Ed Miliband's speech: Fail

One of the things that you're advised when trying to get elected in Students' Unions is to not state the obvious, and to not make promises that are obvious. While those keen on you might be encouraged that you're telling them what they want to hear, others will be sceptical that you have no content, no meat behind your claims; That you are just trying to sound good without being good.

This is the trap Ed Miliband fell in to today.

See below some examples of the reverse of claims Ed made...and then see if you could see either David Cameron or Nick Clegg supporting them.

"I am determined to prove to you that the next Government will only spend what it can't afford. That we won't live within our means."

"we won't manage your money properly."

"So I’m going to tell you lies"

"I’ll tell you what I’m interested in.
Not winning back the trust of the British people.
Not winning the next general election."

"To the young people who want to get on and contribute to our country my message is simple.
I will let you be priced out of your future."

Then there was the stilted and awkward delivery, the hammy jokes, and the clear lack of any charisma, a situation that he attempted to mask by doing some strange rapper style delivery of his speech...not in terms of the words, but his body movements, and his stance. It all felt so fake, so forced.

And then the few opportunities that Ed had to actually say anything legitimate, he squandered by making a hypocrite of himself or by letting himself down with simple untruths.

First he reiterated the policy claim from his interviews at the start of conference, that he would cut the cap on tuition fees to £6k, an act that does nothing but help the richest graduates richer. Then he would go on to say...

Only David Cameron could believe that you make ordinary families work harder by making them poorer and you make the rich work harder by making them richer.

Well, sir, it would seem you believe that too.

Finally.. "New Bargain". What the hell is up with that phrase? Who came up with it? Do Labour just want to relaunch the New Deal but can't call it the same thing? New Bargain, it sounds...dirty, imbalanced. Is it to be followed by Newer Haggling?

To use a frictionless slope, you have to get on (Facebook "Frictionless Experiences")

"I gave them express permission to slap me in the face...imagine my suprise when they slapped me in the face!"

This is what the current outcry about Facebook's new push for "frictionless experiences" with third party application developers, some of the most high profile being the likes of Guardian or Independent newspapers, sounds like to me.

Somewhere along the road with this announcement it seems people have forgotten that in order to be sharing "everything you do" into your timeline (a new Facebook feature that is being rolled out) can't be achieved without you clicking a button that, in not so certain terms, "share everything I do with this site/app".

Privacy warriors, a vital set of people in the online world as companies like Facebook seek to test the boundaries of what is acceptable or even legal on a seemingly daily basis, may not realise how difficult it actually is to just use people's information from Facebook.

Those people that have left all of their details open to the world may be able to have some of their personal detail harvested by application developers, but those who employ even the most basic of privacy settings shield it all until they actively go through a process that says "let this application see my details".

And so it is with "frictionless experiences", if you're going to have that smooth ride you need to give yourself a push first.

Privacy is something you can do with as you wish, and as such it is not a privacy concern when what you're doing is being published automatically when you have approved this behaviour up front. If facebook was allowing all users data to be used by third parties for the purposes of this experiment then those with concerns would have genuine reason to have those concerns.
It is not.

And then there is concern about "noise" and lack of considered sharing. "Frictionless experiences" doesn't appear, at least for the time being, to replace the Like button. Or the share this functionality. People will still be able to post links to things they think are cool, or articles that are interesting reads, as much as they always have.

On top of this Facebook will start to log your activity on sites that are running apps that you have approved to do so and will keep that information in the background. It will get posted to that inconsequential news ticker that no-one actually reads, but it won't go in the timeline/newsfeed. It might, if it algorithmically sees a trend, push something to be shared as if you'd "liked" it...but this is a far cry from you happening to read that article about porn and it being put in to a prominent position in your friend's news feeds!

Unless you always read about porn.

I also would argue this is a positive thing. Obviously when you feel the need to hit a like button you know this is something you want to share with people, that you think they want to see. What about all the things people want to see, or that you should be sharing, but don't realise? If Facebook can get the algorithms right then you could find yourself looking at the feeds and thinking "Yeah...why *didn't* I share that?".

If you don't like the privacy implications here, then don't approve the apps. You don't have to take part, and in all honesty your experience of Facebook and the web is not going to be knowingly dampened by not approving those apps. If you are worried about the noise...well...let's watch this space. Facebook have given strong assurances over controlling the number of updates, and this should be obvious as the last thing Facebook wants to do is drive people away from using their platform. Your concerns there may well, hopefully, be unfounded too.

The Lib Dem's and *that* pledge.

It's time to accept it, the Lib Dem's have not really broken their pledge on Tuition fees. Reframing higher education funding in a way that the Tories and Labour were likely to do anyway, they have reduced the cost of tuition for the majority.

Cheaper degrees than those from 2006-2010, and more accessible than any system since tuition fees were first introduced, the cost of going to university hasn't been this low for a decade for those that need that cost to be low.

Preface: All figures below are calculated using the Money Saving Expert calculator on their standard assumptions. It assumes a retention of current student numbers at around 1.8m Full Time Equivalent (FTE) undergraduates in Higher Education (HE) in any one academic year, of which about 800,000 take out a maintenance loan of a average of £3,650, and all take the average university cost of £8,600 per year over a three year course. It assumes the average graduate salary is £20k. It assumes all values rise with inflation. It also obviously assumes the policy won't change in the next 30 years, as unlikely as that may be.

The Lib Dem plan... what's the problem?
The real problems with the system coming in to effect are as simple as the system is overly complex. The rich still have a way of getting out of contributing "their fair share", the system is not truly progressive in that those graduates who earn more money, earlier in their career, will pay back a much smaller total amount than those who earn the majority of their money later in their career or don't achieve high salaries.

It also relies on up front payment by the state for HE, with a significant lag before the majority of the funding is recouped, creating a form of deficit at a time of deficit reduction. A strange choice for a supposedly deficit reducing government!

These issues, along with the issue of the system being complicated and hard for people to understand as more progressive and *cheaper* than previous systems for funding HE, would be solved if funding was provided for purely through taxation in some form or another; graduate taxation, or general taxation.

There is also the problem that is the main reason for the Lib Dems taking a beating over this issue; the chance and perception that students will pay more than they had to when fees were capped to £3,000. In part this is true, for those who take out loans and earn above average wages. Students have long wanted education to be funded from general taxation. In this sense a graduate tax does not solve the final problem of the Lib Dem funding system, that of not shelving a burden on the students themselves for their own education.

However that is, as I say, a perception issue. It is only partly true. Educational costs have been passed more on to students themselves, but not all students...and it is certainly not the case that a tripling of fees is leading to a tripling of cost. The problem that is most often cited by angry students isn't really a problem at all.

Niggles, not problems
The reality, not accepted by the NUS who's official line is "FEES BAD (nswf link)", baulked at by those who have failed to return from their knee jerk break up from the party when the plans were announced in 2010, and ignored by Labour supporters that would rather deceive ex-Lib Dem's to keep their new found support, is that the system is fundamentally more progressive than anything Labour have brought forward in the last decade.

This system is better for poorer graduates than anything that's existed since tuition fees were first introduced to fund HE, in relative terms.

More than this, it in practice gives any student that doesn't earn over the average wage in this country a free HE education. Not just free as in the bursary scheme that Labour introduced, free as in they won't have to pay for their education, they won't have to pay for the maintenance loans they took to help pay rent and buy food during those years. For the first time graduates that earn money, but not enough money to put them in to the "better than average" bracket, will have a completely free university life.

This system, in all it's ugly convolution, is closer to "free" education than any system since Labour started us on student contributions.

There has not been a time since 2006 where so many will have a free education. Since 1998 we will not have seen as low a cost for education and living for the majority, with the benefit of repayments being more manageable than their upfront nature.

There are losers of course, but only where the losers can afford to subsidise those who lose out in their own way of not taking the premium that they were idly promised before they enrolled.

University degrees and three years rent, only £12k!
The only people interested in keeping the focus of this discussion on £9k tuition fees and £4k maintenance loans each year, and the "debt" that it accrues over three years are those that wish to make political capital out of it. They know that such a stance is now disingenuous, but they find it easier to try to confuse supporters of free education with scary sounding numbers.

In particular it's hard to make the new system sound evil when the amount that most would repay under this system is just £12k, while those paying under Labour's "cheaper" and "less debt" system would pay back all of their roughly £22k loan.

The reason for this is the values, the "debt", have been increased to such a degree that we're now looking at something much closer to a graduate tax, and a tax that has it's thresholds set fairly for earners. "Tuition fees" are dead for the majority, and it's time we should call a spade a spade.

Yes...graduate TAX
Debt this is not.

Debt does not disappear after a set of time before it is repaid, debt doesn't even disappear if you are unfortunate enough to die before you have repaid it. Debt repayment isn't based on your ability to pay.

What other system is there where you pay a set percentage of income, as long as you're over a threshold, to the state as standard? Income tax, of course...national insurance too. Both taxes, but could be described as hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of "debt" that you are continuously paying off at a set rate dependent on income.

By increasing the amounts that universities can charge, and fundamentally reforming the way that we pay back loans, a tax system has been created for all but those who choose to pay off the loan early or earn a significant sum of money. It is a clear move away from the situation of tuition fees and even loans as a principle. Instead, the focus is now on long term funding through a taxation model.

Why is this something that is worth praising rather than deriding? Progress. We need to move the language of fees away from loans and payments to that of taxation. Until we start to enter the realms where a tax, even a graduate tax, is the most effective solution, we cannot re-enter the cost of HE funding back to general taxation.

The future
We have to consider where this system will take us in the future. With 1.8mil FTE students in education at any one time there are loans that will be going out every year in excess of £15.5bn of loans delivered to institutions on behalf of students, and £9bn in maintenance loans. Each year (after 2015) a certain proportion of this will be paid back by the students. With a cut off point of 30 years we will be looking at having accrued over £475bn+£280bn (at today's money values) going out. That's £755bn.

Coming in is much harder to define, but an "average" student would likely pay back £12k over the course of their 30 year loan term. Over 30 years this would work out at £268bn paid in. This is, of course, just a "guesstimated" likely minimum. We know from the "top fliers" survey that an average salary of £25k is earned for the top 6% of graduate earners, but wage progression is also likely to be better than for average students too (in the medical profession we know this to be true). I can only guesstimate more that these people would certainly bring another £28bn, by assuming a most cost scenario for wage progression (that is RPI +6%, any higher and the amount they pay back actually decreases as they repay their loan quicker and thus interest is reduced). By doubling this I hope to conservatively get a likely average for loan repayments over 30 year of £325bn;

It's not as simple as saying this apparent large shortfall is a problem though, as 30 years worth of loans should be paid back over 60 years of repayments. In this sense the figures roughly, maybe with a slight shortfall, add up (at least £650bn brought in versus the £755bn out).

The problem is if the system continues then we will have a constant deficit of around £400bn that will have to be borrowed from somewhere to service HE funding year on year. This doesn't make sense from a government that has put their flag in the ground of deficit reduction.

In general taxation terms we could cover this quite easily. With graduates being forced to pay 9% tax on earnings over 21k it's just a case of how the yearly £15.5bn cost of HE (other sources say £12.5bn, I'm being conservative) could be shifted on to taxpayers that will, over time, largely be graduates anyway. At around 2.5-3% of the total current income tax receipts the amount of additional tax needed isn't insignificant, and it's true that this would likely be seen negatively by the public at large.

However the negative view of tax being increased is only masking the fact that as time goes on most people in this country will be paying tax rates of 29% and 49% rather than 20% and 40%. Could it go up to (for example) 22% and 44%? A tough sell right now, to change either of those rates...or to add an additional layer of tax band in between the two, but in the future? Perhaps not so tough.

It is an improvement, it is better, it is to be applauded
Anyone that is annoyed at the Lib Dem's breaking their pledge not to raise fees has some right to feel aggrieved. I am. Or at least I was. We also have a duty to see things as they really are. Rich graduates have their fees increased, in that sense the pledge has been broken, but poorer graduates have had their fees reduced, even middle income graduates will see no change to the amount they end up paying, if they're not lucky enough to still pay less than 2006 prices in real terms as well.

Are we really to cry over the Lib Dem's, in a de facto manner, keeping their pledge for the majority of students, but breaking it for those that earn significantly more than the average worker in the UK?

I'd prefer absolutely that the pledge was never made, the politics since has been complicated and the simplicity of the message was begging to come back and bite Nick Clegg and his team. However the coalition have moved us in the right direction, an it's what we do next that is important.

If we accept and applaud this situation within the confines of graduates providing repayments, but criticise the fact it is confined to graduates at all, we have never had as stronger footing for an argument to remove tuition fees since they were first introduced over a decade ago.

Next stages
The important thing now is to make it clear what the real cost of university now is. Students should not be told that they will face £60k of debt, this is irresponsible and simplistic. If poor people are getting put off from university it is because politicians are letting them get dissuaded. It's a no brainer that those that understand the value of money will be put off by a large figure being put on their back.

Tell them, however, that if they earn an average wage in this country that their debt will effectively be just £12k and they might have a different stance on whether to enter university. Tell them that they will likely have to pay just 1-1.5% of their income each year as long as they earn a middling wage and they might see the "debt" as less threatening.

Let them know that if they are unsuccessful, choose a low paid path in life, get unlucky...that the real cost of their university life, fees AND living cost loans, could decrease even further from £12k to maybe not needing to be paid back at all and their perceived threat of penalisation for not achieving, of having huge debt with nothing to pay it off with, must surely be swept away.

Let them know that there hasn't been a better, more financially managable, less risky time to try to get a university education.

The art of pledging: Ed Miliband and tuition fees

There was a law that was set in stone in the strongest possible terms in late 2010...don't make pledges that your party can't cash. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems paid a heavy price that may end up doing long-term damage to the party by promising to do one thing (not raise tuition fees) before the election, and then being forced in to a situation where that promise was broken.

Need, tact, tempering or two-facedness aside...whatever your view on the reasons...abandoning a pledge and a promise is not something to do lightly when you are aiming to garner the trust of the electorate. So when Ed Miliband promises that he'll lower tuition fees if Labour get back in power, is he playing with fire?

The bitter partisanship of a Labour supporter

I read Darrell Goodliffe's stuff with interest, when it's in the realms of fact his views are excellent and I highly recommend them. By contrast when the issue is pure politics his views are beneath that usual standard. Take his recent "musings"

--

"Geroge Orwell would probably love a visit to the Liberal Democrat Conference. He would find enough examples of Newsspeak to convince him that rather than being a work of satirical fiction, 1984 was in fact a grimly ironic prophecy of things to come."

Maybe it's not his intention, but I think the idea of a Labour supporter citing Orwell as being prophetic through the actions of Lib Dems will do nothing but set the red rag to the proverbial bull.

"Orwell would have found Nick Clegg’s speech particularly laden with it. Clegg, as is becoming usual, spoke with his forked tongue; look at the pledge to ‘veto the abolition of the 50p tax band’ – made as if Clegg will not already know that there are, in fact, no proposals to abolish this band, in the next budget at least. Que much spinning about a ‘famous Lib Dem victory’."

Well talking of "spinning", Clegg didn't talk about the 50p tax rate in his speech. he did, in an interview where he was asked specifically where he stood should George Osborne press on with the much reported and alluded to plan to bring forward the cutting of the 50p tax rate, say he would veto such a plan if it came up.

Not so much spinning of a famous Lib Dem victory as much as spelling out the realities of consensus politics in a coalition, if you read the interview in question.

If Clegg is at all shaping up for "famous Lib Dem victories" it is on his desire to push for greater tax free allowance limits for low earners, and to shift taxation for the rich on to wealth...things that would be truly praise worthy if implemented well.

"This is the point, for all the rhetorical flourishes about the Conservatives being the “political enemies” it is still just a show being put on for recalcitrant Lib Dem members and the dwindling band of Liberal Democrat voters to convince them that they are still loyal to a Party that exists in more than theory."

How's this for theory?

Lib Dems run on policy that is, unlike other parties, actually decided by their membership.
Lib Dem manifesto's are created from these member approved policies.
Currently the Lib Dems have some 75% of their manifesto enacted, or being enacted, as government policy.

And this doesn't even scratch the surface of the nuances of tempering of conservative policy.

"Clegg’s speech and the whole conference will have been carefully calibrated in close consultation with the David Cameron and his clique within the Conservative Party as the same will be true of the Conservative conference. Cameron will make his carefully worded attacks on his allies to please his right-wing and the Daily Mail blue-rinse brigade and it will generate exactly the kind of media kerfuffle that both want."

This much is obviously true, indeed already the Daily Mail are doing what they feel they need to, the Lib Dem words of Farron and similar being portrayed as the deaths knell of the coalition when the reality will be far less interesting.

"Many Liberal Democrat’s are now so crazed in their hatred of Labour that it is unture. They are so much so that one rather shockingly accused Labour of being complicit in the killing of Baby P due to its “love of bureaucracy and red tape” on Twitter last night."

Indeed, the rantings and ravings of one individual are of course a fair representation of the entire membership's view...

"She also went onto to call all Labour members “deviants” and “vipers”. Red-eyed, demented and totally detached from the real world, you are left wondering at what Clegg has done to inspire this kind of fanatical loyalty."

The same could be said of any of the party leaders and those members of that party, who may be in the minority or not, that seem to attack other parties without actual basis in fact. It could be also questioned whether it is fanatical loyalty to one party, or an actual fanatical hatred of a party instead.

It would seem that hating the Labour party for what they did while in office is an illegitimate reason, and must be fueled instead by some kind of idolization. Hatred of the Tories for everything they did in the 80's on the other hand, is legitimate, and not at all fueled by a devotion to an ideal or an individual.

"The amazing thing is that the same Liberal Democrat’s then wonder why Labour activists heap bile on them. We are ultimately the ones who were first betrayed by a Party which pretended to share our values as long as it garnered them support."

Betrayed? The Labour party never reached the threshold of what the Lib Dems stated in advance of the election in order to become coalition partners. The fact talks were held at all shows how much the core membership and backbench MPs care about the shared ideals, and it's more than abundantly clear that it was Labour that shot themselves in the foot on this note. Betrayed isn't even close.

"This is a perfect example of why Labour cannot work with the Liberal Democrat Party as it currently exists."

Indeed, because there seems to be a core of party members, activists, and MPs, that all fail to be able to see common ground through differences within the Labour party itself. This post being a fine example of one of those viewpoints.

From my view point, speaking to Lib Dem supporters and Labour supporters before the election result...there was lots of common ground, some distrust, but little hatred. That has changed, and it's not been because of the Lib Dems suddenly turning on Labour. Quite the opposite. The fickle childishness of Labour supporters, in an essence sounding every bit like they were entitled to be handed power once again in 2010, is what has turned a lot of Lib Dem supporters' moods so hostile.

"Having said all that, there are good Liberal Democrats left. My plea to them is to leave their stinking corpse of a Party and government and if not join Labour, then at least join the opposition to the government and open up a conversation with the rest of us about the way forward."

'Leave a party that is delivering what you agreed to do, and join one that has generally failed to deliver those same wishes, and has actively gone against your core principles and hasn't yet faced up to how wrong doing that was'

Yeah, that'll work.

"Your Party is driving this country into the ground and is part of the problem. Not even your vaunted tax proposals are helping the poor, in fact, they are helping the rich,"

Really? The tax proposals still to come that could well bring more taxes proportionally from the wealthy than current taxation rules? The ones Lib Dem brought to the table that are reducing the marginal tax rate of going to work? I'd be interested in seeing where these tax proposals are indeed helping the rich.

"which is why the Conservatives are happy to implement them."

That'll be why the rich are, in the Tory press, on the back benches, and even through actual minister's words, praising current taxation on the rich and wishing it could have been like this sooner.

"Nothing is as it seems with your Party and I know you want to believe for the best of reasons but the facts are the facts."

Funny, I've not seen any facts here so far, only that "bile" that is detested so much by Mr Goodliffe.

"Leave government and join the opposition so we can overturn this government of the social elite and replace it with one that governs for the many, not the few, the country needs and deserves nothing less."

And so ends this Labour marketing pitch to do exactly what Nick Clegg warned about in his speech...

The Liberal Democrats are a family. There are those who wish to drive a wedge between us – our opponents, the vested interests in politics and the media who want to put us back in our place. They won’t succeed. Because whether you consider yourself more of a social democrat or a classical liberal, whether your hero is Gladstone or Keynes, Paddy Ashdown or Shirley Williams, we are all, to one degree or another, all of the above.

The NHS reforms: Not bad

I find myself surprised at the surprise in the actions of most Lib Dem MPs with regards to the NHS Health and Social Care Bill, passed for consideration by the House of Lords yesterday by a narrowish margin of 65 votes. Obviously this figure of 65 gives fuel to the ire because it's a number that could have been reversed by a strong Lib Dem rebellion.

It also would have spelled the end of a coalition at a time when the country least needs it, with the Tories the only party that can truly afford an election right now (if "the word on the tweet" is true), and Labour completely unprepared for taking the reigns as they rediscover what they actually bring to the table.

But I find myself more surprised at the Lib Dem supporters themselves that are aghast at the actions of their MPs doing what they agreed to do when they signed the coalition agreement in 2010; not least because this is a very "Lib Dem" bill, and, if you believe that it can be achieved, is actually better for providing a progressive and improving health service than our current legislation.

Profit driven decision making

A possible hangover from the bill before it was paused and rewritten, there was a real fear that we would be continuing down the path that the Blair administration set us down which is privatisation of public services to the lowest bidder. It's clearly a system with huge risks, doesn't deliver adequate results, and leaves devastation in it's wake as we are unable to reclaim the standard we knew before.

Thankfully the new version of the bill specifically veers away from such plans. (Section 23 14Q)

The whole point of the bill as amended is that the commissioning consortia have to improve standards in care. It's common sense really...the people that are tasked with running a good health service are legally required to ensure the service is good. They aren't, as councils and similar have been in the past, mandated to go with the lowest offer and so it is not in the interest of private bodies to put in a low ball offer, the evidence has to be there that they can do as good a job as what is currently provided, or better, and that the service is value for money on top of that.

It's decision making with the needs of the public's health put first, not how much money can be saved.

Lack of public interaction

Not all concerns are so baseless, this concern is one that is centered on a lack of real information or clarity within the bill. The bill fairly loosely talks about involving patients in their own care...the intent for this is that patients will have options presented to them of how to achieve their care, and to be part of the decision making process for the journey ahead.

It also talks of a "Health and Wellbeing" board, that operates with the overarching commissioning board that oversees and regulates the numerous, yet all that the bill talks about is these bodies giving "advice" to the various commissioning bodies.

There is also a requirement for commissioning consortia to consult those affected by any changes that they make to healthcare provisions. (Section 23 14Z).

However the trouble with all three of these things is that without further embellishment they could let lazy elements within the NHS off with doing very little to engage with the public. Indeed the wording of consultation is right along side "provide information", and if commissioning bodies are able to get away with "consultation" simply by putting leaflets on a desk in GP offices then the spirit of the legislation isn't being followed.

Inequality of care

There are concerns voiced about two tier systems of care, the charge of "cherry-picking" of profitable services by the private sector while others languish. However it is not as simple as to say that, as the GPC deputy chair Dr Richard Vautrey claims, that old and vulnerable people will be treated differently.

It would be a breach of the law if there was an active decision made by commissioning bodies to split the same service in terms of profitability, and hand some patients to a superior care provider, and retain others on lesser conditions. For example, there could never be a situation where it was actively sustained to have elderly cancer patients dealt with by one service, and young cancer patients by another, without there being a clear comparability between the two in terms of quality and effectiveness. (Section 23 14S)

There is a problem with the differences between services. Will mental health patients get a comparative level of funding and care to those treated for cancer? The truth is that the situation on that front is not equitable right now, nor is there any framework to try to ensure that it becomes more equitable. If people want better standards of mental health care right now it appears there is no route they can rely on to try and force the matter...aside from lobbying politicians.

Under the new system there is a duty for the new commissioning consortia to try to improve standards year on year, obviously it is not a requirement to always improve as sometimes that will be impossible even with the greatest of wills behind it. If this duty is not followed, then the consortium can be told to act differently, members of the consortium removed or added, and even the consortium itself dissolved in cases of severely abandoning that duty.

If we're looking for more equal patient care then we have a much more robust framework to discuss that issue with in the Lords. Before there was nothing to stop ministers actively "running down" areas of healthcare for whatever reason, now there is.

Privatisation of healthcare

An obviously big concern is that of private companies taking over our hospitals and services, at least where there is no need, with no consultation and with no patient choice. This has been, I believe unfairly, highlighted by recent reports of considerations made for a German company to run 10-20 hospitals.

Yet the reports have no bearing on the future of the NHS, as strange as that may sound. The idea of ministers contracting in private companies to deal with healthcare would actually be impossible under new reforms, where local autonomy of commissioning bodies is paramount.

It helps to be more specific about what we mean by the dangers of privatisation, as surely it cannot be argued that if the best value for money (note: I didn't say cheapest) provider happens to be a private organisation, then that organisation should seriously be considered for provision. The downside comes when that choice is made without the patient in mind, when it is done purely on cost, and when the structure of any agreements are such that we risk running down an avenue where we lose all ability to provide services as a state because expertise is lost to these private organisation...all of which have long term effects of *not* being value for money.

Simply throwing out scare stories isn't an argument of why the reforms are wrong, or dangerous. In fact part of the reforms is to extend the scope of the body "Monitor", who will take on the task of being an economic regulator for providers of health and social care in England, and in doing so will be responsible for dealing with anti-competitive behavior. (Section 57)

What's interesting though is the that language talks not only about anti-competitive behaviour, but in the sense of behaviour "which is against the interests of people who use such services". Does this mean that there is a loop hole for the co-operation of GPs with established local bodies even if such co-operation were to be "anti-competitive" as long as it can be shown that it is for the benefit the public?

This is another area that needs to better clarified; adequate provisions must be made to stop businesses following the anti-competitive behaviours that could lead to a lack of choice further down the line. This bill is essentially about competition, and about choice, so to allow any chance of the opposite occurring but for the benefit of private companies instead of the public sector must be shut out.

In the end we should accept that privatisation can, in some cases, improve our NHS; not privatisation as Tony Blair helped push through while Labour were in power, but a new way of approaching it where the contract cost isn't king.

"Free" NHS on the way out

Put simply, there are no provisions in this bill for charging for services that aren't already being charged for (Dentistry, for example). However there is the wording that leaves such an option on the table. There's not much to read in to this, it's the kind of catch all "Just in case" wording to make legislating easier in the future. (Section 1(3))

I don't see this as a threat for the now, if there were a time in the future where additional charges were intended to be made then that is an argument for that particular time, and it isn't responsible to oppose this bill on decisions that would have to be democratically taken in the future.

Lack of accountability of government

Slightly more abstract is this issue of "accountability". Accountability comes in many shapes and forms, however it seems a lot of people just don't care about accountability unless it's via an election. It's, in my opinion, a terrible stance to take when talking about having decisions made correctly, not decisions made in the most popular manner.

The Health Secretary will no longer have responsibility for providing a health service in the UK, in a sense we're turning from a National Health Service to a National Health Franchise. But this isn't necessarily a problem. When I say above that this is very "Lib Dem", the very nature of taking decision making out of the power of the central governing body of the country and devolving/distributing it to local cells is a natural Lib Dem position for most issues.

And so accountability doesn't disappear, though it does change. Gone is the rather blunt force manner of changing the direction of the NHS, i.e. electing a whole new government with all the various OTHER changes in direction that comes with, and instead comes much more local (regional at least) bodies that take over from where Primary Care Trusts left off with better regulation but also more local autonomy.

Of course the reality is also that the Health Secretary hasn't had the direct legal duty to provide services since 2002 anyway, when Labour decided that those PCTs should be the ones that carry the duty. Sure, the Health Secretary could call back his legal duty, but in practical terms the authority and accountability of decision making with the NHS isn't really going to change.

The change the bill provides on this is only a problem if you believe that you need to elect everything in order to make them accountable. I, on the other hand, don't believe that we get better decision making through elected officials, nor do I think areas like policing or health benefit from the public having ultimate control over strategic direction. Quite frankly very few of us are crime, safety and health experts, and it's not our place to interact with those areas in such a direct manner.

Freedom of information

A concern across all areas of outsourcing and privatisation is that of lack of transparency within the organisations contracted to do the work. Freedom of information is a tool that is supposed to ensure that the public can see what is going on behind the scenes of public bodies, but some are concerned that not enough is being done to ensure private bodies would also be accountable to relevant freedom of information requests.

A lot of new approaches to how competition is approached are taken in this bill, it would also be the perfect time to quash this concern and start a new trend of telling companies that wish to get involved in public sector work that they have to accept public sector responsibilities too.

...

The ultimate question that should always be asked of reforms is "are they necessary?" and "How does it benefit us?"

It seems to me that the bill isn't quite selling itself as "necessary", but it does have interesting ideas on how to help make the health service more relevant to patients, to embed a culture in strategic direction that drives improvement and progress. These are ideas that, if they do work, could seriously benefit us and our healthcare; and given the practicalities of the duties are very similar to what we already have with regards to Primary Care Trusts and Foundation Hospitals there's a certain element of not taking a huge leap to get there.

I am not going to say I think that these changes will definitely work in improving our health service, I have deep reservations any time that the issue of privatisation and competition come up in areas that need such consistent and improving service. However I also can't take many of the criticisms leveled at the bill seriously, some seemingly out of date accusations of a bill that was clearly much worse before Lib Dem interventions on rewriting it to what it is today, as some of these criticisms simply do not stack up against the reality of what is being proposed.

The Tories were always going to reform the NHS, and the Lib Dems have come in and saved the country from a continuation of Blairite privatisation methodologies that have lead to tensions and problems where such a model has been applied. They've developed a robust framework for checks and balances, and as long as some more elements are improved through the passage through the House of Lords, there is a strong argument to be made that these reforms will help make the health service in this country more relevant and more progressive for patients.

Quite frankly, the reforms aren't bad, they have great potential...and I'm happy to "blame" the Lib Dems for that fact.

Edit:

Been made aware of this motion for Lib Dem conference that goes quite a way to dealing with most of the concerns that are legitimate above, and is worth a read.

If I were a rich man...

If I earned £150k I'd be possibly just outside the top 1% of earners in the UK. If the 50% tax rate was abolished...I would receive no different income than I was on before it was abolished.

If I earned £300k I'd likely be within the top 0.2% of earners in the UK. If the 50% tax rate was abolished I would be able to take home an extra £15k. This equates to around £175k instead of the higher £190k, a loss of about 8% of disposable income.

If I earned £500k, I'd be nearer to the top of the 0.1% of earners in the UK. If the 50% tax rate was abolished I would take home an extra £35k.

If I earned £1m, aside from being one of the highest paid people in the world, the 50% tax rate being abolished would let me take home an extra £85k.

I might be a bit of a freak here, economically speaking...but I can't quite get my head around why, even on something as "paltry" as £300k, the idea of *only* having over £150k of disposable income (after pensions, perhaps) instead of £165k is "punishment". Sure, if I had those earnings I might be able to keep more money if I lived somewhere else...but in the UK I would still have enough money alone that would sustain 8 whole *average* families, even if without the 50% tax I might be able to sustain 9 whole families a year instead.

Maybe those that are in the top 1% of earners in the UK don't think in such selfless terms. However even if this were the case, and they all felt so punished, how does removing the 50% tax rate help our growth situation?

I can't help but think that if our growth is truly down to this small, extremely small, section of society that we have much deeper problems than our income tax system. If growth is down to these few hundred thousand individuals then they hold far too much power, and the fall of the 50% tax rate may be inevitable. There is also the threat that even with the removal of the 50% tax rate that we could be undercut even more by an emerging market, and that we could be forced to reduce our own revenues even further to compete.

This is not a healthy position to stand from, and with widening income gaps between the rich and the poor a position that gets more perverse each year. The idea that our entire economy rests on the shoulders of such a dwindling proportion of people should scare the pants off of us.

The illogical nature of riot/looting sentencing

In the Independent David Thomas QC says:

the sentences are not surprising because "an offender who takes part in a large-scale public disturbance cannot expect to be sentenced as if his actions had been committed in isolation".

Why?

It's human nature that where there are groups of people doing something, especially people you have empathy with, that you will feel an urge to follow and do the same. Some people will control this urge and maintain perspective, others may not.

How is it that someone who is a normally upstanding member of society, but falters in an intrinsically human way when a very specific set of circumstances appear, is deserving of greater punishment than someone who rationally decides to do the same thing.

We've had people jailed for upwards of 2 years for crimes that would possibly only get a community sentence in "normal" circumstances.

Tell me, who is a greater threat to society, someone who does a smash and grab on a store in normal conditions, completely unaided by the psychological affirmation of peers doing the same, in an environment that requires the store to be broken in to, with every possibility of police being ready and able to respond and catch you...or someone that has seen dozens of others do the same and seemingly get away with it, while the police are clearly busy, and only takes this opportunity because it's presented itself?

It makes no sense to me to describe these people are not acting "independently", as if everyone in the riots and looting were connected as if psychic, organising each other and only committing crimes after getting group approval.

I would much rather the type of person that looks for *any* opportunity to steal is punished more harshly than the one that doesn't look for an opportunity at all, but takes it when it occurs...yet it seems the mantra from our legal system is quite the opposite. It doesn't make logical sense to me.

Some people getting jailed will be getting what the deserve, fairly and in proportion to what they would normally get if they had committed the same acts outside of the riots. Many more are being unfairly dealt with because of a circumstance that should not have any bearing on sentencing, other people's actions and an issue of perception by the public.

Jailed for two years, Anthony Winder was told he had "thrown so much away" by stealing an ornament from a jewelers store, a sentence he would likely not have received if it had happened a few months earlier. I suggest that it is entirely the judge that has thrown this individual away. Given the opportunity to provide this man with suitable punishment, balancing the benefit of remaining at home with his kids with helping to restore the community he helped tarnish...the judge instead has decided that two children will be better off with the psychological distress that putting a father in prison can incur, and all for a trinket.

Yet despite all Cameron's blustering about fatherless families being the root of all evil, I doubt you'll hear him denounce this action that rips a family apart, for no greater benefit to anyone than to fulfill a judge's role in this obscene spectacle of public revenge over fair and balanced justice.

Why we get frustrated at "Disrupt messaging services" mantra

It's hard to put this down into words properly, as no matter how I try to phrase it the whole notion of how we approach problems in our society just seems childishly silly. But taking away some messaging services when people are using them to communicate about potentially illegal matters seems so much like using a RPG to scare the cat off your lawn.

Disrupting innocent people's services at the same time, rather than deal with the issue of...you know..people wanting to commit criminal acts the government would rather look in to ways of simply stopping them from talking to each other.

Ignoring all of the ever-present digital knowhow that means blocking a single service, or even a range of services, won't stop people from circumnavigating such block...it's a very lazy way of trying to solve a problem of crime.

I mean, I understand it...this Tory led government, like Labour before them, don't want to spend the time and money necessary to deal with the issues that cause people to use social networks to organise themselves in to criminal action...they'd rather just forget the people exist and try a cheap, brute force, don't care how many other innocent people are inconvenienced because it's for the greater good, lazy tactic.

Just imagine if cancer research changed today not to find the reason for Cancer, but instead to just try and treat it as it is...and not only in those with cancer but anyone, just in case they have cancer and we don't know it. It's a ridiculous idea that people would approach such a serious problem with that attitude...so why do we do it for social political issues?

It just doesn't make any bloody sense.

When and why to shoot?

The shooting of Mark Duggan is an interesting story. Without full details all that we can do is speculate about the situation that occurred and why it happened the way it did, and try to understand how likely potential reasons or outcomes are.

All we know, from the now official IPCC report (it's always nice to get the full facts rather than cry hysterical murder about a leak), is that it seems Mr Duggan did not fire his gun, a gun that he had illegally and was armed in the minicab he was travelling in. Police did fire, and it would appear that one of their bullets ricocheted and embedded itself in a police radio being worn by one officer.

Mr Duggan was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the arm, from a single officer.

So why was he shot? The first, and improbable answer, is that there was a concerted effort to murder this man. A set of reasons were made for his arrest, and protocol was thrown to the wind as one officer simply killed him, at great personal risk to his career and possibility of serious jail time if ever found out.

I dismiss this as an option, those that believe this option simply do not think about the training necessary to become an armed response officer. According to the latest information about the Met's practices, only an officer with three years service, who carries out a two week training course (and passes) then a further three week training course (and passes that) could be put in the position of the officer that shot Mr Duggan.

It is not an easy process, the testing is focused on situational testing in a simulated environment, and experienced senior armed officers assess individually rather than it being a "Grade C to pass" kind of deal. I reject out of hand that any officer on the CO19 team is there because they want the power of wielding a gun, or to abuse that position.

So that leaves only the second option...this was a legitimate arrest opportunity, with no pre-judgement of outcome by the officers involved.

However from here until the shooting we have nothing to go on. It is almost certainly the case that the minicab was stopped and the driver and passenger ordered to get out of the car, with clear indication that they were armed police. There is no suggestion that the driver was in the vehicle since he was shaken by what he saw.

So here we are with another set of options. The police could have opened fire on the vehicle with the driver still inside. This is unlikely, putting someone in danger such as the driver without knowing they were a threat, or without their life being threatened, is a big no-no.

The driver could have got out of the cab, and then the police opened fire. This option is dependent on visibility in to the vehicle and ability for an officer to clearly determine a threat to another individual or themselves. This is possible.

Mr Duggan could have got out of the cab, and he was shot after this point. However the action of Mr Duggan getting out of the cab would be one of surrender, and without a foolish action would not be fired upon. It also doesn't explain how an officers bullet came to ricochet into a police radio.

Perhaps most likely, the police could have felt compelled to approach the cab to arrest Mr Duggan. To have to do this, to get in to to close quarters it would be a surprise if Mr Duggan was acting willingly and following the orders of the police. In order to have shot him inside the minicab the police will have had to approach the vehicle which is in itself not a typically safe act unless visibility into the minicab was good.

So the real question, regardless of above, is this: what did Mark Duggan do to convince an officer of CO19 to shoot him?

The officers' training is all about determining the point at which the arrest is no longer safe and that taking the person's life is the only option to protect the liberties of those around that person.

It's extremely likely that Mr Duggan made some kind of move, a threatening motion, going for the gun he had with him, or appearing to go for a weapon. Without this imminent threat a shot (or two, as it were...though this may just be the nature of firing a weapon like an MP5) would not have been fired.

To this end it doesn't matter if Mr Duggan fired his loaded gun or not, as we don't wait for a life to potentially be taken by a criminal before we then stop them. I don't usually agree with the mantra "You have nothing to worry about if you have nothing to hide", but when the police are pointing weapons at you it has never rung any truer. You have nothing to worry about, if you just follow their instructions.

It's also not relevant whether or not Mr Duggan's gun was a replica, or if it was even his gun. If his actions were such that it appeared he was about to put the life of an officer or member of the public at risk, then the training of the officers would kick in.

For the conspiracy theorists, the cover-up angle is one they will pursue 'til the bitter end. Even if they accept that the operation was legitimate, they will claim a mistake was made and those present are conspiring to cover it up. They state the situation of the officers claiming that they were fired upon, which is now clear not to be true.

The question really can only be answered when the circumstances of where the officers were when shooting become clear, but let's just put this as one potential scenario. The officers approach the cab, and a definite motion is made to point a gun at a police officer. One shoots, and a ricochet from the inside of the cab hits a police radio...the force is enough to at the very least make the officer feel like they've been punched in the chest. Without being sure, and with more immediate concern for whether the officer has been injured by gunfire, their interpretation is that this was an exchange of fire.

It could just be closing ranks...but that is risky, it threatens to undermine an investigation in to you, and leave you open to potential arrest. What do the police officers have to gain by doing this?

Finally there is the question of how to shoot, too. His fiancee asks why he wasn't shot in the hand, if he was carrying a gun. It's a tragic situation that has happened to this woman, and it's understandable that she'd wonder why more wasn't done to keep her husband-to-be alive.

But the police don't take chances. By only shooting when they believe there is imminent danger, they are making a choice that essentially chooses the life of one or more persons over that of another. A shot to disarm is a shot that is harder to hit. By aiming for the chest you are almost certainly going to kill a person, you're also very unlikely to miss.

There is the chance you may just do serious injury, and I'm sure any police officer that is put in that situation prays that this is the time they get lucky and all they do is incapacitate rather than kill, but in order to provide safety the person posing a threat must be taken down. Aiming for a hand, or an arm...it's very Hollywood, but it also puts people in danger.

And so now the police officer involved, perhaps all involved, will likely be on suspension. This is not an indictment of their actions but standard practice to ensure that they are not on duty while their actions are investigated. Where there are questions over the legality of the shooting the IPCC has not had qualms in the past to suggest the arrest of officers that shoot under less than absolute circumstances for murder or manslaughter, and they stand trial.

Mark Duggan was killed, and the chances of it being as a result of anything other than his own actions are slim. I eagerly await the results of the investigation so that the truth can be shone on this subject...but hopefully here some realities can help put context to the quite audacious claims being made about the actions of the police last week.

London Riots

I say I cannot understand the actions of the rioters, but then when I break it down in to the most simple or obvious explanations it doesn't seem to hard to understand.

The rioters actions seem so at odds with what is best for the rioters and looters themselves. For a start they're helping to create a rhetoric about the poor and unemployed in the country, even if not all of them fall in to those brackets. Then they're destroying property and homes that other people rely on to keep out of the same poverty themselves, businesses and even charities that give back to the community and have done for years.

Perhaps it's just malicious spite driving them once the momentum has taken hold, that even those who are only marginally better off with their minimum wage job are "rich" enough that they are legitimate targets for these people. To say that those that attacked charitable shops, the smallest of local businesses, weren't doing so out of a feeling of social disconnection with their community seems almost quite wistful...the product of people wanting this destruction to be purely mindless and not of their own making.

Ask yourself, how can people go around attacking indiscriminately in their communities, putting life in danger, attacking those trying to protect life, if they aren't feeling completely removed from those areas of their community, of that society? I urge you to try and think about how hard it would be to just throw a brick through your next door neighbours window. If you relate to them, respect them, it'll be unthinkable...if you don't know them, don't respect them, perhaps it doesn't sound so abhorrent after all.

The question is not "Are these people disconnected from communities in their areas, are they socially excluded and detached?", that questions has been answered for all to see and hear by the actions taken. The question is "Why are these people detached from our society?" The answer primarily feels like it has to lie in their circumstance of poverty and lack of ability to see an end game that improves their lot in life.

But this is where segments of the public speak up. How dare we say that it's poverty and lack of aspirations that have caused these riots; after all "I am in poverty, and I don't need to riot".

Anecdotal irrelevancies, every time this is stated.

Fast cars cause speeding fines...at least I think we can for the purpose of this example assume they do. Does this mean every fast car breaks the law and attracts a speeding fine? No, but the faster a car is the more likely it is that it'll break the speed limit...or at least it's driver will.

It's the same with this argument. Listen to examples of the people themselves and you'll hear the utter disconnect between them and the rest of society, where *any* business owner is "rich" and those that work for them privileged. Do all poor people think this way? Of course not, but it is much more likely that they would from such a position.

Perhaps the differential is how much those in poverty understand of their own situation...duration in poverty, generational knowledge of their lack of opportunities, these are all factors that will change your feelings on the riots and who is right or wrong. In this sense it is surely more true when we talk about poverty and immobile society being the cause, it leaves those in the worst position without the ability to realise what they're doing just doesn't make sense for themselves.

Of course I am sure not all those involved are those who genuinely feel lost in our society, the way our psychology works means that those that affiliate or relate to those who are rioting will wish to conform too. Even if those that are more well off, less disconnected from society, are looting too it feels to me that it is because they feel they can...that there is a certain populism about doing it that they want to join with. For them it'd only be as "mindless" as seeing several people they feel some kind of affinity to looking to the sky, and feeling compelled to look up also, regardless of the existence of something to look at.

But if these rioters are not playing it smart, neither are a section of the anti-rioters. Encouraging vigilantism, calling for non-lethal-but-still-more-lethal-than-a-baton weaponry, or even the deployment of the army as if we're so incapable of dealing with the problem of a few thousand kids with a temper we have to resort to Middle Eastern or South American tactics on public order control. It is astounding that people claiming that looters and rioters are such idiots for targetting their own community can, almost in the same breath, advocate actions that would only stand to further justify those riotous actions...either through an unfortunate death or serious injury caused by the greater force deployed, or just a simple affirmation of their views that the state is out to get them, not to help them.

I feel more than a little uneasy with how people have approached these events. At the end of the day we are talking about a statistically insignificant number of people causing these troubles, by numbers an extreme minority and no doubt edge of society. Yet this small number of people have some (mainly well off types) feeling scared. In return we've tried to find bogeymen to take the blame, either through extremely partisan short term political point scoring, or ambiguous notions of these people being completely autonomous and not at all effected by the world around them, as if they're all completely psychologically damaged and incapable of rational thought.

For years we've had Labour and Tories alike trading blows on how to further alienate these areas of our society, from Caroline Spelman's policy of kicking people out of the only homes they can afford (the ones given to them for free), to Purnell/IDS's "workfare" where we don't even pretend to want to treat them as equal human beings. After this how much are we going to see politicians, police and community leaders get together with their communities more pro-actively, with greater direction and conviction, or will we instead continue our trend of apathy towards them and just see these people dismissed as utterly criminal and ignore them even further?

It's easier to believe there isn't a reason for these people to have started to riot, because the alternative is recognising that ultimately we are as bad as the bankers we love to loathe. We have taken the benefits of a prosperous society for the last decade and have barely looked downwards at the classes in our country that are institutionally disaffected and untrusting of "the system" to which the rest of us conform, because mostly the system benefits us and doesn't open it's arms to them. We've taken what this country has had to offer, and we haven't passed any of it down the line, and we sure as hell haven't prepared to protect those below us when our world starts to crumble.

If all this isn't mindless, if this part of society's long term situation is the cause of their choice to just put their arms up and say "fuck it, I'm doing what I want", then it's because we, the majority of society, have failed them. We have chosen to push politicians in to a corner that means they focus only on us in the "middle", and ignore those who actually need the support of their government, and we have chosen to do the bare minimum for these people with a look of disdain and disgust as we do so.

Statistically insignificant as the numbers of actual rioters are however, the actions this week have been like the discovery of a crack in the wall of a home...itself small and perhaps easy to try to hide away, but indicative of a wider problem that hasn't made itself apparent yet; a problem much harder to fix than the simple action of filling in that initial crack and hoping nothing deeper is also starting to break.

Why I'm against the death penalty

ByrneToff writes on twitter...

Only reason I can find against the death penalty is the inability to remedy miscarriages of justice. #hotvote

The reason I can never support the death penalty is that a) even if this were the only reason, it's an important one. Our justice system is not infallible, juries not always unbiased, judges not always privvy to the absolute sum of evidence that may change a sentence. To kill a person is an absolute act that can't be done, and so at the very least we need to be 100% sure the decision to do it is based on completely solid basis...which we can't be sure, ever.

But also b) I value human life. I also value the worth that a human life of an unusual disposition can bring, and that reformation of a person someone would think worthy of the death penalty is a net benefit to society. At best the death penalty is stagnation, given the other option would be to remove the individual from society anyway.

If we have people that are capable of doing things that require the death penalty... serious premeditated murder for example, then they are people we need to understand. Can we gain any more insight in to human psychology and even effects of society on individual behaviour if we simply kill them and be done with it? Why waste such an opportunity purely for retribution?

And of course if you manage to reform the individual, to be confident of their ability to be a positive force in society...even if this is still done from within some level of detention or supervised living...then society has benefited from turning a bad apple in to a good one.

Most support for the death penalty comes from those that are either driven by bloodlust, unable to see that there are no overall benefits to killing a person for their crimes other than for the *potential* temporary good feeling that revenge may or may not bring...or they are those that see these people that are a drain on the state and would rather they weren't, through non-existence.

It's actually the second people I fear the most, as the line between being a drain and a criminal and being a drain and not being a criminal is not very wide at all. But if they have a point it's only because we hamstring our ability to lessen this "drain" by catering too much for the original bloodlusters.

We're too afraid that actually making prisoners productive for society, within the realms of modern human rights, will send the bloodlusters in to a frenzy of outrage...and politicians obviously believe that a significant amount of their electorate are those very type of people.

It just doesn't make logical sense to support the death penalty. We can benefit much more from engaging with criminals, authoritatively and firmly, but humanely...aiming to bring about a net benefit to society regardless of (but especially if) they are rehabilitated. Killing them denies any potential benefit, and results in no better holistic outcome for society than our current system.

British Gas and a worrying trend

You may well have already heard, British Gas and their parent company, Centrica, have posted some profit numbers and they're "disappointing" for the company. £1.3bn profits, a 19% drop in profits, is seemingly not good enough news during times when wholesale energy prices are rocketing and the economy is stagnating. British Gas itself seems to have taken the brunt of the "loss" with an over 50% drop in their operating profits to £270m.

As Ben Goldacre here says... the reporting is lax, there is no context. £1.3bn is huge, but it's especially huge if the company was only taking, say, £1.4bn in turnover. The reality is that their revenue was £11.5bn, a margin of around 13%. I have no figures to back this up, but an anecdotal search shows this is about "normal" for the energy industry, as far as profit margins go...maybe even "good". In the solely British Gas court, the first half of 2011 residential revenues are £4bn, which paint it as a particularly weak arm of Centrica this first half of 2011.

But shouldn't we have more context? By allowing the press release to essentially be regurgitated we're forgetting the history of how British Gas got to a profit of £270m in the first place, from profits half a decade ago of only £90m, and the situation Centrica are in as a long term trend.

For a start Centrica are currently looking at a 13% margin, this is really no different from where they've been in the past (slightly down in terms of real profit amount, though insignificantly so), 2005 saw around 11% margins, 2006: 9%, 2007: 12%, 2008: 9%, 2009: 9%, 2010: 13%...all the time with increasing revenues from 13bn to 22bn in this half a decade space of time.

Then there is British Gas (residential only), 1.5% margin in 2005, 2006: 1.3%, 2007: 9%, 2008: 5%, 2009: 8%, 2010: 9%. It's currently looking like 2011: will end up being somewhere below that 9%, perhaps as low as it's 2008...yet still with profits that are 3 times what they were half a decade ago, and almost doubled revenues to boot.

Note: you can get all these figures from the Centrica website, such as here.

Let's never forget, this is a company that still hasn't acted fairly to consumers over the disparity in energy charges versus wholesale energy prices. Indeed this is an industry that still hasn't acted fairly.

The interesting thing may well be *why* the price rises are being justified, If you look at todays release you'll see the following statement...

In residential energy, the combination of higher commodity prices and significantly lower consumption resulted in operating profit being less than half the level recorded in the corresponding period last year. Average residential gas consumption fell by 18% in the first six months of the year, and electricity consumption was 3% lower, reflecting the milder weather conditions together with underlying energy efficiency improvements.

This is the danger of a business mentality operating our core utlities in the country, profits come first, and a drop in usage of services (and thus a drop in revenue) is seen as a reason for declining profits. If the danger to Centrica/British Gas's business is lack of use, be it from warm weather conditions, or energy saving measures, then it's only answer is to cut parts of it's business, a potentially unworkable solution given the inevitable rise in the demand over winter, or to raise prices.

When not using energy becomes a reason to increase the price of energy, the exact opposite of the way supply and demand works, we surely have to ask the question of whether or not businesses are fit to run these vital services in the model they currently do. Beholden to their share holders, when the only way to keep both your profits and your profit margin up, to keep your profits in growth, during a time when less energy is being used for a myriad of reasons...the only answer is to increase prices.

The question has to be where do we go from now without solutions like Nuclear and/or accelerated roll out of sustainable local energy? As consumers it is now both in our interest to not use energy (lest we help push up wholesale prices as supply diminishes) and to use energy (lest we not use enough of the potential supply and force companies to increase prices anyway to cover their losses), truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Open University fee increase, blame where it's not due?

A tweet this morning...

lecanardnoir retweeted by dnotice2012

Tories/LibDems forcing Open University to more than treble its prices. Destroying something precious for ideology. http://qako.me/qMhCeU

The basics are this, the Open University has declared that their 60 point courses will now cost £2500. This is up from £700, a £1800 increase. It's an institution with 250,000 students, of which around 70% are likely to be doing no more than part time (60 points or less), while 30% are doing full time courses. There were about 83000 full time equivalent students.

Now, HEFCE funding was to the tune of £140mil in 2009/2010.This amount of central funding is about the same as 2011/2012.

The tuition fees in 2009/2010 were in the region of £650 per 60 points, a full time equivalent cost is therefore £1300. 78000 students needing to pay an extra £3700 per year for full time equivalence of a new £5000 fee is £307mil extra money for the OU as income.

This is more than double the current HEFCE funding in it's entirety.

Blaming the government for the current fee change seems a little premature. Obviously the policy of reducing central funding is a bad one, one I don't get behind at all, but even if we assume all OU courses fell in to a category where HEFCE would think of cutting funding significantly (potentially all together) the OU would only need to increase fees to £3000 for a full time course, or £1500 instead of £2500 for the 60 point module.

The reality is that with over 20% of OU FTE students studying courses that fall under funding that wouldn't be fully cut in the ategories HEFCE has for subject types, not even all of this £140mil will need to be found elsewhere in a worse case scenario.

Funding cuts are set to bite, but universities are savvy businesses more than altruistic learning centres. Yes the OU has to put up it's prices because of government policy to cut fees (government policy that the Labour party were completely on board with implementing themselves when in power, so let's not pretend that either the Tories or Labour are any different in this), but it's gone further than that. Unless it is also receiving significantly less funding from other funding bodies, and the type of student attending is drastically changing in terms of numbers of "paid by employer" places, the OU seems to have simply used the opportunity to pad their margins and make themselves more comfortable for the years ahead.

The OU sets out it's stall in this press release, and while it makes a passing comment about funding changes the main gist is one of carving it's niche out further. With funding changes to allow students on part time courses to receive maintenance loans, and their perception of an increase in students wanting to go in to part time study while they work...it seems the OU sees an opportunity to increase it's margins while still coming off as extremely good value for money by comparison to traditional universities.

Hot air ruining our economy?

I'm not going to spend an age going over how ridiculous the ONS and Gideon's appraisal of our economy is. I'm not going to dwell on why forecasters didn't appropriately factor in the effect of an extra bank holiday to their GDP growth estimates. I'm not going to ask how it is that a predicted economic boost around olympic ticket sales has somehow turned in to an economic drag.

What I am going to say though, is this notion that somehow the weather is to blame for our economic situation is utter bullshit.

I can understand that the weather may have certain effects, slight ebbs and flows that can make some minor changes to our economy. I can even slightly accept that yes...maybe a bit of snow and freezing weather does discourage some people from going to work those few days...discourages them from spending. But today's claim that it's too WARM? Pull the other one.

Take a look at the GDP growth data over the last few years. The temperature of our summer's has increased every year (pretty much) for the last decade or so. Perhaps it's a crass analysis, but GDP hasn't stalled as the country has had warmer and warmer years, infact it has been very consistently rising...recession aside.

If warm weather, and indeed cold winters, were really a problem for economies, then we should be seeing a tailing off of GDP growth from 1998 to 2008, not a straight trend line.

I am not prepared to accept is that we should at all focus on what must be a miniscule impact on our economy from the weather, it is political opportunism to pick on the weather as an excuse; it shows just how little of the economy is out of the control of government influenced factors if anything, since this is the best excuse they seem to be able to come up with.

The problems with our economy lie at the heart of the decisions made by the Treasury and this government, not with abstract or uncontrollable factors.

If people had jobs they weren't afraid of losing at a moment's notice, with a good salary that wasn't eaten away by inflation every month, if food prices weren't soaring, if fuel prices weren't allowed to increase by over twice the rate of inflation, and if we weren't in post-banking-crisis that helped to ensure borrowing for those suffering from all the above was even harder than normal...maybe then they'd be out spending more, working harder, living happier and putting our economy on the real road to recovery that we seem to have missed the turning for many, many months ago.

We are, like it or lump it, a consumer economy right now. Extra exports would be ideal, but no-one can magic up a manufacturing industry to save our economic growth in a single parliamentary term. If this government want to keep us out of another recession they need to realise their mantra on "private sector creating jobs" just isn't going to cut it. Even if they currently are creating jobs, the signs are that the jobs are part time and not at all conducive to either a) increasing our GDP by any meaningful factor or b) allowing those people to spend money, since they will not have enough to do more than purchase essentials. If this government is serious about the economy they will take the lead like only a national government can and make those jobs happen themselves, directly or indirectly, and do the right thing for the short term recovery of this country...and therefore hopefully lay the foundations for a longer term return to normal.

Dear Right wingers...

Your own views, as disgustingly selfish as they can be, are not being called extremist. Stop getting your underwear in a twist over people legitimately saying someone who holds the same type of views as you is extremist in their views.

Wanting to end all immigration? Selfish, backwards thinking, ironic given your stance on free markets. Wanting to kill people that you feel have advanced the cause of immigration too far? Extremist.

Your tendency towards the traditional family unit, and fear of homosexuality? Old fashioned, bigoted, sexist. Wanting to kill people that work towards gender and sexual equality? Extremist.

I hope you can see the difference, and in the future maybe see the same differences between your Muslim kin too, you're really not all that different.

The problem with Police and Crime Commissioners

Plans are afoot for a move in this country to elected police and crime commissioners. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill 2010-11 is currently going through the House of Lords and will see it's third reading on Tuesday. They've been pushed forward by the Conservatives, the only party to suggest such a plan in their manifesto.


WHAT ARE THE PLANS?

In short, to quote Mrs Theresa May (Home Secretary), the plans put forward are to "shift power directly into the hands of the public as they elect police and crime commissioners to lead the fight against crime and disorder in their areas."

This means elections held at the same time as "normal" elections, such as local or general elections, to put a single person in charge of strategy for local policing, to decide budgets, and to take responsibility for the senior officers in the police force.


WHY ARE WE TAKING THIS ROUTE?

Is this plan genuinely seen as the best option by the government for deciding police strategy? Is it fair to assume there is a hidden agenda, that there is a desire for greater political involvement in our police forces?

New governments mean new changes, sometimes to situations that have already been tried and failed in the past. Policing seems to be one of those areas where politicians feel the need to make a change regardless of the need, cost or sensibility of the alterations.

It makes little sense for this government to push these plans go ahead, given that it may very well result in police forces being run by politicians from either Labour or Lib Dem colours rather than Tory ones, and so it also must be that the Conservatives also feel that this change won't, ultimately, make much of a difference to the national strategy of policing.

Governments may well be able to say they wish to take power away from centralised sources, but I doubt any would say they want to lose power of the country's law enforcement after all.


POLICE APPROVAL RATINGS

What the plans may do is reflect well under current methodology of police approval studies, and give the Tories something to crow about nationally come the next election. But as we can see from the British Crime Survey 10/11, there's already a long term trend of increased approval of the police, and crime itself is on a downward trend.

This isn't to say that new plans couldn't improve these trends, to make crime fall and approval rise faster.

If the public feel they are influencing the police force, albeit making them happier about the force in the process, this doesn't also mean the police are more effective at their purpose and stated aims. It doesn't mean that the police will be operating cost-effectively. And it does run the very real risk of the public thinking they should be having more influence than they ultimately will end up having, potentially damaging approval ratings, and trust in the force.


POLITICISATION?

Simply put, having people elect the person responsible for police strategy (on what would likely be a low 30% level of turnout) doesn't mean that someone right for the job makes it in. Far from it. We know that rather than knowledgeable individuals with experience in the field, parties will field politicians, and the election material will be "Let Labour run your police force" or "Lib Dems for more police on the beat".

We won't be electing individuals that fit the task at hand, though some of us may try to find out what the stances of each candidate for our area are, most will align with their political leanings and go with what their preferred party tell them to do. You vote Labour for your local elections, you'll probably vote Labour for your local police commissioner too. As far as accountability goes it's pretty thin on the ground.

And there is very real evidence that people that intend to get in to this position will do so by playing up to populist stances, without it necessarily being the right direction to take. Take this research conducted on the actions of public prosecutors (mostly elected) in the US.

The theory predicts that when re-election pressures are high prosecutors increase the number of cases taken to trial and plea bargain less. Data from all forty-three districts in North Carolina over twelve years provides empirical verifcation.

As a job, it's not comparable, but it shows us really what we already know...where personal power is predicated on the "success" of persecuting others more compared to your rivals, you will do what you can to achieve that. It's not a remote possibility that elected police commissioners here would seek to tie up police budgets on schemes that aren't cost effective but do provide favourable figures in the eyes of the public...or at least the area of the small handful of the public that is likely to return them for a second term.


SHOULDN'T THE PUBLIC HAVE A SAY?

The main gist of the whole plan is clearly the drive for more democracy, or perhaps as is more likely the greater illusion of democracy; Yet my stance is no, the public shouldn't have a larger direct say.

For a start, what do the public know of the nuances of police budgeting and crime fighting strategy? Some may have very detailed knowledge, many will have none. As I say above, the public will rely on trusting parties, at which point the public are merely delegating their voice to a party machine rather than having a true say of their own.

What the public should have is confidence that their communities issues are being listened to and dealt upon, something that doesn't need a directly elected official, and confidence that where there is wrongdoing or incompetence on behalf of the police force that it will be quickly and comprehensively dealt with. What it needs on the issue of crime is that common sense is applied as to who is being brought to justice, a remit not even in the hands of local police forces themselves. With criticisms of both the IPCC and CPS, as well as the invisibility of the police authorities that currently run some of the tasks that the police commissioner would take over, there are much more concerning areas of policing that could be improved and bring trust in the entire crime and justice system up another level.

Nick Herbert, a Minister involved in pushing the legislation forward, has called views like this "Elitism", which is a very crass way of trying to switch off the political debate about such a potentially large change to the way our police attempt to do their job.


HEADING IN BLIND

I for one don't think it's elitist to ask that we don't make policy up on the hoof, that we set out a proposition (That the police could be reducing crime faster, and improving public relations quicker), and then carry our appropriate research in to similar models, how they've worked, how frequently they're used, and if the model isn't used then why not; to legislate potentially for small scale pilot study of the model that seems most in tune with out aims.

I don't think it's elitist to use all this data to make sure we have a good idea that is likely to work before we spend £130 million to implement it.

The Lords seem to agree with this, when on the 11th of May they voted for Amendment 1 on a margin of 188-176, scrapping the notion of an elected police commissioner completely from the legislation (though the government have presumptuously said they shall keep on with it)

[The Lords must] ask ourselves whether we really understand what we are changing and why; and, above all, whether we fully appreciate what the consequences of that change will or could be. I am not against change, but if it is to be positive it needs at the very least to do more good than harm, and preferably it needs to demonstrate that what it creates is better than what came before. I am very concerned that the evidence base for making this change is incredibly thin, and that the consequences of implementing it have not been thoroughly researched or properly thought through.

Baroness Harris of Richmond

I urge people to read the debate held in the Lords on 11th May, as it's an incredibly sensible one that cuts through a lot of the supposed benefits of this plan.


STANDARD PRACTICE?

When it comes down to it, this legislation doesn't follow standard practices for our democracy, we understand the need for local democracy and that's why we elect entire councils of local politicians rather than a single politician for the entire area, and when we elect our representatives for the entirety of the UK we don't just elect a single individual or a party and give them full control of our nation.

The principle of more direct accountability of police authorities is one that can be positively discussed, it's a model we all understand. By contrast the nearest we have as a model in the UK to police commissioners are elected mayors (such as Boris Johnson in London).

If there is one thing that perhaps the last few weeks have shown us is that power corrupts, the involvement of the police and politicians in collusion with the press for their own self-serving ends shows the danger of a lack of independent oversight and the danger of an organisation or set of individuals feeling beholden to someone with an over-abundance of power.

Do we necessarily need a single individual holding all the cards, pandering to populism (though only in the majoritarian sense, since the views of the minority that take part in their elections shall be all they need to concern themselves with), and significantly more vulnerable to media (tabloid) attacks on their actions due to their single party standing?


IS NOW THE TIME?

So surely, with all of this in mind it is not the right time to think about plans as "grand" as this? Now is not the time for creating a job so easily corruptible, not when we have organisations that are much better suited for the job of holding police forces to account, if only they had a little more power.

Police authorities are unelected bodies, but are made up of people that are both interested and knowledgeable parties, as well as politicians that have been elected (yes, directly elected!) and are a more accurate route of information from local communities around a police force's area to those that hold that police force to account.

There is no doubt that these police authorities need to change. They're silent, they lack teeth, they essentially don't justify their own existence as it stands...yet it would take minimal changes to give them the powers that the government wishes to gift to the single role of police and crime commissioner. Administrative reforms that make it clearer who they are, how they can be contacted, and what they've been doing...as well as a larger move to publicise their existence, would cost significantly less and be significantly more balanced than trying to get the same work from a single elected party line politician.


GOING FORWARD

If the latest Lords bill is to be believed (though it is a little contradictory since the amended bill has been published), what will return to the commons is a plan for a non-elected body, made up of representatives that are stakeholders in local areas, that will alone have the power to create this police commissioner from it's own membership as it sees fit.

We have the opportunity to tell our MPs, when this bill finds it's way back to the House of Commons, that we would prefer that they don't politicise our police force any further than it already is, without proper study at least, and that we also don't want our time and money wasted by trying to revert the Lords' plans back to their own when they now provide a more stable reform.

Liberalism and sentencing

The problem with the Charlie Gilmour conviction, for those that support and take part in UKUncut, is that he's probably the best example of someone actually genuinely deserving of a punishment. His actions (and those like him) made young people look bad, they undermined the efforts of the protestors, they strengthened the defence for what was a shambolic and dangerously organised police force, caused very real damage, targeted the head of state's son, was allegedly uncontrollable while on intoxicating substances, and (if we believe one Lib Con commentator) clearly didn't care much whether he did real serious harm to the police either.

Yet he was standing on the side of UKUncut, and they as well as their supporters seem unable of accepting that people on their side need to be punished any more than those on the right wing press and in the government wish to accept that the authorities acted out of line. It's blatant and disgraceful hypocrisy.

So of course, it seems, the only action is to try and claim that it is perfectly acceptable to do such things, as long as it is in the face of the state authorities...that "he didn't really hurt anyone" and that therefore his actions should be ignored. The stance seems to be as socialists (ironically) and as liberals we should just let it slide.

But the law is a liberal tool as much as an authoritarian one. Charlie and his fellow protestors may not have actually hurt the Royals in their car that day, not physically, but psychologically they clearly had some effect. This is just as relevant when it comes to the intimidation effect that violence can have when perpetrated by any side. But a different object picked up, a different direction thrown, the result could have been very different.

The law rightfully chooses to condemn actions and intentions, not outcomes. The kid that threw a fire extinguisher off the roof of a building, narrowly missing a police officer, was charged not for "almost killing someone", but for doing something that was clearly extremely dangerous, regardless of how likely it was to injure anyone. (Though I will come to Woollard's charge shortly)

So if it is perfectly liberal to accept that charges are right to be brought, for the purpose of the protection of other people's liberties, is it liberal to suggest that the sentences that they also carry are fair?

Ultimately this isn't a question of liberalism, but of logic and realism. The realities are that judges have a good idea about where their sentences need to start from and for what reasons. Previous examples of sentencing may help to give context to that judge. As such it's unlikely for a judge to ever give a suspended sentence, or a community sentence, to someone who has done something that (under the law) is just as serious as someone that got jailed traditionally for the same level of activity.

Indeed, the point I raised wasn't that the sentence itself was the best type of sentence that could be handed down, or that I agree with how the law of violent disorder is sentenced; it was to point out that claims that the sentence was politically motivated, or that it was inflated unfairly, as I was reading by various UKUncut supporters yesterday on Twitter, is a nonsense point of view to take.

It's just diresepectful and false to claim that this sentence is anything other than what someone else doing the same thing outside of a protest would have also got.

I guess this is where those people are getting their panties in a twist, they can't quite make out the difference between understanding that due process has been carried out fairly, and understanding that a sentence range for a particular crime might not be the right punishment.

This is where nuance is needed. Mr Woollard, who threw the fire extinguisher off the roof of a building, showed real remorse for his actions...acted in the heat of the moment...he was stupid but he was not violent. He is actually, in my mind, the victim of being the first and most public figure in this situation; as such I am not surprised but am saddened he was found guilty of his charge of violent disorder.

So in this case I feel that the sentence is out of step with reality, that Mr Woollard's intentions have not been adequately considered. I hope that an appeal will go ahead, and I hope that at the very least he has his sentence drastically reduced now that the public furore has died down, if not his charge over turned completely.

The other person charged by the same judge presiding over Charlie Gilmour's case, who threw sticks at the police, was on the other hand clearly violent. However my view on his sentence would vary depending on the situation. Was this person kettled when he was acting violently? Was his throwing of things at the police only something he did in one incident (as long as that incident spanned)? Did he come to the protest without the intention of fighting the police? If the answer to all of these is yes then I feel that not enough of a mitigating factor is made of how police provoked such reactions. If the answer to any is no, then his sentence starts to becomes more reasonable, though in my view suspending it if he is a first time offender would make the most sense from a liberal stand point.

Which brings us to Charlie. We know that in the situations he was being charged for he was not provoked, we know he went from one incident to the other with ample opportunity to "calm down", we also know that he was under the influence of serious drugs which is never going to work to your favour (nor should it) in sentencing. But again, prison is unlikely to really serve anyone involved with the best outcome. To be humbled by the process of publicly being dragged through the courts is likely to be enough, a suspended sentence to keep you under control for a while a good chance to reflect on how to not let your fellow protestors down in the future.

As a liberal I will question the public need for bringing some of these convictions, and I'll always question in a more wider sense whether the sentencing is appropriate for the crimes in modern day Great Britain, but liberalism doesn't even come in to the subject of whether or not due process, with all of the rules it has to abide by, has been carried out properly. Illiberal for saying that following a fairly transparent procedure is the right thing to do? Please...