Saturday 31 August 2013

Apparently the Syria vote was lost because Cameron isn't a violent bully

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I think John McTernan was some sort of spin doctor for Tony Blair. And, in an article he has written, he reminds me how much Blair and Brown destroyed honesty and decency in politics. This isn't a comment about ideology or policy but one about behavior and attitude. Put simply McTernan champions the bully:

A Cabinet minister who served in both the Blair and Brown governments retells his first encounter with Labour whips. Newly elected, he was walking through the corridors of the House when he was accosted by one. He was pushed against the wall, his testicles grabbed and twisted sharply – and painfully. “Son, you’ve done nothing to annoy me. Yet. Just think what I’ll do if you cross me.” That is how you manage backbenchers. 

This isn't politics it is physical assault. Yet McTernan seems to think it admirable and he repeats his joy in violence:

“Hear that noise John? It’s limbs being broken.” That was the job, and it was done.

This is a truly unpleasant world, the sort of nasty, violent, principle-free world captured so terrifyingly (and sadly too gleefully) by 'The Thick of It'. And it makes me sick. If violence, bullying and unpleasant vulgarity is how John McTernan thinks politics should be conducted, he shouldn't be let anywhere near it. At best McTernan is an apologist for nasty bullies, at worst he is one himself.

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It probably won't work. A postscript on Syria.

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We are always conflicted on humanitarian matters, on Britain's role in the world and on whether the suffering of civilians in some foreign place is, or isn't, our business. And if it is our business, what the nature of that business should be.

So we have - inconsistently and selectively - intervened. Sometimes this intervention is one of those surgical strikes beloved of my neo-conservative friends, more often it's a series of bombings that are not quite so precisely targeted. And sometimes it's real troops nervously clutching guns as they creep down unfamiliar streets unsure whether the people they see are friend of foe and whether the next corner will mean a bomb, death or the shattering of limbs.

We convince ourselves that this is right and, just as importantly, effective.

But:

To the extent that biased military interventions shift the balance of power between conflict actors, we argue that they alter actor incentives to victimize civilians. Specifically, intervention should reduce the level of violence employed by the supported faction and increase the level employed by the opposed faction. We test these arguments using data on civilian casualties and armed intervention in intrastate conflicts from 1989 to 2005. Our results support our expectations, suggesting that interventions shift the power balance and affect the levels of violence employed by combatants.

In layman's terms interventions increase civilians casualties rather than decrease them.

Supporting a faction’s quest to vanquish its adversary may have the unintended consequence of inciting the adversary to more intense violence against the population. Thus, third parties with interests in stability should bear in mind the potential for the costly consequences of countering murderous groups.

OK it's just one study and others may wish to challenge the findings but for me it's a reminder that, as ever, we should be careful what we wish for. And to understand that righteousness and good intentions alone do not suffice to put things right, you need a strategy that works too.

It seems to me that military intervention in Syria may increase civilian deaths. And if this is a definite risk (and leaving the moral issues to one side for now) what is needed to eliminate that risk so as to ensure our end is achieved?

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Thursday 29 August 2013

On trusting politicians

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For the regular daily political fare we never trusted politicians - you know the drill:

"It's a politician, his lips are moving. He must be lying."

"Why do politicians never answer the question?"

"They'll say anything to get elected."

And so on - as Huey Long (legend claims) told his advisors: "tell 'em we lied."

However, when it came to the serious stuff - war, death, tragedy - our politicians put on their statesman clothes and lived up to that description: honourable. On these grave and important matters we trusted our leaders to be honest, thoughtful and considered.

Then a man came along who was so great and grand, so superior he thought he could exploit that decency. We went to war on a lie. People like me supported that war because we didn't believe a leader would lie about something as serious as sending men to war.

Tony Blair killed that trust.

And no matter how subsequent leaders profess their decency, honour and honesty - or indeed whether they actually are decent, honourable and honest - we will never believe them again.

In some ways this is the very worst thing - among a catalogue of horrors - that Tony Blair did.

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There is nothing to cheer in pubs closing...

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Oh it's-a lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the campfire at night we'll hear the wild dingoes call
But there's-a nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer

Now the publican's anxious for the quota to come
And there's a far away look on the face of the bum
The maid's gone all cranky and the cook's acting queer
Oh what a terrible place is a pub with no beer

The Good Pub Guide sets itself up as a promoter of the fine pub - although one suspects at times one without beer. And the book is useful so long as it's a particular type of pub you're looking for.  However this doesn't justify the glee with which the editors of said book describe the closing of pubs:

The closures may be bad news for staff and customers, but it is high time "bad pubs" went out of business, giving visionary and energetic licensees a chance to open new ones, the Good Pub Guide 2014 argues. It predicts that more than 1,000 new pubs will open next year, often in former hostelries that have been shuttered for years. Between 2,500 and 4,000 will go out of business, but the guide quotes a successful landlord saying there are too many pubs in the wrong place, chasing the wrong market. 

The truth is that the traditional idea of a pub - somewhere to go have a drink, a banter and maybe a game is gone. Killed by the pub companies, the smoking bans and the snobbishness of the sorts who write The Good Pub Guide. There are no reasons - bar the interference of politicians and the neglect of PubCos - for these traditional boozers to go and for Sally Maclennane to be thrown out into the cruel world.

The man from CAMRA (for once) is right:

Roger Protz, editor of the Campaign for Real Ale's 2014 Good Beer Guide, added: "How bizarre that a book called the Good Pub Guide should welcome the closure of as many as 4,000 pubs. Pubs need to be saved, not thrown on the scrapheap.

"We welcome the new Localism Act that enables pub-goers to save pubs threatened with closure, get them listed by local authorities and protected as community assets.

“We want to save pubs, not axe them." 

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Wednesday 28 August 2013

Whoopee we're all gonna die!



I'm not one of those there pacifist sorts. There are times when main force is the only way. Times when other people threaten us and our peace. Then we fight.

But I am at a loss to see why we construct artificial triggers for violence - 'red lines' and so forth. It seems to me that, however tempting it is to steam in waving our swords of righteous humanitarian rage, most of the time this is a pretty stupid idea.

And we're so choosy. We (or rather the Americans and Australians) got embroiled in a unwinnable, depressing and ultimately failing war in Vietnam - initially a few troops, some kit and 'advisors' but soon bulging into an ill-trained, unenthused conscript army. And that army lost and with it went the myth of American invincibility.

Yet. In Indonesia round the same time some half million or so ethnic Chinese died or were forced to leave because (as we all know) all Chinamen are commies. I recall my politics lecturer at Hull University, Oey Hong Lee, describing how his family escaped from Java under seats, in crates and at enormous risk. Yet we didn't intervene as they were Communists (in so far as Chinese and Communist are synonyms).

I could talk more. About the Khmer Rouge - who slaughtered a third of their countrymen (and all the Chinese minority). About Ne Win, designer of "The Burmese Road to Socialism", who took against muslims (and many others) and hounded them near to extinction. We didn't intervene.

We could discuss Irian Jaya or East Timor - more ethnic cleansing, more oppression and again, no intervention. Or perhaps the burning of churches in Sulawesi and Ambon? Does that not merit moral outrage.

So go on, climb onto the mound of bodies labelled "humanitarian crisis" and attack Syria. But do it without my support - I've talked of a few South-East Asian examples because I'm a little bit of an expert but there are many other atrocities, slaughters, rapes, pillages and aspects of mankind's worst traits across the world.

But in making these choices, can we remember that it ends with young men clutching guns, walking scared and worried down streets in a foreign places or skulking in jungles craving some junk or grass to take away the fear and stress.

Is that what you want?

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Tuesday 27 August 2013

Quote of the day: on civic character

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Many of these places have been beaten down so hard for so long that a sort of defeatist attitude has set in. This can include bitterness about what was lost, a self-loathing mindset, and cynicism and negativity about any proposed efforts to improve things.

Familiar? I've called this mindset "The Grumpy Old Man Party" and other talk of "glass half empty". And it's all too sadly true.

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Subsidising millionaires - another reason regeneration fails to make change

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...and yes it's Detroit again. Learning the lessons that ruined the city, ignoring them and returning to the same old model and the same old mess:

Just a week after the city declared bankruptcy, a state board approved a $450 million bond issue for a new Red Wings hockey arena near downtown. To help finance it, Detroit would pay $284.5 million in subsidies and an additional $12.8 million annually on bond interest. In return, Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch, who also owns the Detroit Tigers, MotorCity Casino Hotel, and Little Caeser’s pizza, would chip in $365.5 million for the arena and several mixed-use projects. The new complex would represent an upgrade from the dated Joe Louis Arena, where the Red Wings play now, and—boosters say—would potentially revitalize the Midtown area, which is already gentrifying somewhat. The Detroit Development Authority would fund and operate the arena with downtown property taxes. In other words, revenue traditionally used for schools and basic services would instead subsidize a billionaire.

As ever with these projects - and regeneration is riddled with them - the initial impact seems good. A new grand shiny stadium, theatre or concert arena springs up amidst the dereliction promising a new world of prosperity, wealth and success.

But then nothing happens, nothing changes. Except we've subsidised the grand project of a millionaire, provided contract opportunities for than millionaire's friends and raised false hopes in the hearts of suffering local people. And - even if the millionaires haven't stuffed their pockets - we've thrown a load of tax money at another grand and failing project.

In Detroit's case we know the story (as Scott Beyer describes):

The publicly operated Cobo Convention Center opened in 1960 and began losing money immediately, running annual deficits reaching tens of millions. In 1977, the Ford Motor Company financed the gargantuan, $350 million Renaissance Center; two decades later, Ford sold the complex for just $76 million to rival GM. The city connected the two facilities in 1987 with a much-ridiculed, $200 million People Mover. The monorail never came close to covering its upfront costs and still operates with annual losses around $10 million, while doing basically nothing to address transportation needs. Detroit continued to wield its eminent domain power, with attempted or successful takings to accommodate the city’s two remaining auto plants, a private bridge, a business park, a major housing complex, a waterfront casino district, and two relatively new stadiums—Comerica Park and Ford Field.

And did it work? Does shiny regeneration ever work? I don't think so. But we persist (and not just in Detroit) with vast schemes and programmes, subsidising large organisations and wealthy men to do things they wouldn't otherwise do.

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Now the government is seriously underway with the £1bn HCA Build to Rent Fund: we in UKR are proud to be at the final stages of Round One of this programme, together with 44 other organisations, all pioneers in their own way: some house builders, some RPs (registered providers or, in English, Housing Associations) and some new entrants to the market (UKR included). - See more at: http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/jackie-sadek/2013/08/the-prs-debate-finally-gathers-momentum/#sthash.qz8tpW5j.dpuf
Now the government is seriously underway with the £1bn HCA Build to Rent Fund: we in UKR are proud to be at the final stages of Round One of this programme, together with 44 other organisations, all pioneers in their own way: some house builders, some RPs (registered providers or, in English, Housing Associations) and some new entrants to the market (UKR included). - See more at: http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/jackie-sadek/2013/08/the-prs-debate-finally-gathers-momentum/#sthash.qz8tpW5j.dpuf
Now the government is seriously underway with the £1bn HCA Build to Rent Fund: we in UKR are proud to be at the final stages of Round One of this programme, together with 44 other organisations, all pioneers in their own way: some house builders, some RPs (registered providers or, in English, Housing Associations) and some new entrants to the market (UKR included). - See more at: http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/jackie-sadek/2013/08/the-prs-debate-finally-gathers-momentum/#sthash.qz8tpW5j.dpuf

Now the government is seriously underway with the £1bn HCA Build to Rent Fund: we in UKR are proud to be at the final stages of Round One of this programme, together with 44 other organisations, all pioneers in their own way: some house builders, some RPs (registered providers or, in English, Housing Associations) and some new entrants to the market (UKR included). - See more at: http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/jackie-sadek/2013/08/the-prs-debate-finally-gathers-momentum/#sthash.qz8tpW5j.dpuf

Keynesian economics...

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I like this:


With thanks to the Whited Sepulchre from where I snaffled...
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In which the BBC trolls Councillors for a story...

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I got a nice email from polling company ComRes asking me to answer a few questions. As Guido reports, these questions amount to trolling for a story:

The questions include:
  • asking if they think “climate change is not happening”
  • whether “Immigration has had a negative impact on Britain”
  • whether “legalising gay marriage will cost my party more votes than it gains at the next Election”
  • whether they support a ban on the burkha
  • whether Cameron and Osborne are “arrogant”
  • whether they support an electoral pact with UKIP

I suppose it's funny in a way - and there will be some colleague who hold some pretty whack views - but the BBC, who commissioned this, really should be ashamed of such a blatant attempt to troll for a nice silly season story using an opinion poll (paid for with tax money).

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Monday 26 August 2013

In which I get a little Marxist in the cause of minimum government

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This is quite a difficult thing for me to write - partly because I'm stepping out from the areas where I'm comfortable with my knowledge but also because it challenges a more or less universal misunderstanding. And it begins with this quote from Engels:

The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then ceases of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished,” it withers away.

Setting to one side the vast (and largely incomprehensible) corpus of Marxist thinking, it strikes me that there is nothing to disagree with in the idea that the state will become superfluous. And those of the right (or at least the freedom-loving bit of the right) should share the objective - or is it the consequence - of Marxism.

Now I take the view that Marx's historical determinism - that the process from the hypothetical cave to a free socialist life is inevitable - is a load of nonsense. But this doesn't negate the ambition to which Engels alludes - that a perfectly just society would not need government. It is an admirable liberal aim.

The problem - and all the disagreement - comes from the route that Marxists (or rather 'communists', which I understand is a slightly different thing) choose to reach the shared objective of a free society, by which I mean one that does not require governing. Here's another Engels quote:

At the same time we have always held that in order to arrive at this and the other, far more important ends of the social revolution of the future, the proletarian class will first have to possess itself of the organised political force of the state and with this aid stamp out the resistance of the capitalist class and re-organise society.

The contradiction - an acknowledged contradiction - here is that in order to create a world free of the oppression of government it is necessary to seize control of government and through those means 'oppress' any people or organisations ('the capitalist class' is a conveniently broad concept) that stand between today's society and that perfectly just society we desire.

The problem here isn't that Marx's ideas were wrong but that the programme developed with Engels and operationalised by Lenin, Mao and others was wrong. This was a failure of strategy not a mistaken ambition - if we agree that, in part, this ambition is a just society free from the inevitable oppression that comes with government.

What is most bizarre however isn't that some people still adhere to the failed prescription of Engels (although this is somewhat odd) but that Marxists make common cause with Fabian Socialists, who had - and have - a very different view of the state. Here's Mark Bevir:

Fabian economic theories, unlike those of the Marxists, almost required their adherents to call for an interventionist state. The Fabians believed that rents could not be eliminated since they arose from the variable productivity of different pieces of land and capital.  The only solution was for the state to collect rent and use it for the collective good.

We have -on "the left" as we like to call it - an alliance between people whose end game is a free society without government and those who, in a manner reminiscent of Plato's 'guardians', believe that a (courageous) state is necessary for the just society to operate. It seems to me that Marxists are making common cause with people whose ideology is not simply different but diametrically opposed to what they believe. Those who want Marx's end game (and who could argue with that - other than Fascists and Fabians) need to make common cause with people who share the same broad objective but embrace a different strategy, who think making government smaller now makes more sense than trusting to those controlling government rejecting power.

Clinging to a failed strategy is daft. Yet that is what many on the Marxist left are doing - clutching to a belief that controlling the state is what matters rather than joining with those who wish to see a smaller state now. The principles of cooperation, collaboration and coproduction that Marxists applaud are shared but the means to the end are not.

I may misunderstand Marx here, in which case tear what I say to shreds, but if a free, just society is the end - and surely it is - then Marxists, rather than sneering at libertarians, Randians and anarcho-capitalists, should spot the shared ground and see that a society where the state directs or controls over half of human activity is not the sunlit uplands that Marx imagined.

Or maybe not...

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Transforming Finance Charter - the worst sort of 'curate's egg'

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It all starts so well the Transforming Finance Charter:

The banking sector needs to be transformed in the following ways:
  • There should be no bank in the system which is too big to fail, so the taxpayer is not underwriting their costs with an implicit subsidy.
  • Retail and investment banking should be regarded as entirely different businesses and separated accordingly.
  • There should be increased competition and diversity within retail banking allowing for frequent new entrants, and exits, multiple ownership models including mutuals, credit unions, local banks and sector banks

Not quite sure how you actually separate retail and investment banking but I can see the point. And the idea of more competition, easier market entry and greater diversity is a great one.

But then our friends go and spoil it:

  • Banks should ensure they invest a far higher proportion of their balance sheets to the real (non-financial) economy and for productive uses. Policy should be actively used to reduce speculation and the creation of asset bubbles.
  • There should be a permanent and legitimate role for the state in banking, at a local or national level, either to reduce the cost of risk capital for socially desirable activities and innovation, or to influence the overall allocation of credit to the economy.

With one hand we open up the market and extend choice and competition. While with the other we dictate to the banks how they should invest - as if it's not bad enough having agents of government fix the interest rate these people then want to subsidise it for "socially desirable activities". It was this sort of stupidity, not speculation, that created the financial crisis in the first place.

But then the proposal is from:

The Finance Innovation Lab, along with founding signatories, New Economics Foundation, Share Action, Positive Money, Move Your Money and Friends of the Earth...

Link this bunch of nonsense-peddlars with the egregious "Tax Justice Network" and it's no surprise at all that any good ideas are swamped by stupid proposals for state-directed finance.

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Sunday 25 August 2013

Things anyone who has played Kingmaker will know...

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Alex Massie - to the point as ever - has this to say:

Moreover, if there is a geographical dividing line in British politics is should probably be drawn above the Trent not the Tweed.

This is true and has been for at least 600 year - hence Kingmaker where those bishops with a see north of the Trent receive 30 extra troops by way of protection from the rough and tumble of Northern politics!

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The predicable consequences of taxing alcohol...

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Eventually people start dodging those taxes - and the results are dangerous:

Magistrates fined the owners of the BED club in the Grand Arcade (Gatecrasher Clubs and Bars Ltd) £5,000 with £2,095 costs after 656 litres of fake spirit were found on the premises in September last year, according to West Yorkshire Trading Standards Service (WYTSS).

It’s the biggest seizure yet of fake vodka by Trading Standards in West Yorkshire.

This is the consequence of government action - it makes such illegal arbitrage worth the risk. At £2 a shot that's over fifty grand. Or, in terms of tax avoided, it's about six grand.

The more we load onto duty, the more of this we'll see and the more we'll read of people poisoned by:

...isopropanol, tertiary butanol and chloroform, none of which should be in vodka.

Sadly this won't be the lesson from this event - the tip of an illegal spirits iceberg - our lords and masters will carry on piling the tax onto booze in the interests of "health". With the direct result being, at some point, blind, even dead nightclubbers. 

H/T Leeds Citizen for the story
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Friday 16 August 2013

On the barriers to employment...

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And something of a reminder. But first those barriers:

  1. The workings of the welfare system (the ‘benefits trap’), where wages were lower than what could be received from out of work benefits.
  2. The low status and low levels of pay of some jobs, making them ‘hard to fill’.
  3. A ‘soft’ skills deficit amongst the local workforce ... particularly around motivation, punctuality, reliability and absenteeism
No real surprises there. We know this about employment and have known it for years. Anyone who has worked with people trying to help people into work knows all about these barriers.

So that reminder.

The report looked at the role of migrant workers in the labour markets of Bristol and Hull. It found that in these two cities the arrival of migrants had not created a barrier to the long term unemployed finding a job.

So will someone please tell me why we keep blaming immigrants for our employment problems?

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Thursday 15 August 2013

A good example of 'nudge'. It's also a cracking idea.

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Most of the left-wing world (and plenty of the Tory world too) thinks that 'nudge' is about pricing, taxing and regulating the hell out of things so as to make people change their behaviour. As the creators of the concept were clear this isn't so.

This is nudge:

A speedometer that indicates your speed and additionally gives you a money counter. What’s the deal? Each car that passes and stays below the speed limit of 30 kilometers per hour raises €0,03 for the neighborhood.

The money is paid out by the city of Amsterdam and is meant to be used in local community projects. The city’s slogan: “Max 30 — Save for the Neighborhood”. An interesting take on conditioning local residents to bring forth good citizenship instead of punishing car drivers for breaking minor traffic laws when being slightly over the speed limit.

Rather than the sign leading - as speed cameras do - to a fine and to punishment, we have a little gentle incentive. Slow down and the community gets some cash.

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The prohibitionists now want fruit juice to be called wine...

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There is no end to the nannying. Now they want the EU to "redefine" wine to include drinks that don't have alcohol in them:

Earl Howe, the health minister, claimed that the market for low or reduced alcohol “wines” has been “increasingly rapidly” in recent years.

He insisted that promoting low alcohol wines was in customers’ “best long term interests”, amid concerns over a rise in liver diseases and cancers linked to alcohol consumption.

“The government has consistently made the case for change to the EU wine rules to permit reduced and de-alcoholised products to be called wines,” he said. 

It is interesting to note that the rhetoric of the prohibitionists is changing. Now it's a gentle game that combines divide and rule with bureaucratic lobbying. No-one has a problem with businesses creating low alcohol products by removing alcohol from wine. And that is what the market is doing - without any nudging or prompting from the bureaucrats:

Almost seven million bottles of wine with an alcohol content of less than 8.5 per cent were sold in Britain in 2011, two million more bottles than the year before. 

So leave well alone. And remember:
 
Victoria Moore, the Telegraph’s wine critic, said wine drinkers were already being “clobbered” with high taxes and a stream of political rhetoric warning them not to over-indulge.

Some naturally low-alcohol wines such as moscato from Italy, and German riesling, can be tasty, she said.

However, wine that has been through an artificial process, akin to decaffeinating coffee beans, generally tastes "rubbish".
 ....

Wednesday 14 August 2013

NHS consultation - sustaining the secret society that is the NHS

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NHS England is:

...seeking your views to help shape the future of general practice services in England.

On the face of it, this is brilliant. And they say that they wish to:

...to stimulate debate in local communities...

Again fantastic.

Except they don't mean a word of it. This is who they mean by community:

...GP practices, area teams, CCGs, health and wellbeing boards and other community partners...

The patient? The taxpaying public? Nope, not included. Local doesn't mean you and me, oh no. it means:

A number of area teams and CCGs are already working collaboratively to develop shared strategies for primary and integrated care, and the questions in this ‘call to action’ are designed both to support these existing examples of local action and to stimulate similar approaches in all other parts of the country.

I'm sure it's wonderful stuff all this collaboration and so forth. But where in all this improving of General Practice is there any attempt to talk to the poor folk who actually use the service?

Maybe it's in the 'online' survey - perhaps that will provide ordinary patients with a chance to say what they want from their GP and local medical centre? You can have a go if you want! But it's not for the faint-hearted. I'm on a Health & Well-being Board, I'm informed, experienced and trained and this is just wibble - and bear in mind this is supposed to be something that "citizens" can "engage with":

How can we best mobilise existing improvement resource (e.g. NHS IQ) and facilitate access to other potential external support for primary care transformation?

How might we develop QOF so that that we preserve its essential features but create more flexibility for practices and reduce the feel of a tick-box culture?

How do we create synergy with the new system of CQC ratings and inspections to create a clearer sense of what patients can expect from good general practice?

What is the potential future role for PMS and APMS contracts in stimulating innovative approaches or helping address particular local challenges?

And there's loads more where that came from. The truth is that the NHS has no desire or intention to consult real people - the patients, the carers, the public - preferring instead to consult itself in some sort of mutual backscratching exercise. And the end result will be a little money bunged at GPs, a whole raft of meetings, strategies, pilots and boards all doing precisely nothing other than sustain the secret society that is the NHS.

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Tuesday 13 August 2013

Cash for Bags!

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I just love this:

In a city driven by consumers' voracious appetite for the newest and latest luxury products, handbag-driven loans are a lucrative business. Yes Lady takes a purse and lends clients 80% of the bag's value. Customers get the bag back by repaying the same loan with 4% monthly interest, within four months. Classic purses and special-edition handbags often retain much of their retail price.

One wonders what Stella Creasey might think of it!

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Monday 12 August 2013

Quote of the day...

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On the "gulf" between rich and poor:

Actually Neill, never in human history has there been a smaller percentage of humanity living one failed harvest away from communal starvation. Is the divide between rich and poor actually increasing and more extreme than, say, in the eighteenth century? Or any time before then actually. In reality never has a larger percentage of humanity been, by any reasonable definition, middle class, than right now.

The fact large areas of poverty exists at all in our technologically advanced age is a dark miracle wrought largely by state imposed impediments to trade, insecurity of private property title and many other government policies of the sort Matt Damon (that tireless supporter of state education whose children are in private schools) strongly approves of.

Absolutely.

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"Your children will die!" More obesity scaremongering.

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There is a problem with obesity but dealing with it is not helped by either conflating obesity with overweight or with nonsensical speculations about longevity:

Parents could soon begin to outlive their children because of an epidemic of obesity afflicting the younger generation. Many youngsters are now so grossly overweight they face premature death caused by a heart attack or stroke.

Apparently all this comes from Professor Andrew Prentice, a leading nutritionist, who suggests that:

'Fast foods are likely to be implicated because they contain a lot of fat. The response to the abundance of high-energy, aggressively marketed foods and the sedentariness induced by TV is a pandemic of obesity.'

The classic New Puritan mix - blame something popular with lower socio-economic classes, blame advertising and blame TV (or the Internet). And all just hokum.

There is no 'pandemic of obesity', this generation of children are not fatter than the last generation of children (although they are fatter than the generation before) :


As this graph (from ONS) shows the peak for teenage obesity was back in 2004. It also shows that obesity is much more of a problem for girls than for boys.

Since there is no demonstrated link between overweight and shortened mortality, we should concern ourselves with the actual obesity rather than ridiculous (and unscientific) estimates of life expectancy. Here's the evidence that shows this 'nutritionist' to be wrong:

This systematic review provides high-quality evidence that obesity grades 2 and 3 are associated with higher death rates from any cause compared to normal weight individuals (around 30% increased risk). However, it also shows that lower grades of obesity (grade 1) do not increase the risk of death relative to normal-weight individuals and, in fact, overweight people had a small but significant reduction in their risk of death in the region of 6%.

In English that means that only the very obese are seriously risking their lives by being fat - the rest of us would probably be happier is we could stay a little thinner but we're not going to live any less long than thin folk.

There is no 'pandemic' of obesity, it isn't caused by fizzy drinks and TV. Nor is our increase in weight anything to do with "aggressively marketed fat-laden fast food'. Our daily energy intake has fallen every year since 1958 (with the exception of a small blip in the 1990s), yet we are taller and fatter than our forebears.

We're fatter because we sit about more (or maybe because we eat too much fruit).

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The Climate Puppy

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A delightful analogy for the worst sort of climate change agitation:

Let us use, instead of a child with cancer, a happy little puppy dog. Somebody presents themselves as an expert, and tells you that the puppy dog is terribly, terribly sick. But you look at the puppy, and to you it seems to be perfectly normal. It wags and chases its own tail. It investigates every new object and smell, runs around, eats a bit, and falls asleep. You challenge the expert. He says that unless you do as he says, according to the computer model of a puppy he has devised, the real puppy will die in a horrible, horrible way, and it will all be your fault. Do you want to be a puppy murderer?

Whatever the truth of climate change, this does sum up so much of the debate.

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Sunday 11 August 2013

Life, death and why 'assisted dying' shouldn't be legalised

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This afternoon we watched 'In Time', a dystopic science fiction movie based on the idea of immortality:

It is the year 2169 and humanity had been genetically engineered to be born with a digital clock, bearing a year's worth of time, on their forearm. At the age of 25 a person stops aging, but their clock begins counting down; when it reaches zero, that person "times out" and dies.

Without dwelling too much on the plot (or indeed on the rather predictable rich/poor dichotomy) there are some moments in the film when characters discuss the idea of immortality. And the idea that we really don't want to be immortal regardless of whether that immortality comes at the cost of others' lives. Implicit in the story is the idea that a short time of interest, excitement and fun is better than a drawn out life spent avoiding 'doing anything stupid'. The core principle of public health as lifestyle control is rudely countered - why shouldn't we eat, drink and be merry just because some doctor says it will shorten our life?

The idea of immortality is important to us. It lies behind the continued popularity of major religions - follow this life and you will life forever in paradise - and in our attitude to modern medicine. Anything that might shorten our lives - drinking, smoking, bacon sandwiches, cave diving and, of course, driving fast on drugs while getting your wing-wang squeezed - is to be frowned upon, discouraged and even completely banned. Especially where such activity grants us pleasure.

Our doctors, the media and the government is entirely wedded to the idea that life must be prolonged and that adding a few extra months through medical intervention after medical intervention is the right thing to do, is the embodiment of Hippocrates principle. In the Spectator's Coffee House, David Blackburn questions this view:

...Hunt says nothing about the elephant on the operating table: what is the purpose of modern medicine, on which ever greater sums of public and private money is spent? The grandfather mentioned above died after a short illness in January 1991 aged 78; nowadays, he would have been kept alive in some discomfort and for little purpose for many more months. Men like him lived for golf and conviviality, not morphine and daytime TV. I can’t say whether I or anyone else would chose death over life in such circumstances; but how dispiriting to think that the last thing over which you imagine to have control – one’s will, one’s iron in the soul – is actually tethered by a public servant, empowered (perhaps against his will) by the choices of others.

We all have some sympathy with this point of view - it seems intolerable for a once active and engaged person to slip into dementia, to end trapped in a wheelchair or lying prone in a hospital bed surrounded by bleeping monitors and plugged with drips and wires. And the logic of such a concern, of the pain of watching someone die slowly, is to adopt the position of A N Wilson (cited in Blackburn's article):

‘I believe it is not those who support assisted dying but those who oppose it who have a moral case to answer.’ He quotes, at length, the daughter of Dr Ann McPherson, whose protracted death from cancer — despite palliative care — makes painful reading.

It seems to me that there is a moral case against this argument, one that isn't trapped in the religiosity of much right to life campaigning. In explaining this position I will draw on my mum's experience - more poignant because mum has spent much of the last year tiptoeing closer to death.

A while ago I wrote this about assisted dying:

 Every day, my Mum would tell us, one or more of the people she saw would proclaim – in that depression of loneliness so common among the old and infirm – “I’m just a burden, I’d be better off dead”, or some similar formula of despair. Mum’s response would be to tell them not to be so silly, have a cup of tea and a chat.

It is only a short step from the pain of Dr McPherson's daughter to a different sort of relative. The relative who sees the chance presented by a old person, perhaps housebound, who worn down by pains and aches declares a desire to die. How easy will it be to - if we allowed it - take that next step to getting a form signed and proceeding to that gentle injection and death?

And how much closer are we - for this is implied in David Blackburn suggesting we can't afford 'modern medicine' on the universal basis we afford it now - to a different science fiction dystopia?

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Friday 9 August 2013

Why Stephen Fry is wrong about the Winter Olympics

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So Stephen Fry wants us to boycott the Winter Olympics because they're in Russia where gay rights are (to put it mildly) not as advanced as they are here. And I rather get his point. We have very little sway over a place like Russia and this little lever might just get Mr Putin to change his ways - although I rather doubt it.

My problems with this approach are twofold:

Firstly, if we are to have a cultural boycott (which is, after all, what Stephen Fry is proposing) then should it not be comprehensive? Is the right approach to repeat the cultural sanctions that were used to apply pressure to apartheid South Africa? For sure, the Winter Olympics are high profile (less so than the summer games especially in the UK where aside from curling and the occasional ice skater we don't win very much) but what about football, tennis and athletics - all sports the Russians are good at - will Stephen Fry be writing to UEFA, the ITF and the IAAF to urge further boycotts?

Secondly, boycotts of this sort are collective actions and, as a result, prevent people who may want to participate in the event from doing so. Stephen Fry hasn't spent every waking hour over the last four years perfecting pirouettes at a tatty ice rink in South London or hurtling ever faster down dangerously steep alpine slopes in pursuit of fame and success. Any boycott should be a matter for these people not for self-appointed spokesmen for 'civilized society' such as Stephen Fry. These athletes, in most cases, get just one or two chances to compete in an Olympic Games - wrenching this chance from them in pursuit of a political point, even one as important as gay rights, seems wrong to me. And we should remember that it's the IOC that chooses the venue not the athletes - and in Russia's case did so some long while ago.

If individual athletes want to boycott that is fine and perhaps Stephen Fry might direct his attentions to such gentle persuasion rather than grandstanding.

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Thursday 8 August 2013

Quote of the day

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Exposing the ludicrous story about old folk liking a tipple:

"Whilst sensible drinking is sound advice, nannies don't need the nanny state telling them what to do.

"Our own research amongst almost 1,000 over-50s shows that they tend to drink less than 10 units of alcohol a week, much less than the recommended 14 for women and 21 for men."

So says the chap from Saga demonstrating that the New Puritans are wrong again.

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The flotilla sails.



The happy smiling faces shine through Portsmouth's drizzle as they troop onto the ship. To be fair entering the ship was more queueing than trooping as, at the head of the gangway, stood a phalanx of checklist wielding officials.

But the faces are smiling for they're leaving behind Sodom, turning their backs on the land where - despite all the lobbying, charity campaigns and portentous media announcements of doom - too many people persist in doing things that aren't right. Things that should be banned.

The breakthrough came when the Home Secretary, Helen Graivey announced the transfer of part of Turkey - Yasaklama - to a new United Nations protectorate. So came about the place were things that should be banned, are banned. And there would be grants for those righteous people who wished to relocate to the new state.

Predictable outrage exploded for a while as Royal Colleges, publicly-funded charity bosses and journalists on the Daily Mail realised that the Government was serious. People who wanted everything banned were being paid to go and live in a place where everything WAS banned - including the Daily Mail.

Elsewhere in the country, pub crawls, smoking festivals and burger-eating competitions were held to raise more money to send people to Yasaklama. Cricket and football were played on the grass, fireworks were let off and street parties were thrown.

There were reports (quickly dismissed) of people known to harbour banning thoughts being herded, crated up and shipped in containers to Turkey. And of whip rounds in offices to pay the passage of especially oppressive managers. The government reached new heights in the opinion polls as it dawned on people that it was the jobsworths, fussbuckets and interfering old goats that they disliked most. Even more than Ed Balls.

And so the day arrives at ports from Oban to Falmouth as thousands of Britain's nannies and worrywarts load themselves into smoke-free, low alcohol and low calorie berths for the trip to Yasaklama. The wharves and harbour walls are thronged with (slightly tipsy) spectators clutching bags of chips, cans of lager and ice-creams. All there to make absolutely free all the lovers of bans leave (the looks of disapproval, tutting and 'that should be stopped' comments from embarking passengers viewing the booze, burgers and cigars on display acting as a reminder of the reason for creating Yasaklama).

A few hours later and ropes are cast, the nation's collective breath is held and...yes...the nannying fussbucket flotilla leaves for the land of the unfree, for ban central, for Yasaklama.

And a cheer, at first hesitant but slowly rising to a massive cathartic crescendo, rent the air. Freedom had returned!

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Things public health say that simply aren't true...

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'The idea of an older woman with a glass of sherry is way out of date. It is more likely to be a bottle of wine a day.’

This from Andrew Langford of the British Liver Trust is a classic of the public health genre. Old ladies may not be drinking a little glass of sherry but, let's be clear, most of them - nearly all of them in truth - are not drinking a bottle of wine a day. They are more like to be drinking no alcohol.

According to the ONS (this is for 2009) just 4% of women aged over 65 had drunk more that six units on any occasion in the week prior to survey. And 74% of such women had consumed less that 3 units. Indeed 57% of women over 65 had not touched a drop.

And just for completeness, the average weekly consumption for women aged 65 or over is just 4.6 units.

There may be a few elderly women with a drink problem but it is not a hidden' public health scandal. Not even a little one.

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Wednesday 7 August 2013

A glimpse of Africa...

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We're always shown the doom and gloom of Africa - the famines, the war, the corruption, wizened old dictators. Here's a glimpse of another - busier, more exciting - Africa. Watch Coutonou in Benin:


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Tuesday 6 August 2013

Detroit and Liverpool: thoughts on urban renewal

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We've all seen parts of the crisis in Detroit - the bankruptcy of the City government, the abandoned houses you can buy for a few dollars (although nobody does) or the endless chatter about racial strife and political corruption. Not to mention crime, violence and urban decay.

And this is nothing new. People have been commenting on the problems of Detroit since the 1950s with each generation of observers seeing the crisis through the prism of that age's prejudices. And during this time Detroit continued to decline. Fingers are pointed at 'white flight' (let's call it 'jobs sprawl'):

One consequence of this dysfunction has been a severe case of “job sprawl” within the metropolitan area, with jobs fleeing the urban core even when employment in greater Detroit was still rising, and even as other cities were seeing something of a city-center revival. Fewer than a quarter of the jobs on offer in the Detroit metropolitan area lie within 10 miles of the traditional central business district.

The result of this is that Detroit's population has dropped from 1.8 million to just over 700,000 with, inevitably, the better educated, the more entrepreneurial and the more ambitious departing the city.

Everyone points to different urban pathologies as the cause, partly guided by ideological prejudice and partly by whatever is academic flavour of the month in urban studies. Yet we never point the finger at 'regeneration' as the heart of Detroit's problems preferring instead to speak of industrial decline or even Detroit as a sort of municipal buggy whip manufacturer.

So let's look at the 'regeneration' efforts:

For decades it has done the opposite, championing a growth policy that mirrored the city’s overly-centralized private sector. It has gambled—with tax breaks, subsidies, and extensive eminent domain—on stadiums, casinos, office towers, factories, and a downtown monorail, only to find that these didn’t produce nearly the anticipated benefits.

We see here the classic inward investment approach - focus on big 'transformative' projects and provide incentives to developers and favoured businesses. And these inward investment strategies were matched by brutal clearance and community redesign:

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s white mayors steamrolled roadways through functioning black neighborhoods like Black Bottom, and housed the displaced in dangerous, high-rise government projects. Funding for this and other “urban renewal” came from federal programs like President Johnson’s Model Cities, and using Detroit as a flagship, was meant to modernize aging urban communities. 

There's no doubt that racism played a part in Detroit's failure but far more important to that failure was the misplaced belief that the solution - always and every time - lay in securing external finance, public or private, to be directed by the City government or its agents. Every time there is a crisis, out comes the begging bowl and up goes the cries for "more resources" or for "more investment".

Here in England we have been shielded from part of Detroit's problem - rightly or wrongly, local government here doesn't have the unrestricted borrowing power of a US city. But the pattern of urban decline is little different. Take Liverpool, once a great city of empire, now a shadow of its past. This isn't to detract from the efforts - some more successful than others - to reinvent the city and to create a vibrant and dynamic cultural and social heart to Merseyside. But Liverpool still lives with that historic decline:

There are persistently high levels of deprivation in the city and Liverpool remains ranked as the most deprived local authority area in England on the ID 2010, with its position unchanged from the 2004 and 2007 Indices. 

All that 'regeneration' hasn't prevented Liverpool from remaining poor - just as was the case with Detroit. Millions in regeneration funding, economic development cash and a myriad of 'interventions' have left Liverpool just as it was in 1980 - the poorest city in England. And still the clearance continues:

...Liverpool City Council’s planning committee gave the go-ahead to a two-phase hybrid application from housing association Plus Dane Group for the clearance and redevelopment of 5.97 hectares of the Victorian-built terraced houses in the Welsh Streets area, which is part of the Princes Park regeneration zone.

Not only does this approach divide communities and undermine the sense of history in a place but it repeats past errors - and mirrors Detroit's errors - by seeing social investment as a parallel to economic development. People may have a slightly newer house (or some people at least) but they still don't have good prospects of personal economic advancement. Liverpool - despite the investment - remains poor.

And people leave. Since its peak in 1931, Liverpool's population has declined by nearly 50% as people have moved to places with better prospects - some not so far away but others far, far away from the Liver Birds. This is pretty similar to Detroit. Yet we still hear the plaintive cries of the urban leader:

Deputy Mayor, Councillor Paul Brant, said: “You cannot cut your way to growth. In Liverpool we are innovating and investing in schemes that will deliver jobs and economic benefit, whether it’s using our borrowing power to kickstart developments, or to generate new income streams as we have done by purchasing Everton FC’s training ground.

Look at Detroit and ask whether this approach - an approach that has attracted plenty of government cash to Liverpool over the years - will do anything to transform the city? Or, when the next Index of Multiple Deprivation is published, will Liverpool still be England's poorest city?

The sad truth is that the 'regeneration' policies we follow - and continue to follow nationally and locally - are part of the problem not part of the solution. Waiting for the Whitehall fairy to wave the magic funding wand is a fine strategy for council officers and the trooping backwards and forwards to London for meetings gives an illusion of activity but it doesn't help the city, whether that city is Detroit, Liverpool or my city of Bradford.

Here we're rabbiting on about being a 'producer city' which suggests a commitment to business creation and innovation. But, in reality, this is simply repackaging the same old approach - big grand projects that will 'transform' and much about how public investment will lead or draw out private investment. Bradford's not as poor as Liverpool but we have adopted the same strategy as that city - a strategy that echoes the failed approach of Detroit.

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Now the Liberal Democrats want to ban cars...

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I guess this is something to do with saving the planet. But quite frankly they can shut up and go away:

Nick Clegg’s party has unveiled proposals to only allow ultra-low carbon vehicles on UK roads by 2040.

The controversial measures would mean millions of petrol and diesel cars being forbidden.

Only electric vehicles and ultra-efficient hybrid cars would be allowed on UK roads under the Lib Dem plans. 

What is it about these so-called 'liberals' that makes them want to ban things, stop things and generally restrain and curtail the liberty of ordinary Brits?

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Monday 5 August 2013

Do they not get it? We don't pay taxes to fund politics...

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...and each time I hear someone suggesting that giving us politicians the ability to dip our fingers into the public purse to fund our political organisations - as a way of stopping corruption - I want to scream.

People don't get up every morning and go to work - often for not very much money - to pay taxes so political parties can run posh offices in Westminster. Nobody does this. If political parties want to run these offices but think that relying on millionaires or trades unions stinks of buying influence then they need to go out there and raise the money from ordinary people. From subscriptions, donations and fundraising events - just like they used to do before they decided that tapping up rich folk was easier (and meant that there were fewer of those pesky members to cause trouble for the leadership).

And what makes me even madder is the cavalier approach to public funds - 'oh, it's not very much' they say:

Nor are the sums large: Sir Christopher proposed a £10,000 donations cap and an increased state contribution of £23m a year over five years – the cost of a first-class stamp for every taxpayer. 

There are hundreds of better ways to spend £23million and, more to the point, there is a matter of principle involved here. It is not the purpose of government - the thing to which we pay our taxes- to fund the conduct of politics. Even more than with funding from the rich or from powerful institutions, the use of public funding for politics is wrong.

The problem political parties have is that nowadays only the ambitious and the anorak joins. The idea of joining a party (my party used to take any sum in return for a membership card - I recall collecting subs with my mum, 50p here, a pound there made for a large membership) to have your say and enjoy a bit of socialising has long gone. Today's Parties have largely given up on members - too much trouble.

If we allow state funding there will be no point or purpose of membership unless you want to be a politician. Is this really what we want for our politics? Where political parties look first to the state to pay their bills rather than make their case - for funding as well as votes - to the public at large? And where even more of our politicians emerge from the shallow, self-serving nomenklatura that populates Westminster. More and more nice posh boys and girls without the first clue about life in the real world but who sound good and know the right people.

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Sunday 4 August 2013

Sugar - more from the new puritans



Today's target for the New Puritans is sugar:

Though the drinks and food industry still hotly contests it, a scientific consensus is now emerging that fatal problems can be traced back to excessive sugar consumption. Sugary drinks, addiction and obesity are inextricably linked: excess sugar in the diet may be a greater cause of obesity than fat is. Obese people suffer from diabetes, cancer, fatty liver disease, dementia and heart problems to the extent that their healthcare costs are double those of people with a healthy body mass. The "metabolic syndrome" maladies associated with insulin resistance and obesity – many authorities now just use the term "diabesity" – are expected soon to overtake tobacco as the leading cause of heart disease in the world. And perhaps of cancer, too.

This 'scientific consensus' consists almost entirely of Dr Robert Lustig described as:

...the guru of an increasingly noisy international campaign pressing governments to act as aggressively on sugary drinks as they have on tobacco

To question the evil of Big Sugar is to question this received wisdom. In doing so I will present just one statistic - sugar consumption from 1974-2010.

In 1974 the average consumption of sugar per head per week in the UK was  458g - which is a near as it gets to a pound of sugar each week. Today the figure is just 90g per head per week. Sugar consumption has fallen every single year (bar one) since 1958.












The period of the graph above was the period during which levels of male obesity rose from around 13% to over 22%. Yet our consumption of sugar did not rise during that period. This makes it pretty hard to finger sugar as the main culprit for increased levels of obesity.

While sugar is a factor in obesity - and consumption isn't evenly distributed across the population - the main factor is our sedentary lifestyle:

According to rigorous research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the average Briton consumes 600 fewer calories every day than 30 years ago. That’s like dropping a daily burger and chips from your overall consumption.

That’s the good news and now here’s the bad. We’re ingesting 20% fewer calories than our counterparts of the early 1980s, and yet we weigh, on average, a whopping 30lb more.
This isn't about getting people to go to the gym - that helps but is no substitute for constant physical activity: walking, climbing steps, physical handling, lifting and so forth. The truth is that we eat more than we should given that our default state is sofa, chair or car seat.

Sugar is just a convenient demon especially when we can claim it's addictive, that our overconsumption is someone else's fault - Big Sugar, advertising, Coca-cola - rather than our own responsibility.

And the demon gives the New Puritans another thing to judge people on, another of life's pleasures to denormalise and another chance to screw money from the taxpayer to sustain The Church of Public Health.

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Tim Farron wants expensive fuel to go with the expensive food....

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You have to admire the populism of Tim Farron, president of the Liberal Democrats:

Mr Farron told The Sunday Telegraph: “I am afraid the Government has seen flashing pound signs, and has not considered the long-term threats fracking poses to the countryside. “I think this is a very short-sighted policy, and we will all be left to live with the consequences.”

Now this is a man who campaigned for expensive food. I know it didn't look that way but rather as an admirable campaign to protect the livelihoods of farmers (many of whom Tim represents). Nevertheless, the impact of his campaign - and his continued support for agricultural protectionism - will lead to higher food prices.

So now, in the interests of a headline, Tim is supporting expensive energy. I know it doesn't look that way. Rather it's portrayed as caring for the environment. But the effect of Tim's campaign - if it succeeds - against fracking will be higher energy prices. Meaning that less well off people (perhaps there aren't so many of these in South Lakeland) will struggle to heat their homes especially since Tim's campaigns already mean such folk pay more for their food.

Even worse Tim's campaign already misleads:

“With a wind farm you can actually choose where you put it; that is not the case (with) fracking,” 

Actually you can't 'choose' where to put a wind farm - to have a chance of viability turbines have to be in places where there's lots of wind, which isn't just anywhere.

And then, having misled, Tim scaremongers:

 This technology can lead to earth tremors and I’m particularly worried that buried nuclear waste in my part of the country could be affected.

There have been around 100,000 fracking wells drilled and the biggest tremor recorded from this is 3.6 on the Richter Scale, which is a bit like having a heavy lorry drive past the front of your house. Typical tremors are 1.3 to 2.6:

If there is an earthquake of 1.5, they have to stop. The British Geological Society says a tremor like that is not usually felt by anyone. It describes an earthquake of 2.3 as being like someone dropping a bucket of water. To put it in context, there have been three of those in Britain in the last month. 

So - getting a cheap headline, presenting misleading facts and scaremongering. A good day's work from the Liberal Democrat's president!

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Saturday 3 August 2013

On the valuing of education...

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And how state systems don't value teaching well. At least not compared to this:

Kim Ki-hoon earns $4 million a year in South Korea, where he is known as a rock-star teacher—a combination of words not typically heard in the rest of the world. Mr. Kim has been teaching for over 20 years, all of them in the country's private, after-school tutoring academies, known as hagwons. Unlike most teachers across the globe, he is paid according to the demand for his skills—and he is in high demand.

Kim is paid this much because the product he provides - or rather its benefits - are valued very highly. And the hagwon system rewards the best teachers because they are what the pupils want:

The most radical difference between traditional schools and hagwons is that students sign up for specific teachers, so the most respected teachers get the most students.

This is a strikingly different world from that we are familiar with - a system where the best teachers get the biggest reward and where the choices of the customers, the learners, drives that success. In Korea the failings of the state system lie behind the hagwons, that coupled with the pressures to achieve socially, academically and financially.

And the conclusion? It might be this:

...in an information-driven global economy, a few truths are becoming universal: Children need to know how to think critically in math, reading and science; they must be driven; and they must learn how to adapt, since they will be doing it all their lives. These demands require that schools change, too—or the free market may do it for them. 

Certainly food for thought and a challenge to the deadening government systems we see in the UK.

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Gareth Bale - is this proof for tournament theory?

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First I'm assured that young Gareth hasn't yet signed on the dotted line at Real Madrid but still:

Real Madrid have agreed to pay £105million in a part-exchange deal for Gareth Bale.

The Spanish giants were claiming on Thursday night that a staggering, world-record accord had been sealed with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.

And yes, there is a theory to explain why so much money is paid for and to these top footballers:

However, there is an alternative explanation that says that in many cases relative differences in performance, not absolute differences, determine earnings. This explanation of wage differences in terms of relative performance is often called tournament theory. One place where this explanation should work is in contests with winners and losers. For example, consider two almost equally able gladiators fighting in the arena of ancient Rome. Small differences in ability (or luck) could result in a huge difference in reward--one could die and the other live.

Given the levels of reward to the club of remaining at the European table, it is imperative that they invest in players who are (they hope) ever so slightly better than the players in the team that doesn't quite make it into the Champions' League (e.g. Tottenham Hotspur).

However, such a system would seem, over time, to reduce the chances of new teams breaking into Europe unless - as we've seen with Chelsea, Manchester City and PSG - there is a sugar daddy in the form of Russian or Arab billionaires.

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Thursday 1 August 2013

This week's nannying fussbucket award...Cllr Michael Jones

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...goes to Michael Jones, leader of Cheshire East council:



Council leader Michael Jones said: “We stand by our decision to go forward. We are talking to our sub-regional partners. We are looking at those who offer cut price alcohol as a temptation to young adults.”

He said he wasn’t talking about responsible drinkers.

“I’m talking about those who buy two litres of cider for £1.80, go home and drink it and then go out,” he said.


Of course, Cllr Jones doesn't have the power to fix prices so his campaign is mere posturing. However, it is worst for this not better - worse because Cllr Jones provides oxygen to the prohibitionists that inhabit public health departments and worse because he's misleading the Cheshire East public.

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