I'm wrong, and here's why

My Times piece has prompted a couple of very good critiques (maybe more, but I have no proper internet connection now).

Tim Worstall says:

The problem is, as described, the change in the ratio between productive workers and the non-productive. Whether the money to pay for that second group comes from taxation of the first, or from dividends from the profits of their efforts, makes little difference to the fact that we have got this change in the ratio of the productive to the non-.

And he has some good comments there, too.

And this chap also takes me task:

Pollard is right to identify the demographic problem, yet his solutions highlight a lack of depth in his analysis. He should have at least acknowledged the double payment problem in pensions reform, which is one of the best known problems in policy studies. Similarly, he should have acknowledged that privatisation might not be best for the NHS and would not solve the problem of pensioners without medical insurance.

I'd hotly dispute his assertions about the NHS,  but he's quite right to point out the double payment problem. Given that I devoted only four sentences to the idea of funding, however, I couldn't deal with every tecnicality.

As soon as BT do their job and connect me, I'll link to my pamphlet on this issue where I deal with just that issue.

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Brown and Cameron – marooned on Fantasy Island

I have a column in today's Times, on demography, public services and Mr Roarke and Tattoo. You can read it here:

Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are conducting Fantasy Island politics. Both promise “world-class” public services. Mr Brown says his prescription is the only way, and the Conservatives will make cuts. Mr Cameron says . . . oh, who cares? It doesn’t matter. Both men are having a Fantasy Island argument for a Fantasy Island electorate through the Fantasy Island media. Neither of them are even acknowledging, let alone confronting, the biggest issue of all in the funding of public services: where’s the money going to come from? That question is not about tax cuts. It’s not about stealth taxes. It’s not about any of the ultimately irrelevant issues about which politicians scream.

It is about demography. It is about that, as a country – as a continent, indeed – we are getting older. And that means tax funding won’t be enough.

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BT - as useless as ever

I'm moving house on Wednesday. I have to apologise now for the fact that posting will be sporadic for the week after that. Not because I'm unwilling to post, or too busy, but because of BT's inefficiency.

I am moving from a flat with a broadband capable exchange to a house with a broadband capable exchange. I move on Wednesday. But BT say that they will not be able to switch on our new broadband account until five working days later - the following Tuesday.

We don't need an engineer to visit. We don't need anyone to set anything up. All we need is for someone to press a button at the exchange. But that takes, apparently, five days.

I work from home. Or rather, I do for all bar the five days after Wednesday, because BT can't be bothered, even if offered extra money for an express service, to work speedily. Welcome to the twentyfirst century, BT style. And sod the customer.

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A mesmerising, real Passion

I was lucky enough to go to the first performance yesterday of the new production of the St Matthew Passion at Glyndebourne. At Glyndebourne? Yes - it was a fully staged production, directed by Katie Mitchell. 
 
My expectations were mixed. The cast - the peerless Mark Padmore as the Evangelist, and Sarah Connolly, a singer I would cross continents to hear (as I have done) - looked first class. But I have yet to see a Katie Mitchell production I did not find pretentious. Her Three Sisters and Seagull at the National were raved about. I loathed them, and walked out of both at the interval. To me, they represented everything wrong with so many Chekhov productions. Dark, brooding, portentous and SLOW. Why do so many directors ignore the sheer humour in Chekhov? 

I digress. I saw the Jonathan Miller staged St Matthew Passion a few years ago at Holy Trinity, Sloane Square and thought it a very worthwhile thing to do, even though I wondered in advance what could possibly be gained by staging so perfect - and dramatic - an oratorio? Maybe the very fact of so much drama in the music is the clue to why it worked. 

Well Sir Jonathan's production was, compared with what Glyndebourne saw yesterday, entirely conventional. Katie Mitchell's production is a 'proper' staging, with characters, a controversial setting, and full-on acting. And it is also subtle, mesmerising, moving, enchanting, gripping and utterly magnificent. 

Somehow she has found a way to recreate the sense of story telling and awe that the original performances of the Passion must have had. It is set in a school, "somewhere in Europe, now", as the programme puts it. The parents have gathered after a Beslan-style tragedy. They become the audience for a retelling of the Passion story by a troupe of four travelling players. They listen, they watch, and they take part - acting as the chorus and guided through their roles by the troupe. 

Parts of it were unbearably moving. There were people crying in the audience - and at Glyndebourne, that's saying something. 

Benjamin Britten gave a fascinating lecture on receiving the first Aspen award, about how the way that we hear music today has changed. He cited the St Matthew Passion. Today, we can pop on a recording and there it is, in our homes. In the past, however, it was a rare and special thing to hear it - either annually at Easter or, for most listeners, perhaps once or twice in their lives. I thought of that lecture watching this near-miraculous production. Katie Mitchell and her sensationally good cast give a new sense of the wonder of how directly powerful and relevant this piece and its story can be. It wasn't a good, or even a great, performance; it felt like the Passion actually mattered to these people, and to us - even to a non-Christian such as myself. 

It would be invidious to single anyone out, so I will. Mark Padmore has long been the finest Evangelist I have ever heard - and I have heard dozens of St Matthew Passions, which is, I believe, amongst the two or three greatest works of art in history. But here he was not merely a narrator but a participant, helping to heal the emotional wounds of the chorus. Mesmerising.  The whole performance was spellbinding. During 'Erbarme dich', Sarah Connolly cradles a grieving father in her arms. One could not but well up.

There were, astonishingly, some boos at the curtain call. Philistinism lives on. 

(UPDATE: Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that anyone who didn't like it is a philistine - only those so rude and ignorant as to boo it!)

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