Government by petition?

On December 27th the Government published a discussion paper which among other things would require local councils to "respond" to any petition signed by more than 250 electors.

I have waited a few days before commenting, as the whole thing seemed like some kind of hoax - Dec.27th seems a "good day to bury", - no-one would not ice. A few other commentators have picked up the story, so it seems to be genuine.

Hazel Blears, the author of the paper, may be flying a kite. Does she really think that Democracy is served by the small number of cranks and riders of hobby horses, who regularly pester councils in one way or another, having some sort of power over all electors and determining policy.

Of course "respond" may mean nothing more than acknowledging - as was the case when Downing Street opened its Petition website early in 2007 and acknowledged and then completely ignored the 1.8 million signatories petitioning against road pricing.

We may be prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume that she is merely trying to activate an interest in politics which has been destroyed by years of centralisation on London. Such gesture politics are not going to convince electors who feel that they have little power locally, as councils do little more than accede to what is controlled in London.

Surely no local council will do more than merely acknowledge a petition signed by so few. Nor would enlarging the number of signatures, to, say 10% of electors, or about 7,000 to 8,000. Why should such a small proportion be empowered to decide for the other 90%, who may not even have been approached?

If she really believes in restoring locally democracy, then she ought to devolve real power to local councils, - for police policy and appointments, local transport, education. People might then fall over each other in eagerness to vote - their votes would matter in changing what was deemed unsatisfactory or in trying something new.

When I use a word, it means what I want it to mean

This week the "Centre for Policy Studies" has published a "Lexicon of Contemporary Newspeak". This is a dictionary of words used in their own special way by politicians, and by the Government in particular. It is well worth a read, and may be viewed by a down-load from their website.

Many of us have been puzzled since 1997 that the word "investment" has acquired a new meaning. In ordinary English investment is a commitment of resources, - time, labour or money, to a project which will produce returns in kind or money over future years. For New Labour it is a substitute for the word "spend", but it sounds better than "spend", which can mean throwing money wastefully at something.

"Consultation" means "tell the people what we have decided" or, at best, "Let the people sound off and say what they want, especially if they're in a marginal constituency, before we get on with what we have already decided." "Discussing" means, "We have no answers, but I'm not going to admit it.

Sometimes it is mere verbiage - short Anglo Saxon words will not do, and are replaced with a group of words, "Take forward" to replace the word "do". "Agenda" means a rag-bag of policies that have some kind of connection, and which are to be "taken forward." "Blue skies thinking" means "uncosted ideas for further activities", while "Draw a line under" means "we are evading responsibility".

Then again, there are the buzz words - "progressive" means "has approval from people like us".
"Social" is a word attached to anything and actually creates meaninglessness, but it must be good because it is social - social engineering, social justice (- all justice is social), social investment, social responsibility, etc. It must be bad if there is hate attached - race hate, hate crimes, etc. Am I bothered as a victim, that the criminal actually hates me when he does me wrong?

Perhaps the worst feature is to use words or phrases to give the opposite impression. Hence "addressing an issue" means "avoiding the issue", while "dialogue" usually means, "I'm not debating this now because I know nothing." What does "Let me finish" mean, other than "I want to continue talking so that you cannot hit me with more difficult questions.?" "Let me be (absolutely) clear" usually means "I want to confuse, because I have no evidence to support what I'm saying."

The CPS Lexic0n runs to 30 pages, and many more examples could be found. The important question is why they use such language. Sometimes it's to mislead and deceive, with little doubt. This may be to save reputation, or to promote reputation. Sometimes it's to avoid simple words which would have connotations which are unfavourable. Sometimes it is to use words which identify the speaker with his tribe.

Occasionally the self-judged highly intelligent rail against the simple straightforwardness of the tabloid press, where little is left to misunderstanding. Some Lexicon users, feeling that if the simple truth were out they would be like the emperor with no clothes, so they clothe themselves in obscurity. We need some members of the "Plain English" Society to take these abusers of English to task. At present when the Government talks of "Open Government", they mean "Let the people see the bits of which we are not ashamed, but conceal anything which might put us at a political disadvantage." I fear that the misuse of English will continue.

Will the trend end or bend?

The "Lib Dem Voice" website this week included calculations they have made of the six major opinion poll surveys undertaken in December, seeking some crumbs of comfort. The Conservative percentage varies between 39% (ICM/Guardian) and 45% (YouGov/Sunday Times), while Labour varies between 30% (ComRes/Indepenedent) and 35% (Ipsos-MORI) and the Lb Dems between 14% (Ipsos/MORI) and 18%(ICM Guardian).

The Lib Dem Voice works out the averages, which are Conservatives 42% (up 2% since the November average), Labour 32% (down 1% since November) and Lib Dems 16% (same).

They also include the comparable average figures for all year since 1997.

December Average Polling Results for the three main parties:

Year	Labour %	Conservative %	Lib Dem%
1997	54	25	16
1998	53	28	13
1999	51	29	15
2000	46	33	15
2001	44	29	20
2002	39	30	24
2003	38	32	22
2004	38	32	22
2005	36	37	19
2006	33	37	17
2007	32	42	16

It has to be said that the December 2007 polling results come mostly, if not entirely, from the period before the election of the new Lib Dem leader. Whether the exposure boosts the Lib Dem percentage, or not, may be a moot point. If Mr. Clegg succeeds in rousing his party, the percentage may rise.

What is clear from the above table is the steady and inexorable decline in the Labour percentage, without temporary rises in the set of figures. The LibDems figure is the most volatile, while the Conservative figure has grown from 25% to 42% over the ten years, but there was a set back - the 33% in 2000 fell back and was not achieved again until the 37% in 2007.

It is too simplistic to iron out ups and downs and then extrapolate into the future. Economists are familiar with the little verse, (Based on Stein's "A rose is a rose...")

"A trend is a trend is a trend,
But the question is, will it bend?
Will it alter its course, through some unseen force,
And come to a premature end?"

The unseen causes are many. Could the economy falter into recession, and question Gordon Brown's claim to super-competence? Will Nick Clegg convert the Lib Dems into a focussed body with clear policies? Will Dave Cameron have another "grammar school" moment?

What we do know about the immediate future is that there will be a debate about the new EU Const... sorry, Treaty, and there will be some rebellion. (Rebellions began under Blair, but Brown has had more rebellions than any incoming prime minister since 1945). Brown will probably survive with help from the Lib Dems and perhaps a few Tories. On extending the number of days of detention for terrorist suspects from 28 to 42, he has a much bigger task. At the moment there seem to be enough Labour rebels to defeat him, as they did Tony Blair when he tried for 90 days. Whatever happens, things will be unpleasant from the coercion he applies. Alternatively, of course, he may risk losing face by withdrawing the proposal.

Not revealed in the Lib Dem percentages is a growing number of electors saying "It is time for a change". How easily they may be convinced otherwise, or whether the change will be towards the Lib Dems, rather than the towards the Tories, time may tell. For the moment the clamour for change seems to be growing.

Let the police have it....!

A final thought or two on the stand-off between police and Government-

Just about the only other group not able to use industrial, that is trade union, muscle is the armed forces. They are underpaid, overlooked and taken for granted. It is true that in peace time they have a fairly pleasant life style, with plenty of travel, sport, etc. In war time, and we seem to have been at war of one sort or another for the past 10 years, they daily risk their lives in a way in which the police do not for something like half the pay of the police.

In terms of risk, then, the police are not badly paid, with a starting wage in excess of that of nurses and firefighters. They have generous pension arrangements, and because the pensions are public sector pensions there is little chance of company failure and pension loss. Nor is their job becoming more demanding. The Taxpayers Alliance has calculated that in every 7 hours on duty, 6 hours are spent safely within the police station, on meal breaks and administration. If they are called to a dangerous situation, we have observed, they do a full risk analysis before they embark.

On various grounds, then, it would be difficult to recommend a large increase in pay for the police. But we are not talking about a large increase here, but 2.5%, that is just above the Government's preferred inflation measure but well below the real rate of inflation. Furthermore, the dispute is being treated by the Government as the first settlement in the 2008 pay round, and therefore setting the going rate. In reality it is the last settlement of the 2007 pay round, having been considerably delayed by discussions and then the arbitration process. The award ought to be compared with those of other public sector workers during the year.

Normally, full back-dating is accepted when an agreement is reached. In this case none is being given. This is a major departure, and the main reason for the police grievance. Although arbitration is binding on police but not on Government, the latter have certainly acted in bad faith in deserting the usual arrangement.

It would be regrettable if the police or armed forces had unions and bargaining rights over pay, or that they became even more politically involved than they are now. It is difficult to see the Government conceding such bargaining rights. In the end the only recourse for individual constables or soldiers is to vote with their feet, - to leave and not be replaced. (The army is struggling to recruit, and resignations and "AWOL" have been high.) For a comparatively small figure, £40m has been mentioned, and only £200 per year for individuals, the Government is irsking the goodwill of the police. They may come to regret it.

Thinking and doing

There has been some discussion among leading Tories about the consequences of the politicisation of the Civil Service. It included some pessimistic estimates of how long an incoming Conservative Government would need to restore it to its traditional neutrality and efficiency. It has been so infiltrated with Labour Party die hards, especially at the senior end, and so much under the direction of Labour Party functionaries, that it has become generally demoralised and subverted.

In order to consider how to rectify the situation it is necessary to ask how this has come about.

- Targets have reduced highly qualified civil servants to monitors and collectors of statistics. The number has expanded greatly but only to fill the bureaucratic needs for pen pushers.

- Decisions have been made on the sofa at number 10, without experienced advice on implementation. Experienced senior civil servants have been by-passed or ignored.

- Huge numbers of new acts have tinkered with existing acts or created new ones barely compatible with old ones. If there has been consternation at the level of school or hospital, then there has been overwork where all the paper is produced. Very often the new laws have been produced to catch voters' eyes, and subsequently not used.

- Highly paid consultants, including many who have Labour Party connections, have resulted in vast expense and under use of able and experienced civil servants.

So where would you start to clear out the stables?

- Perhaps involving recently retired civil servants, on a temporary basis.

- Giving more freedom to schools, hospitals and local authorities, as well as reducing the legislative burden and making few tinkering adjustments on a regular basis.

- Using the skills and experience of the civil service, and slowly restoring its political neutrality.

- Generally doing all to avoid the "elective dictatorship" which has grown over decades but accelerated in the last 10 years.

- Sorting out, before getting into office, a (limited) programme of intended bills and measures.

Democracy in danger

Regionalism is still creeping on. We thought that we had defeated it in referendums a year or two back, but the animal is still alive and kicking. Indeed, with the government making “goodies”, i.e. generous funds, available through bodies on a regional basis, there is a momentum building up again.

The West Midlands Regional Assembly, which does little except to interfere, is to have its annual assembly next month. What is the point of this body? How much is it still costing?

Amalgamation of just about every major service on regional basis has occurred – Fire, Ambulance, Health Service, and almost of the police but for a rearguard action. All government departments seem to be regionalised, as well as still controlled from Whitehall.

Culture, sport, higher education, environment agency, and the probation service are among a long list of quangos financed by Government (Taxpayer) with regional offices.

Why is the pressure building for more regionalisation? Leaving aside weak arguments about bigger being better, which are seldom true of personal services in the community, there appear to be two main promoters:

1) The European Union makes no attempt to conceal its preference for regional government, and regularly produces maps showing only three countries in Britain, - Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. England no longer exists as a country. Instead it is in nine parts, or regions.

Quite why the EU has this emphasis we can only guess. Perhaps it is partly to break down into smaller regions, to reduce the power of nationalism and ease the eventual complete control of the Union, or whatever it is called at that point.

2) The resent Government, noting that they have more support in urban areas and very little in rural areas, can achieve more control by combining the more thinly populated Conservative voting areas with the urban areas with their larger populations.

If there is any truth in these, and I suspect there is, all it requires is to offer incentives and inducements. Telford, for instance wanted to join the city region running from Coventry, perhaps 60 miles away, to Telford. The administration would probably centre on Birmingham, very remote for Shropshire people, but who cares so long as Telford can jump on the gravy train. (There are more glaring examples, though perhaps not with City Region inducement. The proposed South West region would extend from Land’s End to the Midlands border – perhaps 90 miles, so wherever the administrative centre is located it will be utterly remote for many people.

All this, and the West Lothian Question, possibly underlie the recent upsurge in English awareness and nationalism. We should be concerned that control and accountability is becoming more and more remote, that electors will find it increasingly difficult to escape unpleasant policies and taxes by removing to another authority, and ultimately that only a lip service is being paid to democracy and local provision. (It has to be noted that the LibDems seem to have gone cool on regionalism recently. Are they no longer proponents?) If so, it would seem that all this is being done by small, undemocratic groups. This is even more worrying.

A quiet revolution in Swindon?

Swindon Borough Council may be causing a real stir. They are threatening to withdraw from the local Safety Camera Partnership, unless the Government allows them some or all of the revenue generated from speed camera fines.

When, early in the Blair reign, speed cameras were first touted, local authorities were assured that the revenue would be ring-fenced to finance more road safety measures. (Perhaps this was to allay the suspicions that many had about speed cameras.)

Later, when the Department for Transport introduced the Safety Camera Partnerships,comprising councils, police etc., the promise was forgotten, but about 15% or revenue was retained for the Partnership for additional road safety measures. The remainder was designated for Chancellor Brown and his many schemes.

Swindon are rebelling because although they must pay for the cameras and the scheme, any profits are siphoned off to central (Treasury) coffers. They also resent the fact that local government is becoming local management, that is on behalf of central government. This is true generally and also particularly in the speed camera operations.

So they want more say, as people who know traffic problems best, and they want more revenue. The challenge will be there for Westminster!

They will know, from the Government response, if they have been merely used as agents to collect stealth taxes for the Government, rather than conducting sensible safety policies for their area.

Oh, by the way, Swindon Council is Conservative controlled.

Nick Clegg

We congratulate Nick Clegg on his election to the leadership of the LibDems, and wish him well.

He has an uphill task
- his majority was very small, and he was supported by only about 25% of the party membership.
- so far we have heard generalities from him that most people could agree with, but he has now to to attach policies which will carry his party and attract others. (To judge by the experience of David Cameron, the press and others will expect a full range within a year, unless he can extend the "honeymoon".)

As a former member and councillor in the old Liberal Party, I have to say that after three years I gave up trying to discover what the party believed in, and since that time they have been joined by discontented socialists and Social Democrats.

They have never discouraged being regarded as a middle of the way party, and therefore a safe bolt-hole for refugees from both Labour and the Conservatives. Now Mr. Clegg has to lead them and the public to see what it is they actually believe in. Otherwise we shall continue to see them as a rag-bag, all-things-to-all-men set of opportunists. I think that Mr. Clegg has a hard task.

First the Post Offices, then the hospitals, and now.....

We feared, when the Government was trying to enforce amalgamation of police forces, that policing was likely to become more remote, with less fixed police presence in some smaller communities.

Little did we realise that well before the amalgamations, there had been a whole series of police station closures. The Sunday Telegraph reported last Sunday that since 1997 over 600 hundred have closed, and a further 40 are under threat in the next 12 months. About half have been replaced, often on a very limited basis – small rooms, away from town centres, and staffed by PCSOs.

Worse still, even where police stations have been retained, it is often on a “9 to 5” basis. (Jack Large, aged 14, was stabbed to death outside an unmanned station at Chigwell, Essex, recently.) The Sunday telegraph reports surveys which reveal that only about one station in eight is open 24 hours a day. In fact 18 out of 43 police forces do not have a single station open 24 hours a day.

So where will our gallant police officers be, if we need them? In many cases they will be located at centres not available to the public. If we see them in our locality, it will be riding in a car with a blue flashing light. Otherwise, presumably they will be doing all the government-required paperwork, until they- are interrupted, very unreasonably, as the result of a telephone call from a member of the public in some distant place.

The lack of local availability means that officers will spend more time in travelling, and have even less time for walking a beat.

Wealthier residents in Primrose Hill, Camden, London, and in other places, are beginning to hire private security guards to patrol the streets. They have given up on the 827 police Officers, 169 other staff and 98 CSOs. It seems that in places like Camden, out of every seven hours in duty, six are spent in admin and meal breaks!

Residents in Cricklade, North Wiltshire, have a police station in the High Street, but no resident has yet been able to find anyone to come to the counter to deal with them. This despite the assurance of the Chief Constable, that it was manned and officers would come if they were not tied up! He asked people to keep attending, or the accountants would feel they had justification in recommending closure. Keep attending an effectively closed station, or it will be closed!

Does he really not know, or is he merely dithering?

Benedict Brogan, one of the leading bloggers, today quotes another source and then updates it from his own investigation. He has counted the number of reviews ordered by Gordon Brown since he took over in June.

The Brogan estimate is 49 reviews. This works out at about two per week. Among them the Treasury is conducting 5, the Home Office 6 and the Ministry of Justice 9.

But why is the figure so high?

Is it to keep everyone occupied, so they don't have time or energy f0r rebellion or even stopping to think? If so, he is creating docility, which he wants, but at a cost of poor decision making?

Or is it, as the Tories claim, yet another sign of the famous Brown dithering?

Could it be his defensive strategy when he is in trouble - "Yes, we're in trouble, but we're prepared to learn, and to keep you off our backs I am setting up a review until you forget!"

Could it be that he has created a bigger mess for himself, by his interference when Chancellor, than we suspect?

Whatever the reason, and it could be different for different reviews, it's amazing that having been effectively "co-prime minister" for 10 years, and having had so long to prepare himself for his elevation, he should be so uncertain about what to do now. But then, he claims that he called off the election that never was in order to have time to share his vision with the country. We are still waiting for this vision to astound us.

Trade Unionists fleeced?

It is a Labour myth that Lord Ashworth is unfairly giving money to selected constituencies, in a period between elections when there is at present no cap on individual giving or expenditure on campaigning. They have accused Lord Ashcroft of “creating an arms race”.

In an important article on November 5^th, 2007, the Times showed that this is a considerable stretching of the truth. It showed that the Trade unions collectively gave £1.58m to local constituencies, during the last parliament, while Lord Ashcroft gave £850,000 to Tory seats. Even if donations from other wealthy Conservatives are included, the total rises to £1.38m, - still slightly short of the Trade Union level of giving.

It is true that the Unions give to a wider range of constituencies, - not just to marginal ones. But they have given to marginal seats. Derby North, number 15 in the Tory target list, received £25,500 in 20 donations from the Communication Workers’ Union, compared to £5,000 from Lord Ashcroft to his party there. In Hastings and Rye the Unions donated £16,465 compared to Lord Ashcroft’s donation of £12,068. Since the 2005 election Unions have donated £64,018 to labour seats, while Lord Ashcroft has given £72,970 to Tory target seats.

But, say Labour, we are not comparing like with like, - Trade Union gifts are from 8 million individual members, while Lord Ashcroft’s are from a single individual The former should be allowed to give up to £50,000 per member, while Lord Ashcroft should be restricted to £50,000.

Collectively the Trade Union gifts from member subscriptions amount to about £10 million each year. Matthew Parris (Times, 8^th December, 2007) estimates that £85 million has been given in the last 6 years altogether by the Trade Unions.

The Labour argument must be set against other facts. Firstly, in regular opinion polls, slightly less than 50% admit to being Labour voters, the remainder vote for other parties, or none. Secondly, set this against the fact that many unions claim that considerably more than 50% have agreed to pay affiliation fees to Labour. In fact Usdaw and Nacods claim 100%, while CWU claim 104% and Amicus even 109%. Why do they claim more members than they have? Simple, it costs them £4 a year for every member who affiliates, and they receive votes in proportion to their membership. Some unions are prepared to dip into their pockets for the extra influence they receive.

On many of the union websites, while affiliation may be mentioned, nowhere does it appear to say that members can opt out, and on many the suggestion is that opting out does not reduce subscriptions. It seems that there is a strong possibility that there are thousands, even millions, who would opt out to save themselves money or donate it to other parties if it was possible.

Matthew Parris suggests that the union practices are already illegal under various laws – 1987 Consumer Protection Act, 1999 Consumer Contracts Regulations and the 2000 Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations. They will almost certainly be illegal under EU legislation due to arrive in 2008 – it will be illegal to induce anyone to enter a contract by “omitting or hiding material information, or providing it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner”.

We may be reaching the point where the Conservatives should accept Gordon Brown’s invitation to talk again about the whole question of donations, but insist that the Trade Union donations must be included. Brown can hardly rule them out, without losing face.

If Brown goes ahead without the Conservatives, as he threatens, and legislates in a partisan way, there will be the possibility of legal disputation and a testing of the laws above. It needs only a few sympathetic trade union members to support the Conservative cause by swearing that they were never informed of their rights to opt out, or to make gifts in other directions, and there would have to be a major investigation. In the end much of the Union giving would be lost. It would be a pyrrhic victory for Brown.

The are some good people about!

Ray Lewis, former prison governor and founder of the Eastside Young Leaders Academy in 2002, has shown a way to boost the life chances of young black men, in his academy in Newham, London. So promising has his initiative been that the local Labour MPs support it, and Stephen Norris, former Tory minister is chairman of the academy’s board, while Francis Maude is also on the board.

The statistics are depressing for young black boys. Unemployment among black African and Caribbean people is 8% higher than the national average, black boys are six times more likely to be expelled from school than their white fellow students, and while the black component in the English population is 4.6% black prisoners make up 17% of the prison population. Their underachievement is further shown in the 3% they make up among undergraduates.

Ray Lewis was impressed by what he saw of the Young Leaders Academy of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while on a visit to the USA, and he decided to replicate something of what he had observed.

He formed the academy, using his own money, as a business and a charity. He was helped by a positive response from Newham Council, who allowed him to seek referred pupils from local schools.

The academy, with about 80 students, offers after-school and week-end academic coaching, including a citizenship programme which stresses “civic responsibility and moral leadership”, The students carry out community work in residential homes and homeless centres, as well as gardening and decorating for the elderly, and they work in other charities.

Parents of students attend monthly meetings, work as volunteers and engage in fund-raising. Many of the students suffer from never having had a male role model, and the academy arranges a team of successful black businessmen to act as mentors.

Lewis is concerned that he saw so many young black men in courtrooms, and his vision is to “seek to prepare as many as possible for the boardrooms.”

This is surely an initiative that everyone can welcome – self-financing, self-esteem enhancing, vision enlarging., life-changing. It fits in with everything that Ian Duncan-Smith and his foundation have been saying.

It is a relatively small work in the vast scheme of things, but it deserves to be applauded – it recently won an award from the Guardian newspaper. As someone said, or is it an old Chinese proverb, “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

Councillors - the new Professionals?

A major report commissioned by the Government reached Hazel Blears, Local Government minister, this week. The Councillors Commission, alleged to be “Independent”, was in fact crammed with Labour supporters.

The effect of the Report is to propose higher salaries and many perks, to set up “golden goodbyes” for unseated councillors and pensions. In fact they would be creating a copy of the political set-up in Westminster.

Among those things proposed are:

• Higher salaries for all councillors, including parish councillors. (Could there be a connection with the fact that from 2006 all Labour councillors have had to pay a direct debit levy from their council income to Party funds?)

• Golden goodbyes – cash handouts to those who lose their seats as the result of an election. These “umbrella” payments would be equivalent to statutory redundancy pay and be linked to time in office.

• State funding for local political parties

• Pensions for all councillors

• A communications allowance – “propaganda on the rates” – money for councillors to communicate with electors (near election time?). In addition, Councils will no longer be constrained in extolling their achievements (- publicity bills are already soaring.)

• Councillors to be permitted to keep any benefits from unemployment, even though they are receiving salaries from the Council.

• Weakened controls on officers who are also councillors. The controls were imposed in the 1980s to reduce corruption.

• Abolishing by-elections (parties to maintain lists of “substitute councillors” to replace from the same party councillors who do not finish their term.) Are the Labour party so pessimistic about their council future?

• Any requirement for councillors to be present and vote at meetings to be abolished. They could vote in absentia! This is to enable councillors to keep or gain other outside jobs.

The implications of all this are many and large. Foremost is the cost of implementation, which nationally would be many millions of pounds. They seem to feel that if council tax payers are required to stump up even more money, then they may be more likely to vote in local elections. Turnout is extremely low, and voters are often disillusioned. Would the money paid to political figures locally, their freedom to use propaganda, and the possibility for increased corruption make voters more enthusiastic?

If they wish to encourage people to vote, much the better way would be to give the councils more real power, instead of being mere agents for London. If people thought that their vote would make a real difference……

In fairness to the Government, spokesmen and “sources” are suggesting that the cost is too great for local taxpayers. We shall see.

Not good value

Our Government is to embark on two new "drives" - banning cigarette vending machines, and putting severe restrictions on the use of sun-beds.

The reason is very simple. According to Professor Karol Sikora, a leading cancer expert, "We now spend more per person on cancer than any other European country". The problem is that we are way down the cancer league tables - 16 European countries have better rates of survival, in terms of the percentage of people who survive for more than 5 years after first diagnosis, and we are better only than Ireland, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovenia. Between the best for men at 59%, in Iceland, Italy and Sweden and the worst at 51% in Poland, Czech Rep. and Slovenia, we come in at 53%. For women Iceland is best at 48%, while Slovenia and Czech Rep are worst at 38%, while our rate is 42%.

Professor Sikora identifies 4 reasons why our high spending produces such relatively poor rates of survival:
We are bottom of the league tables on access to diagnostics, time to first treatment, availability of radiotherapy and access to innovative drugs. He adds, "We have funded managers to deal with targets while in France, Germany and Italy that bureaucracy does not exist."

Shortage of staff and equipment mean that 4 million patients wait more than a month for the tumour shrinking treatment, even though delay often reduces chances of survival significantly.

The Government is right to be concerned about the growth of malignant melanoma, - our fastest rising form of cancer, due to excessive tanning. Relatively little progress is being made in the treatment of lung cancer, so prevention by renouncing smoking is very worthwhile.

But if we could achieve the best European practice levels we would save 95 lives each day. NICE, the government drug monitoring agency, must speed up the time it takes to approve drugs. Staff must be appointed and trained to reduce waiting times, and the necessary equipment must be provided. Much of this could be achieved if we reduced the spending on bureaucratic control and targets.

Then after nearly 10 wasted years, and spending vast sums, we could see improvement in cancer expectations.

Fortunately there are outside comparisons

The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (- PISA) recently published its latest report, surveying the attainment of 15 year olds in 57 leading economies.

It makes worrying reading. Between 2000 and 2006 the UK students slipped from a ranking of 7th best in reading, to 17th, slipped from 8th in Mathematics to 24th, and from 4th to 14th in Science.

In One respect this grim picture cannot be blamed on the Government. It has increased the spending per pupil in state schools to £5290, - an increase of 87% in real terms, that it when allowing for inflation.

When the first PISA study was done in 2000, there was some scepticism about the UK rankings. There were suspicions that our sample had to been carefully selected to represent the best among our students. The next PISA study in 2003 saw us missing from the ranking tables. It seems that our sample size was too small.

Now in the third PISA there is nowhere to hide, unless we withdraw from the studies altogether.
Instead we have been reduced to claiming that we are still (just) above average, at 14th ranking, in science. We have dumbed down to deceive our own people, but we cannot deceive these standard international tests.

As everyone is coming to acknowledge, the money was spent but reforms were ignored.

Why are they doomed to fail?

We are now used to the idea that despite spending enormous sums of extra money on our public services, improvements are small or non-existent. There may be some improvement in health, but education seems to be going backwards and we are slipping down the league tables.

Is there a reason? Yes, more than one!

Our supply is centralised and monolithic. Everything is top down, with London setting targets and trying to fine tune by diktat and finance. The NHS is one of the largest organisations in the world. To try to run this from the centre is bound to result in confusion and inefficiency. The decision makers at the top lack knowledge of what is happening at the bottom, despite the vast arrays of statistics collected, the people at the bottom are demoralised by targets, instructions from distant bosses, and a belittling of their roles. They will avoid whatever they can of what they resent, take whatever they can from the system and avoid hassle as far as possible. The result is the kind of inefficiency that we used to see in Soviet Socialism. There is little discretion and initiative locally and little incentive to work hard or save resources. When inspectors come there is attempt at cover up, apparent compliance, but once they depart.....

The supply is monopolistic (ignoring the private education and health for the relative few), little chance for customers to vote with their feet if things are not satisfactory. The enterprises are producer dominated, rather than consumer orientated.

The enterprises are ultimately ideologically and politically oriented. Politicians see them as serving some political purpose. If the results seem to show something challenging for the political masters, "spin" them away. If failures are exposed, find sacrificial victims - hospital executives, school heads, to carry the can, - politicians will always try to save their own necks.

Is this all inevitable? Yes, if we continue to try to run a centralised, monopolistic, ideological service, rather than one that is ultimately decentralised, where local suppliers are closer to local needs, competitive and above political considerations.

The Labour Government has paid lip service to competition, by talking about choice - although it doesn't really want the complications that real choice would give to a centralised system. In talking about foundation hospitals with some autonomy, they seem to appreciate the need to decentralise, but there are too many among them who want to control things from the centre.

A year or two more of President Blair could perhaps have made choice and autonomy more real, but we now have a prime minister who seems even more of a centraliser. It could take some considerable events to move to a more efficient consumer-orientated service

Did they lose the money?

The Times reported on 8th December that the Labour Party really has no excuse for their many officials and senior parliamentarians who claimed not to know that proxy political gifts are illegal.

In April 2001 the Labour Party received the first tranche of a £180,000 grant from the Electoral Commision, - the remainder arrived in 2002. (All parties received grants - the Conservatives the same total, the Libdems £137,00, right down to £500 for the communists.) The grant could be used to hire consultants for advice, to communicate with party workers, train or to convert computer systems, etc., to ensure compliance with the 2000 Elections and Referendums Act.

The 2000 act was the one which required the clear identification of political donors, submitting accounts and declaring gifts above £5,000, among other requirements!

It seems that the first of 19 disguised gifts from David Abrahams took place just a few months later, when in January 2003 Janet Dunn, the wife of an Abrahams business associate, "gave" £25,000.

Martin Bell the anti-sleaze campaigner told the Times newspaper, "The more we know, the worse it gets. It makes you wonder what this money was spent on."

Certainly, Peter Watt, who quit as Labour general secretary over the whole affair, worked for the Party when the Act was introduced and was task-force leader for financial and legal compliance from 2003, as well as director of finance and compliance from 2005 until becoming secretary in 2006. If anyone knew the legal requirements, he should have done. Yet on his resignation he claimed to have taken legal advice and been reassured that he had met all reporting obligations, until eventually he found that there were additional reporting requirements.

There seems to have been complete ignorance of Section 54 of the act, requiring the names of both proxy giver and original giver, even among those who had accepted the responsibility for ensuring compliance with the act.

Martin Bell had justification for asking what the grant was spent on.

Must be a coincidence?

David Abrahams, the shy Labour Party donor, may have received a reward for his generosity.

The Indepedent on Sunday yesterday revealed that David Abrahams gave £99,000 to the Labour Party just before Christmas 2005, via three of his proxy donors. Within a month an application for planning permission for a business park which he had made was given preferential treatment. It was placed among 21 schemes nationally passed to test speed of planning for "large and complex developments". Objections over its effects on traffic, by the Highways Agency were "suddenly and unexpectedly withdrawn."

The Department for Communities and Local Government claimed that the identities of developers were unknown to those who decided their inclusion in the "fast-track pilot scheme". In the case of Mr. Abrahams, it would not have made any difference, as the Labour Party claim not to have known he was donor!

The LibeDem leadership contender, Christ Hume, alerted the Durham Police, who have subsequently spoken with the Audit Commission.

Of course, this may be yet another of the strange coincidences to which the Labour Party has recently been prone, and one where nobody knows anything so nothing can be proved.

Is hypocrisy too strong a word?

The Sunday Times reported on Sunday that yet another Labour supporter, this time Imran Khand, was able to channel more than £300,000 to Labour funds while remaining anonymous, with his name not given to the Electoral Commission. This occurred earlier in 2007. In the same way Mohammad Sarwar was able to give £5,000 to Harriet Harman's deputy leadership campaign. Yes, that lady again!

Their proxy donors were the "Muslim Friends of Labour", who did not declare the gifts because, like the Trade Unions, they have many members and can give donations collectively. (The Times claims that Khand in fact gives about 96% of the "Friends" donations, and there is a doubt that they actually have many members.)

All this has been going on while the Labour Party was attacking the "Midlands Industrial Council" formed by a group of Tories to benefit their party in various ways. At times they have been almost as regularly a target as Lord Ashcroft.

Jack Straw reluctantly conceded that they were acting lawfully, but seemed to forget, or be oblivious to the work of Muslim Friends, of whom he made no mention.

Spin, spin, spin

The Taxpayers Alliance on 4th December published figures which they had obtained using the freedom of information act.

Adding together expenditure on communications directors, press officers, free newspapers, websites and advertising for recruits, shows that the average council now has a publicity budget of about £985,000. This compares with £430,000 in 1997, an increase of 130 percent. Even allowing for inflation the increase must be approaching 100%, or doubling. The average council taxpayer now pays something like £20 a year for this in his rates.

In total councils are now paying collectively about £450 million.

It seems that councils are like their big brother in Westminster, where the number of press officers has trebled to over 3,500 since 1997.

We all know that we are deceived by spin on a regular basis, and we know that local councils have become adept at concealment. What is worse is that while they spend ever more on spin, they cut back on services with the claim that they are short of money!

Belt-tightening

We have been warned that the economy may experience a bumpy ride over the next several months. Brown the optimist is still forecasting significant growth next year, and describes his period as one with no boom and bust.

Well there is news for him. The insolvency service has published figures for bankruptcies and individual voluntary arrangements for the years 1989 to 2007.

What is clear is that before Brown the peak was in 1992/93 at about 10,000-12,000 a quarter. This figure was passed in 2003/04, and is currently running at about 40,000. I wonder why Gordon Brown forgot to mention these figures? We are sad for the people involved, but it is dishonest for the Government to claim that all in the garden is lovely when the rate of failures has been rising from about 2002 and is already much higher than when Brown took over the Treasury.

It can be done

Hammersmith and Fulham (Conservative controlled) Council, has just announced a reduction of 3% in council tax, for the second consecutive year. They have saved costs by productivity increases, reduced debt repayments, office space, and energy consumption, among other things. They list details of savings of nearly £4 million.

Lest anyone suggest that they have penalised youth groups or retirement homes, - the usual catcalls from the Labour party, they have also increased spending on 24 hour police teams in town centres, and on parks and education. Perhaps the best proof is that simultaneously they have increased their Audit Commission rating to four stars - which means offering the very highest standards across the board.

At the same time the neighbouring (Conservative) Council at Ealing has made significant savings, in fact of about £10 million. They, however, have decided that they should return the "dividend" to rate payers by spending more on street cleaning, recycling, road surfacing and 50 new police support officers.

Which is the correct policy can only be decided by rate-payers, but what is abundantly clear is that both councils have made significant savings without reducing quality of service. In both competitive tendering, reduction in armies of special advisers (- Labour is the same at local level as in Westminster), cutting waste and bureaucracy and promoting more efficient ways of working have saved a considerable sum of money. It can be done.

Ealing may have a slight edge when it comes to Government grants in the future. H & F may find their savings met by a reduced grant!

There must be a better way!

At this time of year Councils are heavily involved in preparing budgets for the next financial year.

We can be sure of two things:

1)They, (especially Conservative controlled councils), will be wrestling with tight finances imposed by the Treasury nationally, because the Government is having to cut back, due to past overspending and the current economic climate.

2)The commitments laid on local authorities, in terms of services they must supply, will not have diminished., and to the extent that they are labour intensive the costs will rise by more than the inflation rate

What is clear is that even if central government imposes a cap, many councils will struggle to keep their spending increase to much less than 5%.

So the faults of the present system look likely to continue – people on relatively fixed incomes will lose out, - particularly pensioners whose state pension has risen far less than prices over the past 10 years. Indeed, the decision by Gordon Brown as chancellor to reject the traditional measure of inflation (RPI – based on a large range of prices and costs) in favour of the CPI which omits many commodities bought by pensioners and which have increased more rapidly in price, has meant that in some years pensions were increasing by about 2%, while prices faced by pensioners increased by up to 8% or 9%.

There must be a better way of dealing with local expenditure!

People are suggesting that local expenditure should all by financed locally. Of all the money spent by local authorities, no less than 75% comes from Treasury grants. (The Treasury receives 90% of all taxation, so the system is very centralised, in fact only in Ireland among all the countries of Europe is the system more centralised.) The end result is that there is no incentive to save money, or next year’s grant will be reduced, and every incentive to waste money – inefficiency is rewarded! There is also a lack of transparency and accountability – local councils may be blamed, when the fault is from central government.

The Government seems determined to make the present system more precise – the council taxes will be based on minute differences in housing quality. Thus it will penalise those who are living wealth rich but income poor, eg a pensioner in a pleasant house, and reward those who are income rich but wealth poor, eg four working adults in a smaller house. No doubt various adjustment will be proposed to make the system more acceptable to retired people, and as the scheme will be bureaucratic and computerised every one shudders at what may happen.

Alternatives suggested include a local income tax, espoused by the LibDems, so rates are paid according to the ability to pay. So thousands more of revenue officials will be needed, and our personal details will travel even more than they do now. Will there be allowances against tax, will the tax be collected by communities where people work and are paid, or where they live? There is potential conflict here. All income recipients would have to be included, not just those gainfully working. It would be very cumbersome and expensive to collect.

Another tax suggested is a local sales tax. It is a coincidence, but a fact, that the Treasury raises in VAT about as much as it grants to local authorities. No-one, I hope, would suggest a locally determined VAT, which would be too complicated and expensive. A local sales tax could be like our old purchase tax, imposed only at the point of retail, and would be simple and inexpensive to administer. It is well known in the various states in the USA. The local authority would level a tax at a rate to cover their costs. Some goods could be exempt, - food for instance, and luxuries could be penalised. Councils would have every incentive to keep costs down as they would be levelling tax on voters, and periodic elections arise! The one major problem could be the view taken on it by the European Union, but if this proposal is wanted because of its efficiency, transparency and accountability, then perhaps we might have to become firmer with the EU.

One problem with the financing of local expenditure is that there is little connection between what a person pays and what he receives by way of services. Tax is levied on some other basis than consumption of council services, and services are offered on social needs. Some council services could be sold, as for instance entry to public baths or gymnasia, receipt of planning permission, etc. Even the present Government was feeling its way towards charging by “un-conserved” rubbish in bins. The principle could be extended to many other areas.

Not only do “free” goods tend to be undervalued and wasted, there is the further difficulty that there is a principle of democracy. The pole tax was introduced because it was estimated that about 25% of the adult population paid rates (- usually the husband, as “breadwinner”) but the other 75% could vote for provision of goods without facing the consequence of paying for them. (The 75% included spouses, children aged 18 and many people who had relief against council taxes.)

The overriding advantage of the sales tax is that everybody who buys anything will make a contribution, the wealthier making a bigger contribution, and everyone will know that their spending and their consumption of services has a connection. The sales tax is the only alternative which is cheap to administer, transparent to the tax payer, and arranges that all voters must pay something to the cost of the free services they enjoy.

A level playing field?

Let us leave aside the recently exposed law-breaking by Labour fund raising. (They like to call it a few regulations being bent in ignorance. What they actually broke were laws, which require among other things that payments made by proxies should be confiscated, not handed back, and perpetrators risk going to prison. Of, course, they all proclaim their innocence by virtue of ignorance, forgetting that ignorance is not a defence before the law!)

It is the other things they are trying on - to hobble opponents, or to give their own desperate occupants of marginal seat a financial handout. Lord Ashcroft is their target, and they and the Guardian investigate him and cite him whenever they can, and employ smear. What they don't like is that he could have a profound impact in marginal seats. To put the record straight, Lord Ashcroft gives annually less than either Mittal or Sainsbury give to the Labour Party, and far less than they receive from the Trade Unions! In all, Lord Ashcroft gives about 4% of all donations to the Conservatives each year, and he places it into a fund which he does not control.

If Lord Ashcroft and other donors were limited to a maximum of £50,000 each year, the Conservatives could probably find some more donors at this level, in an attempt to maintain their income, but why should they have to when various Trade Unions give considerably more, and will be exempt from the limit?

The Government recently paid each MP £9,000 a year to communicate with electors, on top of the postal and other allowances. The sum is vital to Labour MPs defending small majorities, and they have done what everybody expected - used their allowance to publish pro-labour leaflets in huge quantities. In fact even a cabinet minister has been charged with abusing this facility (- of course, she didn't know!) The Government is currently considering doubling this allowance!

Other ideas floated, partly to distract attention away from the current Labour illegality, include capping expenditure between elections and paying parties more from public funds. In passing, it should be remembered that the problems with the present arrangements and laws is not that they don't work - they are working, since the various malpractices came to light, it is that Labour seems to think that they are above the laws they create.

A big "No!" to capping expenditure - it would create an environment where it paid to conceal. misclassify, not record, plant evidence against opponents, etc., and would require huge amounts of administration and policing. There is already payment in kind, I presume, which is not included, - petrols in cars, use of telephones, stationery, rents, etc., etc.

A big "No" to further public payment of parties - on mainland Europe many countries have larger payments, and still have huge frauds and scandals. Politicians and politics are already held in low esteem, and to reward the present Labour Party with extra public cash after their detected and suspected dishonesties would reduce this esteem still further.

Labour does not want a level playing field, but one where they have a built-in advantage. Let them pay a price for the illegalities, not come out with an advantage!

Can you believe it?

Can you believe it - last year the number of children living in poverty in this country actually increased? (The number rose by about 100,000.) We have become so accustomed to the annual trumpeting of progress, that we could have imagined he said the same again this year. He didn't, because the number has gone up!

The left like to talk about poverty when really they are talking about relative poverty, defined as having an income below an arbitrarily percentage of average income. Living standards have risen generally and even the absolute poorest have enjoyed some measure of increase in living standards. But if they want to define poverty in such a way that it will always exist, and give employment and an axe to grind for many left-wing sociologists and others, fine.

But it means that New Labour(Brownism) is now in real danger of failing to reach its objectives, of halving child poverty by 2010 and abolishing(!) it by 2020.

At the moment a number of things decided by Brown/Darling are making the objective less likely to be achieved. The sleight of hand in his final budget made Brown appear brilliant for about 15 seconds - cutting standard rate to 20%, while at the same time abolishing the 10% band. It does not need a mathematician to show that those who lost most were the lowest paid, and those who gained most were those earning in excess of £17,000.

(Given the present level of minimum wage level, its recipients in a 40 hour week would earn over £10,000 a year, and perhaps half of this would be taxed. These are the main losers of Brown's budgetary wizardry!)

As if nothing had been learned, in Darling's autumn statement were announced cuts in inheritance tax. These would help middle and high earners, with little reaching the poor.

It is not surprising that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has recently criticised the Prime Minister bitterly, from their self-appointed brief to watch over poverty. They and others are concerned that no new policies have been produced to benefit the "poor", and they are calling for new investment (code-ward for extra spending on benefits.). The Prime Minister at the moment is desperately trying to save money in all directions, because of his mounting debt, so it is difficult to see where he will find money for the poor. Perhaps the troops could be instructed to shout "Bang" and save a few bullets?

They ask the wrong questions

Did you notice this week that "Our Equality Chief", Trevor Phillips, wants to set quotas for middle class pupils at our best schools. These pesky middle class parents are working out which are the successful schools, and then striving to get their children there! (The best schools here are the few remaining grammar schools and better comprehensive schools.)

In terms of success, as usual, he wants to hobble children of enterprising parents, in the hope that if the places are taken by disadvantaged children than by some mysterious alchemy all children will perform better.

When is somebody going to ask (-I know the Tories have already done this) what constitutes a good school and what makes for success in education?

The answer, of course, is one where there is respect, enthusiasm and good motivation on the part of all.

This means, in the end, that there must be discipline and exclusion of trouble makers, which in turn means that provision must be made for remedial treatment of trouble makers to improve their basic skills and give some kind of vision.

It means that staff must not be overburdened by needless red-tape or targets which do little to improve child performance and everything to control education from Downing Street.

It means that a dull uniformity, imposed or confirmed by an unimaginative LEA or educational establishment must be replaced by local and spontaneous experiment by schools and parents together. For too long a national monolithic ideology and approach has driven out the spirit of creativity.

If there are good schools, it sometimes the happy coming together of particular brilliant teachers and administrators, but it is always the effect of local situations able to rise above the deadening powers of remote control and respond to local needs.

At best, the suggestions of Mr. Phillips will do little to make things worse, at worst.....

A Government of all the talents.

The (for the moment) Prime Minister set out to achieve many things. One of these was a government of the rainbow. So he appointed a conservative MP, since resigned, Sir Digby Jones and Admiral West. A Government of all the Talents would amaze us.

I suspect that the (for the moment) Prime Minister is disappointed at what he has received for (our) money. Sir Digby has refused to submit to the Labour whip, and has been otherwise unwilling to conform. The admiral has shown moments of independence, and we question how much longer he will be prepared to suffer the Prime Minister.

The problem is that the Prime Minister is not a team player himself, unless you regard him as being a team of one. He needs a sounding board, and has surrounded himself with a team of young, inexperienced, "Yes-men". They have inherited cabinet responsibilities which he exercises. They are little known and one or two may emerge with some credit eventually. So far, those exposed to scrutiny have done little to suggest ability - the hapless Darling and the pale and out-of-depth Jacqui Smith.

In cutting himself off from the traditional civil service and its expertise, in relying on political advisers, above all in having only his young and eager-to-please acolytes to check and comment on his thoughts, Brown is risking himself and us. Finally, in trying to run everything from Number 10, he seems to be implying that he can run an economy and society and has all the information required. The real world, Prime Minister, is much more complicated than your pride and ideology will admit, and certainly too much for a single mind to comprehend, even one as brilliant as yours! We fear for our country!

A genetic time bomb?

At the week-end we learned that a woman had won the legal right to keep the birth of her child a secret from its father. The baby was apparently the result of a "one night stand" with a working colleague. He is, and will remain, blissfully ignorant of his paternity unless the mother changes her mind.

This follows a recent decision that two lesbian "mothers"may procreate a fatherless baby - without using any male genetic input except that of one or both fathers of the two women via the womens' material.

What the long-term implications are for this sex-less procreation we must leave to experts to predict. What may be of concern is the kind of society we are creating immediately, with large numbers of children born out of marriage or from sperm by donors. Illegitimacy has been ever with us, and does not seem to have caused a large number of problems, but we may be entering a new situation. It is conceivable, especially with earlier sexual activity, for a father to mate with his daughter, a mother with her son or involving siblings. With fewer details declared in birth certificates, and so many unknown fathers, and now with fatherless conception, there appears to be less control on problems of consanguinity.

The "aberrant" few in days gone by did not wreck society because they were relatively few, and their effects were partly mitigated by over-bearing parish Overseers/Guardians. Now the trickle is becoming more of a stream and all have the shelter of the Human Rights Act...

Troubles (for the Government) never come singly

Tomorrow will see the publication by the National Audit Office of its report into the privatisation of the defence company QinetiQ. It is expected to be very critical of the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence for allowing a process which created multi-million-pound windfalls for ex civil servants and huge profits for the American firm Carlyle. Vince Cable, acting leader of the LibDems, at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, described the report as the "next financial time bomb" to hit the Government.

The Goverment does remain a shareholder, and claimed to have raised £800m from the sale. The fact remains, however, that most independent observers feel that the company was considerably undervalued, and enabled Carlyle to increase the value of its holding from £42m to £300m in just three years. Gordon Brown, of course, was Chancellor then, as he was when we sold foreign exchange gold reserves at a price beyond which they subsequently soared.

He was also the Chancellor who devised the confused 3-way control for the banking system, which led to the confusion and delay surrounding Northern Rock. His successor, Alastair Darling, did not help the situation, but the architect was Gordon Brown.

He was also the chancellor who, against advice, forced through the merger of Inland Revenue with Customs, and compelled it to take on the unfamiliar role of benefit payments. At about the same time, he demanded sweeping staff changes, in fact 20,000 posts shed, approaching a quarter of the labour force. There is no surprise that morale at HMRC is very low! In 2004 the Treasury Select Committee found that no cost-benefit analysis had been done before the merger, and no efficiency savings had been calculated. The whole process was as the result of a man with his whim!

The man is arrogant, in apologising for the lost benefit information computer disks, but despite suggestions from David Cameron not accepting any responsibility. His finger prints are all over the three mistakes - QinetiQ, FSA etc, and the HMCR merger.

How many more times can he evade responsibility?

Squeezing many pegs into few holes?

21-11-07

The Government seems belatedly trying to get to grips with the problem of large numbers of potential workers who are idle because of one sort of disability or another. Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has promised a new disability test aimed at getting more people back to work. The new Work Capability Assessment will be on demonstrating what claimants can achieve, rather than what they cannot. If they can sit at a desk and move their hands, then.. computing?

2,000 people currently are on incapacity benefit because they are obese, costing the Treasury £4.4 million. Laura Clout reported this finding fin the Dail Telegraph rom a Freedom of Information request. She also indicated 50,00 unwilling to work because of stress, 15,600 because of malaise and fatigue and 380 because of haemorrhoids. In addition 50 who collected £100,000 were suffering from acne! Alcoholics, numbering 50,000, received £85million and 48,000 drug addicts received £45million.

This situation may have arisen partly to massage the unemployment figures to keep them lower. Friendly doctors probably colluded because of an unwillingness to upset their patients. Claimants without skills can probably achieve more from benefit than from working, and would be willing collaborators.

All in all these Incapacity Benefit claimants, numbering about 2.7. million, receive about £7.5 billion annually, or about 3 pence in the pound on standard rate income tax. This figure has been high for a few years. When all disability and injury benefits are included, the figure rises to £26 billion a year.

The admirable Frank Field, M.P. is very aware of the situation. He writes, “It is a racket which governments have allowed to exist for far too long. I do not blame people for working the system. It is the job of politicians to stop them doing it. The big change over the last decade has been into illnesses which largely defy a clear medical classification: depression, dizziness and such. It is a move from the tangible to the intangible.”

The Government seems to accept that there are about one million people claiming this benefit who would be capable of work, or at least this was the reduced number of claimants the Government in 2005 hoped to achieve.

The Government is currently employing private sector contractors to help claimants find work. The overspending in the recent past, which included indulgence towards the large sum on Incapacity Benefit, has now ended. The name of the game now is to save money, even if it means denying troops in one way or another, or cutting the staff at Revenue and Customs by nearly a third very quickly.

We could perhaps offer faint congratulation – “Welcome to the real world”, but it is very late, and with the economy moving towards “turbulence” it is very late in the day. The former benefit claimants will be competing for jobs when there is increased unemployment, not a good prospect!

Skills for all

It now emerges that the Prime Minister was wrong not only in claiming that he could somehow restrict British jobs to British workers, but also in thinking that training places to make British workers more competitive could be restricted to British nationals. How could he forget about the European Union.

All that is left, perhaps, is the attempt to persuade (younger) British “workers”, at present languishing on some sort of benefit, to become more active in job seeking. Given that some of them are lacking in qualifications and demonstrable skills, as well as in motivation in many cases, the training places scheme could be a life-line for them.

Unfortunately, many of the posts occupied by British workers currently are temporary – a feature used by many employers faced with enthusiastic immigrant workers willing to work on this basis. No-one can predict what will happen if the economy undergoes some turbulence early in 2008, but temporary workers are likely to feel the effect, as their jobs can end with fewer complications for employers.

The newly trained workers may be looking for jobs at a time when they are disappearing, and when displaced temporary workers are also looking for work.

Lost benefit records

I presume that this means that the ID cards are now dead?

If this Government is so riddled with security problems (-remember the illegal immigrants given jobs in security without a check?), how can they look after the records of 60 million people, assuming that the system ever gets off the ground and works?

As somebody said on another site today, this lot could not run a bath!

Posted by Diamond

Don't blame the puppet, blame the puppeteer!

The Chancellor, Alastair Darling, must be regretting accepting the poisoned chalice. At the moment he is facing two big issues, and can expect a grilling when he stands up in the Commons.

The problem of Northern Rock will not go away, and a firm decision must be made soon to end the uncertainty. The share price this morning has been like a yo-yo. None of the choices in front of him is pleasant, and he stands to lose "friends" whatever he decides - shareholder anger, depositor disfavour or large amounts of taxpayers' money.

On top of this the chief of Revenue and Customs has honorably resigned because his department has lost computer discs containing child benefit details on 15 million children. The possibilities for fraud and identity theft are enormous.

These things happened on Darling's watch, and although he has made the Northern Rock fiasco worse by his dithering, there is a large sense that decisions by Gordon Brown have been very instrumental. It was Bottler who merged the two huge departments of Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, and immediately required from them huge savings in manpower. The merged department was a disaster waiting to happen. It was Bottler, also, who interfered with the banking supervision arrangements. Previously The Bank of England had supervised the banking system, at the behest of the Chancellor. Brown's revision created a three-way division, involving the Bank, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority. If the designer himself understood the demarcations of responsibility, clearly the Bank and FSA did not, or found the situation difficult to operate.

Sop far the Chancellor has been singularly unimpressive, but the two cases with which he now struggles are partly the fault of the Prime Minister.

Can a leopard change its spots?

Having been defeated in referendum and thwarted in its ambition to install regional government with powers removed from more local councils the Government has, as posted earlier, given vast new powers to Quangos.

This is to be reinforced through the new Local Government Act, by the possibility of Multi Area Agreements (MAAAs). Thirteen of these sub-regions are drawing up plans to exercise new powers to boost jobs, transport,investment and housing by extended cooperation. These will cover many parts of the country, from Tyne and Wear in the north to South Hampshire in the south.Among them, and why are we not surprised, is the Birmingham, C0ventry and Black Country area which includes Telford and Wrekin. The Government it touting for further areas.

Among other things, these areas will enable councils to "transcend traditional administrative and structural boundaries and deliver solutions that cover entire commuter routes, housing and employment markets." (Communities and Local Government Network)

The end result is to transfer power from local communities and councillors to more regional bureaucracies, with arguably little improvements for ordinary citizens. It is difficult to see what improvement for outlying Telford is likely to emerge from a metropolitan domination centred in Birmingham. In a word, power is becoming remote.

Better late than never...

The news that George Osborne has set up a New Enterprise Council is very welcome. The fact that the membership includes a few who have demonstrated enterprise in recently building up small companies into highly successful units is also good news.

It may be that it has taken the recent changes in company taxation, and especially capital gains tax, to prompt Mr. Osborne into action, but it is all the more welcome. It may even lead the confused and hapless Chancellor into revision and improvement.

The fact remains that for too long the Blair smile and Brown luck had deceived "captains of industry"into believing the mantra "Labour is good for business". Many of them still believe this and are willing to enter the big tent or visit "number 10" socially, but proprietors of small companies and would-be entrepreneurs have complained for several years that the burden of regulation and taxation higher than in other countries have been making their hopes unrealisable or very difficult.

Too many good ideas have escaped elsewhere, or have died for want of a conducive climate. We are no longer held back by trade union practices and attitudes, except in the public sector, but we are no longer the largest recipient of inward international investment and small businesses suffer from centralised government.

So, well done, Mr. Osborne! We shall probably not have a situation which fully encourages entrepreneurs, despite Mr. Brown's utterances, until Mr. Brown goes, but perhaps the Tories in opposition can improve the present situation.

Incompetent but very creative....

The present Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, continues to defend herself in insisting that she was not covering up the latest blunder at the Home Office - licensing illegal immigrants to be used in security positions. She was, she claims, merely delaying ( for 5 months), the publication while she gathered in the illegal immigrants. How long does she need to gather them in, and when had she intended to reveal the information - perhaps over Christmas, a good time to bury bad news?

John Reid before her insisted, after a series of blunders in a not-fit-for-purpose Home Office, that he should be allowed to continue in Office as he alone could clear up the mess.

Both of them used the age-old get-out, "I appeal to time". It should be admitted that in both cases the blunders were the result of their predecessors' actions or inactions, but it still remains true that if these people had been competent they would have sized up the situation and done something quickly, instead of merely covering up.

We may have had at least two not-fit-for-purpose Home Secretaries, but they were both very creative in finding excuses why their failures should not cause their resignation. Perhaps their problems were that they are in the wrong profession and with the wrong bosses!