the Beatles and "every band was going to be big in those days". They compromised on trading in Ringo's old Premier set and having the Ludwig brand name visible on the bass drum, which would allow the vendor to negotiate favourable terms. Epstein decided if Ludwig's name was going to be on the kit so was the Beatles and paid Arbiter £5 to paint the band name on the bass drum. There and then Arbiter sketched the soon to be famous logo with the enlarged B and dropped T. Oddly Arbiter has another claim to fame besides designing the Beatles logo: he introduced the first karoake machines to the Britain.

I spotted the story of the I Feel Fine feedback on the Abbey Road tribute facebook site, a cornucopia of Beatles stuff, see https://www.facebook.com/share/19tmD78rPj/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Feel_Fine

The story of Lennon's J160e and the photo of him and Harrison with their guitars in Rushworths is at https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/blog/2016/05/04/epiphone-brings-back-the-j160e-acoustic/

The story of Lennon's stolen guitar is at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/lennon-gibson-auction-1.3310703

You can see Lennon playing the J160e in a live performance of I Feel Fine at the 1965 NME awards at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPXxMt1fXLs

Ringo's Ludwig kit and the Beatles logo story is at https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/who-designed-the-beatles-logo/

What is Wales number two in the world at?

The answer to my question is recycling. A global recycling league table published in June had Wales in second place, narrowly behind Austria, with both countries recycling 59% of their "municipal waste" as defined by the EU. England didn't do so badly in 11th place.

According to UK statistics, on some other basis presumably, Wales recycles 66% of its waste, with England in the high 40s.

Why are the Wales stats so good and so much better than England's? Here is the reason:

These are some (most to be fair) of the waste receptacles provided by our local council. You see essentially the same receptacles by the roadside everywhere in north, and I assume south, Wales. There is of course a black wheelie bin and, in front of it a food waste caddy with a bag for recycling coffee pods on top. Then we have a brown wheelie bin for garden waste and the device on the right is known as a trolibocs. (In Wales we don't do the letter x, so taxi is written tacsi for example. Imagine hearing trolleybox with a gentle Welsh lilt and you'll get the idea). The top stackable box takes paper and white card, the middle takes plastic and cans and the bottom glass and brown cardboard. Until this week when, great joy, we've had yet another receptacle delivered:

This bag will from now on take the brown cardboard. I'll have to flatten and break up boxes to fit in the bag as boxes too large for the bottom trolibocs container left alongside the trolibocs as previously "will not be collected" I am sternly told.

Which will mean it takes me even longer to sort and pre-process all of our recycling. But I don't mind too much as I've always been against waste and for as much re-use as possible. 

Soon after I retired I saw a cartoon which captured some of the essence of no longer being in employment. A man and his wife (of course they're married, they're both of an age) are lying next to each other in bed. He looks twitchy. She says to him "I know it's bin day tomorrow but try to contain your excitment dear". 

Part of my excitement comes from the now ten receptacles provided for our recycling. In addition to the eight shown above (counting the trolibocs as three) there are occasionally used bags for batteries and for textiles. Oh and you can place small electrical items on top of the trolibiocs for collection too.

I recall one of the many recent Tory PMs, I think it was Sunak, saying that his party was going to bring some sense to waste collection in England and was not going to allow the proposal for as many as seven different waste bins. Only seven - ha! The BBC reckoned there never had been a proposal from the PM's own Deparrment of Environment etc for seven bins, though the Environment Secretary admitted the government was "assailed by representations of this sort". It's not clear yet whether Labour will cause inflation in the number of English bins, but you've got a way to go, boyos.

I've often wondered - and sometimes read about - whether all this waste separation is necessary. Just chuck it all in one bin and the equipment will separate it. Isn't that what they end up doing anyway? And doesn't it often just go to landfill? Ah but. We know that the equipment struggles to sense black plastic trays for example. And the plastic bottle tops get separated from the bottles and end in the wrong waste stream, which is why they're now anchored onto the bottles. (Of course I twist them off, it's a struggle to get them back on to the orange juice bottle otherwise. I'm not perfect you know!)  I tend to think this is what they mean when they talk about waste streams being contaminated. Sure, I rinse out glass jars wondering, as I do so, whether there's any net benefit or disbenefit to the environment. A bit of jam on a glass jar isn't going to make any difference when the jar is melted down in a furnace, is it? But apparently fairly small amounts of the wrong plastic in a waste stream condemns the whole batch as being no good for re-use in making our fleeces or whatever.

The frustration about different containers in England stems, I think, from the differences between local councils and the difficulty in finding out about what should go where due to the different contracts councils take out with providers and the differnet processes those providers use. Wales seems to have benefited from standardisation of the process nationally. As a result if you have a question and phone to ask the council (yes, someone does still pick up eventually) they know the answer. "Egg boxes go in the bottom of the troliobcs, mate". Or at least they did until we got that new large green bag. How will I remember?

We don't, of course, have to put all of the bins out every week. I remember quite a few years ago the Daily Mail poking fun at the weird Welsh council - my local council - which was moving to four weekly collection of the general waste black bins. How could anyone be so daft, they clearly thought. We'd already gone from two weekly to three weekly, a move which had finally got us to start using the food waste caddy, which we'd always thought would cause smells in the kitchen. Which it doesn't. Unless it's full of raw onion. What it did was prove that the larger caddy, photographed above, could not be left outside the back door. Although it has a handle which locks the lid in place, making it supposedly animal proof, the foxes are too clever and determined for that if you've left a chicken carcass in there. So that has to live in the garage. And no, it doesn't make the garage smell.

Using the food caddy proved a revelation. There is an amazing amount of weight in the food waste, even though we try to use as much as possible, Mrs H choosing some menus on what's left in the pantry or fridge. "No, I'm not cooking that, it doesn't go with the sweet potatoes which need to be used up". If food was economically available in smaller packages, especially things like bread and potatoes, there would be much less waste.

As a result of separating the food waste our black bin never smells and is usually no more than two-thirds to three-quarters full after 4 weeks. If we have a large item to dispose of, say a duvet, I keep it back till bin day and it will nearly always fit in the top, putting off the need to make a trip to the tip (sorry, waste recycling centre) which is a twice yearly irritation as it has to be booked on line and there are never appointments at short notice. I've learned it's not sensible to spend the morning producing bulky gardening waste, load the car with that and an assortment of items set aside in the garage and go in at lunchtime expecting to book an afternoon appointment, only to have to unload the car, muttering because there were loads of appointments available earlier and I hadn't known which time to pick but they've now all gone.

So when I read of Tory ministers promising to bring back weekly bin collections I was bemused as to why that would be necessary. To be fair we are only a two person household but then that must be pretty close to the average household size in our area.

The other excitement and tension about bin day is getting the right containers down to the street on the right days. The trolibocs, food and other recycling apart from garden waste is collected weekly. The garden waste is collected fortnightly and the black bins every fourth week. Best not to miss that! Though, when we unavoidably do because we're away, we've always managed to fit everything in for the next collection.

I was actually quite glad when our council went from three to four weekly black bin collection. The bin collection calendar (no longer sent out annually on hard copy, I might have to download their damned app which will send me reminders of which bins to put out) became easier to follow. Week one black and recycle, week two brown and recycle, week three only recycle, week four brown and recycle. Which meant there was never any need to put out all of them at once.

Which was a merciful relief as there is a problem for me with the Welsh system. I have to wheel and lug those many receptacles 100 yards down the fairly steep hill I live up to get them to the side of the nearest public road each week, often in the dark at this time of year. I've become adept at taking the trolibocs and a black or brown bin down together, one in front of me, one behind. A kind of "bin train". When we've filled our second brown bin* or there are other items two journeys is necessary. Together with posting all the different wastes into the right bins one does feel like an unpaid waste recycling operative.

But we're second in the world, so I guess it's worth it.

Da iawn Cymru!. Say it phonetically something like "dai-ow-nn, cumry" and you've said "well done Wales" in Welsh.

* we have to pay for the brown garden bins, of course. The second one is at a bargain rate. The collection is done by a private contractor separate from the council collectors who pick up the other stuff. It's all unusually efficient for a council supplied service

Wales second in the world for recycling rates. BBC website 5 June 2024

Da iawn Cymru! Wales named as second best recycling nation in the world, media.service.gov.wales 5 June 2024

Seven bins and Sunak's other net zero claims fact checked. BBC website 21 September 2023

This year's gigs

Not many gigs to report on this year. There was From The Jam and the Skids (see The Bitterest Pill and an unexpected delight, 6 May) and two more since - The Eagles Long Goodbye tour and Squeeze's 50th anniversary tour.

Off we went recently to our local venue, the venue of Wales - Venue Cymru - for the Squeeze gig. This was the 6th, or maybe 7th or 8th time we've seen them dating back to one of our favourite ever gigs, at Liverpool's Royal Court in 1981. They're always good and this was no exception. Though on this occasion the audience reaction, always warm, was ecstatic.

When we saw Squeeze about 15 years ago Mrs H, a bigger Squeeze fan than me, said she hadn't enjoyed it that much. "Why not?" I asked, "I thought they played well". "Oh they were great" she said "it was the audience". "They seemed enthusiastic to me". "Well they were but they all looked so old!" What had got to her, as we sat in the circle, was the view of all the bald heads below.  Take a look at us, I thought. Especially since, as Squeeze became successful in the late 70s, many of their original fans would have been born in the 60s, not the 50s like us. It was the evidence in front of us of the years ticking by that had got to her.

So this time I made sure we were in the stalls.

However, the audience seemed to mainly be more like 20 rather than the expected 10 years younger than us. And they knew all the words. Not just the hits like Up the Junction, Is That Love, Labelled with Love and the evergreen Cool For Cats, but all the album tracks they played that had never been hit singles.

The atmosphere was fabulous, they played well and everyone was up and dancing by the end. The band seemed chuffed with the reaction at the end which, given it's a sell out tour, was notable. But it is a fairly intimate venue for its size.

Pictured below is Glenn Tillbrook, with a satisfied smile, after nailing the guitar solo in Another Nail For My Heart on his trusty Fender. There are a lot of vocals in Squeeze songs and his voice never faltered, albeit these days occasionally reinforced by an addition to the band, a supplementary female singer.  His guitar work was as good as ever, which is very good indeed.

A few months ago we went to catch the Eagles, who we'd never seen before, at the Co op Live, the new Manchester venue. Yes, the one that had all the teething troubles, delayed opening, cancelled gigs etc. Fortunately that was all resolved for our trip. The venue is on the impressive  Etihad campus right next to Man City's ground. Walking around the football stadium the statues of recent era City players, like Kompany, Aguero and David Silva, really does reinforce how little sustained success, "history" if you like, the club has had until the last 15 years. The only older era reference is a statue of Bell, Summerbee and Lee from when I was a lad. Here I am by it, holding my nose - and wearing the right shade of blue:

The venue itself is good though there wasn't enough space around the food and drink outlets and, depending what you wanted, you couldn't necessarily get it in one queue; very frustrating! And surprising in a venue purpose designed for music when they make much of their money from those sales, the big bands forcing a tough deal on who gets the ticket money and merch revenue. The public areas were all rather disorientatingly black. But inside the auditorium was good and, as billed, the sound quality was excellent. 

It's Britain's biggest indoor arena, its seating capacity of 20,500 marginally bigger than London's O2 and nearly twice that of Liverpool's Echo Arena. But, even though we insist on sitting facing the stage to avoid that half turned in your seat position that your back and neck tell you about the next day, it didn't feel as if we were any further away than at smaller arenas like Nottingham.  Here's the view we had for our £250 outlay. The cheapest seats but not at all bad:

Ah yes, that price. Having never seen the Eagles before, when I saw the Long Goodbye world tour tour was coming to Manchester for 5 nights - the only dates for their 'last ever' UK  appearances - I rather fancied it. I've always been keener on them than Mrs H and I thought she'd probably pooh pooh the idea. She didn't, not outright anyway. Then I pointed out that the support was Steely Dan. Now we have only two Eagles albums but 5 by the band named after a steam powered dildo in William S Burroughs's novel The Naked Lunch*. And we used to listen to their album The Royal Scam while doing jigsaws and colouring in psychedelic pictures with felt tip pens, when they were a novelty, in our first house in the 1970s. Nothing better to do I suppose with only 3 TV channels, though maybe that was before we even had a TV.

Anyway Steely Dan clinched it and so we arrived at the Co op Live excited to see the world renowned Eagles but mildly disappointed that Steely Dan had long since pulled out, main man Donald Fagen having been hospitalised with an unspecified illness. However Steely Dan had been replaced with the Doobie Brothers, who we also like (though only one album in our collection to the Dan's five and Eagles two).

The Doobies were a bit of a disappointment. The main problem -  for us anyway - was singer Michael McDonald, he of the wide vocal range on songs like the 1980 Billboard number one and Grammy award winning What A Fool Believes. McDonald, who had sung with Steely Dan, joined the Doobies in 1975 to give some relief to founder member and original lead vocalist Tom Johnson who was having health problems.

The problem is we much preferred the early, raunchier Doobies style and it certainly came over better on the two songs Johnson sang lead on, China Grove and Long Train Runnin'. In contrast the McDonald songs came across as rather strained, as he seemed to struggle with the high notes and it felt like the band were holding back. Oh well at least they rocked it on China Grove and Listen to the music.

The Eagles came on to a video montage of their performances across the eras which set the scene nicely. While I've always liked their stuff some of their early songs verge on being too countryish for me and definitely so for Mrs H who famously likes her music to have "balls" (her phrase).  But they got Take It Easy, with its irritating hillbilly banjo, out of the way early and it was immediately onward and upward with One of These Nights and its guitar string bending atmospheric opening. The song was written to get away from the country ballad style and features some heavy guitar with distortion to add bite. Superb.

Then through their huge catalogue of hits including  Witchy Woman, Take It to the Limit, Tequila Sunrise, Lyin' Eyes etc, etc. Mrs H told me she'd read suggestions that the performances were 'too good' to be 100% live. Now you never know what's going on backstage but it didn't sound 'too perfect' to me. Just to make sure I recorded some snippets on my phone, like you're not meant to, and I can vouch that my ears were right - very good, essentially note perfect performances but it definitely sounded 100% live.

I think there's a reason for this. When you have an 8 piece band playing some classic but fairly simple songs like Lyin' Eyes, with two drummers, two keyboard players and up to 5 guitarists, none of them individually have to do very much. And when they play as carefully as Steuart (yes I've spelt that right) Smith, their touring guitarist who took over from Don Felder when he left nearly 20 years ago, nailing those inter-woven guitar sections is very possible. I've never seen a guitarist playing with a major band look so attentively at the fretboard while playing. The band also sang well, which helps when the harmonies are such a big part of the sound. It also helped that the lead singing role is shared between so many: Don Henley, Vince Gill (a distinguished musician in his own right before joing the band), Deacon Frey (deceased band member Glenn's son who, with Gill, sings Glenn's songs), Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmitt. As a result voices don't get strained.

It took me a while to figure out, apart from Joe, who was who. The band position themselves in two rows, front and back. Remaining founder member Henley plays drums (and sometimes sings while doing so) and sometimes plays keyboards or guitar, all in the back row. But then he pops up to sing lead and play guitar in the front row. I say pops up because the Eagles adopt that lights out and silence approach between songs, without chat or announcements. The lights come up and, like a Pep Guardiola team, they've switched positions and, in some cases, instruments. 

Henley eventually did some introductions,  said he liked the new auditorium and praised the sound quality. He noted that he wasn't normally fond of being away from the USA but as things were pretty crazy there (this was June before Biden pulled out of the presidential election) he was happy to be away. This produced warm applause. After letting that die down he said words to the effect of "but you've got some fairly crazy people of your own at the moment". Too true.

I was pleased that the Eagles included a couple of Joe Walsh's songs from his solo repertoire.  I remember first hearing that Joe had joined the Eagles. It was a big surprise at the time, and not just to me. While the Eagles were already hugely successful, Walsh had released three albums with his own band and had a hit with Rocky Mountain Way - a track I've always loved -  on both sides of the Atlantic, featuring the then novel guitar talk box which he uses to shape the notes a bit like a wah wah pedal with your gob. "The reinforced Eagles" a buddy called them, though it wasn't an obvious fit: Walsh was much rockier. But the Eagles needed another singer/guitarist, Bernie Leadon having announced his departure from the Eagles by pouring a beer over Glenn Frey's head. And it worked, the next album, Hotel California, having some significant Walsh inputs and becoming one of the most successful albums anyone's made, anywhere, ever.

I'm still trying to think of any equivalent scenario where a successful  guy with his own band takes up an opportunity to join an even more established band. It was a bit like Clapton joining the Beatles.  But for Joe it was simple: he didn't have to try to think up a whole album full of new ideas, just a track or two and come up with some guitar breaks on other guys' songs, while still doing solo projects when he wanted.

I wondered just how much the original country style Eagles fans would like Joe Walsh. But when Don Henley introduced him as the King of the Stratocaster**, the auditorium erupted. The answer was they all seemed to love him. Apart from Mrs H who said he looked weird. She clarified this was because he looked so old - see Squeeze audience comment above - but yes very wizened. And also because he pulls strange faces while singing, gurning to reach some of the notes. When you look back at live videos from the 1970s he always did, but such mannerisms become exaggerated as one gets older. Phil Collins does much the same.

Walsh's Rocky Mountain Way and Life's Been Good, a solo hit single with a humourous, self deprecating lyric*** from a couple of years after he joined the Eagles went down a storm and I'm really glad I got to see him perform them.

Leadon's beer shampoo for Frey was far from the end of arguments in the Eagles. The band, formed as Linda Ronstadt's backing band, basically argued until Henley was the only pre Joe Walsh member left. Bass player Randy Meisner decided he'd had enough in 1977 and was replaced by Timothy B Schmitt, just as he'd been replaced by Schmitt when he left Poco to join the Eagles. Don Felder joined a couple of years in and was fired in 2001, leading to a slew of lawsuits, though in the meantime the band had argued themselves into breaking up in 1980 before re-forming for live tours in the 90s . The survivors and their replacements all seem to get on now, but then the paycheck must be enormous: having completed the world tour part of the long goodbye the band is now doing residencies at the new Sphere venue in Vegas.

Henley's solo hit The Boys of Summer was another highlight as was Desperado which he sang beautifully (he was never happy with the recorded version having only been given 4 takes at it by producer Glyn Johns).

The band left the stage after 16 songs and came back for a 4 song 'encore', starting with their Hotel California epic which was, er, epic, Smith and Walsh ably reproducing the classic Felder/Walsh closing guitar joust - though it didn't sound quite like the record so yes I'm sure it was all live.

It was a superb gig and the Eagles put on probably the most profesional performance I've ever seen. It was even value for money for the most expensive gig tickets we've bought. (I don't think I'd have said that if we'd shelled out several times as much to be at the front though!)

It's theoretical but would I go and see them again? No, been there, done that, don't need the tee shirt, etc. 

Would we go and see Squeeze yet another time? Well we wouldn't travel far but if they're back in our neck of the woods next year - yes, like a shot. The Eagles were brilliant but Squeeze are fun.

Though neither band put quite as big a smile on my face as the Skids performing Into The Valley, the single song I'd pick as my favourite performance from the gigs we've been to this year if I could re-live the experience. 

Another Nail for Your Hearts Squeeze and Heartache Tonight for the Eagles?

 

* I recall my two sons, aged around 10 and 12 perhaps, approaching me conspiritorially. "Da..ad...?" "Ye..es...?" I responded, wondering what was coming. "What's a dildo?" I wondered for half a second where they'd seen or heard the word and then for no more than another two how to respond. "It's an artificial dick" I replied bluntly. Their eyes lit up, they looked at each other and guffawed and ran off cackling. Now they're 40ish maybe I should remind them of the conversation next time we're all together

** Rolling Stone magazine had Walsh at number 54 in their 2011 list of the 100 greatest guitarists

*** snippets include - I've got a mansion, forget the price/I've never been there they tell me it's nice; I've got an office, gold records on the wall/just leave a message, maybe I'll call; Lucky I'm sane after all I've been through....

Stressed out and indoctrinated

I was flicking through the The Times's Good University Guide supplement recently. Mild interest rather than applying all over again! This year the LSE topped their rankings and so I dipped in to what it said about that establishment and happened upon the most encouraging things I've read about a British university in a long time.

Freedom of speech is top of their relatively new vice chancellor's agenda. There will be no "safe spaces", no trigger warnings on lectures and no books banned. A working group will consider how issues such as Islamophobia, antisemitism and transgender issues should be dealt with. All first year undergrads will have to take a compulsory inter-disciplinary module teaching students how to debate controversial issues.

"I say if you come here, expect to encounter ideas you hate, that bite, that go to your identity" said Larry Kramer. "If we are not doing that we are failing to prepare you for what will happen out there when you leave. We will give you the tools to help you engage".

I've been concerned about the proliferation of cancel culture in our universities for some time, with no-platforming of many speakers who can't possibly be considered to be extreme. But I'd been further sensitised to these issues after reading a column by Matt Goodwin, following his resignation from the University of Kent where he had been professor of politics and international relations for 9 years. Goodwin is an occasional columnist in the Times group newspapers so I wondered why he quit.

Goodwin was very clear that he had taken the opportunity of redundancy as universities struggle to balance their books. This is due to the nonsensical position of the tuition fees, set at £9,000 in 2012, having only been raised to £9,250 since making them worth less than £6,500 in today's money, leaving a number of universities on the brink of collapse.

Goodwin said there were a number of factors behind his desire to leave academia: factors which have "collided to erode the quality of higher education, betray students and make universities an unpleasant place to work". These factors include the dumbing down of standards, rampant grade inflation (with 56% of students now getting a first class degree); the "disastrous rise of on-line, or remote, learning which ... has killed attendance and intellectual life, undermining students' interpersonal and learning skills" and how universities have "replaced the things they used to prioritise - intellectual rigour, hard work, exposing students to debates and ideas, even ones they find disagreeable - with an obsessive focus on 'student satisfaction' ".

Goodwin went on to say, however, that the real reason he and many others are leaving academia is not because of finances or teaching, it is because the universities have become "openly political...highly activist ... imposing a dogmatic view on their academics and students, enforcing a narrow groupthink, silencing dissenters and eroding the things higher education is meant to promote - truth, reason, evidence and exposing their students to a full range of ideas and beliefs."

Strong stuff. Goodwin says universities have always leaned left. It was certainly the case when I was at uni in the early 1970s. I didn't have a problem with it as I would have been somewhat on the left myself at the time. The folk interested in politics - student or mainstream - were certainly very to the left but the majority (myself included) were much more interested in studying, partying, music and football. The profs and lecturers didn't appear to espouse any particular political ideology and concentrated on teaching.

But Goodwin says the ratio of left wing to right wing academics has spiralled since the 1960s from three to one to more like ten to one, producing an ideological monculture in which only a narrow set of ideas are allowed to dominate. He says this has resulted in a total obsession with viewing racial, sexual and gender minorities as sacred, wanting to transfer power and resources away from the majority to minorities and sacrificing anything that gets in the way of this "social justice".

By the time students reached Goodwin's third year course some would complain about how, until that point, they felt they had been politically indoctrinated.

From Goodwin's perspective it meant being told to "de-colonise" reading lists, taking part in anti-racism training which has been shown to be flawed, displaying gender pronouns (which he sees as a symbol of a "highly contested belief system") and working in a monoculture which was intolerant to those who hold different views. 

Other academics have quit or been forced out, inlcuding Kathleen Stock, hounded out of her job as professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex by pro-trans activists. The group Academics for Academic Freedom lists nearly nearly 200 academics who have been sacked, harassed or disinvited from giving talks in recent years.

Goodwin's personal experience was that, having publicly suggested after the Brexit referendum that the democratic decision made by 52% of voters should be implemented, he was subjected to a sustained campaign of bullying, harrassment and intimidation with many left wing academics shutting him out.

As a result students "self censor" on campus, feeling unable to say what they think.

What I find scary is that this has happened while we had a Conservative government, albeit one that didn't know where the pitch was, let alone keep its eye on any balls.

Goodwin was part of a group of academics who helped design the Higher Education (Free Speech) Act, which creates a legal requirement for universities to promote and protect free speech and leaving them liable to fines if they are found to sack or harass academics because of their views. But Bridget Phillipson, Labour's Education Secretary, has said she will pause if not cancel this new law. Labour could do a lot of damage unpicking things like this and trade union legislation.

Goodwin is finished with universities but will continue to write books and his blog on Substack, a blogging platform that allows authors to charge subscriptions (no, I'm not planning to do that!)

I will try to keep an eye on what Goodwin is saying. I'm sure many of his students will miss his teaching and those who don't will miss the benefit of hearing their received wisdom challenged.

If they can be bothered to attend lectures at all. A column by an iconito lecturer revealed the problems universities face in getting students to turn up to be indoctrinated. If they aren't too stressed to attend they find work so stressful they say they can't cope, can't deal with more than one assignment at a time or avoid assignments that involve talking to people, preferring to email or text.

It seems there is an epidemic of students with self-diagnosed mental illnesses, mainly anxiety, which they blame for absences and needing extensions to deadlines. And it's not just university life: they have anxiety about being on time, booking doctor's appointments (ha, obviously deluded if they think they can get one of those!) and managing money.

A study of 11,000 students in six Russell Group unis since 2022 said 30% of students reported anxiety disorders. Many of these are not medically diagnosed. A King's College study found the number of students self-reporting mental health difficulties had nearly tripled between 2017 and 2023, from 6% to 16%. A 2022 survey by Student Minds, a mental health charity, said 57% of respondents reported a mental health issue, of which 24 per cent had a diagnosis. This would still mean a staggering 14% of their sample  had such a diagnosis, though I'd expect their sample was skewed by people who just get on with things not responding to the survey.

The problem for lecturers is the onus is on them to accommodate this epidemic of real and imagined illness and they have a responsibility for following up with absent students to check they are ok. The Secret Lecturer claimed this sometimes meant checking up on 20 out of 30 students, rearranging courses in ways the students feel meet their needs. This might include adapting lessons so students can participate, providing course materials they can read in their own time and recording lectures or finding other ways of students being able to attend remotely. 

Lecturers have to be careful what they say and wouldn't dare to challenge students or suggest work might be just the thing to distract them and provide a sense of purpose. Pushing students hard is risky -  lecturers risk being investigated and some are reported to have been fired for being "too forceful".

I don't want to appear unsympathetic. One of the problems with this tidal wave of self reported issues is that it may conceal the smaller number of cases of students who are genuinely in difficulty and really do need help. But turning the normal struggles of life into a pathological condition isn't healthy. Mentally fragile students shouldn't put themselves through an experience they are unsuited to. Not everyone needs a degree, together with a debt of, on average, £45k. 

That debt often proves to be a poor investment. The IFS has calculated a wide range of how the degree subject affects the discounted present value of lifetime earnings. Medicine, economics and maths were the most strongly positive. Many other subjects were marginal at best.

As for indoctrination, I would guess the issue arises more in arts and humanities faculties rather than in engineering courses like the one I did all those years ago, though the climate of wokery is no doubt present everywhere. To aid pain to suffering the creative arts subjects had a negative discounted present value in the IFS study. That means those students are expected to earn less over their lifetime - by up to £100,000 in present day money - than if they hadn't gone to uni. Go figure, as they say.

I guess my biggest concern is that many of our universities are still centres of world class excellence and are a huge asset to the country. But for how much longer, I wonder?

The Good University Guide was published by the Times on 22 September 2024.

Matt Goodwin's article Goupthink is strangling universities, count me out was in the Sunday Times on 15 September 2024

My students tell me they're too stressed to learn. I don't dare to challenge them, a column by 'The Secret Lecturer' was in the Sunday Times on 6 October 2024

The costs of studying for a degree and the IFS lifetime earnings data were reported in How much does uni cost and is it worth it? BBC website 17 September 2024

Probation report on Starmer's Labour

Labour has been in power since 5 July: only 80 days so far, not yet even at the first hundred days mentioned since at least Roosevelt in the 1930s. But it's not too early for a first report. 

In my last company we gave new starters a full report on how they were getting on within 6 weeks so we could make sure that any early signs of under performance were dealt with, preferably by improvement but if necessary by an early exit well before the clock was run down. I remember only too well when I was in the public sector hurried reports being done in the last month of the probation period when there was no realistic chance of exiting an under performer. On another occasion one of my team leaders was determined to engineer a transfer in of a chap who'd had a whole series of negative reports elsewhere in the business. Against my advice he was sure the guy would be an asset and we were short of resources so I allowed myself to be persuaded. Of course he wasn't an asset and I regretted not being firmer. A mistake early in my time in management that wasn't repeated. 

An early exit isn't on for Labour with their huge majority but still - what does my report say?

There have been a number of early controversies. For a former DPP the riots after the dreadful events in Southport were a bit of a political gift in terms of events that just happen, enabling the new government to look tough while the courts just did their job. They also quite reasonably blamed their predecessors for having to release prisoners early to make space because the Tories, weirdly, didn't build prisons which one would have thought would go down well with their base. That was a problem allowed to "build" for 3 decades but Johnson & Sunak will get the blame.

The most contentious issues have been the removal of the universal pensioner fuel allowance benefit, the failure to say they will restore child benefit for all children and now (yet again, already!) the farrago over gifts from donors: wardrobegate, the gifts of clothing and even spectacles to Starmer, Reeves and others. The prompt implementation of substantial public sector pay deals has also received some criticism.

The restriction of the old folks winter fuel allowance to those receiving pension credit was a bit of a surprise as pensioner benefits have been protected throughout the (so-called) era of austerity. From my point of view as a comfortably off pensioner the old - if healthy and affluent - have had a very good deal compared with every other sector of the population over the last decade. So I was fairly neutral about the move personally, though I wondered about it politically. The decision seemed hurried and can't have been properly assessed. It seemed almost opportunistic in implementation. When it was suggested Starmer was sitting on an assessment of the harm it would do he made light of it saying there wasn't one, which left me very uneasy. It seems intuitively likely that many pensioners who are around the pension credit limit will suffer excessively, especially as many eligible pensioners don't claim pension credit. 

I'm left in bit of a dilemma over this one as I've often debated with Democracy Man the pros and cons of universal against means tested benefits. I'm generally not a fan of paying these type of benefits to everyone and clawing some of it back through tax as it is inefficient and encourages a benefits dependent culture. The government has inherited a bit of a bind here as the state pension is now very close to the personal allowance, which is frozen until 2028 so there is already a coming storm on people on low incomes paying tax on their state pension. That might have steered them to removing the fuel benefit completely, as they've already committed to not increasing general rates of income tax.

I'm left feeling they should have done that assessment but just wanted to look tough and prepared to take unpopular decisions. Most pensioners will whinge about it but will be ok; some won't be.

The child benefit issue was a non-story for me. Labour hadn't said they would extend the benefit beyond the two child cap and it wasn't in their manifesto so it wasn't clear why some of their supporters and MPs felt it should be done immediately. Mischief making by anti-Labour progressives helped to stir the issue up. However, on the general point of principle, it seems strange to me that child benefit is capped in this way. Our birth rate is uncomfortably low for sustainability. There are many countries in which it is worse (in South Korea it has plummeted from 1 in 2018 to 0.7 in 2023 against 2.1 for sustainability - and we may be heading that way. 

Why should we support people who want large families you may say? As many couples decide not to have children at all, it seems foolish to me to limit the benefit to two in the families that do want to have children if we want a reasonable birth rate. I don't buy the "why should we subsidise large families" argument. It doesn't really matter to me whether the people going through school and then joining the work force to pay the taxes to fund our state pensions come from families with one, two or many children, all that matters is there's enough of them.

So I'm puzzled that Labour didn't defuse that argument by saying they planned to do it even if a date couldn't be set before a first Reeves budget.

For me the dodgy decision in these early steps (miss-steps I've seen them called) was the way that Reeves caved in on public sector pay. Oh, I don't think she had much choice over paying the pay review body recommendations, it was decoupling them from any semblance of reform or change in working practices in agreeing a raft of settlements costing over £9bn for the NHS, police, rail, civil service and teachers I have a problem with.

Subsequently Starmer has said there will be no more money for the NHS without reform. So he's going to hold management to ransom is he? Sorry, Keir you've sold the pass on that, mate, just as Gordon Brown did nearly 20 years ago. Don't they learn?

As ever though, it's often not things of great substance that cause governments problems, it's what things look like. It wasn't a good look to find that Labour donor Lord Alli had been given a Downing Street pass. It now turns out that Sue Gray personally authorised this access, which is very unusual for someone who doesn't work there. Labour is now scrabbling around, saying the pass was "temporary" and has been given back.

But on the back of that story came all the stuff about clothes, spectacles and Arsenal box freebies for the PM, clothes for the chancellor (who says she's "too busy to shop") and a holiday in New York for Angela Rayner. None of this bothers me too much as all or most of it has been declared, though I agree with Martin Samuel's argument that Starmer shouldn't accept hospitality from a major football club when he will, on current plans, be the boss of the people who appoint the Football Regulator. Starmer's argument on security seems reasonable and I don't doubt that he likes taking his son. But, as Samuel says, it's cough up £8k for your own box or watch on the telly. Or be compromised.

What doesn't seem right is that the same donor has given so much money (over £300k has been reported, though over many years) to so many of Labour's front bench in opposition and now in the cabinet in government. I don't see how anyone can ensure that hasn't bought excessive influence.

It seems strange that someone as po-faced as Starmer would accept more in gifts and freebies than any other recent leader of a major party (according to the Guardian) and more than any other MP since 2019 (according to Sky News).  And they were taking these donations while criticising Johnson and the Tories for grift.

Haven't Starmer and his team heard the classic advice that, if you are wondering whether something is a good idea or not, just think what it would look like if reported in the press?

However, the thing that is causing me the most concern about Labour's start is the £22bn current year black hole they say they found on taking power. One might argue that in the total of £1.2bn annual government spending, £22bn is in the noise. Moreover most commentators think the issue is not the current year but future years as both Labour and the Tories spending plans have been described as works of fiction, neither allowing enough for increasing demands.

Nevertheless, Reeves and Starmer have used this at least partly mythical black hole to justify the winter fuel allowance grab and set expectations for a tough budget, while agreeing to everything put in front of them on pay (including Sue Gray's*). David Smith in the Sunday Times is one of many economists to pooh-pooh the idea put forward by Reeves that her economic inheritance is the worst since, oh didn't she say the Reformation or something?  It is transparently not the case that the situation is worse than in 2010. Sure, debt has just hit 100% of GDP for the first time since the early 1960s, when it was on it's way down after world war 2. But what matters is the comparison with other countries. In 2010 the UK was uniquely exposed because of the size of its financial sector. Smith and most of his ilk do not see anything like the same level of economic danger for the UK at the moment.

Moreover, the economic climate is improving, albeit sluggishly. Inflation is falling and the tepid growth forecasts are warming up slightly.

So, Starmer and Reeves are talking bollocks. But they have a plan. Not an economic plan, like George Osborne kept saying he had, at least not one they plan to tell us about until the end of October. But they are copying from the Cameron/Osborne playbook. The Tories resolutely blamed their predecessors for the economic ills of the country all the way through the 2010-2015 parliament. It worked and probably guaranteed their win in 2015. Starmer and Reeves think they can do the same. We'll see, because it will probably be harder to make it stick. But they may feel that it's an each way bet: if the economy improves they claim the credit. If it doesn't - blame your predecessor.

Which reminds me of an old joke. A chap has taken over from a senior manager who has been fired. In the desk he finds three envelopes, with instrcutions on when to open them. When the first quarter's results are poor he opens the first envelope. "Blame your predecessor" it says. He does and is given time to get things right. When the next quarter's results are poor he opens the second envelope. "Blame the market and state of the world economy".  He does and is granted more time. When the next set of results are just as bad he opens the third envelope. "Write out three envelopes" it says.

So I don't know if this tactic will work for Starmer and Reeves, but it's going to get tiresome listening to it.

The real tests will be whether Labour can reform planning and get building and growth going while handling with competence the inevitable periodic outcries about things like immigrants in small boats.

There is a danger that the government's gloomy talk will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and squash any hope of growth. At the Labour party conference they adopted a more positive tone. So which is it? 

At the conference Reeves said "no more austerity". But she's already promised not to raise almost any tax that is guranteed to raise anything substantial. So what's it going to be at the end of October, Rachel? Are you a self-harming sadist or a pussy cat?

However, with anything like competence and a reasonable degree of consistency the economy should begin to improve. In the longer term our readiness to respond to the uncertain geopolitical times we live in may pose greater challenges, especially since I fear that Starmer is not comfortable about taking quick decisions - I suspect he isn't confident he'll get them right. Remember just how long it took Labour to decide to back down from its ridiculous £28bn a year green investment pledge. It wasn't a screeching u-turn was it? And his answers to the wardrobegate fuss have been slippery rather than firm.

Still, however quick or slow Starmer's decision making, the questions I pose above are very open indeed and it's not clear to me that any of our political parties are currently capable of rising to those challenges.

Oh the report card? Oftsed has moved away from single word assessments but I'll say: floundering.

* As I understand it from a Times reader critical of shabby journalism, Sue Gray is not paid more than the PM as that compares her new, post civil service pay rise salary with last year's published actual pay for the PM. And while lots of Downing Street special advisers seem thoroughly cheesed off about having had a pay cut, this is because they are now civil servants and have been put on the appropriate pay point which happens to be less than Labour was paying them as employees when the party was in opposition. Nevertheless I did smirk at the comment from one Tory MP: "crikey, it took us 12 months to get to this level of discord in Downing Street, even with Johnson and Cummings there".