The Private Investor: 'I've a tradition of buying shares in hate companies on 1 May'

Thanks to those readers who've sent me best wishes after my recent illness, and thanks also to those who've asked me not to forget my little campaign on the friendly societies. No, I haven't forgotten about it and yes, I will be writing more about them in the future. The stock market's performance, even though it has perked up recently with the best monthly gain in five-and-a-half years, has been fairly depressing over the past few years, but the friendlies have been using it as a handy alibi. Charges, charges, charges are the thing to keep your eye on with friendly plans, now as ever. I shall return to the topic.

Meanwhile, we have lived through yet another day of anti-capitalist protests. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm as anti-capitalist as the next Womble. There is a lot wrong with capitalism as a system, and, for what it's worth, I incline towards the view that free markets shouldn't be allowed to operate always and everywhere. My own experience of the National Health Service confirms me in that view. Had my accident been more serious, for example, and I had had to pay for my treatment, I might well have been bankrupted by it.

Private insurance might have taken care of the bills, but then we can't all afford it, and in any case, the private companies have so many clauses and rules about what they won't pay out for and so on... in other words Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is quite right when he points to how the NHS is the best possible method of no-questions-asked social insurance, in which the community collectively agrees to look after its weaker, sicker members when they need help regardless of means.

For all the talk about foundation hospitals and the private finance initiative (questions that seem to be entirely pragmatic ones that have gained an unfortunate ideological tint) the real threat to the NHS is simply that more and more people seem to be opting out and getting their cheque books out to pay for one-off elective surgery or perhaps certain items of equipment that may not be readily available.

In other words you don't have to join Bupa or AXA PPP healthcare to go private – and more and more people are doing so. They are not by any means always happy with the results, but the trend is undermining the NHS more viciously than anything else, yet it is a trend that barely seems to attract attention.

From what I could see from my hospital bed those who use the NHS are skewed as a cross section of society towards the poorer end of the scale. Of course the poor and the old tend to be ill disproportionately; but it was quite a disturbing thing. The NHS has got some rough edges (don't let anyone tell you Loyd Grossman has improved hospital food) and I think it is these more than the occasional real failings of the service that give the NHS such a bad image.

So, as I was saying, I don't always support the markets. I really do wish someone would nationalise the railways. But I cannot say I have much time for the onanists who go on these anti-capitalism demonstrations. The targets are just so predictable. The violence is entirely unnecessary. The vandalism is offensive. It is for this reason that I have begun a tradition of buying shares in hate companies on every 1 May, just for the sheer hell of it. I can't, even after all these years, find it in myself to buy tobacco companies, although the yields are, ahem, healthy, and not all are like BAT, which is facing ruinous American health lawsuits.

Last year my 1 May purchase was McDonald's, (that's the shares not the quarter pounder with cheese) which proved a poor buy for reasons that have nothing to do with the antics of Critical Mass and the Socialist Alliance and have everything to do with a burger price war in the US (heaven help Homer Simpson) and with the drift towards healthier eating (me included). Anyhow, they're down a third, so the last laugh is with the Communists there, I suppose.

This year British Aerospce was a contender, along with other arms manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin. I have, however, plumped for Shell, even though I disapprove of the fat cat excesses of their directors. No, I can't see the oil price booming anytime soon either, but, just like the would-be revolutionaries who trash McDonald's, sometimes you just have to take a long view.

s.ogrady@independent.co.uk