Mr. Griffin Goes To London

I decided to do an entry about Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time about three minutes after the programme started. Interesting to see how well it leads on from Telf's entry directly before this one. As the show is still very much in full swing, I'll give some of my observations thusfar in bullet point form:

• As I expected, the BBC has made sure it is well-armed to make sure those who are outraged at Nick Griffin's appearance on the show are somewhat appeased and not given further ammunition against the BBC. Griffin almost immediately began declaring himself as a person wronged on a number of fronts, in particular by the papers and by other political parties. I'm glad that the shows researchers have given David Dimbleby an arsenal of quotations by Griffin that he can't dispute.
• To my mind, Nick Griffin seems like a fairly unintelligent man, but not too bad a politician. His evidence is continually coming from flimsy or vague sources (such as "many scientists" and "online" to name two that have come from Griffin in the last ten minutes). He is very able, however, when faced with a point or a question which he doesn't want to directly answer or tackle, to respond with an attack on another party to deflect the attention away from his own views.
  
• I'm glad that some time has been dedicated to showing Nick Griffin, and the BNP as a whole, as a fairly loose example of a political party that is roundly disliked by the the vast majority of people in the studio, both panellists and audience. As expected, a few members of the audience are there in support of Griffin and his organisation, but this just serves to show that things are not being presented in a totally one-sided way.
• I'm glad that a significant portion of the show has been given over to other topical issues, such as the Jan Moir article on Stephen Gately, and points which are directly questioning or criticising the other parties that are present.
• Bonnie Greer seems like a wonderful and intelligent woman who I'd like to find out a lot more about.
• Griffin is being asked about all the issues coming up throughout the show, and so is truly being treated as a panellist and not a punchbag. In my opinion, he's not holding up well, either seeming vague on the issues being presented or simply just riling many people further with needlessly agressive views.
• Overall, after seeing the show, I'm glad Nick Griffin was allowed on. He was given an equal standing from the start and allowed to argue his way down from that level by himself throughout. True, he was criticised a great deal, but he also offered out a fair amount of criticism , and so to me it never seemed like an unfair situation. Basically, Griffin came across as the blinkered idiot he is, who just happens to know how to twist a conversation.
  
• BBC One must be wetting themselves over their viewing figures this evening.
  
• Political debate? For the most part. Putting Griffin in the stocks? Not as far as I can see. Publicity stunt? Definitely.

That might be a bit all over the place, so I may follow up with a more structured entry tomorrow. But hopefully that's got across my take on the event at the time/soon after it happened.

The time for questions is now...

I'm out of the house tonight, so won't be able to watch Nick Griffin on Question Time, but I will certainly be watching it as soon as possible after the event. David Aaronovitch has written a great piece about the situation, pointing out some things to keep an eye out for, and giving some suggestions as to what the panellists could focus on.

I particularly agree with his second point: the BNP leader being present is not the point of the programme, despite that being its most newsworthy aspect. He should be treated as any other guest, and be expected to give his views on all the issues raised, whether or not they involve his areas of particular rhetoric. I would almost love to see a programme in which immigration and race does not come up, and he's forced to mumble on about the environment or the economy without being able to crowbar in any sort of message of his own.

Point four is also important, and if he manages to walk the tightrope of decency, and avoids saying anything inflammatory, it is important to avoid throwing the first stone. If everyone attacks him from the off on everything he says, then any real moments of controversy will fail to stand out, and he will continue to play the victim card.

So, I look forward to seeing what kind of questions come up and how Griffin responds to the opportunity to express his views to such a wide audience and whether any of the points in Aaronovitch's article come up.

Political debate

Apologies for the potentially long, boring, misguided and excessively political ramblings that follow. My attempts to get post-material from the day's news may produce results that are far less entertaining than readers would hope...

There's been quite a lot of press coverage about Nick Griffin of the BNP appearing on an upcoming episode of Question Time, most recently concerning the threats of a legal challenge, should they proceed.

Personally, I think that the idea of denying a platform to groups we (as a societal majority) disagree with is dubious at the best of times, and that denying a platform to that group once they actually represent people in a democratic capacity is verging on dangerous. Nick Griffin, as an MEP for Britain, represents us politically, however much many of us may disagree with his views, and to try to block him from appearing alongside other elected representatives on a political programme would smack of bias. That bias (i.e. anti-BNP sentiment) being held by a majority doesn't make it any less of a bias, and surely the BBC should not take that into account when deciding on a panel.

The argument against a generally-opposed group appearing alongside more established parties is ordinarily that it gives them an aura of respectability, and that to paint them as an acceptable choice is a bad idea when they are simply a minority with an extreme view - a meaningless choice on the ballot paper for those with similar prejudices. This argument becomes weaker as the BNP become an active representational political force, however, since opposition to them where such opposition is not shown to similarly unpopular parties (polls-wise, at least), begins to look like discrimination. Are we really comfortable as a society saying that the views of the BNP are so toxic that we dare not debate with them in public, in case it does more harm than good? If so, that shows serious misgivings either about our ability to argue against them or against the medium of debate.

I would seriously worry about any party or politician who showed concern about the first point there. Unwillingness to debate with someone who you disagree with because you are concerned about being unable to stand up to them is a sign of a poor debater or of a poor ideology. A politician with either of these characteristics would do well to re-examine his profession.

On the other hand, I have much more sympathy for concern about the second point. If we are worried about giving the BNP a platform because that platform can be exploited, then we need to think about changing the rules of the platform. Question time is certainly not a perfect medium for debate. Like any television debate, it is time-limited and vulnerable to soundbite domination by someone with a quick mind. Someone trying to make a point can be entirely drowned out by another guest who is louder and more forceful. With five people talking at once, valid points are not always returned to, and useful lines of reasoning can be lost.

As with anything presented for mainstream consumption, it cannot be rigorous debate, because that is not entertaining enough for broadcast. Although it would be interesting to see each argument the BNP put forward being torn apart by a team of analysts with the full backing of a database of statistics, and all the time they needed to construct a perfectly-worded rebuttal, it would not make BBC primetime, and would not be watched by enough people to make a difference in public opinion.

So what are we left with? We can ban the BNP from appearing on question time because we disagree with their view and we worry that within the boundaries of the programme we would not be able to stop them coming out looking reasonable and supportable, or we can challenge them in a more rigorous environment that will get no press and no interest.

There's no easy answer, but I would argue that it is better to get the arguments against the BNP out in the open as quickly as possible and avoid the appearance of a society so afraid of an extreme ideology that it must ban it from the airwaves lest it infect more people. If we keep treating the BNP as a special case, they will continue to claim that they are underdogs, treated badly because no one understands them. Proving their arguments do not stand up is the only way to stop them looking like an acceptable choice that is unfairly picked on, and if we need to debate with them in non-ideal conditions to do this, then that is the risk we must take.

Transparently ludicrous

Politics and media are something which I talk about a fair amount on here (often, admittedly at far too great a length and backed up by little or no knowledge or research), but politics affects us all, and media is a vital important tool in modern politics, so excuse me for a moment if I ramble on about it for a while.

The power of the news media in modern western countries is a double edged sword. On the one hand they inform us on every aspect of day to day political life, which, as well as being useful in its own right, also ensures that any shady dealings are more likely to be brought to light, which, in an ideal world, perhaps, keeps the politicians honest. On the other hand, of course, no section of the media is without its biases, and since as a whole they have what almost amounts to a monopoly on the information the public receive about politics, they can (if not explicitly, then inadvertently) lend their own weighting to issues. This leads to small stories being blown out of proportion, while potentially more important ones are ignored. And since most of us get our opinion of what is important in politics from the media (even if we try to stay objective, none of us has time to do our own research), this colours our views of politician and the political scene.

This post isn't about my opinion of the news media and its pros and cons, though. It's about how I believe politicians can do more to help the media be the best it can. And it's about Barack Obama (I know, I have like three set topics I talk about on here, huh).

Over the last few weeks, Obama has been releasing video clips addressing the public, describing his (and his soon-to-be-administration's) views on the issues of the moment (usually the economy, so far, unsurprisingly). These have been received well in general, and allow Obama to try to keep a human face on his presidency, as he descends into the maelstrom of bureaucracy and spin that is the White House.

The clips are being released on YouTube, as well as various other places, and are in keeping with the Obama campaigns ability to use the web effectively as a tool for organisation and communication. Looking at the Obama/Biden transition website confirms this too, as it outlines a huge number of policy objectives across the political spectrum, as well as invitations for the public to submit their own pressing issues to ensure that nothing has been forgotten.

In these senses, then, Obama is certainly using the internet, but I would love to see him using it more effectively and more fully. The video clips are a great gimmick, and an excellent way of connecting the administration directly to the public in a personal way, but are also too short to be of any real significance. With only three minutes per video, there's no time to really discuss the issues he raises. The video acts like a bullet point, when what I would like to see, and what I think would be more useful is a paragraph, or even an essay.

I'm not saying that the videos should be hours long and discuss each policy objective in interminable detail, indeed I think aside from the occasional longer one on a particular occasion, the videos are doing as much as they can do. Instead, what I would like to see is a real flow of information out of the White House and into the public eye. Not necessarily through the single outlet of the press room and the news media, but through the internet. The problem with a three minute video clip is that it forces a politician to sound the way they sound on the election trail, vague, well meaning, optimistic, and idealistic. Full of soundbites and slogans to catch the viewers interest. But sometime we want more than that, especially once the election is over, and the real work of governing begins. We want to know why decisions were made, why one policy is preferred to another, why this tax is going up and this one is going down, why this law is being repealed, and that one is being tightened. Exactly why, too. Not a soundbite, but an argument, backed up with statistics. And a public argument, facing up to the concerns and fears of the voters and of the political opposition. Not spin, unless you describe any government release as spin, but an honest account of what the government is doing, day to day, meeting to meeting, law to law.

Imagine a database of public-directed, government-released information, accessible online (and I'm not talking just about America and Obama here, he was merely the trigger for this - it can be imagined for any country). Kind of a combination of a rolling manifesto and the responses to petitions on the Downing street website. Every policy decision outlined in as much detail as possible. Opposition questions and complaints predicted and addressed (and with the database updated with new responses as new queries arise). An account of every vote and every meeting. Every government study and independent body would have their results released here, and every law discussed would be spelled out and broken down.

If a government is confident in their stance on a particular issue, then there should be no problem with this sort of public log of their intentions, their progress and their successes. And if a government is not confident of allowing public scrutiny of their intentions and decisions, then I would suggest that those intentions and decisions may need to be re-thought.

This kind of undertaking would be the best possible way to inform the public on government intentions and reasoning. The public, the media and the opposition would all be able to look at the argument put up by the government (and backed up by statistics and testimony) before responding. The government would be able to clearly and easily respond to specific concerns raised by any of these bodies, and it would be much harder for the party in power to be accused of dodging questions, or avoiding giving straight answers.

By building up a database of the governmental thought process, as it were, an administration also protects themselves to some extent against future queries about previous decisions. Why did the government decide to spend rather than save at this point? Well let's check the records and find the exact reasoning. Why was this policy supported, rather than something more strict, or more relaxed? Here's an article describing the pros and cons of each option, and the decisions that were taken in getting to a final choice. Links are provided, of course, to transcriptions or minutes of appropriate meetings and to any statistical reports or data used in the process.

Logistically, clearly, it is not something that could just be created overnight, and it would need to be built up over time (maybe it's even so impractical that it would be impossible to find the money or the manpower to support it), but I can't see any real reason why it would not work as a concept, and it seems to me that this kind of transparency would be a great antidote to the constant accusations of spin levelled at politicians.

Have the database run by an independent body if necessary, to avoid claims of government interference, ensure all data changes are logged, and all changes and additions read and approved by someone in some kind of authority.

Of course, all of this is based on my possibly ludicrously idealistic notion that it is possible to have a spin-free government, that takes responsibility for all of its actions, works constantly for the good of the country rather than the good of the party, and is confident enough about itself to be open, honest and accountable at all times. If that sort of government is something that can never happen, then the idea of any kind of transparent record of activity is clearly a pipe dream, and the best we can hope for is the twice-filtered reports from the news media. Though the idea that honest government is impossible would, I think, be a rather depressing outlook.

44th

It seemed like too much to hope for almost two years ago when he stood up on a cold February day in Illinois and announced that he was running for president. It seemed like something from fiction - something that the world, with all of its pain and hatred and cynicism would not allow to happen.

He can give a good speech, we said, but where's his experience? This isn't a local senate race - how can a Democrat honestly take on the Clintons, with all their influence and money and entitlement, and expect to win. America isn't ready for a black president, one step at a time. Back down, some said - don't rock the boat - get behind a more electable figure and wait your turn. Maybe in four years, or eight. Don't risk dividing the party over a pipe dream.

Even with the nomination gathered we were fearful. Sure, you can triumph against people who broadly share your views, but that's not a real triumph - what about the Republican smear machine? What will you do against the power of Karl Rove and Fox News? It's difficult enough for an old white Democrat to fight them, how does a relatively young, inexperienced black man expect to take on a war hero like McCain with all the backing and experience of the GOP's electoral team?

And yet last night the world watched into the early hours as America said that it was ready to take the next step, that it was ready for a change, ready for a Democrat, and ready for an African-American. We watched as Pennsylvania, visited by the Republicans 21 times during the campaign, threw itself behind him, closely followed by Ohio, home of Joe the Plumber. With no sign of the Bradley effect, Republicans were talking about what went wrong from the start of the night, and the BBC's coverage had all but named the new president from the start of the programme. With the race too close to call in four key states, we had to wait until 4am GMT for the big projection, as California and Washington state put their weight behind senator Barack Obama and pushed him over the magic 270 electoral votes.

There were many other states backing him, of course. In Virginia, where the populous north was described as not "real Virginia" by the Republicans, the north did its work, and took the state to the Democrats by four points. Florida finally threw off the memories of 2000, and turned itself blue, followed later by Indiana, which overturned a 20 point Republican margin from 2004. North Carolina, another solidly red state for eight years was too close to call through into this morning, with Obama holding onto a slender lead.

We watched McCain appear in Arizona and give a humble and gracious concession speech and then drove home listening to Obama's magnificent victory speech. In two and a half months time, he'll take on a country with huge financial, social and military problems both at home and abroad, without a filibuster-proof senate majority, and with a crippling global economic climate to contend with. It turns out the last 21 months of scrapping and debating and smears and slurs and great speeches and personal revelations and media scrutiny and rumours and robo-calls and polls and predictions and ups and downs was actually the easy bit. The real work starts here, and I couldn't be more confident in his ability to take it on.

Unbelieveable?

There's an interesting post from UK Polling Report, talking about the factors that might cause people to change their mind about a political candidate, if discovered. The results are interesting, and the post goes through them in a bit more detail, but the one that stands out to me is the one concerning atheism.

While in the UK only 20% would refuse to vote for an atheist, similar to the numbers for a gay or Muslim candidate, in the US the number was 53%. Note the question:

If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an atheist, would you vote for that person?

So 53% of the American electorate would refuse to vote for a member of their own party who happened to be an atheist. That is, given the binary presidential situation in the US, they would consider someone whose views they broadly agreed with (except, presumably, on religion) to be unsuitable for office, and would either actively help, or passively allow, someone with opposing political views to get into office instead.

Clearly, there is the possibility that some people may have answered a question that was not asked (Would you like an atheist to be president), instead of considering the exact phrasing of the query, but if we assume that this is not a large number (since otherwise the survey results are obviously useless), this means that 53% of the electorate would put the issue of their candidate's personal view on religion above all other issues. They might agree with their candidate on the economy, on immigration, on healthcare, on education, on Iraq, on oil, on the environment, on everything but whether God exists or not, and that would be enough for them to prefer someone who disagrees with them on all those matters to become president.

Perhaps in reality people would react differently - 38% of conservatives said they wouldn't vote for someone who was 72 years old, but McCain doesn't seem to have dropped that much of the Republican vote, suggesting that some of those could be won round by other factors. Also there is no allowance for the opponent's views, which could affect voters, or the existance of third candidates (which would seem to become more important if one of the major parties fielded a candidate with one of these "problem" characteristics).

Overall, the results pretty much exclude an 'out-of-the-closet' atheist candidate from openly appearing in any electoral race, simply because they will not be able to guarantee enough votes from their base to get official backing. They'll never get the votes because there is a large backdrop of prejudice against them across the board, and so they'd get no significant financial backing or public endorsements.

Looking at the historical data that's also linked, running as an atheist candidate today would be roughly equivalent to running as a woman in 1945, or as an African-American in 1958, both of which would be candidates running so much against ingrained prejudice as to have no chance of winning.

I'd encourage people to glance through the other results in those posts, too - there's lots of interesting data there on other demographics and historical comparisons.

So, would you vote for an atheist? And if not, why not?

Bartlet for America!

Martin Sheen is not getting nearly enough love in today's IMDB poll. Get out there and vote people!

Happiness? You don't know the meaning of the word.

A pretty reasonable post from Labour MP Tom Harris' on his blog caused a certain kerfuffle (less than a ruckus, greater than a to-do) last week, when it was picked up by the media. Keen to perpetuate the worst stereotypes of their profession, they twisted his words out of context and tried to turn them into something more than simple observation. The discussion that followed was interesting, in particular, Tom Harris' various responses to being suddenly thrust into the spotlight, and the follow-ups from the less sensationalist portions of the media.

A few things occurred to me reading through these over the last week or so. The first is that the idea of MPs running blogs is a good one. Tom Harris' may be an exception, but from what I've seen since I started following him, his posts are thoughtful and accessible. Having an outlet like this would be an excellent way for MPs to connect with the public without having to go through the media, lessening the risk of their words being twisted to manufacture headlines. Rather than being a waste of time, it could be an invaluable resource for public scrutiny (though no doubt if it becomes a more widely accepted practice, there may be some level of party censorship).

The only way that this can happen, of course, is if the MPs know that they are not going to be dragged onto the front of the Mail every time they say anything interesting. As Harris himself asks: "Am I being too optimistic in expecting a grown-up debate about this?". Unfortunately, I fear that hoping for grown up debate is indeed too optimistic.

People look to newspapers to filter news for them, and to provide legitimate comment. They do this because they don't have time themselves to read the sources, talk to those involved, and sift through the data. If we lose trust in the papers to deliver the truth, we'll go somewhere else (unless we don't want the truth, but that's a whole 'nother argument), but most of us haven't lost that trust yet. Papers still have an enormous power to deliver information to the masses, and if it is anticipated that they will abuse that power, we will see less passion and independence from our politicians, and more blandness and party rhetoric.

On the point of our generation being less "happy" than our parents' or grandparents', I'd say it's almost an impossible thing to measure. The explosion of communication technology makes us more aware of the potential highs and lows around us, and puts us into a situation almost unimaginable to earlier generations. A child today grows up surrounded daily by media images of total excess and total deprivation. Flicking channels between Big Brother and pictures of dying children in Somalia, between Wayne Rooney's wedding and the Chinese earthquake, between glossy, airbrushed, models and suicide bombers. To try to compare that kind of graphic exposure to extremes with the local communities and 'make-do-and-mend' attitude of earlier generations in terms of "happiness" is not only impossible, but also incorrect. I'm not a psychologist, but it seems like such simple terms are not useful to describe or analyse things that are different in so many ways.

That was a bit rambling, but I think I covered everything I wanted to.

The answer to life, the universe and everything?

That is all.

Service improvement program

There was a BBC report at the weekend about the decision of four police services to drop the government targets on crime and to use their own 'common sense' approach to prioritising. Government targets and the problems associated with them are a regular feature of the older posts on coppersblog, along with almost any blog dealing with people working in public services, as well as numerous documentaries, reports and so on.

Essentially the complaint is that by recording and judging services (and departments, and people, and everything) on particular formulaic and numerical criteria, and using the results to produce a ranking from 'best' to 'worst', the targets encourage cheating. Not because the people cheating are trying to disrupt the statistics, or because they are incompetent, or because they are evil, but simply because it makes sense.

Hospitals who are judged on the proportion of patients who have beds and who sleep in wards need to find ways to increase the numbers of beds and wards. The intention of the targets is to prompt hospitals to spend their money doing the best for the patients by paying for these new facilities, but what actually happens is that the permanently-strapped-for-cash hospital reclassifies gurneys as beds and corridors as wards. Hey Presto! More beds, more wards, and everyone's numbers go up. The patients don't "lose out" as such, because they were sleeping on gurneys in corridors anyway, and the money can be spent on other (equally vital) areas.

Similarly, police forces that are judged on the number of 'detections' they make, are being encouraged by the targets to find detections everywhere. Why commit 4 officers to a murder investigation that may take weeks and never get solved, when you could have those officers "solving" domestic disputes, that take far less time and so can provide a far better crime-prevention rate. A kid kicks a ball through a window? Criminal damage. The parents get into a fight about it? Two counts of assault. One incident, one morning's work, three detections, and everyone's numbers look better.

The police officers and hospital staff are not being intentionally divisive in this regard, but they are simply doing what they're told. Their bosses know that if their service comes near the bottom of the 'rankings' they are going to be in trouble, so they need to get their numbers up however they can. This pressure feeds down through the organisation, and everyone is encouraged to concentrate on the numbers rather than on the 'common sense' approach to the tasks. The price, of course, of not following this pattern, is that your numbers don't look so good, you are reprimanded by a watchdog, and heads roll at the top. Everyone pats themselves on the back - once again, the numbers spotted a low-performing service, and action was taken to improve it.

Clearly this is a hugely sub-par way to run public services, and it is a problem caused entirely by the implementation of the government targets. So what are the options to improve this? Well, firstly, there is the option most often spouted by exasperated commentators: to remove the targets system entirely, reduce the amount of paperwork dramatically, "get the police back out on the streets" and go back, presumably to some sort of inspection system. I disagree with this approach because I think the 'targets' system has some advantages that it would be a pity to lose. I agree that the police, for example, need to have far less paperwork (as I mention previously here), but I think that that is a separate problem from that of the targets. I think that the collection of process data is hugely useful, and if it can be done with an efficiency that allows officers to effectively carry out their jobs at the same time, then it is something that should be continued.

The problem seems instead to be with the way that the data is collected. Rather than asking for detection rates, and ranking organisations on their relative performance, something that breeds a subservience to the formula that calculates rank, I think it'd be much more effective to have the formula itself be hidden. Data collected from the services would be analysed in conjunction with the organisation themselves to look for areas of improvement using a number of different criteria that might change over time. The most important aspect of it, though, would be that the organisations were not aiming for a simple measurable factor. Rather than being able to attempt to maximise 'detections', they would be reporting all their raw data, and the analysis would be ongoing. If it was reported that people were attempting to skew the results in a particular way, the analysis could be altered to take it into account.

In addition, the results of the analysis could be presented as a series of recommendations, rather than a score or ranking. Recommendations that would be tailored to an organisation's particular situation. The main argument against this, would, I suppose, be that the organisations would have less motivation to provide good services without the public shaming of a low ranking. However this could be combated through the additional recognition of particular improvement or decline in service quality. Again, it would be related to the local situation, so a police service in rural Wales would be judged on different criteria than the Met.

Finally, the involvement of the organisations in the process would be an indication of the point of the analysis, not to name and shame "failing" organisations or people, but to provide an indication of performance and pointers for improvement. In particular this is important for public services, since the point is not to increase profit margins, but to provide a good service to the public. In this regard, then, the government and the organisation have the same aim, and should be able to work together. With the involvement of the organisations, local targets could be ensured to be appropriate and achievable.

After the system had run for a few years, it might be possible to make national comparisons, or to provide more general analysis of multiple organisations, but only if it can be done without losing the focus on improving services.

Not only am I now rambling, but in talking about "improving services" I'm starting to sound like a government press release. In any case, I think that things can be done to improve the system of government targets without scrapping the whole thing, and it's something that niggles me whenever people talk about the target system as though it was an absolute evil. I'm not an expert (or even an amateur) in the area, and, for all I know, what I've written is complete bollocks. What do you think?

In the Brown Stuff

Andrew Rawnsley has a great post on the current situation facing Gordon Brown and Labour. I think I pretty much agree with everything he says in the article, and have very little else to add to it. Not that I won't just regurgitate his argument as though it were my own:

While the polls suggest that a conservative victory in the next General Election is pretty much a certainty, there are still two years to go and Labour have two choices: It's unlikely that Gordon can turn things round enough to give Labour victory, but if he concentrates on fixing and improving one or two key areas to a noticable degree, it may be enough to prevent a Tory landslide. Alternatively, he can step down (or be pushed down) and let someone else in. The problem with this second option is that it makes the party look indecisive (three leaders in two years), while also potentially causing huge internal rifts during a long leadership contest. In addition, the eventual winner would still be unlikely to take victory in two years. However, it would allow any improvements that were made in the tenure of the new PM to be free from the taint that Gordon currently has associated with him.

I don't really mind who's "in charge", personally, since I think that it's general policy rather than personality that is causing the problem. Back when the Tories were self destructing every ten minutes there was less scrutiny on Labour, but with a coherent opposition it's much more difficult to paper over mistakes, and every slip up gets dragged out and exploited for all it's worth. This is no time for risky and unpopular policies - perhaps With a landslide victory just won, but not when you're trailing more than 20 points in the polls, and with just two years to go in a worsening economy. Ideas like the terror-detention-limit extension and ID card introduction are both bad ideas, and ideas that need time to get right if implemented. Trying to rush them through quickly now is only going to provide more fodder to the opposition.

The best thing that could happen in the next month would be for Gordon to drop the ludicrous terror-limit extension, pick up two or three areas that have improved under Labour and consolidate them. Bad press will never go away completely, but if he can offer some antidote to it (and something more than statistics), there is time left for Gordon (or anyone) to salvage something from this government's time in power. What it needs, as Rawnsley makes clear, is for Gordon to stop trying to please everyone and to concentrate on doing what he believes is best for Britain. People may still say he's wrong, but it's more difficult to question the character of someone who sticks to their principles.

---

On a less up-my-own-arse note, I've managed to find and download an episode of the oddly named 'To Catch a Predator' (which seems to be missing the worrying clause 'Set a Predator...' from the beginning of it). I tried to find a clip of Charlie Brooker talking about it from his series (which, if you have not seen, you must see), but YouTube has sadly failed me. Instead you'll have to deal with boring old text from his Guardian blog.

The program itself is exactly as distressing as it sounds, and is rife with the most irritating kind of American TV editing (30% of the programme is flashing back or forward to clips from the same episode, with a 'previously' or 'coming up' tagged on). If you can bear that, though there's the chance to see people's lives falling apart in a few brief moments on camera.

The episode I watched was from the 9th installment, and the most incredible thing about it was the number of those men (and they are all men) involved who had seen the show previously, and even commented on it in the chatroom conversations. They mention the risks of the whole thing being a sting, talk about previous episodes of the programme, and still turn up at the kid's house.

Adding this level of "it couldn't possibly happen to me" thinking to the idiocy of getting themselves into the situation in the first place give the whole thing a slightly dream-like feeling (if one verging on the nightmarish). When the presenter emerges, the reaction of the men is (from the single episode I saw) remarkably calm. They don't scream and shout or act violently, but mostly remain totally civilized, as though a middle aged man walking in on their solicitation was the most normal thing in the world. They're frozen in the bizarre non-threatening suburban setting, unable to escape their obvious guilt, but desperately trying to appear normal in case there is the slightest chance they can talk themselves out of it.

They chat calmly for a while, sometimes apologising, promising they'll never do it again, hoping against hope that the show is not associated with the police, and that they'll get away without legal action. When the host confirms that he's with the TV company, and is not an officer of the law, some turn and leave immediately, imagining perhaps that their mere presence is not incriminating enough, only to run straight into the arms of the police outside.

Some of the men try to claim that they were only there to wait for the child's parents to return, or that they were there to warn the child of the dangers of what they were doing; claims that are rendered somewhat less believable by the discovery of condoms, lubricant and sex toys on their person and in their cars.

Some simply sit and mumble - saying they don't know what they were thinking or why they are there. Without knowing how much they can admit to and how much trouble they're already in, their vague answers make them sound like they've just woken from a bad dream to find they've been sleep-walking, sleep-typing and sleep-soliciting.

Finally, some of the participants react more like people who've been caught by a clever hidden-camera game show than people facing between two and ten years in jail for trying to have sex with a child. "I knew it!" one shouts, "I knew it was a set up!".

I don't know what their reactions say about modern society, but I'm sure it's nothing good.

Economy of beer.

I've got a friend who's an investment banker. This means he's pretty knowledgeable on economic issues. He's also politically conservative, so we argue quite a lot. When we talk about economics, I have to refuse to argue points, because if I try, I'll lose. Not necessarily because I'm holding the wrong position (though clearly sometimes I am), but because he can make complex economic statements (about 'growth' and 'interest' and 'recession' and other important sounding words) that he doesn't have to defend, because I don't have the knowledge to attack them. This is pretty annoying.

The point of this post, though, isn't to point out how annoyed I am that I can't argue economic points with him, but to paste an email he sent me today:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

As someone who can't argue about economics, naturally, I can't address this with any hope of being right, but if I were to try to, I'd probably say that

• buying beer in a bar is not analogous to tax, which funds vital public services without which society couldn't function.
  
• an arbitrary drop in the cost of beer is not analogous to a tax decrease, which would require a decrease in service quality or a massive increase in service efficiency.
• the reaction of the less well off to the better off is unrealistic - complain, yes, 'beat up', no. And if the beating up of the rich person was a clever analogy for something else, then it passed me by. Yes, people are envious of those richer than themselves. D'you know what the compensation for being envied is? Having a lot of money.
• it's interesting that the rich man at the end of the analogy decides to stop helping those that don't appreciate him and move his money to places with 'friendlier' atmosphere towards him and his money. Without him, they can't buy beer (for which read access schools, hospitals or recieve welfare). But what do they matter to the rich man - he's found somewhere that 'appreciates' his money more, and that's what's important.

Clearly there is an important point here - we are dependent to a large extent on the money brought in from taxing high earners, and there is a careful balancing act involved in taking as much as possible from them without taking so much that they leave for a country with more favourable rates.

I don't know what the answer is (see first paragraph), but I don't think this kind of over-simplified analogy helps us get any closer to one.

Choices.

Earlier this week the government defeated a number of amendments looking to reduce the number of weeks during which a woman could seek an abortion. Abortion is always a slightly touchy subject to discuss, given that the issues can cover both the ethical and the spiritual, and combined with the fact that as a young man I have no first hand experience with the issues involved, it might seem strange to discuss it at all. I do feel, however, that it is a subject that should be discussed, partly because debate is important in any decision that we as a society have to make, and partly because it is a decision which, pretty much by definition, is unprepared for, and for anyone who might be involved in making or helping to make such a decision in the future, it seems a good idea to at least have an idea of where you stand. And, as a third, more selfish, reason, I am always interested to see where people stand on controversial or divisive issues, and this one is certainly one of those.

So where do I stand? Well, firstly, I'm pro-choice - I believe that abortion should be legal and available to anyone who needs or wants it. There are always going to be situations in which abortion is desperately wanted by the woman (whether for medical, situational or social reasons), and to outright prevent her from having legal access to this service will lead many women to deal with it themselves, a situation I can't imagine anyone looking to promote.

In addition, those who are against abortion altogether (assuming that they are not also against contraception) are essentially saying that at the point at which the mass of cells becomes embedded in the wall of the uterus, something changes to cause it to become sacred. A moment before and it can be flushed away with a pill without recrimination; a moment after and it becomes a human life as valuable as any other. This has always seemed to me to be a fairly bizarre position to hold.

Once we're past a simple yes/no, though, the main question is, of course, where we draw the line. As with any situation in which a line must be drawn, it is very difficult to argue for a particular positioning of it. I imagine all people would say there should be some end-limit, since by the point of birth, a baby is undeniably human, so the question becomes how late we allow that process to go. A reasonable barometer might be the ability of the foetus to survive outside of the womb, which, even with current medical advances has never occurred before 21 weeks, and rises to 50% probability at the current limit of 24 weeks. I can't think of a measure better than this to use, since the question at stake is essentially at what point the "value" of a foetus' life becomes equivalent to that of a newborn, and any other 'measurement' of humanity (such as the appearance of particular organs, or similarity in appearance to a baby) will be far more subjective.

In any case, the vast majority of abortions (98.5%) are carried out before 20 weeks is up, and 90% before 12 weeks, so only in a small number of cases are these decisions about whether a foetus has the value of a human life even applicable. In addition, abortions at later stages are not available everywhere, so although the legal limit is 24 weeks, the local limit in practice may be much lower for particular areas.

So if only 1.5% of abortions were going to be affected by this change in the law, why were both sides so up in arms about it. Primarily, of course, because it's a subject that inspires high emotions in both pro-choice and -life camps, but also because the lack of real scientific impetus in either direction makes it a battle of principles, of personal morals and of beliefs. So in this ultimately abstract argument over whether to drop 4 weeks off of the limit, why do I oppose the amendment? Primarily because there is no scientific reason to do it (which would be the argument most likely to persuade me) and that moving the limit back with no good reason sends entirely the wrong message. It says that the morality of abortion can be defined in discussion, and can change according to persuasion and debate, without a need for scientific breakthrough. It says that women who have had abortions after 20 weeks before now were morally in the wrong (since the law must have been wrong for all those years). It would be treated as a victory that would reduce the decision time for pregnant women, increase the complexity of providing a medically necessary abortion after 20 weeks and would most likely save no lives.

A couple of things struck me while I was doing the minimal reading required to hold an opinion on this issue. The first is that the law covering when an abortion can be given seems incredibly ambiguous. It can only be given if two doctors agree that continuing the pregnancy would be more damaging than aborting it. So there is no provision for voluntary abortion as such, which instead is performed on the basis that continuing to term with an unwanted pregnancy would be more emotionally damaging that the abortion procedure. This means that a doctor who holds abortion to be wrong can prevent his patients from having one (at least under his jurisdiction) while an identical patient elsewhere could get approval. This seems to be unneccessarily flexible - if the law is intended to allow voluntary, legal termination, then it should say so, and if not then it should prohibit it. Either way, it seems bizarre that the beliefs of a particular practitioner should be allowed to interfere with and delay individuals seeking legal procedures.

The second thing that occurred to me was that of how MPs should vote. Gordon Brown apparently released Labour MPs to vote as they wanted, but should they be voting to their beliefs or to the beliefs of their electorate? It depends, I guess, how you interpret representational democracy - do we elect the person the personal views of which best represent our own, or do we elect someone we trust to transfer our views into law, whether or not they personally agree with them? I don't know the answer, but it seems interesting that an MP could be voting against the wishes of their constituents based on their own personal beliefs.

In any case, the amendments were defeated, and the limit remains at 24 weeks. A success for pro-choice campaigners, even if nothing was really gained. Looking at the percentages, however, there were warning signs as to the result of any subsequent vote under a conservative government - while 80% of Labour MPs voted against the amendment, 84% of conservatives voted for it, so under a Tory government, we could be looking at a swift change of policy on this issue.

I'm not sure how that will stand up to scrutiny, but I wanted to write something, as too often I see topical issues I have an opinion on and then leave it too late to write anything meaningful. More interesting than what I have said (from my position of non-expert, zero-experience, internet-tutored male) is what you guys think - where do you stand on abortion, and on the defeat of the amendment earlier in the week?

---

some resources I used (in addition to wikipedia):
netdoctor: abortion
abortion law

Poll dancing.

During the last general election I was away from home, so today was the first time I've been able to go and cast my vote in person. I got up and left the house 15 minutes early and headed over to the community centre on the local estate, accompanied by my mum. It was very quiet and relaxed - a few people already there, on the way to work, but no queues - and we wandered up to the desk to collect our forms.

No ID required, just the production of my voting card, and verbal confirmation that I was in fact who I claimed to be, and I was on my way to the booth. The whole thing reminded me a little bit like an exam - the silence, the colour coded pieces of paper with bold clear instructions on, and the constant threat that any wrong move might invalidate the whole thing. I successfully negotiated placing my four crosses (two for mayor, one for local council, one for London Assembly) on my three pieces of paper, dropped them all in the box, and headed back outside.

As far as the mayoral contest goes, I've not been as diligent as perhaps I should have with regard to investigating policies and reading manifestos, but given that the whole thing has become so media heavy and personality-based that I'm surprised text-voting isn't valid, I don't think my lack of specific knowledge will look out of place. My vote is, of course, secret, and it would be a drastic invasion of my privacy for anyone to question me about it, but suffice to say, if any smug, floppy-haired, Tory buffoons are elected tomorrow, it'll not be by my hand.

Priorities

There's a year between them, so clearly some of the difference in numbers comes from an increase in the general userbase, but I reckon this is still a nice comparison:

Petition against the introduction of ID cards: 28,048 signatures

Petition to install Jeremy Clarkson as Prime Minister: 43,322 signatures

Linkables 9/1/8

It's been fun watching the initial stages of the US Presidential Primaries - something I've been excited about ever since the first time I finished watching the West Wing. I'm not going to say anything particular about the races themselves (I don't really know enough about the politics of any of the candidates), but I have got a couple of interesting links on the election theme:

A NY Times report on voting machines, and the dangers involved in relying on them (via Joel on Software)

and an interview about different ways of organising electoral representation (via plasticbag.org)

And, finally, a link I meant to put on the end of yesterday's post about movie trailers, but forgot about: Trajan is the movie font.

Christmas Xmas is coming.

The BBC had an article on Tuesday about MP Mark Pritchard calling for a parliamentary debate on the subject of 'Christianophobia'. The transcript of the debate can be found here, for anyone who enjoys an evening spent reading Hansard. Andy also produced a post on the dilution of Christmas. When I see two articles talking about similar things, I do like to connect them on here, so thought I should at least comment.

Mark Pritchard cites a number of examples of Christianophobia in modern society: the difficulty in finding religious cards and advent calenders and the creeping disappearance of Nativity plays from schools. He wonders why these things are disappearing from our society when he has "never met a single Muslim, Jew, Sikh or Buddhist, or person of any other faith, who has told me that they object to Christians celebrating Christmas". He then describes the idea that anyone might be offended by "Christians celebrating Christmas" as a "false, secular-driven proposition".

I think that I would put the change more down to the changing make up of our society. As we become a more multicultural nation, as more and more people grow up as non-Christian citizens of this country, the socially anchored Christian traditions begin to look more and more out of place. Should a school get children to take part in a Nativity play because it reflects the traditions of the country, or should they be free to do something that the children will be able to relate to more easily. Should greeting cards companies and manufacturers of other seasonal cardboard merchandise be condemned for selling cards that appeal to the widest range of potential consumers? Religious Christmas cards are still available, but, as with many other specialist goods, you may have to go to a more specialist supplier. Luckily, with the internet, such a search can take less than a second.

The point is that it is not a secular plot to stop Christians from celebrating Christmas, it is the reaction of the market (in the case of cards and calendars) and society (in the case of nativity plays) to the changes brought about by multiculturalism.

Mark Pritchard is also concerned about the disparate levels of government funding and attention given to minority religious festivals. He says "The Department for Transport has admitted sending staff to minority religious events, but did not “officially” participate in Christmas celebrations. At the Foreign Office [...] Muslim and Chinese religious events are marked with VIP receptions. I have no objection to that, or to the Home Office celebrating Muslim and Hindu festivals, but why is Easter completely ignored?". I fear that any government involvement in Christmas or Easter would be lost in the huge tidal wave of commercial attention both holidays get from the private sector. Ultimately, the government is giving a boost to minority festivals on the understanding that Christmas and Easter don't need extra funding or support to get their message out. If you are the biggest kid in the class, it's only natural for people to assume that you can stand up for yourself.

He goes on to say: "Today, many people from the Christian tradition feel that any religious allegiance is permissible as long as it is not the Christian tradition, and that everything is tolerated except a Christian world view". This seems like a pretty bizarre claim. In a country where the monarchy, the prime minister, most of the cabinet and 70% of the population ostensibly hold your world view, it is a little rich to come out and claim that your beliefs are not being tolerated.

He ties all of his points together by appealing to the government not to let the Christian heritage that has built and shaped this country be lost, and I would agree that we should not lose sight of where this country has come from. However, it is also vital that we do not try and stifle the changes that are happening in society because they conflict with tradition. We have a strong Christian tradition that has done much good for this country, and that continues to do so. What we should not do is allow the rose-tinted view of that heritage to prevent us from doing the best thing for the future of our nation and our society.

So, how do I feel about Christmas? I have no problem using the word to describe the day, the time of year or the holiday. I have no problem with other people wishing me a happy Christmas and I have no problem with all of the religious overtones of a lot of what goes on. I participate in the religious side of the holiday for as much as I need to in order to see my friends and family, in order to enjoy the time of year with the people I love, and in order to best fill the time I have off from work.

Ultimately, my participation in Christmas and Easter is driven almost entirely by social tradition. We have four public holidays split across the two events, and so I base my seasonal time-off around them, as everyone did when we were at school. If the religious aspect of the celebration was moved to a different date, I wouldn't change when I celebrated or what I did, but if the bank holidays changed, I may alter the way I spent this time of year.

I am happy for people to celebrate Jesus' birth as long as they are happy for me to celebrate being allowed a lie in for a couple of weeks.

This actually took me ages to write, which was surprising as it's the kind of thing I find usually comes pretty easily. I'm not entirely happy with the way I structured it and don't think I included everything I wanted to, but I think I've exhausted my creativity for today, so I'll have to leave it there.

True Lies

I think my politics sensor is broken.

In almost every situation where I read an article or opinion about politics (in the sense of actual government, rather than political theory), I mentally side with the government. One reason for this could be that when I was growing up, I regularly had the message "Labour good, Conservatives bad" drilled into me. Not because my parents (mostly my mum) were trying to brainwash me, but because they were passing on what they believed. I remember in particular going to meet David Mellor at a prize giving at my primary school, and being told to spit on his feet by my mum. I didn't, incidentally, but being exposed to very one sided political debate for most of my childhood left a clear mark on me.

Hence whenever I hear a piece of political commentary that paints the Conservatives in a good light and Labour in a bad one, my brain throws up an error - "Wait, this can't be true, Labour are the good guys". I generally have to consciously overrule this part of my brain in order to try and think impartially about politics, which is annoying. I have no problem in general arguing left wing points, because I feel on much more solid ground with abstract ideas, but when the issue of the present government comes up, my brain starts to get into too many arguments with itself for me to make consistent arguments.

Another possible reason for my government-leaning tenancies would just be that I don't like the way the media tends to tear over-enthusiastically into people doing a very difficult job. I don't like the fact that the business of running the country has become one of trying to avoid too much bad press, rather than actually, well, governing. So it might be that my brain is naturally sympathetic towards those in power, rather than the Labour party in particular.

I have nothing to compare this with, since my interest in, and exposure to, politics probably started when staying up to watch the election coverage in 1997. In this sense, then, I would be interested to see the Conservatives come into power (my stomach actually tightened while writing that), if only so that I could work out whether my natural bias is with Labour or with the party in power.

Going back to my previous point about the business of spin and media relations getting in the way of governing, I find it pretty ludicrous that there are people calling for the Chancellor to step down over an issue that he can have had no control over. People pointed to the example of Paul Gray taking responsibility and stepping down as head of HMRC as being the right attitude, and implied that the chancellor and even the Prime Minister should follow suit.

It firstly seems ludicrous that the failure to follow government procedures by a junior official should be in any way the responsibility of two of the highest ranked public servants in the country. As you go up the government ladder, the general responsibility for the actions of those below you increases, but the responsibility for any individual failing surely decreases. The fact that Paul Gray decided to step down should surely be the end of the issue. There is no need for either Darling or Brown to take responsibility, because Gray has already done so.

However, the media know that they will have a bigger impact and generate more public interest by, for want of a better term, shit-stirring. Maybe people don't believe whatever the media tells them day to day, but they probably absorb some of it, and when the media is constantly banging on about government spin, hypocrisy, cover-ups and resignations, it can be very difficult to pick out those situations in which the terms are appropriate from those in which there is no real scandal, but which would get no public attention if reported in context.

The problem forms a vicious cycle, because officials are so desperate to avoid even the smallest situation being blown out of proportion (causing the inevitable resignation calls), that they are willing to stretch the truth, leave out facts and even outright lie to the media. When these lies eventually come out (as they almost always do), this then fuels the media's obsession that all politicians are slimy, corrupt, lying bastards, that there is no reason to trust anything that they say, and that the other lot would be much better.

The trouble is that no government will be able to look good for any extended period of time because at the first sign of a mistake (you know, the kind made by humans), the media start to wave their P45s and shout for an election.

I don't necessarily think that it would work, but I would like to see a government, a party, or even a politician make a sincere effort to avoid spin. Yes, there are going to be situations where for reasons of security or dignity, there are things you can't reveal, but I think that the majority of government should be transparent, and able to be examined as such.

Rather than having the ridiculous situation of two parties arguing over who thought of a policy idea first, they should be celebrating the fact that they both want to implement the same idea. Since when did getting one over on the other side of the house with a witty comeback in a debate take the place of doing your best for the electorate?

The fact that Members of Parliament have to be forced to vote with the government because they don't agree with the law being passed is surely ignoring the whole point of having a representative democracy. "Oh, I was going to represent the views of my constituents in this vote, but then my party leader said I couldn't". Whither democracy then?

Equally, if you don't want the public (and/or the media) to know why you are financing something, investigating something or pushing for legislation then you are doing something wrong as a government. Either you are not representing the views of the electorate, or you haven't explained your position well enough.

And this is where it becomes a two-way thing, because in order for a government that actually didn't spin anything to work, the media would also have to avoid spinning. Rather than looking at a statement from the press office and thinking 'what are they trying to hide?', the media could take the chance to explain both sides of the argument to the public and letting the government getting on with actually making the decision.

Clearly a media that simply repeats what the government says is the mark of a less-than-free press, but I would argue that we have swung too far the other way, and that our dictatorial press is making for a less-than-free government.

The only way you are going to get rid of the culture of lies that apparently is destroying our political system is to have an electable politician that actually tells the truth without spin, and with the current media, I'm not sure that's possible.

As usual, that was pretty rambling, and probably inaccurate. For a much better insight into politics and the media (you know, from someone who actually knows what they're talking about) try this blog (listed over there on the right along with a ton of other good ones). In particular the post about lying to reporters that inspired whatever this was.

My say

From the BBC's Have Your Say section on controlling binge drinking, particularly in young people:

"Why the hell should I be punished by extortionate price hikes due to some peoples lack of control?!

The report states teenagers/children drinking - hello? Isn't it against the law for them to do this?

When the little darlings end up in hospital to have their stomachs pumped/injuries attended to then arrest their parents.

It's nothing short of neglect. Do not try and justify their disgusting behaviour by saying you can't control them 24/7. Yes you can, that is your job as a parent!!"

Contrast with this story also on the BBC. Clearly not exactly the worlds most thorough investigation of a story, but I think that it shows the flaw in the blanket statement from Have Your Say. The parents are going to be the ones least able to control the behaviour of their children once they get into their teens. Hopefully they've passed on the proper lessons at an early age, but once a child starts to rebel, there's really very little a parent can do. If there are childen out there drinking, and there are, they are going to be more of an influence on their peers than their peers' parents can ever hope to be at that age.

The vast majority of the commenters were outraged by the government proposing a tax hike on alcohol, and rolled out all the old 'nanny state' arguments. When it was pointed out the the organisation that produced this report was not a government body, but a seperate group of health organisations, the response was that it was typical that this government was 'hiding behind' lobby groups.

"There ought to be a tax on busybody organisations that continuously poke their noses into other people's business."

While I don't necessarily agree that a tax rise would be the best solutions (clearly there are more complex factors at work than just cheap booze), but the organisation that has come up with these statistics is not saying that drinking alcohol is wrong or should be banned, but is putting forward a suggestion that could reduce alcohol deaths. Maybe I'm being naive, and maybe these organisations are looking to snare a big chunk of government money as a result of this survey, but I would certainly not describe any of the organisations involved as 'poking their noses into other people's business'. As charities, research groups and political pressure groups, the role of these organisations in our politics is job is to produce data and present it to both the government and the public, and that is what they have done. The fact that a 10% tax increase was one of several suggestions wasn't really picked up, because the word tax was mentioned, so everyone wheels out their penny-pinching-Gordon-Brown pens straight away. It's this kind of knee jerk reaction to (ultimately fairly dry) stories that I hate, blowing them out of proportion and picking out the elements that will get the biggest response, but it's the kind of thing that seems to happen more and more in both journalism and public opinion.

The final thing that both annoyed me and came up a number of times in the comments, features in the middle of this post:

"Putting 10%, as I've heard proposed by some groups, on the price of Alcohol is absolutely ridiculous. Do you really think putting that sort of measley [sic] amount on the price of a drink will put off people who want to drink. All the extra taxes will achieve is to give the government more money to squander on beaurocracy [sic] and useless 'studies' and irritate the majority of responsible drinkers whilst doing nothing to put off hardened drinkers."

The comment itself is not necessarily unreasonable; I agree that a higher tax will probably not have the effect that the study groups hope, and that young people who can get enough money together to afford (probably supermarket) alcohol at the moment will be unlikely to be put off by a small increase in that cost. However, I don't like the tone of the message - treating the studies and suggestions with scorn, while not even suggesting at any kind of alternative solution.

It also annoys me that the poster says that all the taxes will do is 'give the government money to squander on bureaucracy'. Maybe he is speaking in exaggerated tones for effect, but I think that his point is still unhelpful. I agree that the level of bureaucracy in government could probably be reduced, but I also believe that the government appreciates this. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to try and keep track of the vast budgets that the government has to deal with, and I don't like the implication of a blasé government throwing tax money around without a care for the effect on the poor workers from whom the money has been cruelly taken.

Again, I'm straying into naive woolly liberal territory again, but I genuinely don't think that the people in and working for the government are just in it for the quick gain. I don't like the way that modern politics forces people to play games rather than govern (but that's another story for another time), and I think that the people who work hard to get elected and into positions of responsibility do it because they want to make a positive difference to the country. This is why it frustrates and annoys me when I see black-and-white, one-sided, over-simplified analyses of the government as a money grabbing behemoth that doesn't care about the man on the street. The government may be a huge entity, but it is made up of individuals that all want to do their best for Britain as a country, whichever party they belong to.

Penultimately, a particularly helpful view of the Labour party from one comment:

"Labour Party Commandments

You must:

• Work hard to support the idle, MPs, criminals and government employees pensions.
• Accept higher taxes and bills without complaint
• Accept that we're watching your every move
• Use the bus/train to travel to work
• Not smoke or drink
• Not drive/fly
• Eat only organic food
• Accept that the law is on the side of the criminal
• Accept that your are second class citizens in what was your country
• Remember we know best what's good for you"

Does the person who wrote that really believe that that is what the Labour government are trying to do? Presumably not. But why try and understand what someone is trying to do when you can just stand to one side and ridicule them.

Apologies for the any of the above that was rambling, poorly thought out, or just naive liberal bilge, but I think most of it at least vaguely represents my points of view on the topics involved, so I'm not going to attempt to rewrite any more of it at this hour.

And finally, quite a sweet story about a cat.

Copse

Browsing through the BBC website today, I came across this list of forms that the police have to fill in during an investigation. I've read a fair amount of the archives on coppersblog over the last couple of months, and this is the one main thing that the writers there complain about too.

The thing that strikes me most about the list of paperwork is not the volume of it (though that is clearly a factor), but the number of different mediums in which data is stored. Some information is kept in handwritten logs, some is on numbered forms, some is entered into a national database and some of it is on a local computer system, not to mention the storage of copies of video evidence, photos and audio tapes from interviews. That's a huge amount of information that may need to be recalled at any time, and which will all be stored in different formats and different places.

The problem is that none of this information-gathering is easily disposed of. If any of it was obviously redundant, then it could be removed, but it seems from the descriptions that all of the steps in the chain are recording reasonable information, either to help lead towards a conviction, or to cover the police in case of a mistreatment lawsuit brought by the arrested party. If we assume that there is no redundant information being collected (something which may not be true, but on which I can't really comment), then the only way to reduce the amount of time spent on paperwork is to reduce the amount of time filling in the existing paperwork, and minimising the occasions on which the paperwork has to be filled in.

On the former point, there must be some way of streamlining the existing systems for logging crimes and criminals into a single computerised structure. Even the time saved by having the system automatically timestamp and number everything would surely be useful. In addition, there would be time and resources saved by the reduction in paper forms. Further expansion into a national database (or at least remote access to regional databases) would be possible, to allow co-ordination between separate forces.

All of this is clearly a massive job, but looking at the BBC link above, it was the first thing that came to mind, probably at least partly because my current job involves writing software to do almost exactly this for the NHS, and I could all too easily see how much it could help in the police service.

The second point above, on minimising occasions on which this mass of information needs to be collected is another major theme that comes out of the procedural posts on coppersblog - that there is a huge amount of time lost recording and investigating crimes that are not going anywhere. Front line officers are given no room to judge for themselves what to investigate and what to leave. Clearly the police should not be ignoring crimes, but if the officer knows from experience that there is no chance of a conviction, or even a charge, shouldn't he be within his right to say so. And then to get on with investigating a case that may have a useful outcome. Is it not analogous to allowing your doctor to tell you the best course of action. If your GP says "It's nothing to worry about, leave it for a couple of days and it'll clear up", would you respond "No, give me pills, now." or "No. Refer me to a hospital. Now."? Sadly, maybe this kind of response to medical advice is becoming more common nowadays, but I would suggest that allowing the police to exercise their professional judgement in the same way as doctors is vital to avoid the justice system being clogged up with family arguments, kids fighting, and pub brawls.

As a personal example, when I was 13 or so, I was beaten up in an alley while coming home from school by a guy much older than me. When the police came round to interview me that evening, I told them as much as I could, and gave them a description of my attacker, and they said "It's really pretty unlikely that anything is going to come of this". I never heard anything else from them, and to me, that's fine. I would hate to think that they had to spend any longer than it would take to give me a crime number and record a brief description of my case on it, since, clearly, there was no way they were going to catch the guy. Even if they somehow came across him, it would be my word against his, and there would be no chance of a conviction.

I was going to talk more about government targets here, but I'll have to save that for a later post, as it's getting late and I'm starting to ramble a bit. Either way, if you consider the worst aspects of targets and paperwork, then think how far we've come from these principles, particularly the last one.