The Great Simpleton

TGS Has Moved

2008-12-14T17:23:00.000Z

I can now be found at my new home: http://www.thegreatsimpleton.me.uk/

heads they win, tails we lose

2008-12-13T08:02:00.003Z

As always when it comes to politics and big business we, that tax payers, are the ones getting screwed:

Shamelessly stolen from The Angry Economist

Boy, did we get it wrong on SMS! What chance political central planners.

2008-12-13T07:06:00.004Z

From this year's Economist technology and Innovation awards*

Computing and Telecommunications: Matti Makkonen for the development of Short Message Service (SMS), or text messaging. Mr Makkonen is a Finnish engineer who is credited with inventing SMS, which allows short messages to be sent between mobile phones. He proposed the idea in the 1980s while working at Finland’s telecoms authority. Billions of text messages are now sent every day.

I spent most of the 90's designing and building GSM networks. Whenever we put business plans together we just paid lip service to SMS; it was seen as something that could be used for SIM updates and nothing else. Nobody believed that any sane person would think about going through the rigmarole of tapping out a message to send to someone else.

Unless you've been on planet Zog for the past 15 years or so you'll be well aware of how wrong we were and the massive growth of SMS but maybe not aware of how much of a golden egg it became for the mobile industry:

The same Informa report shows that SMS remains a very popular technology, however. Worldwide SMS traffic was up year-on-year by around 50 per cent to more than 620 billion messages sent during the quarter. SMS revenues were up 23 per cent over the same period.

and

A report from UK-based research firm Portio Research suggests that SMS will remain the most widely used messaging format for some years to come, with revenues estimated at $50bn by 2010 driven by almost 2.38 trillion messages.

To select just 2 random articles.

When we talked to the Marketing teams to get dimensioning numbers they were either oblivious to SMS or just didn't see it as a major revenue generator, so we would just add in a single SMS centre for the network and move on, it wasn't worth spending time on the detail. This didn't matter as even if they had given forecasts of high usage we would have matched spend to revenues so there wouldn't have been much of an impact on capital expenditure (Capex) until it was needed and had revenues to pay for it.

When SMS did start to take off there was a bit of a scramble but as it is a Store and Foreward technique and instant delivery was never promised it didn't realy matter. A few engineers made extra money during that period and some smaller companies grew like topsy to meet demand, but no real harm done.

It is also worth noting that in 1994 the engineering team I worked in was given a briefing by the Orange marketing team. In this briefing they predicted that UK mobile penetration in the UK would top out at around 30% by the year 2000 and Orange would have a 20% share. As it happens penetration was approaching 100% by the year 2000.

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, apart from general interest there is a lesson in central planning to be learned. When I say "we" did all this planning, I mean some seriously intelligent people. I worked with a number of Management Consultancy companies at the time and they were the ones making the forecasts on mobile demand. Most of the people had MBA's from some of the top management schools, including INSEAD. Many of them also had years of telecoms experience as well. They were also working for some very hard nosed, perceptive and very rich clients.

These people were focused on one thing, making money. If they it wrong then companies would lose billions of £££'s, and they still managed to get something as fundamental as mobile forecasts wrong. Fortunately for the companies involved they undercooked how much money was to be made, but when they get it wrong its very expensive; ask Hutchison about its 3 operation here in the UK:

Canning Fok denies that the launch of a mobile broadband service is the last chance for Hutchison Whampoa's loss-making 3 mobile business. ... Today he is desperate to convince the outside world that the $25bn gamble 3 has placed on Europe's third-generation telephony market will - eventually - pay off.

They are still losing money, but not quite as fast.

If these seriously bright people with lots of experience can't always get it right, what hope is there for us of our current crop of politicians and civil servants, most of whom haven't done anything outside politics, planning and managing a whole economy or even, for that matter, regulating the seriously bright people effectively? And they have any political consideratios affecting their decision making as well.

Me? I would prefere to leave most of it to the seriously bright people and hard nosed business men and I include health deleivery in that statement as well.

*No link as its behind a subscription wall

You won't often hear this from a Yorkshireman

2008-12-12T20:29:00.001Z

Well done Mancunians

BBC: More or less

2008-12-12T18:21:00.002Z

As regular readers know I am always happy to bash the BBC, especially the lightweights on Radio 5. I may even call for it to be trimmed but as along as they produce programs like More or Less, its almost worth the licence fee on its own.

This week's program was excellent and exposed the nonsense behind the recent wild stories about sexual abuse of children:

A question of sexual or statistical abuse?
Between 5 and 10% of girls suffer the most serious forms of sexual abuse, according to reports based on a paper published this week in The Lancet.
These are shocking figures.
But are they true?
We investigate whether the statistics really support the claims of a hidden epidemic.

You won't be surprised to hear that it was statistical abuse. A meta study of a meta study of some very badly planned research. The one report that claimed this abuse didn't even include the UK is its research.

I recommend getting it on your MP3 players as a podcast. If you can't do get over there and catch the last program on iPlayer and then make a date in your diary to listen to future programs.

Ireland's 2nd Refererendum and Ever Closer Union

2008-12-12T17:44:00.002Z

Guido is reporting that the EU has persuaded Ireland to have a new referendum in his own, inimical, style (my emphasis):

Reports from Brussels coming in suggest that Ireland's political elite are allowing their arms to be twisted by the EU into ignoring the "No!" vote in the referendum and having another one. This comes as absolutely no surprise - the undemocratic nature of the EU project has always been manifest. It has a semblance of voting but the outcome is as pre-determined as a Soviet-era party congress. On the rare occasions when the project comes off the rails, nothing, not even the will of the people will stop it.

Irish citizens were the only people in Europe allowed to express their democratic will. They said "NO!" The EU's dirty ratifiers won't accept that answer.

The BBC reports it a bit more sedately, pointing out that Ireland is seeking legally binding ~~bribes~~ assurances:

The mechanism for a second referendum is included in draft conclusions which are being presented by the current holders of the EU presidency, France, and which have been seen by the BBC.
According to the draft, the Irish government says "it is committed to seeking ratification" of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of October 2009.

What Guido misses and the BBC don't want to tell us that it is always inevitable that any country that rejects anything the slows down the integration of the EU will have to vote again and again until they get it right. There will be some tinkering for the sake of "face" but no Government can object and say No means No because membership of the EU obliges them to work towards "ever closer union".

The Treaty establishing the EEC calls for it as part of membership:

OBJECTIVES
After the failure of the EDC, the economy, which was less subject to national resistance than other areas, became the focus of consensus in the field of supranational cooperation. The establishment of the EEC and the creation of the Common Market had two objectives. The first was to transform the conditions of trade and manufacture on the territory of the Community. The second, more political, saw the EEC as a contribution towards the functional construction of a political Europe and constituted a step towards the closer unification of Europe.

In the preamble, the signatories of the Treaty declare that:
"- determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe,

This is why Maggie always ended up losing and no matter what our politicians promise us they can't stop it. They can promise referendums in order to help win elections but they are meaningless waffle.

Although I voted to join the EC in 1975 I quickly became aware that something was wrong, but just put it down to empire building politicians and bureaucrats. I voted Tory partly because I thought that they could tame the worst excesses of the EC/EEC/EU only to see them embrace the EU.

It wasn't until I heard someone mention this ever closer union following the French No in their Constitution Referendum that I realised what was going on: we have been hoodwinked, conned or whatever phrase you prefer, into a position where we can't block the "progress" towards a United States of Europe. We were promised this wouldn't happen in 1975, they lied.

It is for this reason that I have moved from being a skeptic but accepting staying in and changing from the inside to outright hostility and a belief that we need to get out, immediately. I shall be voting, but not joining, UKIP at next summer's EU elections.

Met Police Just Dont Get It on Menezes Death

2008-12-12T17:18:00.004Z

I caught most of Sir Paul Stephenson's press conference following the Open Verdict on my way home and he just doesn't get it. (See it here).

There is some justification to the "fog of war" argument. No matter how much you plan and train for these things something can, and usually does, go wrong. I have have some sympathy for the policeman on the front line, none of them go to work wanting to kill anyone, let alone an innocent person, and I am sure that they will lose sleep over it for the rest of their lives.

What was unacceptable, and still is, is the way the senior ranks colluded to hide the truth. The way they tried to smear him is beneath contempt:

Lawyers for the Met questioned whether the Brazilian’s cocaine abuse and illegal immigration status could have contributed to what happened on July 22.

They said the suspect's "threatening and aggressive" behaviour was like that of a suicide bomber when confronted by police.

Asad Rehman, the family's campaign spokesman, hit back at the claims about the 27-year-old.

He said: "We have been taken aback by how the police decided to defend this case, and the line that they have taken in terms of trying to muddy Jean Charles's name and diminish him as a person and make the shooting more acceptable.

"He [the defence lawyer] was literally saying he was asking for it, which I thought was pretty sickening."

There was also a leaked rumour just after the shooting that he was an illegal immigrant and that it was therefore somehow his own fault, as idiotic blogs like this one attest.

If Sir Ian Blair had put his hands up immediately and accepted it was a complete fuck up we could have had more respect for them, paid compensation had a very quick inquiry in to what went wrong and hoped that we wont be the victims next time.

Sir Ian Blair's belated ~~sacking~~ resignation was too little, too late, and anyone involved at a senior level in the events should be barred from applying for the promotion of any sort, at least.

Iraq finished - job well done

2008-12-12T14:01:00.002Z

Travelgall has written an excellent post about the excellent work our troops have done in Iraq at A Very British Dude, which I commend to all.

Daily Telegraph Letter(s) of the Day

2008-12-10T09:42:00.003Z

Being away from home and staying in a hotel I have more time for the papers. I liked this one, it sums up the Governments our confusion about drugs and tobacco very nicely:

SIR – Last week it was reported that illegal drug use was costing the NHS £15 billion a year – 10 times the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses.

As illegal drugs have never been displayed for sale or put in fancy packaging, but always sold "under the counter", this method of marketing seems very effective, as there are more illegal drug users now than legal tobacco users.

But then, it is much easier to target the corner shop than the vast organised business of supplying illegal substances.

Stephen Leader

Chessington, Surrey

On a personal level, as a non-smoker of nearly 24 years standing I sometimes partake in this little pleasure:

SIR – I will regret the disappearance of tobacco products from display in shops and supermarkets.

I take great pleasure in checking the price of packets of 20 king-size filters. They were 37·5 pence a packet when I gave them up.

Mike Cooper

Southport, Lancashire

Just in case anyone passing through doesn't understand my position on smoking and drugs: I support the right of people to smoke, I was against the banning of smoking in pubs and I support the legalisation of drugs. I would, though, ban smoking outside.

Labour bashing welfare claimants without even a squeal from the BBC, what gives?

2008-12-10T08:50:00.002Z

Another Government head talking on Radio 4 this morning:

0816
The government's welfare reform plans - designed to get more than a million people off benefits and into work - are to be published. Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell discusses how benefit claimants "can play their part" in the economy.

Two things struck me about it:

Firstly, what a soft ride he got. If this had been the Tories the interviewer would have been all over them trying to rip their heads off. Furthermore, the studio would have had all the usual suspects from the Unions and self appointed spokes people claiming how bad they were, especially as we are having a recession.

Secondly, why now? We've had 12 years or so of growth without these initiatives, wouldn't it have been easier then? private industry is starting to shed jobs and the Government is doing its best to saddle us with ever increasing debt and is hardly in a position to go around creating even more jobs. That would pointless anyway as the non-jobs would cost more than keeping them on welfare.

Could it be that the Government have tipped off the BBC and their other friends that this is just a move to placate the Daily Mail tendency in the run up to a General Election?

The Great WiseOne's web site

2008-12-10T08:02:00.002Z

I've just finished the latest version and am quite proud of it, although lots still to do. My main aim with this version was to improve the navigation and trying to keep everything tight and on one screen.

It doesn't work well on small screens of less that 1280x1040 pixels and I need to develop some sort of content management as it is a real pain making additions and changes. To that end I'm now teaching myself PHP, have set up a MySql database on the host and set up my vHosts on my home PC.

The main problem is that it doesn't work well with Internet Explorer even though the CSS and HTL code has been tested against standards web sites.

If anyone is interested you can see it here.

Shit jobs

2008-12-09T16:37:00.002Z

Tomorrow I have one of the shittiest jobs going – I have to tell 3 people they are being made redundant. They know its coming but that doesn't make it easier given the time of year and downturn oncoming deep recession. (As it happens this is nothing to do with the current economic conditions, it a business operating decision that means we don't need as many people for a specific role.)

It's not the first time I've done it and it doesn't get any easier, despite what some may think. I have been there and know that no matter how well prepared the 3 of them will be they will still be numb and disoriented afterwards.

And just to make the task even worse one of those being made redundant has just completed a long course of chemo therapy.

BBC and Plane Stupid

2008-12-09T16:31:00.002Z

Despite feeling like shit I had to drive to "oop north" yesterday, 175 miles of mainly motorway driving. Set off about 9:15 and about 10 mins in to the journey discovered my iTrip was broken which meant that I had to listen to the radio. No liking the prattle of DJ's I was flipping between Radio 4 and Radio 5.

Radio 5 seemed to dedicate itself to a vox pop on the Plane Stupid demo at Standsted airport. At first I wasn't too bothered although I didn't think they had done themselves any favours on the PR front. However as the morning went on we had ever more callers claiming that they were right and coming up with ever wilder claims of what will happen if we don't stop emitting CO2 now. One even claimed that we only had 7 years to the "tipping point".

Not one guest was brought on to bring a modicum of reality to the proceedings. The presenter, Victoria Derbyshire, seemed to be complicit in all this. Anyone listening wouldn't have believed there was any sort of debate at all.

Anyway, rather stupidly I continued driving with my blood pressure rising as I shouted at the radio every time another idiot from Plane Stupid came on with another, wilder, claim.

This is a shame because I believe they could have made a very good point. Plane fuel isn't taxed which means that they aren't paying a Pigovian tax on the fuel. Instead they relied on ignorance and fear and the unquestioning obedience of the BBC to getaway with claiming there is positive feedback in the environment.

For an explanation of this see Climate Skeptic:

Frequent readers will know that I have often criticized climate scientists for assuming, without strong evidence, that climate is dominated by positive feedback. Such an assumption about a long-term stable system implies that climate is relatively unique among natural processes, and is a real head scratcher when advocated by folks like Michael Mann, who simultaneously claim that past temerpatures are stable within very narrow ranges (Stability and positive feedback are two great tastes that do not go great together).

Well, it seems that those of use who were offended by the notion of a long-term stable natural process being dominated by positive feedback may have been right after all (via Tom Nelson):

Cirrus clouds are performing a disappearing act which is taking scientists by surprise.

In the global warming debate, it is assumed that temperature rises will lead to more rainfall, which in turn will see an increase in high-altitude cloud cover that will trap infrared heat.

But research on tropical climate systems has found the opposite is happening, with cirrus clouds thinning as the air warms, leading to rapid cooling as infrared heat escapes from the atmosphere to outer space.

I also recommend looking at Climate Skeptic's video's for an even better explanation which you'll find in the sidebar

Dignity is in providing, not working

2008-12-09T14:49:00.002Z

Following on from the Karen Mathews trial, Raedwald has posted about the breakdown of society and makes this comment, with which I have little to disagree:

I'm not interested in making a moral judgement on the lifestyle of the underclass, or on bastardy, but the economic and social cost to the rest of us is already vast, will get much worse during the recession and is simply unsustainable in the long term.

There is a simple truth that Brown and his party are just too thick to understand, and it's that welfare causes poverty. The most effective measure in tackling poverty is restricting welfare. Clinton's reforms in the US have won for millions the dignity of work and the benison of belonging that the caustic effects of welfare had taken from them.

It did make me wonder about the phrase "dignity of work" and whether this really is the case? Do we really value work so highly to the point where it provides dignity? I think not, but I do believe there is/was dignity in providing for our family and when that doesn't need be done there is no reason to work, especially if you are at the bottom end of the social and education ladder.

Firstly, when The Sprog was at school he used to complain bitterly when teachers tried to bribe them in to working hard by claiming that if they didn't they would end up as street cleaners or dustbin men. His point was that these jobs are something that we need doing and we should value the work, even if it is not highly paid. He makes a very good point, if those who aren't academically bright and will end up doing these jobs don't see them as worthwhile; they won't be at the front of the queue to do them, unless they feel they have no choice. But the welfare state means they do have a choice.

Secondly, I remember the feeling when The Sprog was born and I brought him home from hospital. It was an almost immediate transformation in my approach to life. I had always worked hard but did have a laissez-faire* approach to life but the new responsibility made realise I had to take control and ensure he and The Great WiseOne would be looked after if anything happened to me. I also wanted to ensure I could provide a comfortable life for them, even if it meant personal sacrifices. I know we men aren't supposed to talk about things like this when we are together but when I have discussed it with them they admit to similar feelings.

Now, I was brought up to believe that I had to provide for myself and family to the best of my ability by my father who was born and raised in the slums of Bradford, long before the welfare state was created. I remember that this was the approach of most of his friends and all my relations. They all took great pride in looking after their family and ensuring they were provided for, but then they grew up when the had no choice. I remember that they would have been appalled at having to take "handouts" as they saw them to ensure their family fed and most of these were miners, dustbin men and street cleaners.

So why don't those like Karen Mathews and her boyfriends have the same desire to provide for their children and seem happy to rely on benefits to provide not only for themselves but also their children? I often think "do they have no pride" and I suppose the answer is no they don't, well not in the same sense that I do.

Reading Raedwald's post made me realise that the Welfare State, in its desire to ensure that the poor don't have the hardship of the past, has crushed this desire to provide their family out of them- they don't need to do it and so don't see why they should make sacrifices to provide. This, added to our desire not to be judgemental about lifestyle choices, has meant that they don't have any shame; it doesn't worry them that the rest of us are working to pay for their lifestyle because they have been told that the money they get is an entitlement and anyway, any jobs they can do, like street cleaning or emptying the bins are sneered at as for failures and that doesn't include them

Now comes the difficult part, how to change that attitude? I don't have the answers other than reduce benefits to the point where they have no choice but to go out and work, or steal or beg and sadly the latter 2 will probably be the chosen options. The other problem is that we do as a society want to genuinely look after those who have suffered life's outrages slings and arrows of misfortune.

*The true (wiki) meaning of the words: "a term used to describe a policy of allowing events to take their own course with minimal intervention."

Work, weddings, house guests and man flu

2008-12-08T05:05:00.002Z

All stealing valuable blogging time (reading and writing).

Perhaps I'll get some time an impetus in a few days.

What would George or Betty have done?

2008-12-04T11:01:00.003Z

I listened to the Speaker's comments on Damian Green's arrest and was appalled at his sloping shoulders. You would have thought that someone with the integrity to become speaker would not have blamed one of staff for letting in PC Plod without a search warrant.

Watching the 10pm news with the Great WiseOne she commented dryly: "This wouldn't have happened under Betty Bothroyd or George Thomas".

How true.

Honourable Politician Resigns

2008-11-30T13:56:00.003Z

(Just noticed that I didn't publish this post from last week!)

Yep, you don't see that very often but it has just happened in India.

Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil and national security adviser MK Narayanan have submitted their resignations in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

I don't believe for one minute that either of these gentlemen did anything directly or through omission that led to the terror attacks in Mumbai* but they have shown that they understand that the buck stops at the top. The last of our politicians to resign on this principle was Lord Carrington who was Foreign office Secretary at the time of the Falklands invasion, if I remember correctly.

I'll bet our current bunch of snivelling politicians, of either party, would be desperate to hold their jobs and deflect responsibility on to anyone they could find. They would claim that it wasn't their fault as they don't have day to day control of any situation. Their duty, they claim, is to set policy and strategy, and not to be involved in the day to day tactics. They would will claim that they can't be held responsible for how these are implemented and for the consequences of any errors made on the front line.

What they don't understand is that policy and strategy lead directly to the way those on the front line act and behave when carrying out their jobs. Lord Carrington understood this very well. He knew that it was his policies and strategy that led to the Foreign Office downgrading the Falklands in their priorities. He knew the consewuences of this downgrading led to those who had an idea what could happen not being given the resources or the hearing they would get if the Falklands had been a priority. Even if they did raise the issue their bosses would be too interested in subjects that were a priority.

Lets look at a hypothetical situation that could be brewing at home. When a single prisoner escapes from jail it is reasonable that the Home Secretary shouldn't be held responsible and resign. However it is well known that our jails are overcrowded and that Labour has made increasing jail terms and harsher sentences a key policy to placate the Daily Mail voter. They have also ducked the decision to build more prisons despite dire warnings.

What if this overcrowding led to mass riots and a breakout of all the prisoners from a maximum security jail? Would the Home Secretary resign or not? I don't know, its hypothetical, but I would put money on it they wouldn't. They would claim that they can't be expected to personally supervise all the prisons, that's why we have Governors. What they willing and deliberately fail to accept is that their policies and strategies led to the the problems in the first place. They will rely on the political process that dictates that by the time any report comes out the Home Secretary will have moved on and a new incumbent will be in place. We will be told that lessons will be learnt ..... you get the drift.

We will have spent months, if not years, arguing over culpability until the report comes out, only to be told what we knew. We will then hold our politicians, all of them, in even more contempt, but nothing will change.

This is why I respect India's Home Minister and thought it was an honourable thing to do. He knows that, like it or not, he has set the environment in which India's security services work. It might be that subsequent reports find nothing reasonable could have been done to stop the attacks, but that's not the point, the public have been let down and someone must go. His resignation, even if not accepted, will allow the debate to move to what happened, why and how it could have been avoided, without it being dragged in to low politics as opposition and sections of their media demand resignations and other politicans waste time and political capital defending them.

*This is one story where I do have a bit of personal interst, I stayed in the Oberoi and know it well. Like everyone who travels on business I live in dread of something like this happening.

God Trumps

2008-11-30T13:50:00.002Z

Via Heresy Corner this amusing game over at New Humanist will help you to select your religion of choice:

Are Mandy's state planners any better than the failed Soviet Union's state planners?

2008-11-30T13:24:00.003Z

This has to be one of the most depressing stories of the recession:

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has outlined plans to draw up a list of industries that could be saved from collapse during the economic downturn.

The thought that Mandy and a bunch of civil servants with zero business experience will start picking winners on which to squander my hard earned money sent a chill through me equal to the one when I heard interest rates were going up to 15%.

"Ah," I hear his supporters say in the beeb and Guardian say, "they will bring in outside experts to advise them". Yeah, right, and having given themselves the power to pick winners and throw even more cash around do you seriously believe politicians will relinquish it someone who else? Unless, of course, they are party hacks or sopperters*.

Let's think about how they might select industries and business to save. They will obviously need to give priorities to their deliberations. I suspect these will form the key criteria for selection:

1. Is it a Labour marginal?
2. Is it highly Unionised?
3. Is it a labour seat?
4. Have they donated to The Party?

If the answer to any of those is yes then it will probably get our money without question.

"He stressed the government was not going to "bail out" every ailing business or "prop up companies that are not viable".

So how will this work then. All business that meet the following criteria will be closed:

1. Is it a Tory seat?

This makes more people reliant on the State and likely to vote Labour.

Cynical, maybe, but I remember the 60's and 70's and how politicians, especially Labour politicians, can't help themselves. They are human after all and not only want to be liked, but they also want to protect their own jobs.

Thatcher fought tooth and nail to get us out of the mentality that politicians and civil servants are somehow omnipotent and can pick winners better than the market and what a painful process it was. It looks like we will have to relearn the lessons and submit ourselves to the pain once again.

Danian Green arrest, another thought

2008-11-30T13:07:00.002Z

Like most of the liberal blogosphere and MSM I too was outraged when I heard of the arrest of an MP and the searching of his offices for what appears to be publishing information embarrassing to the Labour Party. But on reflection something doesn't seen quite right.

Firstly, for all I think that Labour would do just about anything to stay in power, surely orchestrating something like this would be a step too far even for them? Mandywould have realised that storm this would cause and advised caution in the process, even if Green has done something wrong.

And what of the arrest and questioning for "conspiracy" itself. Whilst it is an MP's duty to publish information that is brought to him, unless it seriously damages national security*. What if, and I am going to make a wild speculation here as I have no special knowledge or contact with the case, the MP encourages someone to leak information? Even if it isn't against the national interest and is embarrassing to the Govt should an MP be able to cajole someone to leak data or to encourage someone else to leak data? Other than guaranteeing anonymity and MP, or anyone else for that matter, should not be allowed to encourage others to leak information that their employment contract requires them to keep confidential.

As I say, I know nothing of this case, other than what I read in the press, but I do get the sense this story isn't all it seems.

*yes I know that NuLab have difficulty separating national security and Labour's security in Government, but parliament and senior police know better.

Work, the scourge of the blogging classes

2008-11-28T12:08:00.002Z

Very frustrating when you have a load of rants whizzing round your head.

PBR Comment of the day (so far!)

2008-11-24T17:13:00.001Z

From the BBC live feed:

1710Professor Peter Spencer, chief economic advisor, Ernst & Young Item Club This statement says more about the shocking state of the public finances inherited by Alistair Darling from Gordon Brown than it does about the recession or the measures he's taking to try to deal with it.

How much will the VAT change cost businesses?

2008-11-24T17:00:00.002Z

Now that the VAT change has been announced we have started a project to implement it. We have our own IT team so the cost is an opportunity cost, which is high in our case because we have some key projects being delayed. I reckon about 10 man weeks of work in total just to change our billing system and bills.

Companies that outsource billing and accounting may have to pay for the changes, depending on their contract terms.

Will big out sourcing companies like EDS have the bandwidth to make all the changes?

As we bill in advance we have to rebate for the period. That is 50p per direct debit customer as well as the time to do the work.

Then there is the cost of calls to out call centre as customers query bills they don't understand.

And what about HMRC systems? I presume they will need to make changes to their notoriously crap processes and software, more cost to us, the tax payer.

This isn't going to be a cheap exercise.

And then we've got to do it all again in reverse next year.

I suppose it does increase economic activity, but not in the way predicted.

Credit Correction

2008-11-24T12:31:00.000Z

is probably a better description of what we are going through.

Why banks aren't lending to consumers and businesses

2008-11-24T10:32:00.002Z

Lots of angst from politicians, meeja and business folk over the weekend about banks not passing on the Government's (ie our money) largess to them.

Mark Wadsworth explains why they are all whistling for their supper in clear and understandable language here.

Such a pity that the Government didn't think about this before wasting our money.

VAT Cut:: Heads Gordon wins, Tails Gordon wins

2008-11-24T08:06:00.002Z

Lets assume that we get the much trailed 2.5% VAT cut and one of two outcomes are likely:

1. Retailers have a good Christmas and Gordon claims it was caused by his wonderful fiscal stimulus, whether or not the VAT reduction reduction is passed on, or;

2. Retailers have a very poor Christmas and the economy continues to tank - Gordon then blames greedy retailers for not passing on the VAT cut.

Cunning bastard continues to avoid any blame for the current mess and continues to hold himself up as our saviour.

BNP, Human Rights Act, the Left and Geneva Convention

2008-11-21T17:03:00.002Z

One of the oddities of the Left's attitude to the BNP is their belief that because the BNP doesn't support the HRA they shouldn't be able to benefit from it as demonstrated by Kerry McCarthy:

I liked the way Nick Griffin described the leaking of the list as being in breach of the Human Rights Act... We know his party are great supporters of that piece of legislation - when it suits them.

Yet the left seem to think that the Geneva Convention should apply to Al Quaeda terrorists captured in Afghanistan, even though those terrorists break just about every line of the convention.

They obviously can't make up there mind which bunch of nasty bastards to hate and which to love.

H/T Leg Iron

PS I think the BNP should have the protection of the HRA and those captured by the US should be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Just because they are fascists it doesn't give us the excuse to act like fascists

BNP List, Newsnight, New Labour and racisim at the next Election

2008-11-20T15:25:00.005Z

I watched Newsnight last night* and wanted to write a post about their analysis of the BNP list they had carried out using the Mosaic profiling tool. This breakdown of the British people by location, class, salary and other information normally used in marketing campaigns.

As I had had a couple of glasses of wine I wanted to check my facts before posting so went to watch it on iPlayer and there it was, gone! Well "not available" anyway. This is unusual as it is available for other nights so I assume it was withheld because of the BNP analysis.

So although I can't refer to the source the main thing that I remember is how big the BNP were in Labour strongholds, most notably inner cities. Now this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who hasn't been hibernating on Zog recently, but it was the scale that struck me. It was big and accounted for a very large part of the BNP membership. Furthermore, they made the point that although there were many Professionals in the BNP it was dominated by C2's, again not too big a surprise.

I distinctly remember thinking that this is what frightens New Labour; they know there core vote in could melt away, not to the Tories but to the BNP, and why that are so keen to stress the BNP's racist undertones so much. Is this also why they raised the 70m immigration cap recently?

It could also explain why Labour has suddenly been very edgy on immigration recently, despite making political capital out of accusing the Tories of being racist every time they raise the issue.

Despite, maybe because of, the economic downturn, the next election could very easily turn in to a very nasty battle over immigration. If it does it could pan out like this:

Labour needs to be strong on immigration to satisfy their white inner city and C2 core vote that they can be trusted, this in itself will have racist undertones. They will stress their immigration points system. They may even revive the population cap argument.

The Conservative Party will stress high immigration rates and claim they first thought of the pints system, if not to get the vote switch to themselves themselves but to push Labour's core votes towards the BNP and so weaken them. Labour will accuse them of racism.

The LibDems will stand on the sideline and cast the racist pox on both their houses, but at the same time say they will be strong on illegal immigrants.

Amongst all this Nick Griffin will play the" we're not really racists argument for all its worth" and campaign heavily in inner cities, especially those with large immigrant communities. This will stir race tensions and I wouldn't be surprised if we get the odd race riot.

It does make you wonder why the list was published, though? Qui bono? I think I'll leave that one for the conspiracy theorists for now.

God, I hope I'm wrong, this outcome is far too depressing to contemplate as nobody will come out of it well.

* unusual for me as its past bedtime!

Why are local Governments still recruiting?

2008-11-19T17:25:00.002Z

Old Holborn has been scanning the job pages of the Guardian and started a rather amusing post around the non jobs being created by local Government:

Pointless Jobs Competition
Here, you will find 574 Job vacancies.

Let's see who can find the most ridiculous one.

(PS, I've already found Lambeth council advertising for a "Welfare Take Up Officer")

At the time of writing there are 50 comments, most pointing out how idiotic these jobs are and amazement at how much is being paid. It a good bit of fun and there are some good points made. But I'm starting to think that we've all missed the point - why are they even recruiting?

As the private sector starts to tighten its belt and faces massive lay-offs, even those companies that haven't announced plans will be imposing recruitment bans and be looking at ways of reducing costs, which inevitably means reducing headcount either through redundancies or natural wastage.

Experience tells us that in a number of companies the word will go out "x% headcount reduction". This will be a critical measure to save the company and will affect good, loyal, hard working, people. Even those not made redundant will be affected as they try to ensure that the company doesn't grind to a halt and delivers the same level of service with the reduced headcount.

So, amidst all this we have the state sector increasing, or at best maintaining, headcount. This means fewer people in the private sector have to raise the same or more in taxes, or the money has to be borrowed ie delayed taxes.

Yes, I know that putting these people on the dole means welfare benefits, but as a lot of these jobs were for over £50k there has to be some saving, surely?

There is another benefit from reducing local Govt employment numbers - when we eventually get an upturn these people may go in to wealth producing employment rather than wealth consumption.

Bring out your dead

2008-11-17T15:11:00.000Z

Presumed consent?

Are there too many women in Social Services?

2008-11-15T20:10:00.003Z

I was musing about the death of baby P and all the people inolved and what struck me that was that it was all women. Even when they had a couple of former senior social workers on Radio 4 they were women. One could say that Social Services were hideously female if you wanted to be uncharitable.

But on a serious point, is this part of the problem? By there very nature we are told women are more collegiate and inclusive. Women tend to avoid confrontation and want to see the best in people. There is nothing wrong with this when in a mixed environment, indeed we are told women bring many benefits, but does it mean that in an environment like that surrounding baby P nobody was prepared to make the hard, confrontational, position? Did they all want to believe that their colleagues were right and acting in the P's best interest to the point that they missed what was really going on? Maybe one of them harboured doubts but didn't want to be seen breaking the consensus.

Perhaps a few men in the group, especially a couple of Alpha Males in the management chain, would have broken that consensus as they vied for or political leadership. They might have questioned the consensus as part of their own political positioning.

General stereoyping I know, but that doesn't make the point irrelevant.

I'l bet this question won't be raised in any of the of the inquiries or investigations though, but it would be if something as tragic happened in an all male environement.

Sir Ian Blair gets it right on community service

2008-11-15T08:08:00.004Z

Now that he's leaving office Sir Ian seems to be getting it right:

Criminals ordered to work for their community should be forced to wear uniforms, Sir Ian Blair has said. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner insisted that visible punishment is the only way to convince the public the criminal justice system works. He said offenders wearing high visibility vests is "unpalatable" but could help restore confidence in the courts.

The only quibble is that ts is desirable, not unpalatable.

I learned this lesson as a young Sergeant in the early 1980's when serving in Germany. The Regiment had just moved in to an old barracks and hadn't got round to getting the jails serviceable and we had to send miscreants to another regiment if their crime received a jail sentence.

By military standards we did seem to have a high crime rate despite sending these young lads off to jail at ever increasing rates. I learned the reason when I was in the NAAFI having a beer as one of them returned from 28 days in jail with a nearby infantry regiment. He was laughing and joking about his time and became a bit of a celebrity, a bit of a "Jack-the-lad" hard man. I knew different, I had seen him in the jail and knew he had been a cowed, contrite young soldier. I realised then we might as well be sending them on leave for a month for all the good it was doing.

Anyway, we eventually got round to getting our own cells operational and what a difference it made. The first soldier to end up in there became a salutary lesson to the the rest of the lads. Seeing his daily routine was certainly a deterrence: roused o at 5:30am to start cleaning and other other onerous duties. Off to meals in full battle kit being marched at double quick time and then back at the same pace. A day full of military duties, PT and other "dirty jobs", all done at pace and under close supervision, which with a best kit inspection at 10pm. If the kit wasn't good enough then another at 10:30pm and the 6:30am if it still wasn't good enough. A cigarette ration of 2 a day also tended to be a bit of an eye opener.

As all this took place in full view of their mates they weren't scene as celebrities at their release and offending rates plummeted.

It was then I realised that any justice system needed to include 3 elements: protection of the public, punishment and deterrence. The deterrence element has to include not only deterrence for the offender to repeat their offence, but probably more importantly, deter others from committing crimes in the first place and this can't happen unless they are seen to be punished.

So what should those on community service be doing? Whatever it is it shouldn't undermine those who do the work as their normal jobs. By that I mean that street cleaning, say, shouldn't be seen as the punishment itself, it is that these offenders are doing it in their own time. So if we want them cleaning the street it should be in the evening in a city centre when that job isn't normally done and it gets maximum visibility as a deterrence. To that end any hi-vis clothing they wear should also be a different colour to that which is normally worn, pink or orange would be good choices, so that everyone knows that it is a punishment.

A word of warning though. It was easy in the Army because those young soldiers were volunteers and wanted to do the job. They also knew that the Army had the ultimate sanction of throwing them out, something we can't really do in the wider society.

Spectator Parliamentary Speech Of The Year

2008-11-14T16:01:00.002Z

Via Head of Legal this video of Diane Abbot's speech in the recent 42 days detention debate which was awarded the Spectator's Speech of the Year Award.

I don't often agree with her but on this issue she is brilliant. I missed this speech at the time and if you did its well worth 5 minutes of anyone's time as she sets out the objections to the 42 days bill so well.

Unfortunately the embed script doesn't work and I haven't got time to work out why so here's a link to it.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2008-06-11c.379.2

He doesn't like new media types or Twitter

2008-11-14T06:02:00.002Z

Work has its benefits; I get plenty of telecom's news letters and this one from The Register amused me this morning:

Here's a conundrum. Top Media People want to come out of the shadows and get "closer to their listeners" - it's what the Web 2.0 people urge them to do. BBC people in particular are obsessed with being seen to be bossy or "out-of-touch" - especially since three out of four license payers have a gripe with the corporation.
But the more of themselves media people reveal, the more the public sees them as clueless, self-referential and narcissistic bunch so many of them are. And the more time the BBC spends on peripheral New Media wankery, the more people wonder why they're paying a license fee. You'd need a heart of silicon not to enjoy their agony. The poor souls.

My response to Dr Crippen's post on the moral outrage against social workers

2008-11-13T21:09:00.003Z

Dr Crippen has a post about baby P in which he takes the rest of us to task for our collective desire to find a scpegoat and crucify a social worker in the baby P case:

It’s time, once again, to vent our collective spleens.

It’s time, once again, for those on the moral high ground to stand up and be counted.

It’s time, once again, to crucify a social worker.

I'm not going to fisk the post as I have made 2 long comments, 37 and 38, which I have copied here:

The moral outrage from the rest of us in cases like this is driven by frutration.

Frustration at our inability to protect children, despite the huge amount of tax payers money devoted to social services. Maybe not enough for those spending it, but it seems like a a hell of a lot to those of us paying it.

Frustration at the lack of mea culpa. Nobody seems to have ownership in cases like this. I don't believe that someone should necessarily be fired every time something goes wrong when events like these occur. However the lack of ownership by one person is probably the biggest factor whenever something so catastrophic and tragic happens in any walk of live. How can we learn if nobody has ownership?

Frustration at the iablity professionals to learn by past mistakes. Professionals are supposed to be experts in their field yet we hear cries for more supervision. Either they are drones who need supervision or they are professionals who can be trusted to call for help when they need it.

Frustration that, despite very good wages, managers lack the ability to manage. They can't see when something is going wrong and fix it before the problem gets so far out of hand. Thats what managers should be doing, not constantly supervising individual professionals but taking a wider view ensuring that systems and procedures are in place to catch the exceptions that lead to these hoorendous deaths.

Frustration to learn that yet again its a lack of communication that is the root cause, despite the £millions spent on IT and telecoms, hours spent in cross departmental meetings and the appointment of evermore coordinators.

Frustration that the "system" seems hell bent in keeping children in care rather than risk them going to live with people prepared to offer them a home, time, love and dedication because they might smoke. Frustration that we know that this will extend from one borough to the rest of the country and more children will suffer at the hands of self righteous indignation that people smoke.

Frustration that the standard response is yet more enquiries and reviews, which only seem to give those involved a chance to take one pace back with a "not my fault guv" shrug of their shoulders.

Frustration that despite all these enquiries we find that recommendations of the learned people who chair them are ignored by the Government and professionals, only for the same mistakes to be made again.

Frustration that whenever we raise our concerns we are told that we don't understand and should leave it to the professionals, only to see another child die in such distressing circumstances. Yet at the same time those same professionals are drawing up plans to give themselves power to remove overweight children from their parents and place them into a system that can be so broken that this child died.

So, Dr C, by all means point out that some of the moral outrage may be misplaced, but don't think for one minute that it isn't real or unwaranted.

And yes, if we never heard of another death we would ignore social service, but thats the point isn't it? Professionals want to be left alone to get on with their jobs while the rest of us go out and generate the wealth to pay for them?; Friday, November 14, 2008 4:33:00 AM
The Great Simpleton said...: Ok, so that's the general outrage dealt with and now this:
[my emphasis]

"You cannot legislate to eradicate evil. There is no system on earth that will protect us against Harold Shipman, Fred West, Peter Sutcliffe and all the rest of them. You do the best you can, in difficult circumstances. Some times you get it wrong. Haringay Council got it wrong this time. God, did they get it wrong and, yes, once again we need to examine procedures and see if we can get it any better.

But, once again, the whole emphasis of the story is on social services rather than on the evil thugs that committed the offence. It was the same with Victoria Climbie:"

Yes there are evil people but we know that, that's why we have set up social services and other specialists, to protect the vulnerable. That's why we give them special powers, so they can act to protect the vulnerable.

I agree that there will always be hard cases like Shipman and most people accepted that fact and looked to the subsequent enquiry to provide the recommendations that protect us from from future Shipmans. But if it happens again the moral outrage will be deafening, because yet again we will have found that professionals have becaome self righteous and compacent and unable to learn from past mistakes.

And that's the point with this moral outrage, as I said in my first comment, we've seen it all before.

An prediction about the economy

2008-11-12T22:11:00.003Z

Yes, I know one should never make predictions, especially about the future, but here goes

As we run up to Christmas there will be tales of woe, fears of a hard Christmas for the retail industry will be raised, probably forecasting the worst Christmas ever*. Shops will be discounting heavily, claiming they are bleeding red stuff all over their balance sheet, but then say that Christmas wasn't as bad as they expected. Foir the first time in a long time year on year sales will not have grown though.

The good old consumer will know that we are in for a real shit time and will think "..hmm, fuck it, if its going to be that bad next year I might as well have a good Christmas and fuck the consequences, I'm going to spend".

There will be a bit of a bounce with the optimists, especially Gordon, claiming that the recession isn't that bad and that we can weather the storm.

Then in January credit card bills will hit the door mats. Reality will set in and retail sales will nose dive. Initially this will be masked by the January sales, but the discounting will be so deep that stores will be crippled. February's economic news will be so dark that we will wonder what is going on. By March key economic figures will be reported as worse than any recession in living memory, bearing in mind that some people who lived through the great depression are still alive.

Unfortunately the crystal ball only looks that far ahead and then the visions disappear in a gloomy haze.

*In the same way that global warming alarmists always claim that some weather anomaly was the hottest/coldest/wettest ever

1984 Book Campaign

2008-11-12T11:57:00.002Z

I presume most people who come by here are familiar with the campaign to send all MP's a copy of 1984 on November 5th. The response has been somewhat underwhelming with only 3 Labour MP's commenting on it and they have been, at best superscilious in their comments.

Perhaps 1 week on is the time to follow up and here is a copy of an email I sent to my MP, David Liddington (Con).

Dear David,

By now you will have received a copy of Orwell’s 1984, although I haven’t seen any reference to it on you web site (at at 11/11/08). Although I didn’t send you the book I support the campaign as I have been increasingly alarmed at the way Parliament is allowing this Government to ride rough shod over our ancient protections from the State, supposedly in the interests National Security.

Just in case you think this campaign has been organised by a bunch of cranks here’s something for you to think about from a very thoughtful blogger, one of many who write eloquently on this subject:

National security has a floating definition, and if laws designed specifically to catch terrorists can be applied to people who have one bag too many in their bins, then anything that can be seen to disparage or insult the government can be considered a national security issue, and therefore silenced.

So, our government wants the power to lock us up for 42 days without bothering to think up a charge (it hasn’t gone away), to assume guilt from the outset (confiscation of property from suspected criminals who haven’t even been charge, let alone found guily), to make us pay for our own defence (Jack Starw’s recent kite flying), to hold autopsies in secret when we fall down the stairs (secret Coroner’s hearing with the Government appointing their own Coroner), and to prevent the media telling anyone about any of it (latest proposal from the security committee (whatever happened to D-Notices BTW)). In effect, this is the 'vapourised' that Orwell describes. Vanished so completely that nobody remembers you were ever there. All that's left is to edit any record out of history and you're not only gone, you never existed.

We have corresponded before when I praised you for your work in looking after the interests of the Iraqi Interpreters and I see from the emails I get from They Work For You that you still do some good work on this and other topics However, as a life long Tory voter, I even held my nose and voted Tory in 1997, I am becoming increasingly alarmed at your Party’s complacency to never ending stream of authoritarian legislation to the point where I may have to consider my voting priorities at the next election. You will note that I am giving you the benefit that it is complacency and not conspiracy.

David Davies may have been capricious, or even fool hardy, when he resigned to stand again on the subject of civil liberties but he had a point and touched a very popular raw nerve, if only for a short time. If the Conservative Party isn’t going to stand up to what is the most authoritarian Government we have seen in recent history it will not deserve any votes, no matter what it says on the subject of the economy.

Perhaps as someone who is rising through the ranks of the Conservative Party you could let me know, as one of your constituents, your position on this subject and what, if anything, you and the Conservative Party are proposing to halt this stream of authoritarian legislation?

Regards,

Simon

PS

Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote holds as true today as it did then, indeed it may be more so as the state develops ever more ingenious ways to spy on us and control our thoughts and behaviour:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

And while on the subjects of quotes, Burke also provides a salutory warning for an opposition MP:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

I'll let you know if anything happens.

H/T Leg Iron for the blogger quote, I just did the bracketed bit)

BTW, I reckon he's one of the better MP's but I'm just about to find out.

How many more inquiries does it take to save a child

2008-11-11T21:57:00.003Z

Every time a child dies at the hand of cruel parents under the the noses of the Social Services we get more hand wringing, more calls for enquiries, more claims that things are getting better and systems improving. Yet children still continue to die hideous deaths for want of basic care from those tasked to protect them.

Won't someone put their hand up and say they got it wrong and apologise? I don't know what's worse, the death or the hand wringing crocodile tears as everyone takes a quick step backwards with a "not me gov" shrug.

PS I find the whole story of Baby P too distressing to link to let alone include some of the story, googly Bapy P if you don't know the story

Changing my mind on tax cuts

2008-11-11T11:32:00.002Z

Up until now I had been a believer as tax cuts both as a way to help stimulate the economy but also as a way to keep Governments lean. I do accept the Keynesian argument that in recession we might have to let borrowing increase, although the amount is up for discussion.

However, now that all 3 parties main are falling over themselves to promise tax cuts my natural skepticism is raising alarm bells. Ever since we were suckered in to the Common Market by all the great and the good supporting it I have held the view that if there is no serious political opposition to something it is probably bad thing ie if something seems too to good to be true, it probably isn't.

I need to think about this dilemma a bit more.

Remember them all

2008-11-11T08:41:00.003Z

It is right that the Great War remains the focus of Remembrance Day services, there only a few survivors and it is important that we acknowledge the sacrifices that were made. All wars are horrific but as the first World War this was more so.

As our thoughts turn to other wars, most notably WW2 we generally remember Dunkirk or the D Day landings. In other conflicts the Falkands get a mention and we give a special thought to those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there is one part of WW2 that is often overlooked, the war in the Far East against Japan.

Few people realise that war continued for for a full 3 months until what is referred to as VJ Day

Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day, also known as Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day) is a name chosen for the day on which the Surrender of Japan occurred, and subsequent anniversaries of that event. The term has been applied to both the day on which the initial announcement of Japan's surrender was made in the afternoon of August 15, 1945 (August 14 North American date), as well as the date the formal surrender ceremony was performed in Tokyo on September 2, 1945.

Yes of course most people are aware of the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but they don't associate that with the ongoing war. After WW1 it was probably the worst war in history with soldiers fighting in hand to hand combat to clear small islands. It also brought us some of the first fanatical suicide bombers, Kamakaze's.

Furthermore, the price of capture was horrific as the Japanese had no sympathy for prisoners and used them as slave labour with many being tortured and 1,000's starving to death. They had also inflicted great suffering on other countries, most notably China, Hong Kong and Singapore, but no country in the region was spared their viscous empire.

My father was in the Feet Air Arm and occiasionally talked about the state of the prisoners they picked up; it made grown men cry to see them as they were brought on board their ships for repatriation. Even then there was black humour, he had one story of a particular skinny man being brought on board and one of the sailors putting a comforting arm round him and saying "don't worry you'll be alright now and we'll give you some proper food". To which the response was "about time, I've been on this ship for 3 years and haven't had a decent meal yet"!

Despite all that what really got to my father was how much they were forgotten at the time. This was brought home to him when they found out there had been a general election and Churchill had been replaced by Atlee. They didn't know it was happening, let alone get a vote.

So, as your thoughts turn to those who suffered in the trenches, at Dunkirk, D Day, the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ireland , Korea and the 100's of other locations people fought and died for us, spare a thought for those forgotten servicemen in the far east.

Our central planners are better than your central planners....

2008-11-10T08:52:00.003Z

Just been listening to Keith Vaz explaining how the Government should start taking over businesses and telling the owners how to run them. As always there is some stealth to these types of moves and he is using alcohol:
Pub happy hours should be banned and supermarkets stopped from selling alcohol at a loss in order to combat drink-fuelled disorder, MPs have said.
What makes them think that our central planners are any better then than those of the old Soviet Union, Mao's China or Castro's Cuba?

Also, once they start setting prices for businesses will that men those businesses become exempt from competition law (my emphasis)?

Supermarket mega-chains Asda, J Sainsbury and Safeway have pleaded guilty to fixing milk and dairy prices following a probe by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). The trio will have to pay a total of £116m in fines.
The supermarkets could now face the prospect of follow-on actions by wronged consumers or competitors.
The watchdog said that in setting the fines it had "taken into account information provided by the parties involved in the early resolution discussions which demonstrated the pressures they were under at this time to support dairy farmers."

That pressure was Governement and tabloid pressure on supermarkets to increase what they pay farmers:

"The price initiatives in 2002 and 2003, which were widely and publicly reported at the time, were designed to help British dairy farmers at a time of considerable economic pressure and public debate about whether farmers were getting a fair price for their products," he added.

Bizarre political survey question

2008-11-08T13:57:00.004Z

I've just been surveyed over the phone it is was quite bizarre. The main thrust of the questions was about whether I would vote ate the next election, which party I would vote for, whether I voted at the last election and who for. After this there was a few questions on whether Gordon should be friends with Barack and whether or not USA for a force for good in the world.

All typical political survey questions then a section on Iran and what I knew about it, where I got my knowledge and attitude to the press reporting on Iran.

In between the political bit and Iran I as asked if I played Bingo, had every played bingo or would consider playing bingo! Bizarre!

Anybody got any thoughts on the bingo question?

I reckon the survey was really about whether Gordon's popularity and whether he should support the USA if they decide to bomb Iran.

As they also asked me about my eduction qualifications and where I live the could deduce where I was likely to be in the social class system, so I really thrown by the bingo question.

Mobile companies facing investment dilemma

2008-11-08T09:13:00.005Z

This started out as a quick post, but ended as a bit of a ramble through the jungle of mobile telecoms!

Mobile phone companies are facing a real problem over the next couple of years as the credit crunch bites into their need to innovate and maintain growing customer numbers and Average Profit Per User (APPU)*. The latest land grab, for that is how the industry works, is for data users on their 3G networks. However this is also driving their need for more Capex, to the alarm of their Boards and banks.

It is only 8 years since the industry had to dig deep and find £22bn for 3G spectrum licences which were needed to cope with growing voice demand and to provide data services, which were seen as the holy grail of the mobile industry. But that wasn't the end of it. Once the technology was developed it had to be deployed and backhaul** networks had to be upgraded, all adding to Capex and increased Opex

Once it was deployed it took a while for an eco system to develop sufficiently to produce cheap handsets that took advantage of the new technology. Annoyingly, customers didn't want to pay for slow data services and operators weren't able to develop the "killer application" that would drive customers to pay more for the benefits of the technology. Video phones proved to be a huge turn off, probably because of costs.

While all this was going on home based broadband was taking off, through BT's deployment ADSL***, and the Internet was developing in to what is known as Web 2.0. This meant that the web has become the "killer app" as people want to access to the content they want, not what the Mobile operators were offering in their walled gardens. Unfortunately for the operators the basic 3G technology wasn't up to delivering the experience users were getting used to at home, which proved to be another barrier to take up.

This meant another technology development for the MNO's to improve data capacity on their network. This technology is called High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) and is a relatively inexpensive upgrade to the existing network. Marketeers have made many claims about this technology, data speeds of up to 7.2mbps. The reality is somewhat different, as you would expect, but it does offer a good experience for early users.

All this investment has driven a need for operators to grow their customer base and revenues. Only the most ostrich like technophobe would have missed the land grab as the MNO's make all sort of offers to attract customers, including "free PC's", unlimited data packages and free USB dongles. futhermore the iconic iPhone has gone 3G and has many imitators.

Unfortunately the technology hasn't lived up to the hype, again, and there is huge disappointment as a recent YouGov survey found:

However, experience of Mobile broadband is needs improvement. The data suggests it is great out-of-the-box but usage drives dissatisfaction and ~25% of mobile broadband users seem unlikely to renew their contracts over the next year. The service ranks below fixed ISP’s for every comparable service satisfaction question in the survey.

So less than 10 years after paying for 3G licences mobile operators are far from satisfying the need for data and face another real challenge. If they are to meet this challenge they need to deploy a new technology referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and they also need more spectrum.

The first thing to note is that Ofcom has been prepared to auction more spectrum in the 2.5GHz band but this has been delayed by both T Mobile and O2 who are challenging Ofcom in the courts. There are a few reasons for doing this but the main one is fear of high auction prices****.

The other problem is that LTE is not an evolutionary technology as its name implies. Whether this is a deliberate ploy to make Boards and banks feel a bit easier I will leave you to judge, but the transition to LTE is likely to be as traumatic, and expensive, as the one from 2G to 3G and the penny is just starting to drop. This is from a recent interview with Ericsson's UK CTO:

If there is still life in HSPA, will the economic downturn delay LTE? We've had a downturn in the telecoms industry before, related to the internet bubble. This time, banks are involved, so operators wanting to upgrade may find it hard to get the credit to buy a lot of new equipment.
Conceivably — but I probably shouldn't comment.

What is so telling about this is that Ericsson are one of leading cheer leaders of LTE and desperately need its take up for their own future well being. Furthermore one of their major customers is Vodafone worldwide. So if Ericsson's UK CTO is being coy does it mean Vodafone are under pressure from their bankers not to spend?

But what if they don't, what if Vodafone, or any of the other MNO's, can't support their customer base on the existing 3G HSPA networks and they lose ground? They certainly won't be the darlings of the stock market if their customer stop growing and, even worse start to decline. Once that happens they will be in defensive mode, with only cost cutting to protect profits.

It was going to be a tough call before the credit crunch, it is even harder now. Who would want to be the one making that call?

I will be meeting my financial advisor on Tuesday for a 6 monthly review of the pension funds I am investing in. I think I'll look closely at any with mobile phone companies in them with a view to a move for a couple of years. Of course this is by no means a recommendation to do anything, just my personal opinion of what I might do.

If you got this far I admire your stamina, well done!

*Traditionally the telecoms sector looks at ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) but this doesn't tell the whole story as costs rise margins get squeezed. One of the biggest costs are subscriber acquisition driven by high churn

** Backhaul is the generic trm for connecting mobile sites, roof tops, towers etc, back in to the network. It is either very capex intensive or high opex. Either way, it is a real burden on mobile operators

*** BT had to be dragged kicking and sreaming in to rolling out ADSL and allowing local loop unbundling, you beleive it to listen to them now!

**** T Mobile are also claiming that the original 2G spectrum should be refarmed and set aside for 3G. This is a technical issue but if anyone wants more details let me know

Quantum of Solace

2008-11-08T07:23:00.002Z

Went to see it last night. Not bad, but...

Some of the camera work drove me mad. You know there are some impressive stunts going on but for some reason they went for close ups we made it hard to see what was happening and there was so much cutting and shaking that you couldn't even make out which was bond at times.

If you haven't seen Casino Royale you will lose a lot of the subtlety in the story and humour.

Which came first - media bias or readership bias?

2008-11-07T17:11:00.002Z

The Left love to tell us how newspaper bias, driven by the ego and political views of their owners, are affecting the politics and voting of their readership, with particular scorn poured on The Sun and Daily Mail. The right have their targets as well, normally the BBC, but The Guardian is often reviled, but probably not to the same extent the Left hate Murdoch's Sun.

An interesting study has been carried out in the USA and reported in last week's Economist* which provides an answer, and not the one the Left will want to hear, but sadly it can't be used to quieten the Right. I am not going to post the whole thing here, just the conclusion:

First, they measured whether a newspaper’s circulation responded to the match between its slant and its readers’ views. Not surprisingly, they found that more “Republican” newspapers had relatively higher circulations in more “Republican” zip codes. But their calculations of the degree to which circulation responded to political beliefs also allowed them to do something more interesting: to calculate what degree of slant would be most profitable for each newspaper in their sample to adopt, given the political make-up of the market it covered. They compared this profit-maximising slant to their measure of the actual slant of each newspaper’s coverage.

They found a striking congruence between the two. Newspapers tended, on average, to locate themselves neither to the right nor to the left of the level of slant that Mr Gentzkow and Mr Shapiro reckon would maximise their profits. And for good commercial reasons: their model showed that even a minor deviation from this “ideal” level of slant would hurt profits through a sizeable loss of circulation.

Showing that newspapers have a political slant that is economically rational does not necessarily answer the question of whether ownership or demand determines bias. Here, the academics are helped by the fact that large media companies may own several newspapers, often in markets that are politically very different. This allowed them to test whether the slants of newspapers with the same owner were more strongly correlated than those of two newspapers picked at random. They found that this was not so: owners exerted a negligible influence on slant. Readers’ political views explained about a fifth of measured slant, while ownership explained virtually none.

Assuming we can translate this to UK, and I don't see why not, it looks like they have sorted out the chicken and egg conundrum of newspaper bias in this country. It would be nice to think that it will at least put an end to the hard left's bleating about Murdoch being the root cause of the country's ills, but I doubt it.

But what of the Right's claims about BBC bias**? Sadly this study can't be used either way as the BBC does not need to respond to a market, any market, so it cannot be measured and will remain open to the Right's allegations.

*Unfortunately it behind a subscription wall

** FWIW I reckon that at worst the BBC is guilty of group think by people who have never felt the cold wind of competition and so don't really understand markets, rather than any conspiracy.

More evidnce BBC doesn't understand "customers"

2008-11-07T08:30:00.006Z

Working from home again today and I've had Radio 5 on and off this morning and the two female presenters I have heard have really got in to a lather over this story :

Quantum of quiet: Cinema group bans children from Bond film so adults can watch it in peace

children will be banned by one cinema group from seeing the new James Bond film so that adults can watch it in peace.

Legally, because Quantum Of Solace has a 12A certificate, children can watch it - although those under 12 need to be accompanied.

However, Vue cinema group found many adults resent children talking, texting and noisily eating in cinemas.

The presenters couldn't get their head round the fact that some adults don't want to be around other people's children. More importantly though they had the MD of the cinema group on at lunch time and he keptanswering the questions with "Our customers have asked for it", which was met with further questions asking him to justify it.

I know the beeb has to be all things to all men (women, ethnic, sexuality etc), but surely they have presenters who are mature enough to realise in the real world if we want to eat we have to provide a service our customers want and will pay for. It wasn't as if this company isn't offering some screenings parents with children and for children on their own.

Post election comment of the day

2008-11-06T20:15:00.002Z

from the angry economist:

Faith-based Politics

I think we need less faith in our politicians and more faith in ourselves.

If this had been the Tories allowing NHS top up...

2008-11-05T17:17:00.006Z

In what might be seen as a good day to release bad news* the Labour announced that it will lift the ban on patients topping up their NHS care:

The bar on topping up NHS care by paying for drugs not available on the health service is to be lifted under plans drawn up by ministers in England.

Now I think that is a good thing, people should be allowed to spend their savings how they like without fear that the state will capriciously withdraw existing benefits to assuage the green eyed monsters. If you want an opposing view Dr Crippen sees this as the beginning of end of the NHS. However there is one thing we agree on:

A Tory government would never get away with it.

A Tory government would not dare do it.

Lets just imagine what would have happened if the Tories had proposed this measure:

It would probably have been all over the BBC web site with their correspondents falling over themselves to proclaim the end of the NHS in their very best "told you so" patronising way. What do we get? A short story tucked away on the Health pages.

The there is the health unions. Surely we could expect their leaders to be queuing up to condemn the evil Labour? If it had been the Tories we would expect them to be battering down the studio doors of Radio 4 to get their strike threats heard. So what do we get from them? You would expect them to be screaming from their rooftops but Unison's front page's main story is some wibble from Prentis praising Gordon Brown, with a short press release condemning the move tucked away at the side.

What about the BMA then. Arent they supposed to be protecting the NHS? They certainly went mad when the Tories started to apply a bit of market forces in the 90's. Going on about the end of the NHS and we can't trust the Tories. So their position:

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, agreed the best solution had probably been reached.

OK, one last bastion of NHS protection left, the Royal College of Nurses, surely they will save the NHS? Bugger all on their web site either.

It was always said that only Labour could reform the NHS, just like only the Tories could make changes to the Armed forces. Some expected Labour to make those changes in the first flush of their 1997 success, but they didn't, they scrapped the Tory's internal market, just as it was starting to work, and then hosed it with money.

And before I rush off lets just remember that 1997 election slogan: 24 Hours to Save the NHS

*bad news for die hard NHS supporters

Congratulations Barack, but remember...

2008-11-05T09:20:00.003Z

.... 9/11 was initiated and planned under the last Democrat President who was the darling of the left. Just because you are in office doesn't mean that those looking to destroy your way of life, they perceive weakness in lefty thinking and so you must be strong and resolute in the face of terror.

An Apology

2008-11-04T17:11:00.002Z

I was planning on join Old Holborn's lunchtime stroll tomorrow and buying a beer to celebrate a year or so in the blogosphere. Sadly work has intervened - I have been trying to get something done for about 6 months and we are so close, but the only time I can get a meeting with a key person is 11am tomorrow, which means I won't get in to London on time.

I have run out of holiday which is why I was going to work from our Central London office and sneak off for an hour or 3.

Bummer

Lewis Hamilton, F1 Champion

2008-11-02T18:58:00.001Z

Thats BBC Sports Personality of the Year sorted then, despite the olympic success in the minor sports.

The creeping fascisim of the state continues

2008-10-30T20:27:00.003Z

I couldn't believe this story when I hear it on the radio on my drive home:

Civil injunctions cannot be used against gangs in Birmingham, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
It upheld a judge's decision not to grant the city council such injunctions against alleged gang members.
The orders, which restricted movements and banned individuals from seeing each other, were used by the council instead of antisocial behaviour orders (Asbos).
The ruling means that the civil injunctions will not now be taken up across England and Wales.

I don't claim to have studied law or had the time to read a great deal about how our laws have been developed. What I have learnt, though, is that we have a legal system that has been set up to protect the citizen from the State. The reason is that the State has all the powers it needs to pursue a case against citizens and is therefore open to abusing those powers.

To counter this we have developed habeas corpus and that in law the State has to prove their case beyond all reasonable doubt. We also have Juries and and independent judiciary, another area under attack.

Civil injunctions and civil claims require a lower burden of proof, normally on the balance of probability. The reason we can accept lower burdens of proof is that these cases are normally used in disputes between citizens and the courts are effectively sorting an argument between too people. It is assumed that they both have access to the same levels of legal support and can't abuse due process.

It is therefore worrying that the State even thought it could turn to Civil Injunctions, but at least they were honest about it, I suppose:

BBC Correspondent Phil Mackie said the injunctions were used because county courts did not require the same level of proof as magistrates courts, which issue Asbos.

But that's not the end of it, oh no, no chance to show her fascist and populist credentials slips past our Home Secretary without being picked up and rammed through a compliant Parliament:

Mrs Smith said she was "disappointed" by the ruling.

She added: "I will be reviewing the decision and considering how we can support this sort of action that has been so successful in countering gangs, including changing the law if necessary.
"It is important to note that injunctions are just one of a range of tools and powers available to local areas."

It would be nice to think that there are some Labour MP's with balls who would stand up to this latest attack on our historical protection from the State, but even if they do the Tories are likely to support this populist move.

Long long live independent judges and lets hope the Lords back up the courts if this does end up being appealed or Labour try to put a new law on the statute books.

Georgina's revenge

2008-10-29T22:17:00.003Z

I see Andrew Sach's granddaughter has issued a lengthy statement about what Brand said. Surely, as a woman, she had the ultimate revenge in a much shorter statement:

".. has a small willy and is a lousy lover, I never had an orgasm."

Good to see that something has happened, but the problem is the BBC, not the juveniles they stuff money at.

Everyone should spend at least 2 years self employed

2008-10-29T08:08:00.004Z

Its chaos on the roads round here, the M40 is closed because of an accident and we had snow last night followed by a deep freeze. The main road at the top of my street is at a standstill and I can't get out to get to work. Fortunately I am salaried and can work from home, except I am supposed to be "up north" for an important meeting at 1pm, which couldn't get to because it took 45 minutes to do 3 miles.

Unlike a large proportion of the country, especially those employed by the state, I know what ts like to be self employed - if you I don't get to work you don't get paid as I was self employed and ran my own business for 6 years. As it happens I have some workmen in doing 2 separate, small, projects on the house. Neither set of workers can get in and as they are on a fixed price contract it means they have effectively lost a day's pay - they have my sympathy.

Being self employed really concentrates the mind on doing a good job as a key to generating the next one. The unevenness of the work teaches money management in a way no amount of preaching in schools and by politicians can. It also makes you really appreciate a salary when you get one, not the point of forelock tugging but the need to work hard to justify the salary.

As a friend once said when listening to some bureaucrat whinging about work conditions, perhaps they should be made to be self employed before they get their nice cushy jobs on a regular salary, they might appreciate them.

I think that in future if I am employing someone I will look for a period of self employment on their CV as part of the selection process.

On this day

2008-10-28T19:57:00.002Z

...in 1971 the House of Commons backed Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath and, by a majority of 112, voted for Britain to apply to join the EEC - the European Economic Community.

A truly dark day. However to be f

air at th etime the country was in a real mess and the feeling was that perhaps this would save us from our own politicians. Beware what you wish for!!

Fighting for peace is like F*****g for virginity

2008-10-28T19:39:00.002Z

That's a slogan UK peacekeepers attached to the UN often get printed on T-shirts. I think its quite apposite.

I have been thinking of something equally pithy to describe Trevor Phillip's latest stupidity:

Britain should adopt a policy of positive discrimination in favour of disadvantaged whites or face a backlash of right-wing extremism, Trevor Phillips, the head of the equality watchdog, has warned.

I couldn't, but that doesn't mean I don't think he's an utter twat for thinking that any form of discrimination is good for the cohesion of society. All that will happen now is that the every bone head who can't be arsed to work will now feel that they are victims, instead of just being idle. I can see the BNP having a field day on this one and using it as a recruiting Sargent.

The sooner this quango is killed off and we are all allowed to go about our business with idiots like him looking for victims in every nook and cranny the better.

Schadenfreude seems most appropriate to this story

2008-10-28T15:45:00.005Z

It seems like hedge funds have, to some extent, been hoist by their own petard:

Volkswagen’s shares more than doubled on Monday after Porsche moved to cement its control of Europe’s biggest carmaker and hedge funds, rushing to cover short positions, were forced to buy stock from a shrinking pool of shares in free float.
VW shares rose 147 per cent after Porsche unexpectedly disclosed that through the use of derivatives it had increased its stake in VW from 35 to 74.1 per cent, sparking outcry among investors, analysts and corporate governance experts.

I wish understood how these derivative thingies worked but they haven't half caught harry hedge fund on the hop:

Porsche revealed on Sunday that it held 31.5 per cent in derivatives in VW. Bafin, Germany’s financial regulator, recently ruled that companies were not obliged to disclose such positions where the derivatives were settled into cash rather than shares.
But the sudden disclosure meant there was a free float of only 5.8 per cent – the state of Lower Saxony owns 20.1 per cent – sparking panic among hedge funds. Many had bet on VW’s share price falling and the rise on Monday led to estimated losses among them of €10bn-€15bn ($12.5bn-$18.8bn).
“This was supposed to be a very low-risk trade and it’s a nuclear bomb which has gone off in people’s faces,” said one hedge fund manager.

I may not understand derivatives but I do no that if only 5.8% of a company's shares are in free float and:

As of last Thursday, according to consultancy Data Explorers, 12.9 per cent of VW’s shares were on loan for investors to go short and bet on them falling – the highest percentage of any German company.

Somebody, somewhere, is going to make an awful lot of money out of harry hedge fund.

Still, as one of them was saying on the BBC's Bottom Line radio program a few weeks ago, these are grown up investors using grown up people's money. I would still like to be on the conference call when they explain this loss though.

Hang them, and hang them very high, but only after we have got our money back

2008-10-27T13:23:00.003Z

To think our licence fee pays for these vulgar, infantile, antics:

Sachs, who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers, was expected to be a guest on the programme, but was unable to appear due to unforeseen circumstances.
Brand and Ross went on to leave a series of messages on the 78-year-old's voicemail during the two-hour radio show, which included obscene comments about Sachs' 23-year-old granddaughter.
In the first message, Ross suddenly swore and said Brand had slept with her.

The very fact they they did this, no matter how spontanauosly, shows that the organisation is rotten to the core. Doesn't anyone there set standards of decency and respect or are they all so bessotted by the stars who walk amonst them that they are blind to what is happening?

If that wasn't bad enough they they went on to make 3 more calls, treating the whole thing as a joke:

Later in the programme, Brand said the only way to rectify the incident was to make another call - but caused further offence after he suggested Sachs might kill himself because of the previous message's revelations.
A third call saw Brand and Ross singing an apology to the actor.
Brand sang: "I'd like to apologise for the terrible attacks, Andrew Sachs. I said some things I didn't have oughta [sic], like I had sex with your granddaughter."
During the fourth call, Brand said: "Now when I watch Fawlty Towers I think I'm going to think I've hurt his feelings."

What were the producers up to? Wasn't anyone else in the building listening and think it was time to put a stop to it? Why aren't we reading about these two oafs being sacked?

Update

I've just seen the 6 o'clock news and learned it was a pre-recorded program. Right then, that's the 2 presenters, producer, editor and everyone in the management chain who is even remotely responsible for this program ahead of the politicians to the lamp posts.

Seriously though, can anyone think of a single reason why there shouldn't be sackings over this?

Conflicts of interest / duty

2008-10-27T13:14:00.003Z

The Fat Bigot has written a good piece about why Mandelson doesn't have a conflict of interst and what he has is a conflict between personal interst and duty.

Details continue to be revealed about Lord Mandelson's dealings with Russia's aluminium bigwig. The coverage on television, in newspapers and on the radio is littered with the expression "conflict of interests". This phrase irritates me enormously because it is fundamentally inaccurate, indeed it is so inaccurate that it serves to play down the seriousness of the situation yet those who use it think it does the opposite. Let me explain.

Assume you are Billy Biggins, the EU Trade Commissioner, and you have to give advice and take decisions about levels of EU import duty on aluminium. Your decisions should be made only after all appropriate enquiries have been conducted and you have considered all relevant submissions made to you. The requirement to approach your job in that way has nothing to do with you personally, it goes with the job. Exactly the same obligations fall on every commissioner in every field. Those obligations arise out of the fact that you are under a duty to give impartial and properly considered advice and a duty to reach decisions only after considering all relevant circumstances. That is your duty to your employers.

He is right, personal interest should not an issue, the problem is that people like Mandelson seem to think that if something is in their personal interest it must therefore be in the interests of the rest of us.

More lazy soundbite reporting, a bit like the "shot to kill" reporting I have commented on before.

On this day

2008-10-26T21:51:00.002Z

in 1989, Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson resigned over policy differences with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. John Major replaced him.

I had always admired Lawson. Although not an economist I felt there was something behind his drive to simplify the tax regime.

John Major always struck me as an odd person, in the political and leadership sense. I couldn't understand how he rose so high as he struck me as what is known in military terms as a NEWT (not employable with troops). His ;lacklustre premiership demonstrated that and he was lucky that Kinnock blew the 1992 election.

In praise of English wines

2008-10-26T21:04:00.002Z

I have been known to drink the odd glass of wine or six and I have quite a varied taste, without being snobbish about the subject (I think) although I am a member of the Wine Society.

My preferred whites are dry wines from New Zealand with Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc being my favourite. I was introduced to it whilst spending more time on BA planes than is healthy and made it worse by drinking rather a lot of the stuff. I don't know if they still serve it on BA but if you like a dry white give it a go. I really can't stand oaked Chardonnay -yuk.

I don't really have a favourite red and tend to go where the mood takes me and what is available but as an everyday drinking wine you can't go wrong with a Merlot. I also like Italian wines and reckon they are very much underrated, although on the expensive side for everyday drinking.

Today we were out for a drive to admire the colourful autumn splendour Chilterns and ended up dropping in to the Chiltern Winery in the Hamledon Valley. Their wines seem to have suffered a bit in the past couple of years because of the poor summers but are still very palatable. We picked up 6 reds, one of which we are quaffing now, and 6 white.

We went for the medium white as TGW-O doesn't like them too dry. As usual it is a very pleasant easy to drink wine with a touch of elderflower - I used to make my own wines when we lived in Dorset and elderflower was always a favourite.

The 2006 red is very interesting, its only 11% alcohol by volume but that makes a pleasant change as a lot of modern reds are verging on the fortified wine end of the spectrum and a bit too heavy for everyday drinking. It has an interesting "smokey" flavour and is definitely moorish.

I also bought a couple of bottles of their real ale but it didn't work too well with the curry we had this evening - my bad. Anyway its not bad under normal drinking conditions.

Ooops, TGW-O has just read this over my shoulder and pointed out that the red is from one of the private bina and was rather expensive - I wasn't paying attention when I bought it - it tasted nice so in the car it went!

Anyway, if you get the chance give this place a go, you get to taste the wines before you buy and they really are quite good.

USA Election

2008-10-26T18:11:00.003Z

I've been following the through the Economist and BBC* and am becoming increasingly dismayed by both candidates and am starting to think that its a pity that they can't both lose.

I thought McCain might have some spirit and appeal to the bipartisan vote, but he seems to be playing more to the right than he really needs and this is worrying. His choice of Palin seemed inspired at first, but has been proved to be a big mistake.

Obama seems to be increasingly vacuous and concentrating on out Blairing Blair. I know the election is his to lose and that getting in to detail would be a mistake (as it would for the boy Dave), but when he speaks on the economy he seems to be completely devoid of ideas on how to stimulate the US economy beyond the normal rhetoric.

The problem with them both losing is that we would be stuck with Bush, surely the lamest of lame duck presidents in the USA'a history?

*You have no choice given they way they are covering it.

A celebrity admits enormous mistake while young

2008-10-26T17:53:00.002Z

Regular readers will know that I have little time for the celebocracy* so you may be surprised that I am impressed by American rock star Ted Nugent** as reported by WM Briggs, Statistician:

Uncle Ted made an huge, enormous mistake when he was a young man. He purposely got himself out of the Vietnam draft. He knows he must answer for this moral crime. I am tempted to say, a la the media, this “youthful indiscretion”, but I won’t, because what he did was wrong. The only question now is: can we forgive him?

Regrettably, I did not serve in the military upon graduation from high school. For that I am truly sorry…I admit to self-imposed, near-total insulation from worldly truth and the reality of Vietnam…This is no excuse for my woeful and deep disconnect from the critical events of the world–and I don’t offer it as one—but it is the truth…In order to provide some sort of restitution for my youthful disconnect, I have done what I can over the years for members of the armed forces…My enlightenment, though slow in coming, eventually arrived.

He's quite a character and has some interesting aphorisms:

God gave man a soul; a powerful, instinctual moral and intellectual True North compass that completely differentiates us from all other living creatures….It is soulless to forbid a good citizen the right to carry a gun for self-protection while you dare to actually charge that citizen (subject) to pay for your armed security detail, Ted Kennedy.

I'm not keen on one and all carrying guns but he does have a point.

Go and read the whole post about him, it will get you thinking.

*Fatuous people who are famous for being famous whose every word is fawned upon by the hard of thinking MSM who report their drivel, no matter how unintelligent, as if it was the last word that needs to be said on any subject. Global warming is a specialty of this group!

** I'm not really a fan but you can see why he gets American audiences rocking:

In defence of speed cameras

2008-10-26T17:08:00.002Z

Much has been written about Swindon Council's decision to ban speed cameras with Longrider , as usual, writing a very good piece:

I see that the righteous (^TM Leg-Iron) are getting their knickers in a predictable knot over the decision by Swindon Council to do away with their speed cameras.

The decision is a pragmatic one underpinned by common sense – something that is sadly lacking in politics today – both at a local and national level.

Swindon has became the first town in the UK to do away with fixed-point speed cameras.

The nine-strong cabinet of the Tory-run council voted unanimously in favour of withdrawing from the Wiltshire and Swindon Safety Camera Partnership.

This does not mean – as the righteous would have us believe – that Swindon is about to become a boy racer’s paradise.

Police will still be out and about with hand-held speed-measuring devices. Mr Greenhalgh added: “We will be working very closely with our partners, including police in the road safety partnership to deliver a plan that reduced the number of people being killed on the roads in Swindon.”

This is how enforcement should work – it should be dynamic and respond to changes in traffic flows and patterns. The police, being people, will be able to make judgements about where to place traps (as, indeed, they used to do before the obsession with cameras). They will also be able to observe the offender’s driving and make a judgement about whether to caution or prosecute. Sometimes a ticking off along with a lecture about appropriate speed for the circumstances, along with a caution is the correct response to an otherwise competent driver who is marginally over the speed limit. This, of course, flies in the face of the righteous’ shrill assertions that “speed kills”. It does not. What does kill is bad driving, which may, or may not, involve excessive speed for the situation. Driving is a holistic activity and there is more to it than speed. Indeed, too much time concentrating on the speedometer is counter productive. The driver should be watching the road for changing conditions, road hazards and traffic and adjust the drive accordingly.

I'm not about to join the ranks of the Righteous* but at the same time I don't think speed cameras were all bad; it was the capricious use of them and the police using them as an excuse not to to police the roads properly that is the problem.

One of the unintended consequences of the shift from policing to the reliance on speed cameras is that bad and selfish drivers can ignore speed limits, general driving laws and driving etiquette, safe in the knowledge that the police won't be around to catch them. Only today someone went past me as I was doing 30mph in a 30mph zone. He (it was a he) probably knew there weren't any cameras through this village and didn't seem to care that he did this at the entrance to a children's play area.

So why would I defend speed cameras, especially as I am not averse to speeding on motorways and de-restricted area? Because when they are used judiciously they wake up the dozy driver who isn't paying attention. Let me give an example of something I see al too often, and not just on this road.

I regularly travel the B282 from Marlow to Stokenchurch. The speed limit leaving Marlow is 30mph and a few times I have been overtaken in it or seen a car in front pulling away from me. Once we hit the de-restricted area I get my foot down** and invariably get stuck behind one of these cars and it is impossible to pass. We then dawdle along at 45 or 50mph until we reach Lane End.

At this point we hit another 30mph zone, I slow down and the car in front starts pulling away without even a blip on their brake lights to acknowledge the change is speed limits. Once through Lane End I catch them and the whole thing starts again, with me stuck until we get to the 40mph zone of Cadmore End, when they get to pull away again.

Its not that they are speeding that worries me, its that they obviously aren't paying attention because their speed doesn't vary. One has to wonder how they would cope if, say, a child stepped out? In this case I think a camera on entry to Lane End would slow them down and once they have slowed they are more likely to at least start paying attention to the world around them.

What is really galling is that there is a speed camera on the way out of Lane End to Marlow which is obviously there for revenue generation.

So, whilst in general I agree that Swindon Council's move is to be applauded, I just hope they haven't thrown the baby out with the bath water.

*Leg Iron has a wonderful autobiographical series of posts about the Righteous, which start here.

** I tend to limit my speed to 70mph max on this stretches, depending on the weather, road conditions and time of day

Letter of the day

2008-10-24T05:45:00.002Z

I was half listening to Radio 4 at 6:40 this morning and missed which paper this was in, but I did catch the gist of the letter:

Sir,

If increasing public spending during the good times is a good idea and increasing public spending during down turns is also a good idea, when is a a good time to put something by?

Climate protestor had a good point until...

2008-10-22T16:33:00.002Z

Police "over-egg" the number of people taking part in demonstrations to justify the amount of cash they have spent, a climate protester has claimed.
Phil McLeish, from Climate Camp, said police used to "downplay" the number of protesters at demonstrations.

Reading the article I felt he had a point:

"Police will, at least nowadays, will want to overload the march with police officers, so a typical ratio between police and protesters now could easily be one-to-one, which 10 or 15 years ago was never the case.

Based on anecdotally eveidence I have to agree, whenever you see a demo nowadays it is lined with police and sometimes it looks like they are being a bit OTT, which can be provocative as well as expensive:

Freedom of Information requests suggest £5.9m was spent on policing at a recent climate camp protest, which he said worked out at about "£4,000 a head," said the climate campaigner.
"The police - having committed resources like that - have got to pretend that there is something to police," he added.

Just as you are being lulled into sympathy, if if he is deluded in his beliefs, his true colours start flying:

He also accused officers of acting like "private security guards" to protect the property of firms such as BAA and the Kingsnorth coal fired power station, in Kent, owned by E.on, both targeted recently by climate camp campaigners.

Listen you bozo, this private property and the police are paid to protect private property. It one of the few things we want the state to do, protecting us. Just because you managed to con a jury that you actions were somehow justified it doesn't give you the right to attack private property whenever you like.

Climate Camp claims to have "outsmarted 26 police forces" during their week-long protest outside the Kingsnorth power station in August, which culminated in an attempt to shut down the plant.

Ah, so what you are really complaining about is that you didn't want to have a peaceful, lawful protest, you wanted to try to outwit them so you could break the law. And you wonder why there was lots of police around? Given you got through there obviously wasn't enough police on duty.

Given his own testimony Climate Camp should be banned from having protest and if they do this git should be personally surcharged the full cost of the policing action required to keep it peaceful. It because of twats like him that genuine peaceful protesters are being harrased and banned from Parliament square.

At while I'm at it Richard North can piss of as well:

Richard North, of the Social Affairs Unit think tank, told MPs and peers: "Society should rethink its attitude that anyone who protests is probably on the side of the angels".
The rights of those targeted by protesters mattered as much as those of protesters, he argued, and Parliament should not be "trumped" by demonstrations or indulge the "fantasies" of those taking part in them that that they were "scruffily clad peasants" taking on a "state behemoth".

I would go in to a DK rant about him if I had time

On this day

2008-10-22T09:32:00.003Z

in 1974, a bomb exploded in a London restaurant near to where opposition leader Edward Heath was dining. Three members of staff were injured

and

1975, the 'Guildford Four' were sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of planting IRA bombs in pubs in Guildford and Woolwich. Fifteen years later they had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal, following an extensive inquiry into the original police investigation.

Funnily enough I don't remember calls for 42 days detention* of the creation of a national database.

*Yes I know it hasn't been passed, but it hasn't gone away and their is no indication that our leaders are any less authoritarian for having to drop it

The silver lining to all the economic doom and gllom

2008-10-22T07:56:00.002Z

Guido sums up the state we are in quite succinctly:

Government borrowing is at record levels, unemployment is heading towards two million, car workers are on a 3-day week, public sector workers are threatening strikes, nationalisation is back, Deripaska-owned Leyland is even in back the news. To complete the whole 70s era feel we have a sterling collapse. 20% since the beginning of the year...

And then we have this from the BBC:

Factory gloom 'worst since 1980' Falling demand for UK-made goods and a drop in output has caused the sharpest single-quarter fall in manufacturing confidence in 28 years, a survey says.
The CBI survey found only 4% of firms surveyed were more optimistic than three months earlier, against 64% who were less optimistic.

So the silver lining?

Now that Labour have fucked up a boom so badly, despite promising the end of the economic cycle, perhaps they will stop using the mantra of the Tories boom and bust in the 80's to imply that only Labour can manage a modern economy.

The difference is that in the 80's the Tories had to sort out the mess made by Labour and the corporatist Heath Governments and were starting from a very low base line. Labour inherited a growing economy in a country that had had most of the economic mill stones removed - bloated and inefficient public services, bullying unions and failed nationalised industries privatised or closed.

There but for the grace....

2008-10-21T20:24:00.003Z

In 1979 my father was taking me back to Catterick one Sunday evening after dropping my brother off at York railway station. As we drove up the A1 near Wetherby the traffic came to a halt with us all pulling in to the left hand lane of what was a dual carriage way.

It was a nice clear early spring evening and there was a police car on the central reservation with his blue flashing light extended about 6' into the air. Lane 2 was clear as was the hard shoulder and most of the wide central reservation.

Just as we came to a halt my dad screamed for me to hold on. This was immediately followed by a large bang and our car was shoved in to the car in front. Fortunately my father was an experienced driver and had left a good bit of space but it was still a hell of a smash. When I looked behind me I realised that the back of the car was on fire and that we needed to get out quickly which fortunately we both managed to get out without any problem as the force of the crash could easily jammed the doors.

The 2 police officers from the patrol car were there in seconds with fire extinguishers but our car was a blazing inferno within 30 seconds.

The car that ran in to us was driven by a middle aged man who was accompanied by his wife and three young children. Fortunately they weren't badly hurt, although there was lots of screaming and wailing, especially from the mother who clutched her children.

I never did find out why he drove in to the back of us rather than any of the escape routes he had; maybe they were arguing, maybe he was distracted by the children, maybe he dozed off. It doesn't matter because we all got out alive.

I think you'll understand that whenever I see a story like this one I shudder and count my blessings, as well as shedding a tear or two.

So, if you are ever approach a traffic jam, slow early and leave plenty of room for a possible escape, keep an eye on whats going on behind and prepare to accelerate out of trouble. It might piss people off behind you but sdaly these types of accident are far too common, although not always as tragic.

Spurs Humour

2008-10-20T20:51:00.000Z

Juande Ramos, shortly after another training session, comments to the head groundsman at White Hart Lane how impressive the pitch is looking.

"It ought to," replied the groundsman, "We put 70 million quid's worth of shit on it every week."

Chaos in our classrooms is the problem and don't blame the teachers

2008-10-20T19:30:00.004Z

TGW-O was a reception teacher in a fairly stable middle class school and found that the job was getting stressful because of the degeneration of the behaviour of the children. This pushed her in to leaving the profession in 1998, as soon as we could afford it.

With this in mind, I am never totally surprised by what I read on the "To Miss With Love Blog", depressing as it is.

Just in case anyone is in doubt about where the problem lies :

Hmm. Twenty-four children, three adults, one of whom is an excellent teacher and still there is utter chaos. What does that tell us about education in Britain today? A LACK OF MONEY IS NOT THE PROBLEM. CLASS SIZE IS NOT THE PROBLEM. A LACK OF STAFF IS NOT THE PROBLEM. STAFF NOT BEING TALENTED ENOUGH IS NOT THE PROBLEM.

THESE CHILDREN ARE FUCKING 8-YEARS-OLD!!!

And this isn't a "black" problem, it is becoming endemic in society.

What to do about it? She has some intersting thoughts in this post which you may find surprising because she is definately from the left:

4. Ban Diane Abbott from speaking full stop. And stop the media from encouraging a racial divide. Oh, and ban Polly Toynbee too. In fact, let's just throw them in a prison cell together... :)

She's obviously never heard of hempen rope and lamp posts, but solitary confinement in prison is a start. I would go further and add in all the "apologists" for bad and poor behaviour - see the post mentioned above.

11. Allow schools to make up their own criteria for entry. Parents would be forced to compete with each other for places in schools, over meaningful criteria - not whether or not you live near a school or have a sibling that goes there.

If prison doesn't work this one will cause those in 4 to explode in a puff of righteous indigantion. A bit of healthy competition should help and I would add vouchers as well. It may lead to a few sink schools, but at least the majority will benefit and not be hel down by the lowest common denominator.

Perhaps we need to return to residential Approved Schools for the worst behaved children?

15. Ban free education. Everyone has to pay – something. All textbooks, exercise books etc must be paid for. How much one pays in fees may be decided by one’s income. There would have to be a system – like the tax system.

Interesting idea from someone on the left, but it should help deal with the Tragedy of the Commons issues. Its definately worth a try.

20. Give governing bodies and Heads the power to fire people. And then begin by firing about 20% of the teaching profession, which includes those at the top. Oh, and as an extra, fire most of the people who work in Local Authorities and various educational bodies like the Specialist School and Academies Trust etc. Yeah, fire the lot of them.

Wow, that could be straight from the Devil's Kitchen except it doesn't contain swear words or painful death, but the sentiments are the same.

Often we hear that parenting classes are the solution. I have always been against them on the basis that it would be just more socialist one size fits all bull shit. However the more I read about the problems of bad behaviour that more I become resigned to giving it a try, surely it can't make things worse*?

I certainly recommend adding her to your reading list, deressing as the tales can be, as an antidote to the waffle and crap we get from Ed Balls and the rest of the education establishment.

*Famous last words!

Their banality knows no bounds

2008-10-20T17:14:00.002Z

So how are our glorious leaders going to fix the economy to ease the pain of the recession? They are going to review the right for parents to request flexible working:

Plans to increase parents' rights to request flexible working are to be reconsidered, Downing Street says.

No 10 said Business Secretary Lord Mandelson was looking at "all regulations due to come into force", given the economic uncertainty.

Bloody hell, not only did they waste a load of time deciding we need a law to allow workers the right to do something they could do anyway, we are now going to have a load of angst over whether it should be come in to law! Were these people born stupid or do they practice?

It comes to something when even Brenden Barber of the TUC can see how idiotic they are being:

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Postponing a simple right to request flexible working would not save a single job in the small business sector. If such a request harms the business, the owner can say no.
"This would be an astonishingly irrelevant response to the severe economic downturn that we face and, in addition, would run the risk of sending a message to working parents that the government is not on their side."

FFS we'll be better off with them doing nothing if this is the best they can come up with! Lets send them all on holiday now and ask them to come back in 2010 when we have to have a general election and we can deliver a real verdict.

Tea's ready, just in time to save my heart from more stress!

Saving and wasting money the local authority way

2008-10-20T17:00:00.003Z

At the start of summer my local authority in Bucks decided to save money by turning off the street lamps on the A40 as it passes through our village to save money. They've done this in a number of other areas as well. I'm OK with that as the light pollution is irritating and any way to reduce council taxes is welcome. The only irritant is that they used this as an excuse speed limits to ridiculously low speeds and it now takes forever to get anywhere.

I was in town lat night and noticed that all the Christmas lights are going up in all the same places with no attempt to save money.

Yes I am a "bah humbug" when it comes to the over the top Christmas celebrations, but that still doesn't mean they couldn't look to save money there as well. Maybe only have them on for one week?

I think I shall write to someone about this and let you know if I get any sense.

What are politicians for?

2008-10-20T16:18:00.003Z

Seriously, what do we need politicians for? I ask this following a discussion with The Sprog over over a beer and pizza last night when he raised this interesting point. Regular readers may remember that The Sprog did A Level politics and sociology with AS economics and we have had regular debates on current affairs and politics since he was about 10.

As The Sprog put it, in the past politicians all told us they wanted to make our lives better; we may not agree with it but be they socialists, Marxists or even Tories, the message from all of them was that they wanted to make our lives better. All we had to do was decide which set had the best arguments to achieve that aim.

Now they all seem to be vying with each other to take away our freedoms and restrict us from doing what we enjoy as they promise to protect us from the latest self induced "nightmare". They use terrorism, climate change, smoking, drinking, youth gangs and any other manner of tosh to justify their control freakery.

He has a good point. Wouldn't it be nice to hear a politician saying that all he wants to do is make us richer and freerer?

The TGS free trade theory

2008-10-19T17:14:00.002Z

A good week's sailing, lots of good wind and good crew. More to drink and eat in a week than I would normally do in month, so more gym work to be had!

We were joined by an extra person for the last night which led t a rather bizarre alcohol fuelled debate. We got on to the subject of trade and the EU. new crew insisted that we needed to be part of the EU as it would give us economies of scale when it came to trade. I pointed out that I would rather have the scale of the world and that the EU was stopping me trading as I liked.

This went on for a while and he wouldn't see that the EU was distorting trade by using trade barriers. I used the example of New Zealand lamb and that it should be up to me whether I want to buy it or not. His view was that they now traded in Asia wouldn't want to trade with us!

In the end he christened my view that trading with the whole world would be the best way out of the world recession disparagingly as "Simon's free trade theory". By now I had lost the will to live and couldn't be bothered arguing with someone who thinks trading with the EU is preferable to trading with the whole world and that it wasn't my theory.

What was worrying is that he works in a senior IT position in the City writing programs for traders!

Rewarding bankers, an idea from the past

2008-10-12T10:29:00.003Z

In my consulting days I worked on a number of projects alongside management consultants and investment bankers. My role tended to be fairly minor, looking at the Capex and Opex part of a business plan to build a telecoms network, generally a mobile project. This gave me an insight into how they work and the issues they consider. As this was during and after the tech bubble it has some parallels to where we are now.

One thing to remember is that bankers are nothing more than salesmen, be they selling you a loan to go to college, buy a car or build a mobile network, they are selling you money. In this respect investment bankers are no different to a car salesman or any other salesman, if they don't sell they very quickly go hungry. And like the car salesman they tend to be rewarded with a percentage of the sale*. What is different is that the car salesman my make, say 1% of a £5,000 deal, an investment banker on the same 1% would be making it on a £500m deal ie £5m. This is where the big numbers come from and you can see why they are under pressure to make those loans, sorry investments.

The difference is that investment loans are hugely complicated which is why we need bright people figuring them out and choosing the best investments and risks. They also tend to be quite self centred egotists with a liking for the better things in life and some I met had a sense of entitlement that would make an MP looking at the latest John Lewis list blush.

So, the question that keeps getting posed is how to stop greed and instant gratification corrupting investment decisions and turning it to our advantage? I was thinking about that and my late Godfather sprang to mind. He too was a financial salesman and started just after the war selling life insurance policies on a door to door basis in Bradford and Leeds.

He had a very comfortable middle age and retirement but a very tight start to his working life because of the way he was remunerated. When I was having a few beers with him he explained to me how it had worked. He was paid a pittance of a salary which did nothing more than cover his daily food bill, but even more interesting was that he received very little in commission on the sale. What he did get, though, was an income stream from each policy as long as it was maintained, but he made the most money when they matured and paid out to his clients. He got very little if they cashed in early and sod all if they stopped paying.

This gave him the incentive to sell the right product to people who not only needed them but could afford them. Long after he stopped working hard at the age of about 45 he received a regular income and was able to spend an inordinate amount of time on the golf course.

So how do we translate this to bankers? Fairly easy I would have thought. Just give them a % of loans that are paid back, when they are paid back. I don't have a problem with them making 7 or 8 figure commissions, just that they only make it on the good ones and make very little on the bad ones.

This principle could also be applied to company bosses; again I have no problem with them being well paid when successful, its the pay off's to bad bosses that irks.

*The numbers I give are illustrative but from memory not far from reality

On hols again

2008-10-12T09:45:00.002Z

I'm off for a week to learn to sail big yachts as opposed to my little dinghy so no blogging.

If you hear of a boat colliding with an oil tanker or channel ferry it means some idiot let me have a go at the steering wheel.

Have a good week and here's hoping that some stability returns to the markets before I get back, but I doubt it given the interventions of our hyper active Prime Minister.

Taking risk out of banking is the wrong approach

2008-10-12T09:43:00.002Z

This* letter in the this week's Economist sums up the over reaction to the credit crunch:

SIR – Surely the present crisis offers a chance to remodel banking as a highly regulated industry that takes few risks and accepts low levels of profit. A duller banking industry with fewer brilliant managers could help to support more sustainable growth for everyone.

Daniel Currie
London

Not only is this attitude patronising, it is also undesirable and dangerous.

It is patronising because it assumes that none of are capable of making our own investment decisions and that only Government appointed bankers can make investments that are Government approved. Well I can make my own decisions and work out my own risk profile, thank you. I have been doing this for a number of years and frankly don't want my money invested in politicians pet political projects in pursuit of their own re-election.**

It is dangerous for a number of reasons. Firstly, it gives the false impression that there is a way to reduce risk to a point where there isn't any. This takes away moral hazard and means that should there be any failure, whatsoever, the Government will have to reimburse all losses, no matter how incurred.

Secondly, it dangerous because it will shuffle money into doomed projects in the name of political expediency. Yes, I know that goes on now but if politicians can direct banks it will hide the mistakes off balance sheet and we won't be able to hold ministers to account. A classic example would be the car industry where £billions of tax payers money was pumped in to British Leyland and DeLorean.

But its not just that the investments are wasted, there is the opportunity cost. By investing in lousy projects good projects eg computers, mobile phone networks, drugs R&D and even charitable investments will go without, making our lives in poorer.

What we should be calling for is greater transparency and more education, and I don't mean in schools. All people have to know is that the higher the return the higher the risk and that they are responsible for their own decisions. Yes we need some level of deposit guarantee on banks, if only to protect them from a run, but it doesn't need to be on all accounts and should be clearly flagged which accounts carry it.

Make people responsible and they Will act responsibly***. And by that I include bankers. If they know that the risks are high and that they won't be bailed out by politicians they will figure out which risks to take far better than any politician or bureaucrat, but if they fail we all know the the risks we took.

*I think is part of the subscription service so you may not be able to link to it so I copied in full

** And yes I have made a few bad choices, I bought a Japan PEP fund a few years ago that is now at about 50% of the original value! My choice - I would have enjoyed the upside so I don't expect anyone else to cover the down side.

*** If that isn't a quote by a famous person it should be.

Bloody hell, there is just so much wrong with this!

2008-10-12T07:09:00.002Z

This story, via Bystander, had me swearing over my morning cup of tea, fortunately TGWo was out of earshot. This is the gist of the story:

Gardener arrested and taken to court for carrying work scythe in van

A judge has ordered the Crown Prosecution Service to make a public apology to a gardener who was arrested and taken to court for carrying a scythe which he said he needed for his work.

Peter Drew, 49, a self employed ground clearance contractor, had the scythe and other bladed tools in his work van when he was stopped by police on his way to a job in Penzance, Cornwall.

He told police he used the equipment in the course of his work but he was charged with possessing a bladed instrument in a public place and the case proceeded to the courts.
...
Judge Paul Darlow freed Mr Drew and said: "I want to find out why we have got to the start of the trial and the CPS is suddenly saying 'Oops'.

"I do not think the CPS can escape criticism or blame if they leave it to the last minute to make up their minds. We despair of trying to run these courts in any sort of efficient way.

Firstly, well done the Judge, its a pity he didn't charge the CPS and Police for wasting public funds though. Perhaps docking individual's pay might concetrate their minds.

So what about the apology?

The prosecuting counsel, Philip Lee, responded: "On behalf of the CPS I apologise that it has taken this long.

Leaving aside, for now, that it even got to the CPS isn't there someone, anyone, in the CPS with an ounce of gumption? FFS, the first person to see this file should have taken one look and thrown it in the bin and sent a terse email to the police to stop wasting their time. If there isn't a lawyer with the balls to do that then let the cleaner or tea lady have a go, they can't be any worse and they will at least bring some reality to the proceedings.

But what were the police up to in the first place? OK, we don't know why he was stopped and I am sure that, given he once ran he second hand shop, that there is a good chance he was "known to the police", so maybe they were right to check his story. A few quick phone calls should have sorted that out:

Mr Drew, of Heamoor, near Penzance, said he obtained written references from clients, whose gardens he had cleared, confirming they had seen him use the scythe and other bladed tools to cut down undergrowth and brambles.

Great, now he's having to prove his innocence and even then he still has to wait 8 months for this to end with the CPS offering no case. What are the police managers up to? Don't answer that yet, there's worse to come from Inspector Gadget. Perhaps the police also need a cleaner to manage them as well.

As Bystander says:

I don't suppose he will ever get his prints and DNA off the database, either.

No, he probably won't. Only another 56m to go before we're all on the register

And to think senior police officers and politicians wonder why the public have little faith in them. perhaps it because nobody in the police service* seems capable thinking for themselves.

But we shouldn't really be surprised its come to this after years of governments trying to fiddle the figures on crime and detection. As this post from Inspector Gadget, again courtesy Bystander, shows:

I imagine that he [a Detective Chief Inspector] is fairly humiliated to find himself as a glorified accountant. Known as the Divisional Crime Performance Manager, he is now reduced to sending out regular motivational emails about the sanctioned detected rates. ‘only 40 more detected crimes in the next two weeks to reach our target – that’s 4 per day – keep up the pressure folks – you know we can do it’. The only interest I have in this email is the admission that CID regard a week as consisting of five days. And what’s all this ‘we’ business?

As we get closer to the end of the month, these emails are faintly embarrassing. Watching a previously highly regarded professional become increasingly desperate is never nice. Especially when you are at the management meetings that precede the emails. Especially when you hear how the Divisional Crime Management Unit ‘validate’ crime reports. Especially when you can taste the contempt these people feel for themselves for playing this game.

Has it really come to this? A DCI whose main reason for being in the building is to ‘manage’ the government’s latest crackpot way of measuring police performance?

If that doesn't make you want to grab the nearest politician by the throat and try to shake some sense in to them, nothing will.

I'm off to calm down now before I start doing some DIY with sharp instruments, which is not a good idea when the rage has descended.

*I cringe every time I see or use that phrase, reverting to a police force might be a good first step in repairing their battered "brand".

England Football Fans are a Disgrace

2008-10-11T19:54:00.003Z

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that the sooner English football suffers it own credit crunch and collapses under the weight of its own self importance the better.

I don't go out of my way to watch football nowaday's, but as I was around I had the game against Kazakhstan on whilst doing a few chores, the main one being the ironing*. Anyway, Ashley Cole made the kind of mistake that gave a goal away that if you or I had made we would be having an interview without coffee with our boss. I've seen a lot worse in a football match, Gary Sprake throwing the ball in to his own net eg, but for some reason the England fans started to boo him every time he touched the ball.

Bad as the mistake was there was I could see no reason for this booing, surely it would put off England who were leading 2-1 at the time; didn't these idiots want England to win** and qualify for the World Cup finals? Obviously not.

A bit later I turned on R5L and Alan Green was on hosting a phone-in. Apparently he had been his normal scathing self during the game and referred to the booing fans as morons. I was surprised by the vitriol of the callers who not only lambasted Cole but also Alan Green, on the basis that as they paid his wages via the telly tax he had no right to call the fans morons.

Anyway, it turns out that Cole once said that he wouldn't get out of bed for less than £55k per week which for some reason fans didn't like. Probably a stupid thing to say, but in a sport of arrogant young men with more money than a city banker*** this shouldn't really come as a surprise to the fans. It also turns out that when he scores a goal he goes to the opposing fans and makes gestures that imply they should shut up - I presume because he gets barracked by them. Surely footballer mocks fans is a dog bites mad story?

The more this type of thing goes on in English football the more people like me lose interest. Eventually advertisers will realise that the audience is drifting away and they won't pay the rates demanded by Ch3 and Sky. If that does happen football will be even more reliant on foreign owners. who are under different pressures**** and may be running short of money as well. If this happens the whole thing will implode faster than the housing bubble, which may be no bad thing given how debased the whole football ritual has become.

*It comes from a military background and ironing being about the one thing TGWo is crap at.

** They did, BTW, 5-1

*** Alan Sugar reckoned that is the only industry where the workers drive better cars than the Directors

**** West Ham are owned by an Icelander

West Ham United looked likely last night to become football’s latest victim of global financial turmoil.
Although the club denied it was up for sale after Bjogolfur Gudmundsson, the chairman, was said to have lost £230 million in the nationalisation of the Icelandic Landisbank, one source close to the club told The Times: “It is open to all comers. The only thing we want to know is where we find a billionaire who has still got all of his money after the credit crunch.”

Channel 4's Property Ladder

2008-10-11T19:37:00.002Z

I've just been browsing Sky's EPG and notice that Ch4 is still showing Property Ladder - paerhaps they ought to rename name it Property Snake?

Website problem fixed

2008-10-10T17:46:00.002Z

The problem I had with TGW's new website running in Internet Explorer 7 has been fixed by upgrading to IE8 Beta.

Despite this I think I'll stick to Firefox as my default browser.

Word for the situation - kakistocracy

2008-10-10T14:42:00.002Z

government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.

I'll bet nobody expected Britain to become one of these when the word was first coined:

1829, "government by the worst element of a society," coined on analogy of aristocracy from Gk. kakistos "worst," superl. of kakos "bad" (which is perhaps related to the general IE word for "defecate") + -kratia "rule of," from kratos "strength, power, rule" (see -cracy).

Credit Crunch Gallows Humour

2008-10-10T11:03:00.002Z

Good piece on the beeb about why we need humour to see us through troubled times. There's a cracking sketch from the two Johns who deal with the subject with their usual acerbic wit.

A few reworked jokes as well:

Q: What is the definition of optimism?
A: An investment banker ironing five shirts on a Sunday night

Q: What is the difference between a pigeon and a merchant banker?
A: A pigeon can still put a deposit on a Ferrari

Q: What do you say to a hedge fund manager who can't short-sell anything? A: Quarter pounder with fries please

Idiot politicians

2008-10-08T21:16:00.003Z

Further to my last post about senior politicians engaging brains before playing to the gallery, perhaps it would be too much to expect back benchers to be able to use a bit of logic and memory.

Again during PMQ's a couple of MP's (I was in the car and didn't catch the names) demanded that the PM and/or Chancellor insist that the bailed out banks provide mortgages and loans to people.

Surely they have enough brain cells to remember that they were happy with banks giving loans out willy-nilly that we are in this mess in the first place? Why don't they tell the PM to demand that banks only make sensible loans?

Bankers' Bonuses

2008-10-08T21:08:00.003Z

Cameron played to the gallery during PMQ'a by demanding that those banks that are being bailed out don't pay bonuses. Fair enough ....

If the bank needs bailing out its hard to think that it has made its targets and therefore the Senior managers shouldn't be getting bonuses

except that..

within the banks there may be some functions where teams have made or even exceeded their targets and may have contractual terms that guarantee their bonuses if targets are met. We wouldn't to be breaking those contracts and losing what may well be very good people, would we?

Surely we want those people to stay and hopefully help to build a profitable bank, don't we?

Sometimes it would be nice if senior politicians would engage brains before opening mouths.

Cabinet apointment process confirms control freakery of politicians

2008-10-06T07:15:00.003Z

I have long felt that one of the biggest problems with Government is the way that the Cabinet is appointed. Consider first how a large company appoints its management team and middle managers.

The Board/Owners select a CEO who they feel can deliver the growth and targets they set and that the CEO says are realistic. The Board/Owners will probably discuss the CEO's key direct reports and may maintain a veto. These positions might include the Finance Director, Operations Director and depending on the industry possibly one other, maybe the sales director in a company that requires on high sales volumes.

The Board will also discuss the overall management team structure and be concerned about the number of direct reports to the CEO, or any manager, and will be concerned if this is more than 6 or 7. Anything larger can mean that the CEO is stretched too far and is too involved in the everyday detail and is distracted from the greater strategic plan.

The CEO's direct reports will then agree a structure with the CEO, and rest of the management team, and look to recruit their reports. The CEO may take an interest and even veto who is appointed, but they will generally let their trusted direct reports get on with the job. It is important that the senior team have trust in their direct reports, which is why a good CEO won't interfere unless absolutely necessary.

This process then trickles down until the organisation is complete. The CEO and management team keeping an eye on numbers of people and ensuring that costs are kept under control and the company remains focused.

I could have gone in to lots of management jargon about SPRO (Strategy, Process, Resources, Organisation) etc, but I think you get the gist.

Now, compare that with the way our Government, irrespective of party, is appointed. We know the PM we are getting as the leader of the biggest party and probably the senior positions through the shadow cabinet or previous cabinet, but these aren't certain.

The first think we notice is that the cabinet is 23 strong and the PM appoints every one of them. That is one hell of a management team for the PM to manage and ensure that the agreed strategy is implemented. Its can also lead to tensions as areas of responsibility are blurred.

The next thing we notice is that the PM appointed the cabinets direct reports. He may discuss the appointments but is is very clear these are in the gift of the PM. This leads to major areas of conflict as he appoints people to departments who aren't trusted by their direct bosses and may even be actively disliked.

I realise that in a political party different factions have to be represented but the size of the Government and method of appointing them all isn't conducive to good governance and management.

Technical Bleg

2008-10-05T10:33:00.002Z

Now I know why DK hates Intrenet Explorer as you shall see.

I am re-designing TGW's web site as I don't like the current one. I've also just bought Dreamweaver CS3 and wanted to use Tabbed panels for easier navigation. I am using an affect where as you put the mouse over a thumbnail a large picture pops up in a designated area. I did this for my first attempt at web design and it works well enough in most browsers, you can see what I mean by following this link http://www.suefawthrop.me.uk/Red%20Kites.htm or any of the sidebar links.

Using Dreamweaver CS3 I have put each of the "gallaries" in a tabbed panel using exactly the same HTML code. In tabbedpanel (o) (home) I have a slideshow with some details. The rest of the tabbed panels are for pictures.

All works well in Firefox (my default browser), Opera and Safari. However when I decided to do a quick test with IE7 I get a really weird affect.

When the home page comes up there is only the slideshow visible. When I click the mouse anywhere in the content area the rest of the content becomes visible.

When I select any of the other tabbed panels there is nothing showing until I click the mouse anywhere in the content area and then all the content pops up.

Sometimes though, some of the tabs work OK and there is no rhyme nor reason as to which ones.

I have tried this on Windows XP and Vista OS and get the same problem.

Anybody got any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

TGS

What the Mandelson appointnment says about Labour

2008-10-05T09:39:00.003Z

I expressed my instant thoughts about MAndy's appointment here and they were quite cynical. I still maintain those and quite agree with another comment I heard - If Mandelson is the answer, WTF was the question?

But on reflection there is something else which seems to have been missed. Mandy isn't an MP and therefore has to be ennobled so he can take his place in the cabinet. Now I'm not necessarily against one of the Lordships taking on ministerial roles, but Secretary of State positions? These are the highest political positions we have and they wield great power and influence so you would think that any party in Government would want one of its elected members in these positions, wouldn't you?

Maybe there was a case some years ago for a hereditary peer to be given a position in Governement, but as Tony Benn showed there is a route to divesting themselves of that peerage and standing as an MP. Also, Labour has squealed long and hard against their Lordship's having undue influence so what does it say about their hypocrisy on this subject?

If I was a Labour Party member I would be livid about Mandy's appointment just on this point alone. (I've stopped reading LabourHome so I've no idea how they feel about it). If I was a Labour MP I would also be up in arms. Can't they fill the cabinet out of what, 350 MP's? Aren't there 23 MP's capable of filling all the cabinet positions*?

And what does it say to us, the electorate? "We don't care who you vote for, were going to appoint our own people anyway" is the message I get. So if I were a Labour voter I would also be miffed.

Still, if it hastens the downfall of Labour, so much the better.

*Having looked at the list of Cabinet positions we should only need about 10 anyway, but thats a different debate. (BERR is one of first that I would axe .)

More hypocrisy from the Righteous*

2008-10-05T09:11:00.002Z

Manchester Council is proposing that a congestion charge of £5 and will be having a referendum on the issue in December. As you would expect the debate is robust with a strong No campaign which has the Righteous up in arms and not least because one of the best known companies in the area, Kellog's, has come down on the No side and has made this clear to its employees.

Kellogg's, which employs 1,000 people in Trafford, is one of several firms which have united to oppose the plans.
Its staff have been asked to respond to the consultation with reasons copied from a "No" campaign website.
They were asked in an e-mail sent by communications director Chris Wermann.

OK there is an argument against companies ordering their staff to do their bidding so maybe the Righteous have a point:

But "Yes" campaigners said the move was "astonishing".
A spokesman said: "It is astonishing that a major multi-national company like Kellogg's should tell their staff that the appropriate way to respond to an official consultation is to "cut and paste" their employer's opinions."

But what the email really does is set out the company's view and points out that this is also the opinion of Unite, the union worker's union. But it ends:

The e-mail then asks employees to "make your voice heard" and directs them to the consultation website.

Notice that, it send them to the consultation web site, not the No web site. Thus allowing the workers to make up their own minds. So we can only conclude that the Righteous are so indignant not because the company is interfering in the worker's right to make up their own minds but because the company supports the No campaign.

This is the type of hypocrisy for with they are rightly and justly despised by so many people.

* H/T Leg-Iron for this wonderful description of those self appointed prod-noses who beleive they are the only ones whose opinions matter. BTW, he is a very good read as well.

Civil Enforcement Officers

2008-10-05T07:45:00.003Z

Walking through town I saw one of these species , dressed in full battle gear of stab proof vests, radio, electronic notebook and officious hat, and wondered how we got to this. We now have "enforcement officers" wandering round "enforcing" petty regulations such as smoking in pubs and issuing parking tickets and God knows what else; yet we have a Police "Service" whose job should be to maintain law and order, but appears to be nicking people who want to protect themselves, family and business.

Perhaps the country would be better off if we returned to having a Police Force whose job was to nick criminals, or better still prevent them breaking the law in the first place, rather pandering to a control freak of a Govt who are obsessed by "targets", diversity and locking up people for not paying the TV tax. The Civil Enforcement Officers then could return to being Traffic Wardens and only ticket cars which are parked in stupid places of that have outstayed their welcome.

Those safe, conservative, European banks.

2008-10-03T17:09:00.002Z

You know how we are always being lectured about how good europe is and how they don't go for this raw Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Well, it seems those good Europeans banks haven't been as safe and conservative as they would have us believe. According to this week's Economist:

Outside Wall Street US banks have lent 96c for every £1 deposited.
European banks have lent 1.4Euro for evry Euro deposited.

That doesn't sound very safe and conservative to me.

Mandelson back!! Why?

2008-10-03T10:52:00.001Z

Just got out of a meeting to hear this news – wow! So what is Gordo up to? Many was hardly well liked with the public or even the union paymasters.

How's about this for a bit of Machiavellian thinking?

If Labour is going down why not have one of the main architects of NuLabour associated with its demise. Then the left can say that NuLab failed and that they need to return to "core values" with a new leader on the hard left to oppose the Tories.

With a bit of luck this will lead to a new suicide note for the following lection and an even bigger defeat for Labour.

That should keep them out of power for a while so that we have time to fix the economy – again!

Politicisation * of the police

2008-10-02T20:17:00.003Z

There was much harrumphing on Today this morning about the politicisation of the police following the resignation of Sir Ian Blair. Its a bit late for now, NuLabour has politicised the whole landscape since 1997.

Anyone who has served in the armed forces will be well schooled in the doctrine of "civilian control of the armed forces". In short this means the the most senior military leaders report to civilians, which in theory means the Secretary of State for Defence** but in practice means through senior civil servants, except in a crises when the PM takes control through COBRA.

As part of this deal Military leaders had the ear of the Defense Sec and even the PM and could give full and frank advice. Politicians were free to make their own decision and if they ignored the advice military leaders kept quiet, in public at least. The quid pro quo was the Military Covenant, whereby the armed services were looked after for their sacrifice. Even Labour member accept that the Covenant has been broken. This has led to military chiefs openly and publicly getting involved in politics, which is an unedifying spectacle as well as being dangerous.

Finally we have the civil service. They may be conservative plodders who are risk averse but they always had a reputation for being apolitical and giving Government "best advice". Yes they probably stalled Government policies and I'm sure that their is more than a kernel of truth of truth in the Yes, Minister! books. However, senior civil servants accepted the bidding of their political masters with good grace and got on with the job when instructed to. Again, this was undermined by NuLabour through the introduction of SpAds who are effectively political civil servants.

Now I'm not myopic enough to realise that even Maggie wasn't immune from upsetting senior civil servants, the police and the military, but she rarely undermined their leaders by the imposition of raw politics over their heads.

Now of course its too late for complaint; the appointment of Sir Ian Blair was political. He was seen as representing the face of NuLabour and was happy to accept the manageralist style of Governement by targets. The genie of senior people in the police, armed forces and civil service being apolitical is out of the bottle and it ain't going back.

What we have to do now is learn to live with the new order. There isn't much we can do about senior military officers, they have to be servicemen, but we could have elections for Chief Police Officers and there is no reason why we can't have a polical appointments as heads of the civil service as they do in the USA.

* Horrible word.

**I once caught a young soldier stealing petrol from a generator. His charge sheet read that he was stealing fuel from "The Secretary of State for Defence, The Rt Hon Michael Hesltine MP."

Dave's speech

2008-10-01T14:26:00.001Z

I thought it was going reasonably until he started talking about giving us our money (taxes) back.
FFS, when will they learn we don't want any taxes given back - we don't want them taken in the first place.

In praise of “Punch and Judy” politics

2008-09-30T09:27:00.002Z

I caught part of the boy Dave being interviewed on Today this morning and was taken by the number of times he was accused of "playing party politics", sometimes referred to as being Punch and Judy politics. The implication is that somehow it is wrong in these difficult times to "play politics" and that the opposition should be supporting the Government in its efforts to sort out the problems.

That opinion is at best misguided and at worst down right dangerous. This implies that there is only one solution and the Government knows what it is. Well, there isn't one solution and even if there is it will be fraught with risks and dangers that we need to know about. Politicians of all parties cosying up to each other in the proverbial smoke filled room to agree whatever deal suits them is no way to work out how to deal with the mess we are in.

What we need is more Punch and Judy politics. We need the opposition to be ripping the heart out of Government plans and exposing the weaknesses and flaws, we need them point to the failures of Government and exposing weak ministers and their teams. There should be nowhere for incompetent ministers to hide. For all his arrogance this is exactly what Paxman does, and does well, and he was about the only effective opposition for about 5 years.

By doing this opposition will then be able to build their own case for their solutions, if indeed there is one. But if there isn't one we at least know that and go in to whatever solution is proposed for this mess with our eyes open.

And if the general public don't like it - tough. There is far too much at stake for simple niceties.

Official charged over lost secrets

2008-09-29T10:18:00.002Z

There is always a storm whenever data is lost and then all goes quiet as the issue is kicked in to the long grass of inquiries and internal reports. The suspicion is that these are just a cover up so that nobody is held to account.

It is therefore good to see that someone is being charged for a fairly serious loss of terror related data:

The Cabinet Office official who left top secret documents on a train in June is to be charged under the Official Secrets Act, the BBC has learned.

The individual was on secondment from the Ministry of Defence when he left two highly classified documents on a train to Waterloo

What really surprised me though was this response:

BBC defence correspondent Frank Gardner said the move came as a surprise to many in Whitehall.

Really? Someone subject to the Official Secrets Act (OSA) losses secret data and those in Whitehall are surprised. This must go to the heart of the attitude of the Civil Service to their duties and responsibilities. They seem to think that if us plebs make a mistake, lets say forgetting to declare all our income for tax purposes as a genuine oversight, then it OK for the full might of the state to come tumbling down on our heads. They also think its OK to send heavies round to a Director's house without warning to distress goods even when it was there mistake that got the tax bill wrong.

Yet they break the law and they are surprised! Why am I not surprised?

Lets be clear about this, people who work in sensitive areas are made fully aware of what the OSA entails. When I worked in some sensitive areas whilst in the Army the OSA was read out to us every 3 months, and it was made very clear that their would be no excuse for breaching it and the full force of the law would be applied if we did. Furthermore, I had to sign the OSA every year and also confirm in writing that I fully understood what I was signing and the consequences for breaching the Act.

If you don't want to be covered by the OSA all you have to do is say no and they will find you another posting.

So I have no sympathy for this person, they knew what their responsibilities were and by losing those documents broke the law. I hope they are punished severly, if found guilty, as a warning to others that we will not accept such lax behaviour with the security of the state.

And just in case you think those documents weren't important or that AQ isn't really a threat, that's not the point. The documents were covered under the OSA and should have been treated as such.

Let us not forget that these were "five eyes" secret ie information only to be shared between USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and ourselves. If the other countries lose confidence in our ability to keep this information secure then the source of a great deal of our intelligence could dry up.

Appropriate responses to new anti smoking pictures

2008-09-28T18:43:00.005Z

As someone who gave up smoking nearly 25 years ago I find the way the health industry and this Government attack smokers as absolutely appalling, and the ban on smoking in pubs was particularly nasty. I also think smokers are pretty stupid, but that's their choice.

I don't mind the government paying for research and telling us what is and isn't healthy, but that's where it should end. This latest round of hectoring is both insulting to smokers and none smokers and a complete waste of money.

The UK will next week become the first European country to introduce graphic images on cigarette packets to warn about the dangers of smoking.
The 15 different images will include pictures of a diseased lung and heart surgery being performed.

Its not as if these ever more garish tricks work, indeed I'll bet they make some smokers determined to continue out of spite. If they did work articles like this on the BBC would be littered with references to studies which showed success and we would be blinded by statistics. But all we get is a wishy-washy comment:

Canada became the first nation to use images in 2001 with surveys one year on showing a third of quitters had been motivated by the images.

Get that, they started this in 2001 in Canada and 12 months later 1/3 of quitters were "motivated" by the pictures. No reference to how many would have quit anyway and no mention of any follow up studies. That's 6 years of doing this and not one single number to show that it works, forgive my cynicism but I'll bet that not one study showed any benefit.

So I was heartened to see these responses from 2 bloggers who smoke.

From Raedwald we get a link to these wonderful cigarette box covers:
My addition would be "Smoking pisses off health fascists".

The other good post comes from the always entertaining Leg-Iron:

We know the risks. The mountain climber knows the risks. The paraglider knows the risks. Those who ride experimental jet packs know the risks. The guy who walks to the North Pole knows the risks. The folk who sail single-handed around the world know the risks.

We do it because we like it and are prepared to take the risk. Okay? It's our lives and we'll decide how to end them, not some Righteous Baroness and not some arrogant sod who thinks he/she/it knows best. Now go out there and get a real job.Go and read it all, its very good.

Anyway, to any smoker passing through you have my support in any action you may wish to take against the health fascists. I'm sure a few spare lamp posts could be found when we've finished with the politicians.

Suicide shouldn't be the punishment for bankers

2008-09-28T15:06:00.002Z

The City was in shock last night after the apparent suicide of a millionaire financier haunted by the pressures of dealing with the credit crunch.
Kirk Stephenson, who was married with an eight-year-old son, died in the path of a 100mph express train at Taplow railway station, Berkshire.

I felt for a few weeks that we need to see a few bankers facing public penury so that the rest of us can at least see that someone has paid for not only burning or pension funds but also for relying on our money to bail them out.

I say this not through some sense of schadenfreude, but more as a release for public frustration so that we can all then move on. Lets face it, the sight of bankers walking round in £1000 suits while we bail them out of the deep hole their greed has got our financial institutes in to. I know that no laws have been broken (or at least that we know of) but the sight of Ley and Ebbers getting their public comeuppance made us all feel a bit better - well it made me feel better.

However I wouldn't want to think that this desire would lead to anyone committing suicide; money just isn't that important.

PS I don't normally read the Mail, it was lying around at the half way house when I passed through during my golf round this morning and this story was on the front page.

PPS My heart goes out to his son, who must wondering what on earth he has done to deserve this.

Politicians should stay out of sport

2008-09-27T09:50:00.003Z

Yes, I know, they should stay out of our lives, period. But this is a subject that really winds me up.

Free-to-air TV sport reconsidered

The list of sporting events reserved for free-to-air television is to be reviewed, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said.

He told a Royal Television Society conference in London it was time to look at whether the right events were protected to serve the public interest.

The real question isn't that the right events are protected its why should any be protected. Its just rent seeking by the free to air channels who want the best bits without paying true market value or want us to pay for them on top of the BBC poll tax.

"It is because I believe in television's social role - its power to include and involve - that I continue to believe resolutely in the principle of a protected list of sporting events set by the government," he said.

What social role? The only one I can think of its part or the government's "loren orda" campaign to keep the prols off the street and maybe there wont be as many many muggings.

So why bring this up now? Well, there are 2 sports that seem to have got the BBC in particular wound up, test matches and England football.

In the case of the test matches Sky bid and won the rights. As part of the deal they have to allow highlights on free to air and we get about 45mins. However Jonathon Agnew has been (mis)using his position to slag off Sky and complain about live cricket not being on BBC. Forgetting that Sky gives us full uninterrupted play, something the BBC refuses to do, all of England's away games, 2 hours of replay and coverage of the domestic game.

But the killer is that that next year we have the Austrialians here for the Ashes tests. These are propbably the most attractive matches in cricket and its likely that next year there will be a real stink with the Govt getting it the neck because we can't all watch it "for free". Just think of that, politicians being unpopular? And we know what they do to avert that don't we? Yes, they dip in to our pockets as readers Burning Our Money will testify.

What people forget is that the BBC didn't even bid for the rights

The England and Wales Cricket board has attacked the BBC for failing to make any formal bid in the latest TV rights negotiations, after BSkyB retained all England home Test matches as part of a £300m deal that keeps live games off free-to-air TV until at least 2013.

So who will pay the ECB £300m to give the cricket to the BBC? yes, you and me. And then will everyone be happy for all BBC2's daytime schdule to be given over to test cricket 8 hours a day? I doubt it.

As to the football, this has blown up because not even the highlights of the Croatia Vs England match were on free to air TV. This wouldn't normally matter because England have been so poor that only masochists have bothered to watch, but on this occaision England somehow managed to win and there was a real storm.

So what can you do about this Andy? Maybe you missed the bit about this match being in Croatia and therefore it is up to Croatia's FA to sell their right to who the hell they like? Or maybe you have all become so arrogant you think you can steal the property rights of foreign companies as well as those of this this country?

Because that's what the list really means, by deciding which sports cannot sell their TV rights for what they are worth on the open market you are stealing them and giving them to someone who doesn't deserve them.

PS yes I am a sports fan and would love them all to be on free to air, I just don't think you, dear reader, should pay for my pleasures.