Visa for the Olympic Games Tickets

You'll need a visa to get in!

Those who want to come to the 2012 Olympic Games and live abroad may well need a visa to get into Britain. Fair do's, really. However, what is not fair is that Visa, the credit/debit card operator, which has become a sponsor of the games, is dictating which credit cards you can use. Theirs! And theirs alone, it seems.

I spotted a group on Facebook calling itself  "Olympic Visa Boycott". They are campaigning for a change to sponsorship arrangements

"If you want to go to the London Olympics in 2012, you won't be able to buy tickets using any credit or debit card other than Visa. While you're there, you won't be able to use any other card to pay for food, souvenirs, etc.


The reason for this is that Visa is one of the main Olympic sponsors, and has done a deal to exclude other card handlers from anything related to the Olympics.


We believe this is unfair, unreasonable and entirely unjustifiable. There's nothing wrong with commercial sponsorship of sporting events whereby the sponsor gets exposure of their brand in return for the organiser getting money. But sponsors should not be able to dictate what the fans can and cannot do. Whether it's the credit card you use, the clothes you wear or the food you eat, the sponsors have no moral right to override your choice."

Like them, I'm perfectly happy in a commercial world for companies to sponsor people, games, events, etc. But to put people to the inconvenience of not being able to use a credit/debit card simply because it is a competitor's is simply wrong. It is moral blackmail. This happened in South Africa with the football World Cup with assorted merchandisers. It is an insidious, invidious thing!

I believe in free enterprise. My blog is here so I can say things against covert corporate sleaze and wrongdoing, often done in total opposition to free enterprise and entrepreneurship. This action is anti-competitive, it is undemocratic too. Why? Because Visa are denying choice in the market place. In order to purchase merchandise at the event, you have to have either cash about your person or a Visa card of some sorts. If you dare to have a MasterCard on you, do the remnants of the Stasi get overtime bonuses whilst they root out the offending cards?

Lord Coe should come clean now. Is this what we want in a sporting venue? Anti-competitive, self-interested monopolising of commercial activity by secret agreement!


Visa had a glitch!

BP face angry protests at AGM today

Oily protesters in action

The board of BP plc is likely to get the drilling of their corporate careers today. Unless they have imposed an iron grip on proceedings, in a Gaddafi-like manner, they will hear protests outside the hall and within it. Many angry fishermen, small business owners, state officials and others have become shareholders. The fact that in most corporate entities shareholders get fewer democratic rights than an oil rich autocracy is no reason not to try to have your say.

BP has a history of ducking and diving. Oil and water don't mix and the Gulf of Mexico experience proves that point exceptionally well. I do get a sense that BP is trying to make amends, as their website quite openly shows, with the orange tab (in stark contrast to the green) indicating "Gulf of Mexico restoration". However, a more contrite approach today would be helpful.

The Republican Party is against tax raising to help out with the current financial situation as they say this will stifle job creation. But it is the corporate mentality of being above the law, of riding roughshod over regulations that causes small business to suffer. Big business can clobber with impunity it seems. When they get caught out, they suffer for a while. But it is the enterprising business people who create their own businesses that can get knocked out of the water, literally.

Maybe saying sorry might be a better start than sitting on stage like a politburo ensemble batting questions into the long grass.

BP unites Christians in opposition to high exec pay and poor safety

BP and its legacy

BP fans more flames with its corporate management strategy than it ever does with oil itself. If they just decided once and for all that telling lies, covering up mistakes and generally acting like spivs on the make is not the stuff of proper corporate management then they might make some progress. As it is,  investors and Christian ones at that, are decidely uneasy with it all.

Both Catholic and protestant investing groups are likely to vote against the remuneration pacxkages, the election of certain directors and other items on the agenda. BP executives should realise that labourers are worthy of their hire but shysters are first in line for throwing out of the temple!

More here: - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/8433017/BP-unites-Christians-in-opposition-to-high-exec-pay-and-poor-safety.html

BAA told to sell two airports!

Flying the flag....but for how long?

Well, well! BAA is not flavour of the month. Having been told to sell off Gatwick they now have another crusty jewel in their crown to sell. Stansted is seen by the Competition Commission as the second airport BAA should not have. But it doesn't end there. The hapless airport company is also told to sell either Glasgow or Edinburgh as well. This is all a bit like the ditty Ten Green Bottles, or, in their case, seven. They did have seven. They could end up with only four. And if Heathrow doesn't get better than Calcutta Airport, they might have none.

BAA once was the "British Airports Authority" and did have some authority. Then they were privatised and stuck with the BAA monicker, but were definitely no longer an authority. At this rate BAA could mean Bugger All Airports, but that would be terrible. They're not that bad. They just need to get a grip of things. Like many corporate businesses they put themselves first, the shareholders second and the customers come a poor third. If they don't want to have their airports picked off one by one they should figure out how to put all three - customers, bosses and shareholders - in a happy win-win situation.

Unless that happens they can expect to circle the planes as the passengers may be on the warpath!

Spivs and gamblers to be rounded up?

Vince Cable has refused to apologise for attacking excessive bank bonuses paid to "spivs and gamblers". CBI director general Richard Lambert said Mr Cable was right to call for shareholders to act in the wider public interest, but he added, "It's odd that he thinks it sensible to use such emotional language. The case for corporate takeovers is that they allow control of poorly run businesses to pass into more efficient hands. Mr Cable has harsh things to say about the capitalist system. It will be interesting to hear his ideas for an alternative."

The thing is Vince Cable isn't seeking an alternative. He just wants the present set-up cleaned up with spanking new brooms. Mr.Lambert needs to get a grip. The present corporate rodeo cannot continue as it is. Firstly, let him come clean about what these bonuses are actually for. Secondly, let him reveal the remuneration committees and their workings. And third, let's have some concrete ideas for plc shareholder democracy. Currently it is all revolving doors and everybody taking in each other's washing.

If it were all about efficient hands I'd be the first to give Mr.Lambert a flag to wave. But the BP fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico shows that corporate efficiency and corporate expediency are fighting it out centre stage at that rodeo!

Vince Cable tells it as it is!

I was going to write masses of stuff on Vince Cable's critique of corporate Britain. But I can't just yet get it all out of my head for it to make much sense. So I went to Robert Peston's blog and found his first unmoderated comment from someone called "watriler". It goes:-

"The reaction to Cable's remarks reminds me of the quote "The religion of the Englishman is the law of supply and demand". In modern capitalism there is no free market except in that free enterprise is hardly controlled. Their aim is to eliminate or manage competition. Throw the text books away."

Couldn't put it better myself. Vince Cable said of Gordon Brown that he had gone from being Stalin to being Mr.Bean. British corporations have made sure that there are no Mr.Beans to cause trouble and have made sure their gravy trains remain on track. We must be mad to put up with it all.

On the radio this morning a woman from Price Waterhouse was complaining about the immigration policy. She apparently wants 63 erudite beancounters from outside the EU to "make a cultural difference" to PWC's business in London. She also popped in the now mandatory blackmailing threat that she and her co-workers "might leave the country".

What is it with these people? Is patriotism dead? Are they so craven to filthy lucre that nothing will get in their way? David Cameron says we are all in this together. I get the impression it is not about fighting the deficit but stopping these boardroom bozos from causing us any more problems.

Free enterprise is not an easy thing, but at least it allows people to develop their talents, try out their ideas and be free to work as they wish. On the other hand, the big business theory of today seems more like an effort to circle the wagons and keep the real entrepreneurs out. Pension deficits, uncontrolled remuneration committees, slapdash safety and forced redundancies are just a few of the negative aspects of corporate business.

If shareholders really did control these large companies, we might get some real change. But all the while they try to eliminate or manage competition and keep everything as it is, we won't.

Sorry seems so hard to say!

What seems to be an ultimate priority in both government and corporate circles is to have people working for them that are either powerless to say sorry or too bovine to say sorry. Having an ability to obfuscate, to deceive or just manipulate the truth is uppermost on most executives CVs. The HMRC is no exception.

HM Revenue and Customs Permanent Secretary Dave Hartnett sees nothing wrong in 1.4 million people getting a tax bombshell. He just puts it down to administrative niceties. Mr Hartnett told BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme, "I'm not sure I see a need to apologise. I've read the papers, listened to the media and heard stories of HMRC blunder and IT failure. Neither of those are true." Maybe not, but his high-handed attitude to customer service stinks. Possibly it's that kind of ability they prize highly in HMRC.

I didn't hear of such a kerfuffle last year. Why now? And is Mr.Hartnett so devoid of practical nous that he doesn't see a customer relations failure in front of his face?

Of course, this "stuff-the-customer" approach is endemic. bmibaby have just been caught out with a sleazy trick at East Midlands Airport (and others too!). Exposed on BBC's Watchdog they have been shown having two sizes of cabin bag gauges. One at the general check-in and one at the gate. Of course, the one at the gate is the smaller one, ideal for fleecing the passengers for having "wrong-sized" bags. Staff said the bosses knew all about this scam but when confronted by Watchdog they claimed hardly a soul had complained! Really? The moon's made of green cheese, by the way. This money-earner has been put out of action, but should we be on the lookout for others like it?

Supermarkets too were covered in this programme. Shoddy tricks over meal deals. I confront the staff at my local supermarkets now. One trick they play is to have an offer going for a while then take it off but they do not put a new bar-coded price label on the shelf. The idea is to fool the customer into thinking the price is as it was. A similar trick is to place more expensive items in the cheaper items shelf space. A busy customer could well be fooled into buying the more expensive item. A staff member told me this was seen as been normal practice.

It seems all are at it in some way. Utilities, banks, you name them, corporate Britain is getting the Del-Boy style of executive leadership. Except the laughs are in short supply.

I think we need a proper consumer organisation to campaign for and champion the customer's side of the fence. "Unexpected item in the bagging area!" says the machine and the customer gets pounced on. It was suggested to me that I had scanned an incorrect bar code. "The bar codes are not my responsibility," I retorted. Maybe Shami Chakrabati could head up some organisation, or Ann Widdecombe. These businesses need a good going over!