Labourhome - Back to the roots...

[Blogs] Great article from Samuel Brittan in the FT about why Brown's critics are wrong

2008-11-21T16:40:12-05:00

Here's the link to the article Some quotes:

[One] objection is that an already high budget deficit will be pushed into the stratosphere by the extra borrowing. This is psychologically the most difficult hurdle. Too few people understand that a government’s budget is not like a family’s or a company’s. It is precisely when the private sector is cutting down and saving that the government needs to spend more as an offset to maintain a reasonable level of total expenditure in the economy.

The most plausible argument against a fiscal stimulus is that by the time it takes effect, the economy will be in a boom and the effect will be destabilising. This may be valid for attempts to smooth out normal business cycles, but hardly for a possibly persistent slump.

....

“Is there not a danger of a run on sterling?” ask Tory Bourbons. Even they should by now realise that the exchange rate is a price and not a virility symbol. Indeed, if you think it important to narrow the current balance of payments deficit then sterling depreciation is needed. True, too big a fall in the pound sustained too long could bring back import-led inflation. But it is extremely uncertain how large such a feedback would be in current recessionary conditions. I was one of those taken by surprise by the smallness of the impact when sterling was forced out of the exchange rate mechanism in the recession conditions of 1992.

I liked the reference to to "Tory Bourbons". The Bourbons of course presided over France before the Revolution, and were so inflexible in their thinking, they couldn't see what was coming...

Labour should pinch the phrase (and perhaps get Steve Bell to make a cartoon for the next party political broadcast. I rather liked this recent one.

[Blogs] Certificate of Lawfulness (awfulness)

2008-11-21T15:22:45-05:00

Certificate of Lawfulness being used by property developers to develop residential care homes for up to 6 people recovering from mental ill health without having to go through the proper channels of obtaining planning permission from the local council and without the residents in the area where these places will be located being allowed to have their say in these developments such as security/safety issues, level of mental ill health etc.

Have any readers come up against Certificate of Lawfulness being used by property developers to develop property into residential care homes for up to 6 people recovering from mental ill heatlh in their neighbourhood? I would like to see this law tightened up so that property developers must have to get planning permission if they want to develop a residential home(s)into a home for people recovering from mental ill health. Two such homes have now been developed from two terraced properties, with a family terraced home in the middle, in our area. In spite of 133 signatures of protest against these two developments by the residents on our road the developments were allowed to go through because they had been proposed as a Certificate of Lawfulness. Therefore, the residents on this street who will be affected by these two developments were effectively gagged and not allowed to have any say so whatsoever about these two developments. This developer has two other similar care homes within a hundred yards from our street. I have been told that landlords get £500 per person per week by the Council to house people with mental health issues. We the ratepayers are paying for this and we should be allowed to have our say re these developments. How long before this property developer buys the house in the middle of these two care homes? This is capitalism at its best! This is not 'Care in the Community', this is big business. I have contacted various organisations but no one is interested in this story or this law. Is there anyone I can contact to try to get this law tightened up or at least to let the general public know about it? Please advise.

[Blogs] A fair presumption

2008-11-21T12:24:31-05:00

This week there has been a torrent of news and comment opposing the Prime Minister's preference of a system of presumed consent for organ donation. The source is unclear but there is undoubtedly a media campaign against the opt-out system, based on the recommendations of the Government's Organ Donation Taskforce, which has attracted little or no balancing opinion. The Prime Minister's preference, opposed by the taskforce, is for a system known as "soft" presumed consent. This means that people opt-out by registering if they do not want to donate their organs after death. Additionally, their family would be asked if they knew of any unregistered objection before any transplant took place. Even if the family knew of no unregistered objection but were excessively distressed by organ donation, this "soft" system would allow the family's well-being to be taken into account. Soft presumed consent would not make another Alder Hey possible. No-one's organs could legally be removed in secrecy.

But why should we move to an opt-out system? Do we have any collective obligation to those hundreds of people who die each year while waiting for organs or to those adults and children enduring invasive treatments month after month with only a thread of hope? Frankly, it's not about our obligations, it's about our will. Opinion polls suggest that up to 90% of British people are willing to help a stranger in need by donating their organs at death, yet only about 26% have signed the donor register. And this gap is fully understandable. Of the list of things to do that we all carry in our heads, signing the donor register will never be the most urgent task. But more fundamentally, the act of doing so requires us, for a moment, to consider our own mortality; a task even more challenging if a person sensibly decides to discuss his or her decision with their family so that they are aware of the preference.

Given the overwhelming support for donation, it is more than reasonable for a clinician to presume that a deceased person consents. Providing a dissent register actually enables people to express their objection to donation far more clearly than the current system, which provides no such opportunity. At the moment, a clinician will talk to a family about their lost loved-one's preference at the very worst time, shortly after death. In the absence of any expressed preference, the family response will often reflect that if their loved-one felt strongly about it, they would have signed the donor register. This default to the status quo enables families to avoid making a difficult decision at a difficult time. If a dissent register existed, families would have a clear guide that if their loved one felt strongly against donation, they would have signed that register – and this would ensure that, according to the opinion polls, far more people's wishes were conformed to after their deaths.

Anecdotal evidence shows that when asked, many families support donation, after initially refusing, once they have had time to process their own emotions and consider the deceased's attitude towards donation. Sadly, the nature of donation means that this is too late. Those families who do consent to the donation of their loved-ones' organs often say that it has helped them with the grieving process, knowing that some good has come from the death of their son, daughter, spouse or brother.

There are countries that operate a "hard" system of presumed consent. If you die on holiday in Austria, you are likely to have your organs whipped out without discussion before your body is shipped back. There are countries where you are placed at the bottom of the waiting list to receive an organ if you have not previously been on the donation register. There are countries where a family receives a discount on medical bills if a deceased relative donates their organs.

The Government is not proposing anything coercive or ethically suspect. Neither is there a suggestion that soft presumed consent alone is the answer – we also need improved infrastructure and investment in transplant co-ordinators. There would also be safeguards to ensure that the system did not take advantage of minors and people with limited capacity to make such decisions.

But presumed consent – the opt-out system – is the only proposal that respects the wishes of the majority of British people after their deaths. Respecting patients wishes after their death must be the most ethical position.

[Blogs] The BNP problem IS Labour's problem

2008-11-20T07:48:19-05:00

I thought it would be interesting to overlay a map of constituencies (and their MP's party affiliation) with a heat-map of the BNP's membership list.*

I don't know if I'm surprised by the result...I am however interested in everyone's thoughts on this.

Original heatmap from Ben Charlton

*There are concerns that it may be a marketing list rather than a wholly accurate membership list.

[Blogs] In praise of financial engineering

2008-11-20T05:00:18-05:00

Calls not to throw out the baby with the bathwater multiply, but beg the question what constitutes the baby and what the bathwater. This is not an obscure philosophical question, but one that, without wanting to sound pretentious, will have significant consequences. Overly simplistic dichotomies rarely help much, except when coming new to a subject, as we all are with the current financial crisis. So it might be useful to present two conflicting views on the baby and the bathwater, which at even more risk of over-simplification I will label financial engineering and economics. The economics paradigm says that for any economic activity the free market is the ideal, and overall society benefits from fierce competition, even though there may be very broad disparities in individual outcomes. From this perspective the baby is competition and rewards to individual effort; the bathwater is over-complicated financial products and regulations that distort the free market outcomes and in the process place unnecessary limits on achievement. Key to making the baby/bathwater distinction are the economists who must design the system, recognising that imperfections do exist in the market, and specify the particular regulations that are necessary.

The financial engineering paradigm on the other hand says that financial products provide a service that individuals and government can choose, much as they do any other good or service. Like any other service there are upsides and downsides, and choosing one product normally means not choosing another. Financial products, like many other products, in certain situations, or used in certain ways, can have significantly adverse impacts on their consumers. So, like products from pharmaceuticals to electricals, financial products are regulated. Responsible financial firms, like responsible firms in any other industry, welcome appropriate regulation and recognise that it is best developed through bodies bringing together industry, consumer and government representatives. From this perspective the baby is continuing innovation in the industry to better serve its customers, the bathwater irresponsible firms that seek primarily to profit from deceit, either of customers or employees, or both, and view responsibility primarily as a barrier to their owners’ and managers’ rewards. The key to making the baby/bathwater distinction is regulation that both allows value-creating innovation and is viable to enforce, with a particular focus on consumer safety.

Financial services are clearly fundamental to contemporary life and rely on a high degree of trust. But then so are the grocery business and the airlines. And they all interact. A loss of trust in airlines would have a significant impact on people, both directly in limiting their mobility, and indirectly though attenuating the capabilities, possibly catastrophically, of many businesses from where they purchase products. More difficult to imagine, but potentially more disruptive and more dangerous would be a loss of trust in groceries.

Over years of seeking to understand how to make the world a better place I have thrown myself into physics, business and politics, and it is clear to me that financial engineering makes more sense. But I am not an economist.

[Blogs] Business backs the Labour stimulus plan...

2008-11-19T13:33:26-05:00

...and criticises David Cameron and co

From the Financial Times:

"Leading UK business organisations on Tuesday opposed David Cameron, opposition Conservative leader, on the best economic response to the recession, backing the prime minister’s assertion that unfunded tax cuts were urgently needed. ...

Business warned that the Tory policy of opposing unfunded tax cuts could lead to large-scale redundancies and corporate failures. The unanimity among the groups leaves the Conservatives fighting against the business consensus – an historically anomalous and politically exposed position.

“Extraordinary times do call for extraordinary measures,” said Miles Templeman, director-general of the Institute of Directors, which on Tuesday called for £20bn of cuts to income and corporation taxes in the PBR. The institute said the UK needed “a short-term fiscal stimulus followed by medium-term fiscal restraint. Tax reductions and infrastructure spending over the 2009-10 period need to be followed by tough control of public spending thereafter.”

[Blogs] Christmas comes early for BNP as St. Nicholas loses his Xmas card list?

2008-11-19T09:08:38-05:00

Oh dear! Just when every thing was going well for St. Nicholas and the little elves down at the BNP grotto. After all winning a seat on a community/parish council is great but having one of your vicars plus the dear old village bobby outed is just not BRITISH is it ? The woman interviewd by the BBC from NASUWT could have a point when she suspects this to be deliberate! Is it wrong to blog these list? Possibly but when St. Nicholas' party are to plead the human rights legislation when crying foul AND at the same time requiring it to be repealed- I think we know the answer. Psst Dont tell any one but --- I have an old expose the Oswald Mosley Union Movement List in the attic (it belonged to my Grandad) willing to swap for any up to date NF, Commie or Respect info.