Government spending: what people want to cut
One interesting question in the most recent YouGov survey (pdf) asked people to decide “If the Government did decide to cut back on its plans for spending, which two or three of these would you most like it to cut?”
The answers should give all of us some pause for thought.
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Let’s respond to the Welfare Reform Bill
There’s been a lot of debate in recent days about James Purnell’s welfare reform proposals. Supporters claim that the measures are true to Labour’s traditional values, are essential in difficult economic times and that there is nothing progressive about leaving people to languish on benefit.
Opponents claim that the plans would privatise the welfare state, are an attack on the most vulnerable in our society, and won’t work. In response to the proposals, they’ve set up the ‘Welfare for All’ campaign.
And the truth is… both sides have a point. Even the strongest critics of the bill would probably agree that there are some good ideas in it, for example changing the rules so that people don’t have their benefits reduced if they get child maintenance payments; while even some of the bill’s strongest supporters would concede that we don’t know how successful some of its proposals will actually turn out to be in practice.
Which is where you come in.
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Defending the pub
If the plight of the humble British pub was in a bad shape at the time of writing this post, I think its safe to say that Alistair Darling’s decision to stick an extra 8% on alcohol excise duty will contribute to even more old-fashioned boozers being bankrupted.
Sniffing an opportunity to make nice with their alcohol-soaked community-minded constituents, posts have popped up on both LabourHome and Lib Dem Voice protesting the move and imporing the government to reverse the tax hike, less more small businesses be forced to call last orders for the final time.
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Creating a more ‘responsible’ drinker
I was thinking recently that our approach to regulating the sale of alcohol has an uncanny resemblence to that whack-a-mole game my brother & I used to play in amusement arcades; one second you think you’ve smashed the problem of alcohol abuse, and the next it rears its head somewhere else.
Back in the day, the argument behind liberalising the licensing laws was that in order to ‘large it up’ or whatever, people were trying to cram their drinking into a pretty short period of time, and that was causing the apparent rash of mass leglessness you’d find in towns centres across the country. So, the theory went, extend the amount of time they’re allowed to drink and you might see some reduction in the ‘down it!’ culture that induces half the country into synchronised vomiting every Saturday night.
What is the Tory health plan exactly?
How wonderful it is to see the Conservatives acknowledging that obesity might be a problem in our modern society.
Having recently checked my Body Mass Index, suitably adjusted for a non-smoker, I find that I am something like 0.4 of a point overweight, so I was particularly interested to see what Andrew Lansley might propose to help get our nation of lard-arses on the move again.
Once more it turns out that the Conservative Party is all about big talk but limp wristed action; so with pornography, now also with the health of the nation. The grand plan is to ask the food industry if they would be good chaps and reduce the size of the portions they dish out, presumably meaning in ready-meals, frozen meals and desserts. I imagine that the food industry will have no problem with that as they’ll keep the sticker price the same, padding their profit margins.
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Not a nanny state, not a neglectful state
So how should a serious political party of the 21st century faced with the acute and growing problems [of obesity] react?
The Foresight scientists highlighted the fact that for an increasing number of people, weight gain is inevitable and largely involuntary as a consequence of exposure to a modern lifestyle.
They used the term “passive obesity,” and pointed out that it particularly effects the socially and economically disadvantaged.
Not every child is lucky enough to live in an environment that promotes good health. Not every family has a leafy back garden for their kids to play in. Not every family can afford to buy fresh organic produce from the local farmer’s market, or to put food on the table that their children will refuse to eat.
Our strategy made clear that in approaching this problem, we reject both the “nanny state,” which polices shopping trolleys and institutes exercise regimes and the neglectful state, which wipes its hands of the problem, and wags the finger in the direction of the most vulnerable families in the vague hope that they will do as they are told.
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Eat everything on your plate!
He’s getting beyond parody:
Britons must stop wasting food in an effort to help combat rising living costs, Gordon Brown has said as he travelled to the G8 summit in Japan. The PM said “unnecessary” purchases were contributing to price rises, and urged people to plan meals in advance and store food properly.
Now, I’m embarrassed to point this out, but people don’t need telling this. The more expensive food becomes, the less folk will want to waste it. That’s basic self-interest and GCSE economics.
So, why is Brown saying this? I can think of four possibilities.
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Happy 60th birthday, NHS
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the NHS.
While its younger, formative years saw ground breaking strides in healthcare provision despite gross underfunding, its middle age has been marked with wastage as it has lurched towards the bloated US system of privatised healthcare and health markets.
For the NHS to survive into old age, it must make lifestyle changes, get fit and start to look after itself.
The Tories skirted with the market in the 1990’s and Labour, despite its pledges to “cut costs by removing the bureaucratic processes of the internal market” in their 1997 manifesto, rushed headlong into the market approach to health emulating the US system. With the US spending around 30% of its entire health care budget to administer their health care market, it is clear that billions are now being wasted in the NHS on our market.
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Casting the Net: Firefox, Vibrators, and the Police
Tomorrow is Download Day. I’ve been using the Firefox3 beta for some time now, and I’m very impressed with it. If you’re using IE and fancy giving it a shot, you may as well do it tomorrow and be part of a world record attempt. Click the button for the link:
Lynne Featherstone talks about the difficulties of relying on the NHS to provide you with independent movement.
Spirit of 1976 has suddenly discovered an urge to try Khat – why? Because the Tories want to ban it.
The Times has a fascinating article on the history of Vibrators, and how the humble Personal Massager reflects the changing attitude of society to women.
Smash Boredom has a convincing argument that Robert Mugabe is right about something.
PC Bloggs has a very affecting tale of police resources spread too thin. I can’t recommend her blog enough.
And finally, Feminist SF reviews the weekend’s episode of Doctor Who in a rather weary manner.
Reefer madness: an interlude
Shock, horror, disaster! Call the riot boys, summon the G8! Get your placards out! Cannabis causes brain damage!
Well, sort of. Ish. We think. But it’s been days since the last teen stabbing and it’s a slow news morning, so let’s have a moral panic anyway. Cue headlines splashed with the latest drug trials that prove next to nothing about the effects of marijuana on the human brain, as if that were the point.
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The tube drinking ban won’t work
My contract of employment obliges me to point out whenever I express an opinion about the Tube that these opinions are my own, and should in no way be taken to represent those of London Underground or TfL. So now you know.
A century ago, there were feminists who called for alcohol to be banned because they blamed it for domestic violence. Their view was understandable, as women took regular beatings from men who came home drunk, then as now. It took Prohibition to change their minds, as booze was banned but domestic violence continued.
In 2008, Boris Johnson thinks that banning booze will prevent, or at least reduce, bad behaviour on London’s transport. He too is mistaken, and his motives may not be as worthy or understandable as the early twentieth century feminists. He was on a yacht when the booze ban came into force on Saturday night, which, being neither in London nor a form of public transport, was exempted.
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The natural progress of procreation?
During the HFE Bill debate, several members of the House of Commons stood up to claim that fathers are being sidelined by the lack of legislation on whether lesbians should have to provide evidence of a male role model in order to qualify for IVF.
Several other members stood up to claim that the child has rights, and that these rights are best looked after by the existence of such a ‘father’ clause.
The terrible logical inconsistencies in such statements became very obvious in debate. If we’re insisting on a male role model, because it will result in a better brought up child, why is it immaterial what sort of role model we’re talking about? If the male role model is a drunk, a wife-beater or any number of other things, then that will hardly result in a better brought up child.
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A Protest for Science
Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, with parliamentary colleagues, at an event in support of the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill, which will protect and extend the right of scientists to perform crucial stem-cell research.
More about all this at the Coalition for Choice website.
Drugs policy: Brown fiddles while…
Not long after I moved to Hackney, I witnessed an armed robbery. From a range of about three feet, the fact that the robber was a crackhead was as obvious as the hammer and kitchen knife he was waving about.
A few years later, my partner and baby daughter were abducted outside my house. continue reading… »
John Prescott and a girl’s illness
John Prescott has made eating disorders news again by coming out as bulimic. This, of course, is a perfect opportunity for me to latch myself on to my favourite look-at-this-damn-issue horse. Eating disorders need celebrity chic to be news these days, but they don’t cease to be a dangerous epidemic when someone famous hasn’t just bared their soul in a lucrativebook deal.
The thousands of brilliant young, and not so young people who are killed or mentally crippled by bulimia, anorexia, bulimarexia, binge-eating and other disorders every year fail to make regular headlines for one reason only: it’s a ‘girl’s illness.’
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Before I forget
Before my granddad died, he suffered for around nine years with Alzheimer’s. The worst thing wasn’t the forgetting things, the not recognising people or the needing round-the-clock care. The worst symptom of Alzheimer’s was the depression.
He knew he was a burden to those who cared for him, he knew what was happening to him and it broke his heart every day.
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The benefit of benefits
One message on the Tory ‘Whole Campaign’ key messages page tickles me above all the others: ‘Can work – will work: help people into jobs and cut benefits for those who won’t work‘.
Which is nice, but I wonder if sorting out welfare dependency will be quite that straightforward. What would liberal lefties think about this?
I recently interviewed a number of people who’d been on benefits long-term. I asked these people about their lives, and what they thought of government plans to cut welfare.
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The role of the state: a binge drinker’s view
Many left-liberals will have been indulging in some top-level indignation at the totally unstartling news that the Tory hereditary peer Lord Mancroft is a creaking frothing shouty plonker who shouldn’t be allowed into public spaces, never mind a legislative assembly.
First off, he has a go at the nurses who treated him in an NHS hospital in Bath for being “grubby“. If not exactly civil, this is at least a legitimate concern and the nursing profession, unsurprisingly, is up in arms at the slur. So his fartship has been on the Today programme on Saturday morning doing what presumably passes among Tory peers for retrenchment; no, he was not actually complaining about the treatment he received; yes, he fully acknowledges not all nurses are grubby, and made this clear elsewhere in his speech.
No, the true horror of all this grave frothing is yet to reveal itself. This is how he goes on to talk about these young working women whose life choices are absolutely none of his business.
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The talking politics of abortion
This piece was first published two years ago at The Sharpener and in an edited form in this book (as “Talk amongst yourselves, we couldn’t possibly comment”). It’s main hope – that Westminster politicians stop ducking the abortion issue – has come to pass. That is a development I welcome; and I stand by (most of) what I wrote then (some of it now in lost, much missed links). The piece also tries to define “what’s so special” about 24 weeks, though perhaps less elegantly than Unity. So now’s a good time for a re-run. It does seem, alas, that what we’re about to get elsewhere is tabloid drivel (via) rather than proper debate. I guess that’s what happens when professional politicos get involved.
One word absolutely not on the lips of political hacks, not even Tory political hacks, is… Abortion. Not this week, not any week. It’s impolite conversation inside the beltway.
But a post here last year (picked apart here) attracted over 250 comments. Just publishing the word is pure Google-juice. Everyone in the real world has an opinion, so why does nobody in political Britain want to discuss abortion in public? It can’t be that 186,274 (2001 data; pdf) annual terminations don’t warrant justification or inquiry. continue reading… »
Literally, the Nanny-State
For what it’s worth, I think that the new proposal from the Conservatives is actually rather good. It entails each newborn and their mother having the services of a maternity nurse for the first week after leaving hospital.
According to the Observer, it would cost ‘at least £150m a year’. I think a closer figure is £212m per year* (my workings are at the end of this post). Whether or not it survives, I think the Conservatives – and I mean this genuinely – are to be congratulated on putting forward an ambitious, policy proposal. I hope that full, detailed costings and implementations are brought forward.
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You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» How bad is the feline obesity crisis?
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civic cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
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