Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - politics

Flash Looting

2011-08-10T06:34:00+01:00

As the sun rises on a new day and businesses across the country count the cost of the nights violence we awake to a new phenomena. The technology and social networking that brought us the Flash Mob have now brought us the Flash Loot.

When you start hearing some of those involved talk about their perceived entitlement to the mobile phones and flat screen TVs it makes you wonder if 18 months of government austerity is really the trigger for these "riots". Wikipedia defines a riot as a "form of civil disorder characterized often by disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people". That doesn't quite gel with the image of looters renting vans so they can be more efficient in loading up their swag. They seem to have learnt from the anti-kettling tactics of legitimate protesters - co-ordinate when and where to meet, sweep in en-masses and leave before the Police can respond in force. Only instead of making a political point or staging a demo at some perceived enemy of the people it's an excuse to loot shops of whatever they hold.

I find it tricky to keep my inner right-wing instincts under check. It's disturbing when you find yourself starting to agree with the likes of the Mail and bemoaning the sorry state of the UK today. While social divisions and inequality I'm sure have played their parts in forming a generation of youths with the attitudes that can justify these actions to themselves I find myself wondering if it's a problem that can be solved with a few pounds on benefits here and there. These people aren't rioting because they are hungry. They obviously feel so disconnected from society as a whole they don't see or care about the damage they are doing the communities that they love in.

You have to keep a sense of perspective about these things. It is a minority of people involved. Most of our fellow citizens would be more inclined to make a cup of tea for the overworked police officers or coordinate the clean-up with the real community. Social media is a tool which can be used for good as well as the more headline grabbing bad. This country isn't really going to hell in a hand-basket despite the actions of a small number of disaffected youth. I hope the country remembers that over the next few days and weeks.

Move along, nothing to see here.

2011-07-12T11:38:00+01:00

It's been a while since I've last posted. I make a conscious effort not to post general household news in favour of things that stimulate debate and comments. I hope that my writings end up being interesting to someone even if it is only me reviewing these posts in the future. However the gap between posts can become intimidating so I'm minded to tap the microphone and whisper "is this thing on?".

Like a large chunk of the country I have been watching the unfolding drama of the News of the Screws dirty demise. However things have been moving so fast anything I posted would probably be out of date by the time I hit publish. It's a feeling the newspapers have been having for years.

It's hard not to notice the glee that News Corps many and varied opponents attack this story. I'm not totally unhappy about it, indeed when I want a smile I just have to recall the how much money they burnt with MySpace. However predictions of the death of NI as a leading power behind the Fourth Estate are probably misplaced. The axing of NoW and withdrawal of undertakings with respect to Sky News may have been dramatic events but I suspect the story still has some to go. In fact Murdoch may well divest himself of more of his print empire if it serves his longer term aims. After all the papers are dieing slowly anyway, this could be just the excuse he needs to divest himself of the liabilities.

Still it gives the journalists something to talk about over the summer.

Pensions

2011-06-30T11:24:00+01:00

A number of public sector unions are striking today over changes to their pension arrangements. As a result Fliss has gone into London today rather than working from home, hopefully balanced out by a slightly less insane commute. Before she left for her train we listened to Mark Serwotka debating with Francis Maude on the Today programme. It was interesting listening although most of the debate seemed to be centred around the total cost as a % of GDP (see page 23 of the final Hutton report).

What didn't get rolled out to Serwotka's credit was the line that public sector workers are having their pensions slashed to pay for the bank bail outs although I've seen this argument being rolled out in many other places.

Pension reform is as inevitable as death and taxes simply because demographics change as our society moves on. People keep living longer and more are spending a greater proportion of their lifetime economically inactive. I'll still claim the 2/60ths of my final salary pension from Marconi when I eventually retire but since then all my pension arrangements have been contribution based. This means my final pension will be dependant on how much money is in the pot and how long the annuity company thinks I'll live once I finally retire. Although on the face of its not as generous as a final salary scheme it is a easier to calculate the bounds and therefor more sustainable in the long run. The alternative is for some other party to take on the liabilities for people living longer than the pension contributions made by/for them cover. In the case of private sector final salary schemes it was the companies and/or newer members of the schemes. In the public sector the liability eventually rests with the taxpayer. As a result the private sector has pretty much universally moved on from final salary pension schemes. Dealing with the long term sustainability of public sector pensions has been continually deferred until this government decided to finally grasp the political nettle.

Fundamentally each person has to be responsible for providing for their retirement. This is achieved by paying more money into the pot or getting your employer to do so. If your remuneration (salary+benefits) isn't up to the task then you can always look for an employer who is more willing to pay a premium for your skills.

I'm not saying that the Union's shouldn't be doing their best to look after their members interests. This can even include striking, although currently it seems a little premature as negotiations are still ongoing. However I suspect public sympathy for the strikers will be somewhat diminished as even after all the disruption and forced holidays workers in the public sector will still have more generous pension arrangements than their private sector compatriots could ever dream of.

Self-indulgence

2011-05-04T11:35:00+01:00

I was thinking of twining about how hard my life was especially as I haven't been able to get my CoD on for the last two weeks due to the extended PSN outage. However I was reminded this morning that it's voting day tomorrow and given the current polling is rather disheartening for the Yes to AV camp I thought I'd tilt at a few more windmills. However my loyal readers are most likely bored stiff of me droning on about voting reform I thought I'd offer a video of some cute cats instead.

A lot of hysteria about has been spread about AV. Both sides have made rather exaggerated claims for what it can and can't do. It makes sense to keep things in perspective. AV is certainly not a proportional system. If it were I might be taking a different position as although proportional representation is desirable I have issues with the systems that ensure it. In fact the results it generates won't be too far different from what FPTP system generate now, although without polling on 2nd preferences it's hard to model. The only real change is that candidates who win their constituency races will have to gather a broader range of support, even if they are not first choice of every voter that eventually lends them their vote. It's a small change I think it makes for a better system. So I urge you if your eligible to vote in tomorrows referendum to vote Yes to AV.

That would be a psephological matter

2011-04-13T15:33:00+01:00

One of the most annoying aspects of our current electoral system is the issue of tactical voting. This is where voters feel compelled to vote for someone over their preferred candidate as otherwise someone they really don't want might sneak in thanks to the split vote. It's something that's sadly very common with the current First Past the Post system. You'll often hear politicians on election night discussing swings towards various candidates around various issues and it's all based on hearsay from the campaign trail. No one really knows why the voters voted for a particular person and there is much tea-leaf reading done by the psephologists in interpreting the results for a ward.

This for me is the principle reason I favour the proposed Alternative Vote which will be the subject of a referendum on the 5th of May.

Political parties are not one size fits all stereotypes - all of the main parties have a fairly broad coalition of views. Knowing the preference voting order of the voters will give a much greater insight into the nature of the electorate which can only be a good thing. We will no longer assume that all Tory voters are Eurosceptic social conservatives or supporting the LibDems implies you are a Labour refugee or the Labour party draws all it support from militant union membership. And by raising the bar an MP has to reach they will have to broaden their base and not just rely on there being slightly more of one set of voters than the other platforms.

I have to say so far neither of the campaigning groups has particularly impressed me although the No to AV campaign do seem to be edging ahead in the negative campaigning. However the electoral commission does do a good neutral booklet that explains how AV works without any spin either way. It's worth a read.

While I hope I've done my bit to convince you of the benefits of voting yes (feel free to comment if you want debate!) I do urge everyone who has the right to actually turn up and make their views known. These decisions are only made by those who turn up and if turnout is low it will be a long time before your views on the electoral system are canvassed again.

Memories of 1989

2011-01-28T23:05:00+00:00

I remember the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. It seemed rather surreal as dictatorship after dictatorship fell in relatively quick succession. Some passed with little bloodshed, some went through more violent phases but in the end it changed the face of Eastern Europe. It was certainly exciting for a 16 year old boy to watch unfold especially as I'd been raised with the spectre of nuclear war and faceless totalitarian states. All of this happened with nothing more than word of mouth and a few foreign radio stations reporting what they could.

Watching events unfold in Egypt and the wider Arab world you would think the ability to organise and co-ordinate offered by modern communications mean the days of Middle Eastern dictatorships are numbered. However I'm not so sure. While it's true that more people than ever have the ability to access the Internet and mobile communications they are networks that are controllable for the most part. There are always ways around these blocks but by denying it to the majority it severely hampers peoples ability to co-ordinate. They certainly don't have anything near the facilities available to them that our Students did during the recent student fees protests. I hope I'm wrong and the darknets are in place and cobbled together networks are playing their part in helping people organise.

What is clear that the only people that can do anything about it are those inside the affected countries. Western governments can only offer warm words with the appropriate diplomatic hedging just in case the dictators manage to hang onto power for the time being. The rest of us just get to watch.

Politicians don't quite trust their erstwhile political opponents shock

2010-12-23T10:27:00+00:00

I can't quite believe the amount of hot air expended on the latest "revelation" that some Lib Dem MPs don't quite like some Tories in government. It's on a par with the "news" regarding Ursidae and woodland defecation. About the only news worthy piece from the Telegraph's sting operation was the thing they tried to suppress about Saint Vince's bias against Murdoch. While I actually agree with Vince on this one he was a little stupid to reveal it to random strangers considering he was meant to be a impartial judge on the facts.

It seems that silly season exists over the winter months as well as the summer.

The Students are Revolting

2010-12-10T11:27:00+00:00

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the travails of modern students. I was one once myself and I was in part subsidised by the state for my education. Despite this I still walked out of university owing student loans, the bank and my parents money. However at some point you have to stop complaining about the suggested solution and suggest a few of your own. Every time a minority of hotheads do something stupid their cause will suffer and eventually people will wonder why we are subsidising the future of tomorrow if this is how they behave.

As far as I can see it there are a number of approaches to the problem of financing higher education. Which would you choose?

Reduce student numbers

No one seems to be arguing for this. The general consensus seems to be having a large percentage of undergraduates is good for the economy generally.

Increase general taxation

It would have to be by a fair bit to cover the costs. The current funding gap is £4.2bn, so that would around 4p in the pound on the basic rate of tax. You'll also be asking the 50% of the population that don't go to university to pay more taxes so the other 50% can. Personally if I had a spare £4.2bn to spend on education I'd be targeting it at primary and secondary education to ensure more kids come out of school able to read and write to a reasonable degree.

Introduce a graduate tax

This seems to be the (now) preferred option of Labour. I don't like the idea of permanently penalising someone for being educated at Uni. Plus how does that affect areas which require a degree (nursing, teachers) but traditionally attracts lower pay? What happens if students en-mass then decide they would rather move to country which treats people on the same income the same for tax purposes?

The proposed increase in fees and adjustment to loan system.

I personally think this is the way forward. It doesn't penalise the low paid as you have to reach a minimum level before paying back. The debt is a bounded so your not paying back for ever. The variable interest rates based on income adds a progressive edge to it, ensuring the better off shoulder more of the burden. Unlike a graduate tax it's bounded so once you've paid it off your done. And despite all that's been said it's not the same as a mortgage, if your income drops bellow the qualifying level you can postpone payments.

A lot has been made of the opprobrium being heaped on the Lib-Dems for their volte-face. It's totally justified but it's the LD's own fault for doing what they always do which is promising sunshine and roses while knowing they won't have to make good on their promises. Having joined the coalition they have learnt the hard way, they can repent at leisure.

Still my main point stands, you can complain all you like but at some point you need to suggest what you would do to solve the problem.

Data Tsunami

2010-11-19T11:39:00+00:00

The government has done another public spending data dump today. It's one of the policies that I was really in favour of before the election and it's good to see the coalition holding to it's word with this release. The raw data is available from the Cabinet Office and should soon appear on the government's data portal data.gov.uk. Reports of what is being done with the data is being followed by people like the Guardian Free our Data bloggers. Expect people like the Open Knowledge people to come up with some fancy visualisations of the data at Where Does My Money Go.

I'm sure there will be a number of stories about individual line items that get queried, something ministers want to happen. I'm hoping people will in general take a more holistic view of what's being provided. It won't benefit anyone if we tie up banks of expensive civil servants answering FOI requests to justify and contextualise individual items in the data set. However I'm hoping there will be some serious analysis on the trends of spending as well as leaving people more informed of what government actually does.

Personally I'm looking forward to next year when all contracts over 25,000 will be published. That should really make for some interesting reading.

US Midterms

2010-11-02T11:25:00+00:00

Today the citizens of the USA go to the polls for the midterms. I'm following the story with a mild interest as given their position as a world power their politics does have an impact on the rest of us. The media in the UK are reporting them as a referendum on Obama's first year and a bit in office which seems a little harsh. However American friends often remind me the whole federal system is designed to be unstable, it's very rare a president has control of both houses. Even when operating with majorities senators and congressmen cannot be relied on to vote with the party line as they all have an eye to their electoral fortunes back home. Parliamentary politics it ain't.

It will be interesting to see if the country takes a collective jump to the right or if the moderate republicans decide the more colourful Tea Party candidates are too much of a risk. There is a worry if the Tea Party wing does well it will embolden them to push for a populist candidate for the 2012 presidential race where they could do real international damage.

However another aspect of the US electoral system is the local state referendums that will be run. The two ones I'm interested in are both in California. The vote for Proposition 19 on legalising marijuana might start a process of revisiting the War on Drugs that has been rumbling on since the 70s. The other interesting one will be if anti-climate Proposition 23 is defeated, something being challenged by the Republican Govenator.

Of course as interesting as the movements in California are it's still fairly liberal compared to the rest of the USA. And not being a citizen I have no voice in the election so all I can do is be relegated to the role of interested observer.

Digital Democracy

2010-07-01T10:22:00+01:00

Our new Coalition Overlords^tm have launched a new web-site to solicit feedback from the citizenry on what laws should be repealed/modified. This is a little more involved than the current option to sign e-Petitions at the number 10 website. The site supports commenting, tagging as well subscribing to feeds for each idea. I'm quite impressed if this site has come from zero to production since the new government took power.

Of course experience with the e-Petition site has shown governments are quite capable of ignoring causes with popular support. There are also issue of selection bias, astro-turfing and inclusion of people without broadband connections. However it's an interesting experiment and we'll see where it goes.

Dunkirk, as it happens

2010-06-08T12:17:00+01:00

It's interesting to see how much of a shock the Dunkirk Evacuation was to British. Although the start of war was noted by Orwell he quickly moved back to documenting his small holding activities and egg production. However as the B.E.F. was beaten back to their eventual humiliation Orwell writes of growing talk about the war amongst those on the home front. It's eerie reading along in real time but it also gives a wonderful insight to the development of attitudes to the war and how it was viewed at home.

Electoral Reform

2010-05-11T10:16:00+01:00

I know I planned to stop writing about politics post election but as things aren't quite decided yet I find I'm still thinking about it.

One of the more common statements coming from people wishing to see Labour somehow continue in office is that 52% of the population voted to keep the Tories out. By the same logic 59% voted to keep Labour out and a whopping 65% voted to keep the Lib Dems out. If you wanted to descend into absurdity you might claim that 124% of the population would be unhappy with a Lib/Lab pact. This is the problem with attempting political divination about the will of the electorate based on the current electoral system.

A vote should always be a positive thing: "I believe in Candidate X and the policies they stand for". However in the current setup too many people feel they have to vote for candidate they dislike the least of the two likely to win. If enough people do this the actual real will of the electorate is distorted by expediency.

The Tories have as I hoped they would but feared they wouldn't offered a referendum on election reform. The reform they are suggesting should be the subject of the referendum in the Alternative Vote. The system neatly eliminates the dilemma of tactical voting by allowing voters to rank their candidates in order of preference without worrying about their support for a potential minority candidate allowing someone they object to getting in. It's about the least proportional of the potential PR reforms but it does favour the smaller parties (like the Lib Dems) who often get squeezed by votes for the major parties. It also makes it easier for independent candidates to build up a mandate over several election cycles. To me it also communicates more information from the electorate so it would be possible to divine the left/right leaning credentials of middle of the road voters*.

If I were Nick Clegg I'd be taking that deal in a heartbeat. Realistically a coalition with the Tories has far more chance of getting stuff done than the proposed "progressive alliance". Any such alliance would be one or two heart attacks away from losing a majority. My personal worry is such a beast would do nothing about sorting out the deficit especially as the nationalists have stood on a platform of preventing cuts to public service in their own countries.

Other proportional systems are available including AV+ which uses party lists (albeit directly voted ones) to adjust for share of the vote. The Lib Dems favoured reform is Single Transferable Vote which is similar to AV but requires super-constituencies of multiple candidates to spread the votes around so there are no "wasted" votes. It also breaks the direct link between constituency and candidate which I think is a bad thing. All in all I think the proposed AV system is a good system even if it's just a stepping stone on a longer** term migration to more proportional systems. One thing I would like however it the addition of Re-open Nominations so a constituency really can reject all candidates if offered a very poor choice.

* A massive simplification of the Lib Dems being somehow between Labour on the left and Tories on the right. Never the less I do contest there are plenty of Lib Dem voters who are for economic radicalism, small government and greater localism.
** Maybe in 2-3 more elections time when we've allowed AV to bed in and see what it's like.

Interesting times, part 2

2010-05-07T11:55:00+01:00

I didn't make it to the declaration of my local constituency which eventually declared sometime around 5 in the morning. As a result I'm basically functioning on tea infusions. I may have to whip up a super-caffeine latte in a bit.

The results last night where all over the place. Some stonking swings to the Tories in bits of the north where they didn't expect to win but at the same time less than stellar performances in the old true blue heartlands. My local constituency had a pretty decent swing to the Lib Dems after the collapse of the local Labour Campaign but it was still a fairly comfortable Conservative hold.

The big story seems to be the collapse of the Lib Dem vote, both the Uniform Swing projection and the chaps at FiveThirtyEight predicted a far higher number of seats for the Lib Dems than the 59 or so they look likely to get.

Personally I hope Cameron sucks up his objections to offering Clegg a referendum on PR and forms some sort of Lib/Con alliance. I suspect that may dismay many LD voters hoping for a Lib/Lab pact though. Either way as a voter it's out of my hands now and up to those politicians in smoke-free rooms to hammer out a deal.

Big Society vs Proportional Representation

2010-05-05T10:58:00+01:00

This will be my last post on the subject of politics for some time. Tomorrow is election day and even though blogging is not yet subject to the oversight of Ofcom the convention of not campaigning on election day seems like a good one to follow.

The campaign has taken a certain negative turn, a number of ministers have been calling on people to vote tactically to keep the Tories out. We'll see how it plays out with the electorate but asking people to vote for you because your not the other guy isn't exactly an inspiring call. Personally the view that the Tories will be making significant cuts to public spending is re-assuring and makes me wonder if we would reach Greek/Spanish-like positions if Labour had another 5 years of failing to tackle the size of the public sector. For all the rhetoric you'd think that Tories enjoy cutting spending and making themselves unpopular instead just being resigned to having to clean-up after yet another Labour crash.

Of all the ideas that have been articulated over the election that of the Big Society has been the most confusing. Parodied as citizens learning to do their own appendectomies or creating new schools when state schools fail it hasn't really moved on from a vague idea. If it's more about local empowerment and greater transparency of decision making then these are things I can support. Unfortunately the whole policy lacks detail on what real practical solutions would be possible. It also suffers from the sharp-elbowed middle-class syndrome as poorer sections of society have trouble getting the most out of public services as it is. Of course voter turnout and social status are closely correlated so poorer people will benefit less from electoral reform anyway. Perhaps this election is just all about the middle classes?

So I agree the national voting system is broken, my vote is worth less than most by virtue of where I live. Some of that could be rectified by better boundaries but really some sort of proportional system is needed somewhere in our national elections. On the other hand changing the composition of the MPs in the House of Commons is going to have less effect on things that matter to me day to day, like the state of the cycle paths and local services. If the big society is about making those things more reactive and accountable to local needs it could have a bigger effect on my life than who occupies Number 10? I suspect I'll still be trying to decide when I'm standing in the voting booth tomorrow.

The only thing I can gaurentee is I will be voting tomorrow, hopefully with more people going to the polls than in the last election.

The story is around the world before the rebuttal gets it's boots on

2010-04-28T14:18:00+01:00

Sometimes I feel quite sorry for Gordon Brown. I have plenty of fundamental problems with his politics but sometimes he just can't catch a break. Thankfully I'm rational enough not to base my vote on how lucky the candidates seem to be. Brown has joined a long line of politicians caught saying things in private which they didn't realise would become public.

I'd recommend watching the clip on Channel 4 as it includes the "on screen" conversation as well as his private comments. Unfortunately for the PM most people will just hear him insulting a ex-loyal Labour voter without the wider context of the conversation before it. It is up the the viewer to judge if the comments were justified.

I suspect the spin doctors in all parties are sending hastily written notes to all candidates reminding them to always know what mikes they have attached.

Interesting Times

2010-04-27T11:50:00+01:00

The election race in my constituency just got a lot more interesting. The suspension of the local Labour candidate offers up some interesting options for the voters. While the Tory incumbent has a fairly healthy majority he does benefit from a splitting of the opposition vote.

Despite kicking the candidate out (who would never win anyway) the party are still asking their loyal voters to "hold their noses" and vote Labour. This to me seems extremely silly as he a) won't win b) if he did win he wouldn't be a Labour MP and c) he seems to be a bit of a loose cannon anyway. If all those Labour voters joined the Lib Dems for this election then the thumping majority of James Paice suddenly looks a lot less thumping. You'd think for Labour central office one less Tory would be something they could live with even if it was a Lib Dem. I usually stay up quite late on polling day, with this development I'll certainly stay up until my constituency declares.

Seconds out, round two

2010-04-22T11:54:00+01:00

The knives are well and truly out for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats ahead of tonight's debate. They can't exactly complain now they have been propelled from third party to potential front-runners (modulo electoral effects). While the "scrutiny" offered by the British press is predictably smear-like I'm hoping it's policies that will come under more scrutiny in the actual debate.

Tonight's debate is meant to be focusing on foreign policy where the only real issues there is measurable difference between the parties seem to be Europe and Trident.

Trident is a tricky one. A lot of play has been made about it's cost and the extra money that could be ploughed back into defence/other spending if it was scrapped. However the renewal of Trident is a long term project so I doubt cancelling it now would result in a bonanza for the Treasury over the next few years. The effectiveness of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent is even more questionable. The role of the deterrent is to keep your enemies guessing as to if you would or would not vaporise a load of civilians for the transgressions of a rogue state. As time goes on it's getting harder and harder to imagine we ever would. Besides the greatest growing threat is a non-state actor ("terrorists") get their hands on a nuke and I don't think they are dissuaded at all, they would probably want a fire and brimstone response to validate their warped point of view. While I was staunchly against unilateralism during the Cold War I'm finding it harder to come down in favour of nukes now.

The other area for debate is Europe. I'm sure Labour will on their usual attack on the Tories that siding with European Conservatives and Reformists group is tantamount to supporting homophobia and racism. It's true some of the members of the group have less than spectacular domestic records but the actual European agenda is what you would expect, fair trade, secure clean energy and greater transparency of EU institutions. Pro-European I may be but it's certainly not without a desire to see some sort of reform in Brussels (and Strasbourg). Europe is a very broad church and it would seem right to be able to co-operate at the European level without that implying support for sovereign domestic agendas.

The Second Prime Ministerial Debate airs tonight at 2000 BST on Sky News, BBC News and Sky 3

Post Match Analysis

2010-04-16T15:16:00+01:00

Our polling cards arrived this morning. Now I know I can vote I'm still a little conflicted about who to vote for. Last night I tuned into ITV to see if I can clear up that confusion.

The debate was certainly livelier than the chancellors debate. Part of that was down to the aggressiveness of the moderator Alistair Stewart. Perhaps he felt he had to cut people off mid-flow to demonstrate he was in control of the debate (despite the times he obviously wasn't) but it annoyed me. I'd prefer the firm but tolerant David Dimbleby who will be moderating the final debate. Although I'm sure all the parties where monitoring talk time awarded to each participant I doubt any of them will complain, it did feel as though Nick Clegg was getting more than his fair share.

The coaching all the participants had gotten was very obvious. Some where making sure to address the camera, some the questioner. All of them employed the trope of recalling anecdotes as part of their response to questions in an effort to "bond" with the audience. After around 60 minutes you started noticing a tendency to fall back on rehearsed lines, David Cameron in particular fell back to the £1 in 100 illustration which I assume is part of the "message" when discussing savings. Gordon Brown had a few prepared jokes up his sleeves, "It's not question time, it's answer time" and "You can't airbrush your policies like your posters", which were actually quite good lines but their delivery came across as very forced much like his occasional rictus smile. Cameron looked uncomfortable and uncertain at points, normally a confident orator I think he found the dead quiet more disconcerting without the noise of the House of Commons behind him. Nick Clegg was by far the most relaxed and confident. He even made some good meta-references to the debate format, breaking the rules by getting acknowledgement from questioners if he was answering in the right way.

By the end it felt as though it had been a long debate. The format is still too restrictive, especially with the strict deadlines on rebuttals forcing them all to stick to prepared soundbite points. While I appreciate the need to be "fair and balanced" all of the participants were clearly frustrated that they couldn't fully develop some of their points.

While Nick Clegg certainly won on style I don't feel he was pressed enough on policy points. He was happy to sit back and take pot shots at Cameron and Brown slugging it out between prepared attacks and quoting statistics. While it payed off for him in this debate I doubt he's going to get off that easily in the next two debates.

I'll be watching the next debate with interest.

Almost

2010-04-14T14:31:00+01:00

Reading through the bullet summary of the Lib Dems manifesto I was struck at how well it aligned with the Tory proposals on political reform (smaller House of Commons). There are a number of other good proposals including per-flight instead of per-passenger flight tax, local income tax, shared parental leave (similar to Tory proposals). There are a number of wish list items as well which I guess would never make it through a coalition administration but look good on paper.

Then I saw one I wasn't expecting:

"....reject new generation of nuclear power"

FAIL.

Dirty Election

2010-04-12T11:07:00+01:00

It looks like it's shaping up to be a very dirty election. The latest scare tactic involving cancer treatment also raised question about how the leaflets were targeted. The Labour party seem to be working very hard to promote the image of posh Tories waxing their moustaches between looking for puppies to kick. Health care is such a hot potato topic that all the parties have "protected" funding for the NHS but the accusation still stands that after kicking all those puppies Conservative politicians like nothing better than screwing over cancer patients.

The reality is less of a cartoon caricature. The Conservatives are looking to abolish a large number of the central targets because they question their effectiveness. I've seen myself how the organisation games the system to meet targets without effectively meeting the needs of the patient. But of course we are asked accept that Labour know how to improve the NHS despite having had the last 13 years to do so.

I'm also finding the arguments about public spending cuts more than a little weak. Our total spending is around £620bn and we are having slanging matches between the parties about £6bn to pay for Tory NI proposals. That's less than 1% of total spending and well within the sort of efficiency savings the private sector regularly asks it employees to make. I know from personal experience that over the last year or so the private sector has been busy making those savings, quite often at the cost of jobs. When I heard someone of the radio suggesting that in that case the private sector could save a little more to cover the cost of the NI increase I had to hold myself back from shouting at the radio. While I like having public services and have a lot of respect for people that work in them it doesn't give them a blank cheque to carry on as normal while the rest of us have to tighten our belts. I suspect I'll be turning into Victor Meldrew by the end of it all.

Under starters orders

2010-04-07T13:38:00+01:00

It wasn't exactly the most surprising announcement but the race is now on for who forms the next government. Anyone not registered to vote has about 13 days to make sure they are registered for the election.

According to the Electoral Reform Society there isn't much point voting as all our seats are dead certs. It seems like a council of despair and misplaced for a number of reasons.

Leaving aside the civic duty aspects of voting (whoever you vote for, or spoil your ballot) this is going to be one of closest elections in a long time. We have a record number of incumbent MPs standing down this election ensuring more election battles between new candidates. For those election battles where the incumbent is fighting the seat there is a wealth of information that allows voters to see their MPs actual performance. Given the turbulence and disrepute politics has fallen into over the last few years I'm sure those "safe" seats are feeling a lot less safe now.

Although my political complexion is broadly of the blue variety I'm starting to go off my local MP. His lack of record on transparency and disappointing record equality are leading me to consider other candidates. I'm voting for my local representative not a voting peon for the national party. Unfortunately the LibDem representation so far has been less than stellar. While it's hoping too much for no negative campaigning this year I'm really not persuaded by arguments telling me to vote for someone because the other party will do X. It's a shame as a 7.5% swing looks doable if the Lib Dems can pull votes from both the Tory and Labour in my constituency.

Anyway there is all to play for over the next 4 weeks, we shall see how the country decides soon enough.

Who got all the laughs

2010-03-30T10:57:00+01:00

As debates go the whole thing seemed more than a little sterile. The 3 would-be holders of the purse strings post election kept their points so tightly focused it almost had the air of people running through checklists. Although there was a little back and forth between the candidates, usually totally unrelated to the actual question asked, the debate was cut off quickly by the moderator. I'm not blaming the moderator as the rules agreed by all the parties are pretty specific on the format.

I'm not sure if the rules for the chancellors debate precluded the audience from applauding and cheering but it only happened a few times over the whole hour. Vince Cable's robust performance certainly got the most positive audience reaction. If this was against the rules then maybe there is hope for a more lively audience come the main events when the leaders go head to head.

Next time I'll be watching with my social media feeds on as I suspect that's where the real cheering and jeering will be taking place.

Google's change of heart

2010-01-13T08:34:00+00:00

So Google are finally having second thoughts about their relationship with China. We may see then end of google.cn as a search engine that filters search results that might embarrass the authorities.

Google got a lot of stick at the time when they first created their Chinese presence. In reality they were doing what every other western Internet company had to do to get access to the massive growing market that is China. I suspect the reason they got more stick than most is because it was one of the early tests of their (in)famous "Don't be Evil" motto, a statement of purity that is never going to be easy to live up to while operating a profitable business.

Now that Google seem to be resigned to not being able to operate inside Chinese law I wonder if they would be willing to go the next step. There may be many arguments for censorship but secret censorship is very hard to defend. If you don't know what you aren't allowed to see how can you be sure of the motives of the powers that be that create that list. What I would love Google to do is share that list of censored results so we know exactly what it is the Chinese authorities don't like. For bonus points Google could rank the list in order of search popularity so we know what is the most requested censored pages are.

I suspect this won't happen as Google, despite their new approach, will want to maintain as cordial relationship with the government of the largest growing market in the world. While google.com does periodically drop off the radar in China every now and again (as it does not filter results) the temptation must surely be to ensure it has at least some visibility rather than none at all.

EDIT TO ADD: More information about hacks used and speculation about why. I'm just glad I don't use Adobe Reader...

Simon Singh

2009-12-11T11:37:00+00:00

As the nights draw in again it's time to hit the lecture circuit. Cambridge is pretty well served with public lectures as well as a number of other organisations that organises talks in return for a small donation on the day or subscription. Last night I went to the IET's "Christmas" lecture by author, producer and journalist Simon Singh. If you haven't heard of him you may be familiar with his Horizon documentary on Fermat's Last Theorem (and a follow-up book) or his excellent book on the history of codes and code breaking.

The talk was nominally titled "Science and the Media - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly". He started with an interesting observation that he used to believe we should get as much science in the media as possible but wonders if now that is a bad thing. There is a tendency now for journalists to jump on the latest random case studies (or worse University issued press releases) and write stories without surrounding context. This is how we get to the confused state that Wine is both good and bad for you, depending on which paper you have read today. The true picture is generally more complex and nuanced than the column inches allow.

Simon Singh presented a couple of examples of editing in science documentaries and discussed the ethics of the choices made. The first was an example from his own film on Fermat's Last Theorem where he made the choice to edit one of his contributors discussing why computers can't prove theorems. The actual edit can bee seen about at about 07:30 into the film where the mathematically significant word "prime" is cut between "1000" and "numbers". The argument being that to get the point across about why it's not a proof it would have been an unnecessary distraction to discuss why primes are significant in this exercise. While standing behind his decision in this case he left it to the audience to come to their own conclusion on where on the ethical spectrum this editorial choice lay.

The next example was the sensationalist introduction to the OU and BBC's documentary Alternative Medicine: The Evidence which showed (warning graphic medical procedure footage) someone having open heart surgery while conscious and undergoing acupressure. Although apparently mentioned later on in the episode the intro made no mention of the 3 strong sedatives and local anaesthetic being used during the procedure (possibly rendering the acupuncture rather superfluous). This led to Singh feeling compelled to make a complaint to the BBC which after several appeals they finally responded too. It's probably fair to say the audience considered this example of editing as being on the darker side of the ethical spectrum.

In the final section of the talk he discussed the Ugly side of science and the media. The main bugbear hear being the increasing use of liable law to silence or suppress criticism of "alternative" medicine. Singh's own case was launched by the British Chiropractic Association after daring to suggest there may not be evidence for efficacy of chiropractic treatments of some medical conditions. It's not the first such case, the main reason being that even if you win, you lose. The current state of liable law means that even though Ben Goldacre won his case against a vitamin pill magnet he and the Guardian ended up £170,000 poorer than they started. That's without getting into the discussion about whether the courts are the best place to decide on scientific facts. There is more information on Simon Singh's website as well as a relaunch of a campaign to reform UK liable laws. I strongly urge UK readers to read the site and perhaps write to your MP to ensure they are on side for reform.

Are the Armed Forces being let down by government?

2009-11-11T15:05:00+00:00

Well the gruby counter accusations continue over a letter sent by Gordon Brown to offer condolences to a bereaved mother. For all the heat and noise it's generating for the papers, no doubt not helping the poor mother come to terms with her grief, it's become a proxy for a wider debate. Frankly I'm appalled we need such a proxy argument when the real issue we should be discussing is the mission itself and how to support it.

I've held off commenting for some time as it's a fairly hot button topic and one that raises my hackles. I have tremendous respect for the Armed Forces partly informed by my extended family's history of service. They are placed in harms way at the behest of politicians to project political will by force of arms. While we should hold our forces to the highest standards for their conduct on the battlefield the responsibility for their deployment lies with their political masters. Soldiers don't start wars, they only fight in them.

It's perfectly acceptable for a government to reduce spending on our military budget and re-prioritise funds to other areas. That is an entirely political decision. What I find objectionable however this government taking the political decision to deploy force and then failing to support the armed forces. Wars are expensive things to fight and while members of the service put their lives on the line the government has a responsibility to supply them adequately. The government then compounds the problems by equivocating and changing their political objectives for fear of domestic unpopularity. This is not the political environment that the soldier on the ground want to be in. For all of the disagreements I have with the current administration this is the thing that makes me angriest.

In the meantime service men and women continue to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Question Time

2009-10-23T12:48:00+01:00

Well the reaction quotes are in from last nights Question Time, as are the viewing figures (7.9m, easily beating the previous 3.8m water mark at the height of the MPs expenses scandal). I'm not sure I'm cynical enough to accuse the BBC of engineering the media storm on the run up to boost ratings but it certainly promised to be a media circus.

I have no problem with allowing the BNP (now they have national representation) to come onto programmes like Question Time. Free speech is not a privilege that can only extend to the right-on. Nothing from last night has changed my view that when exposed to questioning the facade of respectability quickly falls away to expose their true colours. I was a little disappointed that the odds where obviously stacked against Griffin and will probably re-enforce the idea he was brow beaten in the minds of some. While I don't think Dimbleby was totally biased as the chair he certainly wanted to make sure Griffin was pinned down on some of the things he has said in the past. Unfortunately the whole thing degenerated into a bit of an unstructured clusterf**k. This meant many opportunities for Griffin to hang himself on the rope he'd been supplied with got lost in the interruption and barracking.

The questions were all focused on the few areas where the BNP have a political view namely immigration and Islam. It was obvious members of the audience wanted to ask wider questions to expose them as a one trick pony they are, however it was not to be.

It was disappointing to see the failure of most of the other politicians to deal with the issues the BNP so obviously play on. There is unease about radical Islam and the level of immigration out there but it seems people are worried about being labelled a racist for even questioning the current received opinion. I was impressed with Baroness Warsi who seemed to be the only one willing to tackle the subject of immigration.

I'll just add a brief aside to the new interactivity offered by micro-blogging sites like Twitter. No longer is interactivity gated by sending text messages to the BBC in the hope it gets published on some red button feed. Now everyone can join in by tagging their posts (in this case #bbcqt), truly a democratising technology. I'm sure there will be analysis of the trends in the next day or so but it does seem the twitterati are generally anti-BNP and that view didn't change over the program.

Policies I can get behind

2009-10-05T16:26:00+01:00

I was little disappointed by David Cameron's performance on Sunday AM. It may just be the curse of any political leader these days if to be vague enough to avoid splitting their own party or come across as uncaring hatchet men. Everyone seems keen to cut waste without actually reducing the head count.

However it's a mistake to judge a party purely by the leader. A good leader should be making the best of their cabinet and advisers. It's good to see Frances Maude announcing the enlisting of Tom Steinberg to advise on government IT. He's the founder of mySociety who know a thing or two about making the best use of technology to engage the public in politics.

While I'm at it I may as well give plaudits to the government for appointing Professor David MacKay who's book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" is my go to reference for useful numbers.

Orwell Diaries

2009-08-28T11:46:00+01:00

The Orwell Diaries have been running for a little over a year now. One thing I've learned is his slight obsession with the egg production of his chickens as well as a few notes about living in Spain. However the last few weeks has seen more earnest reporting of the political situation in the UK and Europe as it lumbers towards World War II. It's kinda of spooky though because while I know what is coming as Orwell writes he along with the rest of the country of the time really didn't know how it would end. It's an interesting peak back into time.

Write to your MP time

2009-08-25T20:43:00+01:00

I've not sent many letters to my current MP since I moved down south. So today I was moved to send the following:

Dear James Paice,

I'm writing to you today to let you know about my views on the
Governments proposed Internet disconnection policy [1] on accusation
of illegal file sharing. While I agree that digital piracy is a
problem there are a number of issues with the current proposals.

* Identifying an IP address is not the same as identifying a person

All the current methods for tracking down digital pirates come down to
someone, somewhere logging an IP address. This is the address people
are assigned when they access the Internet. However it generally
doesn't identify a person, at best it identifies the broadband router
in someones house attached to the phone line or cable. If multiple
people share the connection there is no way to identify which one is
which. With wireless routers the offending person may be using the
network without the knowledge of the person who's router it is.

* No oversight of the data collection

There is typically no oversight of the 3rd party companies who monitor
the Internet for theft. As only an accusation is made the evidence is
never tested in a court of law. Without the oversight of a legal
process there is no chance of justice for the falsely accused.

* Wrong tool for the job

In the end even a draconian policy like this will not eliminate
file-sharing. The original "Gnutella"[2] network was a technical work
around to the fall of Napster [3], one of the first file sharing
technologies to get the attention of the media companies. I fully
expect a growth in anonymous networks and routine encryption of data
traffic as a response to legal and quasi-legal attempts to stop file
sharing. It is in essence a battle that will never be won as technical
measure continually evolve to work around legal threats. In the
meantime innocent people will be caught in the cross-fire and lose
what the Digital Britain report compared to a Human Right.

The correct tools are education and competition. Children need to be
educated about the rights and wrongs of illegal file-sharing  (while
remembering some things like Creative Commons [4] and Open Source
software [5] positively encourage it). At the same time the media
companies must provide competition to the pirate materials by offering
products people want. There is no point providing DRM [6] crippled
products at excessive prices and complaining the users prefer the
better quality pirated products.

* Internet Access is a Human right

As more and more of our access to information, government and society
becomes dependant on a decent Internet connection people without it
will suffer. If these people have lost access because of an unfounded
accusation by a rights holder then justice will not have been served.
By all means provide the rights holders with the ability to take
people to court and seek redress if their rights have been infringed.
However such a system has to be a balanced and fair. This is not what
the current government proposals offer.

I hope as we approach an election next year you can assure me that
your party would not follow the path being suggested by the current
government?

I was unable to find your voting track record with respect to these
matters. I hope this letter leaves you better informed for future
votes in the house. I would be pleased to provide further
clarifications if anything is unclear. I can also point you towards
the Open Rights Group [7] who are a lobbying organisation I broadly
support.



Yours sincerely,



Alex Bennee

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8219652.stm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnutella
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster
[4] http://creativecommons.org/
[5] http://www.opensource.org/
[6] Digital Restrictions Management, digital locks that for example
prevent you using iTunes music with any player other than an iPod.
[7] http://www.openrightsgroup.org

Numbers to make your point

2009-08-14T12:20:00+01:00

I assume most people are aware of the recent furore over Daniel Hannan's appearance on Fox News where some fairly distorted views of the NHS where given. I'm not going to say the system is perfect but I certainly know which system I'd choose to be treated under. However I thought I'd confine my comments to some of the slides shown during the piece. My experience watching Fox news has always illuminating. Where as in the UK journalists tend to bend over backwards to ensure some degree of balance in the US partisan presentation seems to be standard. With this in mind it always pays to be sceptical of any "facts" that are presented.

The first slide which grabbed my eye was at 1 minute 36 seconds showing NHS waiting times. The slide is on for 5 seconds and you'd be forgiven for thinking they are up to date figures. The source is quoted as the BBC May 27, 2009 although the data is for 2004. It's interesting there are two dates on the slide which you may miss one given the short time it's up. I tried to find this reference on the BBC and in fact the 2009 reference is completely wrong, the data comes from this page also from 2004.

The next factiod under the "Prescription for Truth" banner doesn't seem to be sourced stating "23% of Australians wait for than 4 months for elective surgery". The best I could find that matched that were figures for 2001, perhaps some Australians more familiar with their government stats could point me towards some more current figures?

The next big slide discusses 5-year relative survival rates for prostate cancer. Here I'm a little less sure as I'm no expert on cancer. However the choice of Prostate Cancer is an interesting one affects the older population and is often so slow that people die of other things first. According to the slide the US has a 100% relative survival rate to our rather paltry looking 77%. According to the Wikipedia article relative survival rates is dependant on how many of the general population of the same age and sex are also survive. I'll happily accept help from my more stats trained friends here but it seems to me the lower life expectancy is the higher the relative survival rate for any condition that affects primarily the old will be. Having said that the UK (77.2) and the US (75.6)* don't seem to be that far apart in male life expectancy to explain the difference. The American Cancer Society page certainly backs up the 100% figure although I'm not sure what happens if you diagnosed but uninsured in the USA. The UK Cancer Research figures also backup the 77% figure. It's also interesting to note that the incidence rate is so much higher in the US, almost double in fact the incidence rate in the UK. At this point I decided to ask Wolfram Alpha what it knew about the US stats compared to the UK numbers. It finally told me that prostate cancer is the cause of 1.5% of deaths in the US compared to 1.8% in the UK. A much smaller difference than 100% vs 77% might lead you to believe.

It's been an interesting exercise digging into these numbers. For what it's worth I'm fairly convinced cancer is more aggressively screened and treated in the US if you have health insurance (after all it makes economic sense from the point of view of the insurance companies). However living in the UK I'm happy I'll never have to queue in a stadium for life saving treatment if medical insurance won't protect me.

* UN figures, via Wikipedia

The Pirate Party

2009-08-13T12:23:00+01:00

Well it seems the Pirate Party in now registered with the electoral commission in the UK which opens the way for their participation in elections. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Their front page policies are all good stuff, reform copyright and patent law, reduce surveillance and uphold free speech. I hope that having a political party expounding these things will bring the issues more into the mind of the electorate. However I don't think their doing themselves much favours with the name as it immediately prejudices people opinion of the party. The idea that their principle concern is representing people illicitly downloading free music in their bedrooms will surely become quickly lodged in the national consciousness, and that is a fairly week position to argue for the sort of reforms they are looking towards. I shall withhold further judgement until I see if they get any air time and how they come across.

Spodula mentioned the Pirate Bay verdict a while ago and I have to say I have little sympathy for the admins as well. I have plenty of concerns about the trial and the legal interpretation of "contribution to copyright infringement" but the behaviour and demeanour of defendants did invite the generally liberal Swedish Judges to cross that line. It's one that now leaves me wondering if as a programmer who has contributed to GTK Gnutella I can now be held liable for what someone does with the software regardless of the number of perfectly legal uses it can be put to.

Finally I'll point out there are political lobbying groups that do not have party affiliations that are worth supporting. These include the Open Rights Group, the European arm of the Free Software Foundation and the of course the pioneering Internet civil liberties organisation the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I wish the major political parties would take more notice of what these guys have to say as well.

NHS IT Systems

2009-08-10T15:54:00+01:00

Uber-systems don't work. The internet is testament to the value of having a distributed system built with components from multiple vendors inter-operating through common protocols. With that in mind I was happy to see the Conservative response to their independent report on NHS IT. While I haven't finished reading the full report I have been through the key conclusions and the policy response. The idea of getting rid of the centralised nightmare that the current government is wedded to and returning control of IT procurement to the consumers (i.e. the healthcare providers) makes perfect sense. The push for interoperability and multiple suppliers is all good stuff as is the nod to allowing open source solutions to compete on a level playing field.

It will be interesting to see what the political responses will be to the plans. The current line seems to be about how patient confidentiality can be kept. In that response seems to be an implicit idea that you can secure a centralised system better than multiple ones. In reality of course the problem is a lot more complex than that. Central solutions do provide a single point of failure where the entire database can be compromised. However if you remember the Child Benefit fiasco the reasons for failure where human and not technical. If you divide your data amongst 152 systems each with the attendant reduction of people with access to it you dramatically reduce the chances of a catastrophic failure. However it is still possible that an individual PCT could have a technical flaw that leaks confidential data. It won't be much comfort to those that are affected but the consequences will be a lot more manageable than if all medical records had been involved.

I suspect the biggest headache will be caused by the laudable goal of giving people access to their own data. If all that is required to access your records is a username and password we can expect a number of leaks caused by bad passwords and/or comprised user machines running keyboard sniffers. I hope some sort of hardware token approach is mandated in the minimum requirements* to help mitigate the problems.

All in all this is a policy I can happily support.

* I'd prefer tokens that don't need to connect to a computer to work, eliminating the trap of only being supported by some operating systems. For example my bank token is totally self contained and only needs to read my ATM card and display some numbers I enter into the web-form when I log in.

Turning off the internet

2009-06-24T10:31:00+01:00

A couple of interesting blog href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/06/irans_internet_dilemma.html">posts
looking at the difficulties Iran is having in turning off it's
internet. While countries like Iran and China have some very
sophisticated filtering solutions to limit what their own citizens can
see on the internet (just like
us) as the internet becomes more pervasive the option to turn it
off becomes harder to do. Countries have to balance economic interests
with their desire for political control.

Assuming there will always be some connectivity it makes sense to
support projects like href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)">Tor
and Freenet that
allow users to bypass state imposed censorship. We should be very wary
if our governments start mandating what we href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8091044.stm">should
and shouldn't run on our machines. We should always protect href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">freedom 0.

Elections

2009-06-08T11:56:00+01:00

It's a slightly odd situation where the results of local elections and European's were so spread apart. Locally in my ward the Lib Dems held on while a resurgent Tory party chipped away at the incumbents lead. Overall the council was no change from the fairly safe Conservative council you would expect to see down in the rural(ish) south east. The council elections are basically a 3 way fight with a few independents thrown in and luckily no BNP candidates attempting to chance their arm.

Unfortunately the same can't be said of the European elections whose foot and a half long ballot paper bought out all the fringe parties. While the BNP were still beaten by the Greens (and still very short of winning a seat) it's depressing to see nearly 100,000 people have voted for them, even given the analysis is their share is only up because of collapse in support for the other parties.

The real question now is where this leave the current government? I'm all for reviewing the constitutional basis for when elections can be held but the rules as they stand say Mr Brown gets to decide when that is. While I'm fairly partisan in my desire to have this current government thrown out I'd happily live with them hanging on until next year if they could at least given a semblance of an impression of the ability to govern. All I'm seeing at the moment is in-fighting and the occasional gimmick.

In preparation for tomorrow

2009-06-03T10:55:00+01:00

A few weeks ago I contacted all my MEPs to request the last years worth of expenses claims they had made. Only the Lib Dems actually provided the information requested (although being MEP's in condensed summary form, they have an even laxer expenses than Westminster). The one Labour MEP was completely non responsive, I suspect his position at the top of a PR list means he will always get in without having to win over new voters.

I present the results in handy spreadsheet form. I'm sure more interesting analysis is possible but it is a small data set. Still hasn't helped me decide on my vote tomorrow though :-(

And now for a little financial commentry

2009-04-03T02:04:00+01:00

Just because I'm the other side of the world on holiday doesn't mean I haven't had an eye on what's going on back home. The papers in Oz have also had the global financial crisis headlining as the great and the good gathered in London. With all this talk of billions and trillions I do hope that everyone is on the same page as to how big these numbers are. Fortunately Auntie is on the case ;-)

Energy for all

2008-12-02T13:26:00+00:00

I went to an interesting talk last night hosted by the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research. It was given by local professor Dr David MacKay promoting his new book "Sustainable Energy: without the hot air". Although you can buy a copy you can download the whole thing in Creative Commons licensed glory from his website.

The book is basically a scientific approach to the problem of how we manage the energy deficit and move to sustainable energy future. He started his talking about the current problems with "Greenwashing" and the dangers of an emotive approach to promotion of alternatives. The big elephant in the room is of course the role Nuclear could play in the equation with most of the environmental lobby against it without having the answers to fill the shortfall in energy.

The principle problem with renewables is the low energy density (a limit of physics) which lead to the Wales unit. If we were to provide all our energy we would have to convert all farm land to biomass, have several Wales sized wind farms both on and off shore as well as ship in solar energy from significant chunks of the Libyan dessert.

The flip side of the problem of course is reducing demand. The big runners seem to be all electric transport and more efficient heating and cooling by using Heat Pumps. Current car usage is very inefficient in term of power budget and there is much more to be done in the field. The current hybrids really only scratch the surface of what is possible and from MacKay's point of view can only be a stepping stone to fully electrified personal vehicles. I was impressed by the numbers on Heat Pumps which claim greater the 100% efficiency by virtue of tapping energy from the environment. The question remains if we will reach a limit by permanently refrigerating outside while we are kept warm inside the buildings.

The overall conclusion of the talk was a positive one. If we added nuclear and "clean" coal to the mix ("sustainable" equals will last for 1000 years at current demand) and reduced the area set aside for renewables to be more realistic at the same time as aggressively reducing consumption by transport and heating it is a scientifically doable thing. Whether we will is another question all together.

Is the Economy Stupid?

2008-11-20T13:11:00+00:00

The economy has been very much at the top of the news agenda (modulo dancing hysteria). I've recently added TV superstar Robert Peston to my feeds and I do find his articles very enlightening.

There seems to be a growing furor over the banks reluctance to start lending again. What I don't understand is how we've come to the conclusion that the correct remedy for a credit crunch bought about by ten years of cheap money is to increase the availability of cheap money? One would hope the banks have learnt their lesson about lending more money than they have to potentially bad risks. If they continue behaving as they did last year we would be heading towards an even greater fall further down the road.

There are problems with companies that are over extended with their lines of credit. However as Peston points out most small businesses are actually well prepared for the downturn. Their problems are not with the banks but with the larger companies that are starting to delay payments because they have over extended. The raw capitalist solution to this is for a frenzy of bloodletting as these unprepared companies undergo rapid contractions or takeovers by people who have a better idea how to run them. However this is not politically acceptable. It seems the politicians would like to solve the problem by pouring taxpayers money into the banks hoping we the consumer will ignore the current conditions and keep spending on our credit cards. Much like that "last pint" the end result is likely to be an even longer hangover where we ask ourselves what were we thinking.

A lot of energy seems to expended on getting the housing market moving again. This seems to fly in direct contradiction with the stated aim of making housing more available to first time buyers. I admit I have a vested interest here but surely what the housing market needs is a readjustment where house prices can realign with earnings. It seems to me like another case of trying to re-inflate a slowly bursting bubble.

Of course I'm no economist so what do I know?

The Result

2008-11-05T12:51:00+00:00

The pundits in the studio where certainly more confident than I was as we waited for the various states to declare. The slightly odd exit-poll + sample declaration system they use in the US meant the TV networks where being very cautious before calling the contended states. The geography of the US ensured we saw a series of states repeating their red/blue pattern from the previous election. Every time Mr Vine pulled up a contended state on his whiz-o CGI touch screen the numbers always seemed to be within a few percent of each other. It was only when Ohio went blue I started to relax and consider the eventual historic result possible. We finally headed to bed around 3.30 in the morning which is having a bit on an impact on me today.

Obama has his work cut out for him now. He gave yet another commanding piece of oratory for his victory speech. However he inherits an uncertain economy, a massive public deficit, two wars and a lot of damaged foreign relations. Looking at the popular vote he has a slight edge but the US still looks more or less evenly divided between the liberals and the conservatives. While the capability to inspire and unite the American people will stand him in good stead it's no small task he has to accomplish when he takes office in January. It certainly is a historic result, however we won't know history's judgement on impact of last night for some time yet.

For our American Cousins

2008-11-03T12:37:00+00:00

It's a big day tomorrow and the last of the endorsements for the next President of the USA are coming in. While I have some fairly good ideas of who I'd like to see installed in the White House it's not really my place to say. It's a rather fundamental concept of democracy that people get to choose their own leaders. If we respect the institution of democracy we have to accept the result even if we don't like it. Having said that I have found it rather amusing hearing some of the accusations of socialism being bandied around. I think the USA has a rather different view of socialism than we do over in Europe. A friend of mine who has emigrated to the US once described the politics there as "right wing and even more right wing" :-)

What I can wish for is that the USA has a free and fair election and everyone eligible gets a chance to vote. I would urge that any US citizen of any political persuasion does exercise their right to vote even if they think it won't be electorally significant. The votes are still counted and I think that's still an important thing.

Despite our complete lack of control over the outcome it doesn't mean we are disinterested in the result. Who ever wins will hold a privileged position as leader of the major world power. That position inevitably has the power to influence the world and we will all feel the consequences of that. So tomorrow night we will be hosting our US election soiree and enjoying a few beers and nibbles as we watch the results come in. I wonder if there is a Swingometer for tomorrows elections?

News Fatigue

2008-10-16T22:07:00+01:00

The relentless news coverage of the collapse of capitalism gets a bit wearing at the time. Sometimes it's hard to keep a sense of perspective with other things going on. One piece of good news was 45 days getting shelved for the meantime. The government had to cock up a good move by pushing forward with a policy that would make Big Brother proud. One of the many problems of massive centralised databases is that it makes investigators lazy. They can already monitor my traffic if they need to now, using whatever mechanism they have at their disposal. However before they can tap me they need to have done some ground work (also known as intelligence work) to determine I'm worth looking at. With a big database to mine they will spend more time doing wonderful statistical analysis of peoples private behaviour to point at "probable targets" netting the inevitable false positives. All this time not noticing that a bunch a really interesting email left a server in Germany because hey everyone knows the Brit's read all their citizens email.

Politicians need to learn that huge technical solutions that infringe on citizens privacy are not silver bullets. Yes IT has a role in making the world a better and safer place but not by becoming a tool of oppression. It's also a technological pissing contest that the people that really want to go about their business unnoticed will be able to do.

Talking of draconian legislation there was a degree of schadenfreude at McCain vs the DMCA. The DMCA has lived up to the many of the predictions made of it since it was introduced. Obviously the idea that politicians should have a special exemption to the DMCA not available to the normal citizenry is laughably unbalanced with respects to free speech. This is especially pointed given the growing influence the digital sphere has on politics these days.

Lies and damn lies

2008-10-06T12:52:00+01:00

I haven't commented much on the US election recently. It after all the democratic process in a sovereign country which is quite capable of making it's own decisions about who represents it. Of course given the USA's influence on the rest of the world it's understandable that we do take an interest in the result of the upcoming election.

It is saddening to see the campaign sinking into dirty smear tricks territory. Fortunately if you follow up on the comments you can see them for what they are. However it really depends on those floating voters that aren't decided proactively following up on what is reported in the media. The other key group of people is those not yet registered to vote so it's good to see Google doing their bit to encourage voter registration and I assume by extension voter turnout. I'm always disappointed by the comparably low turnout in these things. If things go to form a little over 55% of the registered voters in the US will decide who the next "leader of the free world" will be.

I may be a socialist

2008-10-03T14:16:00+01:00

I've been spending quite a lot of idle cycles on Facebook with the rather fun Nations game. My nation now scores very highly in social freedom, education, technology and pretty much every other meaningful statistic. This is not surprising as I've consistently gone with pro-education, pro-choice decisions and a marked reluctance to execute people who disagree with me. However my Government Wealth score is very defiantly in the red. I guess I should try and tax people a little more ;-)

I watched David Cameron's full conference speech and I have to say I'm pretty happy with it. It was fairly measured and didn't make promises he couldn't keep. The speech was pretty policy light which is understandable. However the call to abandon a third runway at Heathrow and build a high speed rail network linking north to south sounds like an eminently sensible proposal to me. We certainly need a more balanced economy across the country. A large amount of the speech was countering the current trend towards the state being everything to everybody. The concept that the state should solve every persons problems for them has an infantilising effect on the whole population, not to mention bringing out the worst tendencies of authoritarian government. The call to break the state monopoly on education is also something I think is interesting. The current system which only allows certain special interest groups to set-up semi-autonomous schools is terribly biased. It's also good to see the Conservatives fully on board with progressive employment reform and behind things like flexible working.

But in general the thing I liked most about the speech is it gave me a good impression of the values Cameron claims to have. If he's sincere I can see myself trusting him to make the right calls as Prime Minister. Certainly more so than the current incumbent.

Free broadband for every child

2008-09-24T17:33:00+01:00

I'll stick to the geek topics in Chairman Brown's speech to conference yesterday. The issue of broadband poverty is a uniquely western problem in an age where we have mostly* solved the problems of feeding, housing and medical care for the population. However as more and more things become available at the click of a mouse people without access to the 'net start to be put at a disadvantage. It is a laudable aim with which I can broadly support.

The difference as ever is in the manner of execution. I suspect** the governments approach will be to means test every applicant first. Assuming the government is still in Redmond's pockets a significant cost of the basic net machine will be for software that will further entrench the desktop monopoly. Then there is the matter of the actual net connection itself which I suspect will become a guaranteed government revenue stream for another near-monopoly, BT.

There is, as has already been suggested, a better way to approach the problem. The concept of Municipal WiFi has been around for a while although it has often butted heads with the vested interests of the telecoms companies. By providing blanket base level broadband you skip the tedious "cost-saving" accounting, enable quick mass adoption and force the telecoms companies to differentiate their services from what you can get for free. The only remaining problem is getting computers into the hands of those who still don't have them. There are many solutions to this. I know of homeless charities that teach their residents about computers by getting them to re-furbish donated computer equipment. There is a new class of Netbook computers which are already pushing into the sub Â£200 range and are only going to get cheaper. It's a problem that really would benefit from diversity of supply rather than central mandate. One thing we do not have in this country is a lack of computer hardware.

I wonder which approach the government will take?

* Yes we still have problems but we often forgot exactly how good we have it compared to the rest of the world
** I don't know, as usual these sort of announcements are very light on actual detail although often heavy on deja vu.
UPDATE: I hadn't fully read the Guardian article in my rush to find something to link to. I'd watched the speech live and the BBC didn't seem to report it in much detail. The Guardian article does contain a little more detail on how the system is to work.

Time for a change?

2008-09-16T13:19:00+01:00

Fun as it is to watch Labour struggle to contain a revolt by it's own members to oust Chairman Brown I can't help thinking a change of leader wouldn't do any good right now. While it's easier to argue against a general election for your first switch of leader while in power I don't think it would hold for a second. The Tories had the luxury of being in opposition for their last 4 changes, while in power they are pretty efficient at wielding the knife on their incumbent leaders.

I suspect with all economic turmoil going around at the moment no party really wants to be in power. However someone needs to be in charge of the country and indulging internal party politics seems like a bit of a luxury in these times.

Foreshadowing and DNA

2008-07-30T12:50:00+01:00

It seems oddly appropriate that on the day it's reported that keeping the DNA of innocent people criminalises them that George Orwells diaries are to be released. In a thoroughly modern approach the diaries will come out in "real time" + 70 years in blog form. You can find the blog here, rss feeds and all. I reckon it will be an interesting read and I wonder what sort of parallels we will notice given the writings are on the run up to WWII.

Bit of kink

2008-07-26T13:30:00+01:00

I'm not sure what to think about the implications of the Max Mosley story. It's not like I hold the head of the FIA as any sort of role-model for how to live my life. And apart from a little prurient curiosity as to what he was getting up to it's really none of my business. Of course my opinion of the man may be modified by what I've learnt but it's hardly relevant to anything, the only people that he's answerable to are those involved. Of course this would be different if the person in question had been lecturing the population on standards of "decent" behaviour. I generally find those that complain loudest about the decline of civil society have the most to hide.

Petrol

2008-07-16T15:07:00+01:00

To me this is just another indication the government has gone into fully reactive mode. Another example was the lead up to the Youth Crime Action plan.

I quite like the Tory proposals for fuel duty although with one caveat. The cost of fuel must continue to rise as an incentive to use less and reduce our dependence on it. While the proposals would smooth out the rises we currently get due to fluctuating oil and duty rates if it wasn't raised year on year eventually there would be a) no fuel duty to the government, b) we won't of reduced our dependence. Still a guarded thumbs up from me.

Missles everywhere

2008-07-10T17:10:00+01:00

Andy pointed me to the excellent Photoshop Disasters site a few weeks ago. It very quickly become a favourite feed. Today's example has slightly more political consequences than the usual digital nip and tuck which seems to be so routine these days. It's becoming increasingly common, who remembers the Reuters releasing a sexed up picture of the Israel-Lebanon conflict?

This site has a nice breakdown of some more memorable examples of photo manipulation. Sadly it's becoming more common in news reporting which I think is a dangerous trend. It looks like Obi Wan's advice is becoming increasingly relevant:

Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.

Play the games you can win

2008-06-27T11:55:00+01:00

It speaks volumes about how much Labour believe in themselves that they put a candidate up for Henley, one of the safest Tory seats in the country but won't for Haltemprice and Howden. It's odd logic because there, with the Lib Dems stepping aside, they arguably stand a good chance of beating Davies on a single issue they claim popular support for. As it happens they got more than a drubbing in Henley being pushed way into 5th place behind the Greens and BNP. So much for saving money not fighting lost causes.

BBC Follow-up

2008-06-26T14:58:00+01:00

Well the moderators have finally got back to me on my previously mentioned blog comment. The "reason" was:

Comments posted to BBC blogs will be removed if they are considered likely to provoke, attack or offend others; are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable; are considered to have been posted with an intention to disrupt; contain swear words (including abbreviations or alternative spellings) or other language likely to offend.

I'm still confused.

Lords of the Blog

2008-06-20T12:09:00+01:00

You may have spotted a theme in my witterings over the last few weeks with my references to democracy and the importance of participation in it. All to often politics is conducted at megaphone level with the media and the press filtering (and molding) the message of the man/women on the street and the politicians responding. The advent of the circuitry of internet allowing grassroots movements to form and discuss while bypassing the potentially partisan media can only be a good thing.

With that backdrop it was good to see another political blog added to the frame. The Lords of the Blog is a multi-author experiment being run by the Hansard society where sitting members of the House of Lords post their thoughts and views on a range of topics. Refreshingly they don't seem to be afraid answer comments and develop on their arguments. Blogs work best when the actual blog post is the start of the conversation and the author holds a discussion with the commentators. Sometimes, as is the case with a lot of the BBC blogs, the author just posts and never responds to the comments made (or merely notes the volume of comments in their next piece). This misses the opportunity to engage with the audience although I guess the Lords temporal may have a bit more time to read and digest comments than your typical rushed journalist.

A blog that doesn't allow commenting isn't really a blog at all. It's just a PR publishing engine that happens to use blog software.

Arrogance of the blogosphere?

2008-06-18T17:38:00+01:00

There is a nice piece in the Gruniads Comment is Free section on the disconnect between the mainstream media and the rest of the world. Of course it's very hard from here to tell if "user-generated" content is as representative as the main stream media says it is not. However its great when people can sound off on their opinions when the media doesn't give them a voice. To that end, as it's still stuck in BBC moderation hell my comment reads thus:

What upsets me most about these sort of stories is in the current climate it completely misses the interesting things happening in politics.

Looking at the papers after the weekend they are starting to role back on their criticisms of Davies having realised there is a sizable (majority/minority?) group of people that actually care about the issue of civil liberties. The blog-sphere (outside the BBC) is alive with comment from both sides of the debate talking about the *issue*. You seem to be doing your best to ignore DD and the by-election campaign. And it should be plain to see with the number of comments on your pieces on DD that people are interested in whats going on.

Nick, you are a political reporter. Go report on the politics. Try and avoid the Westminster village mentality that ignores what is happening out in the real world. There are people out there who are not politicians but still have views on it and they are just as much of the political arena as the elected representatives. Please, go earn your paycheck!

I'm struggling to see how that message breaks the House Rules except maybe being off-topic (which was the point of the comment, besides there other mentions of DD on the post). Perhaps News Sniffer needs to monitor comments on the BBC blogs?

For Freedom?

2008-06-17T17:47:00+01:00

Well my comment on Nick Robinson blog is still stuck behind the moderation wall. I'm not sure why, I was only asking why he was covering political gossip rather than the actual issues of politics. I hope they tell me why at some point.

In fact the after the shock and coverage of last week the media seems to have gone very quiet on the Civil Liberties/Davies story. It seems to be sinking into one of those stories that lasts less than three days - and therefore to be consigned to oblivion. It has been quite noticeable the difference in coverage in the traditional media (especially the Murdoch press) and the more diverse blogosphere. It's is perhaps inevitable that to get the message out politicians will need campaign sites and twitter feeds. I'm not going as far to friend him on facebook though!

It remains to be seen if these will become locations for the debate or just a collection of ra-ra's backing their candidate. Social sites can still be incredibly insular within a certain group of people and what's critical is getting the debate out there with the 60% of people that allegedly support the government in these draconian measures.

Stunt?

2008-06-13T11:17:00+01:00

Well David Davies certainly got peoples attention. It's nice to be surprised by a politician for a change and it's certainly an issue that could do with more debate. Is it a political stunt though?

I think it's pretty clear it's not what the Tory's wanted to do, it's not part of the other Dave's game plan. That leaves two options. Either David Davies has decided to bow out of politics in a spectacular crash or he's doing this on a point of principle. I'm prepared to believe the later and salute him for it. Having said that looking at his constituency it's a fairly safe place to force a by-election, especially with the Lib Dems standing aside. Of course by-elections are unpredictable and if we are to believe the polls chairmen Brown has the people on his side on this particular issue. I respectively submit the people are wrong and in need of re-education. But it does make the election less of a slam dunk for Davies.

I sincerely hope that the next few weeks are ones where a wider debate about civil liberties can be had. We need to convince the rest of the pro-42 days populace that just because some one is arrested under the terrorist act it doesn't mean they are. People need reminding that the rights habeas corpus and a fair trail are there to protect us citizens from the state. That just because you have nothing to hide it doesn't give the state a right to routinely pry into your lives. That just because a few criminal nutters decided to blow themselves up on the underground we shouldn't live in a climate of disproportionate fear and accept whatever the government does is for our own "protection". Really I want to talk to people that think these moves are good ones and convince them why they are not and I hope everyone else does to.

It has still to be decided if Labour will put up a candidate or rely on a proxy candidate (which tells you everything you need to know about the current government IMHO). I'm sure every effort will be made to make this about the personality of Davies and his relationship with Cameron but I hope the arguments will be about the principles. And for allowing that argument to get aired for more than a days worth of coverage on a parliamentary vote Davies has my support. And I hope you support him on this issue even if you disagree with his party on everything else.

1. Get Arrested, 2. ?, 3. Profit!

2008-06-11T10:56:00+01:00

The debate on 42 days detention without trial (or should we call it internment) continues to roll on. It's been particularly interesting listening to the politicos curious at why Parliament is being particularly difficult about this considering it allegedly a very popular policy with the "people". This hasn't been my experience when I've discussed it with any one, perhaps I just hang around with too many pinko liberals :-)

As the bill rolls toward the vote the talk is of concessions to appease the rebels. I'm not sure if I heard the radio right but I thought I heard them mention a figure of ï¿½3000 pounds a day for each day over 28 days you where held. It's almost tempting to buy a laptop and cat the contents of /dev/random to spare partition on the disk and start wandering around London taking pictures of CCTV posts. Might turn into a nice little earner. Of course I have to hope I'm white and British enough that I don't end up on on a plane to somewhere less savoury and respecting of human rights.

I can only hope the bill gets properly defeated today and I salute any Labour rebel who refuses to tow the party line just because the government has other political difficulties at the moment.

Wow

2008-05-23T09:35:00+01:00

That was a big swing.

HearFromYourMp

2008-04-12T11:21:00+01:00

My morning browsing took me past the excellent people at MySociety. One of the sites I noticed is HearFromYourMp which is a rather cool light-weight mailing list/forum idea. Rather than a free form mailing list you sign up to be informed of when your MP sends a message. When they do you can go to the forum page and discuss what they have said. Unfortunately my MP has yet to use the service but to give her credit she did reply to the letter I wrote to her via WriteToThem. Worth checking out :-)

Government of all the Gimmicks

2008-03-11T12:24:00+00:00

Today's latest big idea to get pupils to swear allegiance to the country every morning US style is yet another example of political gimmickry that I'm starting to increasingly associate with this government. It works in the US because of the strong association people have with their shared (relatively new) history and the founding of the country. The UK however has a much longer and more diverse history both as a union and it's constituent nation states. I have no idea how you could come up with an oath that would encapsulate the diverse views of republicans and monarchists, Scots and English (and Welsh!), pre and post commonwealth nationals, without being reduced to meaningless platitudes and drivel. On top of all that the idea of standing hand on heart to proclaim this loyalty for all to see seems a very un-British act to me. For me the strength of the UK is it's wide diversity, it's blend of cosmopolitan melting pots and old traditions. The best way to bind the country together better is to teach the history of the UK both in schools and to the adults so everyone knows where we have come from and why things are the way they currently are. Knowing our shared history isn't an impediment to changing society as we grow and evolve but it increases understanding and that can be no bad thing.

Science Cuts

2008-03-07T12:08:00+00:00

Due to the government's failure to properly fund science (for the frankly piddling Â£80m shortfall) several of our high profile experiments are under threat. Considering the amount spent bailing out Northern Rock or daily on the various wars they have started you would of thought they could find the cash to help advance the state of knowledge in this country. One of the sillier cuts is pulling funding from Jodrell Bank and the pioneering e-Merlin project after we have spent many millions upgrading it. Please sign the petition and tell your friends.

Storms in tea-cups

2008-02-11T15:55:00+00:00

It seems that the Archbishop of Canterbury's lecture is still causing ructions in the news. Sadly it has lead to a great deal of hostile comment, most of which from people who have never read the text of lecture but see it as a chance to put the boot in and have a go at "savage primitive muslims". Having read the text I fail to see where all the hysteria is coming from. He makes a quite reasoned argument for consensual involvement in religiously based arbitration within the bounds of existing British law. The reference to adoption of Islamic law being "unavoidable" is about the most selective sensationalist quoting I have seen by the media in a long time.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm a secularist by nature. I believe in equality of treatment under the law. I think the Church of England doesn't have any place being the official church of the state - we have no need for one. At the same time I'm happy for various members of the House of Lords to be from the major faiths. Even if I disagree with their beliefs I recognise they can contribute to the debate. I have strong issues with framing laws in statute that refer to certain religious doctrines. I have some misgivings that the religious hatred laws give religions too much cover against being questioned and satirised.

At the same time I recognise that accommodating people who wish to settle disputes through something other than our civil court system is reasonable and aids social cohesion. While we have to be beware that people don't feel pressurised to take a particular course of action by local culture or family these are things for more measured and sensible debate.

National ID anyone?

2007-11-20T23:46:00+00:00

The breaking news today is perhaps one of the greatest arguments against allowing a government to maintain ubiquitous cross-departmental database of it's citizens. The guilty party today was HM Revenue and Customs who store quite a lot about you. The politicians have been pretty vauge about exactly what fields have been leaked although they are pretty sure it's not being exploited yet. I'm wondering if the National Audit Office are due some opprobrium for not insisting the data was anonymised before it left Revenue and Customs on it's merry way in unregistered post on a CD.

Hoax?

2007-09-22T15:02:00+01:00

Via Bruce Schneier's site. Apparently wearing a flashing LED on your t-shirt is a good reason to use deadly force. Because we all know that real bombs are made with circuit board and flashing LED's. You always cut the red wire right?

Just don't read some of the commentary unless you want to see what a baying mob can be like. If the court case is fair they will have to prove intent. I'm not sure it will be.

Thought Crime?

2007-07-26T19:29:00+01:00

The sentencing of 4 young men today for downloading and discussing Jihadist material makes me a little uneasy. As far as I can tell none of them had planned any attacks although they did head out for training. The youngest student Raja got two years youth detention although he spent 3 days in Afghanistan before getting cold feet and going home. On balance it was probably right to bring this prosecution but where exactly is the line you can't cross. Am I a terrorist because I have read the Anarchists Cookbook? Would the judgement be any difference if the colour of my skin was different or I had religious beliefs?

Today's letter

2007-06-01T14:17:00+01:00

Supplied without further comment:

I received a letter from your department detailing that photos have been taken of:

"household waste from your property was incorrectly stored"

The statement is remarkable in the lack of information it imparts as to what my actual offence is. I do however have to commend it on the clarity of the warning about the potential ?1000 fine.

Please could you let me know the details about this incorrect storage so I can rectify the situation? Without knowing what I did wrong how can I ensure I don't inadvertently transgress again?

Could you also clarify what day my bins are collected? The attached notice says my collection day in Friday although the refuse collector seems to come by and collect it on Thursdays. The collection day for SR which is where the rear egress of my property is located in listed as Thursday on your website. However the front of house is on BR which is listed as Friday. The notice is very specific that I should be putting my bin out at the rear of my property.

I'm sure you understand I would like to get to the bottom of these seemingly contradictory pieces of information given the potential fines involved.

Yours Sincerely,

Getting my vote

2007-03-08T14:57:00+00:00

I noticed this today. George Osbourne is calling for more use of open source software in Whitehall. However FLOSS ain't exactly a panacea for all your IT problems there are certainly places it is a good fit. However the most illuminating quote came from him criticising the procurement procedures for lacking "open standards".

"All too often a government IT system is in compatible with other types of software, which stifles competition and hampers innovation."

I would have far preferred the new uber NHS database had been specified by a set of interoperable protocols and data interchange formats which software companies (open and closed) are free to implement. That way instead of throwing away all the IT investment in forward thinking GP's surgeries we could simply let them upgrade to a newer version of their preferred software which can talk to the central NHS. That is after all how the Internet works, and that seems to be doing quite well ;-)

Linkification Day

2007-02-14T12:24:00+00:00

A selection of links for everyone today. First off all one from the Guardian predicting the imminent death of SCO. While I have some sympathy for the normal working Joe's that will loose their jobs I'll still be having a party to celebrate the death of SCO and their ill founded legal attacks on Linux. They deserve everything they get.

A few on the topic of DRM. Bill Thompson analyses Steve Jobs pronouncements on DRM. He seems to share a little of the scepticism I professed a few days ago. People experiencing Vista may want to read Bruce Schneier's interesting article on DRM in Vista. I don't quite share the pessimism of his final thoughts but it's interesting reading none the less.

Vanity Fair are also running an interesting piece on The Pirate Bay. Including some heretical quotes (at least to the MPAA) like Disney's Anne Sweeney:

"Piracy is a business model, It exists to serve a need in the market-consumers who want TV content on demand. And piracy competes for consumers the same way we do: through quality, price, and availability."

I hope the BBC takes note of the consequences of making their TV content on-demand less attractive than the pirate option.

Data Pimpage

2007-02-12T23:44:00+00:00

A friend of mine has organised a panel debate on the subject of :"Free our Data". The blurb runs as thus:

"Should social researchers have unlimited access to the data that Government collects about individual UK citizens? Would the benefits of better evidence on which to base social policy outweigh concerns about privacy? Experts from academia and government will offer their views and respond to questions from the audience."

Although the panel is in the context of social research free access is to data is something I've been interested in for a long time. For example why can't I get access to the GMPTE bus route data in a machine readable form^*? People have achieved some really neat things screen scraping data from public websites, just imagine what they could do with the raw data.

You can register for the discussion here

^*I've just put a FOI request in. We shall see.

Reality Resumes

2007-02-12T20:12:00+00:00

After a very pleasant weekend I am back to the grind. I spotted a bit of a flaw in my assumptions at the end of last week which called into question the use of templates for my static compile tables. Luckily today's re-factoring of my code seems to have worked out well without breaking the general look of the code. It's arguable if templates are truly needed in the codes current iteration but I can see it will be more useful as that section of code grows.

It was interesting listening to Today this morning on the twin issues of flexible working and pay-as-you-drive.

I'm fortunate to work in an industry that flexible working is becoming more and more the norm. It's not with fondness I remember the long early hour commute when I worked at Marconi or the upper managements intractable approach to implementing any sort flexible working. Being able to leave early to catch a show or work from home when I'm expecting a delivery is certainly liberating. I really appreciate the fact I can work on the train when visiting Fliss (which saves money by avoiding the major Friday Eve/Sunday Eve price trap). If I ever look for a new job the lack of flexible working arrangements would certainly be a deal breaker. Of course not everyone is so lucky - it's hard to imagine a nurse being able to pick and choose when they come into work. Some areas are always going to need some sort of shift system if they need to cover all their operating hours. Part-time working can help by allowing people to have 3 days weeks, however there are issues with that. Firstly the employee is trading full-time pay (and no doubt promotion prospects) for flexibility. This is a factor which already biases the gender pay gap somewhat. Also the employer still has to suck up the fixed costs of employing someone which won't go down in proportion to the reduced hour. Still these issues aside I'm definitely a proponent for more flexibility at work and improving that elusive "work/life" balance.

Pay as you drive is more emotive. Assuming the government reduced other costs of driving^* (lets remember the duty on petrol is effectively a pay-by-mile) I'd probably be better off as I use public transport every day, drive at the weekends (if at all) and can telecommute. However I'm lucky living in a metropolitan area with decent public transport and flexible hours. I worry about the costs falling hardest on the rural poor who currently have little choice but to use the car. I assume^** that the costs will be structured based on local congestion so hopefully journeys on under-capacity roads won't attract the same usage charges as sitting on the M6 at 8.30 in the morning. However this brings it's own issues. The proposed satellite tracking system is a privacy nightmare. Imagine the abuses that could be made of a central database that can tell you where every car has travelled to at any particular time? This alone is enough to raise my opposition to whole scheme.

In the end road pricing tackles the problem the wrong way around. It attempts to solve congestion by making it too expensive to use a car. What we should be doing is making other forms of transport more appealing or accessible. There should be a solid push to improve our rail network to move freight off our roads as much as possible. We should be rolling out more flexible working to make the idiocy of rush hour seem like a quaint 20th century phenomenon. If that fails then we'll have to roll out the personal jet-packs ;-)

^*Stop laughing at the back. We can but hope

^**I know, 2 assumptions that may not come true. I'm taking a gamble that the department of transport can sort it out.

Wah Wah, We're Special

2007-01-30T12:42:00+00:00

It's tempting to comment on today's release of Vista but I suspect I shall wait until reports of machines being bricked when drivers start getting remotely revoked by Microsoft.

Instead I thought I would offer a comment on the Catholic Church complaining they haven't been given the right to discriminate. The central basis of their argument is the state in trying to dictate a new morality through new laws. Frankly I find it mildly offencive that churches consider themselves to be special when it comes to the issues of morals. By all means they can preach why they think children should be denied loving homes with gay couples but that's something for the pulpit^* - not when offering a service. The new law isn't exactly dictating morality, it's reflecting the changes in society that is broadly more accepting and tolerant than some ancient books. If we start allowing religions exemptions from the law then what about my deeply held beliefs? Do they trump the law as well?

^*As ever I'm a believer in free speech. I'll stand up for peoples right to say what they think just as I'm free to draw my own conclusions from their statements.

Getting a few things off my chest

2006-12-14T12:31:00+00:00

A bunch of stuff has been on the news that is causing a mini-rant to bubble from my unconscious mind. So here I go:

First things first, the murders in Suffolk. While the responsibility for the murders must always be that of the perpetrator there are a few things that annoy me about how the law makes the situation worse. It is perverse that the law forces the women to choose between walking the streets on their own and running their business from the relative safety of their own premises. When you look at the cold hard numbers of penalties for solicitation compared to running a brothel it's little wonder a large number of women go for the former. In the current legal framework the only brothels that do exist tend to be run by organised crime who have as little respect for the women as the law. It may offend some peoples morals if society accepts prostitution however it does and will continue to exist. No amount of wishing it didn't will improve the situation of some of the most vulnerable women in society.

Secondly a constant theme for a lot of these women is heroin. While I have a pretty liberal view of what should happen with this countries drug laws I accept it's unlikely to happen for a good while. One thing we could do however is give addicts free heroin which they can shoot up under medical supervision in safe locations. The cost of providing heroin (and also support to ween people off it) would be dwarfed by the savings to society in crime reduction. Without having to earn ?250 a night to feed their habit a lot of women wouldn't be forced into selling their bodies. Not to mention the addicts that steal up to five times their habits worth of goods a day. We could even source the heroin from the farmers in Afghanistan (and pay them considerably more than the drugs barons do) and kill two birds with one stone. There are plenty of examples in Europe we could look to on how to improve the situation with hard drugs and why we don't is a mystery to me.

I caught the interview with Al-Fayed this morning. The guy comes across as a complete idiot. Everything seems to be about him and peoples relationship with him. I may hold a certain amount of distrust with some enquiries but to accuse Lord Stevens of being nobbled by MI6 without offering any proof was astounding. I'm pretty sure that report will come to the conclusion that they died for 3 reasons: speed, alcohol, and failing to wear seat belts. Any one of those reasons kills people on the road every day so it's not exactly a stretch to believe.

And finally I was going to comment on the story I saw in the paper this morning about the approximately 1000 unanswered questions that have been tabled in Parliament (and apparently don't have to be if the current session ends). However seeing as the paper was the Metro which is barely a real newspaper I shall hold my pontification on the nature of parliamentary democracy until I can actually find some supporting evidence for the story.

Getting Warmer?

2006-11-07T14:47:00+00:00

Coming via Slashdot I came across this article today. It's quite a thorough piece examining the data on Climate change and more importantly it's presentation. I was especially impressed by the linked source material which is a pretty complete (although not peer reviewed and published) scientific paper. It comes with an extensive reference list. The central thrust seems to be although man may well be affecting the temperature of the planet the impact of the Greenhouse Effect may be less than we think. The Medieval Warm Period also makes an appearance in the evidence. Of course the fact that it has been warmer pre-industrial revolution doesn't mean the current changes are going to be because of the same reason. However there is a point that if the influence of CO₂ is less than say sun activity we are basically at the mercy of the Sun. However it is sobering to realise that Venus experiences the same Sun patterns as Earth but has a much harsher temperature regime because of the CO₂ levels it experiences.

I'm not a climate scientist so I'm not really well placed to judge who's right and who's wrong in the debate. I would prefer it if scientists did keep up the debate though - on the science and not on who's funding who. It's not exactly unknown for scientific consensus to be wrong. A true scientist is one who when presented with the evidence can accept their view is disproved and to move the science on from that point.

Does reading this single article change my views on environmental issues? Not really. There are plenty of good reasons to cut our usage of fossil fuels - one day they will run out. The society that is most advanced in weaning themselves of their addiction to oil will be best placed to prosper into the future. The general principle of moving to a more sustainable economy is common sense. Until we get off this one rock that houses the entire of humanity we need to careful to conserve resources. The consequences of getting it wrong are pretty severe. The Earth will keep going for a few billion years before it's eventual demise but we are quite capable of wiping ourselves out in a few generations if we're not careful.

Too hot to handle?

2006-10-06T15:05:00+01:00

As is customary last night was TV night. I thought Extra's went further down the road of cringe which may turn me off it in the end. While a lot of humour is derived from awkward situations half an hour of cringing is not the same as half an hour of belly laughs. Mitchell and Webb continues to be top notch stuff as well as Mock the Week.

Question Time promised to be a good one with both Oliver Letwin and Ian Hislop. The first question went straight into the furore over Jack Straw's veil comments. I'm glad it came up. As I've mentioned before I think it's important these sort of issues get debated. One thing that is guaranteed to increase divisions in society is people not talking to each other and left to form their own ideas of the "other side" without honest discussion. It seem however the audience had more than it's fair share of Daily Mail reading closet racists. No one used the phrase "I'm not a racist but..." but there was plenty of references to "they" and "them" trying to paint the whole Muslim com unity as one amorphous blob of fundamentalists. Luckily Hislop was quick to jump on that and there were a few Muslim audience members that pointed out how varied dress practise can be. All in all the panel gave will reasoned views without playing on peoples fears. I have to say given the bashing I gave Mr Straw last week his performance on Today this morning came across as very honest and sincere. Hopefully the wider debate will be to. For the record I don't think its taboo to ask for someone to remove their veil as long as the persons wishes if they don't want to are respected. I take the point that it is a barrier to social interaction though, I would be uncomfortable approaching someone in the street for directions if they were covered head to toe save for a pair of eyes. Although I'm happy for people to dress how they want there are always some places where a persons choice may be compromised, for example school uniforms, formal ID and health and safety issues.

This Week's fun was enhanced by a smattering of Boris and the exceptionally right wing Peter Hitchens. His main thesis was that the Tories where denying a substantial portion of the electorate a viable right wing alternative by their move towards the centre ground. One of the more laughable points was they could of one the last two elections if they had campaigned on Europe and immigration "with real conviction". Both Portillo and Abbot pointed he could go and vote for UKIP. The irony of Peter's statement that they were not a "viable party" seemed to be lost on him. I think it's quite clear the electorate want their parties to be more centrist. I don't buy into the idea you need a ideological gulf between left and right for parties to successfully differentiate themselves on centrist policies. We shall find out if I'm right in a few years :-)

Free to speak?

2006-09-15T16:17:00+01:00

It's interesting watching the reaction to the Pope quoting another one. Reading what the Pope said is does not seem particularly inflammatory. The central point was about if faith should be forced by the sword. However as we have seen before you can open a can of worms if you^* even associate Muhammad with anything negative. It is curious though I don't hear as much condemnation when others associate their actions with Muhammad. However that could just be it doesn't get as much media attention.

But here's the rub. You can't have a dialogue between people if one side will get offended and demand you retract a statement before continuing. Causing offence (either deliberately or un-wittingly) is part of the process of debate. Without it both parties would simply be reduced to stating a series of uncontroversial statements at each other before going home for a nice quiet cup of tea.

If you really believe that what the Pope was wrong then engage. "The Pope is wrong because...." is something I've been known to say on occasion. It will achieve more than demanding an apology and shutting down your embassies. I think the outrage and isolationism being demonstrated at the moment is doing more to engender the sense of Islamaphopia and prejudice in the Western world than any Papal statement. It plays directly into the hands of the racists and bigots if anyone who wants to discuss Islam is accused of being one.

^*By you I suspect I mean non-Islamic/secular Western commentators

Green Times

2006-09-05T12:19:00+01:00

I saw Zac Goldsmith on HardTALK last night. Whatever people may think about the Tories new penchant for green issues Cameron certainly seems to convinced Zac that he's willing to do what it takes. The emphasis seems to be on the polluter pays, gaming the free market (which is never totally free) to make green the economically best option. It's a very Tory approach to favour the market over regulation that tends to force costs up at the expense of competitiveness. He was quite happy to say the era of "flights to Cornwall for a pound" would be a thing of the past under a Cameron government.

If there is a fly in the ointment it was on the subject of Nuclear power. The arguments over the true cost of nuclear where persuasive. The policy of "Nuclear power only if it can fund itself" is certainly a sensible one. However I'm not rabidly anti-nuclear. I'm quite satisfied we can operate safe nuclear power, and indeed its beneficial from a scientific and engineering point of view to have a nuclear industry. However the main niggle is if we don't have any nuclear capacity, and our fossil dependence drops over the medium term, what do we have for those quite windless summer days for power.

Still they don't have to convince me. I'm tired enough of Labour which for all its words still hasn't suggested legislation to reduce emissions although quite happy to go down the road of introducing thought crime on the statute book. The Lib Dems (my traditional shelter from the rabid right wings days of recent Tory leaderships) seem to of sunk without trace. While I can applaud their principled stand over not starting the Iraq war its not something I'm considering as a vote winner at the next election. The last policy they came up with which caught my attention was Local Income Tax. Since then I've heard nothing of note. Who else is coming up with policies I can get behind? Anyone care to suggest something that should get my consideration when I next vote?

Lighter, not slimmer

2006-05-19T14:10:00+01:00

When you fork out 390 of you hard earned pounds for a new trim, service and fresh brakes it really makes you wonder if your getting enough out of your car. Still I'll be driving it this weekend and I suppose my fuel bill isn't that high.

Last nights Question Time was very good. Anne and I simultaneously shout "F**k off" at the TV when an audience member suggested a national water grid would solve the South Easts water problems. The solution of course is to spread our population around more not concentrate on the "All roads lead to London" approach which seems to be the central governments policy for so many years. Perhaps those keen gardeners who dread hosepipe bans so much would like to move up north where the gardens are bigger and never go thirsty?

Baroness Kennedey made a very powerful argument for why we should be uncompromising in supporting human rights and against torture. Any country that practises torture not only harms the victims but corrupts the perpetrators. Its a corrosive effect which has repercussions for all of us down the road. I'm definitely a liberal on this issue. Human rights aren't human rights unless they apply to all humans. If we start saying that some people don't deserve them we are basically saying that its OK to treat people as non-human.

The issue of animal testing came up and it was a pleasure to see Frederick Forsyth pick apart one of the audience members anti-testing speeches. One of the arguments of the anti-vivisectionists I've been hearing more of these days is that animal testing didn't prevent the six drug trial men having adverse reactions. It's a hell of a jump to go from one experiment that failed and wasn't picked up by animal testing to say its all ineffective. Thalidomide is an example of a drug that would never of made it to the market if the proper range of animal tests had been run. The point was made that we never hear about all the drugs that don't make it to human trials precisely because of suspect reactions in animals.

It's often seems to me the anti-vivisectionists try and portray the scientists involved in animal testing as inhuman sadists that enjoy torturing animals. This argument is lacks merit as testing is a consequence of the regulatory framework which is there to try and avoid another tragedy like Thalidomide. Sure I'll be glad when our science has advanced to the point we can safely bring drugs to market without animal testing. However we should come to that point based on good solid science and not a reactionary response to emotive pictures of beagles on placards.

Note: I found an interesting pro test site which has some useful information with proper citations.

Testing the Tubes

2006-05-16T21:43:00+01:00

This may very well come under the heading of preaching to the converted. I have felt a certain amount of concern as more and more Chemistry departments have been shut down. It is the continuation of many years of neglect of our science base which has seen a continuous brain drain of our brightest and best.

There are many factors involved here. For starters science seems to have a low status (with its corresponding low pay) in this country. We no longer hold the "boffins" in such high esteem. This could be due to a lack of trust between the public and science in general. Unfortunately I don't see the trend reversing if the overall scientific literacy of the country declines.

It doesn't help that we lack the entrepreneurial spirit in this country to really apply science. Experience in the US from places like Bell Labs and the space program shows what science can achieve when given free range. Of course there are all sorts of places our scientists can go but nothing beats building lasers or launching rockets to get the kids interested in the subject. We should fund more blue sky research and see where it leads - not purely be driven by which easy, manageable and predictable project we can research for industry money.

Finally it doesn't help that university is so expensive these days. As more of the University's funding come direct from the students I can see a real pressure for them to cut back on science. After all lecturers cost roughly the same for all disciplines but science has extra costs in expensive labs and equipment. It would sad if our higher education became purely driven by how many bums on seats they could achieve. This is compounded by the effect of student fees which not only generally puts people off but is exaggerated by the comparatively low pay for science graduates. Why do science when you do a Business Studies degree and get on a graduate program for big business?

Anyway, enough of this bitching. What would I do about it? Well I'm glad you asked:

I would subsidise graduates in designated subjects to the tune of their loan repayments (or a portion of) while they are resident and working in this country. Much like the way certain teachers are payed bonuses in subjects where there is a shortage.
I would give tax breaks to business for sponsoring blue sky research (that won't necessarily result in a product they can sell). I would also include the tax breaks for companies offering bursaries to promising science students to help them through university.
I would double the current science funding for research. I would put the emphasis on the new money 50/50 between blue sky research and "big idea" research that will engage the public and scientists of tomorrow.
I would increase the funding of our space program with at least 3 big UK led satellites/probes over the next 3 years. About the only UK space project I've heard of recently was Beagle 2 which was a piggy back mission on a ESA flight. I'm not saying we should spend as much as NASA or aim to put someone on the moon, but we should at least be bold enough to achieve something that isn't done a shoestring and a whim.

What do you think? Will it work?

Trips

2006-04-05T12:11:00+01:00

I caught All in the Mind on the way home last night. They were discussing the possible therapeutic uses of various recreational psychoactive compounds and the problems clinicians have studying them because of their legal status. I've always held that there should be more research into these compounds not withstanding their recreational use. It seems once a drug is made illegal we stop trying to understand it in either context which as a scientist seems nonsensical. I'm still not sure why the government made mushrooms Class A apart from the fact that lots of people seemed to be enjoying them.

Late Night, Early Evening

2006-02-02T19:49:00+00:00

I'm working late again tonight in an effort to get everything lined up for heading down to Philipa's at a reasonable time tomorrow. Luckily one of the milestone tests is now working with my code (well works 1 time out of 3 but thats a hell of an improvement on where I was). Once I've got this stuff into the baseline (always a late night effort) all thats left is being able to have that feature switched on by default.

In the meantime in light of yesterdays amendment of the religious hatred bill which I assume was aimed at cutting down on this while at the same time not preventing this. I notice the BBC has started censoring itself no longer showing the cartoons as it did in earlier reports. I can appreciate it to a degree as I don't think you should go out of your way to deliberately offend people if you can help it. However once people start threatening to target citizens of countries that refuse to punish their free press you've lost any sympathy I may have. The question I hope comes up on tonight's Question Time is:

"Would the publication of the Danish cartoons in the UK constituterecklessincitement of religious hatred?"

One thing done right

2006-02-01T13:31:00+00:00

It was nice to see parliament protecting free speech last night. It was a little annoying to hear ministers saying the defeat was "political opportunism" on the part of the opposition parties, much the same line as was trotted out last time. I'm generally of the view this current government has a unfortunate tendency to use the law as a cure all solution to most of the problems they face. I like to think the Tories (and Lib Dems) where thinking of civil liberties - I generally think of them as a liberal party despite some previously ill thought out laws of their own. Having said that next to the current lot they practically come across as tree hugging hippies!

Need to Know?

2005-12-14T12:24:00+00:00

Well it seems we shall be given a "Narrative of Events" written by a civil servant to draw a line under the July 7th London Bombings. While I do believe an awful lot of money is wasted on needless public inquiries I don't think this will be one of them. While it may be helpful to the victims families to understand what happened on the day my main interest would be understanding how 3 British born men became radicalised to the point of becoming suicide bombers. It would also be good to examine the role of the security services and if things could be improved (as well as what wouldn't of made a difference). Of course it could be that a report written by a top senior servant and signed off by the government will be an in-depth impartial spin free document - but we have been here before.

Depressing day

2003-03-20T05:00:00+00:00

Well up tonight waiting for war to start :-( Regardless of anyones opinions either pro or against I did find it insightful watching the actual debate in Commons live, as it happened, on an Internet streaming feed. The power the Internet has given us to communicate with each other means we no longer have an excuse not to inform ourselves and reach out to the rest of the world. On a brighter note I see that the Simpsons have made their own contribution to international diplomacy.