The Tories - excellent and atrocious

Fraser has a great piece in this week's magazine on the Tories' education plans. Readers will know I have my problems with David Cameron, but if the Conservatives are serious about implementing Michael Gove's 'Swedish model' policy - and there's nothing to suggest they are not - then that alone is a good reason to vote Conservative next time round.

As Fraser writes:

The Prime Minister is known to take a dim view of all this. Choice, he argues, means the maintenance of surplus places which he equates with waste. Yet the irony is that his profligate spending has made the Tory voucher scheme possible: education spending is so high that funding per pupil is now sufficient to make it desirable to set up a school. And there are plenty of Blairite ministers who privately concede that Mr Cameron is right. ‘It’s exactly the right idea,’ a Cabinet member told me recently. ‘Our problem is that we have too many “top-down” people in the Labour party. They have won.’

What a contrast the education policy makes with the party's lamentable NHS policy. You'd have thought that a government which has thrown billions of pounds down the drain testing the idea that the answer to the NHS's problems is more money would have the upper hand when it comes to crazed NHS policies. But no. Give Labour the credit at least for introducing elements of competition. Give the Tories under Andrew Lansley no credit, because they deserve none. Their plan is to entrench producer capture in the NHS's very fabric, a policy which makes Labour look like the very model of modern public service stewardship.

And as if that wasn't enough, Andrew Lansley now comes out with his latest piece of worse-than-socialism. Fraser's take is spot on:

One wonders what David Cameron said to Andrew Lansley after his Times interview where he says 11% of GDP should be spent on health. A number of responses spring to mind:-

1) Please explain to me why you considered it helpful to come up with this 11% figure. Please. I’m interested.

2) Did anyone authorise this 11% figure? Or was it in the faxed instructions the BMA send you each morning in large type?”

3) How am I supposed to handle the rest of the Shadow Cabinet who all want spending on their departments? Davis wanted extra cash to say he’d pay the policemen, a pittance. George denied him – and he shut up. That’s called “discipline”, and it wins things called “elections”. Heard of them?

4) Have you learnt nothing from the Labour failures of seeing spending as a virtue in itself? Is this how you’ll govern the NHS? Or sorry, I forgot, you’ll make them independent – so they’ll govern themselves; your role confined to writing the cheques.

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Computers, eh?

Apologies for the lack of posts. I arrived home, turned on my pc and...nothing. It is no more.

(It is, need I point out, a Dell. I had a Dell years ago and vowed never again. Lord knows what possessed me to buy another one, but I did. And it's been dreadful from the start. Never again. Never, ever again. I'm going back to Sony, who have never failed me.)

Anyway, I've no access to this Webnetinfosuperhighway thingy until I buy a new pc, which I will be doing today. Assuming all is well, I'll be back this evening.

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The Archbishop of La-La-Land, at it again

It seems Rowan Williams is more self-aware than we may have given him credit for, judging by this headline on his Guardian piece:

It's adults, not young people, who are a public menace.

As for the piece itself...if you though his thoughts on sharia showed how he lives in another world, this one is just as bizarre. Here's what one of the commenters writes: 

Yesterday after a hard morning's toil at the allotment I stopped to pass the time of day with a like-minded artisan. We discussed a recent killing in our village of a middle- aged man who was confronted by four young people early on New Year's morning. In the ensuing scuffle the man fell over and banged his head on the kerb. The four young people are out on bail. The widow is frightened to return to her work in a garage because these splendid examples of Britain's youth have made it clear that they will make her life a misery if she as much as shows her face.

Nor is this an isolated example.I rarely venture forth after dark because it is quite apparent that gangs of young people seem to be roaming the streets unchecked. I live not in an urban wilderness, but in pleasant seaside hamlet which has a new village green with goalposts and other facilities. There is a football club with adjacent premises where young people can congregate and make as much noise as they like. There is tennis club supported by local business men. A cricket club is there for all to use. We have youth clubs belonging to the four churches in the village. Within two miles radius there are three parks. I could go on, but no doubt you have the picture.

The problem lies not with adult behaviour toward young people but rather with the attitude of our legislators who have nurtured successive generations that believe they can do anything they like without check or hindrance because quite honestly that is what they do day after day.

My fellow allotment holder is an ex-seaman who is used to violence. He carries a hammer with him which he says he will use if confronted. At a guess I would put his age over seventy.

Now that is what we have come down to in my village.

In my opinion Archbishop there is something very seriously wrong for which you and those like you should bear responsiblity.

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Tunnel vision

Do have a read of Kit Malthouse's excellent Times piece today on tunnels:

...Other cities have of course been burrowing for years. In Canada, they face not a space problem but an issue with the weather: when it's minus 25C, how do you keep people shopping? By digging of course.

Underneath downtown Toronto lies the PATH, an underground city stretching for 16 miles. With four million square feet of space, it is equivalent in size to 1.5 Empire State Buildings, employs 5,000 people in 1,200 shops and connects more than 50 surface buildings with five underground stations. Montreal has the same, only bigger. Paris, of course, has the Forum des Halles, a huge underground shopping mall, with a park on the roof. Delhi, Moscow, Tokyo and many others all take the same approach.

...The entire Hyde Park Corner interchange could be dropped below ground, and the three great parks of Central London could be united. You could walk from Parliament Sinquare to Queensway, about three miles, without crossing a road. Park Lane would be freed up for redevelopment, and a grand new public square could be created at Marble Arch. 

...According to the AA, driving in a tunnel is twice as safe as on the surface and there are no pedestrians or cyclists to get in your way. Emissions can be collected and new techniques can “scrub” them from the air, allowing all of us to breath a little easier.

I've been boring on (ha, ha!) about tunnels for years. I'm writing this from Brussels, where it's almost impossible to go from A to B without driving through  tunnel at some point. Just think of how much we could transform London for the better for just a fraction of the money being thrown at the Olympics. It makes one despair.

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Tax rates and tax havens

There's an excellent piece by Dan Mitchell in the WSJ on an unpopular case: the case for tax havens, prompted by the German government's purchase of information stolen from a Liechtenstein bank (followed, it now seems, by HMRC buying the same data).  Here's an extract:

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is trying to use the imbroglio to resuscitate its initiative against tax competition. Willem Buiter, a professor at the London School of Economics, is using the issue to push an even more radical agenda: the forcible annexation -- by nations like Austria and France, under some unknown authority -- of jurisdictions such as Liechtenstein, Andorra and Monaco.

At best, these crusades against tax havens are misguided. At worst, they are an effort to create a tax cartel for the benefit of high-tax nations. This OPEC for politicians would mean higher tax rates for everyone and bigger government.

Wealthy tax evaders may not be sympathetic figures, especially to those of us who meekly comply with the law. But low-tax jurisdictions serve a valuable role in the world economy. Simply stated, they keep other governments honest. Globalization makes it easier for labor and capital to cross national borders, forcing governments to improve tax policy to keep the geese with the golden eggs from flying away.

Tax competition first became a big issue following the Thatcher and Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s. Responding to the increased attractiveness of the U.K. and U.S. economies, every single industrialized nation has been forced to lower personal tax rates in an effort to stay competitive. The average top tax rate in the developed world has dropped from more than 67% in 1980 to barely 40% today.

The same thing is happening to corporate tax rates. Back in 1980, corporate tax rates averaged nearly 50%. Today, led by Ireland's 12.5% corporate tax, the average corporate rate in the industrialized world is less than 27%. As the World Bank explained in its recent "Paying Taxes" report, these lower rates create incentives for more investment, which leads to faster growth, more jobs, higher incomes and what Berlin seems to be most concerned about: better compliance.

...[T]he academic literature increasingly shows that excess taxation of capital income causes significant economic damage, largely because people have less incentive to set aside some of today's income to finance tomorrow's growth. High tax rates on saving and investment also cause inefficient tax-avoidance behavior. 

There's a danger that, in dealing with havens as being an inextricable part of the case for tax competition, the case for both is lost. But really, the only people who serve to gain from diminished tax competition are bureaucrats and politicians who want the ability to take ever-greater amounts of our money to spend on ever-less worthwhile schemes.

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David Cameron is wrong, pure and simple

Some - almost all - of the commenters on my post below on David Cameron's Auschwitz trip gimmick comment accuse me of missing the point - that all the Tory leader was doing was saying that in announcing such trips and then leaving schools to find £100 for them, Gordon Brown was being typically gimmicky.

In fact, my post acknowledged that that was Mr Cameron's purpose, but pointed out the political reality of what he said and how he said it. (I didn't write this but there was initially a document circulated which was simply a list of Labour's gimmicks, with 'Trips to Auschwitz' listed as No 4. No context, no explanation, no nothing.)

I was alerted to this by a friend who has been involved in this area who was beyond indignant. She is not a fool and knew perfectly well the context of the gimmick accusation - the £100 schools have to find. She is also a Conservative. And she was heated with anger that Mr Cameron should choose this as a politcal weapon when the gimmick he claimed was no gimmick at all. 

In that vein, I'd like to post here a comment left on my original post by someone else involved in the trips. Regular readers ewill know I am the last person to defend the government for its public spending habits. But in this instance, Mr Cameron is wrong, wrong, wrong, and has done himself immense harm by  trying to score political points on the foundation of a deep ignorance:  

I am an educator on these trips and am actually going on one such trip to Auschwitz tomorrow with 200 students.

In saying that this is indeed a gimmick becuase the schools are being asked for £100 towards the cost, I am afraid that many of you miss the point.

These trips have been running for 9 years and until two years ago the Holocaust Educational Trust was only able to afford to organise two trips a year - base in London. Thanks to the Government, there were 9 trips last year and will be 15 this year - departing from all over the country. With the Government's help, over 2000 more students are able to go each year than previously.

Of course, there are a range of views on the educational value of a day visit to Auschwitz. Howevere, what is undeniable is the impact it makes on these studnets, and the follow up work that they do n their schools and communities to educate about the evils of xenophobia, racism and prejudice.

I am a Tory voter , and Lord knows there is much to criticise this government for. But this is something they have got right, and David Cameron has got very wrong. His attack is simply ignorant and makes me look at him in a very different light.

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Ignorance is bliss...from a state school

There's a rather good piece on CiF by Anne Perkins on the real issue in private and state schooling:

The people who complain about the private sector's success at getting students into Oxford and Cambridge are wasting their energy on the wrong target. They need to look elsewhere, to the failure of state schools to inspire and nurture their best talent. 

This comment made me laugh:

"What is really wrong about private education providing a better education than state school is that state schools are not providing it."

Can anyone interpret this for me?

(And before I get the inevitable indignant comments...that's a JOKE.)

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Sometimes, the best ideas are free (The Times)

I have a piece in today's Times about changes in how intellectul property operates in the internet age. Here's an extract: 

Every year six million Brits download pirated films, TV programmes and music. One illegal site offers the latest films for £1.50. In legal theory, they are copyright protected and their owners decide when and for how much they can be bought. In illegal practice, they can be downloaded for next to nothing.

A few years ago ISPs could have monitored downloading activities by their users. But such has been the growth in the number of internet users and the capability of their programs, that holding ISPs responsible is almost like holding British Telecom responsible for the content of every phone conversation.

As technology advances, the economic model on which copyright protection is based changes by the day. Traditional forms look increasingly like old models for an old world. Ways of recouping investment and rewarding innovation still have to be found.

Take films. If pirate copies can be downloaded easily, studios have to develop new ways of ensuring a return. Today no Hollywood studio allows legal downloads of the best, most recent films; the pirates have an open goal. A prerequisite is thus to get online properly. And then to be reasonably priced.

But the new world of intellectual property lends itself to counterintuitive thinking. The pirates charge for their downloads. So how about studios simply giving away films, but with some kind of accompanying advertising - the model many websites use?

Last Thursday Microsoft, whose name is synonymous with the existing model of copyright protection, underwent a revolution. It suddenly released more than 30,000 pages of previously rigidly protected software protocols.Microsoft recognised that instead of always fighting to hold on to some of its intellectual property, it can do even better by allowing other developers to adopt and adapt its software.

The new world of intellectual property can seem like a looking-glass world. But sometimes, giving away some of your property can help you to make money. 

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Weird

I'm sitting in the lobby of the iconic Adlon Hotel in Berlin. And the pianist is playing 'If I Was a Rich Man' from Fiddler on the Roof.
Times change.

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Apologies...

...for the lack of posts. I'm on a jaunt: lunch in Berlin, dinner in Brussels. (Neither of which are a patch on Wembley yesterday!)

I'll be back posting later tonight.

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