New Year #FacePalm

Good one to start the new year in this mornings Metro (apologies for resolution; trying to take a picture on a moving bus of a thin page is tricky). Moaning about MP salaries whilst you earn nearly 40% above the average wage in this country sucking on the exact same teat as the rest of us is a little presumptive of sympathy right.

FFS you earn twice what I do in the private sector.

My thoughts? Last year I said we should give MPs the ability to moot their own compensation to their constituents at the ballot box who would then be directly liable to pay for them via a council tax levy; stick your desired salary on the ballot paper then convince potential constituents at hustings and hitting the streets. Simples.

Them Riots

Been a little busy these last few months and Lord knows the faux-Duggan riots has been better covered elsewhere.

But man this idea is coming into it's own eh?

In Mixed Minds

Been a while guys - mega mega busy but this caught my eye (H/T to Dick Puddlecote):

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
...
"Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws," said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). "It's turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights."

No, how the state views the rights of unborn children with respect to their mother's behaviour, whether they intentionally seek to commit "foeticide" or their lifestyle simply endangers a child to a great degree, is what is being rightly challenged in court.

I say rightly in a neutral capacity: regardless of my views of state-mandated child murder when a precarious position appears in law, particularly in one where it is readily apparent the waters are being tested to see precisely what the law makers meant when they passed it, it follows logic that the first few cases will be painful; all cases should when one entity in the equation is murdered.

The next story in the article illustrates this perfectly:

Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.
Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.

This is both a long-standing contention between libertarians: whether abortion is something allowed by negative freedoms or not, and a dilemma that would test the Wisdom of Solomon; as tragic as her story and life obviously are did it really require her making that decision to end not only her own life but that of her child's?

I am, quite obviously, of the caste of libertarians who believe that negative freedoms protect the life of unborn children; there is something abhorrent in nature that allows us to abrogate the rights of one who's only crime is to grow, a living testament of either or both parents' recklessness: there is no greater example of human sacrifice to vanity than this.

Casting aside fear of straw men a question: were I to walk up to a happily pregnant woman and kick get in the stomach causing the baby to die should I end up in jail? If so then why does my act of foeticide carry criminal consequences? Is it merely because of the mothers desire to have children or the child's life?

All this and more will no doubt be debated in one way or another in the coming months surrounding such instances as these as the argument for human sacrifice starts not to look so glossy; it tends to excuse lifestyle choices which are naturally risky by allowing innocents to pay the price.

All that being said I do share Mssr. Puddlecote's concerns over the other religious aspect of this: that of the ascendency of the great Shiboleth of Public Health:

We've already seen a few rumblings, and I'm sure we've all heard the "it should be classed as child abuse" line many times already with regard to parental lifestyles. So why not just go that little extra step and push for the prosecution of women who have problematic pregnancies while also being obese, consuming cigarettes, or drinking in excess of guidelines, eh?

We'll just have to take it on trust that those currently taking the opportunity to rail against the religious right on the criminalisation of pregnant mothers will be consistent when the idea is picked up by the predominantly left-leaning health lobby.

I will not be holding my breath either; it has never been a problem for the left to excuse ones' actions as you hold the right opinions: climate change fanatics bending results or damaging energy companies property are fine; conversely skeptics are "fair game" whether the operate above board or not.

Sadly the cost is eternal vigilance, not shutting the questions down; for good or ill these lady's actions (and that of the men who are as copacetic to these situations as any) must be questioned - we may not like the answer but we should endeavour to keep it accountable to all, not just those in unassailable positions of power over life or death.

Am I The Only One More Offended By The Use Of Internet Twit-Talk?

A juror who contacted a defendant via Facebook, causing a £6m drugs trial to collapse, has been jailed for eight months for contempt of court.

Couldn't happen to a nicer lady; this is just grating though:

Fraill also described her role on the jury in their conversations. "All that note-taking was just killing time. lol. drew more than i wrote lol," she said.

Mr Garnier had told the High Court that the contact and discussion had been in direct breach of the judge's repeated directions to the jury - and it constituted a contempt of court.

Peter Wright QC, for Fraill, said his client was terrified at the prospect of prison and was distraught and inconsolable about what she had done.

He described her as a woman of completely unblemished character before she "lost her senses" in the Facebook exchanges.

Should be done for murder...of the English language.

Problem With Proscription Not Application

Thousands of sex offenders, including rapists and paedophiles, will be able to apply to be removed from the sex crimes register under human rights laws, the Government has announced.

A Supreme Court ruling has forced the Government reluctantly to draw up new rules allowing serious sex offenders put on the register for life to have their place on the list reconsidered.
...
The case is the latest involving the Act to set judges against political opinion. It has increased calls for reform of the Act, which is being reviewed by a Coalition committee.

Under current rules, anyone sentenced to more than 30 months in jail for a sexual offence is put on the register for life on release. Those on the register are monitored by police and visited regularly by officers. The Home Office estimates that there are about 44,000 people on the register, about 25,000 of them for life.

The problem here as I see it is that sex offender registration has been argued effectively against as an arbitrary measure introduced and enhanced by knee-jerk reactionaries I'm the previous government (note, almost completely unopposed by the current one) in response to some pretty dire but isolated events (Ian Huntley's victims in the long run, with the hideous level of CRB checks required to even go near a kid, extend much further than the children the scummy bastard murdered); a 17 year old boy who sleeps with his 15 year old girlfriend should not be trusses up in the same band as a sexual predator like Huntley (which thankfully the law reflects I believe).

What this is actually arguing for is a more comprehensive set of rules governing sex offender registry; we already do this in lot other criminal hearings: 5 years for burglary reduced to 2.5 for a guilty verdict; 1 year for shoplifting suspended as it's a first offence - why shouldn't the law be able to say "10 years in jail with a further 10 on the sex offender register before you can appeal"?

What's that? Don't like the fact your judge is giving too lenient a sentence? Elect a new one or elect his boss on a tough on crime ticket.

Oh that's right you can't.

And maybe that is the problem; the extent of the human rights act only extends as far as parliament will let it - if our government is lazy in stating the rules surrounding it, or delegates it to soft, lefty judges then what the hell do you expect?

Expect more from your mps', and the rule of law will follow; ask for democratic police chiefs, justices' and hospital commissioners and they will respond to your concerns.

Or lament at the feet of the daily mail and talk about the "laws being made"; crap politicians make crap laws make crap society - demand more.

May I Make A Suggestion About The Scale Of This & Also Provide A Solution To The Homeless Problem?

Via @Old_Holborn on twitter O saw this; a plan to make prisoners work and contribute to society.

Many of my fellow libertarians may identify this with slavery to which I say the following: by and large criminals bought and paid for their proclivities, whether theft, rape or murder*, before they read the fine print - their problem, not society's. That all said I found interesting:

The thinktank suggests the introduction of a new prisoner minimum wage. This would be less than the national minimum wage to reflect the costs of board and lodging but more than current inmate earnings to encourage prisoners to work and save for their release as well as pay into a victims' fund.

What could this "prisoner wage" be? Let's tot it up:

Average cost to house prisoner in the UK: £34,000 (any better references please send me).
National Minimum Wage: £6.08
Salary based on 40hrs @ min. wage.: £12650
Therefore:
cost of prisoner wage = 12650 - 34000 = -21350

So the minimum prisoner wage is actually -£10.26 an hour; they still owe money for the cost of hosting them at our majesty's pleasure: so no wage then, at best, and longer working hours at worst.

And if prisoners don't like it? Tough: that case they can stay in jail indefinitely.

Thus solving the homeless problem as well; live on the street? commit a criminal act, refuse to work, live in prison for the rest of your life.

Quote Of The Day

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all it's myriads of inhabitants was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe...would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life...And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the sameease and tranquility, as if no such accident had happened...If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but...he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren.

Theory of Moral Sentiments, part 3-5 - Adam Smith

Say a prayer for those who suffer in places like Libya, Syria, Nigeria or the Arabs in Israel tonight; at least be thankful your elsewhere and you and your family are safe.

Presumed Value

First a quote (emphasis mine):

The real message of the conservative pro-life position is that we're in favor of living. We consider people--with a few obvious exceptions--to be assets. Liberals consider people to be nuisances. People are always needing more government resources to feed, house, and clothe them and to pick up the trash around their FEMA trailers and to make sure their self-esteem is high enough to join community organizers lobbying for more government resources.

- P J O'Rourke

The above quote not only illustrates part of my own beliefs in the pro-life debate but also links in to the next bit below.

I had a tweet exchange with Mr. Murphy on the subject of the minimum wage that went something a little like this (*cues piano*):

Today's announced increase in the minimum wage of 2.5% to 608p is considerably less than current rate of inflation. bit.ly/f1a0H7 (Retweeted by Mssr Murphy)

ME: @RichardJMurphy @Peston yes - where are employer[s] supposed to find the extra money to pay their employees?


@tjerubbaal @Peston if u r paying min wage your staff costs r already state subsidised massively - how much state sub do u need?

This comment came as odd, alien even; on top of enforcing higher rates of pay from employers was the government also subsidising this? How?

To this day I still await an answer from Mr. Murphy, accountant extraordinaire; but, using the magic of twitter, stream of consciousness that it is, I delved into the vast knowledge and "wisdom" of my "zealous" following to invite an answer from further afield.

It appears that being on minimum wage attracts additional "subsidies" in the form of housing benefit and tax credits to make up the shortfall; like Gordon Brown's splurge of tax credits for the middle classes down this seems to me like robbing Peter to pay Peter and Paul a moderate sum back the difference going to paying Humphrey's wage and giving him paper to shuffle, the effect here being to raise the amount of income to an "acceptable" level for those on minimum wage; below is the breakdown of what is available to the average singleton on the new £6.08 minimum wage:

So on a 37.5 hour week at minimum wage of £11856, £483.30 is added as the bare minimum, making their wage up to £12339.30.

Course you then have to take of the tax for that first:

So on an after tax income of £10,424.44 they add £483.30, making the amount those hard-pressed minimum wage earners working under the jack-boot of a top-hat wearing capitalist is £10907.74.

This gets to you by first taking off £876.20 from your wage annually only for you to get a fraction back from the state.

A few things.

Lets accept that we can (not should) guarantee a minimum wage - lets ignore the fact that the labour theory of value has almost certainly been proved a nonsense since it was first mooted (a one word answer as to why it is a nonsense: eBay) - are we really going about it the right way when we tax the pay of those we consider to require subsidy?

Further if we are admitting that the minimum wage doesn't cover the basics, something I'm naive to think if we are going to have should be a pre-requisite, then why bother with it in the first place? Why would you tax any of it? I means that like admitting it should be lower isn't it?

In fact if we are going to buy in full time to the charade that is the state subsidy of workers wages then why not abolish all benefits and fold them into one benefit system?

In a negative income tax system, people earning a certain income level would owe no taxes; those earning more than that would pay a proportion of their income above that level; and those below that level would receive a payment of a proportion of their shortfall, which is the amount their income falls below that level.

Now it could be said that eliminating minimum wage legislation and initiating a Negative Income Tax benefit system doesn't eliminate the possibility that employers will attempt to milk the subsidy for all its worth in order to reduce pay below what they would offer for that role, and you would be right; if employers can reduce wages at another's expense then they will (look at how health and safety legislation and regulations favours the incumbent, larger established businesses, dissuading new entrants to the market); likewise what is to stop someone from doing no work at all and just collecting their pay whilst staying at home? This is of course a dilemma that we face today but with the myriad benefits system, albeit currently the system dissuades people from entering work altogether

One model was proposed by Milton Friedman, as part of his flat tax proposals. In this version, a specified proportion of unused deductions or allowances would be refunded to the taxpayer. If, for a family of four the amount of allowances came out to $10,000, and the subsidy rate was 50% (the rate recommended by Friedman), and the family earned $6,000, the family would receive $2,000, because it left $4,000 of allowances unused, and therefore qualifies for $2,000, half that amount. Friedman feared that subsidy rates as high as those would lessen the incentive to obtain employment. He also warned that the negative income tax, as an addition to the "ragbag" of welfare and assistance programs, would only worsen the problem of bureaucracy and waste. Instead, he argued, the negative income tax should immediately replace all other welfare and assistance programs on the way to a completely laissez-faire society where all welfare is privately administered. The negative income tax has come up in one form or another in Congress, but Friedman opposed it because it came packaged with other undesirable elements antithetical to the efficacy of the negative income tax. Friedman preferred to have no income tax at all, but said he did not think it was politically feasible at that time to eliminate it, so he suggested this as a less harmful income tax scheme.

I would perhaps make it less restrictive on how you retain the advantage offered by your tax-free income, as I laid out here.

And can anyone really claim this would be more expensive to implement? Switching from 50+ benefit systems to one would save money in the long run.

That is of course unless you are a civil servant intent on a little empire building, less interested in what actually works rather than what gets you more unbridled power over the people you deign to serve.

Can We Not Call Time On This Already?

David Cameron vowed to hand hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money plus vital military secrets to Pakistan yesterday to make amends for offending the Muslim nation last year.

The Prime Minister pledged to invest £650million in Pakistani schools at a time when the education budget at home is being cut.

Britain is also to give highly sensitive military technology to combat roadside bombs to the Pakistani security services, which are widely blamed for funding and arming the Taliban.

Notwithstanding the humongous amount of money simply mulched up by our own local authorities on beano's to far away lands*, I think giving aid money bungs to hostile, submarine and nuclear-weapon-totting savages is an appalling use of our money by our increasingly vainglorious Euroslime Dave.

If it is worth giving aid to Pakistan (and I'm sure it is), there should be no need to compel taxpayers to do it; it'll come naturally by the charitable sector, and as we see from the revealed preferences of all those calling for more government spending (H/T to Tim Worstall) they are unwilling to back up spending plans which involve giving money to other nation's governments.

After all isn't that really the ultimate test for the left's desired spending habits: not their desire to give to Oxfam or UNICEF, but cutting checks to give directly to those governments responsible for the people concerned? If you are unwilling to give to corrupt third world politicos in places like Libya, Pakistan or Umbongo, why should the government be able to?

David Willetts: Douchebag*.

Universities minister David Willetts said middle-class pupils from good schools who get straight As at A-level have not achieved 'something exceptional'

Poo-pooing the efforts of the children of your core vote doesn't sound like a particularly wise course of action now does it?

And what pray tell did David "two-brains" Willetts do at school and beyond?

Willetts was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

King Edwards?

King Edward's School (KES) (grid reference SP052836) is an independent secondary school in Birmingham, England, founded by King Edward VI in 1552. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, and is widely regarded as one of the most academically successful schools in the country, according to various league tables. It was ranked 7th for A-Level results[1] and 20th for GCSE results,[1] out of all schools in England in 2004.

So, by the fuzzy logic of two-brains Willetts, whereby a students educational achievement is inversely proportional to the success of his school in churning out more tax-drones this puts him on the level of...: Homer Simpson.




That someone with a crappy start in life goes on to succeed and do great things is to be celebrated, but the mindset that says the middle classes should pay for the party because their own success is implicit in their upbringing is as asinine a suggestion as any I've heard and should be challenged. Daily.

David Willetts: Douchebag*.

Universities minister David Willetts said middle-class pupils from good schools who get straight As at A-level have not achieved 'something exceptional'

Poo-pooing the efforts of the children of your core vote doesn't sound like a particularly wise course of action now does it?

And what pray tell did David "two-brains" Willetts do at school and beyond?

Willetts was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

King Edwards?

King Edward's School (KES) (grid reference SP052836) is an independent secondary school in Birmingham, England, founded by King Edward VI in 1552. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, and is widely regarded as one of the most academically successful schools in the country, according to various league tables. It was ranked 7th for A-Level results[1] and 20th for GCSE results,[1] out of all schools in England in 2004.

So, by the fuzzy logic of two-brains Willetts, whereby a students educational achievement is inversely proportional to the success of his school in churning out more tax-drones this puts him on the level of...: Homer Simpson.




That someone with a crappy start in life goes on to succeed and do great things is to be celebrated, but the mindset that says the middle classes should pay for the party because their own success is implicit in their upbringing is as asinine a suggestion as any I've heard and should be challenged. Daily.

Angry At The Wrong People

Fuel prices have fallen since the Budget, but by less than the 1p cut in duty announced by Chancellor George Osborne, UK-wide research has found.

There was a 0.6p average fall in petrol and diesel from Wednesday to Thursday, the survey by Experian Catalist found.

The 1p cut in duty on petrol and diesel took effect from 1800 GMT on Wednesday.

The Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) says many garages will delay implementing the cut until stocks of existing, more expensive fuel are gone.

Aunty Beeb getting mad at those evil capitalist bastards not passing on the whole penny of duty our glorious leaders deigned to bequeath us in an act of infinite grace and generosity

And how much was this value?




Based on the above forecast you get the following percentages:

-57.19p duty = 47.7%
-39.85p product = 33.2%
-17.86p VAT = 14.9%
- 5p delivery & retail = 4.2%

Or to put another way 62.2% of the cost of fuel goes into George Osbourne's pockets.

4.2%.

Vs.

62.2%.

That poor chap who gets your late night beer & rizla run order on your way home walking from town takes just 4p from every £1 you spend on fuel through the week; the government takes 60-bloody pence and positively conflates many of the conflicts that are driving the price skyward.

Aunty Beeb should be ashamed of herself.

Letting People Down Roughly

Baby boomers should be prepared to fund their own care in old age because their generation has done ‘pretty well for itself’, a Government adviser said yesterday.
Lord Warner, a former Labour health minister who is drafting reforms on the future of elderly care, said that far more people born in the ‘baby boom’ years after the Second World War owned their own home than previous generations – and many of these properties were worth a lot of money.

In my days avoiding the dole line not long in the dim distant past I worked for a benefits unit for Leeds City Council; their job was to maximise the benefit package available to vulnerable groups: the elderly, the chronically poor and the invalid, and to ascertain if the richest amongst the groups could afford to pay towards the cost of their care.

It was alway fun to hear the stories; the incredulous, aghast faces on the little Lord Fontelroy's after you told them that they would be expected to pay the maximum rate to their still-subsidised care (note the emboldened word), the joy of an aged lollypop lady widowed with nothing finding she wouldn't be expected to pay anything at all.

Or anger at those gaming the system; a millionaire who signed over power of attorney and all assets to his son who then charged his father rent in order to claim housing benefit, paying for his holiday in the Mauritius or a down payment on a holiday home in the dales no doubt, or the old housewife left her family home by a late, sorely missed husband, with rapidly dissolving, scant savings who would be liable for massive unaffordable payouts.

You could easily say that the subsidised scheme was illiberal, an imposition on today's taxpayers paying for the previous generations mistakes, and you would be right.

But right doesn't wipe old ladies bottoms, feed geriatrics or break the day-on-day tedium with a visit to a recreation centre.

Nor does right fight the regulatory impacts on these services killing off any chance of seeing them get cheaper or the burden on others reduce. How every terrible happening prompts political axes to the grindstone making the process of looking after our burgeoning elderly population more cumbersome and expensive.

No; wrong has prevailed too long and now one generation must make a sacrifice for another - it has not be unreasonable for the elderly to expect to keep their homes and have their care paid or; they were told and promised as much by previous governments who knew they could promise jam tomorrow without ever having to worry about it's cost.

However it falls the translation will impact the old and the new together; there really is no alternative now. One generation will have to make sacrifices bigger than any other, will have to realise there is no jam tomorrow; the vast corporatist state's ponzi schemes has squirrelled it all away for itself and it's own benefit.

That sacrifice will see reward though; it will follow the mass realisation that we are not our collective brothers' keepers and that self-reliance, eroded by so much over-reliance on an all-powerful state will reappear with a vengeance.

And it will accompany the greatest uprising against this present darkness ever seen.

That or we can wind our way to slow painful decline as civilisations have done before.

This Is Why You Don't Leave Cuts To Those In Line For The Chop

Dr. Fox: Hard at work or hardly working?

The Ministry of Defence has apologised after a reported 38 soldiers - including one serving on the Afghan front line - were sacked by email.

The troops, all of whom are warrant officers, were told they were being dismissed as ‘the Army has to make significant cutbacks’.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; Team Cambo could do worse than fire the top 5 layers of the civil service and then instruct real reforms rather than kick this particular poo-ball into the long grass.

Noone likes a coward Liam and Dave; still, people like Disingenuous shits even less:

But shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said the soldiers had been treated in a 'callous, cold-hearted, soulless' way and called on Government ministers to take responsibility for the incident.
Mr Murphy told the Today programme: 'We can't halt every redundancy in the Armed Forces, but this is no way to treat men and women who have served their country fearlessly for so many years.

Lest we forget, Murphy was the Minister for Europe, overseeing the biggest transfer of powers and money to the vast QuANGO that is the European commission and the empowerment act known as the Lisbon Treaty; essentially running interference while the EU takes control.

So now when £10Bn is to be wasted on an unnecessary waste policy while our Air Force, our Navy and our Army are expected to fight wars with little more than an active imagination.

Ye' gods.

The End of Armani-dinner-jacket?

Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Iran today, hoping to emulate the popular uprising in Egypt in a bold move which prompted a violent crackdown by security services.

The streets were flooded with police and militia as the hardline regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sought to prevent marches in support of Egypt's pro-democracy movement becoming demonstrations against the government.

Greater scholars than myself will tell you the situation in Iran is vastly different to t'Egypt; for one thing the armed forces will probably not be turning against the Ayatollah nor the Islamic councils and thus against their political puppet, Armani-dinner-jacket.

Still, fingers crossed aye? Worse thing Israel or the Western world could do would be to stick powerful 3G transmitters on the Iranian borders; despots know if you want to win a war of attrition like this you cut off communication.

Isn't This A Stronger Arguement To Abolish The Minimum Wage?

The Prince’s Trust and other charities will set up stalls in Jobcentre Plus offices after agreeing a deal to be rubber-stamped by ministers today.

The move comes after youth unemployment leapt by 32,000 to 951,000 in November – its highest since records began in 1992.

Critics said the scheme could merely ‘massage’ jobless statistics while distracting from the creation of muchneeded new jobs for young people. Britain’s jobless total is 2.5million – an unemployment rate of 7.9 per cent, rising to 20.3 per cent among those aged 16 to 24.

Currently people have 2 choices at the lower end of the job market.

They either vie for a toilet cleaning or pot washing or some other menial job paying ~£5.80 an hour or they stick on the dole and do nothing, replete with all bills paid in the process.

IDS is trying to get the latter to do the former for free, as paying half the above amount

So why can't their be some happier medium? Say like a negative income tax scheme, or better yet to avoid those eeeville capitalists taskmasters from taking advantage of the good graces of a benevolent state (sarcasm aside - Ed) why not this?.

More Telling Than He Probably Realised

David Cameron has ruled out 'significant' tax cuts while the Government is cutting spending to reduce the deficit.
...
But Mr Cameron insisted there was no 'Plan B' on the coalition's deficit-reduction strategy and said tax cuts would only undo the work of painful curbs in public spending.

"Curbs" not cuts - the difference should be noted in his phrasing.

I happen to agree with Mr. Cameron; deficit reduction is now effectively a tax on our children and grandchildren - inter-generational state terrorism if you will - we should put the 11% overspending down; that should have been a non-negotiable start and done this year.

The Fabian left and Progressively Labourious would no doubt argue that a vast proportion of the present deficit was due to the bank bailout - and they would be right.

However, when state spending has reached an unjustifiable, nigh on 50% theft of total GDP slowly decoupling banking liabilities makes for a very useful start to cutting the overall tax take.

For a start.

Self Control's The Way To Go

That, or we start handing these out at chemists.

I once went to University and studied chemistry which I enjoyed, but quite frankly, was rubbish at; where you to ask me about some deeply complex chemistry theorem I would most likely look agog at you.

Despite this a fine blend of hubris, ego and lack of self-awareness (or honesty perhaps?) led to me taking my 2:1 Masters degree as evidence I was capable of a PhD; I was to move onto asking new questions rather than answering older ones.

Whether this would have proved I was the idiot I know I am now or not will never be answered, because it was during my first year that my parents teetering marriage finally went overboard and my entire family went mental (a story for another time), not least myself , newly married being unable to cope with becoming father (I'm the eldest) to my siblings whilst the original buggered off to mid-life crisistania whilst Mumra took off to De-Nileism.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, fearless reader I believe there is some relationship between what is happening in scientific "research" today in many fields and how my family behaved (behaves).

Lately science has become less about discovering new things and more about avoiding tricky questions that challenge old rules; my folks tried this for years to everyones detriment and it was once reality finally settled in that things that could've been cordial and polite became destructive and heartbreaking.

This looks like one of those questions scientists have been trying to avoid:

The drive to give free morning-after pills to teenage girls has failed to cut underage pregnancies.
Schemes to offer over-the-counter emergency birth control to girls under 16 have simply encouraged youngsters to have more unprotected sex, damning research found.
In doing so they have fuelled a rise in sexually transmitted diseases.
The findings are a blow to public health chiefs who have argued that handing out the morning-after pill cuts schoolgirl pregnancies.
Family campaigners seized on the research as more evidence that the problem of teenage pregnancies needs a ‘moral solution’ and not one based on dishing out drugs.

Now trying to at least retain some vestige of the scientist within
I decided you use some academic contacts to get a copy of the unreleased paper; this was a Fairly Pale story afterall, only to find that the authors had tried their hardest to back up their claims with several layers of statistical formulae - none of which really detracted from the overall picture the results painted; the evidence may not be on a par with truly empirical observation due to the small numbers involved, but it is compelling.

And it makes sense; people respond to incentives and if you offer them the opportunity to experience something in a little more pleasurable a manner to which the uninformed (or, if Dwayne really was lying to you and did sleep with the town bike, Dwaynerita, the lied to) see as having little cost associated with the action but to take 10 minutes out of their Trisha and Jeremy Kyle watching and pop down to the chemist's.

Knowing several teenage single mums I can see why the results are not as black and white as the Fail would wish (if not for their desire to beef up the rhetoric in the article mind); some rise to the challenge of parenthood admirably and make good with their lot - others not so much. How these 2 groups measure up is beyond me and I will leave it to Proffessor Paton, his group and others to ascertain.

One thing I am convinced of; these children ultimately have no father; they are the States progeny - having torn out the heart of personal responsibility by effectively subsidising baby-making they are now reaping all the unintended consequences.

And once one uncomfortable question is asked, the rest come tumbling out.

On A Lighter But Still Important Note...

Aunty Beeb is reporting yet another group of malcontents moaning they won't be sucking at the government teat anymore:

More than two-thirds of councils in England are planning major cuts to their bus budgets, it is claimed.

According to the Campaign for Better Transport, which is launching the Save our Buses campaign, some councils intend to end all subsidised services.

The Local Government Association also warned many bus routes would disappear as a result of government cutbacks.

Unfortunately matey what we are seeing here is the realisation of risks and cost of living in isolated areas; the cost can no longer be mitigated against hard pressed groups in urban areas as they are already squeezed from elsewhere - the crunch has put paid to that idea.

Still, you might want to ask about the way bus services are regulated cross-country, or how councils dictate the route and timings in many cases, leading to skewed incentives; same thing goes for National(ised) Rail and train providers.

Deal with these problems of provision, freeing people up to plan the best routes possible and the timing they can afford and see this situation change; even in poor countries we see the markets finding solutions to these issues.

Enraged.

Were it not for traffic I woul have undoubtedly arrived at work in tears and with a murderous gleam in my eye:

A baby was found dead in his pushchair in front of a blazing gas fire – his body charred and burned – after social services missed 17 chances to save him.

Alex Sutherland, aged 13 months, had been dead for at least three days, according to a harrowing report published yesterday.

You need not read any more than that; the horror was almost too much for me this morning , I dare not share it with Mrs. Tomrat.

What is wrong with people? I see the exact same destructive tendencies in some of the "families" our youth group belong to - it is an abuse of the word in many cases, with the occasional heartening case where families are simply doing everything they can with the little they have.

He said there was a lack of communication and joined-up working between agencies and he highlighted problems, with under-trained social workers and a ‘tick box’ mentality.
...
‘No single agency was responsible for failing to protect Child T from the chronic neglect which he suffered at the hands of his mother, but rather he was the victim of the multiple failures of all those agencies … to recognise the risks to which he was exposed and to take appropriate action.’
...
Pauline Newman, the city council’s director of Children’s Services, said it was clear ‘there were areas where we could have done better’.

She added: ‘We have carried out an extensive programme of work since this little boy died to ensure that staff fully understand the lessons that need to be taken on board from this tragedy.’

I'm not trying to absolve the mother of her horrible crime which should see her in jail for much longer than she has been given, but isn't the "lessons are being learned" excuse just getting a little tired? In a personal capacity I see this exact same 'horse:bolted' attitude throughout the social services almost as much as I do in the papers and it wore thin some 30 excuses ago.

You want some real lessons learned? Amend the Childrens Act and related documents so that it doesn't protect the authorities, only the families involved; injustices like this don't help the cause of child welfare when the state is happy to challenge unconventional lifestyle choices but not the destructive ones of their own creation.

Immediately fire every social worker, child protection bod and anyone else involved in social services or is a member of one of these myriad organisations who never seem to be directly responsible for any of these events but are learning a lot from them in what must surely be a cross between car crash television and an open university show and immediately fold them and all-comers into one agency; the police - form a specialist group within a publicly accountable, elected chief-led, police service to deal with this with police powers; at worst no one can mitigate the blame for such events across the old, lame "no one agency was to blame" excuse; I'm sure in this age of austerity the co-attrition would be happy to save the cash on executive jobsworths' in multiple social services.

Finally recognise that these abuses occur, by and large, by families fathered by the state; they consist predominantly of groups who treat their kids like proverbial meal tickets and derive their economic and social activity directly from the state, and the sins of the father, it's abuses and it's lawlessness is rubbing off; removing people wholesale from the states coat tails and forcing them to take care of themselves would be a good place to start - perhaps here.

None of this will stop bad parenting; only bad parents can stop this, but ye gods is it really so much to ask that when the state dips it oar unto every aspect of our lives it takes some flaming responsibility for the fallout?