Simon's Scribblings

The end of my involvement with LPUK

2011-12-05T16:06:00.001Z

I've just sent this as an open letter which needs no explanation.

Andrew,

Please accept this open letter as my resignation from LPUK.

They say that the only things that you regret in life are the things you didn’t do, in my case this isn’t correct as I regret 2 of my actions:

The first was believing your bullshit and volunteering my time and money to an LPUK with you at the centre.

The second was believing that the party belonged to its members and, more importantly, that you believed it as well. I certainly misread those signs.

In an heroic case of the triumph of hope over experience I thought that a few quiet months might mean that you quietly went, but obviously you aren’t going. I should have let you close the party earlier this year, at least that way a true libertarian could have picked up the reigns after a year or so, but unfortunately my actions of trying to keep the party alive when you resigned, but refused to hand over the leadership to people who care, have allowed the name of libertarianism in this country to be sullied and I want no further part.

Your self-delusion and aggrandisement is an insult to libertarianism, but then as I look back I realise that this was never about libertarianism but about your own narrow view of the world, as your Stalinist approach to the party has shown. I am now convinced that you aren’t going to let the members have their say in a leadership contest until you have ensured that your grip is such that those who truly had the party’s best interests at heart have all left and you are surrounded by a few people who, for their own reasons, want to protect you as leader.

I won’t say I wish you well for the future, I don’t .

Simon Fawthrop

PS Don’t bother making any replies confidential, your trade mark stance when someone disagrees with, I will publish them.

The new localism bill

2011-06-08T14:55:00.001+01:00

I was at the Parish Council meeting last night and the new District Councillor gave a brief summary of the new localism bill which is going to hand down more powers, and money, to Parish Councils. As one of the more cynical PCs said - I'll beleive that when I see it, and so will I.

Anyway she reckons it will be a lot more than just planning that will be deregulated and we'll get to know more at the next meeting. This got me pondering the whole role of Government again the one where the idea is that we hire the state to do the things we can't do ourselves. So lets just say they devolve planning power to PCs, apart from being a NIMBYs charter what would it mean?

Well we wouldn't need a planning officer full time but we would need access to one to ensure that any submitted plans do follow basic planning laws, I presume we won't get carte blanche, so how could we organise that? Well we could get together with a few other Parish Councils and hire one or two. We could even delegate this task to a central body that coordinated a few other tasks, say bin collection, libraries and other services we want to pay for. That would make sense as we could get economies of scale.

So how would that be different to now, you may ask? Well the money would be flowing up through the system and we would be paying for the service by writing cheques and if that service wasn't good enough we could withhold payment until it is and ff we don't like it we could buy from somewhere else, maybe a private company and inject some healthy competition in to the market.

Now there's a good reason I use this as an example. About 3 months ago plans were received for some work on a house in the middle of a road triabgle. Its a really wierd situation but somebody chooses to live there. They wanted to remove a fence and build a wall amongst other seemingly cosmetic changes. The plans had come from the planning officer with no objections so we have to assume that the plans met building and all other statutory regulations, don't we? Anyway, these were passed and the work began a couple of weeks ago.

What nobody had spotted until we all realised that the junction had become seriously dangerous was that the new wall was a meter outside the old fence and now completely obscured the view to the left unless you got the front of your vehicle in to the middle of the road. However, the view is fairly blind to the right as well as it is up a short hill and when getting out of the junction you need to be a bit sharpish.

The PC is going to take this up with the highways department and see what can be done. My view, and bearing in mind I am not a Parish Councillor, is that a very stiff letter should be sent to the planning office asking them what the bloody hell they think they were playing at? They are the professionals and should be picking up this sort of thing and advising the PC of the likely impact or at least referring to the highways department at let them decide.

Under the new localism bill I would certainly be withholding payment for that piece of work.

Whales to devour Dorchester, Weymouth and Portland

2011-06-08T11:42:00.000+01:00

The LPUK tale: Racoongate

2011-06-08T11:30:00.000+01:00

The worst legacy of Richard Nixon is the way "gate" is now added to every scandal just so that we all know that it is a scandal of huge proportions, but that's a different story.

The next part of the sorry tale is the blog post on Anna Racoon's website that laid in to Andrew Withers that kicked off the mess that LPUK descended in to. I don't intend going through it in any detail, this isn't the point of this tale, but I will make a couple of general comments.

When the post was first published I did read it and when asked to summarise it by someone who didn't have the I said it described Andrew Withers as a bit of a Walter Mitty character who had financial problems. Readers can judge for themselves whether of not my description was accurate.

I should also say that prior to the post I had been advised by Andrew that he and Anna had fallen out and that I should be wary of her. I took the view then that I still hold, most of these allegations were of a personal nature and I didn't want to get involved. I was also contacted by Anna and didn't call her, although I did offer her my email addresses. I suppose she wanted to warn me of what was to happen and maybe with hindsight I could have called her and might have been able to mitigate some of what was about to happen. But that's speculation with the benefit of hindsight so I won't be losing sleep over my decisions.

Its fair to say that when the post hit the blogoisphere it generated rather a lot of interest, especially from members and supports demanding answers. The response of the Party was right then and still is: Andrew Withers stood aside while Nic Coome investigated. I have a lot of time for Nic, he's a good steady guy, maybe wasn't going to set the Party alight but, I beleived than and still believe now, his integrity is irreproachable.

While Nic was carrying out his investigation the blogosphere was running wild and with hindsight it was obvious that no report was going to satisfy some unless it summarily found Andrew guilty of all charges and called for him to be hung drawn and quartered. It was not a pleasant time and some of the accusations and counter accusation were quite vitriolic with claims of libel being bandied about. This hardly created the atmosphere for an objective investigation and report but Nic did as well as anyone could do, IMHO.

In hindsight I suppose it shouldn't have came as any surprise that Nic's report just added to heat of the debate both internally and externally, for by now there was lots of emotive accusations flying around within the NCC. The split boils down to those who believe there was a cover-up and those, like me, who accept Nic's report. I am not here to justify anybody else's motives only to discuss my own position in this sad affair so I won't be voicing any of those accusations.

Why did I support Nic's report? There are a number of reasons but he main one's are that it may be old fashioned but I believe in Cabinet responsibility and there was only one issue worth worrying about, the allegations of wrong doing with the accounts. Having trusted to Nic to write the report I don't have a problem with his argument that most of the affair was personal between Andrew and Anna Racoon.

The point about the accounts is a bit more complicated. Firstly, the allegation that there is a secret second account just shows a lack of understanding of how an HSBC business account works. When you open up a business account you automatically get a Business Money Management (BMM) account. This is like a savings account but you can only move money in and out from the current account so I didn't have a problem with that one.

As to the allegations that Andrew had been using the accounts for his own benefit I had a fairly simple approach. Andrew was in the process of handing over the accounts to John Watson and it had been Andrew who had been looking for a new Treasurer. That hardly seemed to be the actions of someone who was deliberately defrauding the Party and if he was then he had either got John involved in a cover-up or it was all going to come out. From what John was saying I really couldn't see this being a cover-up, so all we had to do was wait.

Unfortunately the debate had now degenerated in to mud slinging, denials, counter mudslinging and counter denials with threats of libel and police involvement. Emotions started to run very high, as they do when debates and argument are conducted by emails and blog post. A minority report issued by Ken Ferguson added more fuel to the fire and the debate degenerated even further, if that was possible.

By this time Andrew was getting ever more defensive and John Watson was getting frustrated that the accounts weren't being handed over, which led to even more accusations, denials and defensiveness.

During this I was getting disillusioned and wondering what to do as there appeared no way out of the mess. I decided that I would cut my losses and rather than tender my resignation at the end of the year would do it now. However with all this going on I didn't want to add to Nic's immediate problems so I said that I wanted it to take effect from the end of June or before then if they found a replacement. As that email went to Andrew and Nic on 15 May I judged that 6 weeks was enough to find a replacement.

If I had known what my resignation was going to trigger I would have taken a different approach, but again that's hindsight.

Wrong question on IVF

2011-06-07T10:18:00.000+01:00

Radio 5 is asking the question: Is IVF a right? With the sub text can the NHS afford IVF?

This is based on the latest report from MPs that claims that:

More than 70% of NHS trusts and care providers are ignoring official guidance on offering infertile couples three chances at IVF
..
Others are placing tough restrictions on who can qualify.

The problem with this and any other debate on the NHS is that they rarely start from the premise that it is a rationed system. We might not like the idea but with modern treatments, especially treatments that extend the life of cancer patients by weeks or a few months huge expense, we will never be able to afford everything that everyone wants. These means that expectations are set way too high and the debate never addresses the real issue, how to apply rationing.

Furthermore, if IVF is a right it means someone else has an obligation to pay. This can be done in one of two ways: either we increase the health budget so that everyone gets all the treatments they want, irrespective of its impact on the economy, or someone else foregoes treatments that aren't a right. In the former case we eventually end up with nobody getting treatment as the whole economy collapses under the dead weight of the increased taxes or we end up with a battle of "rights". For example, is the IVF treatment of one person more important than keeping alive a young mother so that she can spend, say, an extra six months with her young family by prescribing very expensive cancer drugs?

I don't know the answer to this one but what I do know is that MPs aren't helping with the debate by not being open and honest about the problem.

And then we move on to one of my favourite subjects, the postcode lottery. All 3 main parties keep talking about localism and the need for communities to take more control of their lives. This is something I loudly applaud but it does have a consequence. We here in Dorset may have different priorities to the people of, say, Newcastle. We may not like the rationing choices that are made but again its the local communities that make the choices and here are a few:

For example, Bury PCT only allows women to be treated between the ages of 39 and 40, with a similar picture in many Welsh Health Boards.

Others have restrictions on access for smokers, those who are overweight or if one of the couple already has a child - even if that child does not live with them.

At the time of the survey, five PCTs - Warrington, Stockport, North Yorkshire and York, North Staffordshire and West Sussex - offered no IVF at all.

As long as these restrictions are consistent within the community and published for all to see then what is the problem? And as West Sussex NHS spokeswoman says:

"Now we are in the new financial year, the decision we made last year on fertility treatment has been reviewed and funding has been reinstated for all eligible cases."

Exactly.

And do we really want MPs making the decisions from their ivory towers, especially when that decision is most likely to be based on the latest vote winning survey for their area?

"It's clear that many PCTs are not giving IVF the priority they should. There are instances where it is being lumped in with tattoo removals.”

Gareth Johnson MP

Do we really believe that Mr Johnson's judgement that IVF is more deserving than tatoo removal? Me, I'll go with the local communities decisions rather than Mr Johnson's or any other MP for that matter.

I'd like to go to this but....This appears to be typical of this area - no time or place. .

2011-06-06T22:04:00.001+01:00

Members of the public are invited to take part in a ceremony to honour the country’s service men and women as part of Armed Forces Week.

Members of the general public are invited to join representatives of all three Armed Forces, local dignitaries and councillors around the flag pole at North Dorset District Council on Monday 20 June to honour the country’s service men and women as part of Armed Forces Week.
Chairman of Council Lt Col Mike Oliver will welcome everyone to the ceremony. He will then hand over to Col Garry Hearn, Blandford Garrison Commander, who will give a brief resume of Blandford Camp and its links with the local community.
The Reverend Tim Storey, Rector of Blandford Forum and Langton Long, will lead the assembled group in a few minutes of prayer.
Armed Forces Day will take place on Saturday 25 June. The day is an annual opportunity for the nation to show its support and thanks to the service men and women who make up the Armed Forces community, from currently serving troops to service families and from veterans to cadets

This seems to be typical of this area. You get lots of notices without start times, including the Parish Council meeting, but this one excels, not only no time but no place.

How much do we pay these people?

The problem with this is the jobsworth syndrome

2011-06-06T21:57:00.001+01:00

Dorset County Council will take up new enforcement powers under the Traffic Management Act 2004 from tomorrow (Wednesday 1 June 2011).
The new powers relate to three areas of parking enforcement:
1. Service of penalty charge notices by post:
The legislation now allows penalty charge notices (PCNs) to be sent by post. This could be done if:
The civil enforcement officer (CEO) has started to issue a PCN and the driver of the vehicle returns and drives away before the CEO can attach the notice to the windscreen

OK, somebody's got to do this otherwise the roads will be choked so I don't have a problem with the principle of devolving it down to the Council and driving away shouldn't allow someone to avoid a penalty.

Or if the CEO is prevented from issuing the PCN due to the threat of physical violence and/or extreme verbal abuse

And this is a criminal offence, so stuff the penalty charge and bring them to court. The Magistrate/Judge can deal with the parking infringement at the same time.

But this:

2. Double parking or parking more than 50cm from the kerb:
The new powers mean that CEOs will be able to deal with inconsiderate parking causing congestion and road safety problems.

and this:

3. Parking at Dropped Kerbs:

New powers of enforcement will help deal with inconsiderate and selfish parking at pedestrian dropped kerbs and dropped kerbs outside someone’s property.

Is where I have a problem. Not that double parking and parking by dropped kerbs isn't a problem, no its the "inconsiderate" bit. It like one of those irregular verbs: my parking is OK, your parking is a bit dodgy, his parking is downright inconsiderate.

And who do we ask to be the arbiter of what is inconsiderate? Yes, some local council employee, for that is what they are no matter what the title, and in this country local council employees have a deserved reputation for being "jobs-worth's".

A low ranking official who follows their instructions and procedure to the letter. Often just to piss you off and to make them feel important.

Most people will be pissed off but accept it if the police pick them up for bad parking, but will be outraged if it is some local council employee making what they believe to be an arbitrary and even capricious decision about whether of not their parking is inconsiderate.

I'll be watching out for more cases of CEOs being verbally assaulted.

The LPUK tale: Andrew Withers

2011-06-06T11:06:00.001+01:00

I suppose that before I write any more LPUK saga I should give my opinions on the central character, Andrew Withers.

Andrew's blog was one of the blogs I read that attracted me to LPUK. In the early days it showed a good understanding of politics and someone who genuinely wanted to change the way our politics is structured and delivered. I first met him, albeit briefly, when he talked at the inaugural SE Libertarian meeting. What he said made sense, that we are unlikely to get any LPUK MPs elected in his lifetime (and as we are the same age that means mine as well) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't start the process and start to change the debate. He came across as someone dedicated to the cause of freedom and fighting the authoritarian tendencies of the Labour Government.

What really inspired me at that meeting was the number of young, intelligent and committed members). Indeed the SE leadership had an average age of about 23, but that's a tale for another day.

As I said in a previous post, I next met him at a meeting to discuss how I could help the Party and I've subsequently met him on a number of occasions, including over the traditional pint. I've also had numerous email exchanges and telephone conversations so think I have got to know him reasonably well.

There is no doubt that Andrew has worked very hard for LPUK and has been a driving force. He was instrumental in getting a lot of people involved and working for the Party. He came across as having boundless energy. Not only was he setting up and trying to run a political party (with others), he was fighting a court case and trying to set up his own business. As the old saying goes, if you need something doing ask a busy person.

This bit I haven't discussed with anyone else, but having said all the above I did feel that he started to lose his way. Some of his posts were erratic and he seemed to be losing direction and his leadership started to lose direction. Maybe it was me and maybe it was the general situation but we were drifting. We had a new Government and with the loss of a focus for the Party, the authoritarian Labour Government. People seemed to be willing to give the Coalition a chance, especially as the Orange Book elements of the LibDems were holding so many places in the Government.

The slow decline of LPUK is not necessarily Andrew's fault, there are others in the Party, including me, who could have been doing more. But as one Regional Coordinator said recently, there is a lot of apathy out there. However, it is in difficult times that organisations look to their leaders for direction and inspiration, unfortunately that wasn't happening.

As I didn't want any front of house role (see previous post) I decided that I would complete the year in office and stand down in November. There was no reason to make life any more difficult for the Party than leaving part way through the year so I would continue to manage the membership databases and help where I could.

I Andrew's defence I should say that managing a libertarian party is never going to be easy, everyone knows how the Party should be organised and run and what the policies should be and how the party can grow. Unfortunately not every wanted to stand up and take on the leadership. If you want to understand how difficult any leader will find the job just look at the the proposals for the Party's future, as you will see there are N+1 opinions, where N is the number of people offering opinions. It really is the proverbial herding cats.

In conclusion, I would say that Andrew is to be applauded for the energy and effort he has put in to the Party but perhaps we should consider the Party like a business. Those who set up businesses are rarely those who can take them on and run the successfully into the medium and long term and perhaps, through no fault of his own, Andrew was never going to be the right person to ensure that Party continues to grow.

Why I got involved with LPUK

2011-06-05T13:05:00.001+01:00

Anyone looking at what is going on with LPUK will know that I am at the centre of a lot of the recent discussions and disputes. Up to now I have tried to keep my own council while I tried to keep the Party alive for the sake of the members. I have tried to limit my comments on other blogs to correcting what I believe to be a blatant factual error or someone putting words in my mouth. One of the main reasons for minimising my input is that the whole affair has been very emotional and lots of comment sections have just degenerated into flame wars and I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to negotiate a way through the mess.

So as this is my gaff and my rules I'll put my point of view here and will not allow the comments, if I get any, to contain any emotional or inflammatory comments.

Its probably best to start with why I got involved with LPUK and took on a role within the NCC. I have always taken a keen interest in politics and current affairs, by this I mean from as long as I can remember discussions about news with my father, which is some time in the 60s. Having left school at 15 and joined the Army I never really had time to get active and it somehow wasn't appropriate while still serving. On leaving the Army in 1990 building a new career became the priority so I contented myself with shouting at the TV.

Although my father was born and raised in the slums of Bradford, a strong Union and Labour area, he was always scathing of them and often described them as the working man's worst enemy. That doesn't mean he was a Tory, he could be scathing about them as well. He tended to vote on the basis of the least worst politician theory and I am aware of him voting for all 3 of the main parties. Indeed he once used my proxy vote to Liberal, against my wishes, but he judged them the best bet for the local election. Sadly he died not long after Maggie Thatcher was elected but he did support a lot of her economic policies but not ncessarily the social ones. He did back her over the miners strike, having suffered the 3 day week trying to run a pub. He hated Heath and Wilson with equal measure.

I tended to support the Conservative Party but this was more of an anti Labour position than a pro Tory one, although I was and still am a fan of Maggie Thatcher. However as I had the time to read more widely I realised this was more to do with her relatively liberal economic policies as much as anything else.

It was the confluence of New Labour's authoritarianism and the rise of blogging that really taught me that what I had come to figure out for myself was actually well grounded theory. The biggest influences were Tim Worstall from who I learned a lot about classic liberalism and basic economics, more on Tim's influence at a later date, and the Devil's Kitchen for the introduction to libertarianism.

I joined LPUK with the intention of helping out financially where I could and to do a bit of campaigning, although at the time I was very busy with work. In August 2009 I took redundancy with the aim of taking a year out to do a few personal projects and to have a long relax while still young enough (53) to enjoy it. As the wages were going I said to the then Treasurer (Andrew Withers) that I couldn't make any more donations but as I had a lot of experience with setting up organisations I would be more than willing to help out where I could.

Andrew took me at my word and arranged a meeting with him, Gregg Beamann (who was to become Chairman) and another guy who I haven't met or heard of since. At the meeting Andrew asked me to take on the role of Membership Sec and Nominations Officer. I agreed although not sure what that involved. I was to find out later that it was whatever I could make of it.

One of the things that the Party did want was renationalisation and I set about defining regions where they didn't exist (this in its self was contentious and caused a few arguments), idendfying members who lived in those areas and trying to persuade someone to step forward as a regional coordinator when we didn't have one. There were a few other tasks but it wasn't a difficult job, although time consuming to start with.

The role suited me, I'm always quite happy working in the background and as I'm no political theorist I didn't want an outward looking role. During this period I met some very good people, certainly not the selfish baby eaters that the left like to portray libertarians. I also recognised that I am very naive when it comes to active politics and political parties as were a lot of members but we were all willing to learn.

So this is how I got myself in to the middle of a dispute that although minor in real world terms has seen some of the most vitriolic and emotional arguments I have ever seen, and I've seen a few.

So MPs think they work too hard

2011-06-04T20:29:00.001+01:00

New MPs are finding the combination of long hours and a heavy workload a struggle, and worry the job is harming their family lives, research suggests.

A survey by the Hansard Society of the 227 MPs elected for the first time in 2010 suggest the new intake are working an average of 69 hours a week.

One said the demands of Westminster and constituency work had a "devastating" impact on their private life.

Absolutely no sympathy from these quarters. There a re plenty of people queueing to do the job. But lets think about one of proposed solutions, more daytime business hours.

There's a very good reason Parliament sits in the afternoons and evenings. It is to allow Ministers to do their Ministerial duties in their departments in the morning and then be able to attend Parliament, hopefully to be held to account, in the afternoons and evening. I'll bet Ministers would just love to be able to hide away in their departments and not have to do the dreary bit of accounting for their actions.

Of course there is another solution. Stop passing stop legislating the minutiae of our lives, stop bringing new legislation every bloody year to update or correct the crap you got wrong in the last legislation.

PS Suddenly I feel a desire to start blogging again, although I suspect it will remain sporadic.

RIP Seve Ballesteros

2011-05-07T18:18:00.001+01:00

The world is a richer place for all the pleasures you brought and you will be widely missed.

Why Cameron should really fear inflation

2011-02-15T14:43:00.001Z

As inflation continues its progressive march, now reaching 4%, David Cameron should fear it beyond the normal economic arguments.

The baby boomer generation (full disclosure that just about includes me) lived through the high inflation of the 70s and 80s and remembers it as a very unpleasant experience. In the 70s it was accompanied by, and in part driven by, excessive wage claims backed up by strikes which disrupted everyone's lives. I remember as a young apprentice soldier having an inflation adjustment in my monthly meagre pay packet which on the surface seemed quite nice, but that was more than offset by the almost daily increases in the price of blanco.

In the 80s it was also accompanied by strikes and restructuring the economy. Some of the strikes were violent and very few who lived through that era will not be scarred in some way by the scenes of the miners and police in pitched battles.

So without getting in to a cause vs correlation argument inflation is associated with civil disruption and civil disobedience but more pertinently for us baby boomers is what it did to savings. We are all well aware that those who suffered most in that period were pensioners and others trying to get by on a fixed income and this is Cameron's problem, baby boomers are now starting to retire and looking at living on a fixed and reduced income. It may only be the first few now but in 4 years it will be peaking.

Of course what these baby boomers will forget, or at least pretend to forget, is how much they benefited from inflation at the time. That same inflation eroded their mortgage debt very quickly and gave them the perception of wealth through house ownership but that won't be forefront of their minds as they consider what inflation is doing to their savings. Self interest, especially when they read stories like this:

The NHS is failing to treat elderly patients in England with care, dignity and respect, an official report says.
The Health Service Ombudsman came to the conclusion after carrying out an in-depth review of 10 cases.
The ombudsman, which deals with serious complaints against the NHS, said the patients - aged over 65 - suffered unnecessary pain, neglect and distress.

will be the order of the day.

Its also well known that older people are more likely to vote and this is where Dave's problems will lie come the next general election in 4 years time. If he doesn't kill inflation there will be a backlash by the grey vote that could see the Tories and LibDems thrashed out of sight. It won't matter that Labour's policies would have probably caused more inflation and higher debt, the incumbent quite rightly gets the kicking.

But at the same time if he doesn't tackle the deficit and debt continues to increase there won't be any money to provide the services that these baby boomers will also be demanding.

So here's his conundrum - the simplest way of reducing the deficit and debt burden is inflation. It would also avoid, or at least reduce, those nasty cuts that we are starting to endure (how will we ever live without a library?) and which will only get worse. As Ken Clarke warned the middle classes don't really understand what is about to hit them.

So damned if if does and damned if he doesn't, but my betting is that he fears the backlash in 4 years time more than the current political storm.

.

Now we find out how well the US has trained the Egyptian army

2011-02-12T09:50:00.001Z

I don't mean as a fighting force, but as a servants of the people. All serviceman in a democracy are educated in the doctrine of civilian control of the armed forces. It is one of the first things that you learn and as you progress through the ranks it is stressed more and more.

It is also something that is stressed whenever training overseas armed forces personnel, either in their own country or at our various military schools and colleges in the the UK but especially at Sandhurst. Those bonds that are formed in training last a lifetime and it is a great form of soft power.

We have heard complaints during the uprising that the US gives $billions to Egypt with most of it going to the Army. SO now is the time to find out of those links will pay dividends. We have heard that senior US military are talikng to senior Egyptian officers so it looks like the soft power could be working.

That the Egyptian military hasn't been the instrument of oppression also bodes well. They do seem to have been a disciplined bunch and by refusing to side with Mubarak and his thugs have earned the trust of the people, lets just hope they maintain it.

The real danger is that having tasted power the Generals decide that they enjoy it and don't step aside or if they do remain a constant threat like the have in Turkey by appointing themselves as guardians of the constitution.

Public sector unions are far too power

2011-02-11T22:18:00.000Z

I see that vested interests of the public sector unions and senior doctors are starting to flex their muscles muscles over the proposed ~~Tony Blair~~ Tory NHS reforms. Labour has even managed that wonderful thing in politics of completely disowning the past and are now vehemently opposed to the very policies that they proposed when in Government as Dizzy points out:

Some may also remember that just a few months ago I asked a genuine questions for lefties about what was more important to them. That NHS services be free at the point of use universally for everyone, or the structure that delivers the service.

At the time, most of them said the former, not the latter was more important. However, the reaction that is brewing to the continued implementation and extension of Labour policies by the Coalition is, naturally, based more on the latter.

Yes children, that's right! We are now through the wonderful looking glass where the Opposition denounce policies based entirely on their own policies of the last decade because it's Tories implementing them.

Is it anyone wonder so many people think politics is a load of bollocks when thes sort of intellectually vacuous and fluid position changes are so prevalent any sane person can see them?

Of course this will al be dressed up as protecting the public and patients. We will no doubt hear dire threats about the end of our NHS and other hyperbole by those who really are no more than vested interests looking after their own, which in most cases is what they are paid to do. Sadly, they have far too much power and may well get their way.

Don't believe me? Think that is just anti-union libertarian scaremongering? Well......

I should first say that I don't have a problem with unions, not only because of free association, but I am sure that some employers, including the public sector, find it easier to deal with a group of workers doing the same task through a single entity. I am also aware that unions provide good professional insurance and public protection for their members. My wife was a member of a teachers union for those very reasons. But that doesn't give them the right use threats and strikes to derail Government policy.

There was very good briefing on public sector unions in Economist recently which is well worth the read. I can't link to the main article as it is behind a pay wall but the leader is available. But that is only the start. From the briefing we learn much about the public sector's aversion to reform:

Public-sector unions enjoy advantages that their private-sector rivals only dream of. As providers of vital monopoly services, they can close down entire cities. And as powerful political machines, they can help to pick the people who sit on the other side of the bargaining table [Ed Miliband].
...
Left-leaning economists reply that public-sector workers are, on average, better educated. Whatever the merits of this argument, three things seem clear. Unions have suppressed wage differentials in the public sector. They have extracted excellent benefits for their members. And they have protected underperforming workers from being sacked.
...
The unions’ influence extends to the size and nature of the public sector. Private-sector unions have learned to exercise self-restraint when it comes to pushing for more manpower: they realise that more workers may reduce the wages of their members and that a higher wage bill may drive their employers out of business. But public-sector unions are relentless in demanding more resources and more personnel, which conveniently translate into more members and more dues.
...
Their most dramatic success has been in Britain. When Britain’s union-backed New Labour government came to power in 1997, public spending accounted for almost 40% of GDP. When it left power in 2010 public spending was nearly 50% of GDP (partly, to be fair, as a result of recession), and 1m workers had been added to the public-sector payrolls.
...
It would be a mistake to write off the public-sector unions. They are masters of diverting attention from strategic to tactical questions.

As some readers may know the erstwhile leader of LPUK got in to a spot of bother when he lost his temper over this very subject. The post is now off-line and so is the original article that John Gummer wrote so I can't link to either of them. However I do have some of the original quotes, from John Gummer who was talking about an encounter he had:

I've been thinking about an exchange I had in Manchester. Britain's second largest teaching union, the NUSWT, promoted itself at the three Party Conferences. Their stand was uncompromising. The posters contained no hint of renewal or improvement; no recognition of the huge increase in attainment that the nation demands. Simply a series of statements opposing even this Government's relatively feeble attempts at reform. Above them all the keynote claim 'PUTTING TEACHERS FIRST'.

I approached the imposing woman behind the counter. "Shouldn't that read 'putting children first' I ventured. "Certainly not! We're a Trade Union and I'm its General Secretary."

That got The Devil going but for me it that wasn't a surprise as I've always taken the view that unions are their to represent their members and nobody else. I learned this from my father who grew up in the slums of Bradford and worked in the mills as a young man. He was always scathing of unions both for their selfishness and also for their incompetence. Anyway, I digress, more from John Gummer's encounter:

"But haven't you noticed that on the commercial stalls around you businesses are saying that they put the customer first?" Mrs Chris Keates [the union rep] drew herself up to her full height. "I won't take lessons from the private sector with their bonus culture," she expostulated

So how to curb their power and get some control back in our hands, those that pay for and use the services? I suppose we can give the coalition some grudging approval for trying:

Education vouchers are a good start in curbing the power of the teaching unions. I would go further and allow profits to be made but if we can get the money following children then the best schools will flourish and the teaching unions will lose power as pupils gravitate to the schools where the militant unions have less control.

There is nothing like personal contact for ensuring that our money is spent in our best interests and not the vested interests of the healthy lobby. If I can sit with my GP and choose a hospital or consultant I am going to be choosing the one that cures me and gets me home without killing me first. It will be harder for poor hospitals to hide behind the fact they we have little choice when it comes to failing patients and giving them MRSA.

OK, so that's the simple view and reams of paper will be filled analysing those two subjects alone, but if they are to succeed they will curb the power of the vested interests and we will all be better off and much as I would like them to go further, I would prefer that these small steps were successful first, for the price of failure doesn't bear thinking about.

Muslim Brotherhood and The Tea Party

2011-02-05T22:35:00.000Z

There was a simple, but predictable, question on Question Time of Thursday: Should the Egyptian people be allowed to vote in to Government the Muslim Brotherhood? The answer should have been simple but instead the panellists went off into lala land trying to defend their own prejudices.

The answer should have been: of course they should if that's what the Egyptian people want.

And this is where the Tea Party comes in. Their anal insistence on the Constitution has been the butt of many jibes form the left, but it is that insistence that stops organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hitler, Stalin and even the Tea Party, being elected and then changing the rules to ensure permanent Government, which we commonly call dictatorship.

Tomorrow's weather forecast: If it doesn't rain it wil be dry

2011-01-30T21:33:00.000Z

Back in the days when we thought Idi Amin was just a buffoon rather than a brutal dictator there was a a famous weather forecast sketch that I was reminded of yesterday:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4zlMO4z2T74" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>

So what dragged up this little snippet from 30-odd years ago? Via Bishop Hill we learn of the Met Office's winter forecast:

On 25 October 2010, the Met Office provided the Cabinet Office with an updated three-monthly forecast, which suggested a 40 per cent chance of cold conditions, a 30 per cent chance of near average conditions and a 30 per cent chance of mild conditions over northern Europe.

They deign to frighten us to death with tales of future doom 100 years hence if we don't all impoverish ourselves by giving up the evil pollutant CO2 yet all they can do for a winter forecast is nothing more than a three way guess.

Advice for every dictator, Clinton was right, its the economy, stupid

2011-01-29T23:26:00.001Z

As the former Tunisian president goes in to exile and half his cabinet is removed and now trouble is flaring in Egypt and other places it is worth considering what has caused the popular uprising.

It isn't a lack of democracy, much as those of us who cherish democracy we would like to think, its lack of economic opportunity. It wasn't the lack of a vote that caused Mohamed Bouazizi to torch himself, it was grinding poverty and lack of opportunity that someone with a degree and ambition had to put up with. The French revolution wasn't about the vote, it was about the poverty of the proletariat whilst the rich looked after themselves. The same can be said for many revolutions and the fall of the former Soviet Union.

One history lecturer I had whilst doing some Army eduction courses reckoned that the reason that we never had a revolution in the UK around the time of the French revolution was that the political elite kept one step ahead of popular unrest by doing just enough to improve the lot of the proletariat to keep them mollified.

I'd even go as far as saying that the revolt against apartheid wasn't about the vote, it was because the white population enjoyed a wealthy lifestyle whilst the black population lived in poverty with no hope of improvement.

For all his faults Clinton knew this, as do most politicians. The reason Blair and Brown got away with so much bad government and authoritarianism was that they created the illusion of wealth through rising house prices and throwing money at the public sector. There is no way Blair would have got away with taking us in to war if we had all been feeling the pinch of economic down turn.

And this is where the Chinese come in. The Communist Party isn't stupid and and wants to cling on to power for all its worth and the only way to do this is to let the people get gradually wealthier. If they hadn't started to liberalise (I use this term in a relative context) the economy after Tienanmen Square they knew they faced ever increasing threats to their rule. Things are still bad in the countryside in China but for city dwellers life is getting better and they aren't minded to challenge the Communist Party and put up with the lack of civil liberties we regard as underpinning our freedoms. The same happened in HK, British rule was tolerated because the Chinese were allowed to get gradually wealthier.

Perhaps Egypt and Syria might hold down the protests with some brutality for now, but if the dictators don't listen to Clinton the end is inevitable - its benign dictatorship or eventually bloody revolution. They can build up the instruments of terror and try to impose brutal suppression but as Mohamed Bouazizi showed eventually the regime they impose can't cope with desperation and the human spirit.

The only thing that is worrying is that their may be a more brutal regime stepping in first, as Iranians learned when they threw out the Shah and accepted rule by mad men who used the authority of some desert dwelling warlord to justify their own brutality.

On Illsley and the BBC

2011-01-12T11:54:00.001Z

I couldn't believe the BBC last night with Robinson trying to somehow mitigate Ilsley's thieving. Apparently because MPs don't think they are paid enough they were given these allowances, not expenses he reminded us, but allowances. The problem, as Robinson perceives it, is is that those rich bastard Tories could claim for their duck island (complete with standard pictures) but poor Labour MPs are left to claiming for bath plugs to make up their pay.

Leaving aside whether or not these are legitimate allowances (they aren't) this crook made up his claims, it wasn't even a legitimate expenditure within the existing very lax rules. What is wrong with these BBC types? (That's rhetorical.)

And then on Today we had a comment that if he had any integrity he'd resign. No, if he'd had any integrity he wouldn't have stood at the last election knowing he was guilty. Perhaps some extra punishment for the extra costs he cause?

Feeling pleased with myself

2011-01-12T11:29:00.001Z

We took part in a national simultaneous pairs competition on Monday night and did rather well. Bearing in mind that this is only the 5th time we've played together and only the 7th time I've played competition Bridge I'm rather pleased with the results: 2nd in the club and in the 20% nationally out of 1800 pairs.

FoI act extension - letter to my MP

2011-01-08T20:34:00.001Z

Following on from a post on the tireless campaigner Dick Puddlecote's blog I've just written to my MP:

Dear Robert,
Firstly, thank you for following up on my letter about local government spending on trade union activities. I shall indeed be following this up with Hillary and monitoring the situation closely and lobbying for change.
I was pleased to see that Nick Clegg has announced an extension to the FoI act to cover, as I understand it from the Daily Telegraph:
Among the institutions expected to become subject to the laws are: the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, academy school trusts, the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Local Government Association, the Advertising Standards Authority and Network Rail.
This is indeed a good move and one which is to be applauded and supported. However I fear it doesn’t go far enough as there appears to be one category of recipient of tax payers’ money that isn’t being held to account, what is often referred to as fake. If you are not familiar with the term these are charities that receive all, or most, of their funding from Government departments and then use that funding to lobby Government to change the law to suit their own often self righteous prejudices. It often gave Labour a smokescreen when introducing their illiberal laws, which usually involved the banning of something and further reducing personal liberty, by claiming that it had the support of “charities”.
As the Tax Payers Alliance said in their statement on the subject:
Our report on Taxpayer funded lobbying and political campaigning found that many organisations like Alcohol Concern were dependent on the Department of Health for the vast majority of their funding. Nick Clegg should be commended for this move but it’s crucial that bodies such as these are included in the broadened scope of the Act if taxpayers are to be given full information on public spending.
With that in mind I would like to ask you to push for a simple amendment to any new Bill or secondary legislation to include the following simple statement:
All third parties in receipt of public money will be expected to comply with the freedom of information act with regards to the use and management of public funds
Obviously the security services would be exempt, but this should just about cover everyone else spending our hard earned money.
Yours Sincerely

Simon

Could the tradional Matron ever return to the NHS?

2011-01-08T19:29:00.001Z

We got on the subject of the poor performance of the NHS in the pub last night, well specifically the poor performance of hospitals - it seems to be a popular subject at the moment. The standard call for Matrons to be reinstated was met with the usual agreements by all, except from little old contrary me.

Not that I don't think its a good idea, if we assume that Matron is the type of character played by Hatti Jacques. One that marches round barking orders at all and sundry, including doctors, and only accepting the highest of standards. There is no doubt that sort of person would raise standards in any industry, but it just won't work in today's work place and especially the over protected civil service work place that we hear so much about.

I don't disagree that there is a problem as from my own experience of hospital wards as a patient and visitor there is a complete lack of direction. Nurses seem to gather around a "station" gossiping and then wandering about aimlessly doing the odd task and only going to patients when called. Nobody seems to be managing the ward, issuing tasks and making sure they are completed, walking about chatting to patients to see how they are, checking up on cleaners and and all the other tasks that a good manager should be doing.

The reason I don't think it will work is that people don't like taking orders nowadays, not that they ever really did, and within weeks, if not days, there would be complaints to HR and pretty soon talk of bullying. Matron would come under pressure to back off in case staff started leaving or worse still claims of constructive dismissal, and many would be off sick with "stress" or some other ailment that can't be diagnosed. Pretty soon the whole thing would descend in to chaos.

So, no, bringing the traditional Matron isn't the solution, but more active management is needed.

When Nudge becomes prod

2011-01-08T10:48:00.001Z

There has been some debate about Nudge and how it can been used, especially in terms of organ donation. For those not aware Nudge is a book by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein based on the premise that we aren't very good about making decisions about our long term future. The idea is that the decision architecture is set up so that that by default we end up with the decision that experts have decided is best for us and that we have to make a positive action to change it. But, furthermore, taking that action should be low cost and easy.

I haven't read the book but I know a man who has and he has excellent libertarian bona fides and he seems quite relaxed about the concept because, as he says:

But Thaler and Sunstein never view the public as unwitting dupes of corporations and peer-pressure. Rather, they view people as fundamentally sensible, if not always well informed. As such, they set significant limits on the kind of nudging that can be considered tolerable in a liberal society.
...
When they talk about making 'good' choices easier, they actually mean it. Unlike the UK Faculty of Health and the last British government, they do not mean banning 'bad' choices.

I have also heard Richard Thaler speak on the subject and, often to the dismay of the interviewer, he seemed quite relaxed about people opting out of whatever Nudge scenario had been set up.

The classic example is retirement savings. Most people would agree that saving for retirement is not only in our own best interst but also that of wider society who pick up the tab if we don't. So using Nudge principles we are automatically enrolled in a plan and have to opt out if we don't want to save. There may be very good reasons why people want to opt out, investing in education to get higher future rewards, for example, but whatever they are it is not the business of the rest of us, and especially politicians, to chastise and berate those who do opt out.

The subject that is causing a stir at the moment is organ donation and it is something that Longrider has been debating for some time. The idea is that we should have some form of presumed consent that our organs can be used when we die unless we opt out. The way many see it working is that we automatically consent when we apply for a driving licence and have to make an decision to opt out by, for example, ticking a box. Why just drivers I don't know, maybe it should be automatic when reaching the age of 18 and you receive a letter that you have to return or go to a web site to opt out I don't know, but the mechanics aren't the point, its the whole concept of Nudge and organ donations that is the issue.

As long as the opt out is very easy I don't have a problem with the concept. But that isn't the issue that is causing most angst, it is what happens to those who opt out. There are some, amongst them commenters on Longrider's blog and on the original CiF piece that prompted the debate, who seem to think that those who opt out should be vilified and not allowed to be the recipient of organs. There are others who think that opt outs shouldn't be available and we shouldn't have any say in the matter. To which the answer is, if that is your argument do not claim to be using Nudge. Why people would want to opt out out of organ donations is there own choice, even if its for some daft religious ritual it is none of our business and we should respect that choice and not hold it against them when it come to medical treatment.

And this is the problem with Nudge. It has been taken on by politicians and the righteous to further their own aims and prod us in to doing things we don't want to do, even if they would be better for us. Nudge is fast becoming prod and even shove and it looks like we are going to have to start applying Jefferson's maxim to Nudge:

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

NHS contract cleaning isn't the problem

2011-01-06T19:06:00.001Z

I got in to discussion on the NHS this morning. The usual argument that hospitals were spotlessly clean until jobs were contracted out was trotted out to knowing nods.

Unfortunately they didn't have an answer when I pointed out that the private hospital I had an operation in a couple of years ago was spotlessly clean and they used contract cleaners.

The problem isn't the cleaning company, they are doing what comes naturally, the problem is the original tendering process and allocation of contracts. If you don't set the quality threshold correctly and then chose the cheapest that meets the bidding requirements then of course you get problems. But then as Wat Tyler keeps pointing out, what do you expect from the Simple Shopper?

Your spare room belong us

2011-01-05T09:24:00.002Z

George Monbiot has caused something of a stir with his latest green eyed wittering - the state owns your spare rooms. :

The issue is surplus housing – the remarkable growth of space that people don't need. Between 2003 and 2008 (the latest available figures), there was a 45% increase in the number of under-occupied homes in England. The definition of under-occupied varies, but it usually means that households have at least two bedrooms more than they require. This category now accounts for over half the homes in which single people live, and almost a quarter of those used by larger households. Nearly 8m homes – 37% of the total housing stock – are officially under-occupied.

With George and his mates deciding what we need of course. It doesn't matter that we may have scrimped and saved for something because we want it, if George and his mates say we don't need it, we don't get it. You can just imagine the star chambers where you have to beg to be able to keep a couple of spare rooms for your obscure hobbies like making matchstick models or maybe because you like entertaining friends or grand children. In our last house we had two rooms dedicated for painting, would the star chamber decide if my wife's art is good enough to justify such extravagance?

The only occasions on which you'll hear politicians talk about this is when they're referring to public housing. Many local authorities are trying to encourage their tenants to move into smaller homes.

There's a good reason for this. If someone is in subsidised housing and they are entitled to a larger subsidised house as their family grows then it is not unreasonably for them to move to a smaller home as their family leave, not withstanding a spare room for the grandchildren to visit.

But public and social housing account for only 11% of the problem. The government reports that the rise in under-occupation "is entirely due to a large increase within the owner-occupied sector". Nearly half of England's private homeowners are now knocking around in more space than they need.

See that bit about owner, George, that means someone has paid for it and its there's to do with as they please. As Shuggy (hardly a right winger) says:

Anyway - and I appreciate some might find this an unsettlingly rightwing argument - the house isn't part of some 'common stock'; it is hers because she bought it.

But here's the real problem, George doesn't want to solve the housing shortage in the customary way, by providing more:

The only answer anyone is prepared to mention is more building: let the rich occupy as much space they wish, and solve the problem by dumping it on the environment, which means – of course – on everyone. I think there's a better way.

Its that Gaia thing again. We can't build more houses because George doesn't like that solution, despite the fact that we really do have a lot of spare land in this country as a quick look at Google maps shows.

I know that columnists have to be controversial and raise difficult subjects, but when they come up with such idiocy they not only get a good fisking and leave themselves open to charges of hypocrisy, as you can see in the comments section, but sometimes an interesting idea is doesn't get a fair hearing:

I would also like to see an expansion of the Homeshare scheme, which could address several growing problems at once. Instead of paying rent, lodgers – who are vetted and checked by the charity that runs the project – help elderly homeowners with shopping, cleaning, cooking, gardening or driving. Typically they agree to spend 10 hours a week helping out, and to sleep in the house for at least six nights out of seven. This helps older people to stay in their own homes and lead an independent life, gives them companionship and security and relieves some of the pressure on social services and carers. It provides homes for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford them.

On a purely voluntary basis there may be some mileage in this, but any rational discussion will have to wait for another day columnist than George.

H/T dearieme in the first comment here

Another example of why we need checks on power

2011-01-04T20:24:00.001Z

The benevolent dictator is one of those dreamy ideas that some see as a better system than democracy and its reliant on politicians. It has its charms but the problem is that not only does power corrupt, but unchecked power attracts those who really aren't benevolent and are just looking for the main chance. This is why we need openess in Government with the separation of executive, legislature and judiciary, civilian control of the police and armed forces and a strong and independent Fourth Estate to ensure that those with ulterior motives do not get into positions of power, or if they do it is checked.

So I wasn't surprised when I read this recent story from Archbishop Cranmer:

Mammon seems to have become a bit of an issue in the Holy See.

Not content with the systematic cover-up of child rape and the sheltering of paedophile priests, it appears that there has been more than a little collusion with the Mafia in money-laundering.

The Vatican Bank (aka the Institute for Works of Religion) has been guarding Peter’s Pence (actually, €1,000,000,000s) since Mussolini cut a deal with the Lateran Pacts in 1929. Its chief exec is accountable to a committee of cardinals, and ultimately to the Pope.

As I say, it shouldn't come as a surprise when you consider:

The Vatican is a sovereign city-state and is not under the jurisdiction of the Godless, secular, anti-Christian, immoral and corrupt EU (despite fervently desiring to foist it upon all other European states). It is all a question of papal sovereignty: the Pontifex Maximus cannot simultaneously be Catholic and subject to a higher temporal authority, especially when that higher authority is somewhat antithetical to Canon Law. The Vatican Bank is not supervised by the IMF and hitherto has not been subject to EU regulations and controls on money-laundering, despite being a member of the eurozone.

Since the Holy See also has no border security, it is perhaps unsurprising that l'Istituto per le Opere di Religione has been a rather useful mechanism for money laundering and tax evasion.

We really should trust nobody, not even, or maybe especially, those who profess to be so righteous they can moralise about the way the rest of us lead our lives. Ronald Reagan summed it up beautifully: Trust and Verify.

*Some will argue a written constitution as well but that's for another day

Very amusing put down

2011-01-04T19:28:00.001Z

Anyone who follows cricket closely will know that Sir Ian "Beefy" Botham and Geoff Boycott don't exactly get on and there doesn't seem to many areas where they are in agreement, except both wanting England to win the current Ashes series and I suspect they would agree with each other through gritted teeth. They rarely miss an opportunity to have a dig at each other and sometimes they are quite amusing.

The latest one from Boycott comes from his Daily Telegraph column of a few weeks ago which I receive by email:

Who said Andrew Strauss was a conservative captain? We've only bowled nine overs, and here comes Graeme Swann. Ian Botham's up to his usual tricks on Sky. He wants a silly point, a man round the corner, a leg slip, two naan breads and another Kingfisher. Botham's favoured field-setting is the 9-7 field. (Ian Botham's record as England captain: played 12, won 0, drawn 4, lost 8.)more.

Ouch. I haven 't seen a retort yet but keep looking.

Confirming my belief that religion should be kept out of schools

2011-01-04T19:20:00.003Z

For some reason I am on the distribution list of the London School of Islamics and get regular emails on whatever is their current whinge. The latest one centres around a Panorama program that I didn't see and so cannot on whether or not this is accurate:

John Ware is nothing more than an Islamophobe and an Islam basher. To single out Islam as the only religion where such so-called teachings are given proves Ware's own prejudice, bigotry and hatred

Given that we are talking about the BBC and not some rabid US religious right TV station I'm tempted to go with this being an opening statement in a game of victimhood poker. But I'm not interested in the standard special pleading from special interest groups what I am interested in is how my taxes are spent and how our children are educated because that is something I do have a stake in.

What I am not interested in is religion, not just Islam, but all religions. They are divisive special interest groups who believe that they have some special right to tell me how to live my live, beyond the harm principle, and so I don't support their right to religious schools for any reason, but especially not for the following reasons:

A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit. He/she must be well versed in Standard English to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. At the same time he/she must be well versed in Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to keep in touch with cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of literature and poetry

No, if you have come here from another part of the world you are more than welcome but you have come here to take part in, and benefit from, our way of life, something which has developed over 100's of years of struggle, of trial and error, of wars, civil and external. We are a mongrel society and have welcomed many different nationalities, especially those fleeing terror and oppression and I and I know many others are proud of that. One thing that binds us is our history and that, and only that, should be taught in our schools. In passing they should cover other cultures, not to teach them as something to live by here, but so that we know how to work alongside. And they certainly should be teaching from any religious books, be they Bibles or the Koran.

It is not wrong to teach children that anti-social behaviour, drinking, drugs, homosexuality, sex before marriage, teenage pregnancies and abortions are western values and Islam is against all such sins.

They may well be sins, but with the exception of drugs and perhaps anti social behaviour which is a grey area, they are all legal in this country and to that end it is not up to schools to teach them as sins. And what the hell is homosexuality doing in there? That's a personal issue and we've been through years of struggle to get it accepted and not to be condemned or discriminated against, so it certainly isn't the place of schools, or anywhere else for that matter, to teach it as a sin.

The full email is below if you want to read it, but all its done is confirm my views that religion should be removed from state schools and religious schools deprived of all state funding and closely monitored, at their expense, to ensure that they do not teach anything that remotely smacks of undermining our society, which is one of tolerance of others and equality for all.

============================================================================

Established 1981

London School of Islamics

An Educational Trust

63 Margery Park Road London E7 9LD

Email: info@londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

Tel/Fax: 0208 555 2733 / 07817 112 667

BBC Panorama: Muslim Schooling

John Ware is nothing more than an Islamophobe and an Islam basher. To single out Islam as the only religion where such so-called teachings are given proves Ware's own prejudice, bigotry and hatred. The documentary contained many close-up images of hijab-clad girls set to sinister music, as well as slow-motion shots of so-called radical preachers and Muslim men praying in mosques. The message was that Muslim communities are isolating themselves from mainstream society. It gave the impression that Muslim parents who send their children to faith schools are exercising ‘voluntary apartheid’. We live in a world of many divides. Indeed, it would appear that divides are the norm rather than the exception.

The Panorama show was a confused and sensationalist piece of filmmaking. The Islamic Schools in the documentary were all rated ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, confirmed by their own presenter. To be honest, I didn’t find much weight in their arguments against the schools at all. Anti-Muslims sentiment spread by the media has led to increase violence and discrimination against Muslims in small suburbs and market towns. The attacks on Muslims go largely unnoticed by the media and politicians. Muslim schools protect Muslim children from the onslaught of Euro-Centrism, homosexuality, racism, drinking, drugs, incivility, anti-social behavior, teenage pregnancies and abortions and secular traditions. English is one of the most damaging subjects - reflects secular and immoral beliefs that contradict the view point of Islam. Romeo and Juliet of Shakespeare advocates disobeying parents and premarital relations. Speaking English does not promote integration into British society, and broaden opportunities. The whole world belongs to Muslims. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit. He/she must be well versed in Standard English to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. At the same time he/she must be well versed in Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to keep in touch with cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of literature and poetry.

No one is advocating the establishing of Sharia law in a non-Muslim country. But Muslims like Jewish people should be able to have their own inheritance laws, religious weddings and divorces according to their own beliefs. It was Muslims in their own lands who first allowed non Muslims to be able to practice their own laws and this was enshrined in Islamic law nearly 1400 years ago. It was Muslims who gave shelter to the Jews when they were thrown out of Europe during the inquisition and during pogroms. Muslims never burnt people alive or tortured them for their beliefs. Islam is not associated with denial of human rights - actually historically Islam provided documentation for human rights. It is absurd to believe that Muslim schools, Imams and Masajid teach Muslim children anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-western views. It is dangerously deceptive and misleading to address text books and discuss them out of their historical, cultural and linguistic context. Muslims were already disproportionately being targeted by police with programmes such as the Prevent project. Focusing on Muslim schools for investigation would tell Muslim young people "you are different" and further alienate them. Singling out Muslim schools threatened to add to already "dangerous" levels of Islamophobia, which he compared to the amount of anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s.

It is not wrong to teach children that anti-social behaviour, drinking, drugs, homosexuality, sex before marriage, teenage pregnancies and abortions are western values and Islam is against all such sins. This does not mean that Muslim schools teach children to hate westerners, Jews and homosexuals. Extremism, homophobia and anti-Semitism are nothing to do with Islamic teachings and beliefs. Islam does not teach that Jews and Christians are pigs and monkeys. The government, Panorama and the Policy Exchange think-tank should concentrate on institutionally racist schooling and chicken racist teachers, the rising levels of attacks on teachers and the bullying of children; also the fact that society has rising levels of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease and anti-social behavior. British education system does not take into account a child’s ethnicity, language, culture and faith. A child’s identity and heritage are core to who they are. It is precisely for these reasons that Muslims seek to encourage their children to go to Muslim schools and learn Islamic values and develop cultural, linguistic and spiritual identities, so that they can be decent, productive people, who have respect and care for others.

Iftikhar Ahmad

Why Labour hate the LibDems

2011-01-03T17:47:00.001Z

Ever wondered why Labour has turned on the LibDems with such viciousness? It isn't the hurly-burly of hard politics, it's personal.

The answer is simple once you understand what the Labour Party is all about. It isn't a party with simple ideologies, indeed ideology gets in their way, its far deeper than that. Yes I know they claim to "identify with the poor", as one blogger once claimed, [and I still don't know what it means despite hours pondering] or want to look after the "working man" or "squeezed middle" or what other vacuous and meaningless slogans have been dreamed up by pollsters but these aren't ideologies that drive a decision making process.

No, Labour is about one thing and one thing only, as was pointed out by a leading Labour blogger on the much lamented House of Comments -Labour is a coalition of anti Tories. When I heard that it all dropped in to place, why all those hours over fox hunting, the scorched earth of the past few years where any spending would do if stopped the Tories winning power even if it fucked up the economy.

So, the LibDems biggest crime isn't the raising of student fees, how could it be as Labour set that one in motion? Or even AV which Labour would have entertained if it gave them an advantage. It isn't the spending cuts, Labour has as good as admitted they would have had to do the same. It isn't Free Schools; these are only one step removed from Academies.

No, the reason that Labour has turned on LibDems with such venom is that they let the Tories in, pure and simple, nothing to do with the policies and everything to do with the green eyed monster.

Bear that in mind whenever you hear a Labour spokesman and all will become clear.

A counter to the selfish baby boomers?

2011-01-03T16:34:00.001Z

There's a very interesting letter in this weeks Economist which really gotme thinking about the best way to counter the selfisheness of the baby boomer generations before they bankrupt the country as they move in to the 3rd age. Before discussing the letter its worth looking at this idea about the selfish baby boomers, as set on by David Willetts in The Pinch and reviewed by Peter Oborne:

This generation - and I am ashamed to say that I belong to it [Me too] - has greedily destroyed the financial and social capital bequeathed to us by our parents.
And, as a result, we have squandered the inheritance we ought to have passed on to our children.
Here's how the Willetts thesis works. He says that in all societies there are three stages of life - childhood, maturity and old age.
During childhood and old age we are dependent on others. But during maturity - from our early 20s to our mid-60s - we do not merely provide for ourselves. We provide for the young and old, as well.
Willetts calls this the contract between generations.
The trouble is that the baby boomers - those of us aged between 45 and 63 today - have destroyed this age-old contract. We have looked after only ourselves.
There are two reasons for this. First, for the past three decades the baby boomers have been ascendant, and this has meant there have been an abnormally large proportion of people of working age.
As a consequence, we baby boomers have had to spend a lower proportion of our hard-earned cash looking after the young and the old than any previous generation.
As Willetts puts it: 'We have had an extraordinary demographic bonus over the past 25 years. There was a bulge of workers in the middle with no real increase in the number of pensioners and quite a low birth rate.' So we have had far more money to spend on foreign holidays, large houses, restaurants and other luxuries. Living standards have boomed. But now, the first of the baby boomers are starting to reach retirement age.
Soon there will be a much smaller working population - and a much larger number of retired people expecting to be paid for by a much smaller number of wealth creators.
Willetts calls this The Pinch and it will squeeze tightest in 2030, by which time all the baby boomers will have retired.
This might be just manageable but for one extra and devastating factor. We baby boomers have been the most selfish generation that history has ever known.
We could have used our gigantic piece of demographic good fortune to build for the future. Instead, we have spent every last penny of our windfall gain.
Indeed, we have done even worse than that. We have incurred gigantic debts that will have to be paid off by future generations - who will already be reeling under the necessity of paying for the largest number of
pensioners in history.

That should give you the gist but there is one glairing example of our selfishness and it has been the cause of booms and busts since I can remember buying my first and yet we still venerate it: houses, and more specifically house prices. Despite all the pain of the past two years we still see stories about the need for house prices to continue to rise, but why? Or more precisiely Cui Bono? Why the baby boomers of course.

How many of those baby boomers have used housing as a store of wealth that they plan to use when they retire? For years we have been told that a house is an investment [and this is where I have always disagreed with my own generation including some good friends] and that house prices will always rise. They need that rise more than ever now the baby boomers are approaching retirement and looking to sell and trade down, releasing that wealth. To understand why just look at what happens with some simple maths. A baby boomer with a house valued at £400,000 is looking to trade down to something around say £200,000, giving them a nest egg of £200,000. Lets say prices fall by 20% - they now have a house valued at £320,000 and their target house is now worth £160,000, giving them a nest egg of only £160,000, a loss of £40,000 in the baby boomers eyes.

Much better that prices rise by 20%, giving them a nest egg of £240,000. But who pays? Younger generations who now need to work harder and longer to afford the bigger house, a transfer of wealth to the baby boomers. And as such a huge demographic baby boomers will scare politicians to death because they are more likely to vote and so we will see more efforts to keep house prices high through regulation, with planning permission being determined by locals aka NIMBYs as a current proposal. Baby boomers will also be in a position to demand higher benefits - free bus travel, higher pensions, fuel allownces, free BBC and a myriad other methods of transferring wealth (stealing?).

So what is this marvelous idea that might provide a check on those rapacious baby boomers($):

SIR – You talked about the significance of the elderly voting-age population in Japan as a factor in determining government transfers, such as pensions and health care (special report on Japan, November 20th). The median age of voters in Japan will reach 65 within the next 15 years. We should seriously consider giving children a vote and having their parents use it on their behalf. Parents with children under 18 would then control 37% of the vote.
Why should we give children a right to vote? Because intergenerational income distribution became a contentious public-policy issue with the establishment of public-pension systems. It may seem outrageous to extend the vote to children, but the extension of the franchise to women was also opposed. That historic change was achieved through the
democratic process and resulted in a dilution of the voting power of the male-only electorate. Greying populations require such a fundamental democratic change.
Reiko Aoki
Director Centre for Intergenerational Studies
Hitotsubashi University
Tokyo

Brilliant. OK, so there are a few down sides, but no more than when those children get to 18 anyway.

And if those new found voters have any sense they wil push for a Land Value Tax to force the baby boomers to allow house prices to become affordable or at least pay for their NIMBYism.

For more on Land Value Taxes follow Mark Wadsworth, a tireless campaigner for them if ever there was one.

Happy New Year

2011-01-03T15:23:00.001Z

I haven't had the will to blog recently, mainly because I've been too busy on a very steep learning curve as I recently joined a Bridge Club and like many others the new Government has raised the hackles as much
That doesn't mean I haven't had lots of thoughts on what's going on
around me, just that every time I sat at the computer I ended up
playing bridge.

Anyway, I've got myself across the systems we are playing and feel the need to do something else as I was getting stale with so much bridge, so its back to blogging. The hiatus means that i will be covering some old stories, but it will help clear my mind.

So with that I will wish you a Happy New Year and move on.

A Wikileak too far

2010-11-30T13:32:00.000Z

Overall I think Wikileaks is a good thing. The more that those in positions of power and authority believe that any abuse will be exposed the better for all of us.

From what we have seen of the latest releases so far most of it is just a bit embarrassing and generally confirmed what most people suspected. That there isn't peace and goodwill throughout the Middle East brotherhood, for example, and some countries want Iran's nuclear sites bombed is no great surprise. What some US Ambassador to nowhere thinks of Prince Andrew is amusing tittle tattle but no real threat in the great scheme of things.

However, the disclosure of talks between China and the US over what to do about North Korea doesn't fall in to those categories and is dangerous. China is a country that is more sensitive to criticism than most. That doesn't mean that we should censure them for human rights and other abuses, for not allowing democracy and liberty and its many other misdemeanors. However, when we can get them to work with us on tricky foreign policies, such as trying to bring peace and stability to one of the world's most dangerous regions we should be sensitive to their position.

As a friend of North Korea, China was in a special position to help bring about relatively peaceful change. Even if North Korea believed privately that China was willing to work with the US and cede them to South Korean control now it is public it is likely to be even more resistant and and remain capriciously dangerous.

Wikileaks should remember that just because it can, it doesn't mean it should.

Water-boarding and the bombing of Coventry

2010-11-14T08:33:00.000Z

George W's recent discussion on the legality and effectiveness of nature of the intelligence gained from water-boarding got me thinking int. It is always assumed elligence gained from torture is used to stop some imminent attack, the ticking time bomb scenario. But if we are to gain intelligence that way is that the best use of it?

I may have heard something in the background but I have always taken an interest in WW2 intelligence, especially Ultra, the breaking of German radio codes. One of the hardest decisions of the war was whether or not to alert the emergency services in Coventry that they were being target for a blitz. In the end Churchill didn't and lives were lost but the secret of Ultra was protected and others were saved and battles and the eventually war were won. Would it have been different if the emergency services had been alerted and the Germans realised their codes had been cracked? More than likely, but we'll never know.

That was a tough decision for the wider good so what about water-boarding and the war on terror, would any of our current politicians have moral the strength to make a similar decision? Finding out about imminent terror plots is important but of greater importance must be the need to find and capture the top leaders in AQ? That may mean letting an attack happen so that intelligence sources can be protected and used in the wider war.

And if our politicians do make that decision, what of the general population? In WW2 there was a feeling that we were in it together and there was a wider sacrifice to be made. Any politician making that sort of decision now must have in the back of their mind our litigious culture and desire to blame anyone, but especially the Government, every time there is a tragedy.

For the avoidance of doubt I am against torture and water-boarding is torture. Bush may have been legally right but that doesn't make it morally right. How many new recruits have been signed up my AQ in the past week or so and mitigated any so called good from the intelligence learned at the time?

Labour's stealth tax from the grave

2010-11-04T10:10:00.001Z

Image from

Looks like we are going to need a few silver stakes if we are ever going to stop Labour bleeding us dry. From my local council website:

The spectre of an unannounced stealth tax, which could have an alarming effect on town and parish councils, has been spotted by councillors in North Dorset.
In April 2008 the then Labour Government agreed to increase the National Non Domestic Rates – otherwise known as Business Rates – on civic cemeteries. The increase, which could be as much as five-fold, is only now coming into force and could see a cost increase for some councils from a few hundred pounds to several thousand pounds, depending on the size of the cemetery

So either my local council have been negligent in not spotting thus until now or, more likely,this was another deliberate ruse by Labour to increase taxes without admitting it.

But this really is a bizarre tax application:

Quite clearly a cemetery has no real value in business terms and is never going to be developed in a commercial sense so Councillors queried why it should be subject to tax of any description.
It is estimated that there are some 800 cemeteries in south west England alone which could fall foul to this huge increase in cost.
Cemeteries run by churches and other places of worship are exempt from Business Rates but those run by local authorities are obliged to pay.

Quite bizarre. Either burying people should be taxed or it shouldn't, but it must be consistent.

On this day....

2010-11-03T17:44:00.000Z

.... in 1941 - U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Grew warned that the Japanese may be planning a sudden attack on the US.

The attack on Pearl Harbour took place on December 7th, the rest as they say is history but maybe not as we were taught at school:

For decades, conventional wisdom held that Japan attacked without any official warning of a break in relations only because of accidents and bumbling that delayed the delivery of a document to Washington hinting at war. In 1999, however, Takeo Iguchi, a professor of law and international relations at the International Christian University in Tokyo, discovered documents that pointed to a vigorous debate inside the government over how, indeed whether, to notify Washington of Japan's intention to break off negotiations and start a war, including a December 7 entry in the war diary saying, "our deceptive diplomacy is steadily proceeding toward success." Of this, Iguchi said, "The diary shows that the army and navy did not want to give any proper declaration of war, or indeed prior notice even of the termination of negotiations ... [a]nd they clearly prevailed."^[50]

We forget what evil bastards the Japanese were, partly because their depravity took place on the other side of the world, and the US still defends Japan so that it doesn't need to raise its won armed forces.

Terorists under the bed

2010-11-03T17:26:00.000Z

Reds under the bed was used to poke fun at those who went over the top when when worrying about the communist threat during the cold war. At the time I suppose we could have all been wiped off the map very easily so there may have been some justification for worrying.

Now it is terrorists that provide the justification for more money and more encroachment in to civil liberties and it has reached local councils, complete with all the attendant hyperbole. From the Dorset Echo:

CALLS have been made for security to be stepped up on Olympic sites on Portland.
Portland Town Council members Jenny Collinge and Sylvia Bradley are among those with concerns.
Coun Bradley, chairman of the council’s 2012 sub-committee, said: “I think they definitely need to tighten up security. It is a big issue.

Well yes, I'm sure that security will be an issue, but it is 18 months off. I'm sure the security services are well aware of the risk. So what's this about?

“Our marine police are good but a lot of funding and emphasis has gone towards the security in London.
“There should be as much emphasis down here where it is much more open and probably easier to get to the Olympic site than in London.
“The Government needs to look at protecting Weymouth and Portland and Dorset as much as London.”

There's a good reason for that, 90% of the Olympics taking place in London, all the VVIPs will be in London and London is such an iconic target. Furthermore London is accessible from all points of the compass and is a seething mass of c.8m people.

Whereas Portland is on the end of a spit and surrounded by sea, so we can see anything approaching from miles away. And whilst Doeset is a beautiful place, hey that's why we moved back here, its is hardly world famous other than for a load of fossils, and I don't mean elderly councillors.

Coun Collinge has been calling for the authorities to increase security and consider closing roads next to the homes on Officers Field to limit the chance of explosives being thrown into or car bombs being driven next to the site.

When they start yes, but now?

She called for security to be ‘pepped up’ in time for the events.
“The police are going to have to go from house to house and check that he’s not put something under them for a later date.
“They need to check that he’s not scattered something that’s going to lie dormant for 18 months. I’m not saying he is a terrorist but he could be. It’s possible.”

Oh my God, they're everywhere these terrorists. Look love, if they have the technology to plant a bomb with an 18 month timer do you really think they are going to waste it on a sailing event in Dorset? I don't thinks so.

Clive Chamberlain, chairman of the Dorset Police Federation, believes the case highlights the need for more money to be invested in the preparation of the games. He has been calling for more funding for Dorset Police to aid security.

That didn't take long, more money for Dorset. Don't get me wrong, if there's money on offer I would like Dorset to get some, but I'd prefer tax cuts instead.

Do they really think the security services are going to discuss tactics and risks with councillors 18 months out? Yes, we need civilian oversight of the security services, but that has to be tempered with the need for secrecy and town councillors, with all the best will in the world, are not going to be let in on those secrets.

These councillors should be more worried about the current traffic chaos in the area, that's doing more harm than any terrorist threat.

If the reds under the beds scares are starting now its going to be unbearable by the time the Olympics start. Perhaps they weren't such a good idea.

When they great and good tell us the experts support them its time to get skeptical

2010-11-03T16:46:00.000Z

Listening to the radio this lunchtime after PMQs a Labour MP informed us that all the economists agree that Labour's approach to the financial disaster they had a hand in creating was the right way. Just to remind you that approach is to continue spending money like its going out of fashion and for the Bank of England to print more money in the form of Quantitative Easing.

I became a skeptic

a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual

after the EU* referendum in 1975. I had been beguiled in to voting Yes by all the great and the good and I don't need to go in to how that turned out for the purposes of this post. Suffice to say that what all the fools said would happen turned out to be true, in spades.

So when I heard said MP I was reminded of this letter:

30 October 2010
Mr. James Fallows
National Correspondent, The Atlantic

Dear Mr. Fallows:

This afternoon on National Public Radio you proclaimed that “there is essentially no disagreement whatsoever” among economists that more stimulus spending is necessary today

You are misinformed.

Last year, hundreds of economists signed a petition, circulated by the Cato Institute, whose key clause reads “it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today.” Among the economists who signed this petition in opposition to ‘stimulus’ spending are three Nobel laureates in economics (Edward Prescott, Vernon Smith, and my colleague James Buchanan). Others signers include Chicago’s Eugene Fama and Sam Peltzman, Harvard’s Jeffrey Miron, Texas A&M’s Thomas Saving, Cornell’s Rick Geddes and Dean Lillard, University of Virginia’s Lee Coppock and Kenneth Elzinga, Duke’s Michael Munger and Edward Tower, University of Rochester’s Mark Bils and Ronald Schmidt, Rutger’s Michael Bordo and Leo Troy, University of Southern California’s John Matsusaka and Kevin Murphy, and one of the world’s preeminent scholars of money and banking, Carnegie-Mellon’s Allan Meltzer.
Perhaps these economists and the many others who’ve signed this petition (including myself) – and who continue to speak out against what we believe to be the folly of ‘stimulus’ – are mistaken. But for you to announce publicly that there is “no disagreement whatsoever” among economists that more stimulus spending is desirable is so wildly inaccurate that it borders on being irresponsible.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

OK, its about the US, but the same holds true for the UK.

I'm not an economist so won't go in to the arguments, but when someone from the ruling elite claims that all the experts support them its time to look for the doubters and listen to their arguments very carefully.

*Yes I know it wasn't the EU but those damned fools who warned us where it was going to end up

Prisoners' voting rights and wrongs

2010-11-02T20:13:00.000Z

Labour's promise of rights to everyone has caused a bit of a stir now its been taken up by people we love to hate, prisoners. That Labour didn't have the balls to take pass the legislation heaped on them by the European Court of Human Rights (Note not EU) just adds to the list of cowardice they showed whilst in office.

I can't get worked up about the subject either way. I suppose I should because there has to be some sort of libertarian principle in there but in the great scheme of things it isn't glaringly obvious. The only one that comes to mind is that Parliament, not some foreign judges, should be supreme. But as we signed up to the convention we can't complain. Anyway, the judges have said we can legislate, we just have to be specific.

So what is there to worry about? Its not like that suddenly we will have all our MPs elected by a bunch of thieves* and murderers. The prison population is about 85k, lets ignore remand prisoners for now as I can't be bothered looking. We have 646 MPs so assuming that prisoners will vote in their home constituency, as opposed to where the prison is located, that's about 130 prisoners per constituency. Its hardly going to be a convincing majority for a prospective MP.

Even if we use that law beloved of consultants, the 80:20 law, and assume that 80% of prisoners come from 20% of constituencies, that's 730 prisoner in some constituencies. Analysing the results of the last election 33 MPs had a majority of less that 730 so that result could be influence I supposed. So applying our 80:20 rule only 6 results could be influenced by prisoners voting en bloc.

And lets face it, with so few prisoners they are unlikely to get defeated by an opponent promising to set all paedos and murderers free. Even if they do, its hardly enough for HM to call their leader to kiss hands and form a government.

And what of they argument for? They only one I've heard is that its part of their rehabilitation and will make them feel part of society. Now I'm all for rehabilitation and I don't think we do enough. In that sense I fall in to the Daily Mail do gooder category. But all I can say to that argument is don't be so fucking stupid. Voting is important but given that nearly half the population don't bother why should prisoners, by definition hardly the sort of people who value society, suddenly see being able to vote as something that will make them give up a life of crime? Because if it did then losing the vote would be enough of a disincentive not to commit the crime in the first place.

So all in all a waste of news time, but I supposed it kept those who like baiting the Daily Mail Tendency amused.

*The thought of a bunch of thieves going to prison to ask for the votes of a bunch of thieves does appeal to my sense of the absurd, so maybe we should give them the vote just for a laugh.

Meanwhile, back on planet Keynes.....

2010-11-02T16:09:00.000Z

And I'll bet you'd get the same response here, except very few people would know he was from Hawaii!

H/T Greg Mankiw

Corruption is that disease that keeps poor countries poor

2010-11-02T16:00:00.000Z

This week's Economist (£) has an article about n campaign that reminded me how much I hate corruption and those who excuse it as being something to be excused because of local customs, especially when it comes to aid money:

CONGRESSMEN working late into the summer nights to overhaul America’s system of financial regulation were surprised when Bono started lobbying them. Yet the rocker-cum-campaigner helped to insert a far-reaching change into the legislation they were drafting. It has nothing directly to do with America’s financial mess, but it will push forward the fight against corruption in the developing world, a cause which has made some much-needed progress recently.
The bipartisan amendment to the Dodd-Frank act requires every oil, gas and mining firm listed on an American stock exchange to disclose in detail all the payments it makes to governments. It is the biggest success yet for the “publish what you pay” campaign, a global coalition of anti-corruption groups. It aims to reduce corruption by increasing transparency. The idea is that politicians and officials will think twice about filling their pockets with money from foreign firms if the public knows of the existence of such payments.

I have come across low level corruption first hand in a number of places and it is insidious. The first was in the far east when the taxi I was in was stopped by the local police. The policeman snarled at me sat in the back and then gave the driver a hard time. Following the incident it transpired through broken English that this is a regular occurrence and left the driver with very little of the days takings. His hours would be very long and hard that day and all he could do was hope he didn't suffer another shakedown.

Its an old saying that fish rots from the head down and corruption at these low levels is a symptom of a rotten state where politicians and those with real power abuse it, to the detriment of all. So I welcome this move to put pressure on industry not to pay bribes because everyone loses, except those receiving the bribes. The company loses by having to pay them, although they receive adequate compensation, their competitors lose out but more importantly the people of the country lose out not just through the rotten fish, but because they pay more for goods that may not be the highest quality available.

Now don't think that this is something that America needs to address because they are all red in tooth capitalists who don't give a stuff about the workers. From my experience US companies have tried to avoid having to pay bribes and have probably lost out to countries and companies with much lower standards. Indeed the tale I tell above occurred when I was doing some work for a US multinational on a contract bid they eventually lost to a European company.

It is only recently that that paragon of economic virtue, Germany, has made it illegal for its companies to pay bribes to foreign officials:

The Gesetz zur Bekämpfung der Korruption (KorrBekG – Anti-Corruption Act), enacted in 1997, was the last measure to improve Germany's anti-corruption criminal law that was solely initiated by German political actors. Since then all amendments originated in international legal instruments. Implementing only the minimum requirements of these international provisions has led to inconsistencies within the criminal law dealing with active and passive bribery. Further anti-corruption conventions signed by the German government require additional modifications. This opportunity should be used as a starting point for a thorough reform of Germany's anti-corruption criminal law.

But that hasn't stopped its companies continuing to bribe overseas officials. If a US or UK company had been as corrupt as Siemens:

Ever since the scandal broke in late 2006 the company has been confronted with mounting evidence that officials, perhaps under the blind eye or with the covert connivance of senior managers, used bribes across the globe to win lucrative contracts. It has identified so far €1.3bn (£1bn) in slush funds and put the cost of cleaning out its Augean stables at €1.8bn.

or Daimler:

But a report released on Tuesday by the United States Department of Justice said German automaker Daimler engaged in a "longstanding practice of paying bribes" to foreign officials in order to win government contracts between 1998 and 2008.

there would have been all hell to pay in the left wing media, and quite rightly, but neither of these cases reached the MSM in any great way. Maybe Germany's economic export miracle is built on putting its competition out of business through corruption?

But that isn't what really gets me going, we can expect that from evil capitalist companies who aren't correctly governed. No, what really winds me up and has me spitting is when I hear that Government aid, either directly or indirectly through NGOs and charities is given to corrupt countries, knowing full well that most it will disappear into some private Swiss bank account.

Even worse, they pass this off as cultural and that it isn't for us to be judgemental. Well, yes it is, its our hard money that is knowingly being given to these corrupt thieves, and that, in my mind makes those doing the giving corrupt thieves as well.

But they try to make it sound as if we should be grateful for giving the money because we have somehow become rich at the expense of those poor countries. No, we became rich because we booted out corrupt rulers and insisted on the rule of law for all. We enforce property rights and freedom, within reason, to go about our daily business without fear of petty corruption sanctioned by even more corruption at the top.

So by all means lets have campaigns to make capitalists tell us where their money is going, but that needs to be supported by a campaign to make Governments and NGOs stop paying bribes as well. Yes, I know they will scream that we are hurting the poor, but we've been sing this argument for years and barely a dent has been made into poverty in most poor countries. So to that argument I say, the poor will suffer in the short term, but that is a small price to pay.

Understanding Harman's rodent taunt

2010-10-30T18:19:00.000+01:00

Harriet Harman has caused a bit of a stir by calling LibDem MP, and Treasury Secretary a "ginger rodent". But that isn't the key phrase in the speech, even tough it is childish beyond belief. No, to understand why Labour are spitting blood at the LibDem's we need to look at this phrase:

In her speech, Ms Harman said many people who voted Lib Dem in May "believed that they were a progressive anti-Tory party".

To Labour its not about politics or economics or anything else, its about being anti Tory that drives the Labour Party.

I had been vaguely aware that something wasn't quite right with Labour for a few years until I heard a Labour blogger on the much lamented House of Comments podcast say that to understand Labour you had to understand that the Labour Party is just a coalition of anti Tories, and that's when it all became clear. Just think back to all the Labour rhetoric you have heard, they never discuss real policies other than being in the framewaork of being anti Tory.

And as the phrase above shows the LibDem crime in Labour's eyes isn't anything to do with politics, its all about working with the Tories. The term progressive is nothing to do with with economics or taxation, its code for anti Tory.

What a way to run a political party, no ideology, just hatred. That's why they always fail, because they just won't accept that sometimes spending ever increasing amounts of money because the Tories say we should cut back a bit isn't the way to run a country.

Which is why I will never vote Labour as long as I have a hole in backside.

Sex discrimination disappears in a free market

2010-10-30T11:15:00.000+01:00

Classic liberals, who are now generally called Libertarians because the term liberal has been hijacked and abused, have argued that discrimination would disappear in a free market and that any legislation would have unintended consequences:

In a capitalist society, Friedman argues, it costs money to discriminate, and it is very difficult, given the impersonal nature of market transactions. However, the government should not make fair employment practices laws (eventually embodied in the Civil Rights Act of 1964), as these inhibit the freedom to employ someone based on whatever qualifications the employer wishes to use. For the same reason, right-to-work laws should be abolished.

I was reminded of this section and the outcry it causes when reading an article about sex discrimination in South Korea where multi-nationals are profiting from sexism (£):

Working women in South Korea earn 63% of what men do. Not all of this is the result of discrimination, but some must be. South Korean women face social pressure to quit when they have children, making it hard to stay on the career fast track. Many large companies have no women at all in senior jobs.

So far, so bad. However South Korea doesn't discriminate in education so women are as well, if not better, educated as men. Furthermore, it has one of the lowest birth rates in the world so women have more time on their hand anhd taking fewer gaps. And look what happens in a free market when some resource is underutilized:

Jordan Siegel of Harvard Business School reports that foreign multinationals are recruiting large numbers of educated Korean women. In South Korea, lifting the proportion of a firm’s managers who are female by ten percentage points raises its return on assets by one percentage point, Mr Siegel estimates.

South Korea is the ideal environment for gender arbitrage. The workplace may be sexist, but the education system is extremely meritocratic. Lots of brainy female graduates enter the job market each year. In time their careers are eclipsed by those of men of no greater ability. This makes them poachable. Goldman Sachs, an American investment bank, has more women than men in its office in Seoul.

OK, maybe equality hasn't moved fast enough for some but it does show that free markets in and of themselves aren't discriminatory and can be part of the solution. Furthermore, it highlights what many have been arguing for a long time, we don't have a gender pay gap, we have a motherhood career penalty.

I really don't see how this could work

2010-10-30T10:52:00.000+01:00

Cricket, my favfourite particiapnt and spectator sport has been mired in contrvery recently because of allegations of match fixing and spot betting fixes. Most of it has revolved around the recent tour by Pakistan.

Some of those allegations make some sense in that they are practical, a bowler can arrange to bowl a no ball in a specific over on a specific ball and it will be given, unless the umpire is having a really bad day. The bowler doesn't need anyone else to collude in the scam and therefore its easier to pull off.

Fixing a whole match is more difficult and requires a number of players to be involved, possibly from both sides. I therefore find these claims more unlikely, but not impossible.

But this latest allegation leaves me me wondering how on earth it could work:

Mr Westfield is alleged to have dishonestly agreed to bowl against Durham on 5 September 2009 in such a way as to let a certain number of runs be scored.

How does he do that? He can't collude with a batsman because he doesn't know which batsman will be at the crease, let alone facing him? He then needs the help of more than a few fielders. He can't control a batsman getting a nick and being out on the last ball when a run is needed, nor can he control for a ball like that swings like mad and ends up going for a few extras.

Maybe Mr Westfield did try to rig an over, but I fail to see how it could be proved or how anyone could reliably make money on it.

The point of this post? None really other than to share a few random thoughts on cricket corruption allegati.ons

Throwaway lines that speak volumes

2010-10-30T10:41:00.000+01:00

I have been catching up on the Economist's last Technology Quarterly and was very interested in an article on how software is being used to analyse social networks and interactions. Mobile operators are using it to identify "influencers" by their calling patterns to give them incentives not leave a network even though they aren't themselves big spenders because they do generate a lot of revenue.

Without getting too techie and straight to the point, the same software is being used in counter terrorism and this raised the following throwaway line:

Attacks tend to increase, for example, as more money from Islamic charities flows into Lebanon. Attacks decrease during election years, particularly as more Hizbullah members run for office and campaign energetically.

Which got me thinking, why isn't information like this more widely publicised rather than left to demonstrate how useful some software program can be? I know there is an argument that it will inflame anti Islamic sentiment, but there is a more important discussion to be had. Clearly some Muslims, and presumably non Muslims, are giving money to these charities which is then being used for violent purposes, which is not really what we expect of charities.

This begs the following questions:

1. Do the people know that they are giving money that is being used to further the aims of terrorists? If so, then they are hardly adherents of the religion of peace, are they? Further if they do know what they are doing, are they culpable and should they be arrested for aiding and abetting terrorism or funding terrorism?

2. If they don't know then they should be told so that they can make an informed decision, presumably to either stop funding terrorism or to knowingly fund it and face the consequences.

By also keeping this information out of the public debate as much possible it is playing in to the hands of those very anti Islamists that they are trying not to inflame.

This discussion went on for years around NorAid,, it was well known that they were a front for the IRA but a blind eye was turned. It wasn't until 9/11 that America woke up to the real impact of terrorism and that it wasn't some folk heroes in a far away land fighting some old wars, but real people getting killed and maimed and their funding stopped immediately.

Lets hope we don't need another 9/11 for those deluded fools to either stop or be forced to stop giving to terrorists of any persuasion.

I'll bet the pamapered Premier Leagu players wouldn't do this

2010-10-29T16:17:00.000+01:00

IT is now common knowledge that the players of Weymouth Football Club offered to pay travelling expenses to the loyal supporters who travelled to Hednesford after their 9-0 defeat.
What an incredible gesture – how many other players or teams would offer to do that?

Wayne would earn probably enough to do that between leaving the dressing room and having his first spit on the pitch.

Now I remember why I have lost interst in prenier league football. (Until Leeds get back there ;-) )

Cuts galore, but we are still paying for council union reps

2010-10-29T16:11:00.000+01:00

I am all for the right of free association and for people to set up whatever organisations they want to represent them in the work place, including trade unions. I'll go further and say that I think that by and large trade unions are good thing. However, we should never forget that no matter what they say it is their one and only duty to represent their members interests, everything else is a minor consideration.

With that in mind I decided to find out if my councils, Dorset County Council and North Dorset District Council, were supporting trade unions in any way and issued a FoI request seeking various pieces of information, most notably about staff paid purely to work as union reps. The district council responded immediately that they weren't. The County Council took the full 28 days and I can see why. The gist of the answer is:

The County Council’s Facilities Agreements with the recognised Trades Unions for respective staff groups include provision for payment of salaries to a number of lay officials of recognised Trades Unions seconded to work on Trades Unions’ duties. The facilities agreement specifies the terms of these arrangements which in summary provide for paid release to support collective bargaining between the recognised TUs and the County Council, plus member representation.

So we are paying people to represent the staff to negotiate with us. And how many people?

The following posts are funded for secondments to work on trade union duties for Unison, GMB and Unite. There are 4.61 FTE posts included in this arrangement ...

Nearly 5 full time employees just to carry out union duties. And how much?

.... at a total annual cost of some £151,922 per annum.

I'll bet that doesn't cover employers NI and other costs.

We have just been told that the County Council has to find savings of £22m over 3 years, no small amount. If we assume that the £150k doesn't include employer NI and other employment costs we can estimate that in 3 years these ~~union~~ Council employees will have cost us around £500k or around 2% of the savings needed. Every little helps.

But there's more. They also give:

A sum of £80,600 per annum is paid to the Dorset Teachers Council representing the six teaching trade unions to cover the expenses of lay officials and also the release replacement costs of representatives within individual schools who deal from time to time with individual problems/issues on behalf of trade union members

But that doesn't count apparently, because it's a direct grant from the Government money tree.

Let's see what our local MP and County Councillor have to say about it, not much I suspect but I've written to get their opinions.

So, next time you see a union rep banging on about how their members are going to suffer, just remember that you may be directly paying their salaries, not the subscriptions of their members.

And let's not forget that Labour gave unions £11m for "modernisation", who just happen to fund the Labour Party:

Unite has given Labour £10.78m in cash donations and a further £287,023 in benefits such as the use of premises and printing since it was formed in 2007, through a merger of the Transport & General Workers Union and Amicus.

They can do that because we are paying for what should be the role of the trade unions.

Official advice: Ignore professionals

2010-10-06T12:35:00.000+01:00

There's nothing like alcohol and tobacco to get the righteous going, especially when it concerns the children. The latest report on drinking whilst pregnant seems to have brought them all out:

Drinking one or two units of alcohol a week during pregnancy does not raise the risk of developmental problems in the child, a study has suggested.

..

A study of more than 11,000 five-year-olds published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found no evidence of harm.

Lets be clear, peer reviewed research, as we know from the AGW crowd is the be all and end all when it comes to research*, has found that pregnant women can drink one or two units a week without harming their children. But there's more:

The same result appeared, with no extra risk of behavioural and emotional issues compared with children whose mothers had abstained during pregnancy.

In fact, the children born to light drinkers appeared slightly less likely to suffer behavioural problems, and scored higher on cognitive tests, compared with women who stopped during pregnancy.

Hmm, could it be that having a drink relaxes the mum-to-be rather than being stressed out worrying that if a single molecule of alcohol passes her lips her child will turn out to be a two headed monster that terrorises the local playgroup?

Excellent news, don't you think? As the lead researcher says:

She said that women could make "better decisions" with this information.

Ah, but we are forgetting that the state' prodnosees know better than those professionals:

However, a spokesman for the Department of Health said that its advice would remain unchanged to avoid confusion among pregnant women.

Isn't that rather playing to the stereotype of pregnant women being too emotionally disturbed to make rational judgements? I thought we'd done away with that by making employers keep pregnant women on because the official line is that pregnancy makes no difference to a woman's abilities to think rationally. If they are saying it does then shouldn't we be worrying about all those women doing safety critical jobs?

"After assessing the available evidence, we cannot say with confidence that drinking during pregnancy is safe and will not harm your baby.

But we've just had a load of research saying its OK? If you have evidence to the contrary lets see it:

"Therefore, as a precautionary measure, our advice to pregnant women and women trying to conceive is to avoid alcohol."

Ahhhh, the great naysayer of all time that allows politicians and civil servants to avoid decision, the precautionary principle:

The precautionary principle states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.

So you have to prove a negative to allow women to have a couple of units of alcohol a week, in which case why bother with this research in the first place? Unless of course they wanted it to prove their own prejudices? Because we know that the righteous are having a sustained attack on alcohol now that they think they've won their war on smokers:

This advice was backed by Chri Soreek, the chief executive of alcohol awareness charit Drinkawarre.

He said: "Despite these findings, it is important to remember that 'light drinking' can mean different things to different people.

"There is a risk that if pregnant women take this research as a green light to drink a small amount, they could become complacent, drink more than they think they are and inadvertently cause harm to their unborn child.

"Excessive drinking during pregnancy can carry serious consequence

Riiiight, because we've already established that pregnant women's brains turn to mush and they are incapable of thinking rationally. I wonder if Chris is going to feel the wrath of sisterhood for this one? I do hope so, there is nothing better than a cat fight amongst the righteous.

*It isn't, but we'll leave that aside for now.

Child benefit

2010-10-05T09:20:00.000+01:00

Child benefits has always been one of the few ~~bribes~~ benefits that neither the Tories or Labour could touch. Before discussing the proposed changes and the cack handed way in which they have been announced and applied, it is worth remembering why this benefit was paid on a universal basis in the first place.

Its not that long ago that men were the only bread winners with women expected to stay at home and bring up the children. When I say not long ago, I mean in my lifetime. Working class men were paid their wages in cash with a move to pay the middle classes directly in to a bank account. It wasn't unusual for women to not know how much their husbands were paid and they would be given a "housekeeping allowance". When I lived in the pub I would regularly see men come in, open their wage packets, take out an amount for their wife and pocket the rest. Inflation meant nothing and any wage increases would be an excuse for a few extra beers.

So the idea of child benefit was to ensure that mothers got something to help them look after their children better, in the same way aid agencies in third world countries like to educate women, it directly benefits children. To this end the money was always paid directly to mothers, what they did with it was their own business and not their husband's, in theory. Middle class men could be just as selfish, if not more so, and their wives also received the benefit.

Given these circumstances it was always felt that means testing the benefit was demeaning to women and would be more costly than any money saved through means testing. Means testing would have also meant delving in to the relationship - how mush does your husband give you? How much does he earn? etc. Any party or government proposing that sort of level of intrusion 30 years ago would have had riots on their hands and very short life expectancy*.

That is why it has become a sacred cow for both parties; Labour saw it as a way of helping a minority, women and children, and the Tories as a sop to the middle classes who are expected to pay for the welfare state.

Over time more women have started working in better paid jobs and child benefit has started to be paid in to joint bank accounts. So that is how we have arrived at professional women earning 6 figure salaries receiving child benefit irrespective of what their husbands earn and the Tories and a few bloggers have got in to such a mess over the announcements to make savings:

Prime Minister David Cameron is facing criticism over child benefit cuts after Labour claimed Conservative welfare reform plans were "unravelling".
Chancellor George Osborne said that from 2013 the benefit would be removed from families with at least one parent earning more than about £44,000 a year.

See what they did there, they applied the benefit to a couple, which is against the spirit of the benefit as I outlined above, and made themselves open to easy attack for their ignorance:

Ms Cooper responded: "The government's unfair attack on child benefit is now unravelling."
She added: "They have clearly been taken aback by the reaction of parents across the country.
"George Osborne and David Cameron obviously don't understand what it means for families on middle incomes to lose thousands of pounds a year."

Even Mrs Balls can go on the attack defending middle class parents without any sense of irony, FFS.

The question is: how have the Tories got themselves in to such a mess? As Dizzy says:

Look, the idea and principle of saying higher rate tax earners shouldn't really be getting a £20-or-so a week handout in child benefit is a good thing, but please, if you're going to do it at least execute the change with some sort of skill.

What you don't do is go on the telly and say that a couple earning £43,000 each, making their household earning £86,000 will still get the benefit, whilst a couple with only one working on £44,001 won't.

To answer my own question: that's what you get when you "modernise" and put the whipper snappers in charge of the asylum - great ideas, great energy just a lack of forethought.

If the Tories are going to be as ck handed as this when proposing and implementing cuts then they will get all they deserve at the next election.

*It says a lot about our new relationship with the state when these sorts of questions are seen as normal and even welcomed and not dismissed as "none of your damned business".

Technology and photography

2010-09-23T17:14:00.000+01:00

During the past six months or so I have been spending a lot of time understanding photography. I now understand exposure (shutter speed), apertures and ISO speeds and the relationship between them. I have also spent time understanding depth of field and what is know as the hyper-focal distance. I have learned about filters and how they are used to create those amazing pictures of waterfalls and seascapes that look all blurred.

I have spent time understanding the technicalities of DSLR design and lens design and why lenses can get so expensive - over £10k for some. I now understand how the camera's sensors work and their dynamic range and why photographers should aim to "expose to the right". I can now interpret those histograms you see on DSLR screens and how they can be used to help get exposure right. I even know when to use manual focusing and how to use those little do things in auto focus to ensure that I focus on the right part of the subject.

I know the difference in file formats between JPEG and what is termed Camera Raw - raw files contain much more information. I even understand white balance and how to use it properly to get some good effects.

This is is all good technical stuff which interests me as an engineer and without the understanding you can't take a decent photograph.

Why am I telling you this? Because all this technology has made photography more accessible to the
amateure to the extent that more and more are having a go at becoming professionals. But there is one bit of technology that really has opened up the world of photography by reducing the cost of the biggest barrier to entry - the cost of lenses. As I said above you can easily pay over £10k for specialist lenses but even good everyday lenses will over £300.

Look at this photo:

When we had finished sorting the house we invited our next door neighbours for a drink and my wife had left the dining room light on and I noticed this scene over my neighbour's shoulder. I liked it so much I recreated the next evening.

Notice how the doors are bowed out? This is termed "barreling" and now you know its there its really annoying and can spoil a good photograph. Although thiswas taken with a standard lens it wasn't cheap with a new one costing around £400. To get a good lens that doesn't distort that much is going to cost well over £1,000. Imagine that cost increase for every lens you would need to buy to become a professional - 4 or five lenses at least, and you have a significant barrier to entry.

Now look at this photograph:

A nicely corrected photograph and all for the price of a £200 software package, and this is only one benefit. It does all the post processing any photographer could ask for and has all the corrections for all the popular lenses.

Now a career photography really is accessible to all, although not me.

Of course the downside is that reducing the barrier to entry means that the many professional can't make a living and I was reminded of that in a blog comment when someone claimed two of their friends had had to give up the career.

I am well aware that all we have discussed is the technicalities here and just because a carpenter has the best tools available, it doesn't mean he can make a book case. There is a lot more to taking a good photograph than the technicalities and a bit of software, which is why I am going on a landscape photography course next week.

If you believe in the EU you beleive in the new extradtion treaty with all its "pettiness"

2010-09-23T12:29:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit late on this and only got energised to blog when I catching up on some podcasts yesterday.

High-profile requests from the US have brought Britain's extradition laws into the news. But Britain actually sends more people for trial to Poland than anywhere else and the architect of the law, David Blunkett, admits there have been unintended consequences.

I want to leave aside the US extradition treaty and concentrate on the EU one, not because the US treaty is any better, but because the EU is more pernicious and won't be changed because it is about politics and not security.

In the program much is made of the petty extraditions to EU countries and this is given as an example:

Gregg, a Polish builder and decorator who now lives in Merseyside, wears a look of regret. He is being extradited from Britain to Poland to face charges, in what critics say is a flawed aspect of Britain's Extradition Act 2003.
Five years ago, on his way to a party in his home town in western Poland, Gregg shoplifted about £70 worth of Milka bars.
Gregg, who has since built a new life with his fiancee in the UK and runs his own business, had forgotten about the incident until last month, when British police in his adopted homeland came to arrest him and send him home.

Lets imagine that Gregg had been a scouser who now lived Manchester and had stolen those chocolate bars from Tesco. Would anyone have been making such a fuss about the case? I don't think so, so why all the fuss over it because he is going back to Poland to pay for his crime?

If you believe in the EU project then this is a good thing for it means that we have made one more positive step in the pursuit of ever closer union. The BBC should be celebrating this case with the proviso that the only thing wrong is that they had to go to court first and that he should have been transferred straight to Poland.

Me? Well I am an EU skeptic and would leve tomorrow, but that aside I don't want people to come here as a refuge from their crimes, no matter how petty they seem to us. However the full cost of the case should be paid by Poland, there should be a prima facia case and whatever the "crime" it should be illegal in this country as well.

New things I've leaned about Lib Dems after their conference

2010-09-23T12:00:00.000+01:00

~~1. They don't like power and would prefer to be in opposition so they can live on wishful thinking~~

~~2. They aren't liberal they're socialist~~

~~3. Like Labour the only thing that binds them is being anti Tory~~

~~4. Vince Cable is twat~~

~~5. Simon Hughes is a slef deulsional egotist~~

Nope, nothing new just confirmation of what was already known.

Letters to the Dorset Echo

2010-09-23T11:53:00.000+01:00

Sir,

I see from an article on the Dorset For Your Newsroom, Commuters take the Rush Hour Challenge, that Dorset NHS has an employee described as a “sustainability lead”. In these difficult financial time these are the sorts of posts that are a luxury we cannot afford. We need our NHS to be curing us of our ailments and not lecturing us or their staff on the latest green wash at our expense.

If we believe that we need to protect the planet for our children and grand children then we should start by not burdening them with our debts to pay for us to live high on the hog. Let those who occupy these roles go out and generate some wealth so that we can pay off our debts and then our children will be in a position to be able to afford to tackle whatever problems the future has to throw at us, manmade or not.

Yours,

Simon

Vince's attack on capitalism

2010-09-23T11:49:00.000+01:00

When I first heard, or perhaps I should say thought I misheard, Vince's attack on capitalism and that:

Capitalism takes no prisoners and kills competition where it can

I thought of all sorts of points to make along the lines of capitalism also creates competition whenever it smells an opportunity. I could have also made the point that it is politicians that make competition harder by creating barriers to entry by working with businesses to create every more and higher regulatory hurdles for new comers - a recent Cato podcast claimed that in some US States more than 1 in 3 jobs is in a licenced occupation including hairdressers and nail technicians FFS.

It would probably have been a rambling post and not very succinct so I'll leave it a Marxist to explain very succinctly why Vince Cable constinues to talk crap:

That “where it can” is doing a lot of work. There is no question that each individual capitalist tries to kill competition, by undercutting his rivals, offering a better product or - let’s face it - lobbying the government for special protection. Every businessman wants to be a monopolist - or at least, he should do.
However, it doesn’t follow that such efforts succeed. The empirical evidence suggests that Marx was wrong. There is no tendency for capital to become more concentrated. Studies show that firm growth is independent of size (or anything else!), and so the distribution of firm size doesn’t change much over time. The degree of competition or monopoly is roughly stable. Tesco or Wal-Mart might seem monopolistic, but they are less so than 19th century truck stores.
One macroeconomic piece of evidence for this is the share of profits in GDP. If capitalism tended to kill competition over time, you’d expect this share to rise over time. But it hasn’t. Aside from a fall in the 70s and recovery in the 80s, the profit share seems trendless.

If it wasn't for the BBC and Guardian Vince would have been confined to the history books years ago, as it is their love of him keeps a deluded population believing we can continue to have our cake and eat it and all we need to do is tax a few bankers a bit more.

That society thing: Big, small or no such thing?

2010-09-14T20:23:00.000+01:00

Society in all its forms is getting a bit of an airing at the moment with Dave's Big Society generating all sorts of discussions. Most of them centre around how vital it is that the state does everything. This morning on R4 there was a discussion on Library funding and the use of volunteers.
We've also had talk of parents running independent schools on a voluntary basis as part of the big society. But they are all missing the point .

If we quickly go back to first principles we find that we hire the state to do the things that we can't do individually. Defence and crime and justice being the main two functions we need to hire people to do for us and these people we now call the state. The defence bit means we need to have relations with other countries so it also makes sense for the state to do that as well, we can't all be ambassadors for ourselves with every country much is we'd all like the perks that go with the job.

So, having hired a state we have found that there are other things that we would like it to do. Public health is a big issue as we can all be affected by a small minority not pulling their own weight and causing disease and other health problems. In response we have decided that we will hire the state to empty the bins. It doesn't have to be done by the state and isn't in Ireland. All it needs then is a few rules to make sure its done properly and everyone complies. Those rules can be based on the do no harm axiom, so if you don't put your bin out an pay for it to be collected and someone is harmed you get punished.

We have also decided to hire the state to provide and deliver health care, it doesn't have to be delivered by the state, many other countries have far better health care than us and all the state does is make sure it is provided, it stays well clear of delivery. The same has happened with the two areas mentioned above, libraries and education and there is no reason at all why the state should provide these, they can be done quite easily by a private company if that is what we want.

But something strange has happened over the past thirty or forty years or so. Rather than us hiring the state to do things we can't be arsed to do or just can't do ourselves the state is now dictating to us what it will do and how much it will charge us rather than us deciding how much we want to pay.

The need for spending cuts is now giving us the opportunity to re-look at what we get the state to do for us and whether or not we want them those things doing collectively and if so is there a better way, cheaper and with higher quality. To which the answer has to be yes, because if this is as good as it gets it time to emigrate.

Lets start with education. I think we can all agree that up to a certain age, lets say 16, education is a good thing and we something we all benefit from. People who are educated to a basic standard are better behaved and more likely to be able to look after themselves in the world of work and be a nett contributor. So how should we provide each child with that education? We could hire the state and let them do it, as we do now, or we could ask the state to collect some money from all of us and give it to those who need education, well to their parents as we can't trust anyone under 16 with a cheque for £8k or whatever it is we decide to give them each year.

The only stipulation we say is that the money must be spent on education and that the education must provide the basics. So maybe we should have a few people to help us decide what the basic minimum a school must provide and then let them get on with it. As it happens I reckon parents will pretty soon decide what it is they are looking for and we won't need that much regulation.

This has been tried in other countries, most notably Sweden, and there they don't rely on volunteer parents setting up schools in their spare time, companies have been formed and parents hire those companies to educate their child. If they don't do it properly they take their children elsewhere. Its worth noting here that those social democratic Swedes don't have a problem with those companies making profit either.

So now we've established that we don't need the state to do everything for us, we can organise ourselves in many different ways can now thank a lot of those people for all the help they have given us in the past but we, the tax private payers, have decided that there are other ways to organise ourselves and whats more we can still call it a society. And at the same time we can tell Unison, Unite and all the rest of the trade union leaders who want to use those we hire to inflict misery on us to fuck off and we'll do it differently from now on.

What we really need now is for the debate on the Big Society to be be a debate on How Big Society and then how we deliver it. For me it should be a small society, but I understand the politics. But anyway, call it what you will, it can't be about the state telling us what it will deliver and how much it will charge us, whether we want it or not.

Wondering about the Autism spectrum

2010-09-14T19:20:00.000+01:00

The radio 5 phone today on special needs children reminded about some thinking I had been doing on autism and the way it is always described as being a "spectrum", with diagnosed children somewhere on it. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that some children are autistic, but I wonder if this idea of a spectrum isn't being used by parents, teachers and professionals t?o obtain a quite life or justify their rent seeking?

If there is a spectrum it means that there must be a reference child somewhere who is "normal", yes? All other children must then be compared to that reference child and if they don't measure up then they must be somewhere on the autistic spectrum? And if they are on the autistic spectrum doesn't that mean that they can make special claims on the state?

But we know that all children are different, behave in different ways in different situations, especially in school. Not all children are going to be at ease talking to adults, but that doesn't mean they are autistic. Not all children will be at ease painting, or answering questions. So most of them won't measure up to our reference child.

And doesn't this prey on the sensitivities of parents? My child doesn't seem to be normal therefore there must be something wrong? My child is misbehaving, it must be a medical problem, it can't be me? And as they hear a lot about autism then this is an easy place to look.

And when I look at this website I do get suspicious about some of the reasons for wanting an autism diagnosis:

Over 40% of children with autism have been bullied at school

Bullying is a real problem, but Bullying UK had a survey and they reckon that 69% of children claim to have been bullied. Again, this isn't to belittle autism or bullying, but charities playing victim poker is a dangerous game when so many are at it.

Over 50% of children with autism are not in the kind of school their parents believe would best support them⁷.

Hmm, could there be some cause and effect here? I can't get my child in the school I want, my child is suffering and isn't happy (parents transmitting their anxiety to their children?), my child must be on the autism spectrum, push for diagnosis, get on spectrum, get in preferred school!

If this is going on then is those with serious autism who will suffer as resources are diverted.

Again I stress that autism is a real disease, my problem is the way it has become something for parents to use whenever there own children aren't seen as perfect of they want to game the system

No doub't this subject will come up again and I'll do a bit more research, until then I'll keep wondering.

We've all got attention deficit disorder now

2010-09-14T18:42:00.000+01:00

Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to the news today will have heard that Ofsted have claimed that special needs are being used too widely:

Thousands of pupils are being wrongly labelled as having special educational needs when all they require is better teaching and support, Ofsted has said.
It said up to 25% of the 1.7m pupils in England with special needs would not be so labelled if schools focused more on teaching for all their children.

As expected the this brought out the usual suspects of rent seekers from the TUC and assorted "fake" charities to pronounce that their vested interest shouldn't be blamed and that these children really do need help and that they should have more money.

As could also be expected it provided the topic for this morning's Radio 5 Live phone in. which brought us the usual ad hominem stories and tales of parents fighting to get their children treated as "special". Hey, don't all parents think there child is special and should get special attention at school, usually for being extra bright? But I digress.

It was my misfortune to catch the last 15 minutes as I was out in the car and the excellent Radio 4 program on tax had just finished. The final caller regaled us with a story of how he had struggled at university and was finally diagnose with dyslexia, dyspraxia and attention deficit disorder and had to drop out. He finished by telling us his attention deficit disorder was so bad that when he sat near a window he couldn't concentrate on the subject being taught, especially if it was a boring subject. I still have the steering wheel imprint on my head. What a twat.

Do these people think that the rest of don't have trouble with distractions? Looking out of the window dreaming of golf, or sailing or being away on holiday or how much I hate Labour is far better than work. But like most of the normal population I have to work to those thoughts aside and get on with what needs doing. This isn't a "disorder" its being normal. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself, looking for excuses and blaming everyone else and get over your self you.

There are many reasons not to burn the Koran, threats of violence isn't one of them

2010-09-11T13:18:00.001+01:00

I don't have much time for Islam, it is a dead faith that doesn't recognise change in the world, at best it tolerates the mutilation and enslavement of women and non believers and at worst condones it:

Her in-laws treated her like a slave, Aisha pleaded. They beat her. If she hadn't run away, she would have died. Her judge, a local Taliban commander, was unmoved. Later, he would tell Aisha's uncle that she had to be made an example of lest other girls in the village try to do the same thing. The commander gave his verdict, and men moved in to deliver the punishment. Aisha's brother-in-law held her down while her husband pulled out a knife. First he sliced off her ears. Then he started on her nose. Aisha passed out from the pain but awoke soon after, choking on her own blood. The men had left her on the mountainside to die.

If you have a strong stomach the picture is very moving.

Yes I know the argument that this is cultural rather than Islamic behaviour, but frankly I don't care. These acts of barbarism are carried out all the time in countries where Islam is the predominant faith and especially where it is the ruling faith, and they use the Koran to justify the behavior. Look at Iran, a country which likes to murder young girls by slow strangulation for the heinous crime of being a girl. That's what an Islamic theocracy leads.

Of all this we hear nothing from the Muslim world's leaders, no angry crowds demanding that the offenders be tried and punished, no effigy burning, no angry condemnation from the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia or anywhere else. Those same leaders who complain, with veiled threats whenever they believe that their religion has been insulted.

Yet one self publicist nut job threatens to burn a copy of the Koran and they are up in arms , an action whilst offensive doesn't harm the hair of the head of one single person. Lets not forget these threats are made against all Americans and by extension westerners, even the ones who condemn the Koran burning.

And don't they know that it is that same free speech that means that Muslims can build their Islamic Study Centre near Ground Zero?

We cannot be blackmailed on threat of violence into curtailing free speech, no matter how distasteful the manifestation of that free speech is, because it is that free speech which protects us from rule by the sort of people who are happy to allow young girls to have their ears and nose cut off, for rape victims to be sentenced to death because they were raped.

What do you do when you see a child in the road? Drive over them....

2010-09-11T11:54:00.000+01:00

..... because its only a 3D image, or it was last time a child was in the road.

Via the ever readable Dick Puddlecote this story of bureaucratic idiocy:

We’re doing something completely different compared to our campaign last year to raise awareness about more kids being on the roads this first week back at school. In fact, our latest campaign is a Canadian first.
Preventable, BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation, and the District of West Vancouver have launched a 3D illusion geared to make drivers slow down at high-risk intersections.

As Dick says, what could possibly go wrong? Apart from distracted drivers slamming on their brakes and getting rear ended or veering across the road into another vehicle or onto the pavement...... If you need me to tell you then you probably shouldn't be driving. The comments on Dick's site and on the original piece say it all.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for trying to keep drivers alert and aware of children, I'm a parent and seen fist hand what kids can do, but that doesn't mean every attempt should be tired, the lame brained ones should be strangled at birth. But there are much better ways of calming traffic and making the roads safer for all, if only people would open their minds:

Riding in his green Saab, we glide into Drachten, a 17th-century village that has grown into a bustling town of more than 40,000. We pass by the performing arts center, and suddenly, there it is: the Intersection. It's the confluence of two busy two-lane roads that handle 20,000 cars a day, plus thousands of bicyclists and pedestrians. Several years ago, Monderman ripped out all the traditional instruments used by traffic engineers to influence driver behavior - traffic lights, road markings, and some pedestrian crossings - and in their place created a roundabout, or traffic circle. The circle is remarkable for what it doesn't contain: signs or signals telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and sidewalk, so it's unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the pedestrian zone begins. To an approaching driver, the intersection is utterly ambiguous - and that's the point.

...

In Denmark, the town of Christianfield stripped the traffic signs and signals from its major intersection and cut the number of serious or fatal accidents a year from three to zero. In England, towns in Suffolk and Wiltshire have removed lane lines from secondary roads in an effort to slow traffic - experts call it "psychological traffic calming." A dozen other towns in the UK are looking to do the same. A study of center-line removal in Wiltshire, conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory, a UK transportation consultancy, found that drivers with no center line to guide them drove more safely and had a 35 percent decrease in the number of accidents.

Closer to home one of the towns close to us, Blandford Forum, has done something similar on their main street, although they haven't gone quite as far, and its a lot more pleasant moving backwards and forwards across the road. Even as a driver I don't find it inconvenient as I know that when its clear I keep moving rather than waiting for the lights at empty crossings to change or expecting someone to jump out to try and get on a crossing at the last minute.

Rational ignorance

2010-09-11T11:08:00.000+01:00

The Angry Economist doesn't post often, but when he does they are insightful and thought provoking:

The proper version of "ignorance is bliss" is actually "WHEN ignorance is bliss," and it should be followed by "'tis folly to be wise." That's the short version of public choice economics, which points out that your vote counts for very little, and consequently justifies very little investment in making a quality vote. They call that "rational ignorance." Some economists go even further and say that because your vote counts for so little, you can vote emotionally rather than rationally. You can vote for a minimum wage because it makes you feel good, rather than voting against a minimum wage because it actually prices the worst workers (who need the most help) out of the market.

And that's why he's in my RSS feed and on linked on the left. You could do a lot worse that spend 30 minutes on a rainy day going through his blog and adding him to your RSS feed.

Improving broadband speeds and stability

2010-09-11T10:54:00.000+01:00

Before we bought the house I did a bit of research and got the line broadband tested and was aware that as the house is some distance from the exchange the available speed would be much slower than we had become accustomed. However, having stayed in the pub which is 50 yards away I knew it would be usable.

The service was installed before we finally moved in and had been acceptable for the odd bit of usage it got. However, having moved in the service turned out to be far below what is acceptable - slow speeds, connection dropping when we used the phone and taking ages to re-sync whenver it was reset. After numerous calls to BT they eventually agreed to send someone out.

After some testing he agreed with my diagnosis - it's crap - and set about doing some fault finding. It turned out the the service was fine at the point where it entered the house but not at the master jack. We followed the route and found that the previous occupants had installed an extension by just cutting the cable and taping the wires together in the loft. As well as being illegal it was technically a very stupid thing to do because of what is known as maximum power transfer theory (if you must know its very techie but you cab find out about it here.) Even if he had been able to make very good connections, which you cant by just wrapping wires together, it would have halved the power in the signal, not good when you are a long way from the exchange.

But that is only part of the problems, because we are talking about complicated signals the inductance and capacitance will have been changed (look it up if you must know, but again very techie) and this will have led to a further power loss but also distortions of the line characteristics and the introduction of noise, which is the same as reducing power.

When the engineer removed the extension and crimped the cable properly the service worked well at the master socket, but was still crap in the office. As this was where BT's responsibility ended and the rest was up to me. The nice BT man did leave me with a new master socket, though.

When I followed the extension to the office I found it went under the carpet and then under a very tightly fitted carpet gripper and so had probably been crushed, again not good for for broadband.

Solution: I fitted the new master socket in the loft ( a bit naughty as that is BT's side, but I have the correct tools and did a module of house wiring when I was still in the army) and cabled up the extension properly. Next I installed my WiFi hub and DECT master phone in the loft, to improve coverage.

Result: A very stable and usable broadband connection.

Lesson: If you want a good broadband connection make sure your internal wiring is installed correctly and this is a pretty good guide.

Go and sign this.

2010-09-07T19:35:00.000+01:00

Rank and Pension of Soldiers Killed on Active Service

‘That this House, convinced that the courage and devotion to duty of members of the British Armed Forces who are killed while on active service for their country should be recognised and rewarded in every possible way, particularly by the pensions and help given to the families they leave behind , recommends that the Ministry of Defence’s rule providing that pensions on promotion are payable only after the role for the new rank has been held for a year should be revoked for those killed in the service of their country so that their families are paid the rate appropriate to the rank held at the time of death; and considers that the family of Sergeant Matthew Telford of Grimsby, promoted to the rank in June 2009 but killed by an assassin in Afghanistan in November of that year, along with Guardsman Jimmy Major of Cleethorpes and three other soldiers, should be paid the full pension appropriate to the rank he was proud to honour at the time of his death’.

We, the undersigned, support the above motion and urge the Government to act on it as a matter of urgency.

Back story here

H/T Guthrum

Bob Watch

2010-09-07T11:20:00.000+01:00

One of my regular subjects will be Bob Watch, in which I intend to report and comment on the performance of our local MP, Bob Walter. I have already had a couple of email exchanges with him, well his researcher really, and found them to be very helpful in finding a report that had been used to answer one of his parliamentary questions..

The source of my news will Bob's newsletter and the They Work For You (TWFY) emails which highlight MPs speeches and questions. TWFY also reports in MPs voting record, although this may have to be taken with a pinch of salt as the context of votes isn't always clear as Tom Harris reports in one of his typically whingey posts. Anyway, from a libertarian point of view Bob's record is somewhat chequered:

Voted a mixture of for and against the Iraq war. votes
Voted strongly for an investigation into the Iraq war. votes
Voted a mixture of for and against a stricter asylum system. votes
Voted moderately against Labour's anti-terrorism laws. votes
Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees. votes
Voted moderately against removing hereditary peers from the House of Lords. votes
Voted strongly against a wholly elected House of Lords. votes
Voted moderately for laws to stop climate change. votes
Voted a mixture of for and against equal gay rights. votes
Voted very strongly for replacing Trident. votes
Voted very strongly against the hunting ban. votes
Voted moderately against introducing ID cards. votes
Voted moderately against introducing a smoking ban. votes
Has never voted on a transparent Parliament. votes
Voted moderately against introducing foundation hospitals. votes
Voted very strongly against allowing ministers to intervene in inquests. votes
Voted a mixture of for and against greater autonomy for schools. votes
Voted moderately against more EU integration.

In fact he seems quite inconsistent so we should have some fun when he does speak.

Dorset AV Yes camapign kicks off

2010-09-07T10:24:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure where I stand on AV, I need to give it a lot more thought and will be listening to the debate closely. As part of this I was pleased to see this letter from the Dorset Echo in my RSS feed:

Fair Votes For Dorset campaign ready for launch

Next Thursday (September 9) sees the Launch of Fair Votes For Dorset’s ‘Yes’ Vote Campaign at Bridport’s No. 10 café and bar (7.30pm).

I thought I might go along and listen to their case. Who's running it I wondered?

The campaign includes members of the Liberal Democrats, Green Party, Citizens’ Action Party, the Labour Campaign For Electoral Reform and George Galloway’s Respect Party.

Hmm, that's quite an interesting bunch. OK, I'd expect the LibDems to be there, its their policy and the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform for the same reason. The Green Party are always up for some publicity and rabble rousing but they too have a long record of wanting PR (most small parties do).

Who are the Citizens Action Party, though? A name like that sounds very lefty:

We're radical, left of centre, determined to challenge unsustainable consumerist lifestyles and committed to returning power to local communities

Ah, the usual lefty crap about sustainability and consumerism. Presumably their idea about localism is one where they get to call the shots and we all end up living in yurts and scraping a living of the soil while they lord over us.

And finally George Galloway's Respect Party, not the Respect Party, but George Galloway's Respect Party. Bearing in mind this is a letter from the Chairman of the the group and not a journalist's bias, he egotism of George Galloway is their for all to see.

And the letter writer is a Richard Denton-White, Chairman, Fair Votes For Dorset. Now I've never heard of him but one of the comments set some alarm bells ringing so I though I would do some research. It looks like he's one of the self serving types who gets himself on to all sorts of committees and stood as a candidate for the Citizens Action Party - nuff said.

Not a promising start in enticing me along. So does the letter have anything that might attract me and make the journey worthwhile? Well you can judge for yourself but if the meeting follows the tome of the letter it will be one big yawn:

The current, obsolete first past the post method of electing MPs and councillors invariably guarantees bland, centre right governments and self-interested council controlling groups

We've just had 12 years of Labour growing the state to a size that is unsustainable and he thinks they were centre right!

Ranged against the ‘Yes’ Vote are those in the Murdoch Press, the Tory right and the dinosaur tendency of the Labour Party who are desperate to keep their ‘vested interests’ under FPTP.

To be fair he does make some good points:

The Alternative Vote is not what most reformers wanted, but it does at least require elected representatives to win at least 50 per cent of the vote share in order to achieve election for their ward or constituency

And that goes for lefty as well as right wing parties.

No, it doesn't look like t will be an intellectual debate on the merits of AV over First Past The Post but a long left wing rant at which I am sure an effigy of Maggie will appear for ritual burning.

I think I'll wait for the opportunity to attend a more intellectual debate.

Oh, and that comment I referred to sums it up really:

I don’t know about you but if changing our voting system means giving power to the likes of Richard Denton-White and George Galloway then I would sooner stick with what we have , at the end of the day they all look out for themselves first and all promises and principles go out of the window.

Quite

Proof positive we have too many MPs

2010-09-07T09:43:00.000+01:00

Some people seem to think that the new AV Bill which reduces the number of MPs is a bad thing and somehow undemocratic. Well, if those MPs are so under worked they can come out with this evil bollocks then I say the fewer the better:

Instead of employers deducting income tax then paying gross salaries to employees, the gross monthly payment would go to an HMRC-run tax “calculator”, which would then pass the net salary to the worker.

The reform would mean the end of traditional monthly payslips, because employers would no longer be able to tell workers how much tax they had paid each month.

Yes, that's right, all your money will belong to the state and then they will decide how much pocket money you can have back. This is the same bureaucracy that can't even get you tax coding correct and then demands you pay them back at threat of imprisonment for a mistake they made:

Nearly six million people in the UK have paid the wrong amount of tax.
About £2bn was underpaid via the Pay as You Earn (PAYE) system in the past two years, with about 1.4 million people owing an average of £1,500 each.

Even those who think that the state is benign must have concerns about this? Just think of the scale of this operation, 20 million households waiting for the State to deliver their pocket money so they can pay the bills, buy food and just generally live. That same state which has some of the most militant and unionised employees will control all your money. What a wonderful bargaining position for Unison:

(15/06/10) "If this government picks a fight with us, then we will be ready for them,” declared general secretary Dave Prentis to a packed and cheering audience of members.

"Do not underestimate us. We will be fierce defenders of our members and the services they deliver. The government won’t know what hit them.

And if they get it wrong who do you complain to? Your boss? He'll be just as likely to have been messed about? Your payroll department? There isn't one, your company doesn't have one because it just hands a big fat wad of cash to the omniscient state.

You could complain to your nearest tax office, but they have all been closed (Times Online

January 13, 2010):

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) announced that 130 regional tax offices are to close, potentially forcing tens of thousands of taxpayers to travel further for advice and submit their self-assessment returns.

and (The Guardian, Friday 5 December 2008)

Revenue and Customs is to cut 3,400 jobs and close 90 tax and VAT offices across the United Kingdom in the latest round of government staff cuts, it was revealed yesterday.

No doubt we'll be given the number of a very pleasant, eager, but ultimately unhelpful call centre somewhere in India.

Lets just hope that it is kite flying:

The tax authorities are consulting accountants, lawyers and businesses on the plans to reform the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) system.

And they all tell the government to firmly and politely go fuck themselves.

Looks like the new government is just going to take over from New Labour when it comes to idiotic and invasive legislation.

If Iraq and Afghanistan weren't the priority, WTF was?

2010-09-06T19:39:00.000+01:00

General Dannatt again:

It took until 2006, five years into the Afghan campaign and three into Iraq, for the MoD to decide its primary focus was “strategic success” in the two wars “in the context of countering global terrorism”, he writes. “The question of MoD priorities was not clarified until the Defence Board held an 'away day’ of discussions in late October.” The situation “defied logic”, he adds.

If those two wars weren't the priority, what was? It beggars belief that the whole of MOD wasn't focused on them.

Which is why we get this outburst as well, with which I have some sympathy:

He claims civil servants live in a “cocooned environment”, where vested interests come first, meaning “the man on the ground has been short-changed”.

One of my last jobs in the army was working in a department with a very high number of civil servants and I had one working alongside me, although he claimed that as his military equivalent rank was a major he somehow had control.

Anyway, without exception they all knew exactly what they ere entitled to and how to get the most out of the system. If we were going away on a job my own civil servant wanted to be picked up at 0555hrs, as this was before 0600hrs, the cut off time for him to get a hardship allowance. He would only go to Cyprus every two years as he only go a warm weather allowance every other year and wouldn't have got one in between. And the amount of time lost discussing which civil servants were entitled to their own desk, carpet, hat stand and other trivia used to send our military boss round the bend.

So I can sympathise with General Dannatt, especially as his civil servants were putting lives as risk:

He describes how nine years after being agreed, a much-needed scheme to acquire a set of armoured vehicles collapsed in a bureaucratic mire. He spent a day with an American equivalent system in 2008, he says. “It nearly broke my heart. They had almost exactly what we needed”. Gen Dannatt writes that when he took over as Chief of the General Staff in 2006, it was clear there was little political appetite for a rethink of the defence budget.

Ed Balls and defence spending

2010-09-06T19:24:00.000+01:00

Ed Balls was interviewed on Radio 5L the other night night and was asked about General Dannatt's recent attack on Labour:

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt criticised Mr Brown for inadequate funding and said Mr Blair lacked the "moral courage" to make his chancellor deliver money.

He, Balls, waffled and whined about the General Dannatt being some sort of Tory stooge because he had been a Tory adviser. Balls is renowned as being one of the nastiest politicians on the circuit so I suppose it would never enter his head that people like General Dannatt have a mind of their own, but more importantly have high very moral values and standards

But that's by the by, what I wanted to talk about was Balls' defence of Labour's defence budgets. He claimed, and wasn't challenged, that in the 10 years before Labour came to power the Tories cut defence spending by 30% and then Labour raised it by 11%. The answer sounded a bit too pat, but lets take this claim at face value, yes I know it's Ed Balls but I haven't got the time or inclination to do the research, and lets do something the interviewer didn't do, think about what he said.

Firstly, lets consider those Tory defence cuts and what happened between 1987 and 1997. A quick check of the history books and we find that the cold war came to an end, signified by the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. With the end of the cold war we were promised a "peace dividend":

The peace dividend is a political slogan popularized by US President George H.W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the early 1990s, purporting to describe the economic benefit of a decrease in defense spending. It is used primarily in discussions relating to the guns versus butter theory. The term was frequently used at the end of the Cold War, when many Western nations significantly cut military spending.

So we had an excuse, real or not, to cut defence spending and from my memory every one, including the Labour Party were screaming for cuts and the money to be spent on the poor.

After a few of years of this peace dividend with not a lot happening we probably could afford to save a bit on defence. Then, as we all know, we voluntary entered not one, but two hot wars. Now it doesn't take a great mind to realise that if you are going to war it is going to cost more, not least because those expensive munitions, like missiles, get used at rate much faster than they do in peace time training. What's more, the enemy has a habit of shooting back and destroying things which also have to be replace; the bastards.

If Labour increased defence spending by 11% all I can say is, it probably wasn't enough

Hello World!

2010-09-05T18:09:00.001+01:00

helloThat's the traditional greeting the those learning a new computer language write to the screen with their first coding. I suppose its not quite apt as I have been blogging for a few years, but have decided to start a new blog.

You can find out about my past blogging life and why I have decided to reincarnate here and maybe follow some of my old posts.

I do intend to be a bit more parochial with this blog and tackle issues around living in the country as well as some of the usual national stuff but all from the same position, a libertarian, small government, world would be a much better place for all of us.