The Matt cartoon in today’s Daily Telegraph amused me …
Something for the Weekend
Category Archives: current affairs
Government and IT
Yesterday’s Independent carried a short article under the headline
Yes, you bet it could! Here are extracts from the article:
Civil servants could cut the cost of government by £70bn in seven years just by making more use of computer technology, a think-tank report … claims.
The ambitious claim … is almost 10 times what the Cabinet Office hopes can be achieved.
The report … highlights ways government departments waste money by using too much paper.
Offenders include the Crown Prosecution Service, which prints a million sheets of paper every day, the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency, where “two articulated trucks loaded with letters and paper pull in every day”, and the Passport Office, which prints out forms filled in online and posts them back to applicants to sign.
Oh FFS! I know I worked for a large IT company but set in its ways though the Corporation was even we got rid of most paper forms 10 years ago!
So you bet the government could save £10bn a year, but it will happen only if:
- They learn something about IT and how to manage IT projects
- They are prepared to listen to advice from suppliers
- They are prepared to invest some money up front
- They are prepared to grasp the nettle and tell the civil servants that this is how things will be done — no push-back allowed.
Will all of those happen? … No.
Will any of those happen? … Probably not.
Gawdelpus!
Here We Go Again!
Just what is it about politicians? They just cannot seem to learn from even the most recent past. Nor can they stand back and take a long, cold, hard look at where they’re going.
The US and the UK are about to get themselves embroiled in Syria. Why?
Oh someone has used some (internationally banned) chemical weapons.
Yes, OK that is reprehensible (to put it politely). But it doesn’t excuse blatant aggression by other people.
Look guys. Just stop and think!
1. Within the last few years the US and UK have meddled in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya that I can think of quickly. None of them with any real justification (and in the case of Iraq based on a known wrong set of beliefs). Result? Long-term involvement in two of them and no real useful result in the third. All it has done is waste the lives of our military personnel and waste a load of money that frankly we don’t have.
2. What is happening in Syria is civil war — just as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Egypt. War, by definition, produces atrocities. That is no reason for us to go adding to them.
3. So you want to get involved in Syria on the side of the rebels against Assad? You do realise, don’t you, that those rebels are the very people you were fighting against in Afghanistan and Iraq: al-Qa’ida and the Taliban? OK we know you’re two-faced (you’re politicians, after all) but really!
Now no-one is pretending that the use of chemical weapons is acceptable. But this is NOT an excuse for the US and UK to go around continuing to be bullies. Especially as we know that short sharp interventions never are. Remember Iraq?
No, this is a matter for the UN. Their inspectors need to be allowed to complete their work, report, have their report considered. The if the international community (in the guise of the UN) is still unhappy it is for the UN to take action. Unilateral action by the US and/or the UK is just not acceptable.
David Cameron … If you continue down this path of action, you will become as reviled by everyone as was Tony Bliar, who rightly earned the epithet Tony B Liar. Up with such actions we, the people, will not put! Such actions will definitely lose you the next election (if you’ve not lost it already). Is that really what you want?
Barack Obama … The same applies to you.
When even your (ex-)military chiefs are saying this is misguided, maybe that should be telling you something.
Gawdelpus!
HS2
So who should be most in favour of HS2, the proposed high-speed rail connection from London to Birmingham and the north?
Well if it is as essential to the economy as we are told it is, business should be lobbying hard in its favour.
Are they? … No, they are not!
According to a report in yesterday’s Independent, and elsewhere, the Institute of Directors (ie. the captains of our businesses) considers HS2 “a giant folly”. Just 41% of IoD members consider HS2 important for their business and only 27% see it as good value for money.
Businesses know value for money when they see it, and our research shows that they don’t see it in the Government’s case for HS2 … The IoD cannot support the Government’s current economic case for HS2 … We agree with the need for key infrastructure spending, but the business case for HS2 simply is not there. The money would be far better spent elsewhere and in a way that will benefit much more of the country. Investment in the West and East Coast main lines, combined with a variety of other infrastructure projects, would be a far more sensible option.
[Simon Walker, IoD Director-General]
Interestingly there was another report in the Telegraph last December (which I had not previously picked up) exposing the fact that the projected passenger numbers also do not stack up with the business case.
Hurrah for some common sense! I’ve been saying this since HS2 was first mooted. Cynically I’d say that HS2 is the rail industry willy-waving and indulging in self-aggrandisement to distract from the fact that is hasn’t/can’t sort out the current rail infrastructure and get that working efficiently — something which should cost a lot less than the currently projected £50billion price tag for HS2. Let’s sort out what we have first and then see if we still need such a massive, environmentally and financially destructive project as HS2.
And anyway, in the current economic climate, do we really have this amount of money to throw around?
Just Stay Well
So you thought the NHS was a simple hierarchy of family doctors and hospitals? Think again.
Created for The King’s Fund**, this animation explains the current state of the NHS in just over 6 minutes. It is well worth watching and puts (some of) the current organisation in context.
And it is about the best explanation I have yet seen.
Though to be fair it wasn’t that much better before the recent reorganisation — just different! And actually it has never been a simple structure.
No wonder I’m cynical about it all, but still determined to do my bit to try to make it work professionally. The thing is if we don’t make it work then we’re all stuffed.
Gawdelpus!
** The King’s Fund is an independent charity working to improve health and health care in England. They help to shape policy and practice through research and analysis; develop individuals, teams and organisations; promote understanding of the health and social care system; and bring people together to learn, share knowledge and debate. Their vision is that the best possible care is available to all. They are not a sideshow; they are hugely influential.
You May Have Missed …
Another in our series highlighting articles you may have missed …
Unfortunately top billing this week has to go to Prime Minister David Cameron’s desire to impose a “porn block” on every internet connection. Needless to say the internet has been awash with people decrying the scheme as unworkable censorship. Some has been the usual squealing about anything we don’t like but much has been sensible commentary on the abhorrence of censorship and the practicalities of why the system won’t work. Those of you who know me, and who follow here, will be able to guess my view. Here is a selection of articles:
Original news item from the Independent: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography with ‘porn block’ option
The anotherangryvoice blog shouts against David Cameron’s “national wank register” although the article is more rational and practical than that sounds.
Meanwhile in measured fashion New Statesman asks 10 questions about Cameron’s ‘war on porn’
While in PC Pro the smaller ISPs are resisting.
Another blogger maintains the proposed UK porn filter is a threat, not a safeguard.
Milena Popova looks at the proposals from the perspective of an abuse survivor.
Finally there is the inevitable e-petition on the government website: Do Not Force ISP Filtering of Pornography and Other Content. At the time of writing it has just over 25,000 signatures. Whether you agree or not I’d urge everyone to sign as 100,000 should ensure a parliamentary debate, which is about the best we can do in exercising our full democratic power.
Now let’s return to the usual rather more amusing and esoteric fare.
Big ears! Yes ears (and noses) really do grow as we age.
Here’s an interesting, if slightly contentious, article on why we should fight back against those who are determined to kill off obesity. Yes, we know there may be risks (for some) in obesity but moral blackmail isn’t the answer and quality of life does matter.
At last an explanation for all those tales of werewolves. Apparently sleep quality declines around the full moon.
Still on things medically orientated, scientists are increasingly demonstrating that there are links between faulty body clocks and mental illness although it should be stressed that a correlation doesn’t prove causation.
Well who would have guessed? Bottlenose dolphins use names to identify each other. Wolves too it seems. You mean all animals don’t? I bet they do; just because we can’t understand what name our cat or dog calls itself!
A couple of writers for Practical Fishkeeping magazine go snorkelling in an English river and are surprised by the amazing biodiversity.
Oh dear, here we go again … More sleight of hand in the finance industry. Nationwide Building Society is working out how to issue shares and remain mutual. Ho hum …
Meanwhile some fun … I love it when eccentric, guerilla ideas take off. Apparently campaigners have planted cannabis seeds all over a German town and the authorities are struggling to keep up with destroying the resulting sudden growth.
More fun, but more seriously … apparently the Tory party’s plans to claw back EU powers have been thrown into disarray after an official study describes the London-Brussels balance as ‘broadly appropriate’. As usual though, I bet they ignore their advisers.
And now for a true British eccentric. Obituary for the 7th Marquis of Anglesey, historian of the British Cavalry, who died last week.
And on British eccentricities, here is a series of photographs of Britain’s listed historic signal boxes.
Finally one close to my heart. Biologist Rob Dunn investigates the roamings of his cat, and despite her age gets a surprise.
More anon …
Just to remind our lords and masters of their responsibilities …
The Pornography of David Cameron
So David Cameron is intent on restricting internet access to anything which he deems might in someone’s eyes be pornographic.
This is so prattish and dangerous it makes me angry on just so many levels.
Just who does DC think he is to tell other people what to think, say and look at? How dare he impose his (apparent) morality on anyone else? Imposing one’s morality on someone else is frankly … well … immoral!
This is government censorship. Given that freedom of speech and belief is enshrined in international law, that probably means the UK would be in violation of international law.
A freedom which exists only when it is in accord with your views, is no freedom at all.
These two images are perfectly legal, and must remain perfectly legal. If you don’t want to see them, don’t look. If you don’t want your kids to see them, take responsibility yourself for looking out for what your kids view.
The proposals are impractical and pretty much unenforceable. Any law which is unenforceable is (a) bad law and (b) a waste of time. It is impractical because of the complexity of the internet and the fact that everyone is not dependent on just one service provider but many.
What is even more worrying is that there is absolutely no evidence to back up the necessity for this. On the lack of evidence see, for example, here, here, here and here.
It’s about time that we let people make up their own minds and take responsibility for their own actions — ie. develop their own sense of morals and responsibility. We’re becoming a nation of the molly-coddled; people who have to have everything done for them; who are unable to think for themselves or cope for themselves; people who cannot cope with adversity. People cannot be protected by outside agencies from all dangers and risks — that way lies a mixture of amorality (because people won’t have to think) and a police state. In the words of Thomas S Monson (Pathways To Perfection):
When we treat people merely as they are, they will remain as they are. When we treat them as if they were what they should be, they will become what they should be.
Goethe says the same:
If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.
Or looking at it another way, in the words of the great Spanish ‘cellist Pablo Casals:
Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage.
If we want people to be responsible, then we have to treat them as if they are responsible.
Finally, as I’ve said many times before (for example here and especially here) sexuality and nudity need to be normalised, not marginalised and criminalised. Only by doing so are we likely to drastically improve the nation’s overall health and well-being.
It is time to be a leader, not a cow-herd with an electric cattle-prod!
[PS. No of course rape, violence and child abuse are not acceptable; no-one is saying they are! But blanket censorship is not going to get rid of them; it will just drive them further underground and into the hands of the criminal fraternity.]
On Sex Work
The latest New Scientist (dated 6 July 2013) carries a short but interesting article under the headline “One minute with … Laura Agustín”. Her thesis is that banning prostitution does not make women safer, in fact it does exactly the opposite.
As New Scientist is behind a paywall, I’m naughtily going to reproduce the complete item here as I believe Agustín’s ideas should have a wider audience before our politicians make ever more hasty and ill-considered rules. And because I happen to agree with her.
Most of what we think we know about sex trafficking is wrong, says Laura Agustín, who has spent 20 years investigating the sex industry
There is a proposal in the UK to clamp down on prostitution by criminalising the purchase of sex. Why do you object?
Millions of people around the world make a living selling sex, for many different reasons. What are they expected to do? This would take away their livelihoods. Selling sex may be their preference out of a limited range of options. In the UK, migrants may have paid thousands of pounds to get here. This debt has to be paid off somehow, whether it is by working in the back of a restaurant or selling sex. Migrants who sell sex can pay off the debt much faster.But prostitution is dangerous, especially for those who work on the street …
Women who work on the street are a small proportion of all the people who sell sex. Many more work through escort agencies, brothels or independently from home.It is disrespectful to treat them all like victims who have been duped into what they are doing. In the UK, there are thousands of articulate sex workers who say, “Leave me alone, I did know what I was getting into and I’m okay doing it.”
Isn’t the “happy hooker” a myth? Doesn’t research show it is a miserable existence?
Given the millions of people selling sex in the world, generalisations are impossible. Much research has been done at medical clinics or shelters for victims. If you go to a trauma centre, you meet traumatised people. When people tell me they have never met anyone who wanted to be selling sex, I ask where they did their research.Why do you think anti-prostitution laws can make life more dangerous for sex workers?
If you think what sex workers do is dangerous, why insist they do it alone? It is legal in the UK for individuals to sell sex, but they may not work with companions or employ security guards. Brothels are illegal. If you prohibit businesses but people run them anyway – which they do – then workers must please bosses no matter what they ask. That is why this is a labour issue. Also, targeting kerb-crawlers makes things more dangerous since sex workers may have to jump in cars without getting a good sense of the driver.What about trafficking of unwilling victims?
The numbers of trafficking victims reproduced by the media have no basis in fact. There is no way to count undocumented people working in underground economies. Investigations showed that one big UK police operation failed to find any traffickers who had forced people into prostitution. Most migrants who sell sex know a good deal about what they are getting into.If there is no proof it is common, why is there widespread belief in sex-slave trafficking?
Why do moral panics take off? Focusing on trafficking gives governments excuses to keep borders closed. Perhaps it is easier to campaign moralistically against prostitution than to deal with the real problems: dysfunctional migration and labour policies that keep large numbers of people in precarious situations.
There are other augments too. By legalising sex work, as the Dutch have done, means it can be regulated, the workers given regular health checks, and also have their income taxed. It takes sex work out of the grey economy, whereas criminalisation pushes it ever further into the murky depths of the blackest of black economies.
Laura Agustín studies gender, migration and trafficking. She is the author of Sex at the Margins (Zed Books, 2007) and blogs as The Naked Anthropologist at lauraagustin.com
In which I worry about Bishops …
… or more precisely, retired Archbishops.
The BBC reported a few days ago that according to Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, allowing Gay marriage “paves way for polygamy”.
In an article for the think tank Civitas, Lord Carey … argues that the government is effectively seeking to change the definition of marriage to “a long-term commitment between two people of any sex, in which gender and procreation are irrelevant”.
He says he does not want to be “alarmist”, but that could logically be extended to “say, two sisters bringing up children together” or “multiple relationships, such as two women and one man”.
Let’s just leaving aside the fact that this is an absolute load of old baloney — the relationships his Lordship cites have been happening since time immortal, so where’s the problem? But I do worry what school Lord Carey went to when he can clearly think that two women plus one man is two people. Do divines have different arithmetic rules to the rest of us? Or has he actually lost his marbles?
Fortunately others of Lord Carey’s colleagues are more sane:
[T]he Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev Nicholas Holtham suggested in a letter to the Telegraph that it was time to “rethink” attitudes about same-sex marriage, as Christians had done with slavery and apartheid. “No one now supports either slavery or apartheid. The Biblical texts have not changed; our interpretation has.”
And in a brilliant response to Lord Carey …
Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill said: “This is regrettably hyperbolic shroud waving”.
You just have to love someone who can talk about “hyperbolic shroud waving”!