Last Andrew Marr show

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/dec/19/stay-classy-san-diego-andrew-marr-signs-off-bbc-anchorman

 

The BBC are losing a lot of journalists -  sad to see Marr moving on.

Intellectual slavery - Dominic Cummings blog post

I've been meaning to read some of Dominic Cummings over detailed blog posts.   Today I read the "call to arms" on about recruiting people to aid the decision making process.

https://dominiccummings.com/2020/01/02/two-hands-are-a-lot-were-hiring-data-scientists-project-managers-policy-experts-assorted-weirdos/

It's full of technical name drop and hubris.  I can see it creating quite a stifling intellectually fearful and constrained environment (probably the opposite of what he's thinking of).

I'm nowhere near ever reading any of those papers he continually cites - but it still provided a really hilarious read in some places.

It made me think of two things:

1. Who would want to work as an intellectual slave?
2. Every Sir Humphrey is going to be working overtime to stop this guy!

UK Afghan war effort commeration

If there is one thing I would rather this country do less well in it is pointless pagentary and state occasion such as this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31866944

I would sacrifice this to have a better, more capable, and cost effective defence, or better run public services.

So I'm sure no expense was spared here - unlike in the under funded Afghan operation.  Our general inability to run the operation in the early days has led to distrust from America - who we don't like to admit had to bail us out on some of the operation.

The sight of war criminal Blair and defence penny pinching Brown sitting next to each other just sickened me.  Brown is famously supposed to have balked at a request for more budget for the Afghan campaign by saying "we already spend a huge amount - why can't we fight two wars at once".

I also find it ridiculous that any political debate on defence spending always starts of praising our service men and women, without addressing the disgraceful way money is wasted on the budget.  For £36bn we do not get much bang for our buck.

Much of this is the political interference and companies like BAe having politicians over a barrel with the threat of job reductions if costs are not met in full.  We end up building expensive aircraft carriers with compromised designs with massive cost over runs - all in the name of protecting high skilled jobs at great expense.

Odds on Rifkind getting into the Lords?

I think it will probably still happen - he did not come across at all well in the dispatches programme.  Claiming as an MP that he is "self-employed" and that £67k was too small a salary to live on, hence the need to take on consultancies work.

Government bribes for older people

In the past few years successive UK government have had policies skewed toward older people (for older people read "active voters").

So things like:

1. Winter fuel allowance
2. Free bus travel
3. Free TV licence for over 75
4. NS&I pensioner bonds with market beating interest rates

All with no means testing.  This leaves younger people (read "unlikely to vote") struggling for things like living wage, help with travel costs, expensive childcare, and a housing crisis.

It is not fair and the bribery with tax payers money has to stop!

See related article - estimated cost £3bn:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31580520

Artic Convoy Medals

The long campaign has paid off, there will be a medal associated with the WWII arctic convoys:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20783362

I could never understand how it had taken so long, I have heard only a few descriptions of what conditions were like - these were volunteers whose efforts were conveniently forgotten post war.

Keeping the lights on

Christopher Booker always writes very good articles on the folly of UK energy policy, and this is a good example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9715919/Well-slash-your-bills-but-it-will-cost-you-more-says-Ed-Davey.html

Reading it gave me an idea, let's fast track the House of Commons onto the energy mix they are talking about - mainly wind power. The lights would go out at regular intervals, and maybe this would galvanize them into a more reliable policy!

Energy Policy - Nuclear Power

The building of new nuclear has proved challenging for the UK. The consortia are folding and we do not have the time left to build them.

But a ray of light from Hitachi:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20134735

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20137573

So we might now stand a chance of building them, without too much French intervention or restrictive practice...

Energy Policy

To more specialist areas of media this will not be news. But finally this week the risk of our enforced European energy policy were spelled out in harsh terms. The changes of power outage as we move to renewables and failing to provide enough backup power plants to replace older coal generators has gone from 1 in 3300 years to 1 in 12 years.

We've dragged our feet on commissioning new nuclear power is the one factor I can think of that has had some media coverage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19842401

There is one columnist I can think of, Christopher Booker who has been charting this sleep walking into energy shortages for a few years. He has some extreme views on climate change - which are sometimes hard to accept. But on energy policy I always feel he is correct.

Employment Law

Newsnight has had some good stories about the state of low pay employment for immigrants in Britain. They exposed the fact that Romanina/Bulgarian workers who are not allowed to work as full time employees are exploited by being classed as contract workers. This happens to the extent of mininum wage laws being broken by insisting that payment is for the number of rooms cleaned (the example cites Hotel work).

This has pushed out reputable companies who cannot compete on those terms and lets cleaning contracts go to companies who exploit this type of law.

Part of this is down to the out source culture and contract at cheapest price - the government could go a long way to fine the Hotels involved to ensure they source labour from appropriately run companies.

The frustrating thing is Britain is not short of employment legislation to outlaw this practice - and to provide some protection to these vulnerable workers. As always, typical of the Blair era, we made laws we had no intention or idea of how to enforce - just assuming that everyone would abide by them.

Tax Efficiency

It is hard not to feel a little sympathy for Jimmy Carr, caught using a dubious tax efficiency scheme - having himself used low tax paying corporate as part of his comedy routine. Giving us a sense he was "one of us", when in fact he was at the same game.

But the lesson learned here is to simplify the tax system, the simpler it is the less loop holes you will have to close! It was wrong of Cameron to name him directly, as he has found out many of his conservative party donors are doing similar or worse - and in the interest of fairness they should be named too.

Likening tax to a moral issue is highly dubious though, the real annoyance here is the rich being able to use mechanisms that are never available to the ordinary person - who ends up footing most of the tax bill.

Budget U turns

Some of the more ridiculous micro management in the recent budget have been withdrawn amongst all the noise of the Jubilee celebrations. The dead in the water pasty tax, the ill thought out charitable donations limitations.

In all gives the feel of a government not thinking things through, and perhaps over pre-occupied with things that do not help the country - smoothing through the News Corp take over of Sky springs to mind.

So is it time to start remembering why you got put into power, forget the short termism and self interest and perhaps do something that the country might remember you for!

Equitable Life

My first pension scheme was with my first serious employer, a small computer consultancy who proclaimed they were "The Future of Computing Technology". A nice company, but if this was the future then computing had no future.

They did not contribute much to their pension scheme I think 1-2% so I resolved to put some money in myself over the 2.5 years I was there. I very conscientiously read all the literature and worked out the predictions and thought it was not a bad investment if it worked out.

Of course this was slighty before 2000, when Equitable were closed to new business because they are insolvent due to promises made to guarantee annuities rates to certain 1960s investors. When they withdrew this they were taken to court by policy holders and lost, which it turn caused the collapse of the society.

What followed was a 10 year farce where the government wriggled and squirmed to avoid paying out any compensation, as the FSA were clearly not on top of the finanical position of the society. For me the high point of this was the statement in the House of Commons by Ruth Kelly (a Labour MP who rose quickly through the Blair ranks) who said there "was no evidence whatsoever of any failure on the part of the FSA".

Well she is in the Lords now for some reason, and today I received my compensation of £400 (scaled back from £1600 to be affordable). I really feel for the people who had an entire working life of pension contributions with these guys.

Fred Goodwin to lose title

There were two reasons why he possibly should have kept it:

1. As a memory of the countries collective folly over a "golden economic age", when it was really banks like RBS over leveraging to destruction (theirs and ours)

2. A new "high bar" of what does it take to lose a knighthood

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16821650

But overall a sensible decision, it has taken long enough!

2012 A New Year

The politicians are already setting the expectation that this is another tough year for European countries. David Cameron who previously was hoping 2011 would be the turnaround year, having to admit that this is some way off.

It is important to keep perspective, but government cuts are going to bite harder this year - as they wrestle with overspend versus economic investment for the future.

The housing benefit caps will start to appear, and it is not clear whether having such high claims (in London in particular) was paying the market rate, or creating a distorted market where landlords were charging over the odds because they knew the government would pay up. Either way it is no consolation for those who are having to vacate, the news had an example today of a £2000 a month property in London that was nothing more than a modest mid terrace block house. Lack of affordable housing is a continuing problem that we've ignored for too long.

What affordable housing there is, the government is now promising to make sub-letting illegal and force people on good wages to pay market rates. This is a story recycled from earlier in the year, but progress on this would free up housing to the most needy.

Managing Decline

Some papers from the Thatcher government call for the "managed decline" of Liverpool in the 1980s after the Toxteth riots. This is depressing reading, good that it never came to that - but it does show that it was being considered, in an effort of where best to focus resources.

Funny that Heseltine (clearly unloved even then), was sent as "minister for Merseyside" to help paper over things. Looking back the picture may have been depressing but Liverpool has been regenerated in parts - but it does serve as a warning as we are probably in a similar situation with a government which has over extended to cover undeserving banks leaving little for regional development (something which would serve many more people).

Osborne finds some levers

When they came to power Osborne said it was not as if he had some levers he could pull in his office to get economic growth, it was down to the people of the country and businesses to provide it.

Well he seems to have found some levers now, infrastructure investment, loans to smaller companies. All sounds good in principle, it's a shame governments do not think of doing more of this even in the good times.

The spectre of PFI deals looms over us though, a financial trick that allows outside private firms to earn interest payments off public funded developments - with advisors from private firms working in the treasury sounds like another scandal waiting to break

NHS procurement spending

Interesting File on 4 documentary about the NHS procurement and how money could be saved by collective purchasing by groups of hospitals. Of course cheapest does not always mean best quality, but the documentary was pointing out huge price variation for the same item or over complex stocking of medical items that could be simplified. But it is good such efficiencies are being bought to the forefront, getting more for what is spent will mean a frozen health budget would be able to go further. There is also the question of specialist equipment like operating tables, where the sales of such items are done by reps direct to surgeons who are performing the operations - an argument can be made that bulk purchasing may not be the best option. Maybe such items can still be bought this way, if the other basics are more cheaply sourced. The programme ended on the decision to make more hospitals foundation trusts and would this lose such group purchasing.

Ed Miliband conference speech

I saw the conference speech highlights and the Andrew Marr interview. Nothing really to commend him as a leader I'm afraid. The attempt to admit mistakes is at least laudable, although with Ed Balls as chancellor - you'd feel like it was Laurel and Hardy you were watching, and knowing there are more mishaps to come. Perhaps the best bit of the speech was "I'm not Tony Blair, I'm not Gordon Brown" And you're not David Milband either...

Banking Regulation

The government has announced the release of a report that decides what should be done to the banking sector to limit future risk. All good things like how much ready capital to keep in reserve, and ring fencing of investment and consumer banking. All to be implemented by, er, 2019. Is that soon enough, or will this just get forgotten as we are prepared to forgo safety for some economic growth.