Society

Tuesday

3 Feb 2009

Choice Matters: Education Division

There are some policy ideas that one supports while recognising that they may come with costs, in some cases considerable costs (eg, drug legalisation, open borders, etc etc.) But I confess that I remain mystified by the ferocity with which so many people oppose something as seemingly uncontroversial as school choice. Because it’s not as though school choice doesn’t already exist. It does. But you have to be reasonably well-off to either pay for your kids to be educated in the private sector or pay the mortgage premium to move house to be inside a leading state school’s catchment area. Neither of these strike me as illegitimate choices (though logically

Peter Hoskin

A reminder | 3 February 2009

Our ‘Do you support the strikers?’ poll closes at 10pm this evening. If you want to register your vote before then, do so by clicking here. At the moment, the voting stands as follows… Question 1: Do you agree with the workers who have walked out in protest at the subcontracting of work to foreign companies and their workers? Yes: 52.8 percent No: 35.8 percent I don’t know enough about the details of the Total case: 11.6 percent Question 2: Do you support the free movement of workers within the European Union? Yes: 54.0 percent No: 39.2 percent

Alex Massie

The Day the Music Died

Fifty years, then, since Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the “Big Bopper” died. Yet it could have been even worse: Waylon Jennings was supposed to be on that plane too: “I remember the last time I saw Buddy,” Jennings said in his interview with CMT.com. “He had me go get us some hot dogs. He was leaning back against the wall in a cane-bottom chair and he was laughing at me. He said, ‘So you’re not going with us tonight on the plane, huh? Well, I hope your ol’ bus freezes up. It’s 40-below out there and you’re gonna get awful cold. So I said, ‘Well, I hope your ol’

Peter Hoskin

Setting a timetable for reprivatisation

Niall Ferguson’s article in today’s FT may concentrate on the case of US banks, but it contains much food for thought for UK policymakers. Here are a few key paragraphs: “The US could end up running a deficit of more than 10 per cent of gross domestic product this year (adding the cost of the stimulus package to the Congressional Budget Office’s optimistic 8.3 per cent forecast). Today’s born-again Keynesians seem to have forgotten that their prescription of a deficit-financed fiscal stimulus stood the best chance of working in a more or less closed economy. But this is a globalised world, where unco-ordinated profligacy by national governments is more likely

Alex Massie

Department of Pronunciation

A friend’s wife was conducting a teacher training session in Anacostia, Washington DC the other day: “In one of the classes that she worked in there were two children with oddly spelled, and thus oddly pronounced, names. Let’s see if you can figure out how these names are pronounced 1) “Bukat”- hint, the child is a boy and is named after a famous African American of the late 19th century and early 20th century 2) “La-a”- this one is challenging… The hyphen is part of the pronunciation. I confess, dear reader, that both of these names flummoxed me. Answers below the fold. 1) Bukat- this is pronounced (Book-uh-Tee) as in

James Forsyth

The bad war is coming good, while the good war is going bad

One of the more simplistic foreign policy notions of recent times is that Iraq is the bad war and Afghanistan the good war. Barack Obama, many members of the British government and the European establishment are—or at least were—subscribers to this notion. (Disgracefully, British Ministers would use it in semi-public setting even while British troops were fighting in Iraq). But, ironically, Obama and the West are now dealing with a situation where success has never been nearer in Iraq or further away in Afghanistan. The peaceful provincial elections In Iraq, where the extremist religious parties appear to have fared poorly, was further evidence that Iraq is on the rough path

Peter Hoskin

A vanguard for the Tories’ waste-cutting message

What with the snow, it’s been a testing couple of days for Transport for London. But the interview with the organisation’s head, Peter Hendy, in today’s Standard paints a encouraging picture. I was particularly struck by this passage: “It doesn’t help either that TfL, which employs 28,000 people, has just announced swingeing job cuts of up to 1,800 staff. ‘People have said it’s because of the recession but these cuts have nothing to do with the credit crunch,’ [Hendy] says. ‘In fact, the latest figures show that journeys taken on the Tube and bus are up one per cent and three per cent respectively on the previous year.’ Rather, the

James Forsyth

Is the next election result a done deal?

There is a typically thoughtful column in The Independent today by Steve Richards responding to those columnists, principally Matt, who have declared that Labour has already lost the next election and that David Cameron will be the next Prime Minister. Steve presents four reasons, one each about Brown and Cameron’s leadership and two about the current crisis and the ideological pull it is exerting, for why the election result might not yet be a done deal. Steve is right that the political landscape has moved left because of the economic crisis. But, in an odd way, this might benefit the Tories. The state did not nationalise the banks because of

James Forsyth

Snow Balls

The Today Programme was as snow obsessed today as it was on Monday. Once more it dominated both the 7 and 8 am news bulletins, one would think there was nothing else going on in the world. But the height of absurdity was reached soon after 8.10 am when a reporter asked if we should invest in the same snow preparedness measures as Moscow and Stockholm. So, on Coffee House we’re launching a new feature that’ll last until the snow melts: Snow Balls. Leave in the comments the most ridiculous comments you hear or see in the media about the snow. The best entry wins the usual bottle of Coffee

Peter Hoskin

Mind the pay gap

Given the worries that many in the private sector have over both their financial and job security, the ‘pay gap’ figures highlighted by Francis Maude could well provoke a bit of anger. Here’s how the Mail reports them: State workers now earn an average £62 a week more than their private sector counterparts – a 50 per cent increase in the differential since 2004. … It comes at a time when public sector employment is rising while private workers are losing their jobs at a rate of more than 1,000 a day. … In 2004, estimated median public sector earnings – those in the middle range of pay – were

Alex Massie

Organ Markets

Interesting piece from ABC News about people trying to find kidney donors via Craigslist. This leapt out however: But some families who talked to ABC News say once they find a kidney outside of the traditional organ-donor waiting list system, they have faced hospitals that are suspicious or unprepared to deal with the legal and ethical questions of harvesting an organ from a living person located through personal ads. Only 10 percent of transplant centers will consider doing a kidney transplant from an altruistic live donor who is not related or known by the patient. And only 20-30 percent of transplant centers are willing to perform a so-called “kidney swap”

Monday

2 Feb 2009

Alex Massie

License to Print Money

The nice people at the Tote would like to give you some money. How else to explain their generous decision to permit you to back Shivnarine Chanderpaul to be the West Indies leading run-scorer in the forthcoming Test series at the odds of 7/4? The “true” price should be, at best, about evens. I also think that 7/2 on the West Indies winning the series is not a terrible proposition either. They’re a team on the up and barring some sudden reversal of form it’s not obvious that England are well-placed to take 20 wickets all that often.

James Forsyth

Stimulating support for the stimulus

One of the key political questions about the stimulus was whether it would increase or decrease Obama momentum, whether the President would find it easier or harder to get controversial legislation through Congress afterwards. The initial package Obama proposed was politically savvy, 40 percent of the stimulus would come from tax cuts—an idea that Republicans liked. This seemed to guarantee a decent level of bi-partisan support for the bill which would have strengthened Obama’s hand going forward. But then, House Democrats got their hands on the bill. In the package that the House voted on, only 22 percent of the stimulus came through tax cuts and funding had been added

Rory Sutherland

The Super Bowl ads weren’t that super

I rather like baseball, but I must admit I find American Football incomprehensible and slightly absurd: much of it seems to be a bad game of rugby played by motorcylists. Although, in its defence (pronounced dee-fence), the very best moments are spectacular. This year I forced myself to watch Superbowl XLIII, preferring to view online via www.ustream.com and not on the BBC in order to see the advertising. The Superbowl has over the years become a showcase for American advertising at its extravagant best – and the commercials now form part of the overall razzamatazz . A few—most famously the 1984 60-second spot for the launch of the Apple Macintosh,

Peter Hoskin

Snow: the last thing Gordon wanted?

Right, I’ve been determined to avoid posting about the snow, but this FT article is just too eye-catching to go unnoted. It reports that today’s snowfall, and the increased absenteeism it’s precipitated, has cost the economy around £1 billion. Hardly ideal during a recession, and things could get worse. Here’s a quote from Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses: “If this goes on for a few days or even a week that could sink into the recession and make it longer than it would have been. This has knocked back the spring feel good factor, which we hoped would kick start the economy.” For once, Brown may be

James Forsyth

Do you support the strikers? Vote after the jump

Judging by the reaction to my post this morning and Fraser’s one on Sunday, most Coffee House commenters appear—unlike Fraser and myself—to be on the side of the strikers and against the free movement of workers within the European Union. To see where Coffee Housers come down on this issue, please do vote in our two question poll (questions after the jump). We’ll publish the results tomorrow evening. Online Surveys & Market Research

James Forsyth

Clegg needs to look more distinctive

Reading today’s Independent report on Nick Clegg’s town hall meetings, I thought they sounded like a copy of Cameron Direct, the Tory leader’s QandA sessions across the country. But it turns out Clegg held his first town hall on the 10th January, 2008 and Cameron didn’t launch Cameron Direct until the third of June. So if anyone is copying anybody else, it is Cameron. But in a way, this highlights the problem facing Clegg: even when he pioneers something, he doesn’t get the credit. The Lib Dems are at their best when they are distinctive from the two main parties. But Clegg, in manner and style, is just too similar

Peter Hoskin

Osborne banks on “debt responsibility”

Competent performance from George Osborne just now, setting out the Tories’ “new banking settlement” by which – among other things – the Bank of England would have greater powers to “call time on excessive debt”. It sounds promising enough. But, as usual with regulatory systems, the proof of this particular pudding will come with the eating. Only a Tory government will let us know how it works in practice. Aside from that, Osborne dwelt on the familiar touchstones – welfare reform, schools reform, an Office for Budget Responsibility etc. Although it seems to me that the Tories are now taking greater pains to set out just how difficult things will

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 2 February – 8 February

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

James Forsyth

When to talk to the Taliban

Paddy Ashdown has an open letter to Barack Obama’s Pakistan and Afghanistan envoy, Richard Holbrooke, in The Times today. In it, Ashdown makes a crucial point about talking to the Taliban: “In the end it will probably be necessary, provided they will put aside the gun in favour of the ballot box. But they are in no mood for talking now, because they think they are winning. The first step is get them on the back foot, militarily – which is where the surge is so important. They must be convinced we have the force, the will and the staying power to beat them, before they will come to the