www.4newport.org - Blog

Who makes the law?

2009-12-16T14:04:00.002Z

It was announced that Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Opposition leader, had cancelled a trip to this country, because a British judge had issued a warrant for her arrest.

Her crime seems to have been that she was a minister during the Israeli/Gazan troubles recently.

We do not know who sought the arrest, although it sounds as if it was granted on the basis of Human Rights. So are we now to assume that anyone who is connected to any opposition to one of the in-groups, such as Hammas, as downtrodden and innocent, may effectively be black-balled or even arrested? Would such a person be tried here for an "offence" committed elsewhere? Can we invite, and allow safe entry to, any foreign political leader who belongs to a party or state not in favour here?

Do British judges now claim the power to judge cases of alleged abuses conducted abroad? Add to this the fact that we are powerless to return known trouble-making terrorists to their countries of origin in case the little darlings are prosecuted, and you wonder what protection we, the law abiding, actually get under the Human Rights legislation.

If protesters can now prevent a democratically elected leading member of a liberal democracy visiting us, where are we going? This sounds more like ideological justice rather than the rule of Law, and it sounds as if some members of the judiciary are allowing their own prejudices to swamp their judgments.

The proposed bill of rights, based on something like Magna Carta, cannot some too soon, with rights enshrined in constitutiona , and not subject to arbitrary suspension or interpretation.
Above all, we must eject any judicial activism.

Good for the Irish!

2009-12-16T11:13:00.003Z

The Irish, just about the only country with a more threatening economic situation than our own, are preparing savage cuts in order to produce a prospect of balance. They have little choice, because they have signed away any latitude by fixing their exchange rate as a Euro currency member.

At the same time G.Brown is proposing to spend even more, in some wild dash for growth or electoral salvation. He is invoking the name of Keynes, as are many others, who in the face of a credit-caused recession are recommending still more credit creation.

There is no time to explain the Theory evolved by Keynes, but merely its main thrust. When there is unemployment, he suggests, and therefore inadequate total spending, the government should spend to make up some or all of the shortfall. Few, I think, would doubt this in the case of a full-blown depression such as in the 1930s. (It should be remembered, however, that despite massive public works programmes and social benefits, in 1931 unemployment stood at 17.4% and the Dow Jones Index at 140 and by 1938 unemployment was still at 17.4% and the Dow had dropped to 121. If the Keynesian remedy was working, it was working rather slowly!

There is an alternative view - that unemployment is not merely from a lack of total demand, but also from a serious imbalance in the economy which requires serious correction. Keynes's prescription does not deal with this.

In the early 1980s 285 ( or however many) economists (Keynesian devotees) wrote their famous letter, protesting at what the Thatcher government was doing. It was a hard time for many, but the Thatcher remedy worked, and for a few years we had one of the strongest growing economies in the world.

That might not be the best example, but there is also the Swedish example in the early 1990s, where cuts solved their problems very quickly, a process which Cameron and Osborne are known to have thought about.

Everyone quotes, as I have, the 1930s experience of the USA, but fail to mention the earlier depression of 1920. President Harding was pilloried for having a policy of cuts and balance, but Keynes had not yet written and the opposition had no theoretical underpinning. Harding cut taxes and cut expenditure. He paid off a third of the government debt. More importantly, by the late summer of 1921 the economy was visibly recovering.

The Keynesian "solution" is intuitively attractive, but it ignores the complexity of the economy, with its sundry imbalances and unpredictable expectations, reactions and outcomes. In 70 plus years the possibility of a depression may have been unrealised by the confidence it bred. Once we are in a recession, and Keynes policy was a failure in the 1930s, there is more rationality in allowing the complexity of the system to sort itself out, with government support of victims, rather than perpetuating imbalances and maladjustments and dragging out the process.

In our present situation, out-of-control government spending has deepened and prolonged our recession, and there seems little recommendation to continue it, except ideological and electoral considerations.Further government credit expansion could cause problems in financing and interest rates, and the famous "second dip".

Bungling and inept

2009-12-16T10:51:00.002Z

In 2004 Gordon Brown, as chancellor, vetoed the purchase of additional Chinook helicopters for Afghanistan. In 2013, if we are still involved there, we shall have the aircraft available. So 12 years after entering Afghanistan we shall have the helicopters for which the military have been calling for six or seven years already. (If I were a relative of a serving solider in Iraq or in Afghanistan, especially if he or she had been killed there, I would be very angry.)

We shall have them, but at a cost. The cost is reductions in military capability elsewhere. We have been trying to fight long and expensive wars from essentially a peace-time budget, and plundering other aspects of the MOD budget to pay the costs of war.

We shall have two new aircraft carriers in due course, with delay and postponement putting up the cost from ££4.09 billion to £5.13 billion. Whether we shall be able to afford aircraft for them is another matter - Harriers are being withdrawn and sold, in order to save money. Even the extra £150 million to protect our troops from IEDs will require penny inching elsewhere.

The MOD has a black hole of £36 billion in its equipment budget, partly from bungling and errors, and also from the aim to finance two wars from annual budgets and nothing extra.

Despite Brown's regular visits and prancing about, the military have never been a priority of Labour, except to save jobs. Blair used them for his own purposes, but never arranged sufficient preparation or finance.

Higher and higher?

2009-12-15T15:19:00.003Z

Consumer price inflation in November rose at its highest rate since May.

The index (CPI) in 2009 was 1.9 % higher than in the same month in 2008. There had been an expectation of about 1.8%, so you could argue that the experts mostly got it right in advance. In 2008 there had been falls in the cost of transport, but this year a rise in November.

There will be a further spur to inflation in January when the rate of VAT is raised back to 17.5%. The Bank of England is prepared for a rate of 3.0 on the CPI, but feels that it could fall back because of the low level of economic activity and high unemployment.

(The more familiar and more inclusive RPI, - Retail Price Index, rose by 0.3% compared with a year earlier, also slightly more than expected.)

Is this of concern? The answer has to be be "No, not as things stand." There could however be other shocks. If sterling depreciates against other currencies, perhaps because of a loss of confidence in sterling by international creditors, then import prices would rise and add to any pressures. Alternatively, if growth is at the level the chancellor claims to expect, then bottle necks and resource shortages could drive up prices, and consumers willing to pay them because of the new-found confidence in the economy, Further tax rises, on income or purchases, could also feed through into higher wages and prices.

We would not want inflation to take off, because that could lead to a rise in interest rates, as the Bank of England tries to moderate the inflation. This could nip any further growth in the bud. This is a point that Osborne has been making recently.

Sorry they missed us...

2009-12-15T15:04:00.002Z

People have complained that postmen sometimes leave a card saying that they could not contact us, or that the householders were out. (I have to say that this has happened a few times at our house, though not for a few months, when we were in and would have heard the bell if it had been rung.)

The postal watchdog has recently commissioned a survey to see how widespread the experience is. Amazingly, 55% of respondents said that it had happened to them, and 23% that it had happened on at least three occasions.

It was irritating, to say the least, last Christmas, when we were left a card, and after making our way to the soon-to-be-closed sorting office and parting with £1.18, we were handed a Christmas card with no stamp - either forgotten or had become detached. I could understand this in the old days, when we sometimes received our post at 7.30 am, and the postie perhaps did not want to disturb us, but we now receive our post any time between 9.30 and 2.30!

It seems, by way of explanation, that some posties resent having to take out small packets, or under-stamped letters, but to leave them in the sorting office and put a card, written before starting the round, saying that we were out, is nothing less than deception.

The Acadamies

2009-12-15T11:11:00.003Z

The Academies, Blair's flagships, have been the subject of study by the think-tank Civitas.

The majority of academies do not publish their results, as they are independent state schools and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. They are, however , inspected by Ofsted, and almost half of those inspected recently were no better than adequate in standard.

The Civitas study found that the schools were very interested in achieving good grades, however, but disappointingly boosted the marks by encouraging students to study easier and vocational courses, rather than the more academic.We had been told that the academies had improved GCSE grades at twice the rate of "ordinary" secondary schools, although it was admitted that many had been reformed failing schools and so started from a lower base. (In 2008-09 the academies produced students of whom 36% gained five decent GCSE passes, including maths and English. Other schools nationally achieved 48%.)

The Tories have also made a policy emphasis on academies, so this must be a concern for them. The academies were supposed to be "models of excellence", and so must be thought to some extent failing this.

The challenge is how to achieve independence without dilution of standards. The answer might be to adopt the "Swedish" approach, as advocated by Michael Gove, with extremely local control and full publication or knowledge of what is going on.

Short-sightedness?

2009-12-15T09:53:00.002Z

We listened with amazement at the decision of the Unite union to organise a strike to cause maximum damage to their company, British Airways, and maximum difficulty to hundreds of thousands of travellers over the Christmas period. As the last strike was in 2007 and cost £80 million, it seems that the union has something of a death wish for its members.

It is never easy for an outsider to know what is behind such disputes, (I am not sure that voting members fully understand either.)

It seems that the company, which in the last financial year lost £400 million, could lose as much as £600 million this year even before the strike, which itself could cost as much as £300 million, had attempted to cut the number of stewards and stewardesses. This was in an effort to compete with the low cost airlines. The company claimed, and the union has not challenged it, that their staff are better paid than those on Virgin Airways. It is clear that staff savings had to be made. Did the company impose the changes without full consultation? Is this what it is really about?

Whatever the facts, it remains that the company which has seen a near doubling of its pension fund black hole to £3.7 billion - the largest in the private sector, will lose customers not only at Christmas but permanently. There must be a real question about the ability to remain a large carrier.

The Communication Workers are also slowly committing suicide, but they have a government and public sector behind them. B.A. staff have no such protection, and are risking their jobs when there are many unemployed who could fill them, and many competitors who would be pleased to take their traffic!

A very short-sighted decision!

We must have something to fight!

2009-12-14T16:22:00.003Z

In the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s, we were told that there was concern about an impending mini ice age. Strangely, that has been forgotten and temperature graphs now show no fall in temperature in that period, although they did at the time. I remember vividly the warnings about the imminent arrival of plunging temperatures.

In the late 1970s and in to the 1980s, the warning was about acid rain, and the UK was criticised for all the smoke blowing across the North Sea and killing the trees in Scandinavia. Continental Europeans were labeling us, and the Poles and Czechs, as the dirty men of Europe. I don't recall us doing anything, but the trees have stopped dying.

Now, of course, the problem is global warming, although some observers who haven't seen the supposedly more accurate adjusted figures are reporting no rise in temperatures for well over a decade.

What makes a self-righteous movement become shrill, on the basis of graphs produced from recorded data which we are not allowed to see?

Those of us who are not sceptical by nature, and merely wish to see data with an explanation of why it was adjusted, could be forgiven for being a little concerned at the impoverishment which we are about to heap on our children and grandchildren.

When I first studied statistics I was shown a graph of electricity consumption in the UK up to mid 1925s. It was possible to fit various trend lines, one of which, I remember, suggested that by the mid 1980s there would not be enough energy in the solar system to cater for the UK's energy demand. Which plotted trend line should have they adopted?

There is guilt,- the white man has ruined the environment and kept the underdeveloped countries in poverty. There is arrogance and pride - we understand the very complicated climate system so well that we can predict with exactness and confidence what will happen in the future. There is ambition, - we have the means and the calculations to control such a massive system to produce an outcome which is entirely predictable.

Which one explains the insistence of the AGW industry that anyone who dissents is either mad or bad, and should be denied air-time, publication facilities, data and debate?

The Spirit of the season?

2009-12-14T16:11:00.003Z

Paul Waugh, in his blog for the Evening Standard today, reports the discovery made by a colleague from a written answer by Health Minister Phil Hope.

Just five days after the PBR statement, and when most people not in the Labour government were warning of the parlous state of the public finances and the need for cuts, the Department of Health has excelled itself.

It has erected a Christmas tree at Skipton House, not any old tree mind you, but a tree costing £2,485. It is dressed, however!

This tree is not on public view, but merely there to cheer the 905 DoH staff who work in the building.

Wouldn't they be cheered by a smaller one? Is it that they they accept that there will be savings, and this is a last splurge before belt tightening?

There is obviously a great deal of waste in government, if this is anything to go by.

Nothing changes

2009-12-12T15:06:00.002Z

"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

"Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"

In the light of the present revelations that many/most MPs still have their noses in the trough, despite all the agitation, these words as as relevant now as they were on 20th April 1653, when Oliver Cromwell used them in speaking to the House of Commons. Need I write any more?

If objectives are not expressed.....

2009-12-12T14:35:00.003Z

A very recent Ofsted study of 26 state schools, 17 secondary and 9 primary, they report a very worrying weakness. (The sample had been chosen because they been told to improve provision for gifted pupils.)

The conclusion is that in the sample there was a failure to challenge the most able to produce their best. Some these students reported that they had to ask teachers for more or advanced work, and also complained that they had to spend some of their week in helping less able fellow pupils.

The explanation seems to be two-fold.

1) There is a reluctance on the part of individual teachers to do this, either for ideological reasons or because they thought that giving more attention to the very able might mean less time for the less able. In some cases they refused to give extra attention to the brightest because they feared they would promote elitism.

2) Head teachers excused themselves on the grounds that they had not received sufficient signals from Whitehall.

I am not sure which is the weaker of the two.

If it is the individual teacher disobeying the government, and by top-down decision the local educational authority and head teacher, then it is a serious matter. We cannot have anarchy, with the individual teacher deciding which pupils to encourage and which not, even if there are resource constraints. All pupils deserve to be helped to develop their potential to the full.

On the head teachers, it is frightening that they are apparently not aware of statements by the government.

If either is or both is the explanation of what has been picked up by Ofsted, then there needs to be immediate action. We not only have the less able barely literate or numerate, with the number of year 6 SATS satisfactory "passes" declining this year. We also have a deficit as far as the very able are concerned. These latter will later find jobs in situations where there is intense global competition and our nation depends on their contribution. We cannot afford to be second best.

Disappearing Posties?

2009-12-11T11:43:00.002Z

We have just heard that Royal Mail is thinking of closing the sorting office in our small market town, and requiring a journey of perhaps 10 miles to the next sorting office. This will require special arrangements for undelivered parcels and mail, - you know, those for which they put a card through the door because they haven't time to ring the bell! We are fortunate still to have a post office, and we shall be able to collect our mail from there.

This is part of a rationalisation scheme, to cut costs, as Royal Mail desperately seeks to remain solvent in the face of Luddite postal staff who want more and more despite the losses occurring at Royal Mail. (They have made profits, but too small to undertake investment or to maintain the staff pension fund.)

The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday that although Royal Mail deliver most letters and parcels, it collects and sorts only two thirds, - 46 million units each day out of 72 million.

A growing list of companies are no longer using Royal Mail, - Barclays, Sainsbury's, Lloyds Group, RBS, Powergen and Aviva (as evidenced by the printed franking on the envelope or package.

The private and commercial firms which do the collection and sorting, such as TNT Post or UK Mail ,currently do not do delivery, but there must come a tipping point soon when it will be worthwhile. At that point the supposition is that Royal Mail will fade away. At the moment these companies do most of the bulk mail.

The change goes back to 2004, when competition was introduced. Since then with electronic communication the number of letters has dropped by more than 12 million daily In 2005 TNT handled 300 million letters a year, in 2007 1.7 billion and currently about 2.6 billion.

All this makes it very clear why Royal Mail must come to an efficient accommodation with its trade union. The union is regularly involved in aggressive campaigns, and you wouldn't want to bet on the future of Royal Mail. How different on the continent, where Dutch and German postal services adapted to the new situation!

The fanfares were premature

2009-12-11T11:34:00.002Z

The Daily Telegraph yesterday reported that the much vaunted government "Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme" which exists to help people struggling to stay in their homes in the present economic difficulties, has met with a little success.

The success is represented by the 15 families it has so far helped after almost a year.

This, despite repossessions increasing, to one per 1,000 households, and in September 270,00 owners fat least three months in arrears.

NuLabour are good at publicising what they are thinking of doing, but somehow it doesn't work out as promised.

The Chancellor didn't mention the scheme in his PBR this week Anyone know a good day to bury bad news?

The irresponsible police.

2009-12-11T11:18:00.002Z

They may have the power to allow someone to die while the police conduct a safety assessment, but it seems that in some things the police are not to be trusted.

The Daily Mail today tells us that if a light bulb fails, they must not replace it but rather report it to a twenty-four hour helpline and fill in a list of required supplies (one bulb?). The helpline will then contact a designated supplier, having made a decision on the severity and priority of the need, and the supplier will have to comply within a certain time or face a fine. Finally, in a five point list of instructions, if the contractor doesn't turn up the police are empowered to replace the bulb themselves.

This apparently relates to police stations in the South East, and there are also instructions about ordering toilet paper, putting up crime prevention posters or re-positioning plants and litter bins.In these cases they must also contact a hotline.

We have been concerned about the time officers spend in police stations, and how little on the beat. It seems that they may sit in the dark, unable to finish their paperwork, because they are not permitted to replace a light bulb. (The NHS sometimes pays hundreds of pounds for a bulb replacement, so there must also be a charge when a contractor eventually comes to replace a bulb, presumably?)

Reinventing the market?

2009-12-11T10:55:00.003Z

Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary has apparently said that he is determined to make the NHS patient focused, and to this end he will set up a system whereby increasingly and up to 10% of hospital funding will depend on declared patient satisfaction with the service offered.

(This is a reflection of the fact that hospital finance will be tight, if not cut, over the next few years. Hospitals will thus have a major incentive to satisfy patients.)

This is a revelation, perhaps late in the day, that a Health Secretary has recognised that the aim of the NHS is patient service. This is something,- so often the impression is that the service is run in a Sir Humphrey Appleby way with the main objective administrative efficiency.

How will he achieve this - questionnaires filled in by patients on discharge - if so what are the view of those who die from MRSA, or whatever, - are they recorded as "generally unsatisfied"? What of patients families, are they to have no input?

How will the hundreds of thousands of in- and out-patient's views be analysed? It sounds like more bureaucracy. What criteria will be employed to distinguish between very dissatisfied and very satisfied and all the fine differences on the range between? If someone is broadly happy but feels that some aspect is poor, - tea service, books, telephone, a particular member of staff, etc., how will these reservations be recorded, without making the questionnaire a massive booklet?

What he is attempting bureaucratically, and at great expense, could be solved much more easily if everything was done to allow patients to "vote with their feet". If they had choice, and consulted friends and neighbours about their experience, and even figures produced by the hospital, it would become clear which hospitals or departments were delivering good service and which not.

People choose their supermarkets and other shops. They are likely to be more careful and informed in choosing a hospital, so why not let them?

A verdict?

2009-12-10T14:06:00.002Z

The reaction to the Darling show yesterday on the part of the newspapers was universal - they had all seen through it all, and there will doubtless be more scandal when the IFS delivers the results of its calculation later today.

Early to day there was a muted response by the stock markets. They had probably taken account of the PBR, which had been heavily leaked. (Will the government try to trace the leaker?)

The bond markets are different, where gilts are now taking something of a hammering. This was perhaps due to the information from the debt management office, something that the chancellor had neglected to mention. By the end of this financial year the DMO will have looked to borrow £243 billion, rather more than was suggested by the chancellor's expected deficit of £178 billion.

The result was that 10 year gilts fell 13 base points, the largest quick fall for some time, and they now stand at 63 bps above German bonds.

Credit Default Swaps also show the same picture. To insure $10 million of UK debt against default now costs $85,000, compared with $24,000 for German debt. This is a record high multiple, and may trigger reactions elsewhere in the financial system.

There is thus a warning, which the credit agencies will have noticed, that the UK may find it difficult to borrow the further money Darling was hoping to borrow over the next few years. The fear that ever higher debt might lead to higher rates is a real one, and could nip any recovery in the bud. It rather supports what Osborne has been saying.

Of course, although there was no other economic news which could have spooked the market, it is possible that rumours were circulating, and in time dealers may come sheepishly to their senses. This is a desperate hope!

2009-12-10T13:32:00.002Z

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” - Cicero in 55 BC

Not a bad recommendation to G.Brown - massive debts must be reduced, not least to reduce future borrowing costs, the arrogance of state spenders who think that they know best how to spend money must be checked, (dead) money to the EU must be reduced or removed, people must be encouraged off benefits and into work. That would go a long way to tackling our problems.

The Brown legacy

2009-12-10T11:24:00.002Z

(I am assuming that he will no longer be prime minister and chancellor after this coming Spring, a hope shared by virtually everyone I meet, even labour voters.)

The largest legacy will be the huge increase in both public sector and debt. Don't let him persuade you that the debt is due to the recession. It is in part, but he was overspending despite all the stealth taxes well bef0re the recession. It is difficult to envisage the size of the debt he has created, and wants to go on creating.

His debt will rob the next generation. If, as expected the national debt rises to something like £1.6 trillion (-£1,600 billion), then future taxpayers will have to find something like £64 billion annually to serve the accumulated debt (about two thirds accrued under Brown's stewardship.) If it is not reduced significantly that equates to something like a standard rate rate of tax 20 penceon its own, but then there all the other services t0o pay for.

Almost as serious are the cumulative failures to reform anything. Vast sums have been pumped into unreformed government departments, and some people like GPs have done very well out of the process, and into Quangos. So education, health, police and pensions are still produced in the same centralised way as in 1997, although they were sclerotic then!

In some ways this cash-consuming dinosaur is a bigger problem than the debt for anyone who seeks to drag this country into the 21st century and offer as much for each pound of tax as most other European countries do.

What might have been

2009-12-10T10:00:00.002Z

We might have had a real attack on the massive government-created debt problem. The serious attempt by the Irish government is an example - cuts in dole money, welfare, politicians pay, public sector pay, etc.

We might have had honesty and realism. There might have been an explanation of how the government would deal with the frightening size of the national debt, with no complacency and taking us into its confidence.

We might have had a serious and true statement of the current situation, with no empty gestures, slogans or political tricks.

Instead, what we got was more or less as expected, a complacency based on very optimistic assumptions as before, a tinkering to try to put the Tories on the spot. Even the attack on the rich was bungled, - the banks and bankers will find other ways of paying bonuses, challenge in the court or move elsewhere. The rich, who are to suffer, is everybody earning over £20,000 a year, and the beneficiaries of people leaving a house and property of more then £325,000 (- which must be a high proportion in London.)

Above all there was the usual smoke and mirrors, - giving increased benefits for one year and then removing them, maintaining the funds for the NHS but saddling it with an increased employer's NI bill of over £400 million, and a complete absence of how the massive deficits will be reduced, much less how the national debt will be reduced, beyond a doubtfully high assumed growth rate kicking in very quickly.

All very disappointing. I wonder what the credit agencies make of it? Are we going to have national shame and higher interest rates on top of everything else?

A complete failure

2009-12-09T19:21:00.002Z

The PBR fails on virtually every aspect, except on its objective - to deceive most people and try to push the Tories into a corner.

In forecasting, - twelve months ago, Darling predicted that the UK economy would shrink by somewhere between o.75% and 1.25% . In fact it seems likely to shrink by about 4.5%. If they can get it so wrong, what faith can we have in his forecast growth rate, 3.5%, for the immediate future? More worryingly, what faith will our creditors and credit agencies have, as he continues to increase spending. On his optimistic forecast our deficit this year will be only £3 billion more than he forecast, and next year much the same.

On his forecasts he expects to have an accumulated budget deficit of £789 billion over the next six years, and it so doing double the national debt yet again. At the end of this period the interest due to be paid on this extra debt could be as much as £30 billion. Thus about £60 billion will probably have to be found, merely to service the total debt.

What happens if we lose our "triple A" credit status and start having to pay even higher interest, if we want to protect the currency exchange rate, or suffer massively higher import prices and inflation?

How does he expect to increase employment, to create economic growth, when he is taxing employment by higher N.I. contributions?

The biggest failure is that while there has been an increase in public sector employment approaching one million over the last year or two, unemployment in the private sector has gone down 300,000. There needs to be a re-balancing away from the public sector to the one which actually produces something marketable and exportable. Of course, reform may be in Brown's vocabulary, but it is not in his nature.

As a campaigning document, at least in shoring up his core vote by trying to pretend that things are not too bad and do not need immediate treatment, it may just pass. In the morning, when clever brains have considered all the small print and done their own calculations, it may appear a economic travesty.

Squeamish? Try a thousand cuts

2009-12-08T18:47:00.003Z

The charity laws have been politically loaded. It is no longer sufficient for a private school in receipt of charity to be non-profit making or to confer benefit on the community near of far. It has to subscribe to the redistributive definition of poverty of the present government. In a word, they have to be inclusive.

Now comes death by bureaucracy, which is also going some way towards killing schools in the public sector. Here the application of health and safety legislation is punishing the schools by adding considerably to their costs and trying to destroy their very ethos. Compliance is necessary in every detail, in order to avoid being reported to the Star Camber (Department for Children, etc.,) which has the power to de-register the school, effectively closing it down.

They have to comply on the number of toilets, the wording of school policies, bullying policy (ordinary and sexual), height of door handles, height of school walls, etc, among many others.

They are inspected by the ISI (Independent Schools Inspectorate) for Ofsted and by the Independent Safeguarding Authority. There are cases where demands from one overseeing body conflict with those of another. Excessive time is required to comply with multiple pages of requirements, and with the regular visits.

It could be the end of some schools. The costs imposed may make the fees uneconomic, and uncompetitive if raised.

There is much that is ludicrous. These schools publish extensive brochures and conduct potential scholars and parents round the buildings. Parents who are going to have to pay as much as £30,000 a year will not put up with second rate, and are very careful in analysing the suitability of the school.

The impositions seem largely from antagonism and vindictiveness.

Our father, or whatever you call him

2009-12-08T18:32:00.003Z

The Sunday Telegraph published the result of a survey of non-faith schools.

Among the results was the revelation a large number of schools are breaking the law by failing to offer a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian character, and thousands of children were no longer exposed to the Lord's Prayer, possibly the best known passage in the English language.

There is no surprise at the reason, -"there are members of other faiths in the school and we do not wish to upset them." There is some element of political correctness here. They have not learned of the fatal consequences of the imposition of multiculturalism. If the parents of children of other faiths object, let them be excused. That always happened when I was at school - a few Jews "did their own thing" elsewhere, but some Jewish students sat through our nominal Christian assembly.

A young child to whom I spoke a few years ago, knew all about Hindu, Jewish and Muslim festivals - had joined in them at school. When I asked about Christian festivals, there was uncertainty - Easter and Christmas both fall in the school holidays, and the nativity play had been replaced by some concoction which had little or nothing to do with religion.

Brave new world

2009-12-08T17:06:00.002Z

Harriet Harman has given us a glimpse of her philosophy with some peculiar and worrying statements on marriage.

At the moment two parents with children are penalised in the taxation system, and would do better if they lived apart. (It is understandable that the Harman side should produce some single parents protesting about Cameron's proposals which would give a slight tax advantage to married couples, but in many ways this is merely removing the disincentive to marry and remain married.)

Should marriage be encouraged in this way?

It is obvious in Harman's brave new world there is an absence of commitment, and children may find themselves living with a succession of "parents", and Harman and parents are only concerned about parental rights. What about obligations?

Every study I have seen has come to the same conclusion, although starting from very different points. Children in families with two parents present do better in every measure of well being - social, health, intellectual, educational. A child's needs are for a mother and a father present, and their life chances are reduced with the absence of one, in general.

Of course death may rip a family apart, mother and father may find it impossible to live together and one or both may be more concerned about their own needs than those of their children. The fact remains, regrettably, that all statistical studies show that where both persons are present and caring for a child, the child will be better off for that.

In a situation where many of our problems in society can be traced back to dysfunctional families, I applaud Cameron for offering a small inducement to persuade parents to stay together for the good of the children. The present situation penalises married parents and sends out an unfortunate message.

"You dirty young nan"

2009-12-08T16:43:00.001Z

We are familiar with the idea of lecherous old men in dirty macs lusting after younger women, and even over children. The safeguarding legislation, which involves a check by the CRB on previous paedophile or other deviant sexual practices, is designed to protect the young from these people.

We learn now, however, that check s are being made on teenagers, even if they are merely helping younger children at school or with sporting events. Each year about 125,000 teenagers are now being CRB checked, even those who live with parents who are childminders. The number investigated is rising year by year.

In some ways I approve. At least the (useless?) law is applying equally to all, regardless of age.

The whole thing is actually tying us all up, treating us as potential criminals and discouraging us from volunteering. It is wasteful, likely to have errors and clearly fails from time to time. It is true that it is dangerous when an unhealthy contact takes place indoors and unseen, but surely as children have been told not to accept lifts or sweets from strangers, etc., the better approach would be to teach them not to go out of sight with strangers?

As it is, we have a hugely expensive bureaucratic and insensitive process. Would it not be more sensible to put the onus on the owner of the building - church, club, house, to be responsible, with a stiff penalty for failure to supervise? At least let the CRB issue a time-limited certificate, to be used on change of job or across several jobs, rather than requiring a new check for every change or addition.

the standard contraceptive?

2009-12-07T15:39:00.003Z

It was said fairly recently that abortion is becoming a new contraceptive.

From figures released by the Department of Health recently, it seems that with the number of "repeat" abortions it is becoming the standard contraceptive for some.

In 2008 there were 5,218 repeat abortions among girls under 20 in England and a further 15,029 among those aged 20 -24. In the teenage group about 12% were second or further abortions. The total number of abortions in the UK in 2007 was 220,000, which makes us the most abortion indulgent country in Europe, having overtaken France with 210,000.

Also in 2008 65,000 women who had already had an abortion went through a second, third or further abortion, which is more than one third of all women having an abortion in 2008. (In London there is one repeat abortion for every 11 conceptions.)

This despite available advice, a range of contraceptives and increased sex education in schools. (In 2008 there were 40,000 under-18 conceptions).

Apart from the long-term effects there may be from easy sex or from abortion, which can lead to mental problems, there are other concerns.

There is a very large drain on the resources of the NHS, which ought to be used elsewhere rather than on this "self-inflicted" problem.

There seems to be a perverse correlation - the more contraceptive availability, the greater the number of abortions.

Routine abortion on demand seems to make girls less careful. This may explain why AIDS seemed to be making something of a resurgence recently.

There may be more agreement

2009-12-07T14:08:00.003Z

There may be more agreement between Messrs. Darling and Osborne than we suspected, it seems.

Without making any suggestion as to who copied whom, I have noticed that recently both of them have said that the main way to reduce the deficit and promote recovery is by way of economic growth. They both insist on cuts in wasteful spending within the public sector, in addition.

There the similarity ends, I suspect, with Darling going for higher taxes especially and Osborne going for reduced government expenditure.

I think that they both agree that it will be impossible to cover the present level of budget deficits by either taxation alone (say 40 pence in the pound on standard rate) or by cutting government expenditure (say a 20% reduction - the entire defence and education budgets together, say.)

So if growth is the way, there will be higher employment ( - only slowly, as it is an lagging indicator, and increase much more slowly than output), higher incomes, profits and spending, and therefor higher taxes.

The question is how to boost the economy without putting still further cash into it by the government. (our creditors are becoming restless and bodies like the IMF and OECD concerned. Here the Tories are surely right, backed up by many in the city, the best way is to reduce company taxation (which may require higher taxes elsewhere initially), make investment borrowing for businesses easier, and rapidly reduce the throttling red tape.

Beware slogans

2009-12-07T09:49:00.003Z

We shall have the pre-budget report election campaign this week. Does anyone doubt that, as G.Brown has virtually dictated it, it will have little realistically to solve our economic problems and everything to try to gain an electoral advantage over the Tories? I write this not as a protesting opponent, as all governments use their final months with promises to do better and certainly better than the other shower!

Instead I write about the slogans dressed up as policies which, it seems, we are to have. Saving painless millions, if not billions, with un-detailed worthwhile elimination of waste, taxing the few undeserving high paid, passing a law to achieve something, pretending that things are not so bad as all the experts say.

One of the worst things about NuLabour, or are we back to OldLabour now, is to pretend that merely talking about something achieves immediate and effortless success. Thus education was to be the objective and yet despite all the money lavished, results with dumbed-down exams are no better and in many cases are worse. Child poverty was to be eradicated by 2010, and yet even before the recession the numbers had fallen by only 10%.

Perhaps of all the slogans the one which seems the most cynical was the sentence in the Queen's Speech, when her majesty was required to read out, "The government are going to work to build trust in democratic institutions."

Parliament has been emasculated by the executive, the executive in turn by the prime minster and cronies. We were plunged into a new European"State" without a vote, and we are under the power of well over 1,000 unelected quangos who make decisions which are unchallengeable and on bases known only to the government its master.

The government clearly does not listen or understand, or it would realise that holding a few cabinet meetings at great expense in a few provincial centres does not "build trust in democratic institutions.

...all done by mirrors

2009-12-07T09:22:00.003Z

The Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday on the work of Mr. Rodger Patrick, later Dr.Patrick? The retired West Midlands police chief inspector submitted his work towards a PhD.

The part reported by the paper concerns techniques used by the police, with tacit approval by senior officers, police watchdogs and the Home Office, which are designed to pretend that fewer crimes are being committed and that a higher proportion are being solved.

The whole broad area of deceits is called "gaming" and includes charging when there is insufficient evidence, knowing that the prosecutors will not proceed, although the crime seems to have been solved (-known as stitching), ending reports as being false or with downgraded level of seriousness (- cuffing), concentrating on easier to solve crimes to increase detection rates (-skewing), or persuading convicted criminals to admit to crimes they have not committed (-nodding).

Most of us have heard instances of these, or suggestions, and most of them are almost inevitable conclusions of the target driven culture in which the police operate. It seems that when police forces are attacked on one of these practices, there is a rapid rise in other categories, which suggests that the practices are widespread within and among forces.

So we have a government driving the police force by targets, and then wallowing proudly in the supposed crime reductions produced by such practices. (Did nobody dare to tell them what has been going on, or was it that they just did not want to know?)

Any colour as long as it's black

2009-12-07T09:02:00.002Z

Henry Ford was said that people could buy his cars in any colour, so long as it was black.

I recently saw someone with a "repro" telephone, - a massive black ones, heavy and the same design over a period of years.

We tend to forget the "Post Office Telephone" years when it could take a year f0r the installation of a telephone, and while you were not restricted entirely over colour there was limitation in design for domestic phones. There were no answer-phones, although they had them in America for many years earlier.

Then came BT, etc, and many other companies, followed by a revolution, and so much choice!

This illustrates the difficulty of a one-size-fits-all nationalised supplier. In socialist countries it was true of virtually all goods and services. You could have any colour and design, so long as you had what the state had chosen.

Worse, when something is politically and bureaucratically supplied change and development is resisted as a threat. (In the end in Russia all technology except war technology lagged behind the west because change was resisted as unsettling to bureaucrats. Only in the special shops for party members could you have choice of modern {western} goods.)

There are some who criticise consumer choice, and feel that we should all wear Chairman Mao jackets, despite the fact that it puts power in the wrong place - the producer rather than the consumer. Choice is one element of democracy, even if buyers spend their money "unwisely" as judged by the superior.

What else have we yet to learn?

2009-12-06T16:32:00.003Z

The Wall Street Journal, and here Iain Martin (blog 4.12.09), noticed in a recent National Audit Office report on bank bail-out some very interesting words.

The report announced that "The authorities had been aware since 2005 that the existing legislative framework would not be sufficient in a crisis. Following further work in 2006 and 2007, and reflecting lessons from Northern Rock, they decided that a special resolution regime should be developed. The Banking (Special Provisions) Act become law in February 2008 and gave the Treasury power to take a bank or building Society into temporary public ownership, or transfer all, or part of its business to another owner."

So after 8 years the famous Brownian re-organisation of banking supervision of 1997 was known to be inadequate.

This was put right by a law of February 2008, just in time for the Treasury and FSA to give RBS a clean bill of health in the autumn of 2008, weeks before the true horrendous state of RBS became apparent.

So it's back to the drawing board yet again? With the EU, and French Commissioner, taking a hand as well?

What is the purpose of education?

2009-12-05T11:56:00.003Z

I would have thought that the answer to my question is obvious. Education is to help prepare young people for adult life, intellectually, emotionally, socially and physically.

One of the problems faced by modern teachers is that our system has to provide for many of these without much help from families, or from the educational ideology of many in control.

So, for instance, competitive sport has been ruled out because the very word "competitive" indicates something that is unacceptable. It has not been helped by the sale of many playing fields, to subsidise education, a sale which continues despite government promises.

Family failure, whether from parents too busy or from family breakdown, means that in many cases there is little help or encouragement for personal development, - reading, writing or potty training. We are told that children arrive at school aged five still wearing nappies, with no knowledge of language/communication. Discipline within families has broken down, and parents have no control of their children, which leads to discipline problems at school. Families do not eat together, and children often eat in front of the TV. Families increasingly do very little together.

Children arrive at school with little expectation, and often because their parents and grandparents are without expectation. If middle class families succeed more often, it is not because they are better people but rather because they have a greater long-term vision of what is possible.

Recently it was announced that there are to be lessons in school to encourage children not to inflict violence on women and girls (are men not subject?). As someone suggested, "Why not add lessons on theft, terrorising the elderly or damaging other people's property"? All this on top of lessons on "use of money", citizenship, sex, personal hygiene, environment, etc. In fact, whenever there is a new social issue or problem the immediate reaction is to add it to the curriculum.

The simple emphasis on the "three Rs" is fighting against all sorts of societal problems which are the result of factors outside school, and in many cases are the consequences of ill thought-out policies.

No, we want something less demanding.

2009-12-05T11:27:00.003Z

Parkside Federation, a network of two state secondary schools in Cambridge, have been told by the Department for Children, etc, that their pupils must not be allowed to sit the International GCSE science exam. As the course was on a list of approved courses drawn up by Ofqual, the examinations regulator, the schools duly began classes on this basis in 2008. Everyone expected accreditation by the government. The IGCSE is modelled on the old GCE O-level and is approved by many of private schools, but is approved only for languages and history in state schools.

Now, well into the autumn term of the second and final year, the government has banned the course, effectively overruling its own regulator! It may not do too much harm to the students already preparing for the exam, as the domestic equivalent is generally regarded as a much less demanding course. In the long run the students may suffer, because they will have received an inferior preparation for A level science study and have a less acceptable qualification when they come to apply for university.

So why have Balls & Co taken this step?

1) Is it because there is no coursework assessment, unlike the domestic version, but merely a final exam? This is a recognition that some students find it more difficult to deal with a final exam, or alternatively that some receive outside help in coursework, or even that hard work should count in addition to final exam. The change might have penalised those with less understanding who would have succeeded by sheer hard work, but it would have given a greater chance of sorting out those with greater understanding from those with less. The IGCSE is more demanding and would reveal a greater range of ability.

2) Is it part of the equality ideology? This seeks to reduce the difference in attainment in order that all may pass. This ridiculous philosophy has already resulted in grade A and then A*, and who knows how soon it will need A**?

3) Is there a fear that the inadequacies of the domestic system will become further exposed?

What reason do Balls & Co give? They say that the IGCSE in compulsory subjects, English and Maths and Science, "does not meet the requirements of the curriculum." These requirements, I suspect, are ideological rather than educational.

The elderly

2009-12-04T16:45:00.003Z

The Care Quality Commission (another quango) estimates that about 4,000, or about one in six, care homes, are providing sub-standard care for elderly people. About 80,000 old folks are in these homes.

This becoming a political hot potato, especially as elderly people struggle to look after relatives in their own homes, because they cannot afford the fees charged by care homes.

The problem, which will not go away, is the result of at least three factors.

1) We are all living longer, but many are living longer with poor mobility and other health problems. The elderly are big consumers of health and care provision.

2) We contributed through our lifetime via our national insurance, in the belief that it would cover us "from cradle to grave". The problem is that national insurance contributions were not invested or funded, very often used to care for those who had worked before national insurance was started and thus had not contributed, and very often just lumped together with all other taxes for government purposes.

3) Residential care is expensive, and should be even more so if carers were paid a decent wage for all they do.

So we have a growing elderly population supported by those who work or pay tax.

The response of Mr. Brown is to say some may have free care, others will have to pay, and as it is very expensive he will offer the cheaper domiciliary provision, - something vastly inferior.

The Tories have suggested a lump sum payment by people on retirement of £8,000, which will ensure that they will not have to pay or lose their house when they eventually need care. If this is not funded, but is merely used for those already beyond 65, then the problem is not resolved.

Somehow, we have to get back to Beveridge, with a Beveridge mark two. Contributions over a lifetime should provide a fund for residential care when it arises. This does little to help the millions of people already near to or already in retirement.

Buck-passing?

2009-12-04T16:25:00.003Z

Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, has recently complained that many peoples lives are made miserable because the courts do not deal adequately with low-level offenders. Many of these offenders are serial offenders, and blighting local communities.

These offenders are not facing proper justice, he claims, a view held held by a large percentage of the population.

Could this be the police who do not turn out when such crimes are reported, and so people do not bother to report them and merely live in hell and frustration?

It may be that the courts have no sanctions. ASBOs have not worked, despite countless changes, and even community service has seen offenders fail to turn up for all stipulated sessions.

The Tory variation is to give instant punishment, such as grounding orders. They have little money, so fining offenders is pointless as they will merely turn to burglary or drug pushing to re-fill their coffers.

As I have blogged before, it is too late by the time the offenders reach 14. They have already run wild at school, where discipline is undermined by weak local government who merely send those excluded back to school, the same or another, with little other sanction. Even keeping them out of school is no punishment, since they are determined educational failures

The problem has to be tackled much earlier at primary level, where early failure receives remedial inputs, or even in the family!

Is this really believable?

2009-12-04T11:46:00.003Z

A recent National Audit Office report has uncovered hidden notes, minutes and reports which have lain undiscovered in the Treasury.

Among other things, two worries emerge:

1) We, the public have extended much more credit to the banking system than we had thought. The NAO estimates something like £850 billion. It is to be hoped that much of this will return when the banks are "back to normality", but some may well be lost. It emphasises why Brown was pushing hard for LloydsTSB to take over the failing HBOS. If there had not been a merger, the consequences could have been catastrophic, and not just for jobs in Scotland.

2) The FSA and the Treasury gave the Royal Bank of Scotland a clean bill of health in October, just days before it nearly went bust. This is amazing. It shows that the tri-partite system, which Brown wants to empower still more greatly, had broken down. In due course we may find out what the Bank of England knew and thought at the time.

As we may well survive the risk of point one, the real horror is in point two. BOS seemingly expanded loans to 50 times available bank deposits, and like Northern Rock the bank was relying on short term borrowing.

If the regulators, the Treasury and the FSA, did not know this, they were incompetent. If they did know it their inaction and good bill of health is bordering on the criminal.

Could it be?

2009-12-04T11:33:00.002Z

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

Ludwig von Mises from "Human Action" (1949)

Von Mises seems to have a word for us. There is no way of avoiding some pain over the next few years, - it's a bit like indigestion after eating an over-large meal.

G.Brown has obviously not read von Mises, or feels that he knows better than him and a growing number of economists. They all fear what will happen if Brown tries to carry out his programme of spending in the present conditions. What is worse is that potential creditors are also looking on, and wondering whether to take out their money and whether to invest further in an over-expanded public sector commitment in the UK.

Brown cannot plunge us into further public debt, or von Mises will haunt us for years to come.At the moment, we wait to see if Darling has won any sort of victory over Brown, and offer plans to reduce the accumulated deficits reasonably quickly.

Of course, Brown's promises could be mere window dressing to catch a few votes. Does he ever do anything which does not have potential political advantage for him and his party?

Come back PC Dixon, Dock Green needs you

2009-12-03T11:17:00.003Z

The Times today comments on the judgement of Jan Berry, Labour's czar against red tape, on the failure of the police to be enticed out of the comforts of the police station.

It seems that, despite inducements and command, the Police are spending no more time on the beat than they were two years ago. We could have guessed this from the recent announcement of civilians actually employed as detectives!

One of them inducements was the supply of 27,000 portable hand-held computers, to enable officers to record details without having to return to base. (Some have also had helmet-mounted web cams.) It seems that there was a cock-up or mistake in the installation of the correct software. Shades of the supply of military equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan!

The latest decision from on high is to demand that the police patrol alone, instead of in pairs, and also to have centrally supplied uniforms - to save money. It seems that severe cuts are coming?

The central problem has not been removed, - health and safety application and, more especially, the top-down targets which require so many boxes to be ticked, so many forms to be filled in, so many targets to be considered. There has to be a major change in objectives and implementation, and this in turn will require fundamental reform.

the rich gets the gravy and the poor....

2009-12-03T10:19:00.002Z

Today's Independent newspaper reports on a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the crusading anti-poverty think tank.

Perhaps the most salutary finding of the report is that 2004 was the year when poverty, unemployment and house repossession began to increase. This was obviously before the recession began.

The recession has made things worse. Poverty, at least as measured by one indicator, is at the same level as in 2000, with 2 million children in low-income households. Unemployment is at the highest levels since the middle 1990s, and re-possessions are at six times the level of 2004.

It is difficult to see what any government could do about these problems immediately, with the public finances in such a mess, but clearly some attempt must be made as soon as things are under control again.

Re-balancing....

2009-12-03T09:49:00.003Z

The Financial Times today has an article by their Economics Editor on the significance of manufacturing in the UK economy. This was based on data at the Office for National Statistics.

The main point is that during the 12 years of NuLabour the share of national output due to manufacturing has fallen from 20% to 12.4% (During the recent recession manufacturing has fallen still further , to 11%.) We may still be a major manufacturing country, but it is accounting for a smaller and smaller proportion of GDP.

There was a dip during the Thatcher years, from about 25%, which was derided as something very bad by the then Labour opposition.

There has been a decline in manufacturing in many other advanced economies, although Germany and the USA have not seen such a rapid fall. There is something almost "natural" about this. Developing countries, often with an exchange rate advantage, have lower (labour) costs and often poorer working conditions than would be tolerated here.

The result has been the loss of production overseas - either by close-down here or by using overseas production facilities.

If there is a balancing, as other international marketable goods or services are provided here in place of "metal bashing and assembly", this need not be a concern. Switzerland has been very successful without much heavy industry.

One cause for concern here is that the expanding sectors here are local banking, health and education. There is a limited potential for exporting these.

Does the economy need need re-balancing then? Yes, but it will not happen in the present regime of company taxation and regulation. Setting up new manufacturing capacity is expensive, and needs to have the government on side.

Education spending and progress

2009-12-02T16:03:00.002Z

The spending is clear - it has risen from £35.3 billion to £63.9 billion under Labour, - a near doubling in 12 years.

Has there been progress? Yes, in terms of buildings. Many fine buildings have been erected.

Has there been an improvement otherwise? Doubtful.

The office for National Statistics has concluded that that is inputs per output, between 2000 and 2008 productivity,has actually declined by 7.5%. (A similar result has been noticed in health spending.) Productivity now is about what it was in 1996.)

The suspicion is that productivity has not risen because there has been no real reform.

What of results, this should really be the yardstick?

In achievement, there has been an increase of one extra GCSE subject grade C pass per pupil every five years. This has to be admitted.(There are questions among many people as to whether standards have been reduced.)

Against this it must be recorded that for many students the situation has worsened. Standards in English and Maths are falling in more than half of primary schools. Forty per cent will leave primary school with inadequate grounding in the three Rs. The number achieving the the government declared level of competence has actually fallen by a fifth. To judge by comments made by employers the situation does not improve by when students leave school.

Clearly education is failing, and merely pumping money in is not sufficient in itself!

The question is whether the opposite is true, that reduced spending could drive up standards? To judge by the political parties recent statements, education will not be spared from cuts in public spending.

One significant development could be the adoption of the educational reforms advocated by Michael Gove. Could new schools set up and run outside local council control either drive up standards or reduce costs, or both?

The answer is "yes" to both questions.

I included a message earlier that education spending per student is roughly the same in public and private sectors, but the amount actually spent on each student is higher in the private sector, who do not have the massive bureaucracy locally and nationally which has to be funded.

In outcomes the private sector are generally better, with more passes and better grades. This is not unconnected with the last paragraph.

The forbidden and dnagerous subject.

2009-12-02T15:44:00.003Z

Migration Watch is a self-funded organisation which seeks to provide figures on immigration which the government cannot or will not provide.

What is emerging is that in 2008 there was a net immigration into the UK in excess of 150,000. This figure is a net one, that is new immigration less outward migration, or emigration. There were probably half a million immigrants, and about 350,000 people leaving, leaving to new countries or returning to old ones.

Many of those leaving were doing so because of lack of jobs and opportunities here, that is people of working age with drive and ambition. The economic status of those arriving we do not know.

Conclusions:
At a rate of 150,000 we shall reach the figure of 70 million inhabitants in about 20 years, including the natural growth by procreation while they are here. The 70 million is arguably too high, given the natural resources of the country and the pressures imposed by attempts to reduce global warming.

If the government is unable to limit the level of immigration, as appears the case, then if outward migration diminishes with economic recovery we could reach the 70 million even sooner. Global warming is a problem we are permitted to mention, a rapidly rising population and demand on resources is something dangerous to mention without inviting accusations of racism, but whatever gags there are the problem will not go away.

Why do they do it?

2009-12-02T15:21:00.003Z

Why do lefties like to downplay or rewrite history?

Christopher Booker, in his weekly article in the Sunday Telegraph ten days ago , pointed out that Ed Balls, Secretary for Children etc. has a plan to subsume the teaching of history and geography into the study of social themes. The subjects will thus lose much of their integrity in these "general studies" bundles.

In doing this he is following the trend among "progressives"for half a century.

Why do they do this?

1) They can eliminate anything which does not suit their cause, and provide opposition to the promulgation of progressive views. Failures in socialism or progressivism may be avoided.

2) They control the agenda, not the passing of the centuries. (I remember speaking to a history teacher, who admitted that what he was teaching was really "sociology, illustrated by history".) The problem , of course, is that we shall have adults in the future who do not really know who they are, historically speaking. They will have been indoctrinated in the class struggle, environment, the evil of capitalism, collective action and modern government.

They can even re-write history, as Russia is doing in restoring Stalin to favour, or as the EU is doing to the glorious history of the Union. If there are fewer people and writings to challenge the official line, the establishment is more comfortable.

Boys = education failures?

2009-12-01T14:31:00.004Z

A report by the think tank "Centre for Policy Studies" has recently suggested that the educational system is consigning boys from the poorest white British and black Caribbean backgrounds to a "lifetime of crime, drugs and prison". Among poor white boys, as shown by the take-up of free-school meals - a usual indicator of deprivation, less than half started secondary school with an adequate foundation in English and Maths. (This compares with 72% for all students).

We had accepted that boys are less committed to study than girls, that they prefer sport and computer games, and so on.

The Report suggests other reasons:

1) Some schools continued with a stubborn refusal to adopt teaching with synthetic phonics. (This despite earlier findings that pupils who had been taught by synthetic phonics were likely to be three years ahead in reading and writing!)

2) Many teachers showed an ideological refusal to enforce discipline, and students ran wild. This should not be downplayed. The categories of boys under discussion often suffer from a lack of discipline at home, so the relaxed attitude at school is not the best thing for them.

3) There was a lack of competitive sport, perhaps from a shortage of male teachers to organise it.

OFSTED do not escape criticism, with what the author sees as a preoccupation with healthy eating and citizenship.

Sorry, same message as before

2009-12-01T14:05:00.004Z

Today we are to have the primery school rankings for the SATS tests last summer.

They will show that about 161,500 pupils out of 577,000, or nearly 28%, have failed to reach the standard expected of 11 year-olds in the "three Rs", that is failed to reach level four in both English and Maths. This represents a decline as compared with the previous year of almost one percentage point.

The government's target for 2011 is a failure rate of 22%, so they look very unlikely to achieve this.

Two comments have to be made:

1) The failure is despite the complaint that teachers are spending too much time preparing pupils for the tests., that is giving them the greatest chance of passing.

2) The government is proposing to abolish the tests at age 11, and rely on teacher's evaluation of children's abilities.

I suspect that this will increase the number of children with satisfactory results, for either or both of the above reasons.

We shall then be back in the situation of the 1970s observed by prime minister Callaghan, - satisfactory marks but declining literacy and numeracy.

Whatever happens in the future, this autumn approaching one third of all children beginning secondary education have an inadequate competence in at least one of the main two subjects, Mathematics or English. It doesn't suggest that they will make good progress in secondary education!

2009-11-30T17:27:00.002Z

Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, spoken in 1976:

"We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step."

Were you listening Gordon - not just everyone now, but even a former prime minister, as well?

Why pay for the dog if others have to bark?

2009-11-30T12:02:00.004Z

The Daily Telegraph reported last week that civilians are being used by the police to investigate serious crimes, including rape and murder. Hundreds of such investigators, who have come from other walks of life, and after minimal training, are being used in all 43 police forces in England Wales.

The newcomers may be very intelligent and quick learners, - many were recruited initially for clerical and reporting work in police stations in order to relieve officers from the administrative burden and allow them out into the community! Some are retired officers, but presumably with new tricks.

According to critics cited by the newspaper, the main reason for all this is to save money. These civilian investigators cost less than a fully trained officer.

So we have community support officers, without full police training and powers, and now "Dad's Army" and civilian investigators, all "on the cheap".

Meanwhile there are fully trained officers spending a large part of their week shuffling papers and filling in reports, often to meet ridiculous targets.

The moral seems clear.

To Refer or not to Refer?

2009-11-30T11:43:00.003Z

The SNP, in minority control of the Scottish parliament, are proposing a referendum of views of the Scottish people. (Polls have shown that the support for independence is going down, and is at most 30%, despite all the contrivances of the SNP government.)

The Limpdems, Tories and Labour so far have all pronounced against the proposed referendum.

Is this because it is so designed as to be advantageous to the SNP? People would be invited to choose between four options - the present situation, the recommendations of Callan report, fullest possible devolution and finally full independence.

As the government has worked against the status quo by blaming Scotland's current ills on a botched devolution and perfidious England, so effectively people have been deterred from choosing option one.

The rest plays nicely into the hands of the SNP, -the very least they can achieve is the Callan proposals, but every vote for options three and four could lead to a call for greater than Callan.

This, I assume, is the objection of the other parties. They have been out-manoeuvred. The only problem is that their rejection of any referendum is likely to paint them into the position of being anti-devolution.

I would have to say 1-0 o the SNP. Pity the rest of the people do not get to express a vote!

The causes of failure?

2009-11-27T18:18:00.003Z

A committee under the speaker is suggesting that political parties should be made to declare some characteristics of applicants rejected as parliamentary candidates, in particular what percentage are women, disabled or members of ethnic minorities.

No it is not 1st April, it is 26th November. We have to ask, "Why?"

Wouldn't it be better to ask the backgrounds of all applicants, accepted and rejected, if you wish to embark on a social engineering politically correct investigation?

What will it reveal, in any case, almost nothing which matters in selecting a good candidate? If I were selecting a candidate, I would want to know how well he/she communicates, deals with questions, understands party policy, how long a member of the party, and other political activity earlier in life, willing to live in the constituency, and skeletons in the cupboard, etc, etc. None of this is likely to be revealed in collecting these politically correct measures.

Someone from one of these groups who has been rejected is probably not rejected because of these declared characteristics but because it was felt that they did no meet the many other attributes.

We have now plunged into the Harman political correctness so far that we are in danger of selecting poor candidates because few women, or handicapped people or minority ethnic groups membershave applied that we have to scrape the barrel to put one on the final shortlist.

Surely the sorrect decision!

2009-11-27T18:11:00.004Z

The Tories are likely to propose that after-school detention should in future be immediate and not subject to a 24 hour notice.

There are at least three reasons for this:

It is now possible for schools to reach parents by text or phone to give them notice that their child will be late home. There is now no need for a letter to be sent.

If the arrangement causes difficulties for parents, as they are ultimately responsible for the behaviour of their offspring they can hardly complain.

The punishment should be as soon as possible after the "crime" for it to have a salutary effect.

So far head teachers seem to feel that the change is a good idea.

Good fpr the new court!

2009-11-25T19:15:00.002Z

Our highest, and newest court, ruled today that the OFT has no power to intervene in cases where aggrieved bank account holders feel that their bank has exploited them over overdraft charges.

A contract was opened between them and the bank when they opened the account and they agreed on things like overdraft limits and penalties. Both parties entered the contract willingly.

Perhaps the account holder forgot to read the fine print, or perhaps it was too fine, (there may be a need for the OFT to make sure that fine print is no t too fine in future.)

There is absolutely no reason why the OFT, which is about free trade, should try to break contractual agreements simply because one party did not read the rules they agreed.

The OFT could do many things to promote competition between banks in an effort to reduce overdraft charges, and certainly if all banks are operating the same charges, but trying to intervene retrospectively is surely not the way.

Bending the rules?

2009-11-25T11:23:00.003Z

It has been reported that police are arresting people with the objective of adding DNA samples to the national database. The Human Genetics Commission has recently added its criticism of the practice.

Given the difficulty of having your DNA removed from the database when your innocence is established, this is a serious escalation. The estimate is that of the 5 million profiles presently on the database, perhaps as many as 1 million are innocent and should not be there.

It goes right to the heart of whole idea of such a database. A few serious offences have been "solved" by use of the database, but there are questions about what general contribution it has made.

If an offender is deemed to have "paid his price" to society when his punishment is over, he will be punished by his record in any case. Is he to be further punished for the rest of his life by being on the register? If some innocent people are on the database, is there a case to require all citizens to be on the database, perhaps with the DNA to be taken at birth?

DNA technology has come a long way, but it is not without problems, and can make for "lazy" policing and the charging with offences of people for whom their DNA was there for entirely innocent reasons, or even because of mistakes in taking samples or recording profiles.

Targets and achievements

2009-11-25T11:05:00.002Z

The Daily Telegraph yesterday reported the results of a survey of 1,000 hospital and community nurses by the Nursing Times.

In reveals that in A and E departments 40% of nurses claimed that colleagues are adjusting times of arrival and departure of patients to meet the four hour target. Of the respondents, 10% said that they had been asked to falsify the figures in this way.

Even the NHS official data show that many patients are being transferred to a ward, corridor or observation area in the last ten minutes of the four hours.

The Department of Health stressed that misreporting or manipulation is a very serious offence, and require immediate and robust investigation.

What do they expect? For many people the out-of-hours service is not good, and so A and E is the immediate recourse if they have a problem. The A and E service is overloaded and has peak demands which cannot be met with the staff available. In many cases they are dealing not with accidents but with social problems such as binge drinking.

The problem is with the armchair decisions made in remote Whitehall. Hospital staff have to cope on the ground. While they may have slacker periods, they also have long periods, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings, when there are so many serious cases that targets are meaningless. We even had the cases of patients waiting outside in ambulances, to delay the recorded time of arrival.

Now or later?

2009-11-24T09:58:00.002Z

The positions of the government and main opposition on economic recovery have converged slightly.

The government now accepts that there is urgent need to deal with the national debt problem.

Government and opposition see growth as the most acceptable way to achieve a reduction in the problem.

There is, however, a profound difference in suggested timing. The government wishes to reduce the deficit slowly, halving it over four years,and allow debt to rise of course, while the opposition are conscious of a loss in our credit rating and subsequent higher interest rates, so wish a significant cut immediately. So both see a false step as causing a major problem.

Action now may have a slight edge:

- The public have been prepared to expect action, and will accept it for a year or two.

- Reform is badly needed in the public sector, and this adjustment could occur early as part of the action.The 1980s saw a short sharp contraction which permitted major adjustments which had been needed for some time.

- Action will stop drifting and dithering, will send a strong message to everyone, including the important creditors.

- The Canadians went through such a process in the early 1990s with great success.

- Business and industry can be encouraged in other ways - reduced red tape, guaranteed loans, easier credit, etc.

- Some economists are concerned about the possibility of inflation, especially if sterling depreciates. A tight control will lessen this risk, and also that of another asset bubble caused by low interest rates.

If G.Brown prevails, and action is deferred, it is to be hoped that his Queen's Speech window dressing of all sorts of extra expenditures do not occur, or we could have find bottle necks and capacity constraints that lead to inflation and an eventual dreadful and severe adjustment.

The new religion

2009-11-24T09:39:00.002Z

There seems to me, at present not committed to either side, that the global warming issue is showing signs of intemperate behaviour, at least on the majority side.

I read Lord Lawson's article in the Times this week, and found what I expected - an intelligent discussion on the significance of the Copenhagen Conference. Lawson is slightly sceptical of the more extreme pronouncements of the global warming "advocates" . (Did Prince Charles actually say that by 2017 it will be too late to reverse any damage? This is my question, not his.)

Lawson's position is the same in mine in general. Release the data for statisticians or other unbiased analysts, so that the rest of us can judge the foundation of the forecasts! We are waiting to be convinced, especially as a few brave dissenting climatologists are beginning to question some of the assumptions.

Is support of the certainty of man-made global warming a new religion?

Yes, if you read some of the comments on Lawson's articles. Vituperative, abusive, dismissive of his honesty, - choose what adjective you like, they read like religious fanatics attacking an atheist, or perhaps like a medieval inquisition.

Man-made global warming is a new religion, and questioners are regarded in almost in the same derision as holocaust deniers.

The problem for the liar...

2009-11-23T15:55:00.002Z

Ben Bradshaw, the media, etc minister, is conducting a campaign against the Sun newspaper particularly and the Murdock empire generally.

He is talking about the Tories doing unnamed deals with the Sun, with Bradshaw apparently apparently trying to reduce any influence the paper might have in the forthcoming election campaign.

I have no knowledge one way or the other about a deal, but it does strike me that there may be a little sour grapes in NuLabour having lost the support of the Sun, etc, on which they had relied for so many years.

If you have had support because of a deal done, then you suspect that anyone else must have behaved in exactly the same way.

I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said, "The problem for the liar is not that nobody believes him. It is that he can't believe anyone else."

Self interest or common sense?

2009-11-23T14:12:00.004Z

The Daily Telegraph today, in its business section, reports some interesting or even encouraging statistics about pay, in the private sector obviously.

Over half of all employees in the UK have agreed to a deterioration in their pay recently. Nearly 30% have worked unpaid overtime or worked longer hours without extra pay. Roughly 15% have accepted a pay freeze or taken unpaid leave, and a further 7% have taken a pay cut or not asked for a pay rise.

Often the initiative has come from the employer, - for example BT offering to pay 25% of normal pay to any employee who takes a year's (unpaid?) holiday, or alternatively a one-off payment of £1,000 to switch to part-time working. Car manufacturers also had various schemes.

Often it is to save jobs for when the recovery comes, or the market picks up, to remain in employment even if it is costly to the employee.

Unfortunately workers in the public sector, with "safe" jobs and with very good pensions paid for by workers in the private sector, are not showing the same restraint. The Communication Workers in their dispute with Royal Mail actually included pay rise as part of their demand, and other unions are also asking for positive pay increases. The end result for these groups could well be delayed but inevitable job reductions and imposed pay cuts.

The self-restraint and loyalty to employers is admirable, but there is the concern about what happens when the economy begins to recover. If those who have born sacrifices try to make up their losses quickly, employer's costs could rise, and thus prices, and hold back recovery. In addition if there is any inflation, and we know that VAT will give it a boost, any extra green taxes, or any attempt by strong unions to get bigger pay increases because of increased taxation, there could be an inflationary boost which would lead to higher interest rates and job losses. The recovery could be nipped in the bud.

Thinly disguised as objectivity

2009-11-23T10:58:00.003Z

Ed Balls, the head of Children, etc, is bowing to teacher union pressure, and to his own prejudices, in deciding to replace SATS tests for 11 year-olds with teacher assessments.

These assessments will be externally checked (moderated?) and will published as part of the child's measure of progress, counting equally with any other (if any) national tests.

So what is the purpose of these assessments? (Balls and his supporters really should see little point in them, given that they want children to move seamlessly to a secondary school determined by the local council, by a lottery or other means?)

The only point left is surely the league tables which reflect on the quality of the school and of that of the teachers making the assessments! Why do we need this? If there is any choice between schools for parents, why not simply ask the teachers how good their school is?

In the end a system like that in Germany would seem to offer something better. The child's marks for everything done of an academic nature are aggregated each year into an annual "mark"in each subject. (This overcomes the pressure of the final 11-plus exam or SATS test, by spreading the assessment.) There could be outside monitoring on a sample basis.

On the question of the quality of the school, if there were genuine choice at either primary or secondary level, parents would soon discover which schools and subjects were good and which bad. Parents and offspring would "vote with their feet" and poor schools would be revealed by low rolls, and good ones with waiting lists.

(This, I think, is part of the rationale for Michael Gove's proposals for education, with the notion of freedom to set up new schools outside the LEA if present state schools are not fit for purpose.)

The corollary is, of course is that heads and staff now relieved of a great burden should be freer to give time and thought to individual pupils, and to discuss individual pupils with colleagues and with parents.

A hung parliament?

2009-11-23T10:27:00.003Z

If the most recent poling result is to be believed, the Tories have only a six point lead over Labour.

If this were to be the final result, then it is not even certain that they would have more MPs than Labour, because of the advantage Labour has in unequal constituencies.

If this happened, the LimpDems would have a real problem - should they support a largely discredited government, which is what Clegg's latest statement seems to suggest, or should they side with the Tories?

They could be in some difficulty, whatever they do because they will insist on a commitment to proportional representation, which either of the others will only pay lip-service to. Then the LimpDems are committed, because to go back will precipitate another general election which could squeeze them.

If the Tory poll lead stays at 6%, or less, we could be in for interesting times.

What could change?

The poll is one, so far, with this result, and further ones may not be so encouraging for Brown and Co.

If it does stay, and people recognise that the last thing we need is weak and divided government, this could cause a switch to either of the main parties. If Cameron blots his copy-book or Brown agrees to step down in favour of a younger charismatic leader(please, not a Blair clone), then almost anythings could happen.

It is likely that the parties could develop policies, as opposed to postures, which make voters more inclined to them. At the moment the Tories may be in a better position in this respect, but it could be that Cameron's lack of eurosceptic emphasis over the EU recently has already damaged him and them, - hence the poll result.

Expect volatility in the polls from now on, as the parties strive and as voters try to digest and weigh up what they are being offered gradually. Unless you are a risk seeker, it's probably too early to put any money on a particular result.

It's guaranteed...

2009-11-20T15:22:00.003Z

So G.Brown's new idea is to guarantee qualities of public service - you will have one policeman come down your street every day or you can claim compensation/sue, etc., or treatment within 18 weeks, or the school selected for you will win highest status....

Where will it end? Presumably because central top-down targets have failed, and the Tories's "power to the customer" seems a winner, Brown & Co. have had to come up with something else.

Will anyone buy it? Those who in the past have had the temerity to claim/complain/seek redress have often found that legal and administrative wheels grind very slowly, in fact so slowly that it will be too late before you hear the result - you will have died/recovered despite the problem, the school is still the sink it was but it's too late for your child anyway.

If you were compelled to shop at a particular supermarket, and the service became poor in some way, how long would it take to correct, - possibly a few weeks, but perhaps months if the government or supermarket could prevent you going elsewhere. Monolithic monopoly public services are much more difficult to change.

If there are other supermarkets nearby, changes (for you) would be quick, - you would go elsewhere on the next shopping day. If most consumers had had the same poor service, the managers would have to act promptly or they would finish up with few customers, little profit and job losses.

Brown doesn't get it. The way to drive up standards it not to set complicated targets from London, or urge people to claim/complain/sue. Rather, let them vote with their feet and the good providers will drive out the bad very quickly, or be copied by the very bad.

Democracy at work!

2009-11-20T11:39:00.003Z

Now we know who they are?

Two unknowns have been not quite democratically elected, - by 27 out of 500 million, in a behind closed-doors fudged appointment, to be president of the council of the EU and high representative. Both will be able to speak for all 500 million of us, and one of them, Baroness Ashton has never been elected to anything and has no constituency.

Irrespective of their views, which a large majority of the voters in this country to do not support, they have no democratic mandate for anything.

I have always been committed to the idea of full cooperation in Europe, but I am afraid that the EU has now become almost comical in its so-called democracy. I have ceased to be a Lisbon Treaty/Constitution opponent and become a supporter of Britain's exit. I want no part of such a travesty which a relatively small number have engineered over us all.

Gordon contra mundum

2009-11-20T09:48:00.004Z

The OECD has recently added its voice to the number of organisations warning the UK that its public debt position is now so bad that immediate action will be necessary to avoid sliding into real economic decline. They follow the IMF and credit agencies such as Fitch and Standard & Poors., and a number of economists, yours truly included.

All these use UK government data, - what else could they use? As Cameron said, even if we succeed in Brown's declared aim to reduce the annual deficit by 50%, we shall still have a situation where the ratio of debt to GDP is at about the level it was when Dennis Healy had to be bailed out by the IMF in the 1970s, after an earlier Labour economic failure.

The latest government monthly budget deficit, for October, is the worst ever for that month in peace time, and double what it was in 2008. We may be coming out of recession, but our national debt gets ever larger, and makes the chancellor's forecast of £175 billion for this financial year look a serious under-estimate.

G.Brown, with his crude Keynesianism, differs. He can still promise greater spending and debt. He really is going for broke, and we could be bust.

Perhaps we can hope that in his December statement, delayed in the hope of good news I suspect, that the Chancellor has read some of the statements of the bodies I mentioned at that the start, but I doubt it somehow, with G.Brown standing over him.

No, Sir Hugh, you couldn't be more wrong

2009-11-20T09:17:00.003Z

Sir Hugh Orde, chief of ACPO, the association of chief constables, on the Toady programme today contributed to the "defeat Cameron and Co" attempts of recent days.

He claimed that Chief Constables will resign on mass if the Tories are returned and pursue their policy of elected Police Commissioners. " We do not want political interference with our independence!". He is wrong on two accounts. At the moment they have political interference, - from Whitehall, dictating much of the way they behave, and what the Tories are proposing is not political interference but democratic interference, which is very different.

The Commissioners would not be party stooges or appointees, but people who have a personal democratic mandate from voters of all political persuasions. Their function will be to represent the public, even pressurising the chief constable in the direction the public wishes, because that is the only way the commissioner will be re-elected. The Commissioner would have little incentive in interfering otherwise.

I have little doubt that there would be overnight changes, with officers actually spending a minority of their time in the police station and much more time out meeting the public and learning much in the process.

I have no idea who our Chief Constable is. Our force is an amalgam of three or four county forces. I do not even know who his deputy in our area is. They are remote and inaccessible. We seldom see a constable, except speeding by in his car. I do not blame the police. They are operating under political interference.

Part of the problem is the size of forces, (And Sir Hugh this morning suggested making them even larger by further amalgamation) and their remoteness and unaccountability.

There is one problem I foresee with the Tory proposal. If forces remain in their present large size, and the area is part rural part urban, then the sheer number of voters in the urban areas will tend to impose urban needs on the commissioner, to the detriment of the countryside which has already suffered enough. The implication is that forces should be smaller and the areas more homogeneous.

Sir Hugh advocated further amalgamation to a few regional forces on the grounds that modern threats, such as terrorism, drugs, organised crime, etc, require bigger units. Here I agree with him. Such criminals do not respect police area boundaries, and policing requires huge resources at times.

The answer to this is surely to have smaller forces for "ordinary policing"- theft, disorder, motoring offences, etc., where local contact and knowledge is essential, and a parallel regional or national squad for the more serious crimes. (It could have local offices like the FBI in the US to liaise with local forces.) We already have this in some respects. Why not admit that this is a useful reform of the police?

Under the carpet?

2009-11-19T10:33:00.003Z

Many have pointed out that despite Brown trumpeting it over months until recently, the Queen's Speech contained no mention of legislation on MP's expenses.

After comments overnight, the government machine is now trying to defuse the situation with various vague promises.

As the Tories and LimpDems had supported the government throughout, and had both supported Sir Christopher Kelly's recommendations fully, perhaps Brown & Co saw no mileage in pursuing it.

Others seems to have suggested various possible conspiracies.

Sir Ian Kennedy, recently appointed, had expressed opposition and publicly promised to backtrack on Kelly. Did he threaten or persuade Brown to drop Kelly quietly?

Was there mutiny in the ranks of some sort, perhaps with threats of a putsch to replace Brown? Were some honourable members threatening to take legal action in order to avoid exposure, de-selection or having to pay back?

Kelly apparently proposed discontinuing part-time MPs - several sit at both Westminster and a devolved assembly/parliament. Did some or all of these put pressure on Brown?

The truth may out. On the face of it, it does seem strange. Brown had made such an issue of the whole affair, nominating an independent board, defending himself with the promise of Kelly, that to omit it suddenly defies explanation. Surely it was not mere incompetence?

Defintions

2009-11-19T10:00:00.003Z

Public sector deficit:
The annual deficit is the extent to which the government spends more in various ways than it receives in its various kinds of income - largely taxation. The figure has been rising for a few years from a few billions of pounds to a figure for 2009-10, just before the election?, approaching £200 billion.

This figure has grown as more people are out of work, or have left the country, and so pay less income tax. Company tax has fallen as profits declined, and VAT receipts and stamp duty as people buy less. Conversely government outgoings rise, not least because the extra registered unemployed will qualify for benefits.

The National Debt:
The debt is the accumulated deficits, less any reductions from surpluses. (G. Brown, while still admiring Prudence for 2 years , reduced the debt, but then blew it all). The debt is essentially government securities held in this country, - by individuals but mostly by corporate bodies, and overseas by similar groups. These holdings are to provide a return large enough to overcome any perceived risk, or for legal or accounting reasons, such as to provide banks with a cushion if they run short of cash or liquid assets.

There is also a potential or contingent debt because of the huge amounts to be paid when the Personal Finance Initiative costs have to be found. These are in effect long term i.o.u's which G. Brown loved when chancellor because they gave extra credit to the government without it appearing as an item on debt or deficit.

The government, of whichever political colour, over the next few years has to get to grips with the problem of debt which has risen so high that it is in danger of offering too much risk to foreign potential creditors. They may fear currency depreciation, which means that the same sterling amount will return to them less in their own currency subsequently.

It is refreshing to see that G.Brown seems at last to have recognised the problem, as the Queen's Speech promised a law to reduce our annual deficit by half within four years.

Who will enforce this law if the government fails, is not clear. Will it prosecute itself? It is window dressing design to catch out the Tories.

Even if the next government succeeds in halving the deficit to about £100 billion annually, over four years the debt will have grown by perhaps £300 billion, even if rapid growth follows. This means that the government's payment on interest will eventually be increased by perhaps £10 billion annually, until it can bring us back towards surplus, which means perhaps two pence on standard rate tax which will already be much higher because of previous debt.

Brown is right to aim for at least a 50% reduction, although passing a law will do little to achieve this, but it has to begin soon or creditors may make things much worse.

Averages!

2009-11-18T11:09:00.004Z

An "average" is a means of representing a group of values by a single figure. In doing so it will give some sort of central tendency, but say nothing about the broad range values, that is, about its distribution. So, for instance, a group where all the value are 50 (very equal), will have the same average as a group where half are zero and half are 100 in value (- unequal).

There is a further complication, because there is no definitive idea of what figure should represent "central tendency". We normally use the word "average" to indicate the result when all values are added together and divided equally among the number of cases which produce them. This is the Mean. Otherwise the central value could be the middle one - when all are lined up in order and the central one in ranking is taken. This is the Median. Alternatively, we could take the most popular value encountered. This is called the Mode.

In most large data sets, which tend to have a "bell" shaped pattern and the highest point in frequency corresponds broadly to the middle value, there may be fairly small differences between mean, mode and median. but in distributions of values which are not symmetrical or equal about the central value, the three measures may give different results.

Today, on the Institute of Economic Affairs website, Len Shackleton illustrates the problem over the "gender pay gap". How does male pay, in general, compare with female pay? We leave aside the obvious Harman ploy, to try to include all workers, part time and full time, as there would obviously be a larger gap between male and female worker's pay, as women tend to dominate part time jobs and lower pay.

Comparing full time workers only, we find that using the Mean, the normal understanding of average, the pay gap between men and women fell by 1% to 16.4% in the year to April 2009. Using the Median, because the Mean value is distorted by a few very high earning most male workers, the fall was from 12.6% to 12.4%.

(If all workers, part time and full, were lumped together, the gender difference fell from 22.5% to 22.0%. Clearly for polemical or political reasons Harriet Harman would prefer to lump workers together, as this (falsely) shows the largest gender gap.

Which measure do you quote? It depends on your political purpose.

Shackleton ends with amusing results. If you consider merely those working in the public sector, surely those jobs most within the government's control, then the median measure of the gender gap has widened in each of the last three years, and the mean measure widened in each of the last two years.

This suggests that Harman, in attacking the private sector which has reduced the gender gap to very small proportions, is attacking the wrong target!

Prison failure?

2009-11-18T10:48:00.003Z

There is apparently a new phrase in the penal lexicon - "resettlement overnight release" (ROR).

We have accustomed to lower sentencing, easier and earlier parole, and so on, often with disastrous results. Now we have a new idea - allowing a prisoner out in his final year, for up to 100 days to do community service, in periods of up to 30 days.

In 2006 governors approved 3,813 licences for such release. in 2007 it was 6,914, while in 2008 it was 11,599. The idea is catching on! (There have been some well-recorded instances of prisoners using the period outside to commit murder and rape, as well as threatening, but a prison spokesperson claimed that the scheme actually reduces re-offending.)

The scheme is intended, so it is claimed, to help with resettlement with family and community after final release. The suspicion is, taken with all the other measures I mentioned, that it is really to reduce to pressure on over-crowded prisons. Currently the prison population is about 1,000 below the operational capacity of over 85,500, but there are peaks, and new arrivals do not necessarily correspond in number with releases.

If the suspicion is correct, and it is held widely outside Labour and prison management circles, it suggest that yet again we have evidence of "weak on crime, weak on the causes of crime".

Correct in most circumstances

2009-11-18T10:00:00.002Z

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson

Is fear too wrong a word? We are angry about what the EU will do next without our agreement or consent? We are deeply suspicious of all the databases the government is constructing, all the supervision and all the regulation of our activities. So many laws have been enacted that we feel that we could be arrested for doing things we have done for years openly and honestly. The government is taking more and more of our money in local and national taxes and spending them for us.

Perhaps fear of government is a little strong, but we have surely reached the point of anxiety?

Does the government fear us? Certainly, in the way they cover up and try to spin their way to a different position. The Blogsphere has brought to light things they have tried to conceal. Democracy and freedom cannot prevail while knowledge is withheld. Let's make things more open, stop them going back on the freedom of information act, holding inquests in private, having private investigations into government behaviour.

It's only a symbol

2009-11-17T16:58:00.003Z

Opinion is that the likely new President (of the Council) of Europe will be not be the regular guy Mr. T.Blair, but Herman Van Rompuy, the prime minister of Belgium recently.(Does Belgium have a parliament again?)

He is unknown to me, and to many, but it seems that he is an arch federalist who wishes to demote present states and nations to insignificance, and promote the EU into everything. He is a non-entity outside Belgium, but is the preferred candidate of Merkel and Sarkozy, who want a "little man" who will not overshadow them on the world stage. A little late perhaps Angela and Nicolas!

They are probably right, that he is safe and works quietly, unlike T.Blair, but he is determined to increase the powers of the EU. He is determined to remove all national symbols and flags, reinstate Beethoven's "Ode to Joy as the overall anthem, and also EU car number plates and identity cards.

They are symbols, which affect national pride, and will annoy both some europhiles and all eurosceptics. If Mr. Van Rompuy, or anybody else, applies these policies quickly I can see civil disobedience. We are being asked to swallow too much. There may even be a majority of our citizens already who want total or partial withdrawal. Vainglorious policies like these will swell the flood.

And now for something different

2009-11-17T15:53:00.003Z

I don't blog about the EU very often, - I find it so dispiriting. Here is the first of two.

Dan Hannan has recently made a powerful speech commenting on the trading relationship of the UK with the EU.

He answered the europhile claim that as 50 % of our trade is with the EU, we cannot afford to withdraw.

He made two points:
1) We export more to the rest of the world than we do to the EU. We import more from the EU than we do from the rest of the world. The figures, I assume, are aggregate figures on the trade (visible) account. We thus have a surplus on our trade with the rest of the world, and a deficit on the trade balance with the EU.

2) Other former members of the short-lived EFTA, that is short lived in its greatest membership, all without exception sell more to the EU than we do.

The conclusion is that the EU needs us more than we need the EU. In general terms the economic benefits of membership are slight or negative, especially when account is taken of the "red-tape" costs imposed on us by Brussels. Of course, the europhiles try to claim that there are significant other benefits.

"You can't be serious?"

2009-11-16T15:10:00.003Z

The talk of the government or its crony, the FSA, arbitrarily intervening to re-write employment contracts of banks by changing the payment conditions, is probably politicing.

Nothing much will happen until after the election in any case, especially if bankers and banks decide to challenge through the courts. I suspect that this is either a vote-raising gesture, or more likely part of a piece trying to persuade the public that it is the evil banks, and the rest of the world, who are responsible for the G.Brown's debacle in the UK economy. In other words a blame-deflecting process is in hand here.

The policy is so asinine and dubious that it is difficult to believe that it is truly meant.

It is stupid for all sorts of reasons, but mainly because it lacks objectivity and rationality. What is the "fair" level of bonus/salary for a greedy banker who is a member of a team, and success a group effort. It is irrational because it cannot be determined what is appropriate - merely a number plucked out of the air. It is stupid because banks are quite capable of finding ways round this, - forbidden bonus partly covered by fictitious promotion, all found travel to overseas branches at leisure, share options, etc. etc. Would we have more agency or self-employed people in banks?

It is worrying. We have had incomes policies before, with maximum percentage increases for everyone, but this is a single person incomes policy. Legally it can't be done retrospectively, to interfere with a legal contract made between consenting adults. It is doubtful how the government can interfere even in new contracts, without all sorts of distortions. The interference would be by the FSA, who are answerable to no-one.

We would have Boris sounding off, about the City and British financial expertise draining away abroad, and one of our few world-leading industries in ruins. Do we want this (draining away)?

By all means let's do away with all bonuses - in the BBC, where there is no competition but a virtual monopoly, and in the civil service, in both cases where bonuses are paid regardless of performance. Or am I right, it's the beastly bankers who are the ideal scapegoat who can get the public off the government's bank and buy the government's narrative?

Do clothes matter?

2009-11-16T12:02:00.003Z

It seems that Speaker Bercow is to be present at the Opening of Parliament wearing a morning cost rather than the full traditional robes of the Speaker. If he thinks that the morning coat seems more modern, well perhaps it is, but only slightly. In this he is extending his principle in daily dress in the chamber, - formal graduate dress of suit and gown, but no degree hood.

So we shall have the Queen and her husband in royal majesty, but a speaker looking like a 19th century undertaker.

Does it matter? The answer is that it does. The pomp and antiquated dress emphasises on this one occasion how far back our democracy goes, just as the queen's garments and crown emphasise something about our history. Even the lines drawn by the dispatch boxes to keep protagonists more than two sword lengths apart, and the concept of loyal opposition which the EU cannot understand, are also part of the great reminder.

Serious legal cases involve judges with archaic gowns and wigs masking their individuality also serve to remind of the hard-fought principles on which our legal system depends.

The Speaker likes to be thought a moderniser, but surely once a year we may be reminded of what lies behind the whole ceremony. Keep up the good work, Black Rod and others!

"I apologise for what others have done"

2009-11-16T11:40:00.003Z

Gordon Brown will, apparently, this week apologise to the hundreds of thousands of children virtually deported from orphanages and care homes to Australia in the middle of the last century. Many of them are probably dead by now. The child Migration Programme was indeed a black period in our history.

The fact that he will apologise, something he struggles to do normally in a meaningful sense, is because his "apology" is coordinated with that by Prime Minister Rudd in Australia.

Those victims who are still alive in Australia deserve to have their plight acknowledged, and especially those who were abused and badly treated over there. (At least this is better than the ridiculous suggestion that we should apologise to all slaves before 1850, or to the Irish for a potato famine in 1848. There may be descendants who still feel aggrieved, and they may even be pleased to see the haughty English grovelling, but they are not the real victims, who have long since died.)

But can anyone really apologise for that for which he has no personal responsibility? G.Brown is presuming to speak for the nation in expressing contrition. But he is (we hope) merely a temporary office holder, not head of state, and he had absolutely no part in the forced migration. During much of it he was not even born.

It would surely be far better to apologise for those things for which he is responsible, - sale of our gold bullion at rock bottom prices, destruction of our pensions, bankrupting our economy with unaffordable spending, sending troops to Afghanistan under- equipped for a war, politicisng the civil service, reneging on a promise to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution, etc., etc.

If he could somehow bring himself to admit his own failures, his stature would be increased . That he can't suggests that his choice of things to apologise for is dictated by political considerations, and recognised as such.

Surely not more money for GPs?

2009-11-14T14:39:00.004Z

Yes, it is true. Half the health care trusts in England are offering monetary bonuses to doctors for prescriptions for antibiotics they do not write out. (How is it proved, as it is something which does not occur? If I have a blood test for anaemia, could my GP claim that he had not, after reflection, given me a prescription for an antibiotic?)

Doctors should know that there are some conditions, e.g viral or fungal, where antibiotics are inappropriate. Worse, over-prescription has reduced the potency of some antibiotics over the years, as bacteria mutate. Is the payment to compensate the doctor for having to explain to a patient who is demanding "a pill" that there is nothing? Are we patients so overbearing?

Is a payment likely to make doctors prescribe even more, to promote income?

They have paid bonuses to doctors to keep their patients out of hospital, or to use generic medicines which are cheaper. Now, in a kind of mad logical extension they are paying doctors not to write prescriptions!

I am reminded of Jim Hacker discussing an empty new hospital with Sir Humphrey, who has just claimed that the hospital is working very efficiently. When Hacker points out that there are not yet any patients, Sir Humphrey suggests that patients are the obstacle to smooth running and so.....

What the figures mean?

2009-11-14T14:13:00.004Z

The green shoots are here - unemployment rose by only 30,000 in the three months ending in September!

Believe it if you like, but the figures reveal only that 30,000 more people have registered as unemployed. You would need more information to be sure that fewer people lost their jobs than in the quarter before:

- it was a summer quarter, with peak demand for temporary staff - catering, leisure, agriculture, etc. How many took casual jobs?
- how far was it due to migration - Britons and recent immigrants leaving, because of poor prospects
-how many simply dropped off the radar because they had no entitlements?
- how many managed to register as unfit?

Probably the main reason was none of these. There has been a significant rise in part-time employment, - people willing to undertake anything to avoid the stigma of unemployment or the poverty of benefits. There are now nearly a million people in part-time work, an increase of 40% on the number 12 months ago.

Whatever the reason, the number of economically inactive people, without work for whatever reason, during the quarter rose by 41,000 to 8 million. These figures, which include the 943,000 young people - a record number, illustrate our problem. The smaller increase in unemployment may be a sign of hope, and played as such by the government and its supporters in the media. They should recall how they used to accuse the Thatcher government of concealed or unreported unemployment. The same is still true, and part-time work and incapacity benefit are concealing a large part of the true picture.

Many economists were surprised by the small increase.

European Union - what next?

2009-11-13T11:00:00.003Z

The ratification of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution will involve massive changes in all the member countries. There will be a considerable extension in the number of areas where the EU has taken over from national governments.

In competition rules, customs union, monetary policy (in the eurozone area), commercial policy, and in marine and biological conservation the EU has exclusive legislation rights.

In other others there will shared competence, where national governments may enact legislation so long as the EU has chosen not to act, or the national government may add. Under this heading come international aid, R & D, agriculture and fisheries, environment, transport, energy, the environment, social policy, the internal market, etc.

In other areas the EU may support, coordinate or take complementary action. This covers health, tourism, culture, education, sport, civil protection, industry, etc.

The EU is now also the catalyst/coordinator on national economic and social policies, the development of a foreign and security policy and defence policy.

This seems a full list of dominance. So what areas remain for Cameron to "defend" by means of a referendum? There are still some where the EU wishes to make a common policy, and which will require a further treaty.

They are:
- Common Taxation throughout the Union.
- European Army
- European foreign policy (after all, there is to be a high representative, with embassies, etc.)

As I hinted in an earlier posting, we could also be awkward and uncooperative. In the 1990s the French under Chirac defied the EU in refusing to import UK beef during the BSE crisis. In the end, after several years the French did give in, unpunished, but had gained economically and politically and gave notice to the EU.

In an interesting article in the Spectator this week, Fraser Nelson, quotes this example, and suggests that temporary disobedience could increase power, not merely isolate as europhiles love to suggest.

No one is quite sure of the consequence of a British Bill of Rights, which would claim supremacy of British Law over the HR Court at Strasbourg. Our legal system could again become different, and in many people's eyes better.

The ultimate sanction we have is to withhold money. The EU would pressurise us, and use legal means, but would they risk driving us out, if Cameron set up a referendum and revealed feeling here? They would prefer our membership and money, - we are one of the largest net contributors, and would not wish to drive others to rebel.

Until we are in the USE, we have some leverage, and we are in a position, if the public wishes it, to scupper further integration.

Until the recent treaty, and all the underhand and disgraceful subversion of democracy, I was emotionally in favour, even though as an economist I am not convinced that there is any great economic benefit now. I have always felt that EFTA was a much more attractive economic proposition than the sclerotic, corrupt and dishonest EU.

Glaasgow NE - the result

2009-11-13T10:41:00.004Z

There is jubilation in the Labour camp, that they have (comfortably) held on to one of their safest seats, (with about 20% of the electorate voting for them!). There is disappointment for the SNP, that they ended well short of beating Labour.

The Tories saved their deposit and gathered 5.2% of votes cast, which means that just under 2% of the electorate voted for them. As they had not stood there previously, it is difficult to see whether or not they had made any progress. The BNP came fourth, Solidarity fifth, so both will be disappointed, and both lost their deposits.

The most disappointed party must be the LimpDems, who received only 474 votes, which made them as marginal as the Greens. Their share of the vote was 2.3%, and they lost their deposit. This vote share means that only 0.8% of the electorate voted for them, or less than one in a hundred.

The general conclusions must be that Labour are relieved, but given that they were supported by less than 20% of the electorate, who could be relied upon to put a cross against even a monkey with the word "Labour" indicated, this is not a ringing endorsement. (Labour had pulled out all the stops, including more than doubling the number of postal votes.)

The other point to be made is that voters were massively uninterested, despite the postal votes, and the turn out at 33% was a record low for a Scottish by- election.

There is hope yet..

2009-11-12T11:42:00.003Z

This morning, surprisingly, the Toady programme gave air-time to an Australian academic who doesn't entirely subscribe to the new religion of Global Warming.

To my mind, he defended himself admirably, mainly because he was arguing from facts. I missed part of the grilling, but he was claiming that we have had short periods of warming and cooling, for well over a century, and in the 1970s many forecasters were warning us of a mini ice-age which was soon to hit us.

Perhaps his most interesting finding is the small amount of extra CO2 which is actually man-made. The vast amount is from volcanoes, according to his reckoning.

This may not be a complete rebuttal to the eco-doomsters, who don't seem to want to argue on the basis of facts, but if he is right then we still have the two questions - is the climate warming, and if so is it man made?

The question is also highlighted by the findings of a Bristol University Study, that the earth is absorbing much more of the greenhouse gases than had been thought, and the CO2 in the atmosphere has remained constant at approximately 50% of emissions despite the massive rise in industrial and other emissions.

The findings from Bristol, and from other studies, do not mean that we may ignore the emission of CO2, but it does question the easy assumptions which are leading to a lemming rush to impoverish everyone. We need facts, even those which are inconvenient.

Accountability without power?

2009-11-12T11:26:00.002Z

Alarm has been raised by developments which have reduced the power of school governors almost to nil, except possibly in the case of appointments, where they have an input.

A recent study by Warwickshire University has found that governors are becoming powerless. The recent announcement by the government that they are considering reducing the size of governing bodies, means that the threat to remove local power is real.

Oddly enough, the emergence of academies, the flagship of Blair and Cameron policies, has seemed to accelerate this process. The academies are free of local control, which has been wrested away by Westminster. In addition, under the current rules the governors of academies may have only one parent governor. It should be said that Blair may be horrified by this, and Cameron and Gove certainly are. The latter want power transferred downwards to the local community, not upwards to Whitehall.

Just short of murder?

2009-11-12T11:03:00.004Z

Many people were shocked at the news that a teenager, in fact aged 16, who had been found guilty of raping a seven year old boy had been sentenced to a three year community order and within eight days proceeded to rape a five year old.

It was revealed that the offender has Asperger's syndrome, and deserves some sympathy. Having said that, he also had a history of sexual assault. Once again, the victim and the community have been valued less than the offender, however.

The decision to give a non-custodial sentence by Judge Adrian Smith surprised both the police and legal authorities. Given that the offence is little short of murder, in some ways equally as devastating in its long term effects on victim and family. A community sentence which gave freedom to re-offend, was arguably not in the best interest of the offender either.

Prison authorities, in making judgement on parole applications, frequently make mistakes which result in appalling consequences. It is very difficult to predict how the offender may behave in all sorts of situations which may confront him, so they have our sympathy in an impossible task.

Surely here, however, a period for medical reports on a criminal might have helped. Could the prosecution not have made an appeal?

As things stand, in most people's eyes, the judge made a terrible blunder. Apart from to his conscience, is there no way he is answerable? Doctor's can be struck off for mistakes, and similarly other professions. Why not judges, by a panel of other judges if we are worried about political or democratic interference? Could he not be demoted, to less serious cases, or placed on probation?

LloydsTSB - getting smaller and smaller

2009-11-11T11:18:00.003Z

Just over a year ago LloydsTSB were encouraged into a merger with HBOS. Lloyds was then a sound if boring and staid traditional bank. HBOS was riddled with toxicity, and doomed.

Why did the merger happen?
In essence because the government wanted it to happen. They supplied cash and waived the merger through the Monopolies Commission. Is it cynical to see that the prospect of the loss of a major bank in Scotland and many jobs/votes, was their motivation? It was also a cheaper solution to the government than Northern Rock had proved to be.

The bank's motives were to become a major player by merger, - in fact to become the largest group in the UK. They were greedy and ambitious.

Now the consequences are evident. The new group has been told it must sell over 600 branches, and major elements in the group.

There will also be major job losses, partly for operational reasons and partly to improve the share price when the bank divests. The chickens have come home to roost.

Our credit rating - a second view

2009-11-11T10:58:00.004Z

Earlier in the year Standard and Poors, an index which gives a rating to governments and companies who may invest overseas, left us with a triple star rating, but commented that any further deterioration and we could lose it.

Now Fitch, another rating agency, has made almost the same point. Record levels of government debt could lead them to downgrade us. In between the IMF has made similar comments. Fitch has described the UK as the most likely sick case in the developed world.

So we have been warned twice that we cannot afford to accumulate more government debt, and our rating could drop because of the increased risk of serious economic failure. If the rating is reduced, interest rates will have to rise as compensation, and servicing the debt will make government finances more difficult and expensive. It would also hinder the the recovery from recession, as higher interest rates make borrowing more difficult.

Fitch suggested that the next government upon taking up office will have to deal with this crucial issue.

Here then, G.Brown, the saviour of the world economy, is at odds with experts whose very existence requires them to be impartial and honest. Brown still thinks a Mad Keynesian Spree is required. He is at least consistent with his belief that we were best placed in the world to come out of recession!

Those, including George Osborne, who saw that the problem was not a mere banking crisis, but rather a credit and debt crisis, may be relieved to hear support for their views. They however, whether sooner or later, will have to deal with the massive over-indulgence in debt.

Blame the schools it's easy!

2009-11-10T14:00:00.003Z

A recent Home Office report concluded that weak discipline at school is partly to blame for half of young people turning to crime. A study of young people over four years aged between 10 and 25 found that 49% had committed at least one offence, including robbery and burglary. Children as young as 11 admitted taking class A drugs.

A failure to deal resolutely with the trouble makers while at school was held to be a major factor. A lack of discipline is a major problem, especially in alienating young people from education. According to a survey of members of the NASUWT union 50 minutes of teaching time are lost on average every day because of bad behaviour.

Part of the problem is the government and local authorities, who require suspended students to be reinserted in school in school in a matter of days, with no "treatment" while they were away. There are no sanctions, and staff suffer regular abuse and violence.

The report does also admit that home conditions are important in determining the process to crime. Single parent families or families with a step parents present are more likely to push a child into crime or drugs.

The problem of discipline begins long before a child is at school, and the problem will only be solved when it is solved here. The government has made one or two half-hearted attempts, so they seem to recognise the problem.

Tough no longer

2009-11-10T13:32:00.002Z

T. Blair famously said that he would be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. Sadly on this, as with many things his words were impressive but the delivery poor.

A recent government study has concluded that the main causes of crime are indiscipline in school and poor parenting at home. Nothing seems to have changed here, although the government has admittedly tried a number of initiatives.

When children arrive at schools aged five with no social skills, no interest in reading and writing and some still in nappies, you know the battle on causes has been lost.

In some ways, because it is within their power, government attention to crime can only be described as weak. Part of this is because the prison service and the probation service are underfunded.

Prison sentences are getting shorter, parole easier and earlier to obtain and early releases not properly supervised, with dire consequences. Police are off the streets, and their observance of targets often lead them to attack minor crimes rather than time-consuming crimes. ASBOs have been given out to little effect, except to increase the "street cred" of those receiving them.

Now we learn that cautions are being used increasingly by the police, and even in the case of serious assault.

Since 2000 thousands of serious offenders, - those who committed burglary, mugging and violent attack, have had their wrists slapped, thus avoiding court and jail.

Between 2000 and 2008 2.2 million offenders were given cautions. Worryingly over 550,000 have been given at least two cautions, - 105,000 on three occasions and 51,000 on four occasions or more.

Last year, far from tightening things, the Home Office said that repeat cautions were acceptable so long as they were for trivial offences and with at least 2 years between offences. (Over the eight years 23,500 have received four or more cautions in a single year)

Most worrying was that reported by a Panorama programme recently, that in 2008 some 39,000 cautions were handed out to people who committed actual bodily harm.

For several years government spokespeople have claimed that people are safe to walk about, with the implication that many elderly people are acting irrationally by staying indoors out of fear. The above figures suggest that they are rational! We really do have a problem on our hands.

When you bear in mind how many "have a go"heroes have come near to prosecution, or even taken to court, for merely trying to defend themselves or others, and the vigour with which minor transgressions, such as speeding, parking and the like, are prosecuted, we clearly have not been sufficiently tough on the crimes which bring fear.

Lot's of activity but no progress

2009-11-09T18:40:00.003Z

Christopher Booker in his column in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph commented on the "ministry of silly names". The countless acronyms which appear and then disappear is something we have all noticed.

There are overlapping quangos, with different names. There are are two with the initials FSA, - did someone forget or was one to have been re-named?

Booker points out that the DTI became BERR, and is now BI& S. Similarly the Education department became CSF. Somewhere agriculture became lost in DEFFRA.

Each time there is a change, name plates on doors and names on notepaper have to be changed, of course, so it is a costly exercise to keep the cabinet on their toes.

What it all signifies is a governing party which must always be doing something, so the result is often chaos and confusion. More importantly they like to be seen to be doing something.

Given the record of constant changes of personnel and titles, there is plenty of action.

But it's all like a rocking horse, - plenty of motion, but no progress.

No surprise here, then!

2009-11-07T12:12:00.003Z

The name of the new Parliamentary Standards Commissioner has now been announced. It will be Sir Ian Kennedy.

A distinguished civil servant perhaps, and academic, accountant or lawyer?

No, whatever other qualifications he possess, it is his nearness to the Labour Party which causes concern. He is a close friend of Alastair Campbell, and one who has mixed with Blair, and who was intended to be a government adviser shortly.

So there's no surprise there, then. It will be interesting to see which parts of Sir Christoper Kelly's recommendations he unpicks.

For the benefit of the country....?

2009-11-07T11:56:00.003Z

The Conservative leaders obviously believe that G. Brown is contemplating calling a general election in March 2010, rather than the expected May or June. So the Tories are making preparations on that basis.

Why would G.Brown do this? Surely if he waited until June the green shoots would have blossomed into plants by then, and he could claim to have led the country out of recession. Or despite his bluster has he begun to doubt that there will any sort of recovery even by June?

The suspicion is that the budget figures will be so bad as to destroy an already severely damaged reputation for economic competence. So if he went to the country early he could dodge having a budget until after the election when someone else might have to deal with the mess.

He would sell it to the country as being the best time for the county, but Brown never does anything for the benefit of the country, - everything is for the benefit of his party and himself.

Whatever his reason, the Tories have evidently picked up several signs, and are seriously making themselves ready.

What a situation, with such jockeying, if there was ever a doubt about fixed term parliaments surely this is the conclusive argument in favour.

Confusion at the centre?

2009-11-07T11:05:00.002Z

Banks and bankers are the scapegoats for politicians and others.

Those in power, however, are expecting contrition to change too much.

The banks were responsible for the credit crunch. The reason was that private saving was too little and the banks had inadequate capital to back lending. Interest rates were low and the government encouraged people to borrow ever more to finance an asset bubble and a life-style above that dictated by their incomes. They deposited too little

The politicians are now demanding that they lend more, to help the housing market and to promote economic recovery. We hear stories of small businesses unable to obtain finance, but RBS chief saying that they cannot find enough applicants for the money they have to lend

At the same time the Regulator is demanding that banks build up their capital in order to be able to finance (future) lending with greater security.

There's a conflict here surely!

Now we have Lloyds, encouraged into an unwise marriage with HBOS just over a year ago by the government, (could it have been Scottish votes which led to this?), and now Lloyds are trying to raise funds by a rights issue while forbidden to pay dividends to increase their capital and to avoid the expensive government toxic asset insurance scheme. This is all taking place while Lloyds are under sentence to sell off over 600 branches, admittedly by the direction of the EU regulator.

Most people feel that there is a shortage of funds for lending, and economic recovery will need this. The various actors in this - Treasury, FSA, and EU regulator have the banks in an internally contradictory straitjacket.

Surely the changes in banking regulation could take a back seat until the economy recovers sufficiently to deal with a bewildered and labouring banking system?

Would Cameron dare?

2009-11-06T09:52:00.003Z

Most people are agreed that Cameron's new objective, once Prime Minister, to negotiate the repatriation of a few competences from the EU to the UK, is a dead duck.

There is no way that the EU will agree to repatriation of any functions - partly because if he succeeds others will wish to, and "the project" will be doomed, the United States of Europe an unrealised dream. Tthe very act of cherry-picking from a past treaty is anathema.

So assuming that Cameron is genuine, and that this is not merely window dressing to gain election success, what does he do when his efforts are frustrated? (Personally, I think that he is genuine, that he feels that giving away power has gone too far, although he wishes to remain within the Union.) The only thing which disquiets me is his rejection of a referendum for at least six years, by which time everything will have bedded down.

He can do three things, which all lead inexorably to the same end:

1) Report his failure to the British people and invite them to express their views in a referendum.

2) Show our displeasure at the treachery which landed us in this position, by individual acts of rebellion, unpunished by our own government, and acts of UDI by our government in the areas where we want power back - social, legal, financial control. How would "they" react?, - fine us? How would they enforce their decision, by invading us, withholding the small grants we get? This would put us on a collision course, with brinkmanship leading either to getting our way or leaving.

3) Enter discussions with them about leaving. Again there would be threats, promises as usual - "Well we'll let you have your way for 5 years, but then you must submit."

In the end, they need us more than we need them. Our withdrawal would cause chaos. Economically the benefits are finely balanced. Our gains would be freedom and self-determination, and greater economic efficiency.

I wish Cameron well, but his hopes will never be realised. I, like many other members and supporters, have a difficult decision next May/June. Do we withhold our vote, or vote for another party, and lead to to hung parliament which Labour/LimpDems will run with some Tory europhiles, which is a vote for the EU in its present form? Or do we give Cameron the benefit of the doubt, and hope that when his approach to the EU is rebuffed he finds some backbone and bloody mindedness which is all the EU understands?

What else could he do?

2009-11-05T09:05:00.003Z

It was damage limitation. Cameron's focus is on winning the election.

His "new" position on Europe, - no referendum for at least five years, is to do what Tory leaders have been doing for years, that is avoiding splits in the party.

The balance was between losing some members/voters now, and some undoubtedly will leave, and risking a split which could cost the election.

The europhiles will not be pleased by the talk of repatriation of powers, but they probably realise that Cameron is almost certain to be defeated on this. The eurosceptics will not be pleased at what they will see as meek acquiescence.

Cameron, who has more to lose from alienating the eurosceptics, - he may have to placate them if he becomes PM. He could use his only lever - to be bloody-minded and unpopular - to hold up any further treaties, and alternatively to threaten the doomsday card of referendum and complete withdrawal. The first would be a minor irritation and delay, the second would be a major threat to the whole "project".

For the moment, at least publicly, there seems to be no major dissension, except by MEPs Hannan and Helmer, but I expect a loss of membership and poll strength. UKIP are licking their chops with relish, so there could be a bumpy ride and a Cameron government with a much smaller majority, if any.

Bi brother gets nearer

2009-11-03T12:29:00.003Z

The European Commission is intending that all cars, presumably beginning with new ones. will have an EDR (Event Data Recorder) fitted, to monitor car speed application of brakes, use of indicators and horns. There has already been a £5.5 million project, called veronica, to evaluate the idea.

They will sell it to us, although it will be compulsory, as a way for insurance companies and the police to decide fault, and also to check that all safety devices working. The equipment will cut in whenever there is a sudden change of speed and operate for a few seconds either side of a collision.

There is likely to be resistance, because the units will cost in the region of £500, and because of the intrusive possibilities. How long before a radio link is installed to warn the authorities that a collision has occurred, and why not eventually propose that since some collisions occurred at level speed the units should be on all the time with the ignition. Perhaps the car location and car charging equipment could be used, and then they would have a complete picture of where we are at all times, as well as how we are driving.

Why do they need it? Most of the information is already ascertainable in other ways, and for small bumps insurance companies prefer a knock for knock equal guilt assumption as it saves time and removes no-claim bonus.

Thee are 30 million of so cars on our roads in the UK, so installing this equipment could cost as much as £15 billion. In these straightened times, it must surely be a non-starter.

Democracy - the disappearing hope

2009-11-03T11:32:00.003Z

We knew that the present lot in Westminster do not care much about local government and local wishes - they virtually run the broad sweep of local government policy by ring-fencing some of their grants to local authorities and by setting all sorts of requirements.

They tried to make the regional development bodies into massive (over)planning bodies with enormous power. This seems to have been rejected now as secretly they are introducing legislation which will downgrade heritage in planning matter when it stands in the way of "wider social, economic and environmental benefits".

So the historic building could be demolished, the green-belt invaded, if someone in London so decrees.

But worse, they are also to set up a new quango to speed up planning decisions. The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) will be able to override any local protests.

Much of this is, of course, to enable us to meet the target of having thousands and thousands of wind generators installed around our villages and towns, or new power stations, with very little local power to oppose. If you can't carry the local community, ignore them.

The IPC is, of course, yet another quango - unaccountable, unelected and uncaring (- at least as far as local people are concerned.

What happened to local democracy?

The vengeance of Sir Ian Blair

2009-11-02T16:44:00.003Z

Interviewed on the Toady programme this morning, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner was given an easy ride. He is, after all, of similar outlook.

There was much to disagree with him in what he said, but his biggest affront was his rejection of voter input into policing decisions would reduce the independence of the police chief.

He doesn't get it, does he? The reason why the police are held in such low esteem by much of the public is precisely because the police and especially their leaders are so distant and unaccountable.

The transfer of authority to some distant centre by amalgamation of forces means that voters feel even more powerless and ignored.

They also feel ignored at the closure of local police stations where they could at least have spoken to the desk sergeant. The absence of police on the beat, or their replacement by the less impressive and less effective Community Support Officers, means that in small towns and villages it is possible to walk about for weeks without seeing an officer. Above all the failure of police to turn out or attend small crimes, or even more serious ones, means that juveniles create havoc and older people feel too afraid to leave their homes.

The fault is not just with the chief constable. He is handing down orders from the Home Office, and asking his colleagues to record everything on paper, to attempt risk assessment before turning out, and arresting only offenders who contribute to targets and who will not require too much police time.

Well Sir Ian, for my part, if the police are ever to regain the respect they once had, it will only come about if they police the community in the way that the community wishes.

The independence of chief constables should exist for only the methods of policing, not the objectives. The sooner we have locally determined policy the better, and not just one councillor on some distant police committee.

How to try to win a debate

2009-11-02T16:26:00.003Z

Dr. Nutt feels himself badly done by, - sacked by the Home Secretary for attacking government policies in public.

His position really says, of course, "We have the facts and therefore we should dictate policy!" The politicians, on the other hand, say "Thank you for your facts, but we shall make the policy."

This is a battle which they must resolve.

My point here is that Dr.Nutt spoke about the danger of dying from cannabis smoking, or why else did he talk about being killed from horse-riding in a year.

But the harm from cannabis is not just that of dying - cannabis like tobacco can kill people with lung cancer, it is also about long term impairment. A member of his committee later discussed the difference made by cannabis in the incidence of schizophrenia. He was quoting a doubling of the chance of contracting it after a few years. More years of constant smoking can increase the risk six-fold.

I do not have the figures, but to fail to talk about the mental illness associated is surely to try to win an argument on a false basis. I am sure that only a few equestrians die each year, and even fewer smokers of cannabis, but although people are killed in riding accidents and some are confined to a wheel chair for life virtually none contract schizophrenia from the accident.

No science has the wherewithal to weigh up the pros and cons of lung disease and death on the one hand and the brain disease on the other. Neither has the politician, but the issue is a political one and politicians must resolve it.

Do we need more proof?

2009-10-31T10:04:00.003Z

Figures released by the Children, etc. Department reveal that the number of families appealing against the allocation of school for a child have increased .

In the Primary sector last year there were 36,000 appeals, a rise of nearly 8,000. Of the appeals 6,000 were successful, a rise of 10% over the previous years.

In the secondary sector over 53,000 appeals were made, of which 13,000 were successful, a slight percentage fall.

The department attributed the increases to families becoming aware of appeal possibilities and also to parents removing children from private schools because of the recession. (Is it possible that the department is actually losing the battle to create schools of sufficient quality to make parents content?)

There is obviously considerable dissatisfaction among parents with a large number of schools and with the allocation system which consigns children to schools unacceptable to their parents. Of the appeals in the primary sector, only about 17% are successful, and in the secondary sector the figure is just under 25%.

Michael Gove, shadow minister, seems to have the right prescription - based in the Swedish solution, to let the schools attractive to parents reveal the poor schools and force changes or closure in the latter.

Admitted at last

2009-10-31T09:43:00.002Z

The Daily Telegraph yesterday carried the story that the Rural Payments Agency, of DEFRA, lost the confidential details of all farmers in England, roughly 100,000 of them. The details contained bank details, addresses and security passwords.

These, on on one CD and 38 back up tapes, were apparently lost in June 2008. The loss was noticed only when IBM carried out a review of the RPA's computer systems in May this year, - almost a year afterwards. Most of the tapes have now been accounted for.

The IT consultants passed the information to DEFRA officials, but it was not passed further to ministers. Hilary Ben, Environmental Secretary, was told only last week, although RPA had (re)discovered the fact from its own internal audit in September.

This is one of a long line of careless loss of confidential information, lost or mislaid, by government departments. In addition RPA have a poor record in their main function, of delay in handing out EU payments to farmers.

In the meantime farmers are concerned that there is still some information on some farmers which has not been traced. For the rest of us, the carelessness will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds in fines and in investigation and administrative costs.

Ministers are in charge of departments, and they should bang together the heads of senior officials, who in turn should make sure that things like this do not happen.

What a future!

2009-10-29T12:21:00.003Z

The Department for Children, etc. has just released figures which they claim show a slight improvement in attainment at age 14 in our schools. (It has do be acknowledged that there are actually no Sats test for them, since Balls cancelled them after the marking debacle, so we are relying on teacher (subjective?) evaluation of performance, and the slight improvement may represent a slight optimism on the part of a few teachers.

The results, it must be said, are still very disappointing - 23% of all 14 year-olds did not reach the expected standard in English, or almost a quarter. In science it is 22%, while in maths it is 20%. The claimed changes were an increase in English of 1%, a 2% increase in science while maths was left unchanged.

Girls still out-perform boys in all the three subjects, with gap widest in English at 84% for girls and 79% of boys reaching the standard, and narrowest in maths where the gap was 80% to 79%. In science there was a 3% difference.

If the increase in those achieving the standard is a genuine one, it is to be welcomed, but the overall results in the basic subjects are still very poor.

If a school-leaver lacks sufficient facility in English and Maths, his or her job prospects are not good. Moreover, if they have struggled throughout their school years they have probably not been able to develop competence in other subjects, and their results there will also be weak.

We already have a major unemployment/benefit problem, and these results will clearly not do much to improve this in the future.

Cleaning up

2009-10-28T18:38:00.003Z

Speaker Bercow promised to clean up Parliament.

May be he will restore much of the confidence voters used to have. I suspect not because he has cleaned up in another way, by suggesting that changing designation of main house to avoid capital gains tax (flipping) should be excluded from Legg's investigation.

I suspect that it is because he has done it twice.

If there is one element of all the scandals which grates with voters, apart from claiming for a mortgage that you do not have, it is flipping. If it is not illegal, it should be made so. It is a cynical way of avoiding tax, and should be stopped immediately. (It could be in any case if mortgage tax is not treated as an allowable expense, and fewer MPs buy a second house. But will there be other allowances for a first or second house by flipping - carpets, furniture, etc.?

Kelly report

2009-10-28T09:03:00.003Z

We were supposed to be kept waiting for the report by Sir Christopher Kelly on MP's expenses until next week. Party leaders have seen an advance copy and someone in a party office has leaked some details. It is unfortunate that we do not have a complete picture.

Two things do apparently stand out:

1) In future MP's spouses and close relatives will not be able to be employed as secretaries, researchers, etc. This one has attracted some real anger, partly because some have performed this function efficiently for many years and partly because it means they could spend more time with their spouse.

The problem here is the advantages taken to pay over the odds for very nominal duties in some cases.

I do not have a problem with paid family work, so long as a maximum is set and the work is actually done. In future MPs will presumably have to recruit someone from outside the family and provide them with office, national insurance, pension contributions, etc. I am not sure that any money will be saved.

2) In future there will be no payment of mortgage interest on second homes. This seems eminently sensible. A close family member flies out to Germany every week and stops three or four days, with all expenses paid by his company. He wouldn't expect to receive untaxed help to buy a house there although he has been doing this for three years. Nor would anyone else who works in the private sector. They expect to have all expenses of being away to be covered by their employer.

Why should MPs be different? Why should they be helped to buy a permanent asset, when everyone else is paid expenses? I suspect that spouses like to have a London pad for family use, as well as a valuable asset for sale later. What is required is an arrangement for MPs to be refunded for accommodation for the three nights which most of them spend in London. To avoid any other scams, perhaps the government could buy some property, (- Olympic flats after 2012?), and let them free for MP overnight use.

With some doubt about the spouse employment proposal, I welcome what Sir Christopher is doing.

They're growing - bigger and more numerous

2009-10-27T18:31:00.003Z

Quangos, that is.

A recent report published by the Taxpayers Alliance reveals the growing influence of these creatures which allow governments to dispense patronage, and let others take the blame when something goes wrong.

The TPA calculates that in the UK there are at least 1,500 of them - the governments are even running out of initials for them - there are two called FSA (- the Food Standards Agency and the Financial Services Authority).

It seems that these quasi autonomous non-government agencies employ over half a million staff, although some are so small that have only a few on the pay roll. They also distribute in staff salaries, expensive offices and grants something approaching £100 billion. (In 2007-08, the latest year for which mostly full amounts are known, they disbursed £90 billion, which was an increase of £13 billion on the previous year.)

They are non-government and apparently autonomous, and can act as bureaucrats -widening their empires and appointing ever more staff. They are also unaccountable - to parliament and voters. They are only nominally in the field of a relevant minister. Many of them pay their highest officer more than we pay the Prime Minister!

This is why Cameron and company have announced that they wish to "clip their wings" - to the extent that each quango would be answerable to a parliamentary committee, and the chief would have to appear to state their objectives and their success in achieving them. Scrutiny and cross examination would take place. This, to make the quangos answerable to parliament and the voters.

Help for UKIP

2009-10-27T18:19:00.003Z

Many people who are aghast at the developing new state of Europe, would consider voting for UKIP candidates, except for two things. Firstly, if they voted for UKIP rather than the Tories they might let Brown's lot back in again, and we have suffered enough, and secondly because they are not sure about their other policies, or even if they have any.

Now comes the announcement that UKIP could soon be bankrupt, as they have to forfeit £360,000 for a donation received from a man who mistakenly thought he was on the electoral roll but wasn't. It wasn't as if he was abroad, simply by some oversight or mistake his name did not appear on the roll. UKIP failed to check the roll, and so technically the donation was illegal.

Compare that the Limpdems, whop took £2.5 million from a criminal, - a much more serious offence. So far the Limpdems have not been ordered to hand it over.

If the Limpdems get away with it, I won't be the only one to cry "Foul", and I might just consider giving a donation to UKIP although I couldn't vote for them.