Charles' Column

On hold

2010-03-08T00:50:00.003Z

I am increasingly sick of Blogger and all its ungainly flaws, so I am testing out the competition.

If you want to continue following my posts, the new blog is here.

Spending on "our" troops

2010-03-06T17:34:00.000Z

There has been some agitation in the mainstream media over a 'spat' (or 'row' as it is also delightfully exaggerated into) between retired armchair generals and Gordon Brown.

I would just like to make the following remarks on the situation:

Being the Ministry of Defence does not give you carte blanche to spend the taxpayers money, regardless of your cause. You are given a budget and you are expected to stick to it.
The MoD appears to have used a complicated accounting trick to enhance their budget which the Treasury caught on to and consequently vetoed. Because of this, the MoD effectively overbudgeted/overspent. Due to the overspend, the MoD was forced to make cuts in something, because they were short on cash. This could have been anything, from troop numbers to pension fund payouts. The Generals at the time (who are mysteriously quiet on the issue) decided that since (as is inevitable with the armed forces) they were defending their own service branch individually, the cuts would have to come from a joint budget. The axe fell accordingly on the helicopter budget. The consequent shortages of helicopters were the fault of the Generals and Civil Servants and probably the Ministers in the MoD. It was not the fault of the then Chancellor.
It is a reasonable policy for the government to provide a basic level of kit for its troops. For soldiers to buy better boots or sleeping bags because they find their standard issue kit uncomfortable or inadequate to their needs is not a failing of the government.
To blame the current budgetary situation on spending decisions that were made 10 years ago is silly.
Being the head of the army 9 years ago makes you no more informed on the situation than anybody else. (Charles Guthrie, Chief of Defence Staff until 2001, is one of the leading critics)
The Stategic Defence Review of 1998, undertaken by Generals (indeed the very generals now springing out of the woodwork) failed to anticipate any of the next 10 years' defence requirements and if anything this is the cornerstone of the defence budgetary problems.

Bee Have Your

2010-03-05T23:19:00.000Z

Given the recent hoo-hah over Gordon Brown's (alleged) behavioural issues, I found this paragraph weirdly insightful. It's from Chris Mullin's Diaries (A View from the Foothills):

Tuesday 14 December 1999
There is a barely concealed contempt among both civil servants and ministers for his absolute lack of management skills, his inability to see wood for trees and his flat refusal to listen to anything anyone is telling him. Deep down I am sure he too, realises that he is out of his depth. That accounts for the tantrums. It was the same with Neil Kinnock, who is much nicer now he is back in a job he can do.

This passage was written about John Prescott, although I do think it is an interesting possible parallel about our current PM's behaviour. I think that Gordon Brown is much less likely to behave like this now that he has some real experience of the top job, and the stress of the financial crisis has now disappeared, but in the dark days of 2007-2008, who knows?

Simulator

2010-03-04T16:32:00.001Z

Is delayed while I tweak it a bit :)

General Election simulator

2010-03-01T08:36:00.000Z

Yes, it's that time of the ... erm, year? I don't know. Anyhow, it's General Election season very soon and I'm sure you're all sick of this stuff by now. Well, just to make sure, I have something that will!

The perennial problem with predicting general elections is the fact that we use incredibly outdated technology to predict them. Yes, I'm talking about the Uniform Swing Calculator.

Why? Because, as the name suggests, it assumes that all Constituencies behave in the same uniform way throughout the country. Now, don't get me wrong, this was all fine and very useful 30 years ago, when we had effectively a two party system. In fact, it was highly accurate - you could see how much swing there was in the first constituencies declared, and you had a good idea of how the whole general election was going to edge out.

But in today's country, with Nationalist parties, devolved legislatures, an active and partly-influential third party, it's not as accurate as it once was.

OK, so enough whinging. Today I am unveiling my own General Election predictor, so you're hardly expecting me to be singing the praises of the model I'm trying to replace. It doesn't use swing, and it doesn't assume similar relationships in every constituency. I take an entirely different approach.

I'll spare you the full technical details, (you can find them here) but here's the quick outline:

We assume that for each party in every constituency there exists a function that converts the national share of the vote into a local constituency vote. Obviously the winner of the constituency election is the person with the highest constituency vote. The picture shows two sample seats, the first a Labour safe seat, the second, a marginal "truel" (three-way duel), where all three main parties stand a reasonable chance of getting elected.

Liverpool, Walton (Labour won this with a majority of 66% in 1997)

Watford, one of Bunnco's "M1 Truels"

To determine what this function is, we look at the previous election data and see how the constituency has performed under previous electoral cycles. Of course, we can't model this function perfectly. However, we can do it to a fairly high level of accuracy (less than 2%). To predict how the seat will behave at the next election, we input the latest national poll ratings and using the functions, determine the local vote shares, and hence the winner. On an entirely deterministic basis, the model behaves similarly to a Uniform Swing calculation. However, we're not quite done yet.

To call the election, the model simply aggregates how every seat behaves and provides the total. However, this is not necessarily going to be the actual outcome - there is a high level of uncertainty, especially in this election cycle, with the expenses scandal and the record breaking number of MPs who are standing down.

To accommodate for his, I then add an error into the calculations and simulate what would happen if we had 10,000 elections. This allows us to build up a series of probabilities about what is likely to happen at the general election. The picture below is the histogram showing the likelihood of different Conservative seat wins.

Anyhow, enough of the pretty pictures. I intend to be publishing predictions on a weekly basis, so check back to this blog on a regular basis!

The immigration debate

2010-02-28T22:28:00.002Z

The BBC a few nights ago aired a programme presented by Evan Davis called "The Day the Immigrants Left" (available till 3rd March 2010).

I found the programme very interesting. Many employers had employed British workers originally but found them to be more unreliable and less motivated than the migrant workers, and had over time, switched to the superior 'product', if you will. It was also revealed that the higher productivity of migrant workers tends to create jobs rather than 'steal' them, as companies can translate the extra profits from migrant workers into expanding. This in turn creates more skilled jobs, as you start to have more managers.

It also got me thinking about my views on immigration. If you'd previously asked me what my views were on immigration, I would have probably said 'let them in' on the basis of the economic benefits outlined above, if anything at all.

I'd like to approach the issue from an economic, rather than sociological angle.

Let's assume we have two countries A and B. A is a developed country with industry and services, B is a developing country with more agriculture. Let's say that in at t0 (the initial position) there are no immigrants in either country and that the borders are sealed, perfectly so.

If both countries open their borders, the higher real wage level in A will attract workers from B. At t1, A will experience a population boom while B will suffer a population drain. The natural consequence of this is that real wages in the two countries in the same sector will equalise. This in turn will mean that the populations in both countries will equalise.

Now what I have just outlined is a very simplistic 'perfect' model. Let's introduce a few imperfections:

Transport costs exist between the two nations which are high.
There is a gap between what people percieve the nation to be and what it actually is. In this instance, B looks unattractive for workers of A and A looks like the land of milk and honey to inhabitants of B.
There is little to no information transfer from A to B.
The presence of manufacturing in A with increasing returns to scale has an upward pressure on real wages.
In A there is a minimum wage which prevents real wages from declining beyond a specific level.

Again now at t0, the borders are sealed perfectly and there is a substantial real wage gap between A and B. Now at t1, we can still expect the large initial influx of the most wealthy and enterprising immigrants (poorer immigrants cannot afford the transport costs). However, there is no downward pressure on real wages in A, if anything, they rise even more quickly. At t2, this increased real wage level from the higher productivity of migrant workers means that it becomes more cost effective for more inhabitants of B to emigrate to A. Thus, the flow of immigration from B to A stays constant.

So at t2, rather than real wages equalising in A and B by real wages in A declining from increased supply of labour and decreased supply of labour in B, real wages diverge. There is a brain drain and a population drain from B to A.

At t2, there is a 'crowding out' of A's labour by their more efficient migrant B labour. However, those in A who have been put out of a job do not and cannot travel to B to find jobs because they perceive the country to be an unattractive place to live and they cannot afford the transport costs.

At t3, we find that the large migrant population in A is facing poor public services, poor housing and generally terrible quality of life, as while their wages in A are more than they would earn in B they are less than the average worker earns in A. Additionally, migrants have a high rate of saving/low rate of consumption as they feel obliged to send a large proportion of the money back to B. However, the information gap between perception and reality does not deter migrants moving from B to A.

Furthermore at t3, the lower quality of life and affluence means that the population grows more quickly in B than it does in A. So at t3, there is an equilibrium of population growth between the two countries, as the higher population growth in B is negated by the net emigration to A.

In other words, there is a market failure caused by transport costs, cultural differences and information failure that causes an oversupply of labour in A. This causes enormous social pressure on A, an underclass in A of both migrants and unemployed inhabitants who suffer serious privation, and it also causes an underdevelopment (compared to potential growth at t0) for B. While there is a capital transfer from A to B in the form of savings sent back by immigrants, this potential investment cannot translate into the higher productivity necessary for economic development because of the drain in productive workers from B to A.

This market failure justifies the government to control either the rate or the balance of migrant workers. By imposing a cap or some other form of 'bottleneck' in the flow of migration to balance both the rate of population absorption in A and the rate of savings accumulation in B with the rate of migration flow, the government in A can reduce social friction and other domestic problems while also allowing B to develop more quickly than it might otherwise do so.

Therefore, the government is compelled to intervene in the migration market and a 'hands-off' approach is unacceptable.

--------

Is this a fair analysis? Have I missed something? Is there a flaw in my argument? Comment below.

An incredibly stupid and off-the-cuff calculation

2010-02-26T01:37:00.000Z

Because I'm weird and like doing random experiments, here's a calculation I did this afternoon.

The question is: how long would it take a monkey (ie random character generator) to type Macbeth?

Ok - so first of all how long is Macbeth? This source says it's 106,691 characters long (with spaces).

Now I've figured that the number of combinations for a given length of characters is equal to characters^length. (If you think that a PIN number is 4 digits long and has 10 combinations (1 to 9 plus zero), it will have 10^4 or 10,000 combinations. A quick check is that there are 9999 +1 [0000] combinations which equals 10,000)

On a standard keyboard you have 101 characters, which means that if my monkey typed 106,691 random characters there would be 106691^101 possible combinations. Now, Macbeth is one specific combination (so is Catcher in the rye, etc). This means that typing Macbeth exactly is a One in 106691^101 probability, or 1/106691^101.

To therefore be certain of the production of Macbeth, I would have to have my monkey type out 106691 random characters 106691^101 times, which can be written as 106691*106691^101, which simplifies to 106691^102.

Now, from this site I found the average typing speed of a person is 40 words per minute, and from this site I found the average word length is 5.1 characters for the English language. From this I calculate the average word typing speed is 3.4 characters per second. And since my monkey is very average, let's assume thats how many characters he generates per second.

So the number of seconds required to be sure of the production of Macbeth by random monkey generation is equal to 106691^102/3.4 or in (more realistically!) years 106691^102/(3.4*60*60*24*365).

Now, excel simply dies when confronted with such a large number so its time to whip out something a leetle bit more powerful. Using Sage, effectively an open source version of Mathematica/MathWorld, (which can easily be used online here) my computer determined:

It would take

2,981,984,615,327,127,781,174,094,208,068,296,384,675 (times 10^473) seconds or

68,984,039,297,131,654,432,839,053,490 (times 10^476) years

for one monkey to produce Macbeth for sure.

It would take

1,380,722,936,908,484,574,876,908,237,633,256,377 (times 10^440)

years for the entire human race to perform the same feat.

Considering the universe in its entirety has only been around for 1.35 times 10^9, that there are approximately 10^80 atoms in the universe and 10^128 possible combinations on a chess board, that is a hell of a long time.

Just in case you ever wondered.

Today PMQs Score

2010-02-24T14:40:00.003Z

Gordon Brown 1, David Cameron 0.

Nick Clegg -2.

Update:Having seen the MSM reporting of PMQs, I have no choice but to reverse the score to GB 0, DC 1 on the basis that 90% of people will have seen a favourable selection to DC.

How previous PMs did it, and did it well

2010-02-24T03:57:00.002Z

There has been a torrent of commentary since the first serialisation of Andrew Rawnsley's book, "The end of the party", over allegations that Gordon Brown is a bully. Points have been scored, journalists have been spun, Pratts have prattled and polls have been picked over.

A handful of some of my favourite blogs have, in light of various aspects of this frenzy, been remarking on how previous chief executives carried out their duties of office.

John Rentoul, political editor of The Independent, looked down upon David Cameron's calls for an inquiry on the affair and drew an interesting perpendicular (well, what is the opposite of a parallel?) to Harold Wilson.

... it was of David Cameron to demean himself by commenting on "Prime Minister occasionally loses temper" stories. I bumped into Peter Kellner, president of YouGov, this morning, who said that when Harold Wilson thought it inadvisable to say anything, he would say: "No comment." If he were pressed by journalists eager even then to fill space, he would say: "No comment, in Technicolor."

Events Dear Boy (AKA Howard Denton), who did the original looking-down-upon that John Rentoul responded to above, notes that this quote was raised in the context of the Profumo Affair. EDM also brings out a few other Wilson gems:

...Wilson did the spin himself.

As a reminder, this is one of Wilson’s more famous quotes, made at the time of an attempted coup:

May I say, for the benefit of those who have been carried away by the gossip of the last few days, that I know what's going on. [pause] I'm going on, and the Labour government's going on.

It killed the plot stone dead.

While we are on all matters Wilson, there is something else.

As the story goes, Wilson would make his annual trip to see HMQ at Balmoral to coincide with the start of the Tory conference. To disrupt proceedings at the seaside, Wilson would feed a few trusted journalists that he was seeking a dissolution. It worked a treat.

EDB also picks up on about how Tony Blair carried himself in the current crisis:

Tony Blair was asked on the BBC World Service's World Today programme about the way prime ministers treated their staff:
Well I think I know what you're referring to and I honestly have absolutely nothing to say about that at all.

Former leaders of the Labour party know what they are doing, unlike the other lot.

The FT's Westminster blog thinks that all this talk of bullying is pretty weak when compared to Lyndon Johnson's "treatment".

[H]e filled himself to overflowing, as if the body, big as it was, could not contain the emotions, and they blazed out of his eyes, made one of his arms grab his listener’s lapel to hold the man close, while he tried to persuade him, made a forefinger jab into the man’s chest, made his face push into his auditor’s, forcing the other man’s head back, as if to physically insert the arguments into it — getting closer also to ascertain if the arguments were working. “I want to see ‘em, feel ‘em, smell ‘em,” he said — he wanted his hands on them as he spoke to them.

Links for today

2010-02-24T03:12:00.004Z

The FT has this excellent set of profile s for the Conservative Shadow Cabinet, and their key advisers.
Lobbydog envisages how Gordon Brown prepares for PMQs.
Brad DeLong has the fascinating tale of how a British cruiser managed to "sink", in a war-games exercise, an American aircraft carrier (despite its formidable escort) by pretending to be a civilian cruise liner. This is perhaps a colourful demonstration of why it is so hard to properly protect civilians in warzones.
Brad DeLong also fights bullshit perpetuated by right-wing US think tankers, who oppose the use of fiscal policy to stimulate the economy on the grounds of ... well, let's just say it makes no sense.
The New Yorker carries a long (but interesting) profile of Paul Krugman's politics. Turns out his wife is a radicalising influence.
BBC Newsnight continues to prove its undying worth and status as the best source of quality news in the UK today. Jeremy Paxman taking apart Andrew Rawnsley's books (available until 2nd Feb 2010) is a gripping cross examination, and the programme's whole approach to the scandal sets itself apart from the rest of the mainstream media.

Quote of the day - David Miliband, outsourced to John Rentoul:

I recognise the Tory difficulty. We faced it after 1994. You need to reassure people you are not a risk; and you need to offer change. But while we promised evolution not revolution in the short term, like sticking to Tory spending limits, we offered a platform for radical change in the medium to long term, from the minimum wage to school investment. Cameron’s got himself facing the other way round. The heart insisted on radical change in the short term – cuts in inheritance tax for the richest estates, a marriage tax allowance, immediate cuts in public spending, bring back fox hunting. But after that, the head gives the impression that it really doesn’t know what to do, other than press pause on reform, offer a £1 million internet prize for the best policy ideas, and then go off and play with the Wii. They have managed the unique feat of being so determined to advertise pragmatism that they have completely obliterated any medium term vision to their politics, while cleaving to short term commitments that leave the impression they are ideological zealots. It’s the precise opposite of the New Labour approach in the 1990s.

Andrew Rawnsley's book, now being made into a film

2010-02-23T23:39:00.002Z

It seems this Taiwanese news channel is attempting to do such a thing, in a political homage to Toy Story.

Animations of Gordon Brown hitting people and throwing secretaries are shown, with hilarious sound effects.

From New Statesman

Iain Dale

2010-02-22T05:28:00.002Z

In light of this, maybe Iain Dale would benefit from learning of this old adage of Usenet:

Godwin's law - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
...
There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress.

Dusting off

2010-02-22T04:45:00.002Z

*Cough* *Cough* Does this thing still work?

Seeing as I use the blogosphere so much for information and entertainment, I thought I might as well start giving something back.

This is the second, maybe third relaunch, so here's to hoping that I actually keep this up.

The Goldstone Report & Israel

2009-10-16T16:25:00.005+01:00

Today the UN Human Rights Council backed a highly controversial report into the conflict in Gaza in 2008 between Israel and Palestine. The 575 page report, authored by a panel consisting of :

Richard Goldstone, South African Judge and Former Prosecutor to the International Tribunals on the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda,
Christine Chitkin, Professor of International Law at the LSE,
Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan,
Desmond Travers, former Colonel in the Irish Army and director of the Institute of International Criminal Investigations

has been accused of bias and one-sidedness by Israel. Now first off, I am intrigued to see how a panel of four people from very different backgrounds could hold such a bias against Israel. They don't all appear to be left-leaning liberal hippies.

According to the report, the panel conducted 188 interviews, reviewed 300 submitted documents amounting to 10,000 pages and 1200 photographs and 30 videos in evidence. The panel's representatives also travelled to the area to inspect the situation first-hand. So they didn't rush into making a decision either.

Another thing to take into account is the vote on this report. 25 countries voted for (including Russia and China), 6 countries (including the US and Israel) voted against, and 17 countries (including France and the UK) did not vote or abstained.

If the report was so biased, why did the EU mostly abstain and why did such non-Israel-hating countries such as Brazil and Argentina vote for? This wasn't the Arab countries attempting to sucker-punch Israel (although that may have constituted a part of it), it was the West heavily divided and unsure over the report and over Israel's conduct. I think the fact that Israel only managed to command the support of 4 other countries (apart from the US) speaks volumes about this incident.

So what did the report say that was so inflammatory? In fact, what did the report say at all? (What follows are not exhaustive lists)

Facts and Findings

Israel deployed its forces to Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009.
The number of Palestinians killed in the conflict is between 1387 and 1417.
During this time, 4 Israelis died from mortars and rockets and 9 Israeli soldiers died from the fighting in Gaza.
The Israeli government destroyed the buildings of the Palestinian Legislature and Main Prison in Gaza. The Report rejects the allegation from Israel that these were part of the Hamas terrorist infrastructure and finds Israel to be in violation of International Law that prohibits military forces attacking non-military objectives.
240 policeman, around 1/6th of Palestinian casualties were killed by Israel, and the police were deliberately targeted by the Israeli military on the grounds that in Israel's eyes, the Palestinian Police constitute a military force.
The report finds that whilst some Hamas operatives are members of the police force, the Gaza police is a civilian organisation, and thus it did not lose its civilian legal protection. The report accepts that some policeman may have entered into combat, but it says that the deliberate targeting, including the mortaring of a police station that killed 24 people, did not constitute a reasonable balance between preventing military advantage and protecting civilians. Thus it concludes that Israel violated International Law.
Palestinian armed groups were present in Gaza during the conflict, and launched rockets during the conflict. The report finds no evidence that Palestinian combatants exploited civilians to their military advantage.
The report finds no evidence that Palestinian groups used hospitals to shield military operatives. The report also finds no evidence that Palestinian combatants used UN facilities as bases of operations. However, the report accepts that combat may have occurred in the immediate vicinities of these buildings.
Israel actively tried to warn Palestinian civilians to leave the areas it was about to attack. However, the report notes that the effectiveness of these warnings was substantially undermined by the actions of the Israeli Military, including lack of specific details in warnings and urging civilians to move to areas that had already been bombed. The report believes the practice of 'roof-knocking', where light explosives are dropped on houses as a warning, is ineffective and is a form of attack on civilians.
The attack on a UN WRA building, sheltering 600-700 civilians and containing large fuel stores, by Israel was dangerous and a violation of International Law.
The attack on the Al Quds and Al Wafa Hospitals in Gaza City with White Phosphorous by Israel was intentional and purposely directed at the buildings. Both instances were a violation of International Law protecting civilians.
Israeli forces shelled the al-Fakura junction in Jabalya, next to which was a UN WRA school, housing 1300 people, resulting in 35 civilian deaths. The report states that the attack to kill a small number of individuals in the middle of a busy town centre did not meet the test of creating military gain proportionate to the civilian deaths, and therefore is a violation of International Law.
The Israeli Military undertook 11 direct attacks on civilians, resulting in deaths. In all but one of these cases, the report finds that they were unjustified. These incidents include shelling of houses and shooting of civilians in the streets. All of these incidents occurred when the Israeli Military was in control of the area. The report finds that these situations were aggravated by the refusal of the Israeli Military to permit ambulances to the scene.
Israel attacked a mosque with a missile whilst prayers were being held, killing 15, and fired flechette munitions at a tent, killing 5. The report finds that these attacks were intentional.
The report believes that the threshold for use of lethal force against civilians was extremely low on Israel's part.
From all of the above, the report finds that the Israeli Military is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention pertaining to wilful killings and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons. The report believes this gives rise to individual criminal responsibility.
Israel used white phosphorous in the conflict. Whilst this is not illegal, the report finds that Israel's use of this weapon in built up areas was "systematically reckless". The report condemns the use of White Phosphorous and Flechette Munitions in urban environments in general.
Israel attacked and destroyed the only working flour mill in Gaza. The report finds the specific targeting of this building was to disable its productive capacity and was not militarily justifiable. The report concludes that this amounts to a war crime by violating the Fourth Geneva Convention. The report also believes that the attack was carried out to deny the civilian population of sustenance, which is also a violation of International Law.
Armed bulldozers operated by the Israeli Military destroyed a large chicken farm in Gaza, killing 31,000 chickens. The report says there is no military justification for this either, and draws the same legal conclusions as of the flour mill.
Israel attacked the Gaza sewage treatment facility, causing 200,000 litres of raw sewage to flow into farmland. The report believes that the fact the plant was hit by multiple air strikes in one day mean it could only be a deliberate attack. There was no military justification for this attack. Because drinking water is a necessity, the report draws the same conclusions as of the flour mill.
The Israeli military attacked civilan housing. Using UN satellite photos, the report concludes that this attack could only be deliberate and systematic, and finds this a violation of International law.
Based on interviews with Israeli soldiers, the report concludes that the Israeli Military handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian civilians, and then used them as human shields. The report notes that this practice has continued despite a ruling from the Israeli High Court for this practice to stop. The report concludes that this is a violation of International Law.
The report finds that Israel detained civilians for extended periods of time with no due cause, and held them in conditions that violated their human rights. The report finds that these arbitrary detentions were systematic and designed to intimidate. The report concludes that this amounts to a serious breach of the Geneva Conventions and thus a war crime.
The report finds that the Israeli actions or mistakes were the result of deliberate planning and policy decisions. These are consistent with the "Dahiya doctrine", implemented in the Lebanon war of 2006. This doctrine states that Israel should use disproportionate force and destroy large amounts of civilian infrastructure.
The report believes that these policy decisions are worrying, most of all the transformation of most of Gaza's civilian population into legitimate military targets. The report believes this was done to fulfil a political rather than military goal.
Israel blockaded the Gaza strip, causing economic problems, such as increased unemployment, lower industrial production and higher poverty. The report finds that Israel destroyed a large amount of the economic infrastructure through its military actions. This will cause increased food insecurity in coming months.
The supply of humanitarian goods into Gaza during the conflict increased, however, it was insufficient then and has now decreased down to pre-conflict levels. Due to this insufficient aid and the blockade, the report believes that Israel violated Human Rights Laws.
The report finds that the Israeli government intentionally acted to punish the populace of Gaza. The report therefore concludes that this is a violation of Humanitarian Law. The report also concludes that there is sufficient evidence to support the case that the actions of Israel may amount to crimes against humanity.
An Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was captured in 2006 by a Palestinian armed group. The report believes that he qualifies for prisoner-of-war status and thus should be protected accordingly.
Members of the Palestinian Opposition Party, Fatah, were targeted by Palestinian Security Forces under the control of Hamas after the conflict in a manner that was both politically motivated and deliberately targeted. The report finds that the actions of the Security Services violate both Palestinian Law and Human Rights Law.
During the conflict, Israeli forces inside the West Bank used excessive force devoid of normal checks and balances, including sniper fire and live ammunition, to control protesters. The report finds that little to no action has been taken against Israeli soldiers who have killed or committed violence against Palestinians.
Since the beginning of the conflict, approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. At the 1st of June 2009, there were 8,000 political prisioners held in Israel. All of the prisoners have been tried under a military court system similar to that of the military commissions used in Guantanamo Bay. Israel has also arrested 65 members of the Palestinian Legislature, mostly Hamas members. This has meant the Palestinian Legislature has been unable to sit. The report finds that these detentions are arbitrary, without due cause and in violation of human rights laws. Therefore, it may amount to collective punishment contrary to Humanitarian Law
Israel has instituted a series of movement and travel restrictions in the West Bank. During the conflict, these restrictions increased, including a complete closure of the West Bank for several days.

Recommendations
The report recommends:

The Human Rights Council endorses and implements the report's findings.
The HRC refer the matter to the Security Council, to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the Human Rights Treaty Organisations and to the General Assembly.
The Security Council compel Israel to investigate the allegations of illegal actions, and inform the Security Council of all its progress in this regard.
The Security Council to establish a panel of experts to monitor Israel's progress and the progress of the Gaza Government.
If Israel fails to undertake what is requested, the Security Council refer Israel to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for trial.
If the Gaza government fails to comply with its requests, the Security Council refer the Gaza Government to the International Criminal Court for trial.
Non-cooperation by the Gaza Government or Israel to be regarded as obstruction of justice.
The General Assembly remain appraised of the situation, and if necessary, consider whether to overrule the Security Council or undertake additional action in the interests of justice.
The General Assembly establish a fund to recompense people who have suffered loss or damage from unlawful acts by the state of Israel during the conflict, and that Israel pays appropriate amounts into the fund.
The government of Switzerland to reconvene the conference of the Geneva Conventions to enforce the law of the Geneva Conventions.
That the use of white phosphorous, flechettes and heavy metal weapons cease by Israel in light of the situation.
Israel lift its blockade of Gaza.
The Israeli Military review its rules of engagement in light of the situation.
Israel permit freedom of movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and East Jerusalem for all Palestinians.
Israel release all Palestinians detained during the conflict.
Israel cease interfering in Palestine's political process, including by releasing all members of the Palestinian Legislature.
Israel cease actions designed to limit criticism of its policies in the Gaza Strip, and review whether judicial action against protesters was discriminatory.
Israel refrain from reprisals against those who have cooperated with the report.
Israel reiterate its respect for the UN and its personnel and facilities, and take action to ensure that the UN is not attacked again.
Palestinian armed groups renounce violence on Israeli Civilians and Civilian property.
Palestinian armed groups release Gilad Shalit on humanitarian grounds. Pending this, the report recommends he be recognised properly as a prisioner-of-war.
The Palestinian Authorities issue guidelines to the security services under its command to abide by Human Rights Law.
The Palestinian Authorities release all political prisoners.
The Palestinian Authorities allow the free work of NGOs.
Member States set up trials under universal jurisdiction clauses of the Geneva Convention to bring war criminals to justice.
International aid providers increase aid to Palestine.
That all involved parties negotiate towards providing peace in the region.

It is interesting to note that even in the summary of the report, it says "Due to the lack of cooperation from the Israeli Government, the Mission was unable to meet members of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank" and "The Mission repeatedly sought to obtain the cooperation of the Government of Israel. After numerous attempts had failed, the Mission sought and obtained the assistance of the Government of Egypt to enable it to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing." Furthermore "By refusing to cooperate with the Mission, the Government of Israel prevented it from meeting Israeli government officials, but also from travelling to Israel to meet with Israeli victims and to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian Authority representatives and Palestinian victims."

From what the report finds and recommends, I can see why Israel feels the report is one sided. It does focus enormously on Israel's actions over those of the Palestinian terrorists. But the reason for this is not in my mind bias. The reason is that the Israeli government, as the government of a state rather than a terrorist organisation running a legal anomaly, has a greater responsibility. As the invading army, it has more legal problems to deal with than a bunch of terrorists running around the Gaza Strip. In fact, terrorism in most instances is an issue for the internal government - not international bodies like the UN.

Furthermore, as the above paragraph highlights, it has been clear from the start that Israel has no intention whatsoever of trying to establish a fair and unbiased enquiry - for whatever reason - because surely if you want to encourage a balanced report, the last thing in the world you do is block the access of the people writing the report to see Israeli victims and thus deny alternate views from being heard!

So from what I can gather, the report is fair-ish and reasonably balanced. I think it goes too far in some areas, especially the war crimes bits and tries to exaggerate some instances of Israeli persecution, but on the whole it does the right thing. Therefore, it was right of the UN Human Rights Council to approve the report and right of Britain not to vote against it. There are merits to both sides of the case, but what is certain is that Israel has to be the good guy first, and by that I mean act in accordance with the Law and without impunity. This has to be done before we can deal with Hamas. Policies such as destroying "100 homes for every rocket" are completely unacceptable.

Those Top 10 Worst Bible Quotes

2009-09-02T21:40:00.002+01:00

According to the Christian website, shipoffools.com, here are the top 10 worst bible quotes of all time:

No. 1:St Paul’s advice about whether women are allowed to teach men in church:

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (1 Timothy 2:12)

No. 2: In this verse, Samuel, one of the early leaders of Israel, orders genocide against a neighbouring people:

“This is what the Lord Almighty says... ‘Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” (1 Samuel 15:3)

No. 3: A command of Moses:

“Do not allow a sorceress to live.” (Exodus 22:18)

No. 4: The ending of Psalm 137, a psalm which was made into a disco calypso hit by Boney M, is often omitted from readings in church:

“Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us – he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” (Psalm 137:9)

No. 5: Another blood-curdling tale from the Book of Judges, where an Israelite man is trapped in a house by a hostile crowd, and sends out his concubine to placate them:

“So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight. When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, ‘Get up; let’s go.’ But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.” (Judges 19:25-28)

No. 6: St Paul condemns homosexuality in the opening chapter of the Book of Romans:

“In the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” (Romans 1:27)

No. 7: In this story from the Book of Judges, an Israelite leader, Jephthah, makes a rash vow to God, which has to be carried out:

“And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt-offering.’ Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, ‘Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.’” (Judges 11:30-1, 34-5)

No. 8: The Lord is speaking to Abraham in this story where God commands him to sacrifice his son:

‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’ (Genesis 22:2)

No. 9: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22)

No. 10: “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.” (1 Peter 2:18)

Can I just add a few more to the end of these?

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." (Ezekiel 23:20)

"For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall..." (2 Kings 9:8)

"And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." (Acts 9:5)

"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths." (2 Kings 2:23-24)

Irrational Exuberance and all that

2009-08-06T14:49:00.003+01:00

It has been interesting to read in the business sections of one of the broadsheet media on what their thoughts were on future events in the markets and of economic policy makers.

So far, it hasn't been doing a very good job.

Exhibit A: Lloyd's Banking Group announced its annual results yesterday, with a loss to the tune of £4bn. The Times reported its predictions the day before. The headline was "Nervous City braced for loss of up to £5bn as Lloyds unveils its results". I quote from the second paragraph "One senior banker said that if Lloyds, 43% owned by the taxpayer, racked up a loss of more than £1bn that was attributable to shareholders 'the market will have a fit'".

The result? Lloyd's reports a £4bn loss, and its share price rises by 11%.

Exhibit B: The Times' MPC tracker group of the great and the good all predicted today that the BoE MPC would not continue its quantitative easing programme, with only one of the panel of nine disagreeing with this verdict.

The result? The Bank of England not only continues its QE scheme, but extends it over its previous credit limit by £25bn.

Now, I realise this is only for one newspaper (The Times) - I don't have the luxury of being able to read 5 newspapers every morning - but as the most popular business paper in the UK, you would have though it could do a better job.

But - and this is the interesting bit - it wasn't the journalist's fault (he only quoted the banker about Lloyd's and The Times MPC group) but the failure of his subjects to appreciate and properly analyse what is going on.

Irrational exuberance, anyone?

Or is it a less worrying simple case of The Times being selective with presenting the facts?

Update

I just found this article from The Telegraph which has an economist from RBS Markets (irony, anyone?), Ross Walker, saying that this was "a complete surprise", not in line with "previous rhetoric" and too "backward looking".

I guess this is really just a pristine example of the City's 'herd mentality'. Surely anyone with a hint of common sense knows that the Bank Of England does not make economic judgements on "rhetoric", ie speculation.

Furthermore, the allegation the Bank of England is too backward looking implies that there is a considerable amount of forward looking data that shows that their judgement is wrong. What this fails to take into account is that the PMI surveys (on which all this optimism is based) is one piece of information (subject to error and bias), which shows changes in current purchases, not their cause, nor what will happen next month. These aren't forward looking pieces of information at all - and it would be ludicrous for anyone to take what is happening now and extrapolate forward and expect it to be a reliable forcaster of the future.

Ah, but wait, that's what RBS did with subprime mortgages. Forgetting the fundamentals of investing seems to be their speciality.

A second Islamic Revolution

2009-06-15T16:17:00.004+01:00

Now, like you and I and anybody else in Britain watching the news, you would have thought that all that was happening in Iran was that a few disgruntled voters were kicking up a fuss about losing their election, and that was that.

Until you turned over to twitter, had a look at the trends, and selected the "#iranelection" tag for search. Then you would have found the most monumental torrent of information of an uprising, protests and repression that was going completely unreported in the outside world.

Now, you may think this is hyperbole. I recommend you check out the tweets - try here - for yourself. Andrew Sullivan's blog - and the Huffington Post (an online newspaper) both provide superior coverage too. The BBC Persian live feed seems to be doing a good job, although it is all in Farsi, and so entirely incomprehensible to me, but the pictures are amazing.

Some highlighted tweets:

There are reports of about 3M ppl out on the streets. Millions of people marching in absolute silence.

@persiankiwi Tehran streets are a sea of GREEN - many many hundreds of thousands. ... Militia still attacking people in sidestreets but main roads are peaceful marchers."
just received news about forging department students captured 2 Ansar troopers and moving them to another building!

As you can see, quite astonishing updates.

The fact that Ahmadinejad and his associates have made this election a fraud is not in question. This website, iranfraud.com, has diagrams showing the correlation of votes between nominees is perfectly correlated as if done by a formula or computer software.

There are widespread reports of Ahmadinejad winning areas that we previously Moussavi's strongholds - even his hometown. In Iranian politics, this is an impossibility, as people always vote (for their The supposed rally of support for Ahmadinejad yesterday was composed of civil servants who were compelled to attend at risk of losing their jobs.

*One twitter update* put out some alleged pre-doctored results: Moussavi 48%, Ahmadinejad 15%, which has been reported on by the Daily Telegraph. And anybody with two brain cells can realise that the election margin - 66% for Ahmadinejad - is just implausible given the complete lack of excitement for him. Let's bear in mind that Roosevelt never won more than 60% of the vote - and everybody would have known from the level of excitement and campaigning that this result was possible.

Also, Karroubi came 3rd in the official vote with 1.5% of the population - yet his party with 400,000 official members accounts for just under 1% of the national vote. What were they doing on election day - sleeping??

The pollster blog fivethirtyeight.com has done some analysis:According to this diagram, Karroubi lost by a factor of 10 districts that were loyal to him only 4 years ago. Nobody suffers landslides like that.

Furthermore, and I quote

According to official results announced by BBC Persian, Kurdistan province has been won by Ahmadinejad. This is unprecedented in the history of the Islamic Republic. For thirty years Kurdistan has voted for the opposition candidates and the turn out is very low. This time around the turn out in this province has been extremely high.

This is the equivalent of McCain beating Obama in California or Hawaii, or Labour winning the Kensington & Chelsea seat.

Pictures from BBC Persian and other *youtube videos* are just incredible.

The Iranian situation brings three important issues to the fore:

Is this the beginning of the end of the traditional media for covering such news?
Is this the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

I can't begin to overstate enough the uselessness of the traditional news media, such as the TV stations like CNN.com in covering the crisis. They have been slow at following developments and have been quick to take the bait from the state media and government sources as to what is happening. Even now, UK BBC continues to cover its top stories as a swine flu death and an inquiry into the Iraq War. It had no coverage whatsoever of the situation last night, when students were being beaten up by the secret police, instead giving pictures of a rally from two days ago. CNN, which earned its journalistic reputation on the back of the Tianamen fiasco, failed to give any coverage to the situation until late today, and even then, it wasn't exactly stunning.

Now, you may think that this isn't all too much to fuss about, but there are reports of 1 to 3 million people on the streets of Tehran, with internet reports coming in of protests elsewhere in the country, including in the 6 next-largest cities in Iran.

Is this the end of the Islamic Republic? A widely quoted figure is that half of Iran's population is under 25. A not so widely quoted figure is that Iran is the 3rd largest country of bloggers. There have been comparisons on the twittersphere of the protests being similar to the student protests in 1999 or even the original revolution in 1979. There has been widespread condemnation of Ahmadinejad and, even now, initial reports of people decrying their Supreme Leader, Ali Khahameni. This is unthinkable given the reverence with which the Supreme Leader is normally treated. The aggression of the people on the streets has even made the Supreme Leader make a u-turn on the election results, as he has now asked the Guardian Council to investigate alleged irregularities. Whilst it may only be a gesture, it is indeed a stunning reversal.

If this demonstration turns into protests of a violent nature in Tehran, there will be a further crackdown. But if the violence and protests spreads out into more cities, there will be a point where the government will be unable to control its people. There have been contrasts between this and the Tienanmen situation - but the crucial difference was that the Tienanmen protests did not spread out further to the country - whereas here signs are beginning to show of that happening.

There are initial reports that live ammunition is being used on the demonstrators in Iran. If someone dies, this could be the spark to the tinder that could set the whole thing alight.

The most extreme (and indeed unlikely) situation is that we wake up tomorrow to find that Iran has collapsed amidst a revolution. This would not be too surprising, given the enormous suppression of a very large proportion of the population. What is more likely however, is that this could be the end of the old order of Iran. We'll have to wait and see for more developments, and hope the media can get their act together.

A break from all the seriousness

2009-06-08T17:23:00.002+01:00

I know it's not really nice to laugh at other people's suffering, but I couldn't help but laugh at the news that David Blunkett was stampeded by a cow.

Now, he was seriously (broken rib) injured by the incident, but I think the sheer weirdness of it all has cheered me up a bit.

Derek Draper

2009-06-07T15:56:00.002+01:00

Derek Draper was one of the two men involved in sending Gordon Brown's popularity towards new depths earlier this year. I even blogged about it. The other man was Damien McBride.

What precipitated that particular outrage? A leaked email from Damien McBride to Derek Draper, suggesting making libellous smears anonymously on a "red rag" website.

Now, a few months on, we see that another leaked email to Derek Draper is causing headaches for the Prime Minister. This time it's Peter Mandelson to Derek Draper.

Now, either some one has compromised Derek Draper's email account - this could be an outsider (eg aggressive journalist - two got sent some time ago to prision for hacking into a royal answering machine) or even his wife (incidentally, GMTV presenter Kate Garraway), or alternatively, Derek Draper is a leaker of confidential secrets.

Regardless, sensitive emails should not be sent to Derek Draper by anyone who values their privacy. He is a liability to his governmental friends.

Increasing farce

2009-06-07T15:01:00.002+01:00

Continuing in the theme of political ironies this week:

Does it not strike anybody as odd that the Conservatives were moaning about Sir Alan Sugar's appointment to the government, considering they tended to like self-made businessmen like him? Or was it because he stopped liking the Tories after Thatcher left?

And is it not bizarre that Charlie Falconer is clamouring for party unity, when, as the dust was beginning to settle, he decides to go on prime-time interview and lob another stick of political dynamite to get things whirling again? Or was this a cunning piece of lowering expectations?

Caroline Flint

2009-06-06T15:42:00.002+01:00

Does nobody else find it highly ironic that as Caroline Flint hands in a steaming resignation letter to Gordon Brown, accusing the Prime Minister of chauvinism, the Daily Mai l and other papers seem intent on picturing here in mildly suggestive modelling poses???

The general election campaign starts today

2009-06-05T19:19:00.005+01:00

Yes, indeed it does. With the sudden and unexpected resignation of Ian Gibson from his Membership of Parliament, a by-election is to be held in the Constituency of North Norwich.

This is the beginning of the general election campaign and whoever wins this seat will gain invaluable momentum for the coming general election next year.

There is also the upcoming by-election in Michael Martin's seat, but this is not as important, because it is a Labour Fortress and it is also a Scottish Seat - the contenders will be the SNP and not the Conservatives or Lib Dems.

However, it does follow on immediately in the wake of Labour's electoral annihilation at the local elections - and the European election results will follow on Sunday. I am not overstating this. Labour fell behind the Monster Raving Looney Party at one council election, and they have lost more than half of their councillors today.

The election will be a key Labour vs Conservative battleground, and the Tories I'm sure would like to add it to their scalps along with Crewe and Nantwich, although it is only #163 on their target seat list.

It will be a real test of Labour's ability to fight elections - ones which it actually contests, mind.

On a quick side note about elections in general, the real reason the Conservatives have won today is not because they are a better party with better policies, but that they seized the airwaves and outspent and outcampaigned everybody else across the country. I and many others are self-described floating voters, concerned with real policies and actions rather than the spin and substance of the headlines. I wanted to weigh up each party's arguments and make a rational, informed decision. But nobody knocked on my door, nobody ran a stall in my town to discuss their party and the only party which put a leaflet through my door was the Conservatives. And even then, we have a Conservative councillor as our next door neighbour.

On the BBC election programme today, one previous Labour voter admitted to voting for the Conservatives, because they were the only people who had bothered to knock on his door, despite the fact that voting for the Conservatives "broke his heart".

If politicians and parties are scratching their heads at declining turnout, they need to rectify this first. And if parties are wondering why they're losing out, maybe they should start doing the fundamentals right .

Shuffling the pack 3

2009-06-05T17:58:00.006+01:00

So finally the reshuffle results are coming in. It's not that exciting, considering that the vast majority of minister have stayed in their posts. Mandelson, Straw, Millibands, Darling, even Ed Balls hasn't moved. (Although Mandelson did recieve a nice shiny extra title and a sincure - First Secretary of State and Lord President of the Council respectively). Alan Johnson got a long overdue promotion. However, there were a few surprises.

Firstly was that Margaret Beckett had resigned from Cabinet - this is just bizarre, she seemed to be doing a good job and was not damaged by the expenses scandal as I can see. However, she may have had disagreements with Gordon Brown and a quiet exit stage left may have been a good move in her eyes.

Secondly was the choice of new faces - the promotions weren't particularly surprising, although I think the resignations have forced the Prime Minister's hand more than he would like to admit. Glenys Kinnock comes out of nowhere to become the Europe Minister (she was stepping down as an MEP), Ben Bradshaw gets Culture (probably due to a good Question Time performance), Lord Adonis (arch-blarite) gets Transport and most incredibly, Peter Hain (of donations shame) is back in the Cabinet.

Now I definitely didn't see that last one coming. However, what will probably grab the headlines is that contestants in the Apprentice next year will have to call their Boss "Lord Sugar" or "Lord Alan" as he gets a non-cabinet non-ministerial post with a Lordship attached. Not bad for a few days chats!

Interesting to see that all the Ministers grossly affected by *expensesgate* (Blears, Purnell, Hoon, McNulty, Beckett??) have all gone from their posts.

The Local Election results have forced the hands of many - and it gives the misleading impression that the party is split. In fact, this has given many people who are discontented with Gordon Brown (eg Caroline Flint: "Gordon Brown treated me like female window dressing", also a resignee, her resignation letter makes extremely interesting reading) to voice their opinions in public, but a widespread rebellion against Gordon Brown will not take place. The European Elections won't matter for much either, Labour have set expectations accordingly low for those. Reports of a "Pugin Room" plot - as Caroline Flint points out - are ficticous works by lobby journalists. I mean come on, what was more likely, that she destabilised the government by leaking her resignation to go and spite Gordon Brown, or that somebody who disliked her (*cough* Ed Balls *cough*) leaked her resignation, which she planned to do all along, considering that she has less than a 3,000 majority.

What this provides Gordon Brown with is the final make-or-break point. He cannot blow his chances now if he intends to be regarded favourably in the history books. He must purge the party of the negative, destabilising influence of the Blairites (not that I have anything against them, but they're making an awful racket) and he must shut down the negative briefing against colleagues (take a look at that resignation letter from Caroline Flint). He must get on track, sieze the initiative from the Conservatives, and start the long road to a Labour revival.

Now, when I say a Labour revival, I don't mean they have any chance of winning the next election, but they do have a slim chance of avoiding losing it, ie a hung parliament is a possibility - they just need to get their ball rolling. At the moment, the Conservatives have not reached critical mass to win the next general election. A sizeable amount of Tory voters are people who would prefer to vote for someone else but don't want their vote to be wasted on a minor party. This is a great area where Labour could claw back lost ground.

However, the infighting must end immediately.

Shuffling the pack 2

2009-06-04T01:38:00.003+01:00

With Hazel Blears and Jaqui Smith gone, as expected, the question is now who will replace them. Balls might move to the Home position, although this is not exactly his favourite policy area.

The most important features of any shape of reshuffle should be two-fold. Firstly, the miscreants from the expenses scandal should be visibly remprimaned. That means Geoff Hoon, James Purnell, possibly Alistair Darling.

The second feature should be that there is less movement than predicted. If the Prime Minister touches David Milliband, Alistair Darling, Jack Straw, ie the heavyweights, the likelihood is that there will be uproar and a potential Cabinet rebellion - the last thing Gordon needs.

Failing some masterstroke, I think this will be quite a small reshuffle at the senior level.

Labour's love is most definitely lost

2009-06-04T00:59:00.004+01:00

Goodbye, Hazel Blears, so long. I don't think you'll be coming back to the Government any time within the next 50 years. Not too suprising a fact really, given that Mrs Blears has made herself the most unpopular member of the Labour Party at the moment, by making the audacious decision to resign from the Cabinet the day before an important set of elections and giving the media plenty of anti-Labour stories to discuss tonight and to be featured in the papers the morning of the election. Rocking the boat, indeed.

The Prime Minister was visibly more aggressive in PMQs today, interesting given that Mrs Blears resigned only hours before. With David Cameron having an open goal to sock one at the Prime Minister, he failed markedly to land any punches on Gordon Brown, only raising the rhetoric only on his last question. Gordon Brown looked, by contrast, Prime Ministerial, ironic given his inability to do so in previous crisis. He even launched a counter-attack on David Cameron, catching him on the back over policy. David Cameron had to "turn to the economy", before quizzing whether Alistair Darling would be in his post next week. Gordon Brown avoided the question unashamedly and proceeded to land quite an effective attack on the Conservatives. Alistair Darling, meanwhile, looked a little uncomfortable to say the least.

On the News, there was a special extra-length feature on this crisis of confidence and Michael Crick rated Gordon Brown's chances for survival as "50:50". There was the usual speculation about a leadership contest but the sad thing is that this is the 3rd (4th?) time round the speculation train has hit the leadership issue and Gordon Brown seems to have comfortably cruised through them. I don't see why he won't survive this one.

You see, the problem is not Gordon Brown, believe it or not. He is just the icing on the cake, the visible punchbag for everything from Northern Rock through to Conservative moat cleaning bills. The problem is the Labour party. Only one prime minister has led his party to a fourth sucessive victory in the history of our democracy: John Major in 1992. That was one of the tightest of victories, with a majority of only 12. John Major was helped by a terrible opposition party and a generally supportive press. Gordon Brown enjoys neither of these factors. Even the guardian was complaining that Brown had to go!

The Labour party is suffering from 12 years of government. The best people are tiring and leaving government (think John Reid) or are silenced/resentful by the scars of the Brown/Blair conflict, still raw as ever for some. New Labour has lost its direction on policies: the legislative agenda has ground to a halt, and policies exist in only two areas of note: 1) the economy and dealing with the recession and 2) fighting the expenses scandals. This in itself explains that the government is being reactive, not proactive, and is not building a distinctive brand image such as "reforming the NHS" or "fighting crime" as the New Labour of 1997 was so effective in doing.

Once the recession and the remenants of the expenses scandal peter out (just before the election I think) there will be literally nothing that the government will be doing. Gordon Brown is not stupid and realises there is no hope in hell that he is going to win the election. However, he has one core task now: damn it all, go legacy shopping, and crucially, tighten the polls. If the polls narrowed by only 5 points between Tories and Labour, then the election result would be a narrow Hung Parliament. That would be a great opportunity for the Labour Party to allow Gordon Brown to resign, with grace and a legacy, and to reform itself. Opposition would allow itself to heal its wounds, purge the great Blair/Brown conflict finally and get some of its fresh talent (Burnham, Cooper, Milliband(s), Purnell etc) up the ranks. Fresh policies, including a new New Labour agenda, can be devised in the quiet of opposition.

Furthermore, the likelyhood of the Tories governing effectively or getting anything done under a minority party is so low that if they don't hold a quick reelection and get a bigger majority, and Labour reforms sufficiently, there is the distinct possibility that the Cameron administration could last only a single term. Lacking policies, and unlike Tony Blair, he won't have the massive lead at the polls to cruise in the 1st term - if he does, there won't be a second term.

The Tory party is also going to split after a few years in government - it inevitably does (Thatcherite vs Cameronite), and Cameron's hard eurosceptic line could see some moderates float away.

In any case, Gordon Brown should be focussing on a graceful exit with a nice legacy for May 2010.

Expensesgate continued

2009-05-21T23:56:00.003+01:00

After the historic departure of Michael Martin, there is a growing consensus that the expensesgate scandal will turn the next two years not into a 1997 moment, where a landslide victory ushered in a new party political paradigm, but is instead going to be a 1832 moment, where the whole British Constitution is subject to change.

As some MPs showed just how out of touch they are, David Starkey (the historian) was clamouring for directly elected Prime Ministers, Douglas Carswell was pressing on Newsnight for US-style open primaries for all MPs, and it looks potentially like the first ever 'non-party party', backed by Ester Ratzen, might emerge.

All I can say is: Hold on to your hats, folks.

Shuffling the pack

2009-05-21T21:16:00.010+01:00

The media speculation machine is gently warming up - you can feel the quiet tremors popping up in various papers - for that great political exercise, the Cabinet Reshuffle. GB's latest instalment is due shortly after the Local/European Elections.

Here are my predictions:

Hazel Blears is sacked. The most widely predicted result, given her outspoken (if coded) criticism of the Prime Minister and the convenient slip-up of her expenses claims.
Following on from this, if Gordon Brown has any political nous then he will demote or sack (if only temporarily) Geoff Hoon and James Purnell from the ministerial frontline after falling foul of the rules in a similar style to Hazel Blears. If he doesn't, then he will simply look either confused, ignorant or vindictive against Hazel Blears.
Jaqui Smith is going, whether she likes it or not. She is simply on the way out. Either she goes voluntarily, to fight her marginal constituency, or she is sacked for a pretty mediocre performance over the last two years.
Lord Mandelson will get a promotion - although the rumoured Foreign Secretary looks unlikely, considering his very strong europhile views, which are not shared by the Prime Minister. The Home Secretary, Justice Secretary or even Health Secretary positions are not likely to come into play because of previous Blarite (of which Lord Mandelson is still a strong member)/Brownite spats in these policy areas. More logical would be something like Defence or International Development, although these are hardly promotions.
Alistair Darling could be moved out of the Treasury although the logic of this obscure and I for one can't see it happening - Gordon has a loyal (*if sometimes annoyingly honest*) Brownite in a key seat of power - although what Treasury-No 10 relations are like, we don't know.
David Milliband is proving a highly skilled and effective Foreign Secretary, *winning praise worldwide*. The sort of person in line for a promotion. However, he is a core Blairite (he ran the No 10 policy unit under Blair, for crying out loud), and he virtually contested the Leadership last year. I'm not convinced Gordon will have quite forgiven him for this. The more pressing problem is that as Foreign Secretary, there is no where else to go up the ladder (apart from taking over Gordon's job), so any move will be a sideways manouever. Home Secretary, as reported, sounds plausible, as the Brown team alledgedly is taking Law and Order more seriously now.
Douglas Alexander will be moved back into the Cabinet Office (possibly with a sinecure) to help No 10 run the future election campaign.
Alan Johnson, a former union man, will be given a promotion (or kept where he is but given more responsibility blah blah blah) due to his appeal to a core Labour constituent and his solid support for the Prime Minister, and his excellent Ministerial skills (just think how many health crisises there have been under him than say, Patricia Hewett).
The question of Ed Balls or Ed Milliband, as core Brownites, is a puzzling one. Ed Milliband could be moved upwards to take the Business slot, or alternatively, Transport. Ed Balls could take the Health slot if Alan Johnson moves and Ed Milliband could replace him at Schools and Families.

Tebbit's Debit

2009-05-21T21:16:00.006+01:00

One of the most ignored yet fundamentally important stories of last week in politics, as highlighted by Dianne Abbott and Michael Portillo on This Week was that Norman Tebbit, old Tory hand and firm ally of Margaret Thatcher, told voters to vote anyone other than the main parties, including for the Conservatives.

Now, of course, Lord Tebbit isn't stupid, and managed to phrase it in a way that avoided him facing a compulsory sacking from David Cameron. As he explained, this was only for a European election, and not a General election.

Although Lord Tebbi is a BIT of a fantatic when it comes to the subject of Europe in the political sense, I'm not quite sure what game he was trying to play. Piss off the Tory Leadership? (They are a different faction - the compassionate one-nation conservatives as opposed to his Thatcherite roots) Was he genuinely trying to boost the profile of the UKIP or BNP? Or was this some obscure plot of his to try and delegitimise the European Parliament by getting fringe parties elected?

Whatever, I'm still scratching my head at his logic.

Expensesgate

2009-05-16T20:08:00.011+01:00

"It's like a Christmas present," - said Ian Hislop on Have I Got News For You - "Any single one of these stories would run for weeks and weeks and kick up a huge political fuss, but now we get 35 at once".

Although I will eat my wooly hat if the Daily Telegraph doesn't win the Newspaper of the Year for 2009, the scandal known as Expensesgate is one of the most politically significant events of our time.

Why? Because unlike being to do with the government, or frontbench politics in general, which ebb and flow like the tide, this is directly to do with the meat and potatoes brand of politics of the bankbenchers.

Fundamentally, this represents a sea change moment in British Politics, and is likely to convert what was going to be a tight-run Tory majority bordering on a hung parliament into a 1997 style landslide. And anyone who watched PMQs on Wednesday would notice one strange fact that the MPs, for once, had shut up and were sitting quietly, heads hung in shame.

I do consider though, and I mean this, that some actions by some MPs are nothing sort of full on violation of the rules and downright corruption. I don't mean the bizarre expenses claims such as £4.47 spent on dogfood or the 23p claimed for a lemon.

I mean the duplicitous practices of "flipping" homes to effectively con the taxman, claiming for exorbitant furniture, bending rules till they are so comprehensively muddled that you can get away with virtually anything.

Although more names are likely to come out, here is a list of corrupt individuals:

Nadine "Trident isn't a WMD" Dorries, who appears to have claimed the 2nd home allowance for her main home - a rented constituency house - and when in London she stays in Hotels. So Nadine Dorries has claimed £22,528 of taxpayers money for her main house! I'd also like to point out that her reply on her blog - reproduced faithfully by the Telegraph - was described by one blogger as like a "13 year old youtube user", a description I find worryingly accurate.
David Chaytor, who claimed £13,000 for a mortgage that didn't exist.
Eliot Morley, who claimed £16,000 for a mortgage that also didn't exist.
Hazel Blears, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, abused the system so that she could profit from the 2nd home allowance on several different properties, allowing her to pocket £45,000 from a sale. She then told porkies to the taxman so she didn't have to pay Capital Gains Tax, totalling £13,332.
Geoff Hoon and James Purnell did exactly the same thing as Hazel Blears.
Tom Dalyell attempted to claim £18,000 for three bookcases because he wanted it "doing properly" and he lived in a national trust home where proper furniture was required. What on earth was he thinking?
Andrew Mackay, who with his wife claimed twice on the 2nd home arrangement, on a house that wasn't a second home anyway.
Margret Mann, who claimed £23,000 for dry rot treatment on a house that was neither her constituency (ie main) home or even her second home. In fact, it was her former partner's house.
Ben Chapman, who (as part of a now recurring theme) claimed on a mortgage that had ceased to exist.
John Austin, who claimed £35,000 in expenses on several "flipped" second homes, who then sold them for a tidy profit.

There are more than these unfortunate 10 persons, and their fate remains to be seen. Of them, two have been suspended, one has resigned from his shadow ministerial post, one left parliament in 2005 anyway, one is going to leave parliament at the next election and three are currently unscathed.

The ethics of the Daily Telegraph's actions remain to be seen, as it was reportedly the last broadsheet to be offered a mysterious disk containing the expenses information, and the only one to accept its several hundred thousand pound price tag. Considering the fact that this only contained every address, bank account, national insurance number not only of every MP but also every MP staff member. A massive breach of security for the House of Commons, approaching the level of the lost Child Benefit DB.

Anybody who watched Question Time on the Thursday of this week would also be astonished at the level of anger by John Q Public. Although admittedly, most of them were white working class males who clearly did not understand how parliament or indeed the expenses system worked, and several looked like they would have voted BNP anyway, the point is that people are genuinely exercised by the matter. One poll tracker has shown that the UKIP have received a 12% spike in poll figures for the European election, presumably as a protest vote.

Of course, we all know the history as to why this train crash of a parliamentary scandal erupted - because governments (Labour and Conservative) suppresed pay as a short-term gesture, supposed to show austerity but actually in the long run cutting pay in real terms by 40% over 30 years. So MPs, to compensate, fiddled their expenses. And here we are.

The obvious, yet apparently politically unfeasible approach, would be to give MPs a massive pay rise (ie double it), from which they would be expected to pay for their staff and running costs, similar to the pay system used in the US Congress.

I'd also like to know how on earth are all these MPs rich enough to be able to pay back £13,000 or more in a Cheque to the taxman? How rich and how large are MPs savings? (Apparently Hazel Blears' payback came from her "motorbike fund").

What is certain is that this is not going to die down soon - some (notably Nick Clegg) have called for the Speaker's head, and others have demanded an early general election to restore trust.

I also know that all hell is going to break loose when the second incomes of MPs are published - William Hague, well known for his lucrative directorships and speaking fees, gave them all up as a pre-emptive measure.

Picking up the pieces, after the Budget

2009-04-25T13:35:00.008+01:00

Yes, time to jump on the "Post-Budget Analysis" bandwagon!

Okay, I admit it - I am about to be a bit self-congratulatory. But I did get four (and a half) of my predictions right out of six - not bad, really.

I'll go over my predictions and then the outcome of the budget:

1) The Chancellor would revise his economic forecasts - RIGHT - and quite dramatically so! There was a lot of fuss over this, as I mentioned would happen, but what stirred the most up was the idea that the economy would return to growth by the end of the year. This is an interesting proposal. I don't understand the statistical assumptions behind this, and the general consensus on this is that it is stark wrong - although the general consensus is very rarely right on these things. I think Alistair Darling must be pinning his hopes on a resurgent consumer boom around Christmas time to tip the economy back into growth. This is intriguing - does the British Consumer have the financial resources or the inclination to do so? Only time will tell, but a better than expected fourth quarter could encourage more investment, tipping the business cycle back onto the right path. Statistics to watch are investment levels and the consumer savings ratio - with a (hopefully mildly) deflating economy, this could give enough "pound in the pocket". Even so, this is a far-out shot.

2) There would be more optimistic language - PRETTY MUCH RIGHT - although not quite in the way I was expecting. I was expecting the government to say "we can see green shoots on the horizon" in a sort of vague way that sounds encouraging but doesn't actually mean anything. Alistair Darling, on the other hand, decided not to use the flowery optimism and instead use some of the most widely slammed forecasts ever, as discussed in the first point.

Whilst I am unwilling to jump on the "this is outrageously wrong" bandwagon, I am keen to see what statistical assumptions the Treasury were using. It seems patently obvious that the coming recession is different to previous ones, and hence will not enjoy the "roaring rebound" that was seen at the end of the previous recessions. That is to say, the idea that this recession will be "U-shaped" is highly unlikely.

3) The government would reveal it has been racking up debt - RIGHT - and then some. The government estimates it will need £175bn for this year , £173bn for next year, then £90bn and so on. The Budget is not planned to be balanced until 2013, and cumulative borrowing is estimated to rise to 80% of GDP. Now while this may seem shocking at first sight, I am yet to see a credible alternative plan put forward and furthermore a credible criticism of an 80% debt level in the medium term.

Some people have been saying that they would reign in the debt immediately, but the fact of the matter is, these cuts would simply just harm economic growth, and because of this, tax receipts would fall, increasing the government's requirement to borrow - and thus raising debt, bringing you firmly back to square one, but this time with more debt and a longer recession.

As I mentioned also, having this seemingly 'high' level of debt is not an issue over the medium term in the current economic climate. When the government balances the budget, in 2013 (assuming those forecasts are right) the government is not going to be borrowing more money, it is simply going to be sitting on a lot of debt. So I don't buy the usual "crowding out the private sector" argument. And furthermore, if the private sector is so good (and the government so bad - which the government normally aims to be with its debt, to avoid high interest payments) surely investors would be flocking out of government debt and into corporate bonds. Oh, wait, I forgot. Corporate bonds aren't worth the paper they're written on. Maybe that's why - with one minor blip - investors have been hurrying to store their assets in government debt.

What's more, the government is not likely to be punished with high interest rates any time soon. The Bank of England - unless it messes up bigtime - is not going to raise interest rates. Also, inflation is unlikely to soar, meaning that the interest on index linked gilts is not going to soar either. So, I don't think there are going to be too many problems from that area.

People have to think of the country's debt in terms of income. When we borrow a mortgage, typically we are allowed 3 times our income (although up to recently this was much higher - and this also depends on your credit worthiness). Government receipts as a total of GDP were 40% last year, and will have declined to about 36% this year, according to forecasts. Now using our Mortgage rule of thumb - times income by 3 to get a healthy borrowing amount - the government could borrow anywhere between 100% t0 120% of GDP without getting into difficulties. After all, most people pay off their mortgages, and don't find the interest payments unbearable. By contrast, the predicted 80% of GDP seems quite healthy.

4) The Chancellor would announce, but not implement, tax rises for all for in coming years - NOT QUITE RIGHT - this was the most interesting proposal, politically and economically. I thought the Chancellor would accept that tax rises were needed on a broad base of citizen in coming years to control the public finances back down to 'good-times' sustainable levels. This might at least won him some plaudits for honesty and economic competence, although the likely effects at a general election would probably be dire.

Still, the proposed 50% "supertax" is not likely to help things. As the IFS pointed out, it is unlikely to gain any additional revenues - at best, an extra £2bn, and at the other end, it could actually worsen tax revenues through lowered VAT contributions - by about £2bn.

This is, unashamedly and blatantly obviously, nothing more than a bit of political posturing - although it is important to know that Gordon Brown proposed this tax rise as early as 1998 - before it was vetoed by Tony Blair. It is interesting to note that TB allegedly is disappointed with the tax rise - not a surprise, given it goes against most of what (at least Blairite) New Labour stood for (aspirational Middle Class values, with a dash of fairness, social responsibility and market reform).

I am sceptical though of its value in winning general elections - it is likely to be only of value in securing the home team (preaching to the converted, eh?), and put off centrist voters - although polling figures indicated that people really don't care too much about tax hikes for people with 6 figure salaries. (In fact, people do care about tax hikes for £50,000-£90,000 earners, as this is the salary range they aspire to). So, at best, it might get a few diehard lefties into the polling booth. At worst, it will be perceived as a waste of time gesture by the majority of people.

5) The Chancellor would say the Bank Bailouts were going better than expected - NOT MENTIONED - it will be interesting to hear the news on this, although *UKFI*'s performance is not due for an update anytime soon.

6) The Chancellor would not announce new stimuli, but some scrappy initiatives would come into play - RIGHT. Not much else to say here, although whether the impact of the £3000 subsidy to new cars and the extension of the winter fuel allowance amongst others will be noticeable remains to be seen. However, it is too early to jump to conclusions - according to research, the widely panned VAT tax cut has been a great success.

So to sum up then - higher (but nowhere near apocalyptic) borrowing and a protracted balanced budget over the business cycle, along with interesting forecasts and a (unhealthy?) dose of class war.

Whether this budget will be remembered at all in a year's time depends mostly on the course of the recession, and the course of the election campaign.

An update on Bob Quick

2009-04-20T17:23:00.003+01:00

Well, it seems from this article that the only damage done by Bob Quick's photo was that the raids involved were brought forward by a couple of hours.

Well congratulations, Conservatives, congratulations, media furore. What a complete non-crisis. What a total non-story, in fact. What farce. You have forced a well-qualified man from his job and deprived the Met from years of counter-terrorism experience.

I hope you're happy.

Keep feeling speculation...

2009-04-18T16:12:00.006+01:00

Yes, it's that time of the year again. No, before you ask, it's not the usual overrated hyperbolic political stunt. It's budget time! Aren't you feeling excited?

Well, then again, maybe not. But the Budget this year will undoubtedly prove to be an interesting one, for a number of reasons, although it is unlikely that there will be much sparkle and glamour in it. Here below are my (not entirely original) predictions for the budget:

The Chancellor will have to admit that the Treasury forecasts were in some cases wrong. Labour will point out everyone was getting it wrong at that point (IMF, World Bank, OECD etc), whilst the Conservatives will most likely hold this as prima facie evidence of ministerial incompetence. See note at bottom.
There will be some more cautious optimistic language in the Budget than previously seen, in a similar vein to Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke and the Item Club, although probably not quite the infamous "green shoots".
The government will reveal, shock horror, it's been racking up debt, and at a greater rate than previously announced. This being a particular pet peeve of George Osbourne, it's likely this will receive lots of media coverage as the Tory's rallying cry against a profligate government.
The Chancellor will announce the possibility of tax rises for households in the coming years. These tax rises will not be introduced next week but instead will be brought in during the last Budget of this Parliament, next April. These tax rises would be temporary to correct the deficit in the public finances once the economy returns to growth. This is likely to cause uproar and near-stereotypical outrage (Government making us pay for their incompetence - David Cameron's line for the coming year) from the middle classes (who will be worst off out of the hypothetical deal), but Labour's calculations are that they would rather raise taxes than cut the public sector in the way that would be required to balance the budget.
The government will report back that the Bank Bailout Scheme is going better than expected, and that the Treasury expects to be at the very least breaking even on the scheme. As a separate (but related) matter, the Bank of England will say that they haven't needed to use the £25bn for quantitative easing (the spooky sounding but ultimately essential "printing money").
The Chancellor will say that further stimuli aren't needed, and the "automatic stabilisers" are doing their job well, although there are likely to be insignificant gimmicks posing as stimuli, such as a subsidy on green items or relief for savers.

Some, but not all of these predictions will feature in the Budget, but it will be most interesting to see the actual forecasts in this Budget and to see what tone the Finance Leaders (Alistair Darling, George Osborne, Vince Cable) adopt in relation to the public finances, the economy and taxation.

The Budget is on 11:30-2:45 on Wednesday, with Party Political Broadcasts on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at 11:20-11:25.

Note: I would like to add that as all forecasts are merely elaborate guesses, this mismatch between forecast predictions and reality was to be expected, and anyone taking these forecasts too seriously, or getting too worked up about their inaccuracy (*cough* George Osbourne *cough*) is an imbecile in economic and statistical matters. It is like trying to demand to know the weather at 7:22am on July 24th 2012 for 12 Wetherby Drive in Chipping Norton, and getting cross when the BBC reply that this is a mathematical impossibility.

Politicking

2009-04-16T22:13:00.005+01:00

Revenge is a dish best served cold, so they say. In that case, Damian Green must have been using liquid nitrogen, after he managed to get all charges against him dropped on grounds of lack of evidence. The fracas, on shaky ground from day one, captured the imagination of the Westminster village that the whole of Britain was sliding into a Soviet style Police State.

Unsurprisingly, this cheap and easy to write story was embraced happily by the media, looking for something better to write about than run-of-the-mill stories about parrots. MPs angrily called for the Speaker to resign, blaming him for the whole mess. I particularly liked the quote from Sir Malcom Rifkind ("I don't think I am being controversial in saying I don't think that Speaker Martin will go down as one of the greater Speakers"). Controversial, maybe not, Sir Malcom. Embroiled in farce, definitely.

And whilst it was mildly hilarious to watch the Conservatives get worked up about a man with a camera photographing Damian Green's office, what this whole farrago has underlined, as usual, is the fact that MPs and the Media (the Westminster Bubble!) can get carried away far too easily about matters that are totally and completely irrelevant to almost everybody else in the country.

I do understand the need for confidentiality and for an MP to be able to scrutinise the government without interference, in fact I believe very strongly of the importance of these basic rights. But the fact that MPs like Colin Breed thought that anybody outside of a Notting Hill politico's cafe cared about Michael Martin's chances for re-election as Speaker goes to show how detached MPs can be from reality at times.

I mean surely, with the looming problems of the global economic recession, climate change, worsening public finances, an ageing population, public services in desperate need of reform, erosion of civil liberties, the threat of terrorism, and more, didn't they have something better to discuss?

Transfers

2009-04-16T21:10:00.003+01:00

Just to update, I have moved "The Westminster Exchange" here just because I wanted to.

Both blogs will work, whether they synchronise, who knows!

A recently posted letter

2009-04-14T00:04:00.000+01:00

This is the letter I was going to send to The Times, but I had to hack it down a bit.

Here it is in full:

Sir,

Camilla Cavendish (Comment, April 8) is right – the same old refrain is sounding very, very old. Indeed, the same old refrain from the ranks of the right that the public sector must be “pruned hard” in times of economic crisis is not only sounding very, very old, but also very, very mistaken.

Fundamentally, for the public sector to be “pruned hard”, GDP must be “pruned hard” at a time when pruning is both inappropriate and unhelpful. It would raise joblessness and be financially insignificant in attempts to readdress the problem in the public finances. Conversely, keeping the public sector in its present state could help to buoy the economy at a time when such help is most needed.

There are numerous cases in history of governments attempting to balance the budget through ‘austerity’ measures during times of crisis. Such measures are ultimately unsuccessful – Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to balance his budget plunged the USA into recession in 1938.

To call to trim the public sector in any way over the next 10 years is not unreasonable. To say that the trimming has to happen right now, and to argue that it can be done by cutting some mythical “back room”, engorged on a “gravy train”, which is the thrust of Camilla Cavendish’s argument, is absurd. It skips over the quagmire of public/private sector pay rates, it is managerial nonsense and in the scheme of things, it would be counter-productive.

The politics of this aren’t, as alleged, childish. They are deadly serious – the future shape of society is at stake. What is childish is to make outlandish statements such as “This Government sustained itself in power by bribing every interest group under the sun with taxpayers' money, and claiming the credit”, and expect people to take you seriously.

Balancing the budget is an important task, but before this process can be started, the economy has to return to growth. Rome was never built in a day.

A return, of sorts.

2009-04-13T20:45:00.001+01:00

"For fuck's sake!" were the words that first entered my mind upon reading most of the news this week:

First of all, the Head of the Met's Counter-Terrorism unit felt the need to resign after exposing a secret document to the media outside No. 10. Or more likely, he probably decided to resign after the media furore following this "leak".
Second of all, Gordon Brown's chief political partisan had to quit after his half-baked plans to pour some sort of detritus on David Cameron's head backfired spectacularly.
Third of all, Jacqui Smith's husband accidentally billed the taxpayer for some of his *ahem* late night adult entertainment.
Fourthly, the NUT (that militant teachers union) decided that during this period of economic strife, it would be a good idea to demand a 10% pay rise.
Finally, Jade Goody died and recieved a virtual state funeral in recognition of her services to idiocy.

So, as you can see, a fun week.

Quite exactly why Bob Quick decided to resign we will probably never know. The exact reason is unimportant, but the media storm surrounding his mistaken "publication" of the secret document was at the very least a significant factor. I have to say, what an utterly pitiful state of affairs. And, what a surprise that of all people, it was the the Tories who were briefing hard for him to resign. I watched Chris Grayling on Newsnight - and I almost wept at the idea of that man becoming our next home secretary.

From where I sat, Chris Grayling appeared as an armchair general with an air of pomposity only gently deflated by the wily Ken Livingstone, sitting next to him. I have to ask what grudge Mr Grayling had against Bob Quick - was it, by any chance, the Damian Green affair?

Chris Grayling laid into Mr Quick as if he had just gone to the nearest printer and made 100 copies of the secret document and then started handing them out to the nearest bunch of journalists. He was remorseless, constantly on the attack. That this was an unforgivable error of judgement, and he should go, was the unequivocal opinion of Mr Grayling. You're fired, as Sir Alan Sugar would say. Interesting also that Boris Johnson announced Mr Quick's departure before Mr Quick himself.

So let's get the facts straight here. Bob Quick stepped out of his car to go and brief the Prime Minister, and was photographed showing a secret document. Journalists quickly lept on the bandwagon that this was a major cock-up and starting publicising it here there and everywhere. So the raids in the documents were brought forward by a few days and subsequently 12 people were arrested. Why the British Media thought it a good idea to keep on publishing the picture (featured here for your convenience) when the nation security implications were patently obvious, I do not know.

According to some newspaper reports, the suspects had virtually got away and the whole operation was ruined. From what I can see, it was what you might deem a "success". In my opinion, Bob Quick's true error was to cave into the pressure from the media, although this is understandable given his history of gaffes and mess-ups. It was a mistake that humans make, being human, and seems to have had few repercussions other than the most senior and experienced counter-terrorist officer has had to leave his post. Talk about letting Al-Qaeda win, indeed.

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Speaking of mistakes, it seems that Damien McBride will rue the day he ever sent that email to Derek Draper. Why he felt the need to "destabilise" George Osborne or David Cameron, I don't know and probably won't ever know. As Alastair Campbell remarked today, he's missed the point.

The point is that George Osbourne and David Cameron don't need destabilising. They're unstable (on policy) as anything.

A quick recap for your convenience:

George Osbourne envisaged selling Northern Rock on to a private buyer. When this was clearly a crap idea, he spent a considerable period of time dithering significantly more than the accusation levelled at Gordon Brown.
David Cameron has swung from Hug-a-hoodie to the more unoriginal, traditional law-and-order position of the Conservative Party.
David Cameron and George Osbourne slammed the VAT cut from day one. New research from the CEBR showed them terribly, terribly wrong.

It would seem on the matters that count, including the economic crisis, DC & GO are barking up the wrong tree.

What infuriates me about the whole affair (more than the fact that almost the whole media have jumped (predictably!) on a holier-than-thou bandwagon) the most is the way the Tories are milking the story for it's worth. To be fair, this unsurprising, but it is allowing them free reign to avoid the difficult questions such as "what would you do in your first 100 days of government?" or "how would you tackle the economic crisis?".

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Ahh, the NUT. That last bastion of Arthur Scargill style politics. It's almost as if their decision making committee said "take the rate of inflation (3%) and treble it - that makes a nice round number". Never mind anyone else, and never mind the fact we're 19% richer in real terms since 1997, we want more cash!

"Forget those bankers, ladies and gentlemen, forget those hedge fund managers and those arbritrage traders. It is the teachers of today's society who are greedy and bleeding us dry."

That seems to be the message the NUT are conveying to the greater public with their ridiculous demands for higher pay. Let's break down the reasons why the NUT shouldn't get their demanded wage increase:

It's three times the rate of inflation.
It's breaking the ranks of public sector inflation solidarity.
It's bad economics.
It's greedy.
Teachers have received one of the highest wage increases over the last 10 years.
Teachers' working hours have fallen over the last 10 years.

And the reasons for:

Teachers feel a bit hard done by.

'Nuff said.

Torying About

2007-08-20T18:35:00.000+01:00

Times are worrying for David Cameron. Once the green, centrist slicker who toyed with Tony Blair on the floor of the Commons, it seems that he's now being seen as superficial. Which is strange, especially so for someone who, for over a year, led us on a merry dance from hugging hoodies to 'social justice', or whatever that particular soundbite is meant to mean, led in the polls? Strange stuff.

Yet, if you take a look, you'll see it's actually quite simple - in Gordon Brown's attempts to distance himself from the drama of Blair, he seems to have also winded Cameron, smearing him with the same silly, PR-focused look, and left him out to dry. Indeed, this strategy seems to have worked so effectively, that even his own 'supporters', a fickle thing in the current tory party, are rebelling, with calls for a vote of no confidence, reeking of the abandonment Ian Duncan Smith suffered in his final days.

What's more, the normally smooth Cameron appeared to have lost his footing, when in times of need, he was whisked off for a holiday, sorry, study to Rwanda. It was looking like something even Boris Johnson wouldn't try, for reasons of silliness.

So it's probably a no-brainer that John Redwood's report on more traditional Tory areas, namely taxation and de-regulation, will come as a relief to Mr. Cameron, and will soothe frayed nerves in the grassroots.

Labour were quick, as ever, to criticise, slinging this review as a 'lurch to the right'. Personally, I think the Torys could do with heading in the direction, head bowed, and stopped messing around with the central ground. That way, they could actually say they were making a stand, rather than pandering to floating voters, and shed their superficial image in seconds. Furthermore, senior members of the cabinet cautioned against the promised tax changes, implying that a cut in taxes was a strike to the stable functioning of the economy, a thought that has served Labour well at budget time. Indeed, the Torys meekly said that they would only make these, admittedly populist, changes if they would suit the economy.

This shows us just how much of a wrong footing Cameron must find himself now hopping on. Major traditional philosophies of the conservatives have been neatly chewed up and thrown in the bin by the opposition, and his credibilty seems to have deserted the country as quickly as Tony Blair left his Sedgefield constituency. But what's a man to do in these desperate times? The answer is simple: stop tip-toeing around and being all nicey-nicey, and get some solid policies. If Gordon Brown calls a snap election, which he may do, the way things are going, then the Torys are going to have a rather unpleasant wake-up call. Labour has a nice record over the last 10 years, and the new incumbent at Number 10 is showing a political prudence that Mr. Cameron could only dream of having.

Yet, that said, the Torys could win the next election. Recent elections for Labour have not been won on the overwhelming numbers of their supporters, especially as the recent election in Scotland shows the distrust oozing out of that particular Labour heartland. Instead, it has been voter abstinence from the Tory ranks. Despite the effects of the so-called 'Brown Bounce', if the Torys can mobilise their supporters, by offering them an alternative, by giving them an electable party.

But to do this, Cameron is going to have to get his act together, and fast, otherwise we could be seeing another 4 (or more?) years of Labour government. His image problems are temporary: If he gets some ground to stand up on from, people will see more in him. He may be youthful, and inexperienced, but he is no doubt plucky, and people always love an underdog. Moreover, unlike Barrack Obama in the US, he has some serious, credible, people behind. The Shadow Cabinet still has plenty of people from the Major era. All I can say is that he won't be encumbered with quite the same problems that felled that government, come election time.

Ordering Control

2007-05-24T13:17:00.000+01:00

Three people seem to have gone astray. Another cock-up, courtesy of the new, smaller and more compact Home Office? Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, I am far from surprised by this latest incident, as it was inevitable.

The reason this whole issue exists is because of control orders. Control orders are a system introduced by the Government despite fervored opposition from the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, where terror 'suspects' are required to follow certain conditions, ranging from having to stop going to work to not be able to be photographed. There are two types of control order: derogating and non-derogating, the distinction being made when the order breaches a persons' human rights. If this is so, the the Home Secretary must apply to a court to confirm this.

Further court rulings have reduced the power of the control orders. The Home Secretary attacked the judiciary for their actions claiming that it was "up to politicians to make these decisions", and for judges and lawyers to "implement current legislation". The point was raised in an Urgent Question to the Home Secretary, that actually the flaw lay on the legislators for leaving such ambiguousness in the letter of the law. It was also pointed out that the reason judges had ruled so was down to the Labour Government itself, as it had passed the Human Rights Act 1998, which allowed Judges to declare acts contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.

But this surely bypasses the point - why do we have control orders? Originally introduced after the Law Lords ruled that the detaining of prisoners without trial (under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001) was unlawful, the control order regime was denounced by one Judge as "an affront to Justice". Is it possible to have in a democratic and supposedly fair society a system that detains people officially on 'suspicion'?

Also during the session in the House of Commons, John Reid declared the point of Control Orders was to be able to deal with people where there was "not enough evidence to charge". This is the great dilemma facing politicians and thinkers alike - in such a rapid and lethally adaptive system such as terrorism, how do you deal effectively without either being heavy-handed or infringing on civil liberties? Because of this lack of evidence, yet the large damage that could be done if terrorists could do if they were let free, you can't possibly treat things like other serious crimes: Murder, Fraud, Robbery, they are all extremely isolated events. Terrorist attacks, as seen in the events of 7/7, are headline news, and affect a lot of people.

So what do we do? The current system is no good, as it just leaves 'suspects' in a state of judicial limbo, neither guilty not not guilty. Plans to introduce 'intercept evidence' is in the pipeline, although this is a dangerous route, because it is all to easy to compromise a trial with (currently) inadmissible evidence. The main reason against this, as John Reid states, is that this would require the Home Office and Security Services to reveal sources and other confidential or important information.

It is hardly surprising then, given the gravity of the situation, that as early as the 1990's, it was suggested that an entirely different system of justice be introduced for terror suspects.

Identity Frauds

2007-04-04T23:15:00.000+01:00

Today, through a freedom of information of request, it was revealed that almost a third of all people will refuse identity card checks, according to statistics from the Department of Work and Pensions.

Well, what a surprise! Good gosh, to think that people would actually not like to be probed for more and more information by an increasingly nosy government, well, that is a complete shock to my system - I can see the world tumbling down around me!

The whole ID cards fracas, is, to put it mildly, absurd in every detail and event surrounding it. The home office issued a response to the figures: they were, apparently, historical and outdated, since they dated from 2004. Has this government gone so mad that it now assumes that people have changed in their attitudes towards this crazy scheme, when nothing new has emerged about this since then and now? How very droll of them.

Okay, so enough of the biased cynicism. Take a bit more of an analytical look on things: what is the purpose of these ID cards? Answer, anyone? Well, apparently they are meant to help safeguard liberties. That, to put it bluntly, is ridiculous. How can you help safeguard freedoms by reducing them? - that is a basic logical fallacy, by anyone's book. So the scheme falls at the first hurdle.

Alright then, for the sake of some mildly entertaining journaliste prose, assume that ID cards are proven to actively help combat crime and keep the nation secure. The scheme is estimated to cost upwards of £5.4bn. Just pause and think for one moment, how many hospitals, how many new trains, new teachers, more policemen etc. that could buy for this nation. I'm sure, by even the most inflated prices that this government always seems to end up paying for things to get done, quite a few.

So the scheme fell at the second hurdle as well, as it was outlandishly expensive. But just consider you could justify the cost, somehow. Now, let's assess the impact that a new ID card system would do. Hmm, well, it would prove who you are. Now, when would you require a proof of identity? When traveling abroad, no wait, we have passports for that sort of thing. Identifying yourself to the police, say after a road accident. No, hang on, we have driving licenses too. Aah, well, it would help in a bar - we don't have a specific card for that. True, but you could still use your driving license or, if you are that rare beast, an over 18 without a driving license, purchase a cheap citizenship card, such as the CitizenCard costing only £9 (£5 for under 18s), a far cry from the estimated £30 for the ID card.

There once was someone who observed that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. How lamentably true that statement is in this context. Identity cards were used to combat German spies in WWII. In 1952, then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, removed ID cards as they were hindering, rather than helping the police, as people were so resentful of being asked to prove themselves that they stubbornly refused to help the police.

The ID card system seems set to come into force, albeit voluntarily (conversely, if you apply for a passport, you receive an ID card also, costing £98), in 2008. If Labour is re-elected, they are already pledging to make them mandatory by 2014. Oh my, the waste of it all.

The author is, if you hadn't already realised, completely against ID cards. He hopes that you are not put off from reading more of this blog by his scathing cynicism, and apologises for any un-argued personal bias in the article.

The Tracks of Mis-Direction

2007-04-04T22:38:00.000+01:00

Network Rail was fined £4m for health and safety breaches leading up to the Ladbroke Grove (Paddington) train crash. Great. Now, 8 years on, we can all go home and sleep in our beds, safe in the knowledge that now train crashes will never happen again.

Now, sarcasm aside, I do have a serious point: it took 8 years for an inquiry to decide to issue a fine. I do apologise, as my knowledge of the crash is limited, and I do appreciate the level of detail and sophistication an inquiry like this requires, but I seriously question the wisdom of this judgment.

To start with, consider this fact: the organisation being fined, Network Rail, is not responsible at all for the crash, nor the health and safety breaches. It was the private company, Railtrack, that caused all this trouble, often (in the case of the Potters Bar crash) by mis-management and an institutionalised failure to check up on maintenance work; here an ineptitude so tragic that it caused the death of 31 people. Network Rail is the governmental organisation set up to clean up the mess that was Britain's railway infrastructure.

Now, as you may be pondering, as this is a governmental department, where does the money go? Sadly, this money will be shifted from one budget paper to another. The money will just come back to Network Rail in the new financial year, negating any impact that it was meant to have at all. You could also ask what the point of the exercise was, because this is tax-payers money, after all in theory, you are depriving the victims of public services.

You also may wish to point out that Network Rail are going to receive funds to upgrade the railways in excess of £1bn. A £4m here or there is hardly going to have any impact whatsoever, even before you consider who owns the department.

The Ladbroke Grove crash was, and still is, a tragedy. Certainly, someone was responsible. Indeed, we all know who it was, as I mentioned before - Railtrack. But that is a deceased body, I am sad to say, and so nothing can be done against Railtrack directly. However, the directors of Railtrack live on, so to speak, and ethically and morally, they hold responsibility. Criminally, however, there is no evidence to support the deduction that they were directly responsible, and so none of them face any punishment. Instead, the current government department faces a fine. My, what a farce.

Gambling, schmambling....

2007-03-29T20:46:00.000+01:00

And so, here marks the grave of the unknown super-casino. Rejected in a furore of opposition aggression in the lords, and only just passing through the commons, it certainly looks like the gamble didn't pay off for the government. It must have been, as you would assume, a failed case of trying to import US culture into the UK, never a wise move.

Let's have a go at cleaning up this muck. The government decided, presumably executing a decades old plan of the civil service, to introduce new super casinos, as well as increase the number of smaller casino licensees. The new casinos, wherever they were going to be built, would bring jobs and commerce, a huge economic boost to that area. However, the idea of a large gambling outfit was going to be controversial from day one: after all, gambling is a sin!

So the government adopted a softly, softly approach. They'll build just the one, and use it as pilot scheme. But, alas for poor Tessa Jowell, the culture minister, this only created more problems than it fixed: now there had to be a bid, open to public scrutiny from afar, and only one area would eventually win, creating potentially a hornet's nest of sore loser residents and councilors.

What's more, the powers that be back at Westminster thought that this was too much too soon already, as a house of lords committee suggested that the casino panel, responsible for choosing the site, had done a bit of a bad job. The conservatives jumped on the bandwagon, and now the situation has deteriorated to the point of commons versus lords.

But what should not be forgotten is that the casino bill, which made super casinos legal, passed smoothly through both houses. So clearly no objections to the principle, in that case. And as Tessa Jowell pointed out, the commons has superiority over the lords. It could be a matter of months, and unless anything happens to the government, the casino will probably be forced through.

The thing that made me think, watching the news, was what the leader of the Manchester, the eventual victors, said in respect to the lords vote. He said that he thought the lords rejecting the casino on the grounds that people might suffer from problem gambling to be patronising. Maybe so, but you can never know with these things.

One thing to bear in mind about super casinos, is that life in Britain has progressed successfully without these gambling houses. Manchester is, I am sure, as is Blackpool and Greenwich, quite capable of re-generating without the aid of a super casino. That, especially for the most vocal of the losers, Blackpool, is something not to be forgotten - with or without a casino, life goes on.

Let's split the Home Office - into a home and an office!

2007-03-29T00:49:00.000+01:00

Okay, so ignore the slightly facetious title, what John Reid has decided to is serious stuff. This will mark the end of an era, and the department will be split and partially merged with the Department for Constitutional Affairs. One thing troubles me though:

In all of its 200 year existence, why was this split never thought of before?

Surely that, and that alone, bears testament to the issues around this organisational minefield. The Home Office will now mirror continental departments such as those found in France and Spain. But surely, you should ask, is why didn't we do this all a long time ago? Well, to find the answer, you may have to look at how the Home Office is doing at the moment, and I can assure you, it isn't great. With fiascoes here and there hitting the tabloids all the time about more recent batches of incompetence streaming out of the Home Office, well it isn't surprising it has that reputation either. The Home Office has too much to do for such a cumbersome organisation, obviously, so the plan is to split it up into more manageable chunks.

But would splitting up this behemoth really help things? Can the valuable knowledge of the departments be used effectively in two separate ministries? Or will, instead of staying to the dictum of 'small is beautiful', it in fact create a breakdown of communications and seamless operation of law and order?

One thing in mind to note is that the tabloids haven't exactly only just starting carping on about Home Office failings under Labour. I do think that they were critising 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. I'm sure the organisation had problems then (Birmingham 6, PACE Act 1984 etc.). I somehow do not recall the idea of this split ever coming on the table in the past.

Then again, I may be reading the cards wrong - the threat of terrorism, a new menace that the department is having difficulty dealing with, looms ever more with every passing day. Maybe now that the cold war has ended, it is time to stop clinging on to the status quo and reform the department.

Hmm. Maybe. But I'm still not convinced. I don't remember businesses and departments splitting up into separate parts that play different roles in the same process (here the administration of justice) ever working. Well, regardless, for the sake of this country, I hope Mr. Reid proves me wrong.

Iran & the case of the 15 soldiers

2007-03-29T00:13:00.000+01:00

So - we're back in a diplomatic crisis with Iran - again.

What I find most intriguing about the whole affair, aside from the details of this fiasco, is the way that different sides are treating this. The right accuse the government of being lilly-livered, (the times' editorial called it pusillanimous), and the left accuse them of being too aggressive.

Let's try and make some sense of this. Regardless of what Iran or the UK's troops did or didn't do, you have to ask yourself: why? What does Iran stand to gain from this? Why are they being so uncooperative with the British government? Why has this seemingly innocuous issue of being close to a border (under maritime law, you have a right to cross these borders anyway) been inflated to these remarkable proportions.

Firstly, look at where Iran stands - it's the stub of the UN over its nuclear programme, and could it really improve things by capturing 15 troops? They have just been 'awarded' extra sanctions, so it could be an attempt to show its peoples that it is still a player in the region, and will not be underestimated? Possibly, even probably, it is the equivalent of a child throwing a tantrum.

But do appreciate something that Iran has, that we in Britain don't - competing layers of government. This happened in the USSR, where the army was oppressed by the politicians, who in turn were orchestrated by the KGB. In Iran, to start with, apart from internal squabbling in between ministries, they have two armies! One, as we would consider our army, and secondly, the Revolutionary Guard, who are responsible for internal security and the protection of the state. Sort of like a secret police, an Islamic SS, I suppose.

So in actual fact, whilst the president of Iran and the foreign ministry may be trying to secure the safe release of the prisoners, the overlapping bureaucracy of these competing factions may delay this process, not to mention the fact that more hard-line elements may be completely opposed to this.

And on top of all this, people expect our politicians to restructure Iran? The government should be wary of giving the extremists in Iran an excuse, such as the spectre of military action. On the other hand, it should not back down, but firmly and fairly apply the pressure on the Iranians to get the soldiers released. It's all about striking a balance - something that seems increasingly difficult to do in the middle east in this day and age.

Aah.. finally!

2007-03-28T23:48:00.000+01:00

At last, I've eventually hitched up on the bandwagon!

Hopefully, if this stays active, you can read my opinions on all the current news happening in politics and now. I hope to provide an insightful viewpoint on life in the halls of power, and not get bogged down in clichés and whatnot.

Enjoy reading (if there is anything on here to read....)!