Why is RBS politically vetting potential customers?
March 12th, 2009
Will this be another big headache for Labour?
One of the big services that the taxpayer-owned bank provides is RBS Streamline - a mechanism by which retailers and other others can offer credit/debit card facilities. As we move more and more away from cash this side of the bank’s business has grown and grown and RBS is now a leader in its field.
So how come that the firm is now, apparently, subjecting those merchants who want to use the service to political vetting - a move that is said to have only happened since the bank became part of the public sector?
According to an excellent piece by Fraser Nelson in this week’s Spectator, a Cheshire-based computer consultant, recently tried to sign up for the service so he could accept card payments.
According to Nelson after going through the standard points the man was asked about his political affiliation and whether he know any MPs, councillors or mayors? The report goes on: “It was a new question, the lady explained to him, which had been introduced soon after the government took control of RBS. She said, in his paraphrase, that ‘political influences may be used for corrupt purposes”.
Yet when Nelson questioned the bank about it he got an absolute denial. He was told by a spokeswoman: “We would never ask such a question, nor would we dream of doing so”.
Nelson was unconvinced, so called RBS Streamline, posing as an employee for a family member’s real company and asking for the same service.
“Sure enough, the chilling question came at the end: ‘Is she a member of any political party?’ I asked why this was relevant. ‘I presume we ask because there is a high volume of fraud in that sector. Because people who are of that sort of [party political] nature, maybe, are inclined to commit fraud.’ The question, I was told, is ‘thrust upon us by the Financial Services Authority’. The FSA says this is untrue. Banks can check clients’ backgrounds, but no one is required to talk politics.”
On the face of it this appears to be an outrage. Quite what is going on here? It’s hard to say but now RBS is publicly owned it’s going to be subject to even greater scrutiny. Methinks there might be another political storm in the offing and ministers will come under pressure.
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First ?
I may be being melodramatic, but this has the smell of something that could turn out to be a really big story, although it doesn’t appear at first glance that it should be.
On Today they were asked by RBS whether they had political influence, were they a head of state or a mayor!
Standing at the supermarket check-out queue in Jakarta, Indonesia, there were no such questions - a friend was invited to sign up for an RBS Credit Card there on the spot. One has to wonder what the British Government is doing extending credit to Indonesian consumers….
5. Well Lord Myners is toast now isn’t he…
Well, now they are an arm of the state it is incumbent upon them to weedle out all those nasty, profit-making, libertarian-style entrepreneurs, driving them to bankruptcy & their employess into the embrace of the welcoming, all encompassing state.
Test.
The Co-op will have its nose firmly out of joint if the Labour Party is trying to createanother political bank!
BTW - some excellent, intelligent discussion through the night. Congrats to all concerned. They have raised the bar for us daytimers…
Oh. The Cosmos has been spared one of my rants which has been swallowed by the Interweb. I can’t be bothered to retype it all as spleen is of the moment.
I’m not sure what’s going on here. What could their motivation possibly be?
Are the government paranoid enough to worry about a mole, infiltrating RBS as a customer to cause embarrassment to the government? How could they be naive enough to believe the question would be honestly answered?
I find it hard to believe that the government is as self-destructive as [6] believes.
The question is odd and the cover-up of asking the question is odd. I should like to know why it is being asked and why RBS lied about asking it.
Whether there is a political angle is as yet unclear.
I wonder how far the nationalisation will be to gather information on tax payments, but is there also scope for HM Treasury to clamp down on the use of overseas tax shelters.
On the other hand, who comissioned and sanctioned the gathering of the political data?
Off-topic. More emerging about the police tactics at the Kingsnorth Climate Camp.
The confiscation of the camp’s supply of soap was justified by police “because protesters might use it to make themselves slippery and evade the grip of police”, the report says.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/12/kingsnorth-activism
The new government-inspired slogan:
RBS: The Bank Likes To Say Yes - If You’re Not A Tory*
[* small print:
Other bias is available - especially you, nationalists.
Your home is at risk if you do not keep up your Labour Party membership.
13 Perhaps, when the protestors get smelly enough, the police can arrest them for causing a public nuisance?
If RBS pathetic customer service and rapacious charging structures was not enough of an incentive to take our business elsewhere they ask crass and probably illegal questions ?
Presumably someone in RBS (we would never ask such a question) was told that it was a required question but like most of these questions no one actually bothers what answers are given.
RBS blamed as 500 jobs lost at civil engineer
Directors of Wrekin Construction, based in Shifnal, Worcestershire, said: “All we needed to keep going in this market was £2m-£3m, and we did not get it. There is considerable frustration because financing talks had been going on with RBS since October 2008.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0225594e-0e93-11de-b099-0000779fd2ac.html
I’d like to say this is a worrying development, something anti-Lab but my interpretation is that it is ‘issue’ is a storm in a tea cup.
Under Anti-Money Laundering rules we (IFAs)are supposed to identify politically exposed people known as PEPs (eg mayors, senior officials, business leaders etc) as they are seen as being exposed to higher risks of money laundering… RBS may be somewhat cackhandedly now catching on to that requirement.
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/About/What/financial_crime/money_laundering/peps/index.shtml
Barclays’ conundrum on government scheme
The government has struck deals with Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds to cap future losses on assets worth almost £600bn. Now the focus has shifted to Barclays, which is widely seen as the last remaining British bank that might be in need of substantial support…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e89b2d50-0ea6-11de-b099-0000779fd2ac.html
2 instances of the question being asked establishes as fact that they were asking. It cannot then be denied that the government were instigating this as RBS did not do so before. So WTF are Labour up to?
My Macchiavellian mind assumes that someone has it in for Gordon and there’s an element of ‘breaking their own team’s cricket bats’ - to borrow from Geoffrey Howe - going on.
Agree with the upthread comment that this could go explosive quite quickly if poorly handled by Brown.
A thought for debate:
Does anyone think there might be value in the Conservatives calling a vote of no confidence in the Government? They could do so on the basis that it is urgent that the country confronts reality and changes direction as quickly as possible before Brown leads us to total ruin (see here.
Obviously it would be unlikely to succeed (unless enough Labour MPs can be persuaded that it is no point earning an extra year’s salary and pension if it’s worthless at the end of it), but it would force Labour MPs to nail themselves firmly to Gordon’s mast AND would force the LibDems to lay down their intentions. Would they vote for propping up a Labour Govt or would they vote for change?
this ‘issue’ is a storm
Any chance of a quote from Sir Fred Goodwin?
What’s the latest on him by the way ?
23 - in a teacup or a raging hurricane?
So those 20,000 eighty-five grand mortgages in Scotland are strictly for Labour party members only?
‘HMRC Chooses RBS’
http://hmrcisshite.blogspot.com/2009/03/hmrc-chooses-rbs.html
Sitting in the Waiting Room?
Now its your lucky moment, as the doctor calls out… Next!!
‘Why Barclays’ board can’t expect to survive unscathed’
Now Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group have been sedated and operated on, plenty of people are ready to offer a professional opinion about the next patient in the waiting room - Barclays. The prognosis that the bank will survive without the need for government assistance and/or further shareholder support is hard to believe.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3f1dd43a-0ea6-11de-b099-0000779fd2ac.html
This news could further depress their share price !
Many questions need to be asked and it will give the Opposition more ammunition.
Glad to see you’re here, Stuart. I look forward to reading your comments on this blogpost:
http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2009/03/burned-by-scottish-banking-crisis.html
26. mirthios
See this FOI Request:
http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/2009/03/11/rbs-to-start-lending-again-but-only-in-scotland/
‘Scottish Homes: Bought and sold with English gold’
http://toque.co.uk/blog/?p=2180
30. LS
Yes, very interesting. We all know that England loves Scotland, and Scotland adores England. We are all just one big happy family in our glorious, everlasting, incorporating union.
LS, have you managed to finish Chapter One yet in your ‘Scottish Politics for Dummies’ coursebook? Your test results to date have been… ahem… “somewhat wanting”.
[22] - I doubt it would get much airtime in the media, because the government majority is so large. Surely voting against your party on a vote of no confidence would see MPs kicked out of the party? It isn’t going to happen.
More pertinent would be opposition to [carefully selected parts of] the delayed budget as it goes through the house. Labour MPs now have a taste for opposing measures in the budget from the 10p tax fiasco, so if the Conservatives can find the right parts of the budget to oppose, there is the potential to cause a serious amount of useful mischief.
32.
Thanks for a very informative reply, Stuart. It told me more than you probably thought it would.
‘Enter the undergrowth to shed light on Fred’s pension’
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/comment/display.var.2494923.0.Enter_the_undergrowth_to_shed_light_on_Freds_pension.php
Q: Has the drug trade declined because of all these “anti-money laundering questions” and 2 hour interviews with 16 yr olds trying to open an account?
Ans: Is the Pope a protestant.
Q: Are our banks efficient private enterprises?
A: No they are just an arm of the state.
32 - A synopsis of that course fell into my hands, I wonder if you could confirm its authenticity, Mr Dickson?
“ Scottish Politics for Dummies
1. There is no argument, no matter how fanciful and far-fetched, that a Scottish nationalist will not put forward in order to advance the cause of Scottish separatism.
2. There is no obstacle to Scottish separatism, no matter how compelling or inconvenient, that should be given any airtime at all.
3. There is no subject which should not first be considered through the prism of how it affects the cause of Scots nationalism.
4. All of the advantages of being part of the United Kingdom (the money, the influence on the world stage, the money, the access to a larger more successful economy, the money, the ability to exert cultural influence, the money) would magically survive breaking the union, while all of the disadvantages would disappear in the Scotch mist.
5. The terms of dissolution of the union, if it were ever negotiated, would inevitably entirely favour Scotland because the rest of the UK would inevitably concede every negotiating point no matter how strong the case of the rest of the UK and they would give the Scots a farewell kiss, because that is the Scots Destiny.
6. What’s yours is ours and what’s mine is my own.”
There will soon be one less parcel of rogues in the nation: good riddance The North Britishman.
Johnston Press underlined the fragile state of the UK newspaper industry by casting doubt on its ability to continue as a going concern…
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6436873a-0ea6-11de-b099-0000779fd2ac.html
Troubled Scotsman publishers Johnston Press yesterday warned of further job losses on top of a 15 per cent cut in their total workforce last year as advertising revenues worsen.
Johnston, who also own Scotland On Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News, axed 1130 roles in 2008 after suffering the “greatest fall in revenues in its history”.
Advertising revenues are down nearly 36 per cent below 2008 levels and Johnston confirmed further jobs will go.
The group are understood to be looking to make more job cuts at their Edinburgh operations with production of their three main papers set to be merged. No shareholder dividend will be paid.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/business-news/2009/03/12/business-in-brief-86908-21191794/
The Scotsman’s own report on the story is hilariously thin.
http://business.scotsman.com/medialeisure/Johnston-Press-hit-by-ad.5059070.jp
Meanwhile Laming’s solution to the organisational stupidity created across the UK by merging the 2 biggest council depts together (Care and Education) following the daft Climbie recommendations has its latest fix…. A training course for the heads of the two headed monster depts!
The degree of organisational stupidity of people like Laming is beaten only by the Labour politicians ineptness in appointing him.
The Herald can hardly stop itself from sniggering as it reports:
Johnston ‘going concern’ warning
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/news/display.var.2494918.0.Johnston_going_concern_warning.php
I really hope this is not true.
If it is how far have we fallen and where will we end up?
A scathing and biting article in the DT on Brown’s guilt over Lloyds / HBOS:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/iainmartin/4975176/Gordon-Brown-broke-Lloyds-and-it-should-break-him.html
The continuing clown like handling of the most serious threat to our national wellbeing is going from tragedy to farce. It will end up around brown’s neck one way or other as he is quite clearly putting self and party above country - that’s treachery in my book. The truth will out. Next week’s PMQs should be back to normal!
Mike
The link to the story
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/the-week/3430746/politics.thtml
Very very off topic, but I haven’t seen any reference on here to what is becoming really a very big story among the chatterati, the use of drugs in the “nice” middle classes. Heavens, it’s even reached the families of journalists who write for serious newspapers.
It is easy to mock the Myersons (goodness knows, they deserve the mockery), but there is something important going on here. For a generation, there has been a tacit assumption in progressive households that drugs are a victimless crime and that there are more important things to worry about. When the Guardian and now the Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/deborah-orr/deborah-orr-drugs-are-the-thing-every-wise-parent-should-fear-1642987.html are changing tack, I detect a change in the weather on this subject.
This doesn’t have any direct polling implications, but it does have major political implications.
It surprises me that Streamline talk to anyone who isn’t the account holder.Its difficult enough to get someone to talk to you about these things when its your own account never mind.
If true its very odd and worrying.
Given Frasers voice I think I might get Kenneth Williams to jump on the anonymous phone calls bandwagon.
This is interesting but lets see how much it gets picked up and what the substance is.
If it turns out that people are asking for political affiliation and associastion then it probably won’t last 5 minutes in the hands of as decent lawyer.
Quantitative Easing starts well (FT).
“Investors flocked to sell government bonds to the Bank of England as it launched an unprecedented programme to expand the money supply and breathe new life into the economy.
The Bank was overwhelmed with offers to sell the bonds by some of the country’s biggest investment groups in an early sign of success over its historic quantitative easing move…..
UK bond yields are now trading at the same level as German Bunds, historically the lowest in Europe because of the strength of Germany’s economy and the depth of its bond market.
Benchmark 10-year UK bonds closed at 3.08 per cent on Wednesday, compared with 3.07 per cent for 10-year Bunds. Gilts typically trade about half a percentage point, or 50 basis points, higher than Bunds.”
“Will this be another big headache for Labour?”
I don’t think so, no. I can’t seeing this being a big issue. I don’t see it going anywhere, or resonating with anything in particular.
*Prepares for non-stop week-long press coverage leading to social unrest, resignation of government, civil war*
37. antifrank
Wonderful.
I note that you seem to have swallowed the old Labour Party propaganda that somehow England subsidises Scotland. Just so that you know: that old chestnut has long since been abandonned by more cerebral Unionists. That is in Chapter Two, so maybe you ought to actually start reading the textbook.
I wonder what the ‘British Nationalism for Dummies’ synopsis would look like? eg. “There is no argument, no matter how fanciful and far-fetched, that a British nationalist will not put forward in order to advance the cause of Unionism.”
49 - Glad you liked it. You mistake me for a British nationalist. Personally, if the Scots wish to declare independence tomorrow, I would regret it, but with the same amount of regret that I feel when I find that my choice in a restaurant is “off”.
What bores me about Scottish nationalism is that the debate takes such an unreal air. I have never seen a Scottish nationalist acknowledge the drawbacks of being a smaller independent country, never seen a Scottish nationalist acknowledge the shared cultural heritage of the UK, never seen a Scottish nationalist acknowledge any problems at all that might emerge from independence.
In that respect, Scottish nationalism is juvenile. At some point, no doubt, it will grow up, but it has a long way to go yet.
47 Erm…..that’s not good! Real investors are dumping UK debt as fast as they can because suddenly state controlled banks have been ordered to buy it - creating artifical demand for the crap that wasn’t there before. Johnny taxpayer gets it in the nads once again. Read the DT article I posted at 42.
Brown is now planning huge debt increases (no doubt for a pre-election cynical ‘giveaway’), the money coming from banks owned by the state! He’s taking us down with him.
Our country should now be called the United Kingdom of Ponzi and the Witless Morons Who Voted For It.
All is not well at the Unionist Herald either:
Newsquest staff offered reduction in hours to cut costs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/09/newsquest-staff-reduced-hours-offer
My, my, the bastions of the Union are looking a tad shaky, are they not?
RBS, The Scotsman, The Herald… what next? The Kirk? The Sunday Post? Gordie Broon?
47 Any good at Cheltenham yesterday Icarus?
Stuart [35] I am afraid I lost the will to live reading the article in the Herald about Sir Fred’s pension. Does it mean that most of his pension will not be taxed at 40% but be tax free? If so there surely will be an explosion!
51. Is it also not preparing the higher for higher long term inflation.
Excellent (for me!) I had a 50p win Lucky 15 and a 50p place lucky 15 (same horses) with Mikael D’Haguenet (thanks to whoever tipped it) and Silk Affair. My £22.50 investment paid £44!!!
54 - A pension is taxed at the same rate whether it is paid from a FURBS or from a normal pension scheme. Normally, FURBS benefits were paid out tax free as a lump sum. Why did they have this better treatment? Because employer contributions to a FURBS were taxed as a benefit in kind of the employee while contributions to a normal pension scheme are tax exempt. The article is therefore highly misleading.
54 - Much of the rest of the article should be taken with a cellarfull of salt too. It is not as simple as the journalist portrays it.
If one applies for a position on a quango you have to answer a similar question giving your political affiliation!
I had a job application form from SHROPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL who now ask “Are you MALE. FEMALE. TRANSEXUAL.”
This encroaching into one’s personal life is quite disgraceful.
50. antifrank
- “I have never seen a Scottish nationalist acknowledge the drawbacks of being a smaller independent country… “
You mean like how Swiss people are always harping on about how dreadful it is being a small independent country?
- “… never seen a Scottish nationalist acknowledge the shared cultural heritage of the UK… “
Indeed. I have often noted how willing Unionists are to acknowledge the rich, indigenous cultural diversity within the UK, and to bask in the glory of our shared European cultural heritage.
- “… never seen a Scottish nationalist acknowledge any problems at all that might emerge from independence.”
You are quite right! Whereas British nationalists are always willing to maturely consider the possibility of all 3 countries of the Union benefitting from dissolution.
38. Stuart , well deserved considering all they do is print labour party propaganda, what used to be a great newspaper gone to the dogs. Sad to see but has been inevitable given its recent chosen path.
59 - Disgraceful. A transsexual would identify with their present sex and would not regard themselves as a third sex. “Intersex” might have been ok, for those who refuse to define themselves in such a binary way.
“Whereas British nationalists are always willing to maturely consider the possibility of all 3 countries of the Union benefitting from dissolution.”
Er… there were 4 last time I looked.
59
Be fair! they probably have to use such information to decide on what toilet facilities to prepare, transexuals are difficult in that area.
So the implication here is that they won’t give credit to Tories or Lib-Dems?
In view of scrapheap’s comment, it doesn’t sound veru significant as a function of RBS’s ownership, though I do think there’s scope to debate whether the anti-money-laundering rules have gone too far.
On another subject, I was told recently two things about Tory and SNP policy prescription charges which I didn’t know. I thought I’d check before quoting them, and this seems a good place to do it. It’s not that I don’t slag off other parties’ policies, but I like to get them right when I do.
a) Is it true that they have not, contrary to popular English belief, been abolished in Scotland, although the SNP have announced their intention to do so sometime in the coming five years?
b) Is it true that Andrew Lansley has described the proposal to abolish them in England and Wales for patients with long-term conditions as a ‘waste of money’?
60 - I think you make my point for me.
Cheers to andrew for his tennis tips
On the story… that’s pretty suspicious.
Right. I know a bit about what RBS is up to here (or at least, what I think it is), so here goes:
Firms are required by the FSA and JMLSG (Joint Money Laundering Steering Group - there should really be an ‘anti-’ in there but there isn’t!), to put in place measures for identifying and dealing with Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs). The assertion within the regulations is that
“individuals who have, or have had, a high political profile, or hold, or have held*, public office, can pose a higher money laundering risk to firms as their position can make them vulnerable to corruption. This risk also extends to members of their immediate families and to known close associates.”
* The regulations subsequently go on to say that they shouldn’t apply to people who left office more than a year ago unless there’s a compelling reason to the contrary (I paraphrase but the essence is right).
The full guidelines are here (they’re pretty long - the key sections are paragraphs 5.5.18 to 5.5.29):
http://www.jmlsg.org.uk/content/1/c6/01/14/56/Part_I_-_HMT_approved.pdf
While RBS is being cackhanded in the implementation, I know for a fact that it is far from the only financial institution that is gold-plating the regulations. PEP monitoring should only apply to national-level politicians or those with a similar status or prominence (mayors could reasonably be considered as such, likewise ministers in regional governments etc), and their family / business associates. More crucially, the way they’re written, they only apply to foreign politicians or Britons occupying those positions in an EU or international body, though apparently the Law Society has produced guidance to say that they can be applied to UK politicians too.
Even so, there is no justification whatsoever to apply the regulations to members of a political party or politicians at a junior level (eg councillors) - and their families and associates. I should mention that part of the implementation of the regulations is an ongoing monitoring of transactions on the account(s). Doing so would surely breach the Human Rights Act and involve highly questionable behaviour regarding data protection.
RBS is just the first institution to be caught out like this. It would be a good idea for journalists (and pressure groups of the nature of Liberty etc) to contact other financial institutions to find out how each one is implementing the regulations.
61. MalcolmG
I find it quite shocking just how often The Scotsman prints Scottish Labour Party press releases verbatim. It really is no more than a provincial rag nowadays.
My dad abandoned it years ago, and he used to be the classic Scotsman reader: well-off, conservative Edinburgh resident.
F1:
Hamilton’s odds have drifted longer probably because McLaren appear to be having difficulty in testing. However, testing isn’t racing and some say they’re trying to test stuff for the 2010 regulations which explains very slow lap times.
Ferrari are top of the timesheets, though the difference between top class and middle of the pack is more marginal than might be expected.
Kubica has a lay value of 17 on Betfair, so you may be able to get a silly number like 16 matched if you’re lucky.
62 Such questions are normally part of the equal opportunities section, separate from the main application form, and are not used other than to monitor equal opportunities policies. They are also usually voluntary.
You can question the utility of such information - but equal ops forms have been around a long time and don’t quite have the significance you are making out.
Because it is now illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality and religion, questions about those have now found their way onto the forms.
32 “We all know that England loves Scotland, and Scotland adores England. “
Stuart, you are playing the biggoted scottish nationalists’ game.
Most english have no problem with the scotch. However the hatred from scotch nationalists goes unpunished by their countrymen. It is tolerated and even deemed acceptable.
Your gentle sarcastic humour is tacit approval of the behaviour of a minority of narrow minded aggressive scotch inadequates.
It only isolates you further. You want to be the biggest fish in a small pond.
We dont hate you. But if you want independence, go ahead. We will watch as you tear each other apart. My bet is on Mcs rather than the Macs.
50. It appears you are the dummy rather than reading the “Dummy”. There are many many small countries more prosperous and better off than the great UK with all our supposed big table items. Much better to be small and doing what is right for your country than to be part of a bigger bankrupt , failed union of countries. Some day people in England may grow up and realise they do not rule the world , nobody thinks they have any cultural or othe rsignificance and start to climb their way out of the mess. Your patronising whinging is how the world see England unfortunately , well down on your uppers and morally bankrupt.
51 - does that mean the (will probably JUST vote Labour next time) suffix is gone for the foreseeable future? Or have I confused you with someone else?
54. It means as usual that it is a government sanctioned fraud for executives and that the whole £16 million is indeed able to be taken tax free, almost all the money was outside the standard RBS pension.
54. Icarus
God knows. I gave up well before the end too!
Alf Young is a momentous bore of a journalist, but he is widely respected within the Scottish media mafia. He is a Labourite, of course.
I just thought that it was on-topic (nice for a change from me), and that it may be of interest to PB readers who want to know more about the RBS story, but who do not habitually peruse the Scottish press.
74 - eagles don’t strain at gnats. Big kiss.
51. Patrick, you patently don’t understand QE. Not surprising if you trust the telegraph over the FT. The FT article is positive.
63. Phil C
Northern Ireland is not a country. It is only part of a country. Both Unionists and Nationalists refer to it as a ‘province’.
If Scotland ever becomes independent, I think one large question is about what happens to the rest of the UK. Given its geographical proximity, cultural and linguistic similarities,and the fact that the Plantation of Ulster was originally a Scottish scheme, I think Northern Ireland should be transferred to the Scottish successor state rather than England-and-Wales. That would be enough to enable me as a patriotic Englishman to strongly support Scottish independence. E&W could then become a federal state with the Westminster parliament becoming an English parliament, more powers being transferred to the Welsh assembly and a light touch Union parliament dealing with a minimum of stuff - such as foreign affairs and defence. Job done.
I am totally bewildered now.
Are we witnessing a division in NuLabour????
Euro Finance Ministers versus Brown and Obama.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3d12fbec-0e89-11de…com%2Fhome%2Fuk
Darling signals Budget restraint
By George Parker and Chris Giles
Published: March 11 2009 23:32 | Last updated: March 12 2009 08:15
Chancellor Alistair Darling on Wednesday gave a clear sign he would not mount a big new fiscal boost in next month’s Budget, as he surveys bleak public finances and evidence that the economy is being bolstered in other ways.
Gordon Brown and Barack Obama have called for the G20 summit in London next month to co-ordinate a global fiscal stimulus, but Mr Darling has joined other European finance ministers this week in calling for restraint
74 I dont come here often, but whenever I do, MalcolmG is insulting one.
He is probably the current title holder in the most immature/borish poster category.
I rarely get past his first sentence.
79 I think you are straining at gnats there. It is a Constituent Country in UK terms, even if its history is that it was until relatively recently part of a larger country.
However, as you appear to be denying NI nationhood that presumably helps my scheme to make it a Scottish colony after independence…
Gosh! interesting place Harrow.
http://www.harrowobserver.co.uk/west-london-news/local-harrow-news/2009/02/19/harrow-councillor-expelled-by-conservatives-116451-22964799/
For those who are old enough to remember her, doesn’t she look like Marge Proops: great glasses.
66. NPMP - “Is it true that they have not, contrary to popular English belief, been abolished in Scotland, although the SNP have announced their intention to do so sometime in the coming five years?”
‘Prescriptions to up again - if you are English’
The rise is a snub to doctors’ leaders who want the fee abolished, as it is in Wales and is about to be in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/87851/Prescriptions-to-up-again-if-you-are-English
‘Presciption charges: the tale of two governments’
Prescription charges in Scotland will fall to £4 in April, in England Labour are increasing them to £7.10.
http://www.snp.org/node/14943
One of the biggest changes is looming on the horizon after the Scottish Government took the decision to abolish prescription charges from 2011, while there has been no such move in England.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2491531.0.Facing_up_to_the_future_but_at_what_cost_to_patient_choice.php
81.
In the event that the link doesn’t work.
Mr Darling, speaking to foreign journalists in London, called for the world’s 20 leading industrial and developing nations to pursue a package of measures to boost the economy including monetary loosening and measures to rebuild banks.
However, on the fiscal side the chancellor put the stress on implementing tax cuts and spending increases that were already in the pipeline.
The Treasury argues that the UK economy is already being boosted: interest rates are down 4.5 percentage points since October; a programme of quantitative easing (the buying of gilts to lower borrowing costs) started to be implemented on Wednesday; and the 25 per cent dip in the exchange rate has improved the competitiveness of UK manufacturers. The British tax and benefit system is also unusually powerful in responding automatically to a downturn. The Treasury hopes that the combined effects of these factors will help ensure the economy is growing again by the end of the year.
There has been widespread speculation that Mr Darling would use his April 22 Budget to give the economy another big fiscal push, but the chancellor said most governments had already announced their plans.
He said a fiscal stimulus “has now been widely agreed, but now needs to be implemented”, echoing a similar call by EU finance ministers on Tuesday.
Some ministers believe Mr Darling is coming under pressure from Mr Brown to give the economy another fiscal jolt, a claim denied by both the Treasury and Downing Street.
Mr Darling stressed that no Budget decisions had been taken and that he would do “whatever I think is necessary to support our economy”; government officials believe he could still announce a modest package of tax cuts or new spending.
The £20bn fiscal measures announced by the chancellor in November included a widely-criticised £12.5bn VAT cut. Mr Darling argued that it had the merit of taking immediate effect.
Treasury officials say that some stimulus packages in other G20 countries are taking longer to have any impact, particularly those with an emphasis on capital spending. A rift is opening up between the US and the EU ahead of the London economic summit, after the administration of Mr Obama called for fiscal stimulus measures to the value of 2 per cent of national income for the next two years.
Mr Darling’s Budget will be constrained by dire borrowing, which economists now think will hit at least £150bn or 10 per cent of national income over the next two years, a post-war record.
International Monetary Fund estimates put the UK close to hitting the 2 per cent stimulus target in 2009, but way off in 2010. The fund says all other rich developed countries have bigger stimulus plans for 2010 than the UK.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
I work for the Halifax, and this sounds like the updated Know Your Customer procedures launched by the FSA last year. What you are supposed to do is inform risk at Head Office when a Politically exposed person opens an account. The examples given to us would be an MP, councillor or Judge. This is so accounts can be identified for an unusual movements of cash. What probably has happened is that someone at a call centre has misread the rules and then it starts to be passed along the same department when people ask people what the changes are.
The problem with a lot of call centres is the high turnover of staff who are supposed to be able look up hundreds of different rules from the computer system and keep a short turn around time.
The problem is within such a large organisation which different rules and procedures for every single product they sell, normal changes across the range leads to a constant of change rules that no one can remember perfectly.
The data protection act also requires that information required is relevant to our requirements. Questions on race sexual orientation and political affiliation are considered sensitive and should not be collected.
86, although I do think Darling’s out of his depth, he does appear to have a decent grip on reality and that may be worth a lot to this country. Imagine if Brown were PM and Balls Chancellor. They’d cook the books so much only a small soon-to-be-repossessed pile of ashes remained.
My solution to free prescriptions is simple. I read somewhere that only 10% are paid for. Simply abolish free prescriptions, charge £1 for them, and then fire all the Civil Servants who currently administer the free prescription schemes. Hey presto, revenue has increased, at a price everyone can afford, and we have reduced the amount of bureaucracy in the system.
“Why is RBS politically vetting potential customers?”
Because Gordon Brown-Stalin told them to?
Scottish Government press releases:
‘Abolition of prescription charges’ - 05/12/2007
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2007/12/05141211
‘Prescription charges’ - 28/01/2009
In-line with the Scottish Government’s policy to reduce charges before full abolition of the prescription charge, regulations will shortly be introduced to the Scottish Parliament proposing that from April 1 2009, the charge for a single prescription will be reduced further from £5 to £4. This charge was first reduced on April 1 from £6.85 to £5. It will also propose that the price of a twelve month PPC will be reduced from £48 to £38 and the price of a four month PPC will be reduced from £17 to £13.
In December 2007 the Scottish Government announced its decision to abolish prescription charges for all patients in Scotland from April 2011.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2009/01/28095040
86
Wow. Is darling one of the first government ministers to realise he is not omnipotent?
89
Correct.
86. Hopefully Darling will begin to assert himself. He’s always struck me as a pretty decent bloke and he must realise the game is up for Brown. Does he really want to leave an even worse legacy of debt that will haunt us for generations.
So Brown and Obama, a pair of lefty nutjobs, both want to sink their countries in debt and go porktastic on the pissing money up the wall front. Big government junkies.
The EU members largely want to worry about debt and let asset prices find their own level.
Please can we borrow the German finance minister for a while?
66 - Nick, presciption charges go down from £5 to £4 from April. Now off to work…….
84 Should have gone to Specsavers…
82. Aw poor diddums, get a spine , just because you do not like reading facts means nothing. If you do not read the posts why comment on them, stick to your toys. If you cannot stand answers to your banal posts stay away more.
I read Fraser Nelsons piece in the Spectator this mporning, and I was horrified.
This has all the smell of Fascism, and one of the methods and underhand way that the Nazis took a grip on Germany in 1933/34.
I is strange and uncanny that at the moment I am re-reading “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirer.
84: Now she deffo should have gone to specsavers.
“Sure enough, the chilling question came at the end: ‘Is she a member of any political party?’ I asked why this was relevant. ‘I presume we ask because there is a high volume of fraud in that sector. Because people who are of that sort of [party political] nature, maybe, are inclined to commit fraud.’ The question, I was told, is ‘thrust upon us by the Financial Services Authority’. The FSA says this is untrue. Banks can check clients’ backgrounds, but no one is required to talk politics.”
This sounds unlikely to me.
Is he claiming that the bank discussed someone elses account with him, and that the person in the call centre claimed a particular tick box had originated with the FSA?
83. Philc we would want NI like we would want a hole in the head, you are welcome to keep it.
47. That’s not a story, it’s a press release written before trading began.
“business was brisk, with lots of pre-orders” standard PR guff.
” Nat West , there is another way… to screw the Tories”
95. Do you still work marcia?
I got the impression you were some darling old granny sitting in her rocking chair knitting Fair Isle jumpers. Cat. Roaring fire. Howling gale outside the window. You get the picture.
Are you not like aged 200?
Well it seems Labour is taking yet another leaf out of Robert Mugabe’s book - state resources to be diverted to supporters only…
72 such forms are used to filter out for shortlisting purposes.
Following yesterdays success
Today at Cheltenham ITS*:
1.30 Naiad Du Misselot (PtP tip and #6) 8/1
2.05 Galient (Nicky Henderson – low weight) 20/1
2.40 Tidal Bay (Bloke outside Tigers ground on Saturday –but also like Monets Garden
and Antartique as long odds ew) 7/1
15.20 Mighty Man (#6) 40/1
1600 Turkish surprise (King/Thornton – like the name and low weight) 40/1
1640 Butlers Cabin (JPMcManus owned #6) 20/1
Odds v. approx from Betfair
*ITS: Icarus Tipping Service
More bad news for Brown and the economy he’s trashed:
“House prices could slump by another 55 per cent, a respected City forecaster warns.
It also predicts a deep recession lasting throughout next year and a ‘very real probability’ that Britain will go bankrupt.
The report leaked yesterday from financial analysts Numis Securities says that the collapse in house prices is not ‘anywhere near over’….”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1161317/House-prices-drop-55-leave-Britain-bankrupt.html
I suggest all posters read 69. Ed Clover sounds like he may have solved the mystery.
As threatened. Day 3 at Cheltenham.
“STJOHN 08/09″ selection today is Synchronised in the 2.05. Each way with Corals at 11/1. This price is going.
Peter the Punter has put up Naiad Du Misselot in the 1.30. Yokel suggests Fair Along in the 3.20.
Has anyone posted this yet:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/iainmartin/4975176/Gordon-Brown-broke-Lloyds-and-it-should-break-him.html
It should be required reading for anyone who still thinks that
Gordon Brown is any sort of financial or economic guru!
111, I hope next week Cameron hammers Brown in the economy generally and Lloyds/HBOS in particular.
109. Quoting FSA regulations provides a good cover for all kinds of activities.
109: Which would work if they question was, ‘Do you hold a public office’, but thats not the question. It may be Natwest is just being cack-handed….But, ‘Is she a member of any political party?’ goes a long way beyond that.
Interesting enough (or not), I’m an accountant, and so have to consider risk and money laundering when taking on any new clients. Should I do the same? should lawyers?
108 We really are punch-drunk on numbers, aren’t we? Can you imagine if any previous Govt. - ANY - had reports like that from a mainstream investment body in circulation? This is not tin-foil hat stuff - this is a respected outfit saying basically “This country is f*cked!”
Thanks, Gordon. Thanks a bunch - for insisting on showing us just how woefully inadequate you and your Government could be these past twelve years. But you’ve shown us enough. We get the idea. You are really, REALLY bad at doing the Government thing.
But now just p*ss off.
107. ITS doing well so far.
111 - yes, Patrick @ 42 @ 8.11am
59. I’ve just received a ‘Data Protection’ form from my old college asking my annual income. I can’t think why they want to know, unless they’re planning to help me out.
09:07 AM - 12/03/2009 20.30p 0.90p (down)
Such is the power of pb.com !!!
106 Really? If you have evidence of that, it’s surely evidence of illegal discrmination. It certainly hasn’t happened at any organisation I’ve ever worked for.
120 No, they’re hoping you’d like to help them out…
Quantitative easing not working quite as expected?
[Banks turning a quick profit?]
The central bank’s initial offer — the first part of a 75 billion pound asset-buying programme — to institutions such as pension funds met with no takers but banks then scrambled to sell the Bank’s quota of 2 billion pounds.
Banks — who have been snapping up government bonds since the Bank announced it was to start buying assets with newly-created money last week — had offered to sell the central bank 10.5 billion pounds of gilts.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUKTRE5295E020090311?sp=true
Northern Ireland Executive press release:
‘Prescription charges reduced to £3 from January’ - 30 December 2008
The reduction in charges will last until April 2010, when free prescriptions for everyone will be introduced in Northern Ireland.
http://www.northernireland.gov.uk/news/news-dhssps/news-dhssps-december-2008/news-dhssps-301208-prescription-charges-reduced.htm
121.
09:20 AM - 12/03/2009 20.10p 1.10p (now down even further)
I am of course referring to the RBS share price
Time for a bit of good old fashioned “shorting” methinks
71 - When (not if) Scotland becomes independent - Wales will not be content to stay behind in what will become Greater England. We will follow shortly after, and Plaid have now started to debate this openly.
http://walesCan.com
100 - Tim, you dont need to have a bank account with RBS to get a streamline machine.
The only questions they usually ask are related to the company/organisation asking for the streamline.
Such as company name, number, date of incorporation, vat status, nature of trade. Refund/exchange policies, Consumer credit licnesnes etc.
To make sure you meet the eligibility criteria to have a machine.
They then send out some forms, which the directors of the company sign off. So no account details are discussed.
122. Active positive discrimination (with connivance from the Equality and human rights commission) is now so common place in certain public sector recruitment circles that, to argue whether it is happening or not is just silly, its like arguing whether or not the sun will rise. It’s a direct consequence of ‘binding targets’ in place by the government.
Good article in the Telegraph on how Brown and other leaders are retreating into posturing and grandstanding, with the meaningless G20 the prime focus…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/edmundconway/4975097/This-is-how-depression-looked-in-the-1930s.html
Is it really a surprise? Remember this bank is now owned by the government, a new Labour one which is the most authoritarian government we have ever had.
If they get in again don’t forget that in a few years time they’ll be asking you to go into a branch and present “your papers” as well, and no doubt the fact that you’re a Tory supporter will be logged against your DNA and shared with all other government departments.
StJohn - I gave ‘reasons’ for my selections. Some people might not think that giving the horse Number 6 is a major factor and want to avoid those selections. But what do they know?
Here is another health service/civil liberties story for Nick Palmer MP:
‘The English Spine’
Nice try Daily Mail, but not ‘everyone’ will have to visit their GP to be omitted from the National Health Service database, nicknamed “The Spine”. Take, for example, the Scots - they won’t have to visit their GP. Neither will the Welsh. Nor the Northern Irish.
Only the English…
It makes the London Olympics look like damn good value for money. Little wonder that in Britain it’s only England that can’t afford free prescriptions.
http://toque.co.uk/blog/?p=2182
127. Nice to hear that others are of the same opinion, excellent website.
Interesting article Mike. Truly bizarre.
129 I know of no targets from central Government. What there may be are internal pressures from organisations that have drawn up badly drafted “schemes of equality”. AFAIK direct positive discrimination is still illegal (although I have seen plans to legalise it).
122, Watch PMQ’s Skinner lets the cat out of the bag, by bragging about Labour voting areas benefiting from government largesse.
127. I hope Plaid shout plans for Welsh Independance from the rooftops, it’ll be easier not having to compete with them at election time.
re 80 Stuart what is a country though? Is Scotland a country? It is a kingdom, but I would say that it’s not a ocuntry and it hasn’t been since 1707.
[120] - “I’ve just received a ‘Data Protection’ form from my old college asking my annual income. I can’t think why they want to know, unless they’re planning to help me out.”
It’s so that they can boast that a degree from them enables students to go on to earn x pa extra than a degree from another institution. Helps to justify higher tuition fees for the next generation.
[108] - “such forms are used to filter out for shortlisting purposes.”
If they were, that would be illegal. They’re supposed to be separated. It even says this on the forms themselves.
127. penddu
See also:
‘Plaid AM Helen Mary Jones argues for independence’
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/03/11/plaid-am-helen-mary-jones-argues-for-independence-91466-23115912/
‘Plaid Cymru wants council tax increase to be low as possible’
http://www.southwalesguardian.co.uk/news/4189752.Plaid_Cymru_wants_council_tax_increase_to_be_low_as_possible/
‘Whitehall veto on Assembly housing powers may be illegal’
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/03/11/whitehall-veto-on-assembly-housing-powers-may-be-illegal-91466-23116460/
Where Scotland leads…
132. Icarus. I did wonder what the #6 business was all about. Good luck anyway.
130 That Iain Martin article is interesting, but his attempts to smear are pretty weasel like. Is it really relevant or necessary to describe the CEO of Lloyds thus…
“In their haste to agree, Sir Victor and Eric Daniels, his chain-smoking chief executive, did not have time to do due diligence”
Surely events speak for themselves. There is no need to paint people according to their habits. I wonder what vices Iain Martin has apart from his holier than thou attitude.
Bad manipulative journalism.
139. You can say what you like , but it will not change reality.
139. There’s no set definition. Many Cornish people argue that they are a country.
131. No Chris, no surprise. After all Mr.Palmer has informed us that we are all potential criminals and thus must have our identities logged and monitored - and what could be more criminal than opposing the governing ‘people’s party’.
144, someone should tell Brown that.
136. They are many ‘ruses’ to get around it, the EHRC will be keen to explain it all to you. ‘positive action’ is a good one, and by positive action, they mean shredding all the applications that say white males.
Of course, they can also be more subtle. When vacancies exist only advertise them in newspapers that are read by minorities or in areas that lots of minorities live.
How about training days which are exclusive to none white males, in these training and recruitment days the applicants are essentially coached on how to complete the application form the guarantee selection.
This is happening up and down the country on a regular basis in many public services. And the evil bigoted Harriot Harman wants to bring it all out into the open and fully legalise it. She is bringing forward legislation next month.
103 I know. I don’t think we want it either. But what if the English played hardball in negotiations and made it a non-negotiable condition of independence?
127 I’m not sure Wales is such a good candidate for full independence. Parts of the North are economically pretty dependent on Merseyside, and the only quick way of getting from the North to the South is via England. Wales doesn’t have as much devolution as Scotland and therefore not as much experience of managing its own affairs, although I think that will come. I would have thought a loose confederation with minimal central government could suit both parties.
142. There was a tip here some weeks ago about #6 in every race on one card. I can’t remember if it was an Icarus tip, but it returned 50% overall.
re 113;
That’s a devastating article for Brown. The Tories should be picking up and hammering away at the scandal (for that is what it is) for as long as it takes until the penny drops with the rest of the media and, through it, the public.
re 133 Stuart you don’t have to visit. I have written to my GP and asked for my records not to be transmitted to the spine. If they do end up there he will find that I have reported him to the GMC.
139 “Is Scotland a country?”
Yes. According to:
The ISO:
Country (en) / pays (fr), Province (en) / province (fr), Principality (en) / principauté (fr):
ENG England country
NIR Northern Ireland province
SCT Scotland country
WLS Wales [Cymru GB-CYM] principality
http://www.iso.org/iso/newsletter_i-9.pdf
the ONS:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/glossary/c.asp
the OED:
3. The territory or land of a nation ; usually an independent state, or a region once independent and still distinct in race, language, institutions, or historical memories, as England, Scotland, and Ireland…
the House of Commons:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2003/en/ukpgaen_20030033_en_1
Fraser Nelson triggering Godwin’s Law there (first person to mention the Nazis loses). Like Iain Martin, he shouldn’t be seen as a neutral pundit like Peter Riddell, but a commentator, like Polly Toynbee.
Thanks to Stuart Dickson for clarifying the position on Scottish prescriptions, and for the information that people who want to conceal their blood group and serious medical conditions so they aren’t protected in the event of accident will find it easier in Scotland. (Well, maybe he didn’t put it quite that way
) That’s devolution - no reason why the Scots shouldn’t follow a different policy if they want.
I note a brooding silence among Tories in response to my query about Lansley’s reported statement on free long-term prescriptions for patients with serious conditions being a waste of money. I’ll assume that my source is correct, then.
re 153 I stand corrected. My definition though would necessitate it to be self governing.
Nice to see HMG concentrating on saving lives -
‘The Fire Minister Sadiq Khan has issued a challenge to the Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRAs) to greatly improve their performance on equality and diversity by meeting the new recruitments target that they have signed up to and engage more closely with the staff associations.’
http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1171159
I never realised we had a ‘Fire Minister’. Whatever next?
151. The key line in the article is this one -
‘Lloyds tried to negotiate a new price. No way, said the PM. What did he then say to Sir Victor – who could still have walked away – to make him press on?’
Answer that and story will indeed ‘catch fire’ and Brown and Labour will be finished. But once again - does the media have the cojones or motivation to pursue this?
154, no. Godwin’s Law is that the longer an argument goes on the higher the chance the Nazis will be referred to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
No idea, but Lansley’s got a habit of putting his foot in his mouth. It could be worse. He could’ve ruined the British economy and be using a semi-nationalised bank to vet customers based on politics. Or he could’ve pulled off a miraculous and unexpected by-election win only for the ‘proof’ of it to mysteriously and immediately go missing.
‘Yesterday’s news story..’ but still relevant for Brown’s chances..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/11/g20-obama-administration
Can’t you just see the desperation in Gord’s eyes, as all his hopes are pinned on the G20, and it slowly but surely turns into a damp squib anticlimax…
re 154 Nick P no Stuart didn’t, but it’s exceptionally chiiling that you have done so.
That’s always the new Labour way isn’t it, lie about the benefits of something to scare the people into accepting it. Any doctor treating me needs to know those things, but not everyone else who works in the NHS. Do you want me looking up your records?
You may bleat about sanctions and audit trails to stop that sort of thing, but you know that they are completely ineffectual.
Funnily enough, the British Embassy in the USA calls England a country, but not Scotland! They really, really ought to get a spellchecker too. I thought that England invented the English language:
After 300 years of being governed from London, Scotland reagained its own government.
http://ukinusa.fco.gov.uk/en/aboutuk/visitinguk/countries-inthe-uk
And oddly, their map shows the entire British Isles, including the RoI. Has Ireland rejoined the Union? Passed me by…
143 - Blimey, if all you can find to complain about in that article is its reference to “chain-smoking”, then your days as a Labour supporter must surely be numbered
154 - Nothing disgusts me more about the current Government than its attitude to privacy.
154. I have not got the foggiest whether anyone said anything about anyone. But think your logic that if no-one denies anything then it must be true is somewhat flawed, although typical of a certain breed of politician.
Morning all,
On-topic: There is a political story here, but I doubt if it is the conspiracy theory highlighted by Fraser Nelson.
This is, quite simply, one of many examples of the lunatic bureaucracy which has been imposed on this country under New Labour. Some of it comes from the EU, but much of it doesn’t.
This nonsense costs money, and worse still is directly counter-productive. As we’ve seen in so many areas - child protection, banking regulation, policing - the mindless box-ticking culture has led directly to major failures.
We need to re-establish commonsense in government. That will require real leadership.
160. Spot on Chris - New Labour really is becoming a very sinister outfit.
154. “Fraser Nelson triggering Godwin’s Law there (first person to mention the Nazis loses). Like Iain Martin, he shouldn’t be seen as a neutral pundit like Peter Riddell, but a commentator, like Polly Toynbee.”
Perhaps. But this seems to be a case of good old fashioned investigative journalism turning something up. Do you deny RBS is asking people which political party they support?
148 Shredding white males’ applications would be direct discrimination, and would be such an egregious breach of equal opportunities law, you would get whistleblowers. Hell, I would have done it if one of my employers did it.
In general, if jobs are advertised in ethnic minority newspapers, they will be advertised elsewhere. Not to do so would be indirect discrimination. What I don’t know if some employers use the ethnic papers as their sole print advertising media, relying on the internet for the rest. You could argue that is asymmetric, but to be honest I am not sure why public sector employers advertise in the press any more. And I have always thought that black people are as capable of reading the Evening Standard, or using the internet, as white people - but there is an argument that by using the Voice or whatever you are “showing willing”. Personally I think that argument is bollocks.
“only advertise them in newspapers that are read… in areas that lots of minorities live” If you advertise in the local paper that might generally be the result. If that is the catchment area for the job you are advertising for that is probably reasonable, but if in practice people would come from further afield, it is indirectly discriminatory and if you did it the other way round it would certainly be seen as poor practice.
It is legal to offer training to internal “disadvantaged” candidates to help them to be able to achieve promotion, and to put a strapline on your ads saying “xxx are under-represented and applications are particularly welcomed”.
Personally, I do think the equal ops industry has gone too far, especially Schemes of Equality which are a bureaucratic nightmare that in practice means that public sector organisations are employing equalities officers and lawyers at our expense to carry out work that in no way adds value. However I think you are exhibiting a certain amount of paranoia: I know discrimination goes on, and you see some appalling cases in the tribunals, but I’d like to see some evidence before I believe assertions of systematic anti-white discrimination.
145 Surely it’s the difference between a nation and a country? A nation is to an extent a self defined and established community which shares common bonds such that it separates itself from other communities, the Northern Irish protestant community has the attributes of a nation whereas the Catholics see themselves as part of the Irish nation.
A country is a geographical and to an extent a political entity, which can be shared by many nations or exclusively one. A state is the political entity encompassing countries and nations. The UK is a state which includes both countries and nations, though increasingly the two are becoming the same as anyone inhabiting a country is seen as a national (so all inhabitants of Scotland defined as Scots).
154 - Nick - If your ’source’ on Lansley is not public, how on earth do you expect us to either confirm or deny it? Believe it or not, we’re not all in the Shadow Cabinet, at least not yet!
Nick, I’m only guessing here, but as the readership of this website is considerably smaller than the people who will have access to your records on NHS spine that you will have no problem publishing them on here. I mean you never know one of us may come across you collapsed unconscious on the street.
162 I don’t mind strong political argument, I just don’t like the subtle personal attacks slipped in here and there designed to undermined people. Unecessary. I wonder if the slightly balding yet virile JohnO agrees?
As for my days as a Labour supporter, who knows?
re 143;
Jonathan, although you refer to 130, your quote, I think, comes from the article James provided the link for at 113.
Anyway, your claim that Iain Martin’s description of the Lloyds chief executive as ‘chain smoking’ means his whole thesis is some kind of disgusting smear is totally fatuous.
Whether the guy smokes or not is entirely incidental (and there was, I agree, no obvious need for Martin to have referred to it) - but for god’s sake look at the central argument of the article.
That is what matters and it is a withering indictment of Lloyds chiefs’ judgment and Gordon Brown’s desire to put self-interest before the country’s.
Martin lays bare a national scandal. That’s the story - not some passing reference to smoking.
173. But we don’t have the smoking gun as yet. As it stands the story can still be one of gross corporate incompetence - but not corruption.
If however it transpires that Lloyds people were offered some inducement to overcome their commercial concerns, the story will be totally transformed.
172 -
Less of the slightly please, but I’ll answer yes to both!
In general I’d agree, but in this instance, the chain-smoking reference is hardly a vicious personal diatribe, is it?
145 et seq.: Rule of thumb: a country issues postage stamps.
154. The Fraser Nelson story about the RBS, should send a shudder down your New Labour back, Nick Palmer.
As it happens I did mention the Nazis, (see post #100) and so what? You may smirk and think this sort of thing a joke; I don’t.
Just like all your New Labour laws restricting freedom that your Government have pushed down our throat’s during the last eleven years. Shame, Shame, Shame!
test
175 I just hate this sort of manipulative under the radar prose, in these health-conscious politically correct times calling someone “chain-smoking” paints quite a strong negative picture. Feels almost Orwellian. Once I read it, my opinion of the Iain Martin diminished totally.
I bet you wouldn’t like a throw away reference such as the chain-smoking shadow trade secretary Ken Clarke.
Someone has pointed out the facts of reduced prescriptions in Scotland and I understand from my sister who lives on the Welsh border that prescriptions are free in Wales already.
As for long term illness in England. My wife needs thyroxine and she gets it free.
156. EdP - I never realised we had a ‘Fire Minister’.
Sadiq Khan is the ‘Fire Minister’ in England only.
Fire & rescue is a devolved matter. In Scotland the relevant government minister is Fergus Ewing:
http://www.firesafetysense.com/scotland.htm
Her Majesty’s Government is, de facto, Her Majesty’s English Government.
re 174;
But Runnymede I don’t think we need evidence of actual corruption for the story to take off.
What we already know is bad enough for Brown - namely that he personally rail-roaded through a merger that has been an unmitigated disaster.
The incompetence and poor judgment of Brown is enough even, if we can’t verifiably prove (though we all suspect) he did it to save his own skin and Labour’s at the Glenrothes by-election.
“..people who want to conceal their blood group and serious medical conditions so they aren’t protected in the event of accident will find it easier in Scotland.”
As a blood donor I already carry around a card with my blood group on. I’ve also chosen to carry around another card detailing a medical condition that might be useful for people to know in an emergency.
I know of diabetic friends who similarly carry cards in their wallet identifying them as diabetics for similar reasons.
There’s a big difference between people choosing to take such steps themselves, being able to limit the information they consequently make available, and the State making all the detailed information in someone’s medical records available for >100k people to see.
That said, it is equivalent to the current Inland Revenue system where most people’s tax records are available for anyone with access to the database to view. I could see why people would consider their medical records to be more sensitive though.
Antifrank [57,58] Can Sir Fred take all of his pension pot without having to pay tax on it? The article is confusing but it seems that if he bought a pension with it the pension would be taxed. The reason he can take all the pot tax free is that RBS has already paid the tax!!
Herald article
If the Sun gets hold of this they will surely go ballistic !
179..I bet you wouldn’t like a throw away reference such as the chain-smoking shadow trade secretary Ken Clarke.
Jonathan.
Of course I would: Ken Clarke is a “chain-smoking shadow trade secretary”.
There! happy now?
Your are really buiding mountains out of mole hills.
169. Broadly I agree.
Country- Geograpgical
Nation- Cultural
State- Legal
But this is not universally agreed. Country and nation are both often taken as meaning a legal entity for example.
Timothy, is there no cure for liking zebras?
179. Obviously your opinion of Michael White will be similarly diminished by today’s article on David Cameron which includes this completely neutral lifestyle snippet “Posh boy that he is”
185 More insightful comment from the anti-Cameron weathercock.
re 179;
Honestly, it wouldn’t bother me one way or the other. I certainly wouldn’t clutch at straws and raise it in the futile belief it might undermine what is a devastating critique of our PM.
182. No I disagree. We already know Brown is incompetent. The mess of Lloyds just meshes into all the other financial howlers of the last 18 months including NR and the PBR.
What this article implies - but does not prove - is something far more serious. Something that would utterly destroy Brown’s standing among the public and even his own voters.
Hi corporeal - you have not signed up to politicalbetting #3a (one place left)!
188 Absolutely, if it were possible to diminish ones opinion further.
188 ‘Kneepads’ White shilling for Gordon as per usual.
189. If you read my post’s, I mean really read them , you’ll find that I am not anti-Cameron and indeed will be voting Conservative to get rid of this lousy government.
I am not though a Tory and do not belong to any politicl party.
My preferences are clear.
Dont understand why Lloyds is Brown’s mess. Problem: HBOS.
Solution: Persuade Lloyds that they really, really want to buy HBOS.
Caveat emptor.
195 An thus the easily fooled, anti-Cameron weathercock, conveniently forget his recent attacks on the Tory leader and proved my point at the same time.
186. corporeal
By those definitions, Scotland is all three: a nation, a country, and a state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_law
191 I don’t think that “the implications of the article would destroy Brown’s standing”.
There seems to be a strand of opinion in this country that would say “whatever Labour does is fine by me”. If it is possible to discriminate against ‘the Enemy’ by whatever means, that fully accords with some people’s beliefs.
‘Football’ triballis
Let’s hear it for Republican family values!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2009/mar/12/bristol-palin-levi-johnston-split
As for Michael White, remember this is the apologist who assured us Abu Ghraib was “just the work of a few bad apples”. Ignorance is bliss, eh — certainly less painful than a fluorescent tube up the jacksie on the encouragement of Cheney and Rumsfeld.
I have tried unsuccessfully to post my Cheltenham horses for today three times, someho wit must be going in to moderation, very strange.
Is Paul Waugh of the Evening Standard any relative of Auberon Waugh? He certainly writes as waspishly as his namesake
re 191;
Yes, you and I accept already that Brown is incompetent; but there are some in the media (and some voters) who are still buying the economic colossus/ saviour of the world nonsense.
This story, even at it’s least damaging, shatters that illusion.
Obviously, I agree with you, it would be more disastrous still for Brown if corruption could be proved. But the story as it stands is already decidedly grim for him.
That was
‘Football’ tribalism writ large
(This laptop has a terrible keyboard)
198. Stuart , Which was very obvious right from the start , one can only assume Chris A was being mischevious with his comment.
160: sure, you can look up my records, be my guest. I take sleeping pills and have mild hayfever; I had a cancer check that proved negative. Exciting stuff. But if I was allergic to penicillin, say, I would be extremnely keen that any A&E staff anywhere in the country could look it up if they were treating my unconscious form. I appreciate that some conditions may be embarrassing (e.g. if I had an STD I’d rather you didn’t know about it), and may want to keep it off the spine record (which, as you will know, they are perfectly entitled to do), but it seems to me strange that anyone wants to keep *all* medically-relevant information secret from anyone who might need to know it. Not morally wrong - if people want to, that’s up to them. Just strange.
By the way, is it Conservative policy to change this? I do realise that you don’t all work for Central Office, but some of you do and presumably know these things - or is Conservative health policy one of those enigmatic areas that we’ll be told about one day in the future, preferably after the election? (Yes, you’re being teased, if you didn’t realise…)
By the way, I’m debating Iraq with Andrew Gilligan and a Tory defence spokesman tonight on Press TV (Iranian-owned) from 7 to 830. I gather it’s available on Sky’s package, for those who have it. I think it’s live, though I’m not sure.
Try one at a time , Chapoturgeon in the 1:30, Nicholls has had little good fortune so far
Kasbah Bliss , 3:20, short price but class horse
199. Which is all very well until they realise that once Labour are kicked out (and they will be at some point - hopefully soonest rather than later), ‘The Enemy’ will be able to do to them exactly what they have done to ‘The Enemy’.
‘As one sows so shall one reap’
205. Desperate stuff.
Poke(r) De Sivola,4:40, could be its first win , good form
found the naughty word at last, my record so far is 3 out of 3 monday , 1 out of 3 yesterday.
Icarus, if you know it, I’d like to hear it. Seems to be hereditary..
198. By legal I didn’t mean having separe laws, but meant separate as an independent legal entity if you see what I mean.
192. Icarus, if it’s still there once I’ve done this essay then I’ll be on it.
What says PB, does political history have to be the study of the elites?
205: “it seems to me strange that anyone wants to keep *all* medically-relevant information secret from anyone who might need to know it”
You don’t get it, do you? It is the hundreds of thousands of people with access to this extremely personal information who have *no* legitimate reason to know it that troubles people. But why try to argue with someone for whom New Labour group-think about privacy is a way of life?
Obviously we “have nothing to fear” with the likes of you guarding our freedoms.
198 historically though the Scots nation was the people of northern Ireland and south west Scotland - much of the source of early Scots history in Scotland is from the Annals of Ulster and other Irish histories. Scottus up to early middle ages meant a person of Irish origin.
The Scots nation is, I’d suggest, much wider than the mere geography of the Kingdom of Scotland, it exists in places like Nova Scotia, in people like the Scots resident in England, in the Caledonian Societies across the Commonwealth and still in Northern Ireland.
205 Nick P - What does the government’s cost-benefit analysis for the ’spine’ show, and will it be delivered on budget?
Because - if we’re talking practicalities - that is the key issue, along with confidentiality. New Labour’s record on computer projects is absolutely dire, on both counts. As someone who has worked in the IT industry, you should be tearing your hair out in frustration at your colleagues’ incompetence in this field.
All we get is more and more badly-thought out, badly-specified computer projects, which waste gargantuan amounts of our money.
Another one today to add to the long list:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7937269.stm
Nick, you make my point, you say you have nothing to be embarrassed about within your medical records that fine for you. What about the people who have suffered sexual abuse, suffer from certain mental illnesses, would you be happy to have those exposed. One thing we can guarantee is that this database will leak. Employers will use it to vet who they employ, (there are going to be corrupt officials). This government has an appalling record of data security, they also have an appalling record of selling data, once all this info is digitized as opposed to paper records how long will it take for it to be sold to a pharmaceutical company, does the Government have a policy on this, I presume if you do not answer the answer is yes in your time honored fashion.
205. Oddly enough I really don’t want a few hundred thousand people being able to peruse my medical records. I know a couple of people who will have this access, and they don’t want it either. They don’t need it and don’t see the point in them having it.
218 - spot on. You will not get an answer.
Corporeal - It is the winners that write the history.
221 was to Don now at 219.
208 jsfl
It keeps happening.
Legislation brought in by one party is extended in another direction by an incoming government.
Scotland is an independent legal entity, with its own legislature, judiciary, criminal justice, civil justice, courts, police and prison systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(law)
Collier, J.G. (2001) Conflict of Laws, Cambridge University Press
For the purposes of the English conflict of laws, every country in the world which is not part of England and Wales is a foreign country and its foreign laws. This means that not only totally foreign independent countries such as France or Russia… are foreign countries but also British Colonies such as the Falkland Islands. Moreover, the other parts of the United Kingdom – Scotland and Northern Ireland – are foreign countries for present purposes, as are the other British Islands, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.
http://assets.cambridge.org/052178/2600/sample/0521782600ws.pdf
Just for the record, I work for the NHS but even in my preceding position as a temporary office assistant (with nothing more than a single CRB check to my name) it was perfectly easy to look up people’s medical details (appointments, test results, doctors’ letters) on the databases — including those of leading parliamentarians who’d been to our hospital. (Naming no names, but it’s big and in London.)
Audit trails to log my looking? Medical information only available on a ‘need-to-know’ basis? If you believe that you probably believe ID cards are going to “pay for themselves”!
184 - It is far from clear that Sir Fred Goodwin in fact gets pension in this way. I have followed this quite closely and it remains murky. I was told by a reliable source something that conflicts with the Herald’s story. It seems rather unlikely to me that the Herald are correct, for technical reasons.
However, if the Herald is correct that Sir Fred Goodwin gets most of his pension from a FURBS, he would probably have received the benefits from it in the form of a large cash lump sum when he retired last October (and so all the stuff about taking his pension away would have been outrageous grandstanding). Any journalists reading might wish to follow that up.
The lump sum would have been tax free in a sense, but Sir Fred would have been previously taxed on any contributions made to the FURBS by RBS as a benefit in kind. I can see that the Sun could make a story out of this, but in fact since Sir Fred would already have paid tax at 40% on the employer contributions (which does not happen when contributing to a registered pension scheme), this is reasonable. Sir Fred would not, for technical tax reasons, have contributed to a FURBS himself, since it would be very disadvantageous to do so.
It’s a while since I looked at this, and the law may have changed in 2006, but it certainly used to be the case that pensions paid from FURBS were taxed (which is why the benefit is usually taken as a lump sum, since otherwise the pensioner would be paying tax on something which he had already been taxed on).
Different rules apply for arrangements of this type set up after 6 April 2006, so we would need to know exactly where Sir Fred was getting his pension.
We have been told that Sir Fred is receiving a pension of over £700,000 a year. So I conclude that he is not in fact receiving benefits from a FURBS. It seems more likely to me that he is receiving a pension from an UURBS (which is just cash out of the till, in effect). If he is, he will be paying tax on this in the normal way.
There are other possibilities also. This is a very complicated area.
Further to 218: New Labour have managed to spend £500 million, just on that one fairly minor computer system for the prison service. And there are many more such disasters, some of them much bigger.
Those who say there is no big scope for savings in the public sector should ponder that figure in awe. It is absolutely staggering.
225.
That first link is broken. Here it is:
http://tinyurl.com/b3bbpl
206
What a chilling paragraph, yet you probably don’t even realise it. A polish guy in the 50s called Milosz (not sure spelling), wrote a book called ‘the captive mind’.
In this book he described just how the communists took control, not only of your life, but your mind. A key part was to destroy any sense of a private sphere, leading to individuals creating a new identity for themselves that conformed to the desires of the powerful. He called this ‘ketman’.
New labour truly are awful.
197 Jonathan. Your blindness is only exceeded by your idiocy.
225. Not much point in the SNP then really, Stuart?
205. Nick Palmer had a blood test lately? I wonder how long it will be before DNA data is held? I wonder how long it will be before the police gain access (if they haven’t already) for whatever surreptitious reason (National Security blah blah blah?).
Will they require a warrant to check people’s DNA or will they be allowed to go on fishing trips?
Now it may well be that we can still trust the medical profession but there is one thing that is certain anything to do with the Home Office is completely untrustworthy these days.
And furthermore my first four of rules of IT
Where there is a data there will be abuse (i.e. profiling).
Where there is a data there will be hacking.
Where there is data there will be entry errors.
Where there is data there will be subjective innacurate and improper comments made.
If you want to risk it thats up to you but in my mind you are a fool.
(Three threads ago)
http://www.conservatives.com/People/Meet_the_Shadow_Cabinet.aspx
I looked at the pictures without looking at the labels, and I was able to name 16 out of 32 of them. (More than I had expected).
206. NickP. The allergy to penicillin can be dealt with via a medical alert bracelet. Wow. Labour’s pathetic answer to spending billions on systems that don’t work can be dismissed with a £1.88 bracelet.
224. Indeed they never learn…..
231 Is that really the best you can come up with after twenty minutes?
Is everyone convinced that Fraser Nelson is reliable?
Try getting a credit card terminal if your not the account holder and see how far you get.
233 - unfortunately he’s not just risking it himself, he’s imposing it on everyone else.
And what about rule 5: “where there is data, civil servants will leave it on a train”
225. I mean legally independent entity, sovereign state. Whatever it is you’re aiming to be that you don’t have now Stuart, one of them. I’m too tired to get my terms exactly right.
222. Until historians wander back and rewrite it. Should we study UK political history in terms of the elites or the masses. Was the widening of the enfanchisement down to the elite individuals who passed it, or was the social movement of the Chartists the important factor that would’ve got it through whatever elites were in place.
O/T. Some interesting odds here:
FOLLOWING the ‘green custard’ attack on Peter Mandelson, Jelly has emerged as the popular dessert most likely to be next aimed at a Ministerial target, say bookmakers William Hill, who have slashed the odds about that happening from 20/1 to 2/1 favourite.
“After taking several bets for Jelly to be utilised in the next dessert incident directed towards a Minister, we realised just what an adaptable and effective material it is and slashed the odds accordingly. “We will pay out regardless of the flavour used. The bets we have taken are not just for trifling amounts” said Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe
When Hills initially opened a book on which popular dessert will next be thrown over any British government minister, they installed Spotted Dick as their 3/1 favourite, but have now lengthened the odds about this perennially popular pud to 5/1.
“British democracy has regularly witnessed examples of harmless substances being directed at controversial politicians to give them their just desserts in the past, and as long as protesters utilise harmless foodstuffs it is only politicians’ dignity which is threatened” added Sharpe.
Hills make Ice Cream their 6/1 third favourite to be the next dessert aimed at a top politician during 2009, and also offer 7/1 Rhubarb Fool ;Apple Pie; and Angel Delight; 8/1 Rice Pudding; 9/1 Bread and Butter Pudding; 10/1Custard again;10/1 Sherry Trifle; 12/1 Summer Pudding, 14/1 Semolina.
“If both jelly and, say, ice-cream should be used, dead-heat rules will apply” said Sharpe.
FOLLOWING Mr Mandelson’s close encounter with the green custard, William Hill have opened a book on who will be the next Cabinet Minister to be targeted by pud protesters, and make Gordon Brown 3/1 favourite, with Peter Mandelson a 6/1 chance to suffer again before any other Minister does so.
“After the Mandelson custard ambush, Ministers may face an outbreak of pudding flinging - which will at least make a change from mud and insults.”
Next Minister to be struck by dessert: 3/1 Gordon Brown; 4/1 Jacqui Smith; 5/1 Harriet Harman; 6/1 Mandelson; 8/1 A Johnson; 9/1 D Miliband; 10/1 E Miliband; 12/1 Y Cooper (Others on request).
(via Daily Referendum)
As nick has set the precedent
I note a brooding silence among Tories in response to my query about Lansley’s reported statement on free long-term prescriptions for patients with serious conditions being a waste of money. I’ll assume that my source is correct, then.”
I will assume that the government does plan to sell our data.
232.
Soon, runnymede. Soon!
235 Ken - Especially since the bracelet is far more reliable, quicker to access, works internationally, doesn’t require the identity of the patient to be established first, and can be read on a ship or a remote hillside where computer access is not possible.
233 jsfl
And eventually they will sell the data…
#173,174 Lloyds/HBOS
Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute delivered testimony to the US congress by at the end of last month:
In elegant and convincing terms, Posen maps out how in a banking crisis like this one politicians, supervisors, regulators, bank management and shareholders are incentivised to hide the truth from themselves and from the public at large.
and his conclusion
…If those programs live up to their associated rhetoric, and are thus tough enough on the current shareholders and top management of our undercapitalized banks, we can in 2011 be like Japan in 2003, at the beginning of a long and much-needed economic recovery. If unneeded complexity of the bad-bank construct, excessive reliance on and generosity to private capital, and unjustified reluctance to temporarily nationalize some US banks turn the proposed bank clean-up programs into only half-measures, then we will be like Japan in 1998, squandering national wealth and leaving our economy in continuing decline, only to have to take the full measures a few years down the road when in even greater debt.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/03/07/53305/a-deceitful-deal-for-lloyds-banking-group/
244 - HIV status is vital for health staff to access.
Are you arguing that a bracelet should be worn?
239. corporeal
The ability to choose whether or not the enter an illegal war?
The ability to choose not to be home to the entire UK nuclear arsenal, just 25 miles from the centre of our largest city?
The ability to enter the Eurovision Song Contest?
can someone explain exactly why a bank should need to know that someone is politically exposed - i am not aware of a large or even small number of money laundering cases involving local councillors or MPs . In general they are the last people you would expect to be involved in such activities and the fact that a special watch needs to be kept on them does seem bizarre . It would seem the regulators are looking in the wrong places - not for the first time ….
246 To be honest, if you’re an example of the average Scot you’re welcome to independence. As an Englishman I can no longer see what benefit there is to remaining in the Union with such a whining, ungrateful group of people. Good luck mate, you’ll need it.
antifrank [227] - Still sounds murky - keep digging guys.
Is Sir Fred’s Pension Tax Free?
Looks like a great headline (PMQ question perhaps?). The fact that RBS will have paid the tax may be true, but why let complicated facts get in the way.
246. Yes in short. Sovereign power thingy etc. Remind me never to get into a terminology argument again.
Actually the ability to enter the Eurovisioan Song Contest is only dependent on membership of the European Broadcasting Union - and in this respect Wales is ahead of Scotland - because S4C is a member of EBU Wales could enter the Eurovision Song Contest in its own right and not as part of UK entry.
I wish we would just to hear Gallles - Nul Point
243. Richard Nabavi. There will be a tiny number of cases where a patient’s history is so complex that he (or his family) will not be able to identify all the different drugs and issues. However, for sch individuals, the odds are very high that they will be taken to their own hospital. I put the number of occasions when online health records would be critical at a ridiculously tiny number. The whole thing just appears to be another New Labour IT monster.
“On the face of it this appears to be an outrage.”
It is an outrage. Browbama is an utter control freak. We’ve seen nothing yet. It’s SOP for Government jobs over £50k.
247. Tim. Actually HIV status is not vital to healthcare professionals. It’s preferable to know, but given that some people will be carriers (and of various forms of hep) without knowing, hospital protocols are built around trying to avoid blood contact anyway (the needlestick transfer). Or are you saying that HIV sufferers should be forced to put it on their computerised record?
The possible flaw in all this is that Doctors never seem to read the notes properly. You always have to tell them what medicines you are on and what the previous doctor said was wrong!
253. penddu
256. I always perceived the main benefit of the IT system was to cut down on form filling and duplication of patient records between departments, which I’m told there is a lot of and is very time-consuming.
Always thought of it as a good idea badly implemented more than anything else.
259. Do you seriously believe any bureaucracy would voluntarily introduce a scheme aimed at reducing bureaucracy?
Icarus the solution for too many crap doctors is not a crap computer system, though.
My personal experience on two occasions is that there were too many doctors/nurses and so none of them did what was necessary, assuming someone else had done it.
There has to be defined responsibility and accountability to maintain quality in any organisation.
241 Yvette Cooper being hit with semolina would look to be a good spectacle….er, I mean payout.
On sovereignty, on my recent trip to Som@lil@nd, they have an independent legal entity, with its own legislature, judiciary, criminal justice, civil justice, courts, police and prison systems. AND armed forces. All wrapped up in a functioning democracy complete with free votes.
However, what they don’t have is international recognition.
227. Richard Nabavi.
New Labour have managed to spend £500 million, just on that one fairly minor computer system for the prison service
Whilst I am just as disturbed about the waste of money involved and the failure to implement it, I do have a reasonable comprehension of what this system is replacing and believe you me it is not a minor computer system. It is only minor in political terms.
That is the problem. In every other way, it is an inherently complex system and it is to be implemented in environments that are far from suitable for Information Technology. Attempting to implement such a system was always going to be difficult and if initiated and implemented by people who do not have a full and thorough knowledge of the Prison service as well as IT it would always go over budget and exceed it’s timescales (it did the first time).
Now chances are the old system had to be replaced through obsolescence but as with all these things they never replace as is. They have to add hundreds of new functions and bells and whistles. On paper such things seem marvellous but only those who have done such exercises before know what they entail in reality.
Of course being a bespoke Government system it is heavily directed by legislation and every time that legislation changes (and politicians can change legislation in the most inventive and unpredictable ways) it has to be changed or become increasingly functionally obsolete. How many times have this Government changed their criminal justice and sentencing policies?
I think the underlying point is that politicians and senior civil servants do not have the experience necessary to understand the implications of implementing major computer systems (and it is a major system). They should avoid them at all costs or accept they are going to waste vast amounts of taxpayers money.
254. penddu
http://www.ebu.ch/en/ebu_members/actives/index.php
262, why don’t they? And why is their name not allowed?
I recall I had to use a silly rhyme, like Momaligand or suchlike, to guess where you were before.
254 Ken - Yes, it’s a cost-benefit trade-off (plus of course the issues of confidentiality, deliverability, and reliability). And in cases such as that you describe, it’s not obvious that a massive centralised system is the only way of handling it.
My contacts in the NHS are absolutely scathing about the various IT disasters, which have made their work more difficult, not easier. Of course, they end up finding ways around them.
It’s one of the curious features of New Labour, that they are obsessed with massive computer systems and databases. Some of them - such as the Children’s Database - are spectacularly stupid even on paper, let alone in practice.
tim, thats fascinating, would you explain to a layman why it is vital that health care workers need to know someones HIV status. It is a “fact” I was unaware of. I mean this is not the sort of thing that a normal person would make up in some vain attempt to support government policy is it.
EU: Article 11.4 of the Lisbon Treaty could be the key for solving the European democracy problem. What will happen, if it can be done, when several million votes are collected concerning a specific topic? What if, should there be that many articulated voices, the Commission has to listen to them and then act? These are the questions which “We Change Europe” would like to answer with their initiative.
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The Europeans are enlarging their Union!
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Please click “Vote” and “Yes” or “No” at the “We Change Europe”-Website.
260. “Do you seriously believe any bureaucracy would voluntarily introduce a scheme aimed at reducing bureaucracy?”
Nope. It has to be forced down their throats.
This promise looks like a good start, though.
http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2009/03/12/this-is-no-oxymoron/
232. Unfortunately , it matters not that we are a foreign country when it comes to taking all our money and resources, that is the point of the SNP, we want to keep our own pocket money, have a choice on nucleur weapons, who we fight with , and some other such minor things. We might even make a better go of financial regulations than the UK did.
266. These schemes provide huge revenues for well connected contractors.
Stuart - I think Scottish TV is member of EBU as part of ITV network and so not entitled to EVS entry. But S4C is independent member and so can sing alone.
“I mean this is not the sort of thing that a normal person would make up in some vain attempt to support government policy is it.”
tim is not a “normal person”; you don’t honestly think he’s doing this, has all these facts and statistics ever-so-conveniently to hand, just for fun, do you?
250 Edp, bit of the pot calling the kettle black, most of the whinging done on here is from south of the border.
272 - Oh bless, he may be boring but is it really that inconceivable that someone holds different opinions to you?
269 MalcolmG
We’ll even repatriate Gordon Brown to help with finacial regulation.
I believe he has experience in such matters…
275 - Will Scotland have any independent banks left to regulate?
Be nice to get an answer from tim, he is normally so well informed as you rightly point out. Incidentally still waiting for an answer re sale of data from Nick Palmer (think we all know what the answer is already though)
271 Is that true? I assume that both the ITV and BBC are separate members so why can’t the UK have two entries?
The thing with the new NHS computer system, as with so much of New Labour big ideas over the past 12 years, isn’t that the general idea / concept is necessarily a bad one, it is that the planning, project management, financial management and implementation have been utterly incompetent / useless.
Added to that I doubt it helps much that the government kept giving contracts to the same faces over and over again, even after the made complete balls up of stuff. EDS been a classic example of a firm that has had plenty of work and plenty of c##ks to boot.
On the face of it, a new computer system for the NHS, good idea, as the old one was way past it use by date. But the monster that has been dreamed up is a disaster. I spoke to a software developer that had for a time was hired as a sub-contractor on the NHS scheme, to basically problem solve what already existed. He said the monkeys that they had working on it were doing things so badly it was no wonder it was late, over budget, didn’t work. When he got the role he didn’t know where to start, so many of the basic ideas regarding the foundations (the system architecture) were horrible inefficient and looked like they had been designed by a moron, making fixing things even harder / impossible.
You’d have to be pretty sad to function as a NuLab rebuttal unit 24/7 — and there have been days here when tim starts posting at 7am and is still going strong at midnight — for free.
sorry c##cks -> c##ck ups
273 Then it looks like everyone will benefit from calling time on the arrangement. You’ll be rid of the whining English, and we’ll be rid of the whining Scots!
280 - I cant believe that you, of all posters, are keeping surveillance on Tim’s posting habits!
266. If they used decent companies rather than the strange reliance on EDS and a select few others , maybe we would get a decent return for our cash.
283, traumatic (and obnoxious) events tend to lodge in the memory.
I don’t know if Lansley did say that free presciptions were a waste of money - but change the wording slightly to ‘the state should not be commiting itself to making prescriptions that are currently paid for free’ and I’d broadly support that. We’ve got no money left. It’s all been spent. There are far better uses of state funds.
262. Yvette Cooper being hit with semolina would look to be a good spectacle….er, I mean payout.
Iceland had their ‘Saucepan Revolution’ - here’s to Britains ‘Just Desserts Revolution’
I propose a catapulted Arctic Roll squarely aimed at Ed Balls [the man really running our economy while Gordon "I'm not very good with sums" Brown was Chancellor] - just for the retro 70 buzz
(Sorry, 284 *not* 283.)
227 Antifrank, you say you have followed this [SFG's pension] quite closely and conclude that SFG’s unapproved arrangement is unfunded, but you appear to have missed the final paragraph of this letter, that clearly states it is funded:
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/RBSJohnMcFall030309.pdf
(Unless, that is, you think RBS would write something untruthfull to a Select Committee.)
My experience if dealing with Alf Young on pension stories over the years is that he is usually pretty accurate.
275. The only way we would want him back is for a trial, you can keep him hopefully.
280 - The give away is when he starts bringing up links to obscure local newspapers out of thin air! No casual poster is trawling the web that hard to find dirt.
272. HIV is not on the list of Notifiable Diseases, though hepatitis is.
http://www.hpa.org.uk/webw/HPAweb&Page&HPAwebAutoListName/Page/1234432664900?p=1234432664900
(Hmm. When did syphilis get dropped from the list? It used to be there.)
I suspect that any HA asking for HIV status is thinking ahead, mainly about possible litigation if a patient later shows as positive.
276. We have not had any Scottish banks as such for a very long time. They were all merged, taken over and corrupted along with the other UK banks.
Would be nice to have a new Scottish bank based on Scottish financial principles.
287 - Even in Sweden, the mecca of a Liberal Lefty state in Europe health care is far from free. From what I remember prescription charges are worse than here, 15% of the cost I the drugs I seem to remember.
279. (the system architecture) were horrible inefficient and looked like they had been designed by a moron
Actually it’s worse; they were in fact designed by committee…
As an example, there is a failover mechanism between data centres for parts of the system known as clusters (no sniggering at the back). There are multiple clusters in each data centre. When the question of failover was raised, the network team announced that they had designed the system to fail all the clusters simultaneously. The database team announced they had designed the system to fail one cluster at a time.
“94. Should have been 277, another point which you may not know , there is no such thing as a Scottish Bank. Currently we only have UK banks , regulated under UK Financial rules ( ie London ). You will be aware that these rules are a bit dodgy no doubt.
The problem with most (not all, but most) government IT projects is that they are wildly overambitious and unclear about whether they are infrastructure or operational in nature.
The scope creep, poor specification and telephone-number budgets emerge naturally from these initial conditions.
Healthcare IT is a great example. There are *hundreds* of problems which are absolutely crying out for relatively simple, low cost, IT solutions. And yes, interoperability and information sharing is a prerequisite for solutions like that to work. But that doesn’t mean you have to build something like the spine infrastructure!
The problem is, in my view, more to do with people than technology (as usual).
At local level, purchasers do not feel confident that they are qualified to judge the quality of offered solutions, or arbitrate that the vendor really *does* interoperate appropriately with their other systems in a technical, and clinical (i.e. semantic) sense. They were therefore happy to hand off responsibility to their Local Service Provider and accept the resulting IT monopoly, with all its stagnation, lack of impetus for change and ballooning cost.
If the government had invested in an NHS information accreditation and interoperability agency, with a remit to help vendors work together to exchange information in their solutions, and contracts which *require* vendors to collaborate through the agency - and shied away from handing out massive IT monopolies - then we would have a much richer (UK) vendor ecosystem, with solutions that have higher levels of interoperability to a broader range of real problems.
The agency would also provide practical support to purchasers to help them evaluate solutions in their own local, clinical context.
We wouldn’t still be struggling to replace existing medical records systems with hacked-about solutions designed for the US, trying to adapt them to the requirements of the NHS, and leaving individual departmental problems virtually untouched.
295. You would be hard pressed to find any country in Europe that has a healthcare system like the NHS.
There were similar systems in operation in the former communist countries like the DDR but they were mostly dismantled in the 1990s as being wasteful and inefficient.
283. The sooner the better.
294 Surprise. These two are still yours. Feel free to take them back, and all the debt -
The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, Registered in Scotland No 90312. Registered Office: 36 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh EH2 2YB.
Bank of Scotland Plc. Registered in Scotland, Registration Number SC327000. Registered office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ
Even without the masssive privacy and security issues that they raise, the NHS Spine project is a complete waste of time and money. Most medical treatment is done by a patient’s GP practice or local hopsital. Even when a patient is treated by another doctor is makes sense for the referring doctor to write a brief overview of the issues related to the matter in hand rather than passing over the whole medical record. It is very unlikely that the treating doctor has the time or inclination to wade through pages of childhood illneses or minor condition just in case something significant lurks in there. In emergency a phone call or e-mail back to the GP will still be the quickest and most reliable way of getting background information. If a person’s medical condition may require other doctors to have rapid access to his data then provide that person with the data on an encrypted flash drive that they can hand over if and when they need medical attention.
As jsfl raised at 233 medical records will increasingly contain information that could be used prejudicially by police, insurance companies, employers and others. Keeping this data on computers in GP surgeries remains a security risk, but nothing like that which will be generated from holding them centrally in a form accessible by literally hundreds of thousands of pepole evey day.
295 Oracle
Correct. In Sweden you have to pay a fee for your bed, food, electricity, cleaning etc if you have an overnight stay.
There is no “Prescription Charge”. Rather, one pays the full cost of the drugs (often extremely expensive), up to a certain annual limit (about 150 GBP?), then you pay 50% of the cost to another limit, then 25%, then zero. So chronically ill people pay a certain fixed sum per annum, but it is not infinite.
301. You still do not get it , they are under UK Financial rules, ie NOT Scottish. A mailbox does not decide anything.
301. Just in case its not sinking in , they are both UK banks, just as Barclay’s is not an English bank, it also is a UK bank.
Bit of a rambling thread today, with the usual incoherent and unsavoury mutterings from tim, interspersed by odd noises from Stuart Dickson, wanking away on the poop deck of his Nationalist dreamboat.
In short: Can we have a NEW thread? This one’s crap.
I suggest something on the larger political issue of the day, which has so far been little discussed: Cameron’s final decision to leave the EPP in Brussels.
Europe may be boring (it bores me, these days) but this is nonetheless a significant move: for three reasons.
1. It sees off some of the “lightweight” attack on Camo. Leaving the EPP is a pretty bold and momentous decision, and Cameron has been accused of lacking the cullions to follow through on his promise. Well, now he’s unzippered his fly and.. etc etc
2. This might have a serious impact on European politics, long term. What Europe desperately needs is a serious, powerful, non-loony eurosceptic party WITHIN the EU parliament: to give a voice to the millions of Europeans (the majority?) who are unhappy with the way it is run at the mo.
This is precisely why the europhiles have been pressuring Cammo into reneging on his promise. They fear a serious new sceptic wing could put a brake on Federalist ambitions. But they are so blinkered they don’t realise the truth: what Cammo is doing is good for Europe: by making Europe more democratic, he may even help it to survive.
3. This will sharply, I predict, improve the Tories euro-chances in June. UKIP and Libertas are going nowhere: having shown his eurosceptic credentials Cameron will be able to fill his boots with votes.
306 - I think you are greatly over-estimating the potential impact of this. Voters dont know what the EPP is, they wont care that the Tories are leaving it. That said, whatever marginal impact it does have is probably going to be positive (unless the Tories find themselves completely on the margins with fruit-the-loops and neo-nazis in which case it may be used to embarrass them in the future).
re 180 trevor H you wife may consider herself lucky with her hypothyroidism because it means that not only does she get her leovthyroxine free, but everything else as well - including the paracetamol she could perfectly well buy herself at a penny a tablet at the supermarked. If she had hypertension, say, and required lisinopril then she wouldn’t get anything free. That’s why the system is nuts. What is so special about one chronic disease above anohter.
To add to the Scottish politics rules
7. To a nationalist, anything that is good in the world comes from Scotland, anything that is bad doesn’t.
Just look at MalcomG’s attitude towards banks not to mention the willingness to suggest that all that is bad with the UK is to do with England when in actuality the man in power for the past decade has been a Scot, elected to Parliament by Scots, and whose government is supported disproportionately by Scotland.
PS, I am very much aware and admiring of those fine staples of Scottishness (whiskey, the Highlands, mince ‘n’ tatties), but nationalists do have their heads up their arses. Sometimes you wonder how they can get through the day without spontaneously ejaculating at the site of Saltire, of which there are many throughout the Scotland.
MalcolmG’s ignorant and bigotted remarks about England suggest he’s probably descended from Irish republicans given the similarity of those attitudes. I wonder where characters like that come from? None of the Scots I work with are like that despite being able to identify the odd supporter of independence. There is a difference between being pro-independence and being a nationalist. There is a reason the latter has such bad connotations.
306.
I love you too Sean. You are my hero.
265 Morris Dancer, no idea why we have to say Som@lil@and either!
As to why it has not got recognition, they are just waiting for their de facto indenpedence to be acknowledged by the world. (They cover the area that was the old British Som@lil@nd Protectorate, threw their lot in with Som@li@, then realised it was a huge mistake and eventually went solo again in 1991. However, due to incurring the great wrath of the Barre regime, the capital Hargeisa got trashed, using what must have been the shortest airborne sorties in warfare (it would literally have been easier to run the bombs down the hill from the airstrip in shopping trollies…). Virtually every roof of every building was taken off in the destruction. Many thousands died or were injured.)
But they are now up and running in their own endearing way (although Puntland to the east has some competing territorial claims).
I reckon the reason they won’t get international recognition is the spate of autonomus uprisings they fear it might provoke. Like Scotland, for example…
307. As I imply, it will have virtually no impact on domestic politics; but I predict it will impact on the euro vote.
People who vote in the euros tend to be much better informed about Europe, and care about the subject a great deal. In short: they are usually eurosceptic.
Cameron’s move will please them: a party actually keeping its promise on Europe?!? That’s quite a sharp contrast with the endless Labour and Lib Dem fibs, evasions and downright betrayals, in all matters European.
I can see the UKIP vote being severely dented by the Tories in June. They feel like a spent force anyway. Add in Labour miseries, and we could see a massive Tory share at that Euro election.
The move is also important - over the long term - for European politics. For reasons adduced above.
I agree the average domestic voter won’t give a fig - but that’s not what I’m saying.
309. Yes - it’s highly amusing to see Nats rushing to disassociate themselves from banks which they previously lauded as part of the ‘arc of prosperity’. From nationalistic hubris back to the traditional victimology mindset in a trice…
298. I recall an occasion when a goverment IT team were developing a new software module for a particular bespoke software suite for a Government department. It was the right thing to do because this particular suite was to replace manual procedures which required considerable arithmetical calculations. Exactly what computers are designed for.
There was no question it would save considerable time and money and would fulfil some overriding intentions of the Government of the time. It was a politically sound thing to do. However, because of the nature of the legislation associated with it was a complex undertaking and consequently it was resource intensive task to develop it. It reasonably took considerable time and resource to develop.
As is the nature of the beast there was a need for Government to change the underlying legislation. Now that was not a problem and the IT team took on board the draft legislation and commenced designing and developing the changes. However, in examining the legislation they found an arithmetic anomaly. One section of the legislation was flawed and could not be logically programmed.
That flaw was sufficient to undermine the integrity of the module. The anomaly was referred back to the relevant part of the Government department and after protracted debate the message came down from on high that the legislation would stand as is. As a result the software module was scrapped and months of resource and the associated taxpayers money was wasted.
I’ve no idea how regular such occurrences are but I imagine this particular story was not and is not an isolated incident.
306. I would definatly say Camerons decision to follow through with his plan to leave the EPP is a warning shot at the EU elite that a differant kind of attitude towards Europe is coming once the Conservatives get into power. I agree with you, it is quite significant.
307. Of course most ordinary voters won’t be bothered about the EPP, but anyone that was planning to vote for UKIP/Libertas will notice this move by Cameron.
304 The mind boggles as to what ‘Scottish Financial Rules’ would be. I can only hope for your sake that they bear no relation to the awesome destructive powers of those imposed upon us by your two finest exports Brown and Darling.
309. Josh
Surely you mean ‘whisky’?
‘Whiskey’ is the ghastly muck they produce on the other side of the Irish Sea.
So, you disapprove of British nationalism too then Josh? Ra ra ra.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/alancochrane/3556283/British-nationalism-What-a-load-of-nonsense.html
http://britologywatch.wordpress.com/category/british-nationalism/
http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/gareth-young/2009/02/02/new-labour-new-british-nationalism
309. Josh , your user name is apt, if you had any sense you would know that Scotland has less than 60 of the 650 MP’s in Westminster and as such it does not need many brain cells to work out that Scotland has little or no power in the UK if the large majority English MP’s want a vote to go a certain way. With regard to your other meanderings, how you could manage to get to mean having Irish roots is bizarre. Your ill judged insults on Scotland and myself show you up for what you are , ie what you decry in your post an English Nationaist of the worst kind.
Go back under your rock.
312 - And what exactly is the main difference between a “domestic” voter and a voter in the Euro elections?! (Besides more EU citizens being eligible to vote in the latter and generally lower turnout overall?)
315 - I doubt more than a tiny minority of UKIP voters could tell you what the EPP is or what group the Tories are likely to join in the new parliament is.
313 I suppose you are laughing at the state of the prosperity of the UK. Apart from Iceland , the others are doing rather better than the UK. High standard of comment from you as usual.
219: No, your data won’t be sold to a pharmaceutical company. But we seem to agree that it should be possible to exclude data which people don’t want to be available. It just seems Luddite to me to argue to therefore patients should be encouraged to keep *all* their data off the system.
Most people IMO won’t have any medical data that is either interesting to others (except those treating them) or embarrassing to themselves. Some will, or they may have objections on general grounds of the ‘who knows what MI5 might do’ type. That is, I suggest, unusual, but it should be respected. So a reasonable policy is to have the data available unless the patient says he’d rather it wasn’t.
The ‘why not have a bracelet instead?’ response isn’t serious. Most health professionals would like to have access to the medical records of a patient before they treat them, and it’s hard to know in advance what information they might need - blood pressure history, blood tests, current medications being taken, and so on. If you’ve had an accident and are being treated far from your usual surgery, it could literally be a matter of life and death.
The more common case, as corporeal says, is simply data-sharing within the system. When I had my scan, the data was uploaded to the system that afternoon and the consultant rang me the next day with the results - he said he’d only got them on-screen, but rather than keep me in suspense he thought he’d let me know. Systems that depend on paper-shuffling go wrong (even) more than IT systems - at least half the constituents’ compalints i get about the NHS are about mislaid paper records or having to give the same information to different people as they don’t have access to the earlier consultation. “One I got treatment it was fine, but I was annoyed at all the repetition and faffing about” is a typical quote.
Whether the IT project has been well-handled is another matter. Some bits have, some clearly haven’t.
319. Really? If someone is compelled to vote for a single issue party like UKIP, then surely it stands to reason they take an active interest in that single issue (i.e. Europe) I think you are underestimating how informed UKIP voters are?
319. Really? If someone is compelled to vote for a single issue party like UKIP, then surely it stands to reason they take an active interest in that single issue (i.e. Europe) I think you are underestimating how informed UKIP voters are?
316. EDp , they could not be any worse than the Uk ones thought up by the North Briton and his stooge , ably assisted by the pygmies at the B of ENGLAND and FSA , whom you no doubt imagine are all Scottish and vehemently anti-English to boot.
[312] - “I can see the UKIP vote being severely dented by the Tories in June.”
You would imagine that UKIP would have loved Cameron to stay in the EPP, and they would have been looking forward to using it as a stick to beat him with.
322 - That doesnt stand to reason, no. Have you met many UKIP voters on the doorstep? Do you really think we have 2.5 million plus people who are intimately acquainted with the different groupings in the european parliament?
Seem to be a lot of insecure unionists on today , they get very upset when people do not agree with their introverted insular views.
Hard luck chaps its called democracy.
315. Party members will notice as well. Leaving the EPP was one of the few specific commitments Cameron made during the leadership election in 2005.
321 - Words like “Luddite” do not become you. I simply do not trust your Government or any other to keep my data safe, not to sell it, not to use it inappropriately and not to get it wrong. There are far far far too many instances in the past of use and misuse of data in these ways. Your reassurances on this front are, I’m afraid, worthless.
I trust that during the lengthy period of opposition that Labour is heading for, you and your colleagues will reflect deeply on your party’s lack of respect for privacy.
306: seanT, you’re joking, right?
“It sees off some of the “lightweight” attack on Camo. Leaving the EPP is a pretty bold and momentous decision, and Cameron has been accused of lacking the cullions to follow through on his promise.”
The Conservatives, after two years of indecision, decide to change their party grouping in the European Parliament. This is “bold and momentous” and shows cullions? It will sway large numbers of votes?
“This might have a serious impact on European politics, long term. What Europe desperately needs is a serious, powerful, non-loony eurosceptic party WITHIN the EU parliament”
I can see a case for that. Do you consider that the Tories plus the unpopular and eccentric Czech ODS add up to that? They’ll have what, 5% of the votes?
Didn’t Cameron say the EPP withdrawal was to happen in 2009 anyway?
326.
1. No.
2. No.
But I still think UKIP voters will notice this move by Cameron and it will plact on their vote in the Euro Elections. As ever time will tell - It always does.
324 You are quite clearly as mad as a hatter. Definitely the most entertaining thing here today, after SeanT’s description of Stuart Dickson pleasuring himself up top on the good ship ‘Tartan Freedom’ @ 306.
330 Rubbish NickP. Historians will look back on this momentous decision as an epoch defining turning point.
332 - “As ever time will tell - It always does.”
Except time wont tell - we will never know what impact this decision had, we will only be able to speculate. Which is the beauty of this site
[326] - The voters just need to read a sentence like:
“So-called eurosceptic Cameron broke his promise to leave the Federalist EPP group in the European Parliament, proving that he can’t be trusted to stand up for British self-governance.”
Or similar. On a UKIP leaflet.
331. Yes. But I think a lot of people were skeptical that he would follow through. Many lefties appeared to think that Cameron was just playing to the gallary with his euroscepticism, but this shows that Cameron is exactly what he has always said he is - Eurosceptic. Our relationship with Europe IS going to change once he takes power. We’ll have our most eurosceptic government in British history.
At the top of this thread (#8)Marquee Mark praised last night’s posters and said they had raised the bar. Can I suggest that thoses of you contributing this morning have sailed over it? Information and elucidation count high, abuse count (relatively) low. Thanks a lot.
(Although I’ve only read up to #280 - it may all have kicked off since then and made me look foolish!)
321 Nick P - “Whether the IT project has been well-handled is another matter. Some bits have, some clearly haven’t.”
Could be a big PR opportunity for Labour here, Nick. Could you point us to the bits which have been well handled?
322. I disagree. Most UKIP voters are not well informed at all - many of them read the Mail, for a start (OK, that was a cheap shot).
Seriously though, a lot of UKIP voters have a dislike of the EU either in principle (they want out in any circumstance) or in practice (they’d be in favour of it were it not corrupt, incompetent, self-serving, bureaucratically driven, undemocratic interfering etc), but that doesn’t mean they’re all that well informed about what it’s doing or how it works - just the stories that get more prominence in the dailies. Straight bananas and all that.
For UKIP, that’s a good thing; were the electorate more informed about about their policies, current MEPs and organisational effectiveness, they probably wouldn’t get half as many votes as they will in June. As it is, they’re a handy protest vehicle at each Euro-election.
“319. And what exactly is the main difference between a “domestic” voter and a voter in the Euro elections?! (Besides more EU citizens being eligible to vote in the latter and generally lower turnout overall?)
315 - I doubt more than a tiny minority of UKIP voters could tell you what the EPP is or what group the Tories are likely to join in the new parliament is.
by Neil March 12th, 2009 at 12:33 pm”
These remarks are so asinine and absurd I suspect you are deliberately trying to get a splenetic euro-rant from me. Either that or you are just stupid.
I shan’t indulge you in a spat, but I will give you more answer cause I’m a nice mood.
Voter turnouts in euro-elections are miserable. By definition anyone who can be bothered to vote in these elections is gonna be either a party loyalist, or someone very engaged with the European issue.
Given the huge votes won by UKIP and the Tories in the last euros we can assume that many of these actively engaged voters are eurosceptic.
Cameron will have pleased them by following through on the EPP promise.
As for UKIP-pers not understanding Europe, you are being a patronising prat (just for a change!).
Of course they understand it: in my experience most UKIPpers tend to be politically well-informed, and angry about Europe. Er, that’s why they vote UKIP. Of course some may be morons who vote without a thought in their tiny minds, but I’m not quite as contemptuous of the electorate as you.
UKIP will be worried by this Tory move.
I didn’t insult Scotland, I insulted you, by suggesting you were bigotted, ignorant and not representative of Scotland. It is you who insulted England by calling it and its people worthless.
It’s in keeping with rule 3 that you interpret everything through the prism of nationalism.
341 - The Conservatives have lost my vote at the EU-elections by this move. I guess I’ll have to vote Lib Dem, though they are rather more zealously pro-EU than I am. Why can’t we have an unenthusiastically generally pro-EU party? That would sum up my position perfectly.
“unenthusiastically generally pro-EU party?” Sounds like the Brownite position.
341. “Voter turnouts in euro-elections are miserable. By definition anyone who can be bothered to vote in these elections is gonna be either a party loyalist, or someone very engaged with the European issue.”
Of course this particular euro election will, IMO, see more people voting than previous years. People who don’t give a fig abour europe and couldn’t care less, but who want to take every avaliable opportunity to give Mr Brown an electoral pasting….
330. Nick, if this move by Cameron was so piffling and pointless one wonders why the europhiles, inside and outside the party, inside and outside the UK, were so desperate for him not to do it.
It’s a good move for European democracy. The millions of sceptics across the EU need a sensible but potent voice in Brussels: the new Tory grouping might, IN TIME, provide that.
Of course an ex communist like you wouldn’t support anything that furthers democracy, that’s no surprise; but others should support this, from left and right. It’s progressive - and morally right.
Two cheers for Cammo.
344 - Do you have to utter such words when I have neither garlic nor crucifix to hand?
Until Cameron says who he will join (I’ll tell you after the election), UKIP et al are free to speculate on where the Tories may end up.
I would expect that both the savvy euro voters will want to know where the Tories are going to end up.
342. Josh any attack on a Nat is automatically an attack on Scotland generally. Thought you would have had that rule written down by now, as well
330. have to agree , it shows little to nothing. Cameron has come across as a nice guy so far but yet to see if he will cut the mustard when its required. So far its all promise, soon we will see if its real. There are a lot of lightweights in the Tory shadow cabinet, some even invisible, he will need to sort that out. Hopefully better than he did over the working outside fiasco when he capitulated at the first murmers of dissent from those earning the large sums outside their day job.
343. I’m not sure how to vote at the European elections. I’m pro-EU but I want reform of the institutions and I also want a party that I can trust to represent my interests at a european level. I don’t think there’s a single party that meets all my criteria. I’ll probably revert to type and unenthusiastically vote Labour.
321 Nick P as someone who has worked in the IT industry as I believe you have do you seriously believe anything you have written in this post (I noticed you caveated it IMO)?
The problem is not medical professionals having access to the data. It is that Government (any Government), politicians and their flunkies will have access to it. Your Government is going way over the line.
Luddite indeed! More like preservation of the self!
341 - I suggest you read David Herdson’s post at 340, seems far more astute to me.
(Of course we are lucky to have both David for his astute commentary and you for your entertaining way with words but I wouldnt want to go to David for an entertaining put-down of a fellow poster or you for insightful commentary.)
Oh dear! Over 300 posts, and I have only just got here – and this on a topic that I actually know something about! Forgive me if I am making a contribution that is already made up-thread; amongst other things, I am an Anti Money Laundering Officer, and I can see what has happened.
This RBS story is a cock-up, not a conspiracy. The AML/CTF (that’s Anti Money Laundering and Countering Terrorist Financing) Guidance Notes published by the JMLSG (The Joint Money Laundering Steering Group) introduced the concept of a “politically exposed person” a few years ago. This required us to do some extra due diligence when verifying the identities of foreigners (not UK Citizens) who might be in positions of influence with their regimes abroad. This was a classic example of closing the stable door after a horse named General Abacha of Nigeria galloped off with a significant amount of his nation’s GDP.
If we think that a non-UK citizen is in a position of political influence, or related to someone who is, then we have to get someone senior to sign off on the client take-on; we also have to study their transactions more closely, to see if any funds transfers might be the proceeds of kleptocratic crime.
Someone at RBS has misread the notes, and applied it willy-nilly. I heard the interview with “Harriet” from the RBS Call Centre on Radio 4 this morning, and it was clear that the poor woman had been mis-directed by the script she was reading from.
Row between BoE and Mandleson kicking off?
11:24 12Mar09 RTRS-BOE says puzzled by UK Business Minister Mandleson’s comments on car financing
11:24 12Mar09 RTRS-BOE says not role of Central Bank to provide to sector specific support
Just popped out to spend my VAT saving again (another bottle of coke), I’m stimulating the economy single handedly
Anyway while I was out, was listening to R5, with the awful Victoria Derbyshire talking to Wee Dougie Alexander in Kenya. It was clearly suppose to be a nice BBC piece on overseas aid and the use of Comic Relief money. However, Wee Dougie, has clearly caught the Gordo disease, i.e it is everybody else fault.
When Derbyshire contested why such and such a scheme that was promised wasn’t up and running / properly funded, how did we check the money went to the right place, etc, etc he said it was other countries hadn’t put the money and weren’t doing their bit, but Britain was. Several things more were brought up with the same response, until she asked about last G8 commitments, again he said Britain had matched theirs and all the other 7 nations hadn’t.
Derbyshire (for normally a loyal Labour sympathiser) got really quite angry, first demanded to know why if this was the case Britain wasn’t making the other countries cough off. The reply, we are “talking to them, trying to convince them”.
This made he more angry, and she then ranted stuff that “are you honestly telling me it is never Britain’s fault, really come of it, it is all smoke and mirrors isn’t it”, “after the G20 you will do the same, a fancy mission statement, then nothing with actually happen will it?”.
Wee Dougie sounded really quite shell shocked, he clearly thought he was a freebie PR exercise, and actually got a mouthful. He had to pull the “seeing these children today it is clear that nobody would want not to see money spent…..” kind of line.
But then it died down and other who came on the program were allowed to claim that people don’t give money to Comic Relief, because 60% is spent in Africa and they are racist, and they don’t want to help black people. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
342. Where did I say anything about English people being worthless, you are deluded as well as insulting.
re 205 MalcolmG I wasn’t being mischievous. I don’t think Scotland is a country. I don’t think Bavaria, Transdniester, Chechnya, Alaska etc are countries either. However, I am grateful for the links which have shown other bodies consider them to be so.
Here’s the result for the last euro election. It always surprises me how well UKIP did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2004_(UK)
Third place, with 2,7m votes, more than the LDs. The BNP also got 800,000 - very impressive.
I can see the Tories taking a third or even a half of those UKIP votes. And mopping up the anti-Labour vote generally. We could see a Tory share over 40% and a Labour share under 20.
An interesting question: what will happen to the LDs? I suspect they will they overtake UKIP but, paradoxically, get fewer votes than before.
343. Why can’t we have an unenthusiastically generally pro-EU party?
Because the EU is inherently anti-democratic (all political centralisation is)?
359. Chris, I did say it tongue in cheek, good to see you took it in that manner. More than can be said for a lot of others whose insecurity has them seeing insults in every post , lots of people on here with humour bypasses and inflated self worth who take themselves too seriously.
re 206 Nick P you don’t get it do you? Yes it’s important that a doctor about to inject you with penicillin knows about a penicillin allergy, but that can be sorted by your carrying a card or a Medic Alert bracelet. The recptionist, or radiographer, or triage nurse certainly doesn’t need to know, but will do so. And if you did have an STI then why wouldn’t you want people to know about it. It may be relevant to your care - syphilis for instance manifests iteslf all over the body, and may be the reason for you unconsciousness. If you keep to the principal that you are going to make your records open then you can’t pick and choose.
360. Is all political centralisation anti-democratic?
I think the federalist papers may have something to say on the subject.
357.
Read your post 74.
360. I think both the Tories and Labour mostly came under that heading when the EU was still the EEC, pre Delors. Then, while irritating, it wasn’t really much of a threat to UK self-government.
The EU in its current power-hungry and deeply undemocratic guise I think you either have to support or oppose.
363. But federalisation is not necessarily centralising it all depends how the power is distributed.
359 Turnout in Belgium was nearly 91%. WTF? Is it compulsory - or just the only vaguely interesting thing to do in Belgium?
Also - anyone know if the LibDem lift from the Iraq War was in full swing by June 2004?
367. It’s compulsory, I believe.
341. SeanT, you’re equating voters having strong feelings with being well informed. The two do not necessarily go together by any means.
367. it is compulsory
364. That does not say they are worthless, it points out that the country is skint, many people lay the blame elsewhere, ie never a day goes by without it being blamed on Scotland due to a couple of banks having “Scotland” in there title, or the PM being North British even though about 90% of MP’s are English.
The UK , has gone done the plughole in every sense in recent years, its a fact not an insult and many English people are still deluded in thinking that the UK is a significant player rather than accepting that our glory days are over and we should look to the future rather to past glories.
You obviously see yourself in this as you felt aggrieved. It is reality not an insult.
367. “Also - anyone know if the LibDem lift from the Iraq War was in full swing by June 2004?”
I think so. Didn’t the 2004 local elections see the Lib-Dems beat Labour into third place for the first and (until 2008) only time?
nick, is your statement that the data won’t be sold, your opinion or is it Policy. Can you put your hand on your heart and say the Labour party will not sell any data from the NHS computer system to an outside party. Is there anything written anywhere that you can point to that backs this up. If I was you i would be very concerned at the lack of trust in this government from people of all sides.
O/T but one for your diaries
The Night The Government Fell
Saturday 28 March
6.00-11.35pm BBC PARLIAMENT
http://www.bbc.co.uk/parliament In 1979, 28 March was one of the most dramatic nights in Westminster history. James Callaghan’s Labour Government lost a confidence motion by one vote and was forced to call an early General Election that would sweep Margaret Thatcher to power.
BBC Parliament is marking the 30th anniversary of that night with a special evening of programmes, The Night The Government Fell.
At 6pm, A Parliamentary Coup tells the story of what happened that night, with testimony from former Downing Street insiders, ministers and party managers about the increasingly frantic attempts to secure the vote for Labour. In five years as a minority Government, Labour had struck deals with various smaller parties in order to survive but, by March 1979, after a winter of industrial strife, their luck was running out. Even on the day of the vote, it looked too close to call. It was only as the night wore on that it became clear that two key abstentions – and the absence of a gravely ill MP – would cost them the vote.
Immediately following the Commons debate, Tonight (the predecessor of Newsnight) was broadcast live from Westminster on BBC One. This episode can be seen at 6.45pm. Presenters Robin Day and Donald MacCormick interviewed Michael Foot, Lord Carrington, John Pardoe, Francis Pym and Lord Diamond on the dramatic events in the Commons and the fall of the Government. Newspaper journalists Peregrine Worsthorne and John Cole were also interviewed.
At 7.50pm, Turning Points – The 1979 Election explains how failure to secure devolution for Scotland lost Labour the support of the Scottish National Party in the run-up to the vote of no confidence. George Cunningham, a Labour MP at the time, discusses the context of the historic vote in this televised lecture.
At 8.15pm, BBC Parliament presents highlights of the 1979 No Confidence Debate in the House of Commons. Among the notable speakers featured were Prime Minister James Callaghan, Leader Of The Opposition Margaret Thatcher, Liberal leader David Steel and Labour’s Michael Foot.
At 11.25pm, viewers can see Prime Minister’s Broadcast 1979. The evening after the Commons defeat, James Callaghan broadcast to the country. In a seven-minute address, he defended the Government’s record and announced a General Election.
The Night The Government Fell also features highlights of news coverage and other archive programmes from the time.
371. Can we have a system where certain posts can be made to appear in green ink, to complete the effect?
369. Possibly yes.
But look at it this way. Most people don’t vote in European elections. So that removes all the can’t-be-bothered or know-nothing-about-politics voters from the equation.
What you are left with is people who are engaged in politics generally, or have absolute party fidelity, or who are so angry about one issue they will actually vote no matter how pointless the elections seems. Angry people need info to get angry in the first place.
So the euro electorate is by definition better informed than the general electorate. So I believe the EPP issue will have salience - with this smaller, better informed electorate.
I agree if you asked the average punter in the street he’d probably have no idea we’re even having European elections at all. But that kinda proves my point.
I suppose BNP members stand no chance.
Further to the sale of data the following links do not exactly inspire me with confidence in your assurances that data will not be sold.
http://thejournal.parker-joseph.co.uk/blog/_archives/2008/8/26/3856658.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4930666/Doctors-outcry-over-plan-to-sell-patient-records.html
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/tax-advice/council-tax/article.html?in_article_id=407263&in_page_id=82
Also Nick P an unconscious penicillin-allergic patient is often trotted out to justify the NHS spine, but please can you tell me how many detahs there have been as a result of this scenario in the last ten years?
In the overwhelming majority of such deaths the patient’s allergy is well known and the reason for the death is because the doctor is not aware that the drug he is giving contains penicillin. You will probably return by saying that saving one death is justification, but there are very many other things which the health service could do with the money, which is being utterly wasted on the NHS spine, which would make the patient-experience safer.
Using this feeble case as a justification to overturn right to privacy I’m afraid just sums up the whole of the last 12 years.
374. Sounds a compelling nights viewing.
314: I think that’s at the more egregious end of the scale of a very common problem. It is only when you start to automate processes that you really expose this kind of logical inconsistency.
The tragedy is coming across a customer who refuses to recognize the problem. The public sector (at a senior level, at any rate) seems particularly prone to it.
I was involved in the specification and implementation of a governemnt IT solution not so long ago. The initial attempt to do so was driven by a committee consisting entirely of domain specialists, with no IT input at all.
The specification they came up with was absolutely woeful, failing to address their domain needs (necessary detail being elided due to over-familiarity), and trying to impose particular technical features (without understanding how or why they should or should not be used).
Security, privacy, audit and administrative considerations had notably been left at home. As had any kind of ROI model.
Of course, this isn’t just a public sector problem; companies of all kinds are notoriously bad at making big infrastructure purchasing decisions (remember the new logistics system at Sainsburys, or Cambridge University’s new accounting system?) but the public sector is especially prone: centralized bureaucracy, large, byzantine budgetary processes and over-promotion of domain expertise v. management and adminsitrative skills being the biggest contributing factors.
314: I think that’s at the more egregious end of the scale of a very common problem. It is only when you start to automate processes that you really expose this kind of logical inconsistency.
The tragedy is coming across a customer who refuses to recognize the problem. The public sector (at a senior level, at any rate) seems particularly prone to it.
I was involved in the specification and implementation of a governemnt IT solution not so long ago. The initial attempt to do so was driven by a committee consisting entirely of domain specialists, with no IT input at all.
The specification they came up with was absolutely woeful, failing to address their domain needs (necessary detail being elided due to over-familiarity), and trying to impose particular technical features (without understanding how or why they should or should not be used).
Security, privacy, audit and administrative considerations had notably been left at home. As had any kind of ROI model.
Of course, this isn’t just a public sector problem; companies of all kinds are notoriously bad at making big infrastructure purchasing decisions (remember the new logistics system at Sainsburys, or Cambridge University’s new accounting system?) but the public sector is especially prone: centralized bureaucracy, large, byzantine budgetary processes and over-promotion of domain expertise v. management and adminsitrative skills being the biggest contributing factors.
(sorry, double post)
363. Re 366. The logic behind it is simple.
If an existing elected governmental body decentralises power (As the UK Government did in 1998) then that is pro-democratic.
If an existing elected governmental body centralises power by either taking power away from lower levels of Government or by handing them to a higher level of Government then that is anti-democratic.
The good news (from my perspective) is that eventually Newton’s Law still applies and what goes up must eventually come down. All centralising Governments always eventually fail and their power naturally dissipates to lower levels.
The EU in it’s current form (or worse some future more centralised form) will eventually fail and power will dissipate. As Great Britain is an island the natural way for that power to dissipate and evolve is back to an island state. The optimum form of Government for an island is to be an island state. The only question is when this island will return fully to that state of political existence?
MalcolmG
My advice: just ignore Josh. He has… how can we put this delicately… “form”.
You will never talk-round the really virulent Scotophobes. Therefore, I wouldn’t waste my time trying. Often wothwhile winding them up though…
New Jersey Gov. Corzine’s chances of getting re-elected seem to be getting worse by the day as yet another poll shows him doing even worse against his likely opponent, the relatively unknown Christopher Christie:
“A new Quinnipiac poll finds Gov. Jon Corzine (D) trailing former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (R) by 9 points in a potential November matchup. Christie led by 6 points in a poll last month. Corzine leads former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, though Lonegan trails Christie by 21 points in a GOP primary matchup.
Christie 46 (+2 vs. last poll, 2/4)
Corzine 37 (-1)
Corzine 41 (-1 vs. last poll, 2/4)
Lonegan 37 (+1)
“There are no good numbers for Gov. Jon Corzine in this poll, and since it was taken before his Draconian budget was released, his numbers could be even worse today,” reports Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Chris Christie continues to widen his lead over Jon Corzine in the race for Governor and this poll indicates Christie could become stronger once he gets better known.””
Maybe all of this will cause Corzine to decide not to run for re-election, but I doubt it. He has poured tens of millions of dollars of his own money into the pockets of various Democratic politicians and organizations around New Jersey, essentially buying up the state party, and I would imagine that he believes he can buy his way into another term. I have always believed he could pull it off by massively outspending his GOP opponent, but I am now less certain than ever in that prognostication.
It’s now looking like a reasonable prospect that the GOP could pick up both of the governorships that are up for election this year, both of which are currently controlled by the Democrats.
373 Don
“…sell data to an outside party…”
Set up a PPP and then there are no ‘outside’ parties.
Set up a PPP joint research interest, or a piece of research run by a private company on behalf of the government, with access to government data.
378. I can think of only one circumstance where a doctor would administer penicillin to an unconscious patient - suspected meningococcal meningitis. And if it isn’t given the patient will probably be dead in a matter of hours anyway.
If a doctor doesn’t have/can’t elicit a patient history it’s generally because it’s an emergency and treatment needs to start right now. You can worry about allergic reactions/side effects later.
Another one to add to the list today,
Offender IT failure ‘avoidable’
Plans for a multi-million pound central database on offenders failed because of poor management and a lack of budget control, the spending watchdog says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7937269.stm
378 ‘You will probably return by saying that saving one death is justification, but there are very many other things which the health service could do with the money,’
Indeed. More deaths from C Diff. and other infections could be prevented if some of that money was spent on hospital cleanliness. Maybe some of it could be spent on actual healthcare rather than trousered by Labour’s old friends EDS, Capita etc?
bono, yes good point, my request was not phrased tightly enough. There is enough room to grease through. A bit like it is not a constitution so what we promised in a manifesto no longer applies.
389. Stop the IT grave train? Are you mad?
380. I know it’s a common problem and indeed I’ve seen it often in the private sector as well. However, there is one big difference. The people in their guise as the taxpayer are not funding the private sector’s mistakes.
As shareholders and customers the population have a choice with the private sector, as a taxpayer they do not and politicians in my experience don’t understand the first thing about IT nor do they seem to have any desire to.
It is my view that much of the increased public sector spending that has been experienced over recent decades can be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of technology in the Public Sector (and the outsourcing of that function within Government). And they said Computers would cut costs. Yeah right!
388 (cont) This is a better report
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/tony_collins/2009/03/failed-234m-c-nomis-it-project.html
And guess who was main contractor on the project was….wait for……EDS!
Thats my first horse of the day cantered in at 8-1, Chapoturgeon.
383. I disagree.
I don’t think it’s anti-democratic for the kingdoms of wessex, northumbria and mercia to form one political union as england instead of three. It’s all about political communities and collective self-government. If there is a cohesive ‘demos’ then there can be a democracy. The arguments for devolution and decentralisation are based around this idea, that there are scottish and welsh communities that want self government. Eventually you’re going to get so small there is no longer a demos. I would find it baffling for the government to give significant power to a parish council for this reason, it would not be democratic because I feel no bond that requires that level of self government with the other members of the parish.
I’m open to the view that there is no european demos and it is impossible for the EU to be democratic for this reason although I disagree.
391. etc. perhaps we can run a book on how many ex-ministers will turn up eventually as paid consultants or employees of these kinds of organisations. There are certainly some big favours to be returned.
396 runnymede - Trouble is, they’ll be shedding staff, not taking on makeweights.
396 - Have a guess who advises EDS?
Lord Taylor, yes the same Lord Taylor who in his own words is cheap “at a £100k” an amendment!
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23410665-details/How+BAE+and+a+rather+mysterious+Labour+peer+get+rich+as+our+troops+die/article.do
391 “the grave train”.
Nice. But it’s already packed with Labour MP’s.
“Calling at Broxtowe, Redditch, Morley & Outwood….”
351 You could try Libertas. They claim to be pro-EU but pro-reform and pro-democracy. It’s a PR election, so your vote won’t be wasted by going to a small party. And it would stop you having the unenthusiastically vote Labour, which will be taken by Gordon as an endorsement of the Government.
397. I think you’re right. Some of these ex-ministers are going to get a rude introduction to the realities of recession. Shame.
Bit more research, doesn’t take much to dig up dirt on Labour and IT projects from a purely techy website (rather than a political one),
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/tsearch/capita+labour.htm
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/search/index.htm?ss=relv&c=&q=eds+labour&submit.x=0&submit.y=0
394. Well done MalcolmG.
398. Funny that, isn’t it? Remarkable coincidence.
373 It is certainly the case that DVLA data is sold to private car-park operators to assist them in minor contractual disputes with their customers: not as serious as medical data by any means but completely unwarranted as far as I can tell.
The problem is that Nick P etc do not understand the basic premise, which is that I as a citizen own the State: it gives me certain services and its employees are my servants. While I go about my daily business it is quite reasonable for me to expect the State to take no interest in me, in fact not to know who the hell I am, where I am, or what I am doing. I am a freeborn Englishman and I go as I please.
404, hey! Come on, he hasn’t been charged with anything.
I think it’s very unfair the way some try to paint Labour as corrupt. Blair may’ve been interviewed by police, but he was never arrested or charged. Likewise, Levy was arrested, but never charged. And Hain was investigated but the CPS didn’t proceed with the case, which obviously means he’s in the clear. And what about Harman, and Abrahams? Obviously no wrongdoing, and the PM misspoke when he said it was illegal and the Labour chairman only resigned because he never really liked the job anyway.
Honestly. Not a single prosecution. Labour must be whiter than white.
406: And in the ‘court of public opinion?’….that has a nice ring to it doesn’t it.
405 - It even more worrying than that. The checks in place on who the DVLA sell the data on to is woeful. It has been shown on numerous occasions that companies, with less than a spotless records and staffed by people with very dodgy pasts, are routinely given this information.
403. StJohn, Thanks, having a very successful festival so far , thats 5 winners out of 7 with one of the others placed. Not like me.
Just need the 2 big favourites to win today and a real bonus would be my horse in the last race, but imagine that something will go wrong.
395. I accept what you say. However that does not change my basic point.
If you take the meaning of the word democracy it means ‘power to the people’. The more you centralise Government the more you diminish democracy. It’s a simple ratio analysis. If power is held by a local council and there are 30,000 voters in that town then the democratic influence is 1:30000. The ratio for the UK is 1:45 million. The ratio for the EU is 1:500 million (which frankly is meaningless). It’s a fact but that doesn’t mean to say it is always necessarily a bad thing to centralise.
I believe there is an optimum level of democracy and/ or Government centralisation. Basic concepts such as economies and diseconomies of scale apply equally in Government and Democracy as they do elsewhere.
One of the key factors in this, other than geography, is population size. Now I believe that the optimum level of population for a centralised Goverment is somewhere between 20 and 50 million people (incidentally the Roman empire had 60 million population when it collapsed). Beyond that it becomes increasingly impossible for a central Government to manage as we have seen both here and in the US in recent decades. The obvious option is then to federalise and devolve power.
However none of that detracts from the ideas that I previously espoused. All it does is qualify the level of democracy and centralisation of power that should be aimed for.
So what you say is fair enough but as I point out it is a question of scale and we are now in a situation where centralising power is a bad thing both nationally and supra-nationally IMO.
405. I think Mr.Palmer would find your notions of freedom and of the state as servant rather than master very quaint.
395 “I don’t think it’s anti-democratic for the kingdoms of wessex, northumbria and mercia to form one political union as england instead of three.”
I don’t think that ever really happened. England was really only unified when the kings of Wessex defeated the Vikings of the Danelaw, East Anglia and the Kingdom of York. And rather unified England almost by default.
Although I would still agree with your basic point that there is no longer any Wessex, Mercian or Northumbrian demos to justify independence.
400. The problem with a party like Libertas or UKIP is that they fulfil the test for their position on the EU but not representing me within the EUs existing institutions.
411 I am sure he would.
407, exactly! Look how Labour listened when there were protests over the banning of foxhunting and the invasion of Iraq.
They’re so keen on listening to the COPO they even banned protesting in Parliament. Except with police permission of course.
There is no stronger signal of living in a free society than the well-known phrase, “May I please protest, constable?” and that timeless answer, “No, and if you recite the names of the dead at the cenotaph you’ll be arrested under anti-terrorism legislation.”
406
Wouldn’t be such a problem if EDS and Capita didn’t appear to continue to get every government IT contract they fancy, even though reports into their c##ks in the past 10 years must take a whole room to store.
What about Gordo’s newest slogan,
“There will be NO REWARDS FOR FAILURE”
414 How do you mean? How would Labour represent you better?
re 408 we forget as well all those celebrities who have been arrested by the police and emerge from the police station to find the press encamped outside. No doubt Nick P will reassure us that policies and checks and sanctions are in place and that this is impossible too.
417.
:) 
417: Maybe thats why he’s not saying sorry. He’ll be paying us a pension given how much of a mess he’s made.
411. I’m not sure you can treat the demos as a set of individuals it might be better to treat as an indivisible cohesive whole. A lot of countries use this as a principle of representation, for example the united states senate where different population sizes have the same representative.
418. I’m primarily thinking of labour laws.
“It’s now looking like a reasonable prospect that the GOP could pick up both of the governorships that are up for election this year, both of which are currently controlled by the Democrats.”
That’s good news for the Republicans. I’m glad to see they’re not doomed — DOOMED! — like Labour and the LibDems, according to Martin Day.
417 — Very funny.
321. NickP. The medical alert tag was a response to your specific penicillin point, not a general response to carrying medical records. A bad attempt to conflate two points. Fairly typical low grade Labour deating tactics.
Of course doctors would prefer to know a patients medical history in advance. But, the scenario that you posit, that of a life or death situation where you are being treated for an accident far from your usual surgery, ignores the reality that if a patient is in imminent need of treatment, there may well not be enough time to check address, identity and medical records of an individual. If the patient is conscious and able to talk about his situation, the information can be extracted from them. Otherwise, how do you even know who this person is? Pull up the wrong medical records and the situation is worse than useless. The decisions most likely to end in death are those that will be taken on the fly in a trauma unit, when time for data retrieval may not be available.
Where patients have obvious potential issues (those taking anti-clotting agents or immuno-suppresants or that have certain allergies) medical alert bracelets are the obvious answer. Yes, in a tiny tiny minority of cases having medical records online and where there is sufficient time to review them, the system might save lives, but given the extra cost and the potential for snooping, the case against electronic records is pretty strong.
423- It doesn’t mean that the GOP is going to necessarily come roaring back to control the government anytime soon, but it DOES show that the fundamentals of the American political system are no different in the Obama era than they were in the pre-Obama era. Parties that control everything at the national level quickly start to see their dominance slip away and competitiveness return. That’s how our system works.
376. Perhaps, but I’m skeptical. I’d say you identify the categories correctly, with most UKIP voters being in the third category. And what they’re angry and informed about isn’t EU Parliament party politics but about (if anything) things like “they banned this, take this much of our money, intefered in that way etc”.
I don’t see this playing hugely outside political nerd circles. I suspect the Tories will pick up a lot of UKIP votes, but not because of this.
422 I would prefer labour laws to me made in Britain, not the EU but I can see your difficulty.
Maybe Libertas will have a policy on EU Labour Law although I doubt it.
Personally I will probably be voting Tory, as long as their policies on Europe are sufficiently robust (more democracy, less centralisation, more matters delegated to member countries, much less spending, referendum on Lisbon) or I will consider UKIP or Libertas.
On topic. I’m not convinced there’s a conspiracy behind this. But isn’t it shocking that someone should be asked their political allegiance. That is a private matter. There are still certain parts of this country where the wrong political affiliation is hugely damaging. My grandmother used to joke that in the South Wales valleys if you admitted to voting conservative, you’d never get a job. That is why people’s privacy on voting needs to be protected - dare I say it, this will never be taken seriously by labour.
On Victor Blank - why the hell is this man still in charge of Lloyds? It’s absolutely appalling. If he won’t resign, fire him. He was responsible for probably the worst merger in British corporate history and has admitted to not doing his job properly. Whya ren’t the oppositon raising hell on this? I agree with the Telegraph. For all his faults Brown in opposition and Cook as well, would have been far more effective.
The truth about the run up to the invasion of Iraq continues to trickle out. Will this have any effect on peoples votes? I can imagine the people who were taken in by the spin prior to the invasion who voted in 2005 with a clear conscience feeling more and more duped. They may well take that out on the government at the next opportunity.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4979309/Intelligence-agencies-were-concerned-about-Iraq-WMD-dossier-emails-reveal.html
429.”On Victor Blank - why the hell is this man still in charge of Lloyds?”
Very good question….
431 - Everybody repeat after Gordo,
“THERE WILL BE NO REWARD FOR FAILURE”
oOh unless its my mate, Victor, he alright he is.
War of Metaphors in the Minnesota Senate race
Al Franken : “there is light at the end of the tunnel”
Coleman’s campaign manager : “Al Franken doesn’t know the difference between a light in the tunnel and the freight train that is coming right at him”. “The freight train is coming, … that freight train is going straight to D.C. with Senator Norm Coleman returning to continue his work for the people of Minnesota…”
Quotes from somewhere in the The Politico
432. In Labour terms, Blank hasn’t failed. Rather the contrary.
Will Gordon Brown wear a red nose to meet Comic Relief celebs?
Comic relief climbers to meet PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7939828.stm
422. Fair points.I accept that we are talking about an acceptable range within which the optimum exists in terms of democratic representation.
However, I believe you have to always return to that basic level of population in considering the level of centralisation of Government.
That said, how you arrange a democracy in practice using devolution (as our representative system does) is only an extension of the ratio approach. What the optimum ratios (representative to voters)should be in a federalised devolved system I am less sure but I would guess it is something in the range of 1:50000 to 1:80000. In the UK our parliamentary constituencies on average in 2005 were 1:68000 and it is something significantly lower locally as well.
There are only a few constituencies which fall outside the optimum range I suggested (e.g. Orkney and Shetland on the low side and the Isle Of Wight on the high side). Whether they should be changed depends on the net benefit such changes would accrue.
At the next Euro election the UK ratio will be 1:850000 (again utterly ridiculous in democratic terms). I would also point out that the average across the EU is 1:750000 so we even have a democratic deficit in terms of comparison with other EU member nations. To resolve the overall democratic deficit and put it within an acceptable range would take thousands of representatives which is completely impractical.
So OK it is finally recognised that a centralised EU is not democratically viable so what do you do? You federalise and devolve. What is the logical unit for democratic devolvement for the UK in terms of geography and population. A Sovereign Great Britain. To me the only question would be what of the future of Northern Ireland?
So why on earth are we bothering going around in a circle that logically bring us back to where we were?
The EU project is an utterly futile adventure in imperialism that will eventually fail and will bring us back to where we started, just like the Roman Empire did.
433- As is illustrated by the above commentary on the governor’s races this year in New Jersey and Virginia (not to mention recently discussed polling on races in Connecticut, Deleware, and New York), the days are likely over when obnoxious tax dodging clowns like Franken can can knock off centrist GOP incumbents.
Lord Ahmed has been let out out of Prison - This is shamefull how long has he been in the clink 6 weeks for causing death by dangerous driving: If it had been a Tory………
Texting peer freed after appeal:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7939988.stm
437 - what’s the outlook for obnoxious tax dodging GOP incumbents against centrist Democratic challengers?
438. Not six weeks but 15 days! He has got less time in Prison than an innonce person arrested under the prevention of terrorism act!
438 - Martin, he was not imprisoned for causing death by dangerous driving, it was clear from the case that his dangerous driving (which he was convicted of) did not cause the victim’s death. And his release has nothing to do with politics. The judiciary are independent you know.
Interesting post by NRO’s Victor Davis Hanson on the Frum/Limbaugh feud.
…. Frum believes that conservatives have to change their message to appeal to new constituencies without which the Republican party will lose future elections. Limbaugh argues that conservatism’s message is not predicated on transitory appeals to particular groups, but rests on sound principles that, mutatis mutandis for new circumstances, don’t really change. Frum, the politico, wants to return to power and so make the necessary adjustments; Limbaugh, the talk-show host, would rather stay in the wilderness if it means forgoing principles….
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTkzMzllNmE3MDM3NDhmMjcxZjA5MTE0OTk5NDJkODQ=
I met Frum — who’s born in Canada — in January in Montreal, and from what I understood from our discussion, he thinks not that Conservatism shall change to opportunistically seize power for the sake of it, but rather that Conservatism is a movement; and as such, it can’t be set of eternal principles; it is rather a dynamic constellation of problems AND concepts that are evolving as time goes on — and that must guide the decision-making of a true conservative executive politician.
Some of the problems we’re actually facing now were only virtual a generation ago; problems evolve, and new ones are arising — hence the importance for Conservatism of being dynamic, and not nostalgically transfixed mutatis mutandis. American Conservatism is radically empirical, pragmatist — is shall not then be crystallize into an ideological frame composed by yesterday’s solutions to yesterday’s problem.
440- The obnoxious tax dodging GOP incumbents have all been voted out of office by now; only their Democratic counterparts remain to be dealt with by the voters.
Another day, another day the mask of impartiality of the BBC falls from this face,
“It is now widely acknowledged that excessive bonuses led to banks and their staff taking excessive risks.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7939619.stm
No! That is what the politicians say, I’m sure lots of other people disagree.
What proof have they got between the direct link between bonus size and risk? and the proof that this correlation between risk and reward is something that hasn’t exist for instance since the market began!
Because to my mind this isn’t something new, always been big bonuses for city workers. That isn’t directly the problem, it is that the people haven’t understood the real risks of lots of the investments / markets they have been involved in. Thus have been hugely overexposed.
In the game of hot potato some of the world biggest banks have been left with lots of very hot ones. Also, people seem to forget that plenty of people have made huge amounts of money out of the passing it around and not being left with them, when the music has stopped.
439. No surprise there, really. We can’t go round imprisoning important people like that for minor offences like killing people.
445. Almost Pravda-like, that. But the Beeb has been very on-message recently - its retrospectives on the Miner’s Strike a particularly notable example.
“The judiciary are independent you know.”
Maybe you should do some digging into the background of current senior judges, I think you will find plenty are far from independent or impartial.
George Will: “Obama’s confidence in his capacities is undermining confidence in his judgment”
[Obama's] budget, in effect, says the danger will soon be gone and the new risk will be whiplash from the economy’s sudden acceleration. Although only a small fraction of the supposedly countercyclical stimulus will be spent by the end of the year, the budget assumes that by then the economy will have perked up, and that it will grow robustly — 3.2 percent, 4 percent and 4.6 percent — in the next three years. Growth supposedly will cut the deficit in half — growth and the $1.6 trillion “saved” by first assuming, and then “canceling,” a 10-year continuation of the surge in Iraq. Why, one wonders, not “save” $5 trillion by proposing to spend that amount to cover the moon with yogurt and then canceling the proposal?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031103216.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
I really — really! — don’t understand why most of the “stimulating” money will only be spend in the last quarter of 2009!
449 — FWIW, the consensus among economists is the the annualised figure of US GDP Q1 2009 will be… -7.0.
-7.0! - and the Obama Admin is waiting to spend the stimulating money later on in the year?!
Why?
Fraser Nelson has an update on the RBS article he wrote for the Spectator on their Coffee House Blog.
Why are our state-owned banks asking customers about their politicial affiliations?
449- Hmmm, that yogurt plan sounds intriguing… since we’ve been told that ALL spending is stimulative (which explains why we shouldn’t be worried about what the money is spent on), the yogurt/moon plan may be just what could get this economy back on track.
451 - Would it be too much to expect for him to do a little bit of research and understand what he is going on about before spouting off about it on the internet?
Delaware
What are the odds of Biden Boy taking Daddy’s ol’ seat?
454- That’s very hard to say; of course daddy Joe is a favorite son of Delaware and the state favors the Democrats. That said, it remains to be seen 1) how good Beau Biden is as a Senate candidate, 2) how much reluctance Delaware voters will have to keeping the seat in the family, and 3) how much the political environment has swung against the Democrats by November 2010.
452 — Brillant! Obama’s great then…
The yoghurt plan shall rejoy our depressed economy in the same way that WWII helped the West transcends the Great Depression.
It’s a peacenik version of war : yoghurt on the moon.
Sting should do a song on it.
Having just backed the winner, Imperial Commander to win the race just gone at Cheltenham, I am giving advanced notice of the “STJOHN 08/09″ selection for tomorrow.
Her Maj to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Barbers Shop each way at 14/1. With Imperial Commander winning the form has just been franked.
448 Oracle - that won’t do. You make the claim, so you have to give details to support it. Otherwise you’re Joe the Plumber.
457. Stjohn, well done, thats one of our horses in Ten to Follow. I thought the favourite would win it but it did not jump well whereas Imperial Commander had a great run.
I need Kasbah Bliss to win the next one.
448 - You just dont want people to take you seriously, do you? Hope everything is well in BBC-is-biased, judges-are-in-hock-to-government conspiracy-land.
455 - Thanks. I’ll follow this saga.
354 Augustus Carp
(sorry, really slow today)
The RBS people asked these questions, wrongly applying a script - but what happens to the answers?
Is the person on the other end of the telephone filling in a tick-box questionnaire?
Is the information in a form which can later be used for Data Mining (although most information can be used to a greater or lesser extent for that)?
Desperate run from kasbah Bliss, well won by Nicholls horse Big Bucks, I am back to normal service, thats 5 out of 8 now.
458 - I can’t be bothered to go back through all the individual judges I looked at, but I think these articles from the Indy do a reasonable job of summing up the situation regards appointments. (Note I didn’t just say it was Labour that got their “own” judges). Irvine was in charge of hand picking them for 6-7 years, and when you look at the very top positions the vast majority were appointed under the current Labour government (rather than hang-overs from the Tories).
‘Concerns’ over appointment of judges
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/concerns-over-appointment-of-judges-643910.html
Who will judge the judges? It should not be Lord Irvine of Lairg
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/who-will-judge-the-judges-it-should-not-be-lord-irvine-of-lairg-640679.html
435. Will Gordon Brown wear a red nose to meet Comic Relief celebs?
Looks ripe for another photo op blooper