Just... WOW

The report was published on Parliament’s website after a Freedom Of Information request by anti-nuclear ­campaigners.
Much of the most revealing information, entire pages in some cases, was blacked out to prevent the ­secrets from getting into the wrong hands.
But in what was described as “a schoolboy ­error” the technique used by MoD staff to censor the ­document was easy to reverse. The bunglers turned the text background black – making the words unreadable – but crucially left them in place. That meant anyone wanting to read the censored sections just had to copy the text.

Not often I link to the Daily Star here, but they found the boob (pun intended) and deserve the credit.

Seriously, a document about the safety of nuclear submarines was redacted by someone who had so little knowledge of obfuscating documents that they didn't know about the "copy and paste trick"?

Beggars belief. Really, it does.

How's the State Doing?

From the Guardian:-

His call was echoed by Glyn Roberts from the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association, who said:"Heads will have to roll for this. Why on earth is Northern Ireland the only part of the UK where there has been this massive disruption since the thaw?"

It couldn't be that nearly all the rest of them were privatised (Scottish Water is state owned), could it?

Statement by the head of NI Water:-

Historically, we have had an amount of underinvestment here.
We had the Troubles and that has led to a level of underinvestment in the network which is now manifesting some problems for us which we're trying to deal with as fast as we can.

Hmm, sounds like it, doesn't it, boys and girls?

The Big Fascism Rolls On

From the Daily Mirror

David Cameron is to spearhead a clampdown on using sex to sell products to children.
The PM has ordered a major review of the problem - as well as the use of "pester power" to get children to nag parents to buy sweets or toys.
He is expected to ask Reg Bailey, boss of Christian campaign group the Mothers' Union, to consider new powers for parents to complain, Whitehall sources disclosed.

So an unelected organisation of 93,000 members is going to tell the rest of us how to live? I think that people who play Call of Duty or drink absinthe have as more representation than that.

The review will look at how to fight the sexualisation of children and efforts by shops and advertisers to exert "excessive commercial pressure" on them.
The clampdown could see Education Secretary Michael Gove bring in punishments for firms breaking any new rules - possibly a three-year ban on bidding for government work.

The correct process is to create a law, and then bring people before courts for breaking that law where the government has to present the evidence for the crime.


Banning companies from government contracts (without good reasons like being fraudulent or incapable) is simply an arbitrary use of power to get people to do what you want without having to define clear laws. It is the way of the dictator.


Far from Cameron's "big society" being a genuine attempt to roll back the state and to give people the power to run their own lives and to improve the lot of others through their own actions, it is instead simply the same old big government dressed up in the clothing of liberty.

Francis Maude on Big Society Mutuals

They are very different in ambition and range: from NHS staff wanting to launch an employee-owned social enterprise to help homeless patients, to employees from local authorities getting together to form a mutual to deliver children's services, and further education colleges coming together to see if they can set up a new awarding body.

But they do all have certain things in common. At their heart are frontline public sector entrepreneurs ready to take control of the services they run. And there's often a common focus: the desire to join up the services they know so well so that they are actually designed specifically around their communities' needs, or so they can start using potential economies of scale to generate efficiencies. In a time when we need to save money we have to be ready to explore ideas like this.

Following the mutuals or "doing a John Lewis" is very much in vogue with the Conservatives at the moment. On the surface, John Lewis looks like a model for the public sector. It doesn't make profits for capitalist owners, it works very well and it has very happy customers.

The single point that is missed, the single cog that means that the whole philosophy doesn't roll, is that John Lewis exists in a competitive market. As do Baxi, the Co-op and the people who run the health food shop near me. That means that if they have to get customers, they have to do a good job, and if they don't, like any other fat-cat owned capitalist company, they go to the wall.

I'm not even sure what the model of these mutuals is because the whole notion of a mutual that is to do with government seems to be full of contradictions. Are the owners able to sell the company, like the owners of my health food shop can? Who funds them, and if it's the taxpayer, then are they accountable, and if that's the case, what's the difference to a government department? Is there plurality of supply and if so, what happens to the ones that go to the wall?

Because if they're funded by the taxpayer, then they should be responsible to the taxpayer. If they can make private profits, then these people can put in their own cash and should be subject to private losses. If they're fully private, then making them monopolies would be bad.

I don't understand if these are supposed to replace external, contracted suppliers, or monopoly government departments. But what the government seems to think is that they can create something with all the benefits of the free-market like innovation, but without things like incentives or the downsides of people being put out of business. And that simply doesn't work. Experts left in charge to run things their own way will run them in a way that they think is important. Which might match what customers want, but if it doesn't then you're knackered.

I suspect in 5 or 10 years time, we'll see that this doesn't actually work, and something else will be tried, and eventually, we'll get to what is the only way to do government: reduce it down to what can't be delivered by markets, and deliver those things as close as possible to the consumer.

That Government Programme in Full: 3. Civil Liberties

• We will implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion.

I'm going to give this a qualified "good". I suspect they'll only roll back Labour's stuff, not things like the Video Recordings Act or various terrible bills under Thatcher and Major.

• We will introduce a Freedom Bill.

and? Why not just call it the Coco the Clown Bill. Blah.

• We will scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register and the ContactPoint database, and halt the next generation of biometric passports.

Excellent.

• We will outlaw the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.

Excellent.

• We will extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.

Sounds promising.

• We will adopt the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.

Excellent.

• We will protect historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.

For every case? Please do.

• We will restore rights to non-violent protest.

Excellent.

• We will review libel laws to protect freedom of speech.

Very good.

• We will introduce safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.

Sounds promising.

• We will further regulate CCTV.

Probably needs it.

• We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason.

Good.

• We will introduce a new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.

A bit blah because a subsequent government can come in and just change it.

• We will establish a Commission to investigate the creation of a British Bill of Rights that incorporates and builds on all our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, ensures that these rights continue to be enshrined in British law, and protects and extends British liberties. We will seek to promote a better understanding of the true scope of these obligations and liberties.

Dunno.

That Government Programme in Full: 2. Business

• We will cut red tape by introducing a ‘one-in, one-out’ rule whereby no new regulation is brought in without other regulation being cut by a greater amount.

That's absolutely bloody stupid. If a law is necessary, it's necessary. You don't remove a law just because you add one. You remove one because it's a bad law.

• We will end the culture of ‘tick-box’ regulation, and instead target inspections on high-risk organisations through co-regulation and improving professional standards.

What the hell does co-regulation mean? And "improving professional standards" sounds pretty worthy, but what if people don't go along with it?

• We will impose ‘sunset clauses’ on regulations and regulators to ensure that the need for each regulation is regularly reviewed.

I'll believe that when I see it.

• We will review IR 35, as part of a wholesale review of all small business taxation, and seek to replace it with simpler measures that prevent tax avoidance but do not place undue administrative burdens or uncertainty on the self-employed, or restrict labour market flexibility.

This is just blah. For anyone who doesn't know about IR35, it's regulation to prevent tax avoidance where people would set up companies and then pay themselves dividends, reducing their NI contributions.

In some ways, the purpose of it makes sense, when you consider how Tax and NI work in consideration of dividends. The execution is terrible as it's highly arbitrary. There are no fixed rules about whether you're considered to be in disguised employment or not.

They can come up with some hard and fast rules, and tax avoiders will just play to the edge of them. And in the end it will ignore the real problem: how NI is different on earnings and dividends.

Of course, no party wants to remove NI. The mainstream press are too stupid to even look at it and getting rid of it in a tax neutral way would simply raise the tax rate visible by the media.

• We will find a practical way to make small business rate relief automatic.

Which shouldn't even exist.

• We will reform the corporate tax system by simplifying reliefs and allowances, and tackling avoidance, in order to reduce headline rates. Our aim is to create the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G20, while protecting manufacturing industries.

Good.

• We will seek to ensure an injection of private capital into Royal Mail, including opportunities for employee ownership. We will retain Post Office Ltd in public ownership.

Firstly, "ensuring an injection of private capital" is an oxymoron. If you can ensure it then you must be prepared to either use a carrot to get it, so it's not really private any longer. Secondly, I'm all for employee ownership of private businesses, but when you have a monopoly it's pretty pointless.

• We will seek to ensure a level playing field between small and large retailers by enabling councils to take competition issues into account when drawing up their local plans to shape the direction and type of new retail development.

Oh joy. Useless, inefficient small retailers remain in business, making the rest of us poorer.

• We will give the public the opportunity to challenge the worst regulations.

Bullshit.

• We will review employment and workplace laws, for employers and employees, to ensure they maximise flexibility for both parties while protecting fairness and providing the competitive environment required for enterprise to thrive.

Blah.

• We will make it easier for people to set up new enterprises by cutting the time it takes to start a new business. Our ambition is to make the UK one of the fastest countries in the world to start up a new business. We will reduce the number of forms needed to register a new business, and move towards a ‘one-click’ registration model.

When I set up my company it took less than a day. Before the internet was around. OK, I wouldn't mind it being faster, but it's not that much of a problem.

• We will end the ban on social tenants starting businesses in their own homes.

Good.

• We will promote small business procurement, in particular by introducing an aspiration that 25% of government contracts should be awarded to small and medium-sized businesses and by publishing government tenders in full online and free of charge.

The better thing would just be to simplify the tendering processes so that small businesses actually have a chance of competing. Or just get government to do less which helps small businesses.

• We will consider the implementation of the Dyson Review to make the UK the leading hi-tech exporter in Europe, and refocus the research and development tax credit on hi-tech companies, small firms and start-ups.

No. Government shouldn't be involved.

• We will review the range of factors that can be considered by regulators when takeovers are proposed.

Blah.

• We will reinstate an Operating and Financial Review to ensure that directors’ social and environmental duties have to be covered in company reporting, and investigate further ways of improving corporate accountability and transparency.

Sod off. Businesses are there to make money, not to make yurts. If there are things businesses shouldn't do then make law against them.

• We will ensure that Post Offices are allowed to offer a wide range of services in order to sustain the network, and we will look at the case for developing new sources of revenue, such as the creation of a Post Office Bank.

God that's stupid! The banks have used technology to CLOSE DOWN branches and reduce costs. Creating a bank just to subsidise the rural shops of  middle-class rural dwellers is stupid.

• We will end the so-called ‘gold-plating’ of EU rules, so that British businesses are not disadvantaged relative to their European competitors.

I don't believe it, but would welcome it if it happened.

• We will support the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships – joint local authority-business bodies brought forward by local authorities themselves to promote local economic development – to replace Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). These may take the form of the existing RDAs in areas where they are popular.

Waste of money.

• We will take steps to improve the competitiveness of the UK tourism industry, recognising the important part it plays in our national economy.

Like stopping the building of a 3rd runway at Heathrow?

That Government Programme in Full: 1. Banking

OK, I'm going to go through these. Some will just be omitted, because I don't know or take much interest in the subject. I will use a simple "blah" for meaningless statements.

• We will reform the banking system to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis, to promote a competitive economy, to sustain the recovery and to protect and sustain jobs.

No. You won't. You won't change the ways that banks risks are underwritten. You won't do anything to prevent housing bubbles. The only reason that we'll recover is because prices of houses will eventually fall low enough that people will start buying again.

• We will introduce a banking levy and seek a detailed agreement on implementation.

blah

• We will bring forward detailed proposals for robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the financial services sector; in developing these proposals, we will ensure they are effective in reducing risk.

The bonuses were about incentives. The incentives were driven by the people running the banks, who are underwritten by the taxpayer and regulated by idiots. And "detailed proposals" are blah.

• We want the banking system to serve business, not the other way round. We will bring forward detailed proposals to foster diversity in financial services, promote mutuals and create a more competitive banking industry.

This would be most welcome, but as it's "detailed proposals", probably blah.

• We will develop effective proposals to ensure the flow of credit to viable SMEs. This will include consideration of both a major loan guarantee scheme and the use of net lending targets for the nationalised banks.

Stupid interference by idiot politicians and their appointees in deciding where lending should occur. Bad.

• We will take steps to reduce systemic risk in the banking system and will establish an independent commission to investigate the complex issue of separating retail and investment banking in a sustainable way; while recognising that this will take time to get right, the commission will be given an initial time frame of one year to report.

Not sure. Actually sounds promising, but I somehow doubt that homeownerists like the Conservative Party will force banks to insure their risk.

• We will reform the regulatory system to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis. We will bring forward proposals to give the Bank of England control of macro-prudential regulation and oversight of micro-prudential regulation.

More "bring forward proposals" blah.

• We rule out joining or preparing to join the European Single Currency for the duration of this agreement.

Good.

• We will work with the Bank of England to investigate how the process of including housing costs in the CPI measure of inflation can be accelerated.

Quite right.

• We will create Britain’s first free national financial advice service, which will be funded in full from a new social responsibility levy on the financial services sector.

Which will be useless. It will be staffed by fakecharity types who wouldn't have a clue about how to decipher financial products.

• We take white collar crime as seriously as other crime, so we will create a single agency to take on the work of tackling serious economic crime that is currently done by, among others, the Serious Fraud Office, Financial Services Authority and Office of Fair Trading.

If the Conservatives seriously believed this then they would have barred a lot more MPs from standing over the expenses scandal.

Government Systems

One of the common mistakes about government is to assume that it's all a problem with New Labour, that replacing them with the Conservatives doing the same things will fix things, I present this report from the United States:-

In one instance, the spotlight forced the Department of Veterans Affairs to review 45 IT projects, ending 12 of the projects and saving $54 million, he said.

Yet he also said veterans still have to wait more than 160 days to receive benefits partly "because the VA is still passing manila envelopes" to process claims.

This isn't a British problem or a Labour problem. It is a problem of government as a system.

The Conservatives Cuts List

John Redwood has published a list of Conservatives Cuts. I have my thoughts after...

We recommended major changes in the way Whitehall works, and big cuts in the overhead costs. Our list of cuts included some now familiar items:
1. ID card scheme to be scrapped
2. Abolition of unelected regional government
3. Cutting the number of quangos
4. Recruitment freeze to cut the number of civil servants
5. Reduction in use of external consultants
6. Changing the culture of public sector management, with PM and Chancellor providing a lead for higher quality at less cost
7. Clarifying accountability so any higher paid staff that were retained had specific tasks and performance monitoring
8. More trials and fewer errors – always pilot new schemes before national roll out
9, Break public monopolies – competition will drive higher quality and lower cost
10. Reward best practise

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
4. No. OK. I want to see the number of civil servants reduced, but are the Conservatives saying that in every single area of government that we are overmanned to the point where natural wastage won't present problems? Because I don't and nor do the Conservatives (although most are overmanned).
5. So, you have a new government requirement because of an EU directive (which the tories will have to implement). Who's going to do the software considering that you've got a recruitment freeze and you aren't prepared to increase the level of consultants?
6. Naive stupidity, as though leadership by one group influences people (rather than incentives).
7. Target bollocks which will be written in haste and the civil servants will game the shit out of.
8. More bollocks. Some things can't be targetted except nationally.
9. Yes. But I'll believe it when I see it from this lot.
10. See point 7.

The real problem with all this is it is soundbite simplification which will be translated into terrible policy. It's "across the board" bollocks and it never works. It requires:-

1) Working out what you want government to do.
2) Planning how to organise that
3) Adding or subtracting the required number of staff to do that in the right places.

Broken Government

From The Telegraph:-

Why does modern British government make so many mistakes and such big and costly ones at that? This question is vexing two of the country’s leading political academics – Anthony King, professor of government at Essex University, and Sir Ivor Crewe, Master of University College, Oxford – who have embarked on a research project to see if they can find the answer. In this endeavour they claim the support of serving ministers, civil servants and shadow cabinet spokesmen who may well be occupying ministerial offices from next year. They all want to know, too, as do the rest of us.

My solutions to the Conservatives are simple:-

1) Less government. It basically works badly around the world, so limit it to what you have to do.
2) Less complexity. Of the things you have to do, simplify them (like tax). You'll need less people and projects will run smoother.
3) Stop chasing today's headlines. Be prepared to sometimes challenge the press and the electorate in the short term.

But if you're a Conservative shadow cabinet spokesman and you can't figure it out, then we really are fucked for 5 years.

Remember... These Moronic Bastards Will Be Gone Soon

Whatever else you can say about David Cameron's Conservatives, I have little doubt that as of June 3rd next year, we'll see a rather quick unwinding of this sort of crap:-

Labour is opening up a new front in its obsession with equal rights. It wants to stamp out prejudice against... Northerners.

OK, this sounds like a bit of dog-whistle politics to keep the heartlands voting Labour. All those people who sit on their arse blaming the south for their lack of a job, despite there frequently being jobs in the neighbouring town*.

Mr Foster was challenged by Yorkshire MP Meg Munn to stop people from the South East dominating the boards of public bodies based in London but that have a national remit.

Can you just hear yourself, Ms Munn? Can you?

London is in the South East of the UK. Therefore, it's more likely that they're going to employ people from... the South East.

But the other thing is that it's Ms Munn and her colleagues in the Labour Party who have done this. They've taken the money from people's pockets in places like Sheffield and inflated the size of government by creating numerous pointless quangos and fake charities with London/South East offices. Roll back the state, and you'll see a lot more power devolved back to Yorkshire.

* At the time that I did some work for a client in Warrington, they had almost no unemployment despite it only being 20 minutes on the train from Manchester.