As I Was Saying .........

Written by Geoff Seeff on Thu 23rd Jul 2009

"President" Dinner Jacket and the Iranian Elections

Did I ever tell you that I have Iranian connections and that, as a consequence, I have followed that country's progress, or perhaps I should say regress, with personal interest and not inconsiderable sadness over the past 30 years? No? Perhaps involvement, however remote or tenuous, with states that have long been deemed to be pariahs by Europeans is not the sort of thing that one shares readily with those you are seeking to impress. But, there it is, I do have "connections" and, despite its recent turbulent history, I confess to being an Iranophile.

The first I ever knew of Iranians (or Persians as they were pleased to call themselves at that time) was nearly 50 years ago when I was twelve and met "Almonds" (probably Ahmed) and his very pretty sister at summer camp. They were both slightly older than me, educated at a very British public school and were endowed with wealth, charm, a mischievous streak and the luck to get away with whatever that streak led them to do. Amongst other things, they encouraged me to jump off a 10 metre diving board, which took some doing as I had only just learned to swim a few weeks earlier. When you have done that, you can take on the whole world - which the three of us then proceeded to do, including swaggering into a pub and ordering, and being served, a pint of cider (each). If they ever returned to Iran, and unfortunately I have no idea whether they did or not, I sincerely hope that the Mullahs neither dampened nor denied their spirits.

When my wife to be came into my life, I had assumed that, having spent her early years in Istanbul, there was a good chance that she was of Turkish nationality. How wrong can you be? Her father had been born in Thessaloniki, which you will immediately recognise as being in Greece, of Czechoslovakian nationality. In the late 1930s Turkey was a more hospitable political environment for Jews and his family moved a couple hundred miles across the border, where they encountered no problems until the War broke out. Czech nationality ceased to exist and they were then stateless. They probably could have taken Turkish nationality - but fearful of Turkey's ability to remain neutral, they searched for other options. It appears that, as traders, family predecessors had travelled the silk route for centuries and, having at some point remained for more than a few days in Isfahan, could claim Iranian nationality. So they did and, even though neither her father nor she had set foot in that country up until that time, that was Deanna's status when I met her. When we were about to get married and she was about to renounce her Iranian nationality in favour of adopting that of her future husband, Iranian officials in London did all they could to persuade her that she would regret doing so (we will be the second wealthiest nation on earth etc) and to persuade me to take it up along with the Moslem faith. I still have the letters. They failed ….but who knows where I might be today if we had been tempted. Rotting away in Evin prison in all probability - no, come to think of it I would have already rotted away a long time ago as I am sure that they would have incarcerated me under the Shah's regime.

You see my connections became even closer than having a wife who was an ex-Iranian. My first employer after leaving university was a major accounting firm, Coopers and Lybrand, and the partners believed that it put hairs on the chests of their staff if they served time in challenging overseas locations. In early 1975 I was due to be sent to Madrid to help set up a new consultancy practice - and mightily excited I was about that. After my initial briefing visit I set about learning Spanish from my Berlitz self tuition course like a thing possessed and had advanced my studies well beyond "dos cervecas por favor" (actually I got to ocho cervecas….) when El Generalissimo popped his castanets and the country went into a mini spin. With our new practice project on ice the powers that were decided my future lay in Tehran where "they" (who they?) were crying out for young blood. As Tehran was not Transylvania, I accepted the call, and embarked on a new life accompanied by said wife and our one year old child.

We stayed for a little under two years and there is no question but that it was a character forming experience which I will never regret having had. But did we enjoy it? Did we become attached to Iran's culture and people? Did we get job satisfaction from helping a developing nation? Yes, we had a bit of fun at the expat social events, we made some wonderful Iranian friends with whom we remain in touch, and I worked on some amazingly ambitious projects - none of which came to anything for the reasons I am about to disclose. The problem was that corruption in its various forms was endemic, the mistrust as between the pro-Shah ruling classes, the educated liberal democratic opponents and the general population was palpable whilst all three groups harboured a baleful resentment towards the "Ferenghi" or foreign worker - of which I was most decidedly one. Under these circumstances being taken advantage of in any transaction involving money was inevitable - despite gaining some facility in Farsi, I spent half my time arguing with traders I thought were trying to cheat me….and the other half getting cheated but not knowing it. But daily life was affected in many ways, whether, for example, finding that essential foods suddenly became unavailable to expats in the local supermarket or waiting interminably to get a telephone line installed. The final straw for me came when, having spent 6 months evaluating and negotiating a major tender we were ready to make our recommendations to appoint an American contractor. Overnight our client, in the form of all senior members of a government department, including the minister, went awol - a two week tour of the flesh spots of South East Asia courtesy of the Japanese contractor we were not recommending. Of course they returned with instructions to make sure an award of part of the works went to the Japanese and they then continued to play all sorts of games to disadvantage the Americans. I resigned in disgust - but, perhaps unwisely and certainly naively, not before making my feelings about the matter known in unequivocal terms.

As I said, had I become an Iranian I would have happily joined protesters against the Shah, protesters against Khomenei, protesters against all the other ayatollahs that succeeded him and definitely against "President" Ahmedinejad and his pathetic entourage following the recent fiddled elections. And I would have been long dead!

Protesting against the Establishment in UK

Although there is much to protest about in the UK, the fact is that we do protest ….and in contrast with my friends in Iran, are not incarcerated or shot for our pains. Every time I watch a TV programme like Question Time and see a minister squirm under a grilling from a panel member or better, a member of the audience, I feel a swelling of pride for this country and its lack of respect for "the Establishment". I say "earn our respect and we will give it to you, abuse your position and you will forfeit it".

And so it is with the MP's expenses scandal. So much has been written and said on this subject that there is little that I can now add that will provide either enlightenment or amusement. But pace my comment on respect, even though it will have been a commercial decision, I salute the Daily Telegraph for its fearless exposure (albeit they would not have had the same fear that their counterpart in Tehran would have had) and analysis of the claims - something I never thought a LibDem would ever say about this particular paper and mouthpiece of the Tories. Delightfully they gave equal measure of opprobrium to Labour and Tory cheats and "flippers" - and, quite properly, took the mickey out of the minor transgressions of the LibDem claimants - my friend Chris Huhne's trouser press and Lembit Opik's "mother of all wigs".

Remarkably throughout the brouhaha one person we did not hear from on the subject was our own MP, Iain Duncan Smith - apparently still "a quiet man". The reason for his silence became clear as it emerged that he too had taken advantage of the uncontrolled system of allowances.

In fact IDS claims less for personal expenses than almost any other MP - so he can't be accused of "flipping" or dipping his hand into the till for his enrichment or pleasure. Nevertheless, what he has done is to claim a sum of £11,000 as office costs, paid to a company controlled by the Tories' former Director of Communications, for the preparation of reports for the Centre for Social Justice, the think tank he set up.

Apart from the lack of openness in the procurement of the service (were other quotations obtained? - after all he was spending public money), the House of Commons Green Book is explicit as to what constitutes "office costs". And what it does not include is developing Tory party policy. These costs should properly have been borne from party funds or the think tank itself - the claims were inappropriate and the money should be repaid.

IDS has apparently now called for "wholesale reform of the expenses system". I'll bet he has…but where was his call for reform when he was leader of his party? Similar abuses were taking place at that time and he could not but have been aware of how his colleagues were exploiting the situation for their own benefit. Neither was he in the forefront of the opposition to the Government's attempt to exempt MPs from the Freedom of Information Act (2007) nor did he offer support for the LibDem's motion for independent audit of expenses in 2008. In fact he has never supported any measure that would have given greater transparency to the proceedings of parliament.

Transparency and Proportional Representation

Try this as an argument for proportional representation.

Our first past the post system creates a number of constituencies where it is virtually impossible for voters to secure a change of party representation - so called "safe seats" - although I prefer the term "rotten boroughs". Thus there are towns and communities in the North of England which, for the foreseeable future and regardless of a Labour government's errors and unpopularity, will send to Westminster a left leaning working man/woman. And there are towns in the South East where the proverbial monkey in a blue suit would win the election for the Tories - present company excluded for I still have great faith in the good sense of the electors of Chingford and Woodford Green.

The fact that the results of a general election usually turn around a few dozen marginal seats breeds a sense of complacency in the establishment politicians - which in turn leads to the sort of corruption (for that is what it amounts to) that we have seen with the abuse of expenses. Whilst there was an entitlement to properly incurred expenses for those members whose constituencies were out of London, complacency that no one would dare challenge them led to the situation where they thought they could claim for anything up to the limit of the allowance, paid for or not. Significantly, MPs in marginal seats were less likely to have made spurious claims.

So it follows that if we devise multi-member constituencies and elect representatives under a proportional system, making tenure more dependent on the performance and policies of a party and less on the demographic composition of a small area, politicians will find themselves more accountable and will need to try harder to earn our respect. That has to be a good thing.

The BNP - and what to do about it

But, I hear you say, proportional representation was the electoral system used in the recent European Elections and which has now allowed in to a key political institution extremist parties such as the BNP - not because they receive strong support but because the low turnout in some areas (occasioned, amongst other things, by disgust over the aforementioned expenses) meant that that party's percentage of the poll went up to reach the threshold for a seat. That has to be a bad thing, a very bad thing, and of course you are right.

Most decent people will be appalled by the thought of the BNP gaining seats in any election. Moreover, the two individual members elected to the European Parliament both have criminal records and are known to be unsavoury characters. Could they use the funds they will now be entitled to draw down to insinuate their fellow travellers into our institutions, further promoting their vile propaganda?

All mainstream politicians are in total agreement that the BNP and what it stands for is abhorrent. Where we disagree is what we should do about it. Many are not prepared to appear on the same platform as their representatives - they do not wish to legitimise them and allow them the oxygen of publicity (some would say the oxygen of oxygen!).

Hitherto I have adopted the attitude "no tolerance for the intolerant" - why show fair play to those who don't play fair? But for various reasons I have come round to the view that it might be better to confront them openly and demolish their pernicious arguments. We can start by asking:-

Why are you a whites only party?

What exactly do you mean by "British"?

How will you implement a policy whose slogan is "British jobs for British workers"? (of course, we can thank Gordon Brown for that inglorious phrase - albeit without racial overtones)

Do you have any policies on other matters of interest to the electorate - or is immigration the answer to life, the universe and everything?

And so on and so forth……..

I would not hold my breath for straight answers.

Geoff Seeff

July 2009