Marred By Prejudice

Back in the days when trouserless politicos resigned

I've just watched Andrew Marr's History of Britain on the 1950s:

"The programme explodes the popular image of the 1950s as a golden age of order and prosperity, and of lost content. A Conservative government is back in power. The economy appears to be improving. New homes are being built, the age of mass car ownership is dawning, and people have money in their pockets. But 1950s Britain isn't as calm as it looks, or as strong. Etc etc."

Of course, we know all about the Fantastickal World of Andy Marr: the Tories are a bunch of bumbling self-serving toffs, out of touch with the harsh realities of working class Britain, and never more so than in the never-never 1950s.

But... and I'm sorry if you've heard this one before, but my blood is bubbling... Andy being a privately educated toff, probably doesn't understand that the fifties really were the time we working class kids on the estates never had it so good. GDP growth in the thirteen years of Tory misrule from 1951 to 1964 averaged 3% pa, far higher than anything we've achieved in any other 13 year period, and certainly far higher than anything we've ever clocked up under any Labour government.

Prosperity, real education, law and order, the hula hoop, satire, the Beatles (oh yes, they all started under the Tories)... we had it all.

So remind me - just why do these BBC pundits all support Labour? Surely they can't really think Labour politicos are any more "in touch" than the Tories?

Can it simply be the tax-funded BBC pay cheques? And the patronising, totally unfounded belief that the working class can't survive without far-sighted leadership by the Prog Elite?

Nah.

Nobody could be that crass.

PS It's a real shame they've got the Big Eared Leftie Preening Twerp doing this prog. The newsreel clips are brill, and it could have been an excellent series.

GBFL

GBFL - Lindy puts the case

As BOM readers may be aware, back in 2005, Tyler ran a blog with the snappy title of DDFL - David Davis For Leader. Given its stunning success, he's now contemplating a new leadership blog entitled GBFL - Gordon Brown For Leader.

Tyler feels strongly that Gordon Brown is the right man to lead Labour into the next election, and he's dismayed that not everyone agrees. Post the Crazy Result of the Crewe By-election, all kinds of Labour MPs Tyler's never heard of are trawling around the TV pundits saying Gordon should step aside. That's so wrong. Brown is doing more than anyone to ensure A Better Future For Britain.

Consider the Five Facts:

1. Gordon abolished the Economic Cycle!

His far-sighted stewardship of the economy has eliminated the recessions we used to suffer under those hopeless boomandbust Tories. Never again will unemployment stalk the land. (Technical note: the recent uptick in "worklessness" is a statistical aberration that will soon be eliminated).

2. Gordon abolished poverty!

Thanks to Him, eight year old children no longer have to slave 20 hour days in the cotton mills and up chimneys. Fact.

3. Gordon saved Africa!

Well, except for Sudan. And Zimbabwe. And a couple of other places. But come on - he was the one who got Bonio to give that epoch defining press conference in the Four Seasons Hotel.

3. Gordon legalised gay marriage!

Fine, Bliar was PM at the time. But it was definitely Gordon who pushed it home.

4. Gordon gave us great summers!

He was Chancellor during the hottest summers on record. All except for 1976, anyway. And 1757.

5. Gordon made the trains run on time!

Or he would have done, if he hadn't been so badly let down by others.


All in all, that's one helluva record. And those backstabbing Labour MPs should be ashamed of themselves.

They owe it to the country to ensure Gordon has the chance to put his record before the British people in 2010.

GBFL.

PS For reasons that needn't detain us, in 1966 Tyler watched the BBC filming an edition of the shockingly poor White Heather Club at Brodick Castle on the Isle of Arran. He was devastated to discover the whole thing was faked. The songs were pre-recorded, and Robin Hall and Jimmie McGregor just nonced about miming and trying to get recognised. At that instant, all Tyler's youthful faith in the goodness of man vaporised, and he became the bitter twisted cynic you see before you today. The Golden Age of Telly it was not:

Nimrod Never Airworthy

The Panorama report on the unsafe Nimrod

We've blogged the appalling Nimrod fiasco many times (see all blogs gathered here). Our view is that the current generation of planes should be grounded immediately (see here), and the next generation MRA4 project abandoned forthwith.

Now, at the continuing inquest into the deaths of those 14 servicemen in the 2006 Nimrod explosion:

"Andrew Walker, the assistant deputy coroner for Oxfordshire, declared that none of the planes have been airworthy since the fleet was introduced into service in 1969.

He called for the fleet to be grounded."

So will MOD do it?

Not a chance. Rather than admit they've been wrong, they'd prefer our servicemen to go on risking their lives.

It's sickening.

Reminder: the replacement Nimrod MRA4 project was originally supposed to cost £2bn for 21 planes- £95m each. But we're currently on £3.5bn for 12 aircraft- £290m each. That's a price increase of 205%. And it's running seven and a half years late, so won't be in service until 2010, at the earliest. And remember - it will still basically be a converted Comet, which first took to the skies in 1949. It is insanity.

Dare To Struggle And Dare To Win!

Turning points of history

Having rediscovered my copy of the Little Red Book (see previous blog), I'm amazed at the Chairman's insight into our struggle against Big Government:

"DARE TO STRUGGLE AND DARE TO WIN! People of the world, unite and defeat the Big Government Commissars and all their running dogs! People of the world, be courageous... " (cont on p94)

What's more, I'm sure someone has slipped a copy to Dave. This morning post-Crewe he came out with all kinds of amazing stuff about how people are fed up with Big Government, fed up with top-down health services, fed up with unaccountable policing, and fed up with high taxes.

Wow!

Is he feeling OK?

Two years to go, and suddenly it seems he's up for the Real Deal.

Let's hope Labour don't dump the grim Scottish Socialist, because he's gifting the Tories the English middle class. And newly confident Small Gov Dave sounds much more like it.

Chronically Poor Shambles

Justice in action

As BOM readers will know, the Crown Prosecution Service is a total shambles. Two years ago we blogged the National Audit Office's devastating report revealing amateurish working practices, endemic incompetence, and gripless management (see this blog). Incomplete files, unanswered phones, uncontactable lawyers (never heard of Blackberries), and abysmal lack of urgency - they're all taken for granted inside the CPS.

This morning, the CPS Inspectorate (note - it's so bad, it needs its own inspectorate) has issued its own devastating report. They focus on the state of CPS case files, a basic essential of the lawyer's business.

They find that the "majority of files" are incomplete in important respects. Things are not recorded clearly and legibly, and have vital bits missing. Bail records are particularly weak - one-third of bail conditions are not recorded at all - the CPS lawyer just can't be fagged.

As the Inspector says, bad files mean that CPS work often has to be done several times over (for which we pay). Worse, it also undoubtedly means bad guys get off: the Inspector is predictably cagey on the extent of that problem, but admits there are cases.

So what happens now?

CPS head Sir Ken Waccy Baccy MacDonald is just "exiting" after five years "in charge". Totally unconnected with the shambles of course.

Naturally they're looking for a new super-lawyer to take over. But as we've said before, WTF would a successful criminal lawyer want such a job? Not only must you report to a bunch of clothead politicos (who will dump on you at the slightest whiff of trouble), you will have to manage hundreds of second rate timeservers who are only working for the CPS because they can't get a job as a proper lawyer. Who needs it?

The CPS in its current Big Government Blob will never get fixed. What we need to do is break the whole thing up and get in some of those locally elected DAs like they have on US crime shows. Ten to twenty in Sing Sing - take him down.

PS En route to Crete, Tyler found himself sitting next to a man who described himself as a retired criminal lawyer. It turned out he used to work for the CPS. It also turned out he's an evangelical Christian, who believes strongly in the redemption of sinners, and now spends his time touring prisons, trying to put them on the path of righteousness. Of course, we can have no gripe with that per se. But we did wonder if such a man should ever have been employed trying to bang them up in the first place.

DWP Still Losing Billions

Haemorrhage continues

Another update while we were away - the latest estimate on how much DWP is currently losing to fraud and error. Key points:

• £2.7bn pa total loss - so despite all those promises of serious action, the total has increased again (see this blog); it still represents over 2% of total DWP payments.
• 60% of losses come on 27% of benefits- as last year, the leakiest benefits are Income Support, JobSeekers Allowance, Pension Credit, and Housing Benefit.
• Income Support and Pension Credit are worst - Gordo's fearsomely complex credits are notoriously difficult to fathom, even for DWP officials; losses are running in excess of 5%

DWP's accounts have now been qualified for the eighteenth straight year. If it was a business it would have been closed down and the directors jailed.

Instead, as part of our crass bumbling government, it's been set some extraordinarily modest targets for reducing its losses. But guess what - it has completely failed to do so. For example, far from hitting their 15% target reduction for IS and JSA, losses have actually increased.

The only sure way of cutting these losses is to simplify the benefits system massively. There's no way Brown will do that, and Cameron's government will be faced with the tricky issue of losers. Because as we've just seen with the 10p tax rate, absent a big pot of money falling from the sky, any changes to tax and benefit structures is going to mean losers.

You sure wouldn't start from here.

Self-Interest Rules

The Justice Secretary as a wild youth

This morning brings a report from academics at Kings College telling us that Labour's flagship programme to cut youth crime has flopped. Despite costing us £650m pa, it has had zilch effect on offending rates.

Progressive Consensus's Mark Easton (aka the BBC's Home Affairs Editor) tells us that it's failed because "we lock up too many children"- far more than enlightened countries like Finland. If instead we spent the £280m pa that costs on social work, then everything would be so much better (in reality of course - as Shadow Justice Minister Nick Herbert pointed out on Today - Finland doesn't need to lock up so many teenage yobs because it has much less crime than us).

BOM readers are only too familiar with our plague of youth crime. Here are a few nuggets from the recent record:

• Recorded youth crime increasing - between 2003 and 2006 (most recent figures), total offences rose from 184,474 to 222,750 in 2006 (up 21%).
• Violent youth crime increasing - between 2003 and 2007, the number of under-18s convicted or cautioned over violent offences rose from 17,590 to 24,102, up 37%.
• Robberies soaring -up 43% over the same period.

Shockingly, the biggest increases in youth crime have not been in those dark deprived inner city melting pots, but in rural areas, once a haven of calm and relative security. Sunny Sussex by the Sea saw "notifiable" (ie serious) offences by persistent young offenders climb by a staggering 242% during Labour's first decade.

So what to do?

As it happens, last evening Tyler attended a panel discussion at the LSE debating Why Economics Matter. Chaired by Mr TT, the panel included two eminent academic economists and two economic journalists (including the outstanding Martin Wolf).

Needless to say, the panel and the entire audience were fully agreed that economics does matter - oh, yes - but the question is why?

A range of different ideas were kicked around, but Wolf put his finger on it right at the start - economics matters because it shows us how self-interest drives our lives and can underpin stable and mutually beneficial relationships between us all. Sure, there's loads of other stuff - like how the invisible hand of markets is much better at allocating scarce resources than central planning - and loads of complications - like how we may not always be able to identify our own rational self-interest (see behavioural economics or game theory). But in essence, self-interest rules.

The academics on panel also talked proudly of how, armed with that idea and a few other tools, economics is gradually "colonising" vast swathes of the other social sciences, from the study of family relationships to, yes, criminology (we can only imagine how such talk goes down with people like Anthony Third Way Giddens in the Senior Common Room of the LSE).

What economics brings to the table is this: in almost any field you can think of, if you want to change behaviour, you have to change individual incentives. While it might be nice to re-engineer someone's internal cognitive wiring, in most respects, we don't have a clue how to do it. Incentives are the key.

Which of course brings us straight back to teenage yobs. None of us like the idea of locking teenagers up. All of us would prefer we had Finnish levels of crime. But we don't.

So what else are we going to do? Clearly we need real zero tolerance policing soonest (a good start by Boris on that London bus). But beyond that, we can have zero confidence in our hopeless £1bn pa Probation Service to reshape behaviour.

And incentives? As things stand, the chances of a young offender being locked up are small: we lock up less than 5% of the c200,000 dealt with every year, and there are only about 3,500 inside at any one time. That doesn't sound much of a disincentive to crime.

What's that? Many of these hopeless dysfunctional kids are from hopeless dysfunctional families so couldn't manage their own behaviour even if they wanted to?

Two things. First, if they're that incontinent, it's not safe to have them walking among us. And second, we clearly need to remove the incentives for such families to have kids in the first place (see previous blogs).

PS Talking of non-enforced laws (ie the opposite of zero tolerance), Tyler was very struck last night by a young lady gobbling a chicken tikka. She was sitting in the LSE's Old Theatre right under a big sign which said "No food or drink permitted in the Old Theatre". Nobody said a word. It's a slippery slope...

Cycling To The Promised Land

Are you sure you can ride that thing?

Hurrah!

For the first time since 1472 the political cycle has turned. Tax and spend is out, and tax cuts are back on the centrist agenda.

Yesterday, Dave finally summoned up the nerve to say taxpayers "can't take any more pain", and that the economy is being frazzled by tax and spend. And today, the Boy Nick will say much the same.

But there are of course a few details to settle. Like the one that Tory Shadow Chief Sec Hammond fell over on last night's Newsnight - what does it actually mean to say that taxes will fall as a share of GDP over an economic cycle?

Pax had great fun with poor Hammond. What is an economic cycle? Where are we in it now? Is the current tax take too high? How low should the percentage be?

Hammond wobbled around all over the road.

Well, the economy is sometimes above trend, and sometimes below...

Yes, but where is it now?

Well, I don't know... that's for the statisticians to tell us...

You don't know?

Well, ahhhhgh...

Hammond's front wheel buckled and he ended in the ditch.

In sharp contrast, Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers Alliance was balanced and assured... although admittedly he was chatting to Crick on a sunny park bench rather than being roasted over a hot griddle by Pax.

But what Newsnight highlights is that much more work needs to be done on this "sharing the proceeds" stuff. As we've blogged many times, it's still no more than a nifty slogan. With Hammond likely to be at HMT within two years, he needs to get some serious content.

We wonder if he has any idea what the job of Chief Secretary to the Treasury actually involves.

Chiefy is the most hated member of the Cabinet. While his boss the Chancellor gets all the plaudits for cutting taxes, Chiefy is the man (or Yvette Cooper) who has to deliver the public expenditure control that funds them. He's the one who has to say no to all his Cabinet colleagues as they attempt to grab more and more for their own departments.

Cam's cabinet will be different, and they'll all commit to slashing departmental waste on their own turf?

Where on earth have you been these last 150 years? Even poor tortured low tax Keith Joseph found himself presenting a departmental brief arguing for more industrial subsidy cash in those bleak early years of Thatcher. It's the nature of the beast, and whatever their best intentions may have been, once spending ministers get their feet under their huge new desks, they get turned (Yes Minister, op cit).

Which is why we need clear upfront rules and quantified commitments. Hammond needs a big visible stick to beat off his colleagues. Discretion and Best Endeavours simply won't work.

It's time to beef up sharing the proceeds with that Third Fiscal Rule - a fixed and quantified target for cutting the share of public spending in GDP over a cycle, now with added endorsement by the OECD (see many previous blogs, eg here).

Come on Dave - you're so nearly en route to the Promised Land. Just one more heave. Or whatever it is you do to ride a bike.

PS The real answer to Pax's cycling questions is surely that the Treasury already publishes estimates of the cyclically adjusted fiscal deficit, and the Tories would merely be adding publication of the adjusted tax and expenditure numbers. Here's HMT's current chart from the Budget, showing we have been in cyclically adjusted deficit every year since 2002-03:




Of course, as we all know, the Treasury numbers are now so massively fiddled, they're not worth the paper they're printed on. But the methodologies used to make such adjustments are broadly understood and agreed. What's more, George has already pledged to establish an independent fiscal monitoring office to do the calcs (modelled on the NAO). So why didn't Hammond say that? They need to be far more specific in their own thinking.

Nice By Luck

Surveying the wreckage of Gordo's economic miracle, it's interesting to ask if the whole thing was pure luck in the first place. Because as Governor King implied while we were away last week, it was a nice decade to be Chancellor.

As always, it's useful to step back and take the long view.

The name of the Big Game is economic growth, and the chart above shows how we fared over the last three-and-a-half decades in terms per capita income, relative to the three other big Western economies (OECD data for incomes converted using Purchasing Power Parity, and in terms of our relative performance on the chart, lower is better).

The first thing to note is that the seventies were indeed dire. All three competitors pulled away. We lost about 15% of our relative income against France and Germany, and even managed to lose against a stumbling US. It was the doomed dismal decade of Heath, Wislon, and Callaghan.

Under Thatcher/Major (blue vertical line) things turned around. We improved against all three overseas economies, although clearly our period of ERM membership represented a huge bump in the road, with crippling interest rates set far too high in order to defend sterling.

And Brown? Well, the thing that jumps off the chart is that the change of government in 1997 (red vertical line) made absolutely no impression on the benign trends that were already firmly in place well before then (if anything, it slowed them down). His great good fortune was to ride a giant wave that had been set in motion by our exit from the ERM.

Sadly, that wave has now expended itself. The chart shows it was already slipping back by 2006, and it will have rolled back a whole lot further by now.

Brown's boom depended on a particular conjunction of events that owed little to him. Apart from the benign long-term post-ERM trend, low global inflation made it easier to accomodate stronger UK growth without jacking up interest rates. And lower interest rates encouraged punters to borrow more, thus pushing up house prices and making home owners feel wealthier.

So did he contribute nothing? Well, he did turn on the public spending taps, which definitely did something. But of course, any fule can spend other people's money: it's a classic straight from the H Wislon Book of Crap Policies. And now as then, the bills are never far behind.

PS Talking of damaging EU policies, the Lisbon Treaty is still heading our way. For obvious reasons, the Commissars don't want ordinary people to have any say in the matter. But in Ireland, for constitutional reasons, it can't be avoided. So Irish voters will have their say on 12 June. The rest of us must hope they veto the whole deal, and to help them decide there's a new site where we can register our encouragement - No To The Lisbon Treaty. Tyler has already posted a comment and may we urge you to do the same. Ireland, you are our only hope - speak for Europe (htp One Man).

Saucy Ladyboy

Any guacamole?

I've just heard ex-Minister Steve Ladyman explaining on the World At One how Labour's crass anti-toff campaign is justified. He reckons it's important to highlight how the Tory candidate in Crewe has no connection with the constituency, and nothing in common with his prospective constituents.

Whah?!!

I waited for Martha to scoff and remind him of the hundreds of similar carpetbagging Labour MPs. But somehow she didn't.

The reality is that most of Labour's heartland Northern constituences are now held by a bunch of Southern nonces, imposed on local voters by NuLab, who have taken their votes entirely for granted.

My favourites are the Brothers Milliband. They are the members for South Shields (Dave) and Doncaster North (Ed). Both replaced long-serving real Labour MPs.

In Dave's case, old Labour sitting MP David Clarke was bought out with a peerage, and Millipede rammed down the throats of the local constituency party against intense opposition. Dave has a house in the constituency (paid for by us), but lives his real life in upmarket Primrose Hill.

Ed's predecessor was communist miner Kevin Hughes (decd), best remembered for his attack on NuLab Guardianistas:

"Does my right hon. Friend find it bizarre—as I do—that the yoghurt and muesli eating, Guardian-reading fraternity are only too happy to protect the human rights of people engaged in terrorist acts, but never once do they talk about the human rights of those who are affected by them?"

Now, that's the authentic voice of Doncaster North. These days locals have to put up with a dollop of warmed over guacamole posing as mushy peas.

Next time, Martha, do try to remember.

Service Cuts

The Victorians used to fill them with water

The Bloke's recent Taxpayer Rip-off report for the TPA tried to pull together some stats on public service cuts. It proved to be quite tricky because for obvious reasons, the government doesn't tend to publish them. But from schools, to healthcare, to policing, to local councils, to Post Offices, services are being slashed via the closure of local facilities and the replacement of full-time qualified staff by cheap part-time dumbed down substitutes.

He unaccountably omitted one cut which has surfaced again this morning - the closure of local council swimming pools. They are reportedly now being closed at the rate of 7 a month.

As always, stats are scarce because the government deliberately conflates the figures for public swimming pools with those for private pools. But survey evidence shows that public provision is collapsing. For example, according to the Amateur Swimming Association, back in the 1980's we had 3000 school pools; today, there are only 2000.

Now, BOM is not saying taxpayers funds should be spent on providing these highly expensive facilities. But against the background of a 50% real-terms increase in taxation since 1997-98, and a near threefold increase in public service charges, service cuts on top are an outrage.

Here's a reminder of some other cuts in local council services (see here for sources):

• Loss of weekly bin collection – in 1997 virtually all councils provided a weekly bin collection; by 2007, 140 out of 350 English councils had cut the service to a fortnightly collection, with many more set to follow suit; 20 million people now only have their rubbish collected fortnightly, and once again, there are growing concerns about the public health implications.
• Less road maintenance – there are many more potholes in roads as councils have cut maintenance standards; some have doubled the size of “actionable” potholes, and now only repair holes that are at least 4cms deep; there are growing safety concerns.
• Library closures – in the ten years to 2005, there were 452 library closures (including mobile libraries), taking the total down to around 4700.
• Closure of public conveniences – in the seven years to 2005, councils closed nearly 20% of the country’s public conveniences: we’re now down to about 5,000 (England and Wales), with a further 150 closing every year.

Meanwhile, a survey by the Police Federation has confirmed the public are unhappy with the replacement of real coppers by those numpties in yellow jackets: 70% of us would feel safer with real policemen.

PS Tonight at 8.30 BBC Panorama is showing a doc on sickies in Merthyr, the Incapacity Benefit capital of Britain (see Sun report here). Panorama is laughably dumb these days, but it might be worth a look, especially since they apparently tried to get some of the people back to work.

PPS Panorama also reveals that the cost of IB is now running at £16bn pa, which is £4bn over the last official figure. £16bn pa being nearly 5p on the standard rate of income tax. That's one shedload of dosh.

TPA On Quangos

The government's subsidiaries

Today sees the publication of the TPA's blockbuster guide to quangos (see here for paper, and here for Sunday Times coverage).

As BOM readers will know, despite their firm assurances pre-1997, this government has totally failed to grip the quango problem. Instead, they've tried to cover it up. Their most recent action was to suppress the detailed annual breakdown of some (but only some) quangos previously provided by the Cabinet Office.

So, building on the excellent online quango database maintained by the Economic Research Council, and supplemented by yet another huge bundle of FOI requests, the TPA has made available the facts government doesn't want us to know:

• In 2006-07, taxpayers funded 1,162 quangos - at a cost of nearly £64 billion, equivalent to £2,550 per household
• Quangos now employ over 700,000 bureaucrats
• Even on the Cabinet Office's restricted definition of what constitutes a quango, their cost has increased by 50% in 10 years

The TPA's Ben Farrugia, who laboured day and night for months to produce the report (well done Ben), points out that these unaccountable offshoots hugely increase the complexity of government. Quite apart from their cost, the whole structure is riddled with duplication and conflict.

Indeed, it's quite possible that the reason the government publishes no coherent overall summary is because they can't actually understand it themselves.

What a fiasco.

Sincerest Form Of Waste Watching

Today the Telegraph launches Waste Watch:

"...a new campaign to expose cases of taxpayers' money being wasted by public servants. Each week we will highlight examples of bureaucrats failing to keep a grip on costs, or dipping into the public purse to fund unnecessary projects."

Hurrah!

Its first four stories are:

• £29 grand on a new logo for Huntingdonshire district council
• £2.3m for DfID officials to have their Louis Quinze desks and other home comforts air freighted to their postings in poor Third World countries
• £6 grand for a failed attempt by Devon and Cornwall Police Authority to eject one of its members because he called teenage yobs "yobs"
• £58 grand pa for Preston Council's new Head of Worklessness ("worklessness" being the new uber-pc term for "unemployed" or "jobseekers")

Well done to the Telegraph - we'll be reading avidly.

PS Yes, the Bloke's Waste Watch^© vids for the TPA were called Waste Watch^© (eg here), and the Bloke would never ever dream of infringing copyright himself, but in this case, he's delighted to waive all royalties for the title's use by the Telegraph.

PPS The pic of Captain Copyright has been liberated from The Patry Copyright Blog. It's written by William Patry, who describes himself as "Senior Copyright Counsel, Google Inc. Formerly copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, formerly Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights, formerly Law Professor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; author of numerous treatises and articles (including one on fair use with Judge Richard Posner), including the new 7 volume treatise on "Patry on Copyright". Actually, he sounds somewhat scary, and his blog is pretty heavy duty. Let's hope he doesn't mind our use of his pic.