Darling admits economy is tanking

The stock government response to the recession has been to downplay it, and when that didn't work to claim that things were worse under the Conservatives in the early 1990s. Given the daily reality that most people face the first was insulting and the second irrelevant. Now they are trying a new tack, actually admitting it's all rather bad, in fact the worst it has been for 60 years, which means since the great depression. At least Alastair Darling has said this, in an interview with the Guardian. So, this raises a question: is this a change of language from the government? Or is it just a change of language from the Chancellor in contrast to the claims from his boss that things aren't so bad? This story broke this evening in an interview for tomorrow's paper, so I would expect a vigorous journalistic follow-up over the next couple of days that will tell us if this really is a new strategy. My small experience of public policy is that admitting things are bad is quite a good idea when they are actually bad, with the important proviso that you then have to credibly sort them out. Admitting that all is gloom and then failing gets you nowhere. In fact it leaves you with nowhere to hide. In the murky world of Labour's internal politics, Darling might just have deliberately hung his boss out to dry. George Osborne certainly picked up on this when he asked "Who is telling the truth at the top of government?". Who indeed?

Brown and Darling driving British business abroad

Under Tony Blair Labour understood the importance of thriving business to Britain. Business provides jobs and brings in tax revenue and so any government of any stripe needs commerce to meet any other objectives that it may have. Brown and Darling have thrown that all away with incoherent tax policies that squeeze multinational businesses, presumably in some effort to placate the brothers in Transport House or their own back benches. Now British business is voting with their feet and becoming Irish business instead. Tax revenue and jobs are leaving our shores thanks to these two incompetents, who don't recognise that you cannot run a high-tax regime and expect everyone just to knuckle down and pay up. Even more stark is the news of revived US growth on the back of tax cuts and financial stimulus from their government. Meanwhile our hapless, dithering duo have done absolutely nothing to help British business and British people, except to trail plans about maybe changing Stamp Duty and wrecking the housing market in the process. This recession may have its origins abroad, but no government has done so little to deal with it than Brown's Labour shower.

Brown maybe a bright chap, but he has no leadership qualities that are at all evident. Darling is just his poodle, an empty suit without a shred of self-respect. They are dithering while our country needs help and it is unforgivable. Come the next election they will find out just how unforgiving the electorate can be.

John Baron MP says give teachers the powers they need to sort out discipline

Growing concerns over violence and disruption in schools and on the streets

John Baron MP has welcomed recent policy proposals announced by the Conservatives to restore classroom discipline and raise standards of behaviour in schools.

Life in local communities is being marred by violence and disruption in schools – and on the streets as well from children playing truant. These social problems hit the poorest areas the hardest. Bureaucratic rules imposed by the Labour Government have made it harder for teachers to keep order, while false allegations and assaults on teachers have never been higher.

Since 1997, across Essex, the number of permanent exclusions from secondary schools has fallen by 10% – not because of better discipline, but because it has become more difficult to exclude troublemakers.

Conservative proposals include:

· Restoring the authority of headteachers, by ending the right to appeal against exclusions to external panels. Parents would still have a right of appeal to school governors – who are the people who should decide such matters.

· Changing the law so that teachers can physically restrain violent pupils if they need to.
· Establishing new protections for teachers from false and malicious allegations.
· Give headteachers the freedom to pay bonuses to teachers who do a good job.
· Allow headteachers to ban any items they think may cause violence or disruption in schools.

John said:

“In too many of our schools, good education is ruined by bad behaviour. The problem doesn’t lie with teachers – but with the Government’s rules and regulations which stop teachers instilling proper discipline. Conservatives will give teachers and heads the powers they need to tackle disruptive kids, improve standards and ensure parents have a real choice over where to send their child.”

Latest Election Prediction

A new prediction has been posted on 24 August 2008 at

www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/

Polls in the recent few weeks show a stable, or slightly increasing, lead for the Conservatives over Labour. Populus (Times) has 16% (up by 3%), YouGov (Sunday Times) has 20% (down by 2%), and Ipsos-MORI has 24% (up by 4%). Unchanged are both ICM (Guardian) on 15% and today's ComRes (Independent on Sunday) on 21%.

Overall and on average, the Conservative lead is 19%, which is 1% higher than last month, and a historical record for recent years.

The current prediction is that the Conservatives will have a majority of 172 seats, winning 411 seats (+6 seats since 27 July 2008).

There is no hope with Gordon

That wasn't my title, it came from a post on Labourhome of all places, where at least some members of the Labour party are no longer in denial. The poster's central point that Gordon is electoral poison is spot on. Should be interesting when all the politicos are back at work in September...

Professers slam NICE on cancer drugs

I have a particularly nasty cancer, Multiple Myeloma. When I was diagnosed five years ago I was told I probably had two years to live. Today the disease is in remission thanks to the excellent care that I have had with the team at St Bartholomew's (Barts) Hospital, where I went through three clinical trails in the course of my treatment. In each case that gave me exposure to the way we test and then license cancer drugs in the UK, and my view is that the system betrays the hard work of the doctors on the front line when the National Institute for Clinical Excellence refuses to licence drugs that save or prolong life on the basis of some opaque actuarial calculation. Basically, they put a monetary value on a year of human life and then plug drug performance into a spreadsheet on that basis. If the drug is 'cost-effective' then it gets licensed and becomes available on the NHS. If the drug doesn't deliver 'value' for money then it gets the thumbs down. Now that may sound reasonable, except that they don't show anyone their models and there are many cases where every similar body in the developed world disagrees with their conclusions. This leads to situations where some cancer drugs are available almost everywhere else in the world except for England, and that includes such faraway and different places as Scotland. For example the drug that initially saved my life, Velcade, fell foul of this process until a general outcry caused a change of heart. This disgraceful situation is now the subject of a letter to the Times, signed by no less than 26 professers of medicine working in cancer research.

Something needs to be done to stop the tragic situation of desperate patient selling their homes to fund cancer drugs that are available free of charge everywhere else in the world than England. Others, of course, just die in pain for the want of modern treatment. It seems that there is no end to the damage that this numbers-obsessed government can do.

Latest government data cock-up

Now the Home Office has contrived to lose data covering the entire prison population of 84000, plus another 30000 people who are on the Police National Computer, on an unencrypted memory stick. My profession is IT, and one of things that I do is run records management for a FTSE 100 so I do know what I am talking about when I say that there is no excuse at all for this. Firstly sensitive data should never be consigned to portable storage, unless is as part of a courier transit from one secure location to another. If such transit is routine then it should be electronic, but in any case the data should be encrypted. Putting this sort of data on a memory stick, unencrypted is unforgivable, and the government's efforts to blame a contractor would have more credibility if the Home Office didn't already have form for doing exactly the same thing. The thing is that working with data in this way is usually not necessary. If you need to test software then data for that purpose can be desensitised, that is you change it to factitious details but in the correct format. So names become 'Joe Bloggs' or 'Jane Doe' and so on. On the rare occasions that you really need to work with real data, then you are very, very careful, or not, if you are this government.

My view is that this whole area needs some legislative focus. The most recent Criminal Justice bill adds large financial penalties for negligent data handling, but the process of implementation will take until the middle of next year. Right now there are no meaningful penalties beyond bad publicity for an organisation that is incompetent as opposed to criminal in the way it handles personal data. This has to change if we want to stamp these sorts of blunders out.

This latest screwup also begs a question; would you trust this government to run a National Identity database?

Thought not.

Basildon won't follow Labour's car park advice

Labour's latest wheeze to hammer the motorist is that Councils should use car park charges in an effort to 'shape' the behaviour of their people. The idea appears to be that charges are put up, funny it is always about taxing people more, in order to deter people from using their cars and thus encouraging local shops and fitness. So, Local Government minister John Healey said,

Only one in five councils are using charging to the full potential. Not just to cover costs but to shape their area.

because it would help in

reducing congestion, improving levels of health and exercise, encouraging the use of local shops...

This is idiotic on a number of levels. Firstly, 90% of the built environment that will exist in the next 50 years is already here. Development takes many years. Today's cities, towns and villages are not laid out with a range of local shops within easy walking distance of everyone and so many people would just have to pay the charges because they had no alternative. Secondly, even if there were local shops it is inconceivable that every village or similar area could have the entire range of retail outlets that people need and so many people would just have to pay the charges because they had no alternative. Thirdly, people with limited mobility need their cars or else they do not go anywhere and so many people would just have to pay the charges because they had no alternative. Fourthly, even if you are able-bodied sometimes you just have too much to carry, like the weekly shop for a large family, and so many people would just have to pay the charges because they had no alternative.

Basically, people would have to pay up and, of course, flat charges that do not take income into account hit the poorest the hardest.

What Labour also fails to take into account is the fact that many car parks are not Council-owned, most supermarkets and many large shopping centres have free parking for example. So, what are they suggesting, that Council's kill the trade in the town centres where they typically do have car parks and leave the out-of-town shopping centres to benefit?

This is a silly and ill-thought out suggestion and we won't be doing anything like it in Basildon. What is it about the Labour Party that they are so addicted to taxing people so much?

Elite Sport in Basildon

Everyone is revelling in the success of our Olympic team after a magnificent weekend's competition. One can only extend congratulations and acknowledge the hard work of the athletes, coaches, organisers and support staff who have pushed Great Britain to number three in the medal table and given us all so many unforgettable images and memories. But looking at those proud, happy faces standing on the podiums to see their flag being raised I just think how good it would be if one of the gold medal winners was from Basildon, or Billericay, or Wickford, or Pitsea, or Laindon or one of our other communities here in Basildon District. Unfortunately, we have had a historic problem with that. You see our local Labour party had this thing about competitive sport: they didn't like it. Winners and losers offended their sense of equality, espcially winners who achieved at the highest level. So, our sporting infrastructure was designed specifically not to support competition, with small sports centres that are unsuitable for organised events, and a swimming pool deliberately designed to be just too short to meet competition standard. By the way when I tell that to people they usually assume I am making that up, but sadly it is true. If you don't believe me get down to Gloucester Park pool with a tape measure and you will find it is just short of the 25m length that would support competition.

Well, the Conservatives have a different approach. We want sport for all, and that means elite sport just as much as casual lesiure usage. So, we are progressively renewing our sporting infrastructure, will relaid all-weather pitches. New competition standard netball courts, an Athletic track brought up to AAA standard, and, of course, a brand new sporting village with a 50m, Olympic-size, pool. To be fair to the Labour Party today, they have shed their virulent hatred of excellence, though they still display occasional grumpiness with the whole sporting agenda. It's a pity that we lost a generation of potential elite sportsmen and women before they got with the program.

Maybe it could have been a Basildon boy or girl standing there with gold around their neck...?

Spin Exposed

It is Tuesday, Radio 4, World at One and James Plaskitt, Junior Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions is being interviewed by BBC journalist Shaun Ley:

Ley: Are you worried that this collection of economic statistics we've seen today, including obviously the rising unemployment figures, will further destabilise the prime minister's leadership ?

Plaskitt: I'm not commenting on that issue as I made clear at the outset. It's not about that.

Ley: But you're -

Press officer: We're only talking about today's employment figures.

Ley: Sure, but you're a minister, you're a member of his government.

Plaskitt: Well, the answer's no.

Ley: You don't think it will?

Plaskitt: No.

Absolutely incredible that a government press officer would cut into an interview this way. All credit to the BBC for broadcasting it, and that is interesting in itself. Shaun Ley offers up an explanation of what went on in his blog, but does anyone think that the Labour-supporting BBC of old would have hesitated in cutting out the press officer's intervention? It wasn't live so they could have done so easily. These are the people who didn't broadcast Neil Kinnock making a fool of himself before the 1992 election for no reason that has ever been adequately explained and the people who ran biased media against the Conservatives for decades. Could it be that the realisation that Labour may not be in power for much longer has emboldened them? Could it be that emerging debate on the future of the BBC has made them realise that systematic political bias is not a long-term survival strategy? In that at least I think that the damage has already been done.