Coppola Comment

My mother, Joy Cooke, died last Wednesday, 24th May, at the age of eighty-seven. It was a peaceful end. Beautiful, in a way. Mum had been ill for a long time. She had vascular dementia, triggered by an accidental morphine overdose after an orthopaedic operation in 2013. She also had COPD, brought on by a lifetime of smoking. For the first year of her slide into the oblivion of dementia, she was cared for by my father. But in August 2014, after she became doubly incontinent and both physically and mentally frail, he had to admit that her care was too much for him. She went into a nursing home that specialised in the care of those with dementia. There she remained until her death. I wasn't there when she died. But I had been to see her earlier that day, along with my father and my youngest brother, Tim. She was very weak: though she reached out to each of us in turn to hold our hands, her grip was feeble. Sadly, she who had smiled so much during the last four years had lost he...

It had to happen. Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, has refused to commit to a net migration target. Facing a barrage of complaints from the hospitality industry about potential staff shortages post-Brexit, Rudd appears to be softening the government's line.  She told BBC Radio 5Live's Pienaar's Politics: "My personal view is we need to continue to bring immigration down. I want to make sure that we do it in a way that supports businesses.” So what way might that be, then? After all, her boss is on record as saying she thinks net migration should fall to the tens of thousands. Currently, it is in the hundreds of thousands: according to the latest ONS statistics , net migration for 2016 was 273,000 (net inflow), of which 164,000 was from outside the EU. Even if immigration from the EU stopped completely after Brexit, it would not be enough to bring net migration down to levels Theresa May considers "sustainable". The UK would also have to impose much more d...

This thread on Twitter has attracted a lot of attention. It goes some way towards explaining why older people are generally in favour of Brexit, and why Theresa May's "strong and stable" mantra particularly appeals to the baby boomer generation. For those who aren't on Twitter, I've paraphrased part of the thread here. I have been thinking about the "strong and stable" mantra, in the context of my mum, who thinks Theresa May is great. Mum is a product of post war Social democracy (born 1947). She got 6 good O levels despite failing the 11+, and went into the civil service. She got into a mess due to creating me with my irresponsible dad, but then met my stepfather, whom she is still with. In material terms, since the early 80s my mum and my stepfather have had no money worries. They've had stability from their 40s to their 70s. And they also had stability in their earlier lives through full employment, the NHS, workplace/union rights, public ...

"Why have you changed your avatar?" asked a friend of mine. Why indeed. Ever since I joined Twitter in 2010, my avatar has always been a picture of me, and my Twitter name has always been my own name. I've never wanted - or needed - to be anonymous. So why now? The image on my avatar is the Anarchist Cat. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it: The  black cat , also called the "wild cat" or "sabot-cat", usually with an arched back and with claws and teeth bared, is closely associated with anarchism, especially with anarcho-syndicalism. It was designed by  Ralph Chaplin , who was a prominent figure in the  Industrial Workers of the World  (IWW). As its aggressive stance suggests, the cat is meant to suggest such ideas as  wildcat strike actions ,  sabotage , and radical unionism. A while ago, I added triple parentheses around my name in solidarity with the online Jewish community. Anti-Semitic elements on social media use triple parent...

Since I wrote my post about the Bank of England's alleged manipulation of Libor before and during the financial crisis, something of a witch hunt seems to have developed. Certain people with axes to grind have jumped on the bandwagon set in motion by the BBC's Andy Verity and are aggressively promoting their view that the Bank of England's behaviour was fraudulent. Their argument is that the Bank of England has no business attempting to influence market rates, that those at the Bank who did this should be brought to justice just as traders who rigged Libor  have been, and that businesses, households and public sector bodies that lost money when the Bank of England "talked down" Libor should be compensated. This is arrant nonsense. Influencing market rates is what central banks do . It is called monetary policy, and it is the means by which they control inflation. If central banks could not legally influence market rates, monetary policy as we know it would ...

Nearly five years ago, the former CEO of Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond, defended himself against accusations that on his watch, Barclays had deliberately falsified Libor submissions. To no avail: after widespread adverse press coverage, Diamond resigned. Was this at the instigation of the Governor of the Bank of England and the head of the FSA? We will probably never know. But events yesterday make not only Diamond's resignation, but also the prosecution and jailing of traders and Libor submitters from Barclays and other banks, look distinctly odd. The BBC's Andy Verity has revealed the existence of a recording which appears to indicate that the Bank of England and the Treasury pressured banks to "lowball" their Libor submissions during the financial crisis. According to Verity, the conversation, between a junior Libor submitter (who was subsequently jailed) and his manager, ran like this: In the recording, a senior Barclays manager, Mark Dearlove, instructs Libor...

I have been going to the gym. Seriously. For about a couple of months now. I'm doing weight training for the first time in my life, and cardio exercises, including - wonder of wonders - short bursts of running. I'm even paying for a personal trainer. It's a shocking extravagance, but I'm likely to find any excuse under the sun not to do my workouts unless I have someone telling me what to do and shouting at me if I don't do it. As one of my school reports said, "Frances does not enjoy physical exertion". Truer words were never spoken. Sporty, I am not. So why am I doing this? It is all because of my family. Specifically, my father. He has serious heart problems, vascular deterioration in his brain and Type II diabetes. And I am a lot like him.  Ok, so he is 83. But he was a lot more active in his 50s than I have become. Since I reduced my singing teaching and took up writing, I have become largely sedentary. Even gardening has gone, killed by a...