What exactly is a "cut"?

One of the much over-used words already in the hours since the official dissolution of parliament is “cuts”.  Simply by using that word implies that whatever level of spending that there currently is should be treated as the norm, the basis from which everything should then be measured.  But why? Who said what we currently have should be the base level?

By way of an example let’s say we spend £100 each year on providing a free at the point of delivery NHS.  But supposing fewer people got ill, the need to spend that £100 diminishes.  So spending less on the NHS in this example is not a cut but a reduction in spending given the reduction in demand.  Now it is just a hypothetical example, but I hope you see the point.  Supposing crime reduced.  We don’t need so many police.  Suppose, well, you can see the thread.  Just because we spend our taxpayers money on certain things now does not mean if we reduce expenditure on them in the future it should be regarded as a cut.

So next time a candidate says we will stop the cuts, give them this example and ask them to explain exactly what they mean.

What is Austerity?

Austerity.  Can you tell me what that word means?

Let’s think of it from a practical point of view.  At home.

By way of an example, if you earn £100 in a month, how much money do you have available to spend?  £100.  Well, of course you can spend more, but that would involve going into debt, borrowing money from someone else, like a bank.  Or a pay day lender.  Or a credit card company that “allows” you to repay money you have borrowed from them when you bought that item at, say, £150.  So you can spend more than you earn in a single month.

But of course you can’t do that every month.  In this example, assuming you repaid the £50 you had borrowed at £10 a month, you would be debt free in 5 months, excluding interest that may also be payable.

To take it further.  Suppose you spent £150 every month.  That would mean you need to borrow £50 each and every month.  So after a year you have borrowed £600.  Now, you realise this is getting a bit out of hand so you decide that you simply can’t keep accruing that kind of debt and you promise yourself to do something about it.  You decide you want to get out of debt, to pay back the £600 (plus interest due).  Now how can you do that?  Well, only two ways really.  Earn more money.  Find a job that pays £120 a month and if you keep your spending at £100, in 30 months you will have paid off your debt.  But supposing you can’t find a job that pays £20 more a month, there is only one solution.  Spend less, say £80 a month out of the £100 you earn, and put the other £20 towards paying off the debt.  Again, 30 months later you will be debt free.

Yes, it will hurt to spend less.  Maybe you will have to walk more rather than get the bus.  Maybe less processed pre-packed meals and start cooking proper food.   Maybe just stop driving at 70mph and drop to 50mph.  Or maybe it may take even harder decisions.  Every little counts.  All this money saving activity to help you to live within your budget. And pay back your loan.

Know what we call that necessary action?  Austerity. 

This is how Labour left the UK at the last election in 2010. In massive debt and spending more than it could afford.  Who can forget the note the out-going Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury left to his successor.

So next time a politician tells you austerity is bad, tell them this little example and ask them how they would get the family out of debt. 

The people decided last year

Gordon Wilson, former SNP leader, today apparently urges First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to declare independence if the UK votes to leave the EU but Scots back staying in.

In a submission to a think tank he suggest: "If the Tories win (the UK General Election), as is feasible, then the UK will be faced with an in-out referendum on the EU.  This will be decided on English votes given the disparity in populations amongst the component units of the United Kingdom.”

Er, no. It will be decided by a simple majority of votes of the United Kingdom the people of Scotland voted, by quite a margin in the end, to stay a part of.  Therefore they decided to be part of a UK parliament, and part of the UK in Europe.  We had the chance to choose otherwise but didn’t.  The people of Scotland were not convinced that they wanted to be apart from the other three constituent part of the UK and voted accordingly.

So you can’t now come out and say, well, we as Scots don’t agree with what the UK is doing.  We voted to remain part of the UK and that’s the bed we have to stay in.  For Mr Wilson or Ms Sturgeon to think otherwise is delusional and bordering on the megalomaniacal. 

Do we want a leader to go down the UDI route without another vote on, “Do you want Scotland to be an Independent country”.  It’s almost too absurd a concept for words.  

For better, for worse.

The NHS is getting worse under Labour in Wales.  In England the NHS is getting worse under the Conservatives.  And in Scotland the NHS is getting worse under the SNP.  So there you have it, not one of the governing parties can run the NHS in the patch where they are dominant.

Actually, I think this should be no surprise to anyone for three reasons.  First is, our expectations of what the NHS can do are ridiculously high.  It won’t keep us alive indefinitely.  We have to get used to the fact that no matter how much taxpayers money you pour into the NHS, it will never be enough.

Second, whether you think a healthcare system is good or not depends on how you look at the figures.  Washington based Commonwealth Fund for example rates the UK top.  But on a narrow raft of measures.  Many don’t agree with the Commonwealth Fund about what should be measured, and how the results should be weighted.  A survey on health-care efficiency by Bloomberg recently chose Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan as the best performers, based on their efficiency.  Adding greater weight to patient choice, for example, might reshuffle the rankings.  The Commonwealth Fund most values equity and access, and so rewards the systems where it finds these.  But change the weighting given to each category, as Bloomberg does, and you can quickly change the outcome.  So when it comes to judging the world’s health systems, preferences and values guide conclusions, as well as raw data.  So choose what surveys you look at carefully.

The third point is this.  Governments simply are incapable of running an NHS.  I think that’s pretty obvious to most people.  How about all a government should do should be to set the parameters, give the money to a commissioning body on a 20 year rolling contract and let them get on with it.  Free from political interference.  Let the NHS concept of free at the point of delivery flourish.  But endow it with the opportunism of innovation and free thinking.   But for that to happen the politicians have to agree that the NHS needs to end its monolithic sole provider status.  Only then will innovation and fresh thinking waft through the wards.  

But of course, that will never happen.  The politicians have no desire to get together and give up the one thing they can use as an emotional battering ram come election time against each other.

So, over the next few weeks, think what you will be asking the candidates in your constituency, assuming that actual candidate ever comes to your doorstep.  If they start to warble on about investing your taxpayers money, or waiting times or whatever, just stop them and ask them one simple question.  “If you care about the NHS, will you agree a consensus with the other parties for the long term and agree a funding strategy and have no political interference for 20 years and allow the clinicians, health economists and health management professionals the freedom to make the NHS do what it was intended to do.  Care for us at our point of need.”

I think we know what their answer will be.

Once upon a time in a land far far away.......

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, the people realised there were a few bad eggs amongst them.  So they decided to give some people within their community “special powers” to deal with these bad eggs.  They could arrest them.  And all with the consent of the people who appointed them.    

And so it went on for many happy years.  Until one day one of these people who had been given these "special powers" decided that, well, maybe he could push the boundaries just a little bit.  And so over time he began to think, "this is easy".  And so corruption slowly invaded the system.  Others who had been given similar “special powers” saw this and thought, “well, if they can push the boundaries, so can I”.   

And last year in this land far far away there were 3,000 allegations of “special powers” people having behaved corruptly.  And anyone who tried to expose this was hounded and persecuted.  But it gets worse, only half of these allegations were properly investigated — because for “special powers” people, corruption was becoming routine.  

So you are asking, where is this land far far away.  Russia?  North Korea?  Israel?  India?   Er, no.  The United Kingdom.    

So, how do we know this?  Well, it was all in a little-noticed report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for England and Wales. It went on to tell a sorry story.  Nearly half of 17,200 officers and staff surveyed said that if they discovered corruption among their colleagues and chose to report it, they didn’t believe their evidence would be treated in confidence and would fear ‘adverse consequences’.  Only two things flourish in such a climate.  Dishonesty and malpractice.  

The current MET Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe leads from the top.  One of first moves after arriving at the MET was to use the Official Secrets Act to try to compel a Guardian journalist to reveal the source of a story. The Official Secrets Act is meant principally to be used to trap spies, traitors and those who threaten the defence of the realm, real seriously bad eggs — not reporters going about their business.  Surely this was a disproportionate and oppressive use of the law.   

Similarly, legislation designed to combat terrorism and serious crime, such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, is used with alarming frequency by Hogan-Howe and other police chiefs to snoop on the internet and phone records of law-abiding citizens.  This is the tactic of the police state. Not so much total policing as totalitarian policing.    All in the cause of necessity, they claim.  So little wonder his officers push the boundaries of what’s right legally but forget what’s right morally.   

And, as Neil Darbyshire writes in the Spectator this week, “One of the consequences of a heavy-handed police leadership stretching the law and using their power to bully and intimidate is that rank and file officers are encouraged to think they can do the same.  Once ordinary officers start abusing power, a culture of semi-criminal behaviour becomes normal and whistle-blowers are treated not as honourable but as traitors.”  As we saw in my earlier blog, What would Peel think?, officers already think they can make up the law as they go along.  That should worry you.

To quote Pitt the Younger, “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”. 

Mind your language

Was it strong language or shocking language the iPlayer helpfully asked if I was ok about before I clicked download?  I can’t remember.  But the script of The Great European Disaster Movie (BBC) was more comedy than anything else.  Not so much offensive in a swearing sort of way, more offensive in its patronising tone.  The EU is right and you’re a bigot / racist / insert your own word if you think there is the tiniest thing wrong with the great god of European union.

Which is fine if you watch a programme like this without engaging your critical faculties.  But those who prefer dialogue rather than diatribe will have been disappointed.  Rather than a reasoned and critical examination of the real issues, it dared to suggest that civilisation itself would virtually fall apart if the UK exited the Europe Union.  Which of course is utterly fanciful for surely even the most committed EU enthusiast.  Yes, there would be issues that needed to be resolved.  That is clear.  But we have heard these gloom merchants before.  The UK will be a backwater if it doesn’t join the European Single Currency.  Oh yes?  Who’s laughing now?  Although it’s no laughing matter that most of Europe is still living in the aftermath of the crash while the rest of the developed world, the UK included, and interestingly all European Free Trade Association Nations, whose members top the global league tables on wealth and quality of life, and whose peoples have made up their minds against EU membership, are all slowly but surely getting on their feet again.  Sustainably.

Of course, the last thing the Euro-zealots want is to compare the merits of their bloc – the euro, the tax harmonisation, the Common Agricultural Policy, the swatting aside of national referendums – with prosperous and happy EFTA nations.  Hence their near-hysterical insistence that the only alternative is economic collapse.

And that is the problem with zealots.  They only see things from their angle, refusing to acknowledge that anyone else may have a point of view.  And we all know where that sort of talk leads.