Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Quote of the day 17th October 2017
This quote seemed like an appropriate follow-on to my post last night about the evolution, or lack thereof, of human intelligence ...
Monday, October 16, 2017
Is the film "Idiocracy" coming true?
The 2006 comedy film "Idiocracy" made the projection, intended as a joke, that because people of high intelligence supposedly tend to have only a small number of children while people of low intelligence supposedly tend to have lots, there would tend to be a catastrophic fall in intelligence.
In the film Luke Wilson plays Private Joe Bauers, a contemporary US soldier of perfectly average intelligence for the early 21st century who is selected for a suspended animation trial and accidentally put to sleep for five centuries instead of the one year period intended. He wakes to find a population consisting entirely of morons and that he is now far and away the most intelligent man in the world.
I had never taken the film too seriously, not least because intelligence is the product of a whole host of factors and not just genetics, and I don't take things reported in the Daily Mail as always being correct either, but I must confess that their article this week
"Are we becoming more stupid ?"
quoting research which suggests that average IQ levels in several western countries have dropped, did ring alarm bells.
The article referenced a more detailed and nuanced article in New Scientist manazine by Bob Holmes,
"Brain Drain: Are we evolving stupidity?"
The article begins by recording evidence that for at least a century average intelligence was increasing in a number of countries including the UK, Australia and Demnark. The fastest rise was recorded in Denmark between 1950 and about 1998 where average IQ scores for comparable age cohorts of young men were rising by as much as three IQ points per decade.
Unfortunately the same evidence suggests that that the rise seems to have peaked at or just before the turn of the millenium and since then average intelligene as measured by IQ tests (which are not, of course, a perfect measure) may even have dropped slightly.
There are suggestions that the increase in average intelligence during the 20th century was due to better nutrition, living conditions and education: this is sometimes called the "Flynn Effect" after Professor James Flynn of the University of Otago. There is a suggestion that we have reached the limits of the Flynn effect and that average intelligence has been pushed down either by a less intellectually stretching culture or by genetic effects.
It would be very easy at this point to make faux-clever responses along the lines of
"well of course people are getting more stupid, how else do you explain the election of (insert name of your least favourite politician here)"
Actually that would be a classic "dumbed down" response. This is a more serious and more long-term potential problem, if the data are right, than the election of one generation of witless politicians.
I think we should be very careful to avoid jumping to conclusions about what is really happening to intelligence and why, but I must confess to being concerned about the evidence that we are not, as a civilisation, maintaining the progress in brain power that we were previously making.
Perhaps both as iondividuals and as a society we should be thinking about what we can do to stretch our minds more.
In the film Luke Wilson plays Private Joe Bauers, a contemporary US soldier of perfectly average intelligence for the early 21st century who is selected for a suspended animation trial and accidentally put to sleep for five centuries instead of the one year period intended. He wakes to find a population consisting entirely of morons and that he is now far and away the most intelligent man in the world.
I had never taken the film too seriously, not least because intelligence is the product of a whole host of factors and not just genetics, and I don't take things reported in the Daily Mail as always being correct either, but I must confess that their article this week
"Are we becoming more stupid ?"
quoting research which suggests that average IQ levels in several western countries have dropped, did ring alarm bells.
The article referenced a more detailed and nuanced article in New Scientist manazine by Bob Holmes,
"Brain Drain: Are we evolving stupidity?"
The article begins by recording evidence that for at least a century average intelligence was increasing in a number of countries including the UK, Australia and Demnark. The fastest rise was recorded in Denmark between 1950 and about 1998 where average IQ scores for comparable age cohorts of young men were rising by as much as three IQ points per decade.
Unfortunately the same evidence suggests that that the rise seems to have peaked at or just before the turn of the millenium and since then average intelligene as measured by IQ tests (which are not, of course, a perfect measure) may even have dropped slightly.
There are suggestions that the increase in average intelligence during the 20th century was due to better nutrition, living conditions and education: this is sometimes called the "Flynn Effect" after Professor James Flynn of the University of Otago. There is a suggestion that we have reached the limits of the Flynn effect and that average intelligence has been pushed down either by a less intellectually stretching culture or by genetic effects.
It would be very easy at this point to make faux-clever responses along the lines of
"well of course people are getting more stupid, how else do you explain the election of (insert name of your least favourite politician here)"
Actually that would be a classic "dumbed down" response. This is a more serious and more long-term potential problem, if the data are right, than the election of one generation of witless politicians.
I think we should be very careful to avoid jumping to conclusions about what is really happening to intelligence and why, but I must confess to being concerned about the evidence that we are not, as a civilisation, maintaining the progress in brain power that we were previously making.
Perhaps both as iondividuals and as a society we should be thinking about what we can do to stretch our minds more.
Apparently scientists cannot confirm whether we are living in a simulation after all
A few days ago I posted about an article in "Science Advances" which had been taken by the media as evidence that we are not living in some giant computer simulation like the one in "The Matrix."
However, the authors of the original paper, Zohar Ringel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Dmitry Kovrizhin at the University of Oxford told New Scientist they are a bit taken aback at the conclusions the media ad drawn from their work.
There are people on both ends of the spectrum - those who think it is unlikely that we are living in some kind of computer simulation and, surprisingly, one or two like technology mogul Elon Musk who think that there is only a billion-to-one chance that we actually live in reality and that it is more likely that we are merely data circling inside someone’s supercomputer.
However, the scientific consensus as reported by the New Scientist is that we cannot possibly know whether or not our universe is a simulation unless the model has blatant flaws like the ones Nardole and Bill discovered in "Doctor Who."
The New Scientist article quotes Marcelo Gleiser at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire as saying that
“To me, both the ‘are we living in a simulation’ question and any response to it based on current computer knowledge is silly.”
Gleiser argues that point: trying to answer these questions based on our current knowledge and machines is inevitably based on unreliable assumptions. As the article points out,
Quantum computers – if and when they become truly operational – may be much more versatile than we can imagine at this point. If we were in a simulation, humans would have little idea of what the laws of physics in the outside “real world” were like, whether quantum mechanics ruled, and what kind of computation was possible outside the bounds of our simulation.
So we're back to square one - until and unless we find a flaw in the Universe which can only be explained by its' being a simulation rather than real, we have no way of answering the question.
However, the authors of the original paper, Zohar Ringel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Dmitry Kovrizhin at the University of Oxford told New Scientist they are a bit taken aback at the conclusions the media ad drawn from their work.
There are people on both ends of the spectrum - those who think it is unlikely that we are living in some kind of computer simulation and, surprisingly, one or two like technology mogul Elon Musk who think that there is only a billion-to-one chance that we actually live in reality and that it is more likely that we are merely data circling inside someone’s supercomputer.
However, the scientific consensus as reported by the New Scientist is that we cannot possibly know whether or not our universe is a simulation unless the model has blatant flaws like the ones Nardole and Bill discovered in "Doctor Who."
The New Scientist article quotes Marcelo Gleiser at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire as saying that
“To me, both the ‘are we living in a simulation’ question and any response to it based on current computer knowledge is silly.”
Gleiser argues that point: trying to answer these questions based on our current knowledge and machines is inevitably based on unreliable assumptions. As the article points out,
Quantum computers – if and when they become truly operational – may be much more versatile than we can imagine at this point. If we were in a simulation, humans would have little idea of what the laws of physics in the outside “real world” were like, whether quantum mechanics ruled, and what kind of computation was possible outside the bounds of our simulation.
So we're back to square one - until and unless we find a flaw in the Universe which can only be explained by its' being a simulation rather than real, we have no way of answering the question.
What the IMF really said:
For some perverse reason both the Daily Mail and the Guardian wrote up a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) report as supportive of the Labour party's policy of increasing tax rates.
Both took a quote from the IMF's fiscal monitor which did indeed read as follows
The quote above refers to OECD countries as a whole, and is NOT specifically aimed at Britain. The report goes on to suggest that
But this is not the case in Britain.
As we all know that extreme right winger George Osborne cut the top rate of income tax in Britain a few years ago from ...
50% to 45%.
That's right, after the Osborne top rate tax cut (which appears to have cost the UK exchequer a big fat zero in lost tax revenue), the top rate of income tax in Britain of 45% is currently one percentage point ABOVE what the IMF recommends as the optimum rate.
So they are not recommending tax increases in Britain at all.
Once you increase taxes above a certain level, you don't bring in any more revenue as people start doing things like employing creative accountants, moving money overseas, or not bothering to work as hard. There is some scope for argument about what rate of tax brings in the most money but I have always suspected that it is somewhere in the decile from 40% to 49% and definitely below 50%. The IMF figure of 44%, if perhaps quoted with spurious precision, sounds about right to me.
People just will not regard it as fair, or work as hard, if you take away half or more of every extra pound they earn.
As the Economist magazine explains in further detail in an article called taxing the rich,
"So not really support for Mr Corbyn at all."
Both took a quote from the IMF's fiscal monitor which did indeed read as follows
"there would appear to be scope for increasing the progressivity of income taxation without significantly hurting growth for countries wishing to enhance income redistribution."and those newspapers took that as encouraging a rise in tax rates in Britain. Actually that is NOT what the report says.
The quote above refers to OECD countries as a whole, and is NOT specifically aimed at Britain. The report goes on to suggest that
"Assuming a welfare weight of zero for the very rich, the optimal marginal income tax rate can be calculated as 44 percent."and compares this with the average top tax income tax band in the OECD of 35%. So there is scope for those countries whose top rate of income taxes is in that area to increase it.
But this is not the case in Britain.
As we all know that extreme right winger George Osborne cut the top rate of income tax in Britain a few years ago from ...
50% to 45%.
That's right, after the Osborne top rate tax cut (which appears to have cost the UK exchequer a big fat zero in lost tax revenue), the top rate of income tax in Britain of 45% is currently one percentage point ABOVE what the IMF recommends as the optimum rate.
So they are not recommending tax increases in Britain at all.
Once you increase taxes above a certain level, you don't bring in any more revenue as people start doing things like employing creative accountants, moving money overseas, or not bothering to work as hard. There is some scope for argument about what rate of tax brings in the most money but I have always suspected that it is somewhere in the decile from 40% to 49% and definitely below 50%. The IMF figure of 44%, if perhaps quoted with spurious precision, sounds about right to me.
People just will not regard it as fair, or work as hard, if you take away half or more of every extra pound they earn.
As the Economist magazine explains in further detail in an article called taxing the rich,
"So not really support for Mr Corbyn at all."
Sunday, October 15, 2017
On cross-party friendships
There is a marvellous article in today's Observer which you can read here about five cross-party friendships at Westminster.
Getting anything done in politics often requires people to work across party boundaries. It is really important for the functioning of democracy that we do not regard people who don't share all our opinions as enemies.
I found the article immensely cheering that in these partisan times ten MPs and peers were willing to talk to a journalist about their friendship with someone on the other side of the house.
Getting anything done in politics often requires people to work across party boundaries. It is really important for the functioning of democracy that we do not regard people who don't share all our opinions as enemies.
I found the article immensely cheering that in these partisan times ten MPs and peers were willing to talk to a journalist about their friendship with someone on the other side of the house.
Sometimes there IS smoke without fire.
This is an updated version of a post first made four years ago.
Frequently when a nasty story is circulating about someone, or when the police have decided to investigate an allegation - as it is their duty to do if there is anything resembling evidence that it might be true - someone makes the comment that "there's no smoke without fire."
This is of course a very old saying. My experience from more than thirty years in active politics is that this particular saying is not true.
This is of course a very old saying. My experience from more than thirty years in active politics is that this particular saying is not true.
Sometimes there really is smoke without fire, especially when it is in someone else's interests that there should be. Certain very widely believed stories are actually clever propaganda planted by the enemies of the people they are about.
Evidence against the theory that "there's no smoke without fire" goes back a long time. Although the Emperor Nero was undoubtedly one of the most evil rulers in history, many historians believe that he was actually innocent of the best known crime for which he is remembered - singing an aria as he watched the city of Rome burning. (He was certainly innocent of the allegation in the form in which it was most often quoted when I was a boy, of fiddling while Rome burned - the violin had not been invented in Nero's time.)
Nero murdered his mother after committing incest with her, murdered his wives, attempted to stamp out the Christian faith my torturing Christians to death in the area, and was responsible for the deaths of a very large number of innocent people. But he wasn't in Rome when the infamous fire broke out, and hurried back to the city to personally lead the firefighting efforts.
Evidence against the theory that "there's no smoke without fire" goes back a long time. Although the Emperor Nero was undoubtedly one of the most evil rulers in history, many historians believe that he was actually innocent of the best known crime for which he is remembered - singing an aria as he watched the city of Rome burning. (He was certainly innocent of the allegation in the form in which it was most often quoted when I was a boy, of fiddling while Rome burned - the violin had not been invented in Nero's time.)
Nero murdered his mother after committing incest with her, murdered his wives, attempted to stamp out the Christian faith my torturing Christians to death in the area, and was responsible for the deaths of a very large number of innocent people. But he wasn't in Rome when the infamous fire broke out, and hurried back to the city to personally lead the firefighting efforts.
It would appear that the reason Nero was blamed for the fire is that one of his many enemies - probably a friend or relative of one of the many people he had put to death - cast the accusation that Nero had started the fire so that he could rebuild Rome in the style that he fancied.
This was a masterly allegation because it exactly played into the preconceptions many Romans already had of Nero, which based on his past behaviour was highly plausible. The Italians have a saying for this, "Si non e vero, e ben trovato" or "If it's not true, it's well invented."
The trouble is that the most effective slanders often ARE well invented - especially if they are muttered anonymously so that the victims of lies can't go to court and crush them by providing proof that they are false.
In one instance I know of a set of lies which was widely believed about a former cabinet minister, and I know exactly where those lies came from. But for complicated reasons, the lies concerned never made it into print.
A very good friend of mine who was a Conservative branch chairman in the cabinet minister's constituency, happened to live next door to a senior activist of another political party. And that activist was unwise enough to discuss on his porch, not realising that he could be overheard from next door, their plans to undermine the minister concerned by spreading the lie that he was having a gay affair with another cabinet minister.
This particular lie never appeared in a political leaflet, it was spread by word of mouth. But within a few months we started picking it up, both on the doorstep and in London. Some looney who was probably acting on his own started distributing anonymous leaflets with an even worse version of the story, that the minister was supposedly dying of AIDS. The Conservative party had to spend some time during the following general election trying to keep this poisonous rubbish out of the press. Fortunately the journalists who became aware of it, either because they had some integrity and realised the story was rubbish or because they were afraid of being sued, declined to use it.
I have reason to believe that during that General Election there was a kind of "Mexican stand off" between the Conservative and Labour parties and their allies in the press. One newspaper allied to the Labour party had front page ready to go with this story about the Conservative minister, while a paper allied to the Conservatives had a front page ready to go with an equally foul story about a very prominent Labour front bencher. If either story had been published the other would have come out the following day. Fortunately nobody was daft enough to start this particular exchange. If they had, the party which would have benefitted would most probably have been a third political party, which, funnily enough, happens to be the very party whose activists invented the first story in the beginning.
Even if I hadn't known where the first story came from, I would be convinced there was no truth in either. The former minister who was supposedly dying of aids is still alive and well, was active in parliament until this year's general election, and still writes on Conservative Home and in the press. And the story about the Labour frontbencher must have been a pack of lies as well, because if there had been any genuine victims or a scrap of evidence someone would surely have taken it to Operation Midland or one of the other inquiries which have taken place following the Jimmy Saville scandal.
Unfortunately it is my impression that over the following twenty years, standards of accuracy, integrity and judgement in some sections of the media have fallen catastrophically below what was displayed at that time. You only need compare the good judgement shown by journalists in the nineties who refrained from a scoop which might have destroyed careers and lives at the price of printing what were probably filthy lies, with some of what came out during the Leveson inquiry and the ghastly mess the BBC got themselves into over sex abuse allegations.
When there is a story in the press about something supposedly said or done by a politician, we would be well advised to be aware of the possibility that it is the result of a misunderstanding, something misheard, or worst of all, a deliberate lie invented by someone with an agenda which would be served by discrediting the person the story is about.
We saw this with "Plebgate" where the former Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell MP, was accused in the media of having called a police officer a "pleb." He was forced to resign.
There is no absolute proof who was telling the truth about what was said, and making sense of the different and apparently contradictory outcomes of the criminal trial of a police officer who pleaded guilty to lying about the incident, disciplinary hearings involving several other officers, and the legal action which Mitchell brought against News Group Newspapers (e.g. the Sun) is next to impossible.
What is not in dispute, however, is that there was an attempt to discredit him.
CCTV footage released after his resignation did prove that Mitchell's account of the incident was closer to the truth than accounts in the newspapers, supposedly taken from a police log. I stress that this does not prove that the police officers directly involved in the incident told any lies and am not making any criticism of those officers.
Although Andrew Mitchell ultimately lost the libel case which he brought against News Group Newspapers because of a decision made on what the judge described as "the balance of probabilities," he was not the only person to lose his job over the affair: several police officers not directly involved in the original incident were found to have acted unprofessionally, been sacked or even in one case jailed, for making misleading comments or lying about the "plebgate" incident.
One officer was convicted of criminal misconduct and sentenced to twelve months in prison after he pleaded guilty to lying about the incident. Another officer, who was at the time a regional official of the Police Federation, was found guilty of misconduct and breaching professional standards by giving "misleading" accounts to the press of a meeting with Mr Mitchell. And including the officer who was jailed, four police officers were sacked for misconduct for offences such as giving "inaccurate and misleading statements" in connection with the affair.
In other words, whatever the truth of "Plebgate," no fewer than five people from whom society was entitled to expect a high standard of integrity were jailed, sacked or censured for attempting untruthfully to discredit Andrew Mitchell in the press or cover up the actions of others who did.
I have more than a few friends who are serving or former police officers. All of them are people of integrity as I believe that the vast majority of police officers are. But the events of the past few years has proven the existence of a toxic relationship between a minority of police officers and certain newspapers which has been highly damaging both to the cause of justice and to the reputation of both the press and the police.
Which brings me to the present and various allegations of child abuse being investigated by the police.
There have been too many cases in the past where true allegations of rape and child sexual abuse were not taken seriously enough. In what is probably the worst case, in Rochdale, this allowed more than 1,400 children, mostly girls aged between 11 and 15, to be raped or abused.
We must not make that kind of mistake again, therefore any such allegations must be taken seriously and properly and conscientiously investigated if there is any material chance that they are true.
Equally, the principle that an accused person is "innocent until proven guilty" has served the cause of justice well for centuries. Just as we should not assume without due investigation that allegations are false, neither should we assume that allegations are true just because the police are doing their job by investigating them. And neither the police officers leading an investigation nor anybody else should pre-judge whether an allegation is true or false before they have completed that investigation.
It ought to be possible to ensure that all such allegations are properly investigated without putting the innocent through something which feels horribly close to a Salem witch trial. Unfortunately some recent investigations and their reporting in the media have conveyed precisely that impression.
And hence I repeat - sometimes there IS smoke without fire.
The trouble is that the most effective slanders often ARE well invented - especially if they are muttered anonymously so that the victims of lies can't go to court and crush them by providing proof that they are false.
In one instance I know of a set of lies which was widely believed about a former cabinet minister, and I know exactly where those lies came from. But for complicated reasons, the lies concerned never made it into print.
A very good friend of mine who was a Conservative branch chairman in the cabinet minister's constituency, happened to live next door to a senior activist of another political party. And that activist was unwise enough to discuss on his porch, not realising that he could be overheard from next door, their plans to undermine the minister concerned by spreading the lie that he was having a gay affair with another cabinet minister.
This particular lie never appeared in a political leaflet, it was spread by word of mouth. But within a few months we started picking it up, both on the doorstep and in London. Some looney who was probably acting on his own started distributing anonymous leaflets with an even worse version of the story, that the minister was supposedly dying of AIDS. The Conservative party had to spend some time during the following general election trying to keep this poisonous rubbish out of the press. Fortunately the journalists who became aware of it, either because they had some integrity and realised the story was rubbish or because they were afraid of being sued, declined to use it.
I have reason to believe that during that General Election there was a kind of "Mexican stand off" between the Conservative and Labour parties and their allies in the press. One newspaper allied to the Labour party had front page ready to go with this story about the Conservative minister, while a paper allied to the Conservatives had a front page ready to go with an equally foul story about a very prominent Labour front bencher. If either story had been published the other would have come out the following day. Fortunately nobody was daft enough to start this particular exchange. If they had, the party which would have benefitted would most probably have been a third political party, which, funnily enough, happens to be the very party whose activists invented the first story in the beginning.
Even if I hadn't known where the first story came from, I would be convinced there was no truth in either. The former minister who was supposedly dying of aids is still alive and well, was active in parliament until this year's general election, and still writes on Conservative Home and in the press. And the story about the Labour frontbencher must have been a pack of lies as well, because if there had been any genuine victims or a scrap of evidence someone would surely have taken it to Operation Midland or one of the other inquiries which have taken place following the Jimmy Saville scandal.
Unfortunately it is my impression that over the following twenty years, standards of accuracy, integrity and judgement in some sections of the media have fallen catastrophically below what was displayed at that time. You only need compare the good judgement shown by journalists in the nineties who refrained from a scoop which might have destroyed careers and lives at the price of printing what were probably filthy lies, with some of what came out during the Leveson inquiry and the ghastly mess the BBC got themselves into over sex abuse allegations.
When there is a story in the press about something supposedly said or done by a politician, we would be well advised to be aware of the possibility that it is the result of a misunderstanding, something misheard, or worst of all, a deliberate lie invented by someone with an agenda which would be served by discrediting the person the story is about.
We saw this with "Plebgate" where the former Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell MP, was accused in the media of having called a police officer a "pleb." He was forced to resign.
There is no absolute proof who was telling the truth about what was said, and making sense of the different and apparently contradictory outcomes of the criminal trial of a police officer who pleaded guilty to lying about the incident, disciplinary hearings involving several other officers, and the legal action which Mitchell brought against News Group Newspapers (e.g. the Sun) is next to impossible.
What is not in dispute, however, is that there was an attempt to discredit him.
CCTV footage released after his resignation did prove that Mitchell's account of the incident was closer to the truth than accounts in the newspapers, supposedly taken from a police log. I stress that this does not prove that the police officers directly involved in the incident told any lies and am not making any criticism of those officers.
Although Andrew Mitchell ultimately lost the libel case which he brought against News Group Newspapers because of a decision made on what the judge described as "the balance of probabilities," he was not the only person to lose his job over the affair: several police officers not directly involved in the original incident were found to have acted unprofessionally, been sacked or even in one case jailed, for making misleading comments or lying about the "plebgate" incident.
One officer was convicted of criminal misconduct and sentenced to twelve months in prison after he pleaded guilty to lying about the incident. Another officer, who was at the time a regional official of the Police Federation, was found guilty of misconduct and breaching professional standards by giving "misleading" accounts to the press of a meeting with Mr Mitchell. And including the officer who was jailed, four police officers were sacked for misconduct for offences such as giving "inaccurate and misleading statements" in connection with the affair.
In other words, whatever the truth of "Plebgate," no fewer than five people from whom society was entitled to expect a high standard of integrity were jailed, sacked or censured for attempting untruthfully to discredit Andrew Mitchell in the press or cover up the actions of others who did.
I have more than a few friends who are serving or former police officers. All of them are people of integrity as I believe that the vast majority of police officers are. But the events of the past few years has proven the existence of a toxic relationship between a minority of police officers and certain newspapers which has been highly damaging both to the cause of justice and to the reputation of both the press and the police.
Which brings me to the present and various allegations of child abuse being investigated by the police.
There have been too many cases in the past where true allegations of rape and child sexual abuse were not taken seriously enough. In what is probably the worst case, in Rochdale, this allowed more than 1,400 children, mostly girls aged between 11 and 15, to be raped or abused.
We must not make that kind of mistake again, therefore any such allegations must be taken seriously and properly and conscientiously investigated if there is any material chance that they are true.
Equally, the principle that an accused person is "innocent until proven guilty" has served the cause of justice well for centuries. Just as we should not assume without due investigation that allegations are false, neither should we assume that allegations are true just because the police are doing their job by investigating them. And neither the police officers leading an investigation nor anybody else should pre-judge whether an allegation is true or false before they have completed that investigation.
It ought to be possible to ensure that all such allegations are properly investigated without putting the innocent through something which feels horribly close to a Salem witch trial. Unfortunately some recent investigations and their reporting in the media have conveyed precisely that impression.
And hence I repeat - sometimes there IS smoke without fire.
Highways working group cancelled tomorrow
There would have been a meeting of Cumbria County Council's Copeland Highways Working Group tomorrow morning, but it has been cancelled or hopefully postponed as the officers who would have been supporting it are busy on flood relief work.
I am sure this was the right decision. Hopefully they will be able to get action completed quickly on the flood damage of recent weeks and then we can get on with highways improvement work, but there is no point having a meeting to discuss new schemes and improvements when the network you have at the moment needs fixing.
I am sure this was the right decision. Hopefully they will be able to get action completed quickly on the flood damage of recent weeks and then we can get on with highways improvement work, but there is no point having a meeting to discuss new schemes and improvements when the network you have at the moment needs fixing.
If you have been flooded ...
A number of properties in Cumbria have been flooded over the past few weeks.
If you live in Cumbria and you are affected by floods here is the web page on which you can report it to get help and to help the authority plan for dealing with flood issues:
https://www.cumbria.gov.uk/planning-environment/flooding/floodriskassessment.asp
If you live in Cumbria and you are affected by floods here is the web page on which you can report it to get help and to help the authority plan for dealing with flood issues:
https://www.cumbria.gov.uk/planning-environment/flooding/floodriskassessment.asp
Comeback of the week
It probably was not wise for Hillary Clinton to be quoted saying
"We elected someone who committed sexual assault to be President."
Ian Dale (@IainDale) was among those who came back with comments like
"Yes. In 1992."
"We elected someone who committed sexual assault to be President."
Ian Dale (@IainDale) was among those who came back with comments like
"Yes. In 1992."
Tweet of the Week
My favourite tweet this week consisted of the image below of a pot and kettle, accompanied by a caption along the following lines:
"Jeremy Corbyn accusing the government of not having a clear policy on Europe."
"Jeremy Corbyn accusing the government of not having a clear policy on Europe."
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Quotes of the day 14th October 2017
"To avert a revolution, we need a small victorious war.”
(Vyacheslav von Plehve on Russia's position at the start of the 20th century. They ended up with the Russo-Japanese war which was neither small nor victorious and actually caused a revolt.)
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."
(Robert Wilson Lynd)
"Nearly all the belligerents in 1914 believed they would be fighting a short war, until they found they weren’t."
(The Economist, review of Lawrence Freedman's book "The Future of War: A History" which explores how countries fallen for that dangerous, seductive and astonishingly enduring myth of thinking they can benefit from a "Short Victorious War.")
You can read the review here. It concludes as follows:
"The one thing that Sir Lawrence is sure of is that predictions of future war rarely get it right. His message to policymakers is to beware those who tout “the ease and speed with which victory can be achieved while underestimating the resourcefulness of adversaries”. Anybody who thinks otherwise should read this book."
(Vyacheslav von Plehve on Russia's position at the start of the 20th century. They ended up with the Russo-Japanese war which was neither small nor victorious and actually caused a revolt.)
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."
(Robert Wilson Lynd)
"Nearly all the belligerents in 1914 believed they would be fighting a short war, until they found they weren’t."
(The Economist, review of Lawrence Freedman's book "The Future of War: A History" which explores how countries fallen for that dangerous, seductive and astonishingly enduring myth of thinking they can benefit from a "Short Victorious War.")
You can read the review here. It concludes as follows:
"The one thing that Sir Lawrence is sure of is that predictions of future war rarely get it right. His message to policymakers is to beware those who tout “the ease and speed with which victory can be achieved while underestimating the resourcefulness of adversaries”. Anybody who thinks otherwise should read this book."
Friday, October 13, 2017
Quote of the day 13th October 2017
“This is an abuse issue, not a cultural issue.”
Zac Goldsmith MP, co-chair of the parliamentary group on FGM, speaking about the need to ensure that this practice is wiped out by 2030.
Zac Goldsmith MP, co-chair of the parliamentary group on FGM, speaking about the need to ensure that this practice is wiped out by 2030.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Abolish FGM by 2030
Female Genital Mutilation is a vile practice which ought to be stamped out.
There is a long way to go, and it is infuriating that Britain has yet to mount a successful prosecution for this vile practice, but the number of women and girls who are victims of this disgusting crime is falling around the world.
Anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali said this week that she believes that eradicating it completely is now possible in our lifetime.
Ms Ali spole out on Tuesday to mark the UN’s International Day of the Girl. The event shines a spotlight on the Global Goals, which include a commitment to end FGM by 2030.
World leaders signed up to the goals in 2015 and on Tuesday the #FreedomForGirls campaign aimed to remind everyone of the promises that were made then, to ensure the goals are met. To mark the occasion, a new Global Goals film featuring Beyoncé’s song Freedom was released on the Google homepage.
Also on Tuesday the All-Party Parliamentary Group on FGM was relaunched, co-chaired by Labour’s Jess Phillips and Tory MP Zac Goldsmith.
It includes parliamentarians as diverse as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nicky Morgan, Caroline Lucas and Tulip Siddiq.
“There is no dispute that this is an issue that needs to be dealt with once and for all. It’s an appalling issue to think about,” said co-chairman Zac Goldsmith.
Quite.
There is a long way to go, and it is infuriating that Britain has yet to mount a successful prosecution for this vile practice, but the number of women and girls who are victims of this disgusting crime is falling around the world.
Anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali said this week that she believes that eradicating it completely is now possible in our lifetime.
Ms Ali spole out on Tuesday to mark the UN’s International Day of the Girl. The event shines a spotlight on the Global Goals, which include a commitment to end FGM by 2030.
World leaders signed up to the goals in 2015 and on Tuesday the #FreedomForGirls campaign aimed to remind everyone of the promises that were made then, to ensure the goals are met. To mark the occasion, a new Global Goals film featuring Beyoncé’s song Freedom was released on the Google homepage.
Also on Tuesday the All-Party Parliamentary Group on FGM was relaunched, co-chaired by Labour’s Jess Phillips and Tory MP Zac Goldsmith.
It includes parliamentarians as diverse as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nicky Morgan, Caroline Lucas and Tulip Siddiq.
“There is no dispute that this is an issue that needs to be dealt with once and for all. It’s an appalling issue to think about,” said co-chairman Zac Goldsmith.
Quite.
Living Wage helps hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers
A think tank, the Resolution Foundation, has published a report suggesting that the National Living Wage introduced by George Osborne when he was chancellor has lifted 300,000 British workers out of their measure of low pay, defined as less than two-thirds the median hourly wage. The share of workers on low pay as so defined has fallen below 20% for the first time since the 1980s.
The Resolution Foundation, added that this is the biggest year-on-year fall in low pay since 1977 - with its report claiming the national living wage has not been the "jobs-killing disaster" some feared.
Many people - including myself - would once have shared that fear, but it difficult to dispute the Resolution Foundation's conclusion on this point given that the number of people in work in Britain is at an all time high and unemployment rates are at a 42-year low.
A Government spokesman commented that
"The national living wage has delivered the fastest pay rise for the lowest earners in 20 years and they will continue to see their pay go up, with the rate set to increase to 60% of median earnings by 2020.
"But we want to go further by creating good quality jobs for all through our modern Industrial Strategy, boosting earning power and improving living standards across the country."
I would once have been strongly opposed to this policy and it is worth explaining why I have changed my mind.
In a pure free-market economy, which does not exist anywhere and never has, introducing a legal floor to wages at above the rate currently paid to the lowest-paid workers would inevitably create unemployment by increasing the number of hours people want to work while reducing the number of hours of employment which it is profitable for employers to offer.
I have never discussed the issue with a reasonably good knowledge of business and economics who does not think that in the real world too, if you increase such a wage floor above a certain level, it will begin to destroy jobs.
However, the interesting thing is that both when Labour introduced the original minimum wage under Tony Blair, and when the Conservatives increased it with the National Living Wage (NLW) under Cameron and Osborne, this did not happen.
As I wrote above, the introduction of the National Living Wage has proved perfectly compatible with the highest levels of employment ever recorded in Britain.
Two observations about why this may have been possible.
We're not living in a perfect free market, in particular Britain has a welfare state which pays unemployment benefit and other forms of financial support to people who do not have a job. By introducing the Minimum wage and then the NLW, governments have restored some of the incentive to work which the existence of the welfare state has reduced.
It is entirely plausible, both in theory and in practice, that in an economy like modern Britain with a welfare state, a moderate wage floor can have a positive impact on employment by restoring the incentives of low-paid workers to find employment which exceeds the negative impact of reducing the number of jobs.
That it what I believe that NLW has so far done.
However, there is a limit to this. Any wage floor whether it take the form of the old Minimum Wage or a system like the NLW must be set by people who have taken into account the impact on employers.
If there were to be a competitive auction between the political parties in an election to see who could promise the highest wages, there would be a serious danger that it could end up being set at a level which really did destroy thousands if not millions of jobs.
Effectively the people who predicted that the NLW would destroy jobs were crying "wolf" this time: the policy has helped people out of poverty without preventing record employment and therefore has to be judged a success at present levels.
The thing is, there really is a wolf.
There would come a level for the NLW at which the people who are crying 'wolf' would be right. The challenge is to ensure that it is set at a level which is high enough to give Britain the pay rise which so many people need and deserve, but not high enough to kill significant numbers of jobs.
The Resolution Foundation, added that this is the biggest year-on-year fall in low pay since 1977 - with its report claiming the national living wage has not been the "jobs-killing disaster" some feared.
Many people - including myself - would once have shared that fear, but it difficult to dispute the Resolution Foundation's conclusion on this point given that the number of people in work in Britain is at an all time high and unemployment rates are at a 42-year low.
A Government spokesman commented that
"The national living wage has delivered the fastest pay rise for the lowest earners in 20 years and they will continue to see their pay go up, with the rate set to increase to 60% of median earnings by 2020.
"But we want to go further by creating good quality jobs for all through our modern Industrial Strategy, boosting earning power and improving living standards across the country."
I would once have been strongly opposed to this policy and it is worth explaining why I have changed my mind.
In a pure free-market economy, which does not exist anywhere and never has, introducing a legal floor to wages at above the rate currently paid to the lowest-paid workers would inevitably create unemployment by increasing the number of hours people want to work while reducing the number of hours of employment which it is profitable for employers to offer.
I have never discussed the issue with a reasonably good knowledge of business and economics who does not think that in the real world too, if you increase such a wage floor above a certain level, it will begin to destroy jobs.
However, the interesting thing is that both when Labour introduced the original minimum wage under Tony Blair, and when the Conservatives increased it with the National Living Wage (NLW) under Cameron and Osborne, this did not happen.
As I wrote above, the introduction of the National Living Wage has proved perfectly compatible with the highest levels of employment ever recorded in Britain.
Two observations about why this may have been possible.
We're not living in a perfect free market, in particular Britain has a welfare state which pays unemployment benefit and other forms of financial support to people who do not have a job. By introducing the Minimum wage and then the NLW, governments have restored some of the incentive to work which the existence of the welfare state has reduced.
It is entirely plausible, both in theory and in practice, that in an economy like modern Britain with a welfare state, a moderate wage floor can have a positive impact on employment by restoring the incentives of low-paid workers to find employment which exceeds the negative impact of reducing the number of jobs.
That it what I believe that NLW has so far done.
However, there is a limit to this. Any wage floor whether it take the form of the old Minimum Wage or a system like the NLW must be set by people who have taken into account the impact on employers.
If there were to be a competitive auction between the political parties in an election to see who could promise the highest wages, there would be a serious danger that it could end up being set at a level which really did destroy thousands if not millions of jobs.
Effectively the people who predicted that the NLW would destroy jobs were crying "wolf" this time: the policy has helped people out of poverty without preventing record employment and therefore has to be judged a success at present levels.
The thing is, there really is a wolf.
There would come a level for the NLW at which the people who are crying 'wolf' would be right. The challenge is to ensure that it is set at a level which is high enough to give Britain the pay rise which so many people need and deserve, but not high enough to kill significant numbers of jobs.
Quote of the day 12th October 2017
The expression "May you live in interesting times" has been described for as long as the phrase has been in circulation as being a Chinese curse, but interestingly nobody has been successful in tracing a confirmed account of this saying as a curse either to Confucius, to whom it is often attributed, nor to any other authentic Chinese source.
In fact the first confirmed use of the expression, from a speech about the problems faced by Britain and the world in the mid-1930's from the brother of the man who was about to become Prime Minister, is this one.
An account of efforts to trace the origins of the expression can be found here.
In fact the first confirmed use of the expression, from a speech about the problems faced by Britain and the world in the mid-1930's from the brother of the man who was about to become Prime Minister, is this one.
An account of efforts to trace the origins of the expression can be found here.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
The heavens open ...
Just arrived back in Cumbria after a trip to London in which heavy rain has disrupted both our journey to the capital and back and many roads and schools throughout Cumbria.
Two of the many road closures in Cumbria - at Dalziel Street in Moor Row and a section of High House Road between St Bees and the A595 - were in my division.
Some parts of Cumbria saw more than 8ins (206mm) of rain fall in less than 24 hours, according to provisional figures from the Environment Agency.
Honister, Seathwaite and Ennerdale were the worst hit areas as torrential downpours closed schools and disrupted road and rail travel.
The Environment agency issued 19 flood alerts and eight flood warnings, while a Met Office yellow warning for rain was in place for much of Wednesday.
On the positive side no serious injuries were reported as a result of any of the problems in Cumbria.
Two of the many road closures in Cumbria - at Dalziel Street in Moor Row and a section of High House Road between St Bees and the A595 - were in my division.
Some parts of Cumbria saw more than 8ins (206mm) of rain fall in less than 24 hours, according to provisional figures from the Environment Agency.
Honister, Seathwaite and Ennerdale were the worst hit areas as torrential downpours closed schools and disrupted road and rail travel.
The Environment agency issued 19 flood alerts and eight flood warnings, while a Met Office yellow warning for rain was in place for much of Wednesday.
On the positive side no serious injuries were reported as a result of any of the problems in Cumbria.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Monday, October 09, 2017
The "Goodbye Lenin" delusion
I quite enjoyed the 2003 comedy film "Goodbye Lenin," about a mother, a staunch communist who went into a coma before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and came out of it after the collapse of communism, and whose son devises an increasingly elaborate deception to spare her from the shock of learning that the system she supported has completely collapsed.
Because the film is quite scathing (e.g. realistic) about the failings of Eastern European communism as it actually was, I must confess that did not see it as particularly defending socialism - certainly not socialism in the DDR as it operated in practice. But Dr Kristian Niemietz has an interesting article on the IEA website about the film, which is called
"The Goodbye Lenin delusion,"
in which he argues that there is an underlying assumption that socialism is a noble ideal and that East Germany could have been a much better place had the noble ideals it was based on only been put into practice, and that many of those who defend socialism in the real world subscribe to a similar idea, but in practice socialist societies never work, because people do not like being told what to do and what choices they should make with their lives.
Capitalism is not perfect but every rich and successful country in the world has a strong and vibrant economy based on wealth created by the private sector.
Hard-left socialist policies have been tried in lots of countries and they have never once produced the sort of worker's paradise which Alex imagines in the film.
There is no such thing as a pure free market or pure socialist society, but many of the societies which have been closest to a pure free market economy have been highly successful, and every one of the societies which has been closes to pure socialism has been at best an economic basket case and at worst a mass-murdering tyranny.
As was recently pointed out,
"Socialism would never have created the iPhone."
Innovation is a feature of free and open societies.
Because the film is quite scathing (e.g. realistic) about the failings of Eastern European communism as it actually was, I must confess that did not see it as particularly defending socialism - certainly not socialism in the DDR as it operated in practice. But Dr Kristian Niemietz has an interesting article on the IEA website about the film, which is called
"The Goodbye Lenin delusion,"
in which he argues that there is an underlying assumption that socialism is a noble ideal and that East Germany could have been a much better place had the noble ideals it was based on only been put into practice, and that many of those who defend socialism in the real world subscribe to a similar idea, but in practice socialist societies never work, because people do not like being told what to do and what choices they should make with their lives.
Capitalism is not perfect but every rich and successful country in the world has a strong and vibrant economy based on wealth created by the private sector.
Hard-left socialist policies have been tried in lots of countries and they have never once produced the sort of worker's paradise which Alex imagines in the film.
There is no such thing as a pure free market or pure socialist society, but many of the societies which have been closest to a pure free market economy have been highly successful, and every one of the societies which has been closes to pure socialism has been at best an economic basket case and at worst a mass-murdering tyranny.
As was recently pointed out,
"Socialism would never have created the iPhone."
Innovation is a feature of free and open societies.
Cumbria Health Scrutiny Committee
I attended the Cumbria Health Scrutiny committee meeting today.
The full agenda and papers for the meeting can be found here.
We have not yet heard the outcome of Jeremy Hunt's reference of the committee's call-in of maternity services to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. (IRP) I know Trudy Harrison MP is among those pressing for a resolution of this.
But there was a clear and, in my opinion helpful, response from the North Cumbria NHS Clinical Commissioning Group when members of the committee - quite reasonably - requested assurances that work by the local NHS will not prejudice or be biased against the option which local people support, to maintain consultant-led maternity services at both Carlisle and at West Cumberland Hospital.
Peter Rooney, who is the Chief Operating Officer of NHS North Cumbria CCG (the statutory body with responsibility for deciding what services will be provided in North, West and East Cumbrai) said very clearly that the aim of the CCG is to maintain a consultant-led maternity unit at West Cumberland Hospital in safe and sustainable manner.
It is of course right that bodies like the Health Scrutiny Committee and Healthwatch should challenge the CCG and the Cumbria NHS on how they are meeting aims like that, and I am neither criticising those who ask questions on the subject or suggesting that we should be complacent. On the contrary for people to state frequently how much we need and depend on these services is helpful.
Nevertheless, it is also important to recognise when positive responses are given and I thought the answers given today were useful and positive.
Clearly when the IRP recommendation and Jeremy Hunt's response are published we will have to look at them very carefully but the key task is to work with the local NHS to ensure we get the best service for patients.
There was a lot of positive material presented today about "working together" (known in the current jargon as "co-production.") Unfortunately a lot of it was couched in the sort of jargon, littered with acronyms and works like "novation" which is not well presented for most of the public to understand. This is something we need to work on.
So here is a bit of plain English - the Working Together group which brings together NHS leaders and staff and patient interests to talk about how we can improve the service is holding its next meeting this Thursday (12th October) at Lakes College from 6pm to 8pm and it is open to the public.
The full agenda and papers for the meeting can be found here.
We have not yet heard the outcome of Jeremy Hunt's reference of the committee's call-in of maternity services to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. (IRP) I know Trudy Harrison MP is among those pressing for a resolution of this.
But there was a clear and, in my opinion helpful, response from the North Cumbria NHS Clinical Commissioning Group when members of the committee - quite reasonably - requested assurances that work by the local NHS will not prejudice or be biased against the option which local people support, to maintain consultant-led maternity services at both Carlisle and at West Cumberland Hospital.
Peter Rooney, who is the Chief Operating Officer of NHS North Cumbria CCG (the statutory body with responsibility for deciding what services will be provided in North, West and East Cumbrai) said very clearly that the aim of the CCG is to maintain a consultant-led maternity unit at West Cumberland Hospital in safe and sustainable manner.
It is of course right that bodies like the Health Scrutiny Committee and Healthwatch should challenge the CCG and the Cumbria NHS on how they are meeting aims like that, and I am neither criticising those who ask questions on the subject or suggesting that we should be complacent. On the contrary for people to state frequently how much we need and depend on these services is helpful.
Nevertheless, it is also important to recognise when positive responses are given and I thought the answers given today were useful and positive.
Clearly when the IRP recommendation and Jeremy Hunt's response are published we will have to look at them very carefully but the key task is to work with the local NHS to ensure we get the best service for patients.
There was a lot of positive material presented today about "working together" (known in the current jargon as "co-production.") Unfortunately a lot of it was couched in the sort of jargon, littered with acronyms and works like "novation" which is not well presented for most of the public to understand. This is something we need to work on.
So here is a bit of plain English - the Working Together group which brings together NHS leaders and staff and patient interests to talk about how we can improve the service is holding its next meeting this Thursday (12th October) at Lakes College from 6pm to 8pm and it is open to the public.
Sunday, October 08, 2017
The Adam Smith Institute on the Productivity Problem
Those who have known me for a long time will be aware that I have not always seen eye to eye with the Adam Smith Institute.
However, I agree with a great deal of a paper by Sam Bowman's on the ASI website,
"It's the productivity stupid."
Sam starts with the same horrifying graph showing UK productivity flatlining under governments containing ministers from all the main parties over the past ten years which I reproduced in my own post this week on the subject and concludes that most of the main problems in British politics are down to our poor productivity performance.
He agrees with Theresa May that fixing the broken housing market is probably the most urgent aspect of this and Sam has a number of suggestions about how to do so, including reducing or abolishing stamp duty land tax.
Cutting corporation tax will generally provide more incentives for investment, but Sam points out the importance of appropriate allowances allowing businesses to offset investment against corporation tax. I hope Phillip Hammond takes this point on board.
Perhaps the most thought-provoking section of the paper is the one where Sam admits that ASI thinking is still developing and argues that nobody really understands well enough what we can do to promote more innovation.
Asking why British firms do not innovate more, he goes on to write
"It might be because our approach to regulation is excessively cautious, especially in areas dominated by the state such as healthcare. Mark Lutter’s paper from earlier this year outlined how we might make it much easier to use medicines and instruments approved for use abroad in the UK and encourage more innovation domestically. Regulatory ‘sandboxes’ and explicit rules that preserved permissionless innovation would help here too." The issue of sluggish productivity growth deserves more attention than it is getting from politicians over the entire political spectrum and from the media. It is vital for the future of the country that we do better.
However, I agree with a great deal of a paper by Sam Bowman's on the ASI website,
"It's the productivity stupid."
Sam starts with the same horrifying graph showing UK productivity flatlining under governments containing ministers from all the main parties over the past ten years which I reproduced in my own post this week on the subject and concludes that most of the main problems in British politics are down to our poor productivity performance.
He agrees with Theresa May that fixing the broken housing market is probably the most urgent aspect of this and Sam has a number of suggestions about how to do so, including reducing or abolishing stamp duty land tax.
Cutting corporation tax will generally provide more incentives for investment, but Sam points out the importance of appropriate allowances allowing businesses to offset investment against corporation tax. I hope Phillip Hammond takes this point on board.
Perhaps the most thought-provoking section of the paper is the one where Sam admits that ASI thinking is still developing and argues that nobody really understands well enough what we can do to promote more innovation.
Asking why British firms do not innovate more, he goes on to write
"It might be because our approach to regulation is excessively cautious, especially in areas dominated by the state such as healthcare. Mark Lutter’s paper from earlier this year outlined how we might make it much easier to use medicines and instruments approved for use abroad in the UK and encourage more innovation domestically. Regulatory ‘sandboxes’ and explicit rules that preserved permissionless innovation would help here too." The issue of sluggish productivity growth deserves more attention than it is getting from politicians over the entire political spectrum and from the media. It is vital for the future of the country that we do better.
Cumbria Health Scrutiny Committee
The Health Scrutiny committee for Cumbria meets tomorrow (Monday 9th October) at 10.30 am in Cumbria House, Botchergate, Carlisle.
This committee has responsibility for monitoring the performance of the NHS in Cumbria on behald of the public. It is managed by Cumbria county council and consists of seven county councillors (of whom I am one) and a councillor from each of the six district councils in the county,
Tomorrow's meeting is open to the public.
The full agenda and supporting documents can all be found on the County Council website here.
Key issues in the agenda include:
This committee has responsibility for monitoring the performance of the NHS in Cumbria on behald of the public. It is managed by Cumbria county council and consists of seven county councillors (of whom I am one) and a councillor from each of the six district councils in the county,
Tomorrow's meeting is open to the public.
The full agenda and supporting documents can all be found on the County Council website here.
Key issues in the agenda include:
A presentation from Healthwatch Cumbria.
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This will include a report on Participation, Inclusion and Engagement.
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- A report on "HealthCare for the Future" from the Chief Executive of NHS North Cumbria's Clinical Commissioning Group
(Appendices to this report can be found by following these links:
- Healthcare for the Future Update App 2
- Healthcare for the Future Update App 2a
- Healthcare for the Future Update App 2b
- Healthcare for the Future Update App 2c )
- A joint report by NHS North Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group and NHS Morecambe Bay Clinical Commissioning Group into Cumbria Adult Age Mental Health services
- A joint report from Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust about Organisational Leadership of Community Services in the Morecombe Bay Area
Sunday music spot: Sanctus from Mozart's mass in D Major
This is the Sanctus from Mozart's "Missa Brevis" (short mass) in D major.
The words mean
"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts,
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory,
Hosanna in the Highest!"
The words mean
"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts,
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory,
Hosanna in the Highest!"
Quote of the day 8th October 2017
A few days ago - on September 21st - someone tweeted that "on this day in 1780 Benedict Arnold committed treason."
I replied "Or stopped committing treason depending on your perspective."
Which reminded me of this quote from John Harrington which points out that, effectively, treason is all too often about whether you are on the winning side ...
I replied "Or stopped committing treason depending on your perspective."
Which reminded me of this quote from John Harrington which points out that, effectively, treason is all too often about whether you are on the winning side ...
Saturday, October 07, 2017
Fear and Loathing in London and Holland
During the EU referendum I published a number of "Worst of both worlds" posts each of which highlighted some of the nonsense being spouted by people on both sides of the referendum argument who ought to have known better.
In the very first of these pieces the "Remain" article I took issue with was a provocative Guardian article by a Dutch writer called Joris Luyendijk, called "It's time for Europe to turn the tables on bullying Britain," which appeared with a cartoon of the EU depicted as a larger than life "Superman" figure evidently threatening to thump a smaller figure representing Britain, with the caption (a quote from the article,)
"The best way forward for Europe is to threaten to hit the English as hard as we can."
The article disparaged and threatened the British in general and the English in particular using language like "we would strangle or crush the English."
I speculated at the time, only half in jest, about whether the author was secretly being paid by Nigel Farage to produce "false flag" articles deliberately intended to make people vote "Leave" or was doing so on his own bat because he personally wants rid of us: he admits that other EU citizens might "ask if this referendum is actually a once in a lifetime opportunity to cut the English loose."
I spent months agonising about which way to vote in the referendum before eventually deciding to vote "Remain", but I can honestly say that at no point during the entire referendum was I as close to voting "Leave" as immediately after reading Mr Luyendijk's egregious article.
Well now he has written another piece in Prospect called - I am not making this up -
"How I learnt to loathe England."
Had the article not been dripping with disdain for this country I might have considered that some - not all but some - of the points in it were actually quite well made. But because of the way it is written the Leavers have been all over it on social media with comments about how this is what Remainer prejudice looks like.
Thank you so much, Joris, for enabling people who voted Remain to be painted as sharing your prejudices. (Irony alert.)
I wonder, first, why someone who hates this country so much chose to live here for six years, and why Prospect Magazine chose to give a platform to what is basically an outpouring of hate speech.
As far as I am concerned all EU nationals resident in the UK who are here legally and like it here should be welcome to stay, their contribution is valued, and I hope we can reach agreement with the rest of the EU as soon as possible both to let them do so and to let British citizens in other UK countries stay there.
Since by his own admission Joris Luyendijk loathes England it is probably wise that he and his family have returned to Holland and I hope they are happy there.
In the very first of these pieces the "Remain" article I took issue with was a provocative Guardian article by a Dutch writer called Joris Luyendijk, called "It's time for Europe to turn the tables on bullying Britain," which appeared with a cartoon of the EU depicted as a larger than life "Superman" figure evidently threatening to thump a smaller figure representing Britain, with the caption (a quote from the article,)
"The best way forward for Europe is to threaten to hit the English as hard as we can."
The article disparaged and threatened the British in general and the English in particular using language like "we would strangle or crush the English."
I speculated at the time, only half in jest, about whether the author was secretly being paid by Nigel Farage to produce "false flag" articles deliberately intended to make people vote "Leave" or was doing so on his own bat because he personally wants rid of us: he admits that other EU citizens might "ask if this referendum is actually a once in a lifetime opportunity to cut the English loose."
I spent months agonising about which way to vote in the referendum before eventually deciding to vote "Remain", but I can honestly say that at no point during the entire referendum was I as close to voting "Leave" as immediately after reading Mr Luyendijk's egregious article.
Well now he has written another piece in Prospect called - I am not making this up -
"How I learnt to loathe England."
Had the article not been dripping with disdain for this country I might have considered that some - not all but some - of the points in it were actually quite well made. But because of the way it is written the Leavers have been all over it on social media with comments about how this is what Remainer prejudice looks like.
Thank you so much, Joris, for enabling people who voted Remain to be painted as sharing your prejudices. (Irony alert.)
I wonder, first, why someone who hates this country so much chose to live here for six years, and why Prospect Magazine chose to give a platform to what is basically an outpouring of hate speech.
As far as I am concerned all EU nationals resident in the UK who are here legally and like it here should be welcome to stay, their contribution is valued, and I hope we can reach agreement with the rest of the EU as soon as possible both to let them do so and to let British citizens in other UK countries stay there.
Since by his own admission Joris Luyendijk loathes England it is probably wise that he and his family have returned to Holland and I hope they are happy there.
Road Traffic accident in London - 11 injured
This afternoon there was an unfortunate Road Traffic Accident outside the Natural History Museum in which eleven people were injured.
Twitter went mental with various people speculating (often from the other side of the Atlantic) that it was a terrorist attack.
The Metropolitan police have issued a statement saying that they are treating this incident as a road traffic accident which is not terror-related.
The Met also said that none of the injuries were believed to be life-threatening or life changing.
Twitter went mental with various people speculating (often from the other side of the Atlantic) that it was a terrorist attack.
The Metropolitan police have issued a statement saying that they are treating this incident as a road traffic accident which is not terror-related.
The Met also said that none of the injuries were believed to be life-threatening or life changing.
Saturday music spot: Adagio from Corelli's Christmas Concerto (Voices of Music)
A superlative performance of an exquisite piece of music
Friday, October 06, 2017
The Productivity Problem
Britain's productivity, which had been growing steadily under John Major and Tony Blair, dropped under Gordon Brown and has flatlined ever since.
This is a serious cause of concern - it is the main reason that real income growth has been sluggish and we cannot hope to be competitive or afford more money for schools and hospitals without tackling this.
No major political party can or should be complacent about the problem which has persisted during periods when all of them have been in office.
I doubt very much that there is any single "magic bullet" to solve poor productivity and it certainly should not be seen as being all the fault of workers or, for that matter, management.
One thing which is needed is more investment and innovation - which in turn means that you are most unlikely to solve the problem under any government which imposes higher corporation tax or otherwise applies penal taxation to business instead of rewarding those who do well.
We also need to look again at opportunities for investment and training.
And we should ask how much of a burden on productivity is caused by bureaucracy - to what extent are people less productive because they are spending lots of time filling in government or corporate forms and surveys?
This is a serious cause of concern - it is the main reason that real income growth has been sluggish and we cannot hope to be competitive or afford more money for schools and hospitals without tackling this.
No major political party can or should be complacent about the problem which has persisted during periods when all of them have been in office.
I doubt very much that there is any single "magic bullet" to solve poor productivity and it certainly should not be seen as being all the fault of workers or, for that matter, management.
One thing which is needed is more investment and innovation - which in turn means that you are most unlikely to solve the problem under any government which imposes higher corporation tax or otherwise applies penal taxation to business instead of rewarding those who do well.
We also need to look again at opportunities for investment and training.
And we should ask how much of a burden on productivity is caused by bureaucracy - to what extent are people less productive because they are spending lots of time filling in government or corporate forms and surveys?
Apparently we are not all just equations in a computer programme ...
Nardole from Doctor Who ("I really hope I'm wrong") can relax - scientists think they have found evidence that we are not living in a computer simulation.
Spoiler alert - if you have not watched the tenth series (since relaunch) of Doctor Who and don't want to read a spoiler for one of the storylines, do not read past the next paragraph.
From when Descartes coined the phrase "Cogito Ergo Sum" (I think therefore I am) to "The Matrix" here has been speculation about whether reality as we perceive it might be an illusion. Perhaps even an artificially generated one.
Nardole and Bill found something in their world which did not work properly because of the inability of computers to perfectly simulate reality. But in our world, a team of Physicists at Oxford led by Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhi have found evidence that the computing power required to model quantum mechanics for even a few hundred electrons would be so vast, and increases exponentially with the number of particles being simulated, that it is difficult to imagine that any computer could be powerful enough to model an entire universe at the Quantum level.
Their conclusions are set out in a paper published in the journal Science Advances, or you can read a press report about them here,
Another quote from Doctor Who is that "Truth is found only in mathematics" and absolute proof likewise, but since their study seems to show that a computer capable of simulating an entire universe would practically have to be as large as an entire universe, I think we can now put down the possibility that anyone could possibly find it worthwhile to build such a computer is pretty remote.
POSTSCRIPT
According to the New Scientist the authors of the paper, Zohar Ringel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Dmitry Kovrizhin at the University of Oxford are "a bit taken aback at the conclusions the media is drawing." from their work Asking whether we live in a simulation is not even a scientific question, Ringel says. See post to be published 16th October.
Spoiler alert - if you have not watched the tenth series (since relaunch) of Doctor Who and don't want to read a spoiler for one of the storylines, do not read past the next paragraph.
From when Descartes coined the phrase "Cogito Ergo Sum" (I think therefore I am) to "The Matrix" here has been speculation about whether reality as we perceive it might be an illusion. Perhaps even an artificially generated one.
Nardole and Bill found something in their world which did not work properly because of the inability of computers to perfectly simulate reality. But in our world, a team of Physicists at Oxford led by Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhi have found evidence that the computing power required to model quantum mechanics for even a few hundred electrons would be so vast, and increases exponentially with the number of particles being simulated, that it is difficult to imagine that any computer could be powerful enough to model an entire universe at the Quantum level.
Their conclusions are set out in a paper published in the journal Science Advances, or you can read a press report about them here,
Another quote from Doctor Who is that "Truth is found only in mathematics" and absolute proof likewise, but since their study seems to show that a computer capable of simulating an entire universe would practically have to be as large as an entire universe, I think we can now put down the possibility that anyone could possibly find it worthwhile to build such a computer is pretty remote.
POSTSCRIPT
According to the New Scientist the authors of the paper, Zohar Ringel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Dmitry Kovrizhin at the University of Oxford are "a bit taken aback at the conclusions the media is drawing." from their work Asking whether we live in a simulation is not even a scientific question, Ringel says. See post to be published 16th October.
Thursday, October 05, 2017
Final thoughts on the Conference season
Greater Manchester Police and the large number of officers drafted in from other forces did an excellent job of protecting the Conservative conference this year. There was much less trouble than in 2015.
Nevertheless I think this passage from the Economist's "Bagehot" about his visit to Conservative conference is worth quoting in full, and I apologise for the use of language which I would not normally permit on this blog.
"The first thing I saw on arriving was a large army of angry demonstrators controlled by a smaller army of police, some with horses, a few with machine guns.
One demonstrator greeted me with the refrain “fuck off Tory scum”.
When I explained that I was a journalist he modified his greeting to “fuck off Tory media scum”.
Several delegates were spattered with spit.
It is a fact worth contemplating, particularly in discussions of online vitriol, that the only people who object to the very existence of their opponents, and are willing to express that objection in the form of sometimes violent protests, are on the left."
You can read the full article here.
Nevertheless I think this passage from the Economist's "Bagehot" about his visit to Conservative conference is worth quoting in full, and I apologise for the use of language which I would not normally permit on this blog.
"The first thing I saw on arriving was a large army of angry demonstrators controlled by a smaller army of police, some with horses, a few with machine guns.
One demonstrator greeted me with the refrain “fuck off Tory scum”.
When I explained that I was a journalist he modified his greeting to “fuck off Tory media scum”.
Several delegates were spattered with spit.
It is a fact worth contemplating, particularly in discussions of online vitriol, that the only people who object to the very existence of their opponents, and are willing to express that objection in the form of sometimes violent protests, are on the left."
You can read the full article here.
On the conference cough
I've been feeling a little less than 100% today having come down with a cold and sore throat that I probably caught at Manchester. Quite possibly the same bug the PM had.
Like most in the hall I was impressed with her courage in carrying on. To those who have been calling her the "Maybot" - what more proof that she's a human being do you need.
Great shame that the policies revealed by the Conservative party this week and by Labour last week have been largely ignored by the media in favour of personalities and trivia about things like who has a cold.
Like most in the hall I was impressed with her courage in carrying on. To those who have been calling her the "Maybot" - what more proof that she's a human being do you need.
Great shame that the policies revealed by the Conservative party this week and by Labour last week have been largely ignored by the media in favour of personalities and trivia about things like who has a cold.
Has Britain been gripped by fanaticism?
The average person in Britain is no more fascinated by politics, or doctrinaire about it, than he or she has ever been.
Among those who do take an interest in politics, however, there seems to be an increasing tendancy to believe that the opposition represents an existential threat and that one's own side has the ability to create a paradise, a land flowing with milk and honey, providing the nasty Blairite/Eurocrats/Moderates/Extremists/Remoaners don't sabotage it.
I actually do believe that a Corbyn administration would do a massive amount of damage to Britain, but I wish I could for one moment believe that any party or faction had all the answers to create a paradise on earth. I don't.
There is an interesting article in The Economist about whether Britain is in the grip of "Millenarianism" which you can read here.
Among those who do take an interest in politics, however, there seems to be an increasing tendancy to believe that the opposition represents an existential threat and that one's own side has the ability to create a paradise, a land flowing with milk and honey, providing the nasty Blairite/Eurocrats/Moderates/Extremists/Remoaners don't sabotage it.
I actually do believe that a Corbyn administration would do a massive amount of damage to Britain, but I wish I could for one moment believe that any party or faction had all the answers to create a paradise on earth. I don't.
There is an interesting article in The Economist about whether Britain is in the grip of "Millenarianism" which you can read here.
Second quote of the day 5th October 2017
The National Housing Federation on the substance of what the PM said about housing yesterday ...
Wednesday, October 04, 2017
In defence of Free Trade
For most of history it was the progressives who were in favour of Free Trade and the reactionaries who opposed it.
Free Trade has been one of the greatest engines of human progress ever to exist. And yet the case for it has to be made again and again - now more than ever. As Lord Macaulay wrote nearly two centuries ago,
Free trade makes everyone richer - but this is often harder to understand than the special pleading of vested interests who make a clear and simple case that they personally will benefit if their own industries are protected from foreign competition.
There was a superb article in the Times this week by Matt Ridley.
"The case for Free Trade has never been stronger."
Here are some extracts ...
“The 'ultimatum game' is a fiendish invention of economists to test people’s selfishness. One player is asked to share a windfall of cash with another player, but the entire windfall is cancelled if the second player rejects the offer. How much should you share? When people from the Machiguenga tribe in Peru were asked to play this game, they behaved selfishly, wanting to share little of the windfall. Not far away, the Achuar in Ecuador were much more generous, offering almost half the money to the other player — which is roughly how people in the developed world react.
What explains the difference? The Machiguenga are largely isolated from the world of markets and commerce. The Achuar are used to buying and selling to and from strangers at markets. The same pattern emerges throughout 15 small-state societies all over the world, in a fascinating study done by the Harvard anthropologist Joe Henrich and his colleagues. The more integrated into the commercial world people are, the more generous they are. As one of the authors, the economist Herb Gintis, summarises the results: 'Societies that use markets extensively develop a culture of co-operation, fairness and respect for the individual.'”
“Cobden said: 'Free trade is God’s diplomacy and there is no other certain way of uniting people in the bonds of peace.” He was right. Recent studies have confirmed that commerce is the main cause of peace. 'Within the developing world, economic development leads to interstate peace, whereas democracy does not,' concludes Faruk Ekmekci of Ipek University in Turkey. The evidence is overwhelming that markets do not just make people richer, they make people nicer too, less likely to fight and more likely to help each other.
So why on earth has it become accepted wisdom that every move towards free markets and free trade is towards selfishness, conflict and greed, whereas the state is the source of all kindness? ”
He writes that some critics of free trade argue that
“ ... it leads to lower standards of welfare provision, but this is demonstrably nonsense. Is welfare worse in free-trading New Zealand or protectionist Venezuela? In South or North Korea? In Singapore or Burma? The correlation between free trade and high living standards, including high welfare standards, is tight and causal. Government intervention in social policy goes hand in hand with economic development.”
“The astonishing enrichment of the world in the past 50 years, when extreme poverty has fallen from more than 50 per cent to below 10 per cent of the world population, could not have happened without free commerce and the innovation it delivers. No serious economist denies this. The liberalisation of world trade since the Second World War has been responsible for making the world not just wealthier but healthier, happier and kinder too. If that sounds incredible to millennials, then perhaps they should ask their professors to give them some less Marx-inspired reading matter.”
“The Conservatives cannot compete with Labour by offering pale imitations of its patronising paternalism. They should offer the young something more revolutionary, liberating, egalitarian, disruptive, co-operative and democratic than stale statism. It’s called freedom.”
You can read the whole article here.
Free Trade has been one of the greatest engines of human progress ever to exist. And yet the case for it has to be made again and again - now more than ever. As Lord Macaulay wrote nearly two centuries ago,
Free trade makes everyone richer - but this is often harder to understand than the special pleading of vested interests who make a clear and simple case that they personally will benefit if their own industries are protected from foreign competition.
There was a superb article in the Times this week by Matt Ridley.
"The case for Free Trade has never been stronger."
Here are some extracts ...
“The 'ultimatum game' is a fiendish invention of economists to test people’s selfishness. One player is asked to share a windfall of cash with another player, but the entire windfall is cancelled if the second player rejects the offer. How much should you share? When people from the Machiguenga tribe in Peru were asked to play this game, they behaved selfishly, wanting to share little of the windfall. Not far away, the Achuar in Ecuador were much more generous, offering almost half the money to the other player — which is roughly how people in the developed world react.
What explains the difference? The Machiguenga are largely isolated from the world of markets and commerce. The Achuar are used to buying and selling to and from strangers at markets. The same pattern emerges throughout 15 small-state societies all over the world, in a fascinating study done by the Harvard anthropologist Joe Henrich and his colleagues. The more integrated into the commercial world people are, the more generous they are. As one of the authors, the economist Herb Gintis, summarises the results: 'Societies that use markets extensively develop a culture of co-operation, fairness and respect for the individual.'”
“Cobden said: 'Free trade is God’s diplomacy and there is no other certain way of uniting people in the bonds of peace.” He was right. Recent studies have confirmed that commerce is the main cause of peace. 'Within the developing world, economic development leads to interstate peace, whereas democracy does not,' concludes Faruk Ekmekci of Ipek University in Turkey. The evidence is overwhelming that markets do not just make people richer, they make people nicer too, less likely to fight and more likely to help each other.
So why on earth has it become accepted wisdom that every move towards free markets and free trade is towards selfishness, conflict and greed, whereas the state is the source of all kindness? ”
He writes that some critics of free trade argue that
“ ... it leads to lower standards of welfare provision, but this is demonstrably nonsense. Is welfare worse in free-trading New Zealand or protectionist Venezuela? In South or North Korea? In Singapore or Burma? The correlation between free trade and high living standards, including high welfare standards, is tight and causal. Government intervention in social policy goes hand in hand with economic development.”
“The astonishing enrichment of the world in the past 50 years, when extreme poverty has fallen from more than 50 per cent to below 10 per cent of the world population, could not have happened without free commerce and the innovation it delivers. No serious economist denies this. The liberalisation of world trade since the Second World War has been responsible for making the world not just wealthier but healthier, happier and kinder too. If that sounds incredible to millennials, then perhaps they should ask their professors to give them some less Marx-inspired reading matter.”
“The Conservatives cannot compete with Labour by offering pale imitations of its patronising paternalism. They should offer the young something more revolutionary, liberating, egalitarian, disruptive, co-operative and democratic than stale statism. It’s called freedom.”
You can read the whole article here.
Of lion kings and pranksters
Most peculiar experience on my way into conference - was addressed by a gentleman in traditional African garb who asked to speak to me about aid to an area of Africa whose name I didn't think I had quite heard correctly.
It turned out to be "Mamounda" (sic.)
Meanwhile a cameraman was filming us.
He mentioned that his father had been murdered by his uncle and I instinctively said something along the lines of "I'm sorry to hear that" then did a mental double take when I processed that he'd said the uncle was called "Scar."
Thought "I can't have heard this correctly" and asked if he had any literature.
Was handed a leaflet in which the chap gave his name as "Simba" and his father and uncle's names as "Mufassa" and "Scar."
He claims to be the rightful king of "Namounda."
Yes, he either thinks he's the central character of "The Lion King" or, more likely, was a prankster winding me up.
Had a careful look to see if he could possibly be Sasha Baron Cohen but there wasn't much resemblance.
Asked "Is this some kind of joke?" and extricated myself as quickly as I could.
Well. that was different ...
It turned out to be "Mamounda" (sic.)
Meanwhile a cameraman was filming us.
He mentioned that his father had been murdered by his uncle and I instinctively said something along the lines of "I'm sorry to hear that" then did a mental double take when I processed that he'd said the uncle was called "Scar."
Thought "I can't have heard this correctly" and asked if he had any literature.
Was handed a leaflet in which the chap gave his name as "Simba" and his father and uncle's names as "Mufassa" and "Scar."
He claims to be the rightful king of "Namounda."
Yes, he either thinks he's the central character of "The Lion King" or, more likely, was a prankster winding me up.
Had a careful look to see if he could possibly be Sasha Baron Cohen but there wasn't much resemblance.
Asked "Is this some kind of joke?" and extricated myself as quickly as I could.
Well. that was different ...
Socialism and short memories
When you talk to people in Britain about Venezuela, most people don't understand why a country on the other side of the world matters to them.
When you talk to people about the Soviet Union, most people, especially those who were born after it ceased to exist, don't understand why a failed regime which fell a generation ago matters to them.
When you talk about the past, people are not interested - they want to know about the future.
Unfortunately, there is a reason why lessons we can learn from both Venezuela and the Soviet Union - not to mention former British governments which people over fifty have been glad to forget and people under fifty have never heard of - should matter to people in Britain today.
Because if we forget those lessons it will harm our future.
There is a well-meaning but disastrous economic philosophy called "socialism" which has been tried in many places throughout the world and ALWAYS been a failure.
When a mild form of socialism was attempted in Britain it ended in economic failure - in millions unemployed, rubbish piling up in the streets, the dead unburied, the most savage cuts in the NHS in its' history (far more extreme than anything Maggie Thatcher did) and Britain being called "the sick man of Europe."
When socialism has been tried in other countries, from the Soviet Union in the past to Venezuela today, the result is at best economic catastrophe and at worst mass murder, but it always fails.
And in Britain today the main opposition is led by people who want to try this disastrous philosophy again.
There is a good article on the subject by Kate Maltby here.
When you talk to people about the Soviet Union, most people, especially those who were born after it ceased to exist, don't understand why a failed regime which fell a generation ago matters to them.
When you talk about the past, people are not interested - they want to know about the future.
Unfortunately, there is a reason why lessons we can learn from both Venezuela and the Soviet Union - not to mention former British governments which people over fifty have been glad to forget and people under fifty have never heard of - should matter to people in Britain today.
Because if we forget those lessons it will harm our future.
There is a well-meaning but disastrous economic philosophy called "socialism" which has been tried in many places throughout the world and ALWAYS been a failure.
When a mild form of socialism was attempted in Britain it ended in economic failure - in millions unemployed, rubbish piling up in the streets, the dead unburied, the most savage cuts in the NHS in its' history (far more extreme than anything Maggie Thatcher did) and Britain being called "the sick man of Europe."
When socialism has been tried in other countries, from the Soviet Union in the past to Venezuela today, the result is at best economic catastrophe and at worst mass murder, but it always fails.
And in Britain today the main opposition is led by people who want to try this disastrous philosophy again.
There is a good article on the subject by Kate Maltby here.
Tuesday, October 03, 2017
Quote of the conference
"We want a country where the government works for everyone
Corbyn wants a country where everyone works for the government!"
(Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary)
Corbyn wants a country where everyone works for the government!"
(Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary)
Copeland Local Committee
I have been enjoying the Conservative Party conference, which is a valuable lobbying and networking opportunity, but because I will always put my constituents before party I have been back in Copeland today attending the Copeland local Committee of Cumbria County Council.
It was a useful and constructive meeting which addressed a number of issues including schools, parking, traffic schemes and health promotion and I will post a fuller report after Conference.
It was a useful and constructive meeting which addressed a number of issues including schools, parking, traffic schemes and health promotion and I will post a fuller report after Conference.
Monday, October 02, 2017
Sunday, October 01, 2017
A thought to begin Conservative Conference
With apologies to John Cleese and the writers of Monty Python's Life of Brian, a thought on the benefits of those much maligned ideas, capitalism and the free market ...
Quote of the day 1st October 2017
Graphic reliability health warning ...
I strongly suspect that the person who made this graphic may have mixed up two people with the same name. The picture is of a John Eliot who was a 17th century missionary but I believe that the quote is from Doctor John Eliot, professor and author who is very much alive!
It's a nice picture and a great quote, just take this as a reminder that they have only the name in common ...
I strongly suspect that the person who made this graphic may have mixed up two people with the same name. The picture is of a John Eliot who was a 17th century missionary but I believe that the quote is from Doctor John Eliot, professor and author who is very much alive!
It's a nice picture and a great quote, just take this as a reminder that they have only the name in common ...
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Saturday music spot: Albinoni/Giazotto Adagio in G Minor
Tomaso Albinoni is most unusual among great composers in having been a man of independent means rather than a client of a royal or noble court or an employee of a church - he was the son of wealthy Venetian paper merchant.
In his own lifetime he was mostly known as a composer of operas and his music was admired by and influenced composers such as Bach and was favourably compared to that of Telemann and Vivaldi
Unfortunately most of the 50 operas he wrote, which were greatly praised in his own century, have not survived and he is mostly known today for his instrumental and orchestral works.
Most ironically, although there is little doubt that he genuinely deserves to be remembered as a great composer there is considerable doubt how much of the most famous piece associated with his name, the work usually referred to as the "Albinoni Adagio," was actually composed by him.
The circumstances around it's publication have been called the biggest fraud in music history.
After his death most of Albinoni's unpublished work was stored in the Saxon State Library in Dresden, which was subsequently wrecked by Allied bombing raids during World War II.
In 1945 the Milanese musicologist Remo Giazotto (1910 - 1998) set out to write a biography of Albinoni and catalogue his remaining works, mining what was left in the Dresden archives.
A few years later Giazotto published a work called Adagio in G minor, which he claimed at the time to have transcribed from a manuscript fragment of an Albinoni sonata that he had received from the Saxon State Library.
Giazotto asserted he had completed Albinoni’s single movement in tribute, copywriting and publishing it in 1958 under his own name with the catchy title,
"Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ on Two Thematic Ideas and on a Figured Bass by Tomaso Albinoni."
It was a massive hit and used in the soundtrack of a number of famous films, but many people found it easier to refer to this music just as the "Albinoni Adagio" - can't think why!
To this day, Albinoni’s fragment has never been produced and no official record of its presence has been found in the collection of the Saxon State Library - although it is entirely possible, of course, that the relevant records existed but were destroyed in the war.
But whatever the origins of the work, it is a fantastic piece of music.
In his own lifetime he was mostly known as a composer of operas and his music was admired by and influenced composers such as Bach and was favourably compared to that of Telemann and Vivaldi
Unfortunately most of the 50 operas he wrote, which were greatly praised in his own century, have not survived and he is mostly known today for his instrumental and orchestral works.
Most ironically, although there is little doubt that he genuinely deserves to be remembered as a great composer there is considerable doubt how much of the most famous piece associated with his name, the work usually referred to as the "Albinoni Adagio," was actually composed by him.
The circumstances around it's publication have been called the biggest fraud in music history.
After his death most of Albinoni's unpublished work was stored in the Saxon State Library in Dresden, which was subsequently wrecked by Allied bombing raids during World War II.
In 1945 the Milanese musicologist Remo Giazotto (1910 - 1998) set out to write a biography of Albinoni and catalogue his remaining works, mining what was left in the Dresden archives.
A few years later Giazotto published a work called Adagio in G minor, which he claimed at the time to have transcribed from a manuscript fragment of an Albinoni sonata that he had received from the Saxon State Library.
Giazotto asserted he had completed Albinoni’s single movement in tribute, copywriting and publishing it in 1958 under his own name with the catchy title,
"Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ on Two Thematic Ideas and on a Figured Bass by Tomaso Albinoni."
It was a massive hit and used in the soundtrack of a number of famous films, but many people found it easier to refer to this music just as the "Albinoni Adagio" - can't think why!
To this day, Albinoni’s fragment has never been produced and no official record of its presence has been found in the collection of the Saxon State Library - although it is entirely possible, of course, that the relevant records existed but were destroyed in the war.
But whatever the origins of the work, it is a fantastic piece of music.
Shelter on Rent Controls
This is what the Shelter, the UK's largest housing charity, had to say about Labour's proposal to bring back rent controls ...
Here is some further elaboration on that view:
Friday, September 29, 2017
The cost of protest
Those who wish to protest peacefully outside either the Conservative party conference or any other party conference should be free to do so.
This should include the right to indicate robust disagreement provided it stops short of crossing the line between protest and intimidation, threats, or violence.
The behaviour of a significant minority - not all - of the left-wing protesters outside the 2015 Conservative conference in Manchester in 2015 towards people attending the conference; not just Conservative representatives but also journalists, cleaners, caterers and other staff of the conference centre; went way over that line.
Sadly one consequence of that has been that Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have had to mount an unprecedented operation to defend freedom of association - something that people on the left ought to understand as it is what the Tolpuddle martyrs were transported for fighting for - at this year's Conservative conference in Manchester at a cost to the Home office, which, of course, means the poor old taxpayer, of two million pounds.
The Manchester Evening News report on security at the conference can be read here.
A large part of that operation would have been necessary regardless of the 2015 protests and of who had been in power, to protect the conference of the governing party from the threat from terrorist groups like the swine who murdered 22 innocent people including children at a concern in the same city earlier this year.
However, there is little doubt that the security operation this year will be significantly more expensive because GMP are trying to overcome the problems created by intimidation from left-wing thugs protesting outside the 2015 conference.
That is money that will have to be raised in tax and will not be available for other important causes such as the NHS.
If I thought the kind of people whose conduct in 2015 was responsible for this, or those who are trying to organise similar intimidation next week, had working brains, I would suggest they ought to think about the consequences of their actions.
This should include the right to indicate robust disagreement provided it stops short of crossing the line between protest and intimidation, threats, or violence.
The behaviour of a significant minority - not all - of the left-wing protesters outside the 2015 Conservative conference in Manchester in 2015 towards people attending the conference; not just Conservative representatives but also journalists, cleaners, caterers and other staff of the conference centre; went way over that line.
Sadly one consequence of that has been that Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have had to mount an unprecedented operation to defend freedom of association - something that people on the left ought to understand as it is what the Tolpuddle martyrs were transported for fighting for - at this year's Conservative conference in Manchester at a cost to the Home office, which, of course, means the poor old taxpayer, of two million pounds.
The Manchester Evening News report on security at the conference can be read here.
A large part of that operation would have been necessary regardless of the 2015 protests and of who had been in power, to protect the conference of the governing party from the threat from terrorist groups like the swine who murdered 22 innocent people including children at a concern in the same city earlier this year.
However, there is little doubt that the security operation this year will be significantly more expensive because GMP are trying to overcome the problems created by intimidation from left-wing thugs protesting outside the 2015 conference.
That is money that will have to be raised in tax and will not be available for other important causes such as the NHS.
If I thought the kind of people whose conduct in 2015 was responsible for this, or those who are trying to organise similar intimidation next week, had working brains, I would suggest they ought to think about the consequences of their actions.
An Offal accident on the A66
The A66 reopened this afternoon after being closed for several hours between the Appleby and Temple Sowerby junctions when a lorry shed a load of offal on the road.
Traffic was diverted by local alternative routes. Fortunately nobody was hurt.
It might be argued that the headline above is an offal joke. The story is, however, the offal truth (and I think that's enough offal jokes for at least the rest of 2017 ...)
Traffic was diverted by local alternative routes. Fortunately nobody was hurt.
It might be argued that the headline above is an offal joke. The story is, however, the offal truth (and I think that's enough offal jokes for at least the rest of 2017 ...)
Thursday, September 28, 2017
1591: "Let's kill all the lawyers." The 2017 equivalent: get the journalists
What do Donald J Trump, Julian Assange, Corbyn supporters like Paul Mason and "The Canary" news website, Breitbart which is to the hard right what "the Canary" is to the hard left, Nigel Farage, many "Cybernat" hardline SNP supporters and Vladimir Putin all have in common?
Well, one thing is their attitude to the mainstream media in western democracies like Britain, which ranges from open contempt to making every attempt to discredit and undermine it.
In 1591, in his play Henry VI, Shakespeare put into the mouth of a rebel against the established order the words "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
The equivalent target today for unfriendly foreign governments and domestic anti-establishment candidates of right or left is the mainstream media.
There is a good column on the subject in the Spectator by Nick Cohen,
"Fake news: the far-left's favourite new excuse,"
in which he describes how the Corbynista left was attacking the media at Labour conference this week but quite correctly points out that Donald J Trump does exactly the same. He writes:
"Admirers of violence and lies must go carefully. As true cowards they must leave themselves an escape hatch in case they are forced to retreat. They never quite commit to the suppression of rights, the rigged elections, the secret policemen and the torture chambers. Instead they tell us we are not hearing the full story, and switch the argument.
The real problem is not the oppressive state and its suffering citizens, they say. The problem is the fake media. Not media faked by government propagandists and controlled by censors, not countries where every TV station and mass circulation newspaper must follow the party line, but the free media in their own country.
As individual journalists and news organisations are often stupid or biased or both, few people notice that they have changed the subject. Their listeners respond with enthusiasm."
He adds that people do not know, and may realise that they don't know, what is really happening in a foreign country whose language they might not speak,
"whose cities they have never visited, but they do know that they hate Fox News or the New York Times, the Daily Mail or the Guardian."
As former BBC political editor Nick Robinson said in an interview in the Guardian,
“Our critics now see their attacks as a key part of their political strategy. In order to succeed they need to convince people not to believe ‘the news’.”
He added: “Attacks on the media are no longer a lazy clap line delivered to a party conference to raise morale. They are part of a guerrilla war being fought on social media day after day and hour after hour.”
The Guardian wrote this up with the headline
"Alternative news sites waging guerrilla war on the BBC says Nick Robinson,"
but his comments and their article cover a broader guerrilla war: it's not just alternative news sites and the target is not just the BBC, those throughout the political spectrum who are courting anti-establishment support are doing this and the target is the whole MSM.
And as Nick Robinson pointed out of the various different groups which have adopted this strategy
"They would all be horrified to be compared with one another, since what motivates them is the belief that the other lot are not just mistaken but an existential threat to the future of their country, but they often respond in similar ways.
"Their most shared and liked stories are attacks on the MSM and the BBC in particular. They share a certainty – fuelled by living in a social media bubble – that we reporters and presenters are at best craven, obeying some diktat from our bosses or the government, or at worst nakedly biased."
As the New Statesman - which is hardly part of the "Tory Press" has pointed out,
The Canary is running a sexist hate campaign against Laura Kuenssberg,
and I'm afraid I do not think it is a coincidence that the BBC felt the abuse she has been receiving included sufficiently credible threats that they had to give her a bodyguard at Labour conference.
Nick Robinson also pointed out that the worst way the BBC or other parts of the MSM could deal with this campaign of hostility is to silence voices of dissent: his interview was headlined
"If mainstream news wants to win back trust it cannot silence dissident voices."
Absolutely right. As Nick wrote
"Shockingly, Churchill’s pre-war warnings about the dangers of German rearmament were heard by radio listeners not in his own country but in the US. The BBC, influenced by the government, muzzled him.
"The way Churchill was handled is a powerful warning of the dangers of the BBC believing it is being balanced by silencing the voices of those who do not represent conventional wisdom. It is an answer to all those who complained that Nick Griffin – who is, let me stress, no modern-day Churchill – should never have been invited on to Question Time.
"It’s a riposte to Brexiters who fill my timeline with demands that we should not interview “that failed leader” Nick Clegg, to Remainers who say the same about Nigel Farage, and to those who argue Nigel Lawson should never be interviewed about climate change.
"They should be challenged and if, as Lawson did on Today recently, they get their facts wrong we should say so. But they should not be silenced."
Quite.
Well, one thing is their attitude to the mainstream media in western democracies like Britain, which ranges from open contempt to making every attempt to discredit and undermine it.
In 1591, in his play Henry VI, Shakespeare put into the mouth of a rebel against the established order the words "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
The equivalent target today for unfriendly foreign governments and domestic anti-establishment candidates of right or left is the mainstream media.
There is a good column on the subject in the Spectator by Nick Cohen,
"Fake news: the far-left's favourite new excuse,"
in which he describes how the Corbynista left was attacking the media at Labour conference this week but quite correctly points out that Donald J Trump does exactly the same. He writes:
"Admirers of violence and lies must go carefully. As true cowards they must leave themselves an escape hatch in case they are forced to retreat. They never quite commit to the suppression of rights, the rigged elections, the secret policemen and the torture chambers. Instead they tell us we are not hearing the full story, and switch the argument.
The real problem is not the oppressive state and its suffering citizens, they say. The problem is the fake media. Not media faked by government propagandists and controlled by censors, not countries where every TV station and mass circulation newspaper must follow the party line, but the free media in their own country.
As individual journalists and news organisations are often stupid or biased or both, few people notice that they have changed the subject. Their listeners respond with enthusiasm."
He adds that people do not know, and may realise that they don't know, what is really happening in a foreign country whose language they might not speak,
"whose cities they have never visited, but they do know that they hate Fox News or the New York Times, the Daily Mail or the Guardian."
As former BBC political editor Nick Robinson said in an interview in the Guardian,
“Our critics now see their attacks as a key part of their political strategy. In order to succeed they need to convince people not to believe ‘the news’.”
He added: “Attacks on the media are no longer a lazy clap line delivered to a party conference to raise morale. They are part of a guerrilla war being fought on social media day after day and hour after hour.”
The Guardian wrote this up with the headline
"Alternative news sites waging guerrilla war on the BBC says Nick Robinson,"
but his comments and their article cover a broader guerrilla war: it's not just alternative news sites and the target is not just the BBC, those throughout the political spectrum who are courting anti-establishment support are doing this and the target is the whole MSM.
And as Nick Robinson pointed out of the various different groups which have adopted this strategy
"They would all be horrified to be compared with one another, since what motivates them is the belief that the other lot are not just mistaken but an existential threat to the future of their country, but they often respond in similar ways.
"Their most shared and liked stories are attacks on the MSM and the BBC in particular. They share a certainty – fuelled by living in a social media bubble – that we reporters and presenters are at best craven, obeying some diktat from our bosses or the government, or at worst nakedly biased."
As the New Statesman - which is hardly part of the "Tory Press" has pointed out,
The Canary is running a sexist hate campaign against Laura Kuenssberg,
and I'm afraid I do not think it is a coincidence that the BBC felt the abuse she has been receiving included sufficiently credible threats that they had to give her a bodyguard at Labour conference.
Nick Robinson also pointed out that the worst way the BBC or other parts of the MSM could deal with this campaign of hostility is to silence voices of dissent: his interview was headlined
"If mainstream news wants to win back trust it cannot silence dissident voices."
Absolutely right. As Nick wrote
"Shockingly, Churchill’s pre-war warnings about the dangers of German rearmament were heard by radio listeners not in his own country but in the US. The BBC, influenced by the government, muzzled him.
"The way Churchill was handled is a powerful warning of the dangers of the BBC believing it is being balanced by silencing the voices of those who do not represent conventional wisdom. It is an answer to all those who complained that Nick Griffin – who is, let me stress, no modern-day Churchill – should never have been invited on to Question Time.
"It’s a riposte to Brexiters who fill my timeline with demands that we should not interview “that failed leader” Nick Clegg, to Remainers who say the same about Nigel Farage, and to those who argue Nigel Lawson should never be interviewed about climate change.
"They should be challenged and if, as Lawson did on Today recently, they get their facts wrong we should say so. But they should not be silenced."
Quite.
The cost of Labour policies
If the policies set out by the Labour party at their conference this week were all enacted there would be a £312 billion hole in Britain's finances and for every citizen the state would incur thousands of pounds of extra debt - about £4750 per person. The interest on that debt would have to be paid by the taxpayer and would not be available for schools and hospitals:
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