Tough at the top

In sport as in life, supremacy is seldom sustained. The England cricket team are nearing the half way mark of a Test series against the Australians having been installed as the pre-tournament favourites. As they prepare to go two down with three to play, it is instructive to examine the effect of such expectations.

Jonathon Trott returned home after the first Test match citing a stress-related illness. Until recently, he had been the solid, dependable number three batsman on hand to dig deep and provide solidity to the England batting line up. His departure has left the England team in disarray. As the Australians score runs and take wickets for fun, England look a shadow of the side which has been ranked number one in the world until quite recently. From captain Cook downwards, they all seem to have suffered a crisis in confidence as a hitherto laughing stock of a bowler has proceeded to tear them apart.

Since the inception of the Premier League, Manchester United have finished in the top two in all twenty-one seasons bar three. As the reigning champions they entered this season with high hopes of adding another title to their impressive collection. Such expectations were dashed though when their erstwhile manager Alex Ferguson elected to retire at the end of the season. His successor David Moyes has been in a no win situation from the moment he left Everton. The irony of losing to his former club in the week can't have been lost on him. His new club are performing like a mid table club thus far and the impact of Ferguson's departure continues to exert it's aftershock. All the while, Ferguson looks down from the stands as his successor lurches form one crisis to another.

The news this weekend has of course been dominated by the death of Nelson Mandela. It is a mark of his influence on the world stage that he continues to dominate discussions even after death. In truth, those who succeeded him in the new South Africa always had a tough act to follow and for Mandela achieved, progress since his retirement has been slow.

Putting aside the Mandela story, one story has emerged to dominate the political debate in the UK. The decision by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to recommend an 11% pay rise for Members of Parliament has met with a predictable outcry. Predictable because the media has honed in on the headline figure rather than attempting to analyse it in context.

Until recently, MPs in the UK were happily fiddling their expenses en masse and would still be doing so had it not been for the investigative journalism of the Daily Telegraph. The rest were happy to run with the story and MPs, for a time, occupied a place in society on a par with bankers, estate agents and lawyers. The proposed increase would still see their overall pay at about the same level as it was when they were fiddling expenses. We have to ask ourselves why they were fiddling their expenses in the first place. Were all MPs just dishonest on was their existing salary inadequate for the purposes of living in London and working in Westminster? I don't believe they were all dishonest but neither do I believe their salary was inadequate for the job they do. They did what most people do in most walks of life if given the opportunity. They sought to gain as much advantage as they could out of the system imposed upon them. This does not make them right or wrong. It just confirms their human nature.

Since the 2010 election and the arrival of the coalition, UK politics has been dominated by the cutbacks imposed to try and address our burgeoning national debt. I don't think the coalition had a choice in this although various parts of the media seem to suggest they did. As one Labour minister said to his coalition successor when leaving office in 2010, "Good luck, there's no money left - we've spent it all". It would funny if it weren't true but sadly it was true. Since that time, we have a succession of calls to spend more money on the NHS, on local Government, on education, and on a host of other departments. The problem remains. There is only a finite amount to go around.

For all that, I remain vehemently opposed to the HS2 project when there are so many areas so badly in need of financial investment. I am instictively against us becoming overly reliant on the State to provide and do everything for us but equally recognise that certain quarters will always rely on the State.

It has just been announced by the Welcome Foundation that there are a record number of people in work unable to make a living. Social security dictates that we are expected to survive on roughly £50 per week while the minimum wage currently stands at £6.31 per hour for those over the age of 21. The two biggest drains on the salary of those on the minimum wage are undoubtedly heating costs for their homes and transport costs be it fuel for their car or the fare for public transport. Undoubtedly, food inflation has also contributed hugely to their outgoings.

The anomaly which concerns me the most is that many people expect the State to intervene in such matters and yet they are loathe for their MPs to earn a salary which is lower than many of the professions. There is a well known mantra which asserts that we get what we pay for and the danger here is that we will forfeit a large number of MPs for a new batch who may not provide such value for money. They may well prove to be more cost effective and particularly if they come from business backgrounds in the private sector. It is the latter which must be re-ignited to achieve lasting economic growth again. Ploughing money in to the State will only serve to further expand the already top heavy Public Sector. We need a smaller State, not a bigger one. For lasting jobs and employment opportunities we need to grow manufacturing, industry and the business sector.

Thus for the MPs of today be they members of the coalition or not, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They are chastised if they earn too much and chastised if they fail to provide enough State support for general society. It has always been tough at the top and seldom  more so than now. Opposition parties always aim to criticise the strategies of the incumbent but should do so with caution. Unless they have viable alternatives of their own, criticism fails to provide solutions. As much as Ed Balls must be galled by the recent upturn in the economy, he does not suggest a better alternative. In fact, he continues to espouse the levels of spending which landed us here in the first place.I repeat, I am no fan of the proposed HS2 project but I do support the measures implemented by the coalition.

When Harold Macmillan claimed, "You've never had it so good", he was right. Since he said that in 1957, his claim has remained valid. Compared to what our forebears had during the first part of the twentieth century, we have had an improved quality of life. Improved, not perfect. Perfection is an aspiration but improvement is a welcome compromise. We still have a health service which continues to treat us come rain or shine. We still have an education system which continues to provide us with the opportunity to make the most of ourselves and we continue to enjoy relatively low levels of personal taxation.

Since Macmillan's day, we have become accustomed to having more. More of us run cars. More of us own our houses. More of us have holidays abroad. The progress is comparative. We are not rolling in money and it's true that food banks are now a part of everyday life as indeed are charity shops. Their is no shame in that. Charity is not a new phenomenon and has always provided for the less fortunate in our society. There is undoubtedly much to which can aspire, but there is equally much for which we have cause to be grateful.

When Dvaid Moyes succeeded Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, it would not have reasonable to expect the success to continue. When England departed for Australia, they had no right to expect to just turn up and win. When the coalition came to power, they had no right to expect their policies to be embraced and loved but then neither did they have much choice. Yes, it remains tough at the top. Some of their policies such as HS2, the sale of the Post Office and their massaging of the housing market have been plain wrong and history will bear out this assertion. Many of their decisions though have been forced upon them and history will bear this out too.