Cicero's Songs

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have ...

A lot of anger is directed towards those in the corporate world who earn large salaries. Sometimes, in my view, that anger is not truly justified: for example, when an entrepreneur takes out income based on their ownership of a company, I -for one- tend to see it as just reward for those who take a risk with their capital. However, listening to Martin Sorell on the Radio trying to justify his large remuneration , despite the objections of the shareholders in WPP was not an example of just reward.  The fact is that Martin Sorell does not own the company he founded and built any more- his ownership is less than 1% of the shares- which still represents £800 million- after several sales, not least following his divorce from his first wife in 2005. he may have founded it, and built it but now he no longer owns it. However, Sir Martin, is insisting on a substantial increase in his remuneration, to reflect, as he sees it the success of WPP over the past year. Yet, he does not seem t...

I watched the football match between the Republic of Ireland and Estonia last Friday.  As the Hungarian referee made decision after decision that favoured the Irish visitors, it was firstly frustrating, then infuriating, then contemptible. I am not the only one who believes that the match we saw last Friday was not fairly refereed. Other too point out that Estonia should not have had to face two red cards and a penalty There is then the question of why Estonia faced this biased match? Personally I do not think that UEFA or FIFA would have decided that Ireland deserved a measure of recompense for the Hand of Gaul , although Armenia have formally complained that they suffered similar bias when they played Ireland. I do think it is possible that Football may be suffering from the same kind of problem as Cricket . Ireland is a betting mad nation, and huge wagers are staked whenever the Republic plays. I am no expert, but to my eye, the quality of refereeing...