It's been a few weeks now since the Cabinet reshuffle at which Andrew Lansley lost his job as health secretary, to be replaced by Jeremy Hunt. The feeling inside the NHS was very much one of "out of the frying pan, into the fire" and this was pretty much confirmed a couple of days ago when Hunt lined up Christine Lineen to be one of his policy advisors.
But apart from that and a couple of hospital visits, Hunt has stayed quiet. It remains to be seen what impact he'll have on Lansley's plans for a complete top-down reorganisation of the NHS - the very thing the Coalition Agreement (and the Tories' pre-election pledges) promised would not happen.
It's worth pondering where it went wrong for Lansley. Was it that broken promise, going against the very fabric upon which the current government was built? Or was it his final throw of the dice - his plans to market the NHS abroad? Or perhaps it was his failure to communicate openly and honestly about what he was really planning to do - or maybe, on the other hand, he gave too much away.
That "marketing abroad" thing is a good example of the lack of joined up thinking on the NHS from the Tories. One thing it gets right is that the NHS is a brand, shared by lots of different organisations, not one big organisation. So it wasn't "the NHS" that Lansley suggested should be marketed abroad, but individual NHS trusts.
Now the key thing to remember here is that the NHS is, rightly or wrongly, a competitive marketplace. Just like in other businesses, NHS trusts work together in some areas and compete in others. And just like in other industries, NHS trusts will try to leverage any competitive advantage they can find to out-do their rivals. So it's vital that any new innovation applied to this marketplace is done so fairly and doesn't unfairly hand an advantage to some trusts while disadvantaging others.
This is where the NHS as a marketplace is already institutionally unfair. Because while informed healthcare commissioners will judge trusts based on their performance, many will simply opt for the big brand names. So no matter how hard other children's hospitals work, no matter how much they achieve, they'd never be able to match the Great Ormond Street brand, even if GOSH performed really really badly. This skewing of the marketplace is constantly reinforced by the likes of Lord Sugar and Piers Morgan constantly trumpeting GOSH and ignoring their hard-working competitors and other children's hospitals up and down the country who do just as good a job.
The big hospital brands are already the richest. They are not the ones that need help.
This is where Lansley's suggestion is typical of the Tories. It allows the rich to get richer and keeps the poor poor. Lansley was adamant that any money raised from the "marketing abroad" exercise would be ploughed back into the NHS. What he neglected to say very clearly was which parts of the NHS would receive that money: the answer is that the rich trusts that can afford to market themselves abroad would be allowed to keep the proceeds. The rest of the NHS would not gain a penny from the initiative.
One of the criticisms of Lansley's plan was that Labour had already announced something similar when they were in government. But the stark difference was that Andy Burnham's plan involved marketing the NHS as a whole, with the NHS as a whole reaping the benefits. Lansley's plan was simply yet another way of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Further unbalancing the NHS marketplace in such away offers no hope at all for lower profile trusts, no matter how well they perform.
The NHS was intended to be a single, united, national health service not a brand war battlefield. I sincerely hope Jeremy Hunt catches hold of that original vision and stops the pointless fragmentation and wasteful inter-hospital rivalry that his predecessor was so keen to exacerbate.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Some AV myths, busted
Next week's referendum on the UK's voting system is really important; it's vital that we get rid of the ridiculous First Past The Post (FPTP) system and replace it with something fairer, like the Alternative Vote (AV). Sadly though both sets of campaign teams are letting us all down. The "no" camp are slinging naked lies and misinformation around the place, which a lot of people are apparently being taken in by, while the "yes" camp keep harping on about how AV would "make MPs work harder" - which is a pretty poor thing to latch onto given there are much better reasons for voting AV.
So here I hope to dispel some of the myths that the "no" camp are spreading around, as well as give some better reasons to vote AV.
Myth #1: Hung parliaments and coalition governments are more likely with AV than FPTP
Australia has been using AV for over 80 years. During that time we have had more hung parliaments in the UK, using FPTP, than in Australia have had with AV.
Myth #2: Switching to AV would require hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment in vote-counting machines
There are no plans to introduce vote counting machines if the country says yes to AV. In Australia, votes are counted by hand and the system works.
Myth #3: AV goes against the principle of one person, one vote
On the contrary, AV upholds this principle better than FPTP does. With AV every voter's vote counts exactly once towards the result of the election; there are no wasted votes. With FPTP, any vote that isn't for the biggest two or three parties doesn't affect the outcome and is wasted.
In an AV election, if your first-choice candidate is eliminated your vote is transferred to your second-choice candidate, while my vote stays with my first choice candidate. Neither of us gets any more votes than the other.
Myth #4: AV is complicated, most people can't understand it
AV is very similar to the voting on most reality TV shows - the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and the people who voted for that candidate can transfer their support to someone else. Millions of people in Britain are familiar with this kind of system because they've watched it at work on Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing on Ice, The X-Factor, Big Brother, etc.
Of course if you applied FPTP to those shows, not only would the losing candidate at each round be eliminated but the people who voted for them wouldn't be allowed to vote in any future rounds.
Myth #5: AV can't be explained in one sentence
I pretty much did that above: the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes transfer to those voters' next preferences, until a candidate has more than 50% of the votes.
Myth #6: You need more knowledge of politics to use AV effectively
The vast majority of people have enough knowledge to rank the candidates on offer with a simple 1, 2, 3. There's no need to think about tactics with AV in order to make your vote count, whereas with FPTP you need a good understanding of how people voted last time and how they're likely to vote this time to decide which of two fairly close candidates you should choose to vote for. FPTP encourages gameplay and dishonesty, and requires a great deal of political tactical knowledge and a lot of guesswork to make your vote count; AV simply doesn't.
Myth #7: AV costs more than FPTP
In the UK most vote-counting is done by volunteers. It's true that an AV election may take longer to count and process than an FPTP one, but if this time is being given for free there's no real cost implication. Even if AV does cost slightly more, it is surely a price worth paying for a fairer system. All elections cost money and if cost was more important than democracy surely we wouldn't have elections at all.
Myth #8: FPTP has served us well for this long, it's therefore fit for purpose now
The political landscape has changed significantly over the last 20 years or so. Gone are the days where we had a two-party system and everyone was either Labour or Tory with a few floating voters in marginal seats having all the power to make or break governments. With the advent and increasing popularity of other parties (not all of which are still active) such as the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the Green Party, Socialist Labour, Veritas, the BNP, the Referendum Party, and others, FPTP no longer cuts the mustard. Most voters, instead of lining up solidly with one party, find that their views are partially represented by many parties, some more so than others. AV allows voters to express this range of preferences, whereas FPTP comes nowhere near reflecting, or even recording, what voters' views really are.
Myth #9: The voting system is a matter of personal preference - there's nothing objective
On the contrary, there have been many independent studies looking at voting systems, their relative merits and pitfalls, and what would fit best for the UK.
When New Labour were elected in 1997 they established an independent commission to examine the options for voting MPs into the UK Parliament. The Independent Commission on the Voting System published their findings in 1998, having looked at FPTP, AV and proportional representation. Their findings were conclusive, and they recommended AV for electing constituency MPs. (They also recommended that there should be some additional "top-up" MPs that span several constituencies).
A New Scientist article last yearFPTP]".
Some would argue that these next two are not as independent as those above; I'll let you be the judge of that.
The UK's leading progressive think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, published a paper earlier this year whose title says it all: Worst of Both Worlds: Why First Past the Post no longer works.
The Electoral Reform Society favours a fully proportional system, which would do away with the notion of having a single MP covering a single constituency; instead teams of MPs would be elected covering much bigger constituencies, using the method we currently use for electing MEPs. But when looking at AV against FPTP, which is what next week's referendum is a choice between, they are clear: "The Electoral Reform Society regards AV as the best voting system when a single position is being elected."
The "no to AV" campaigners have completely failed to find any similarly independent papers or evidence that supports FPTP over AV. With such strong evidence showing that AV is the better system, there's little wonder that the "no" campaigners have resorted to smear tactics and the peddling of myths in order to help their campaign. But if the public believe those myths and vote "no" next week, it will be a very sad day indeed for Britain and a very sad day for democracy.
We're unlikely to get another chance to change the voting system, and it sorely needs changing. Please vote Yes to the Alternative Vote.
So here I hope to dispel some of the myths that the "no" camp are spreading around, as well as give some better reasons to vote AV.
Myth #1: Hung parliaments and coalition governments are more likely with AV than FPTP
Australia has been using AV for over 80 years. During that time we have had more hung parliaments in the UK, using FPTP, than in Australia have had with AV.
Myth #2: Switching to AV would require hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment in vote-counting machines
There are no plans to introduce vote counting machines if the country says yes to AV. In Australia, votes are counted by hand and the system works.
Myth #3: AV goes against the principle of one person, one vote
On the contrary, AV upholds this principle better than FPTP does. With AV every voter's vote counts exactly once towards the result of the election; there are no wasted votes. With FPTP, any vote that isn't for the biggest two or three parties doesn't affect the outcome and is wasted.
In an AV election, if your first-choice candidate is eliminated your vote is transferred to your second-choice candidate, while my vote stays with my first choice candidate. Neither of us gets any more votes than the other.
Myth #4: AV is complicated, most people can't understand it
AV is very similar to the voting on most reality TV shows - the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and the people who voted for that candidate can transfer their support to someone else. Millions of people in Britain are familiar with this kind of system because they've watched it at work on Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing on Ice, The X-Factor, Big Brother, etc.
Of course if you applied FPTP to those shows, not only would the losing candidate at each round be eliminated but the people who voted for them wouldn't be allowed to vote in any future rounds.
Myth #5: AV can't be explained in one sentence
I pretty much did that above: the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes transfer to those voters' next preferences, until a candidate has more than 50% of the votes.
Myth #6: You need more knowledge of politics to use AV effectively
The vast majority of people have enough knowledge to rank the candidates on offer with a simple 1, 2, 3. There's no need to think about tactics with AV in order to make your vote count, whereas with FPTP you need a good understanding of how people voted last time and how they're likely to vote this time to decide which of two fairly close candidates you should choose to vote for. FPTP encourages gameplay and dishonesty, and requires a great deal of political tactical knowledge and a lot of guesswork to make your vote count; AV simply doesn't.
Myth #7: AV costs more than FPTP
In the UK most vote-counting is done by volunteers. It's true that an AV election may take longer to count and process than an FPTP one, but if this time is being given for free there's no real cost implication. Even if AV does cost slightly more, it is surely a price worth paying for a fairer system. All elections cost money and if cost was more important than democracy surely we wouldn't have elections at all.
Myth #8: FPTP has served us well for this long, it's therefore fit for purpose now
The political landscape has changed significantly over the last 20 years or so. Gone are the days where we had a two-party system and everyone was either Labour or Tory with a few floating voters in marginal seats having all the power to make or break governments. With the advent and increasing popularity of other parties (not all of which are still active) such as the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the Green Party, Socialist Labour, Veritas, the BNP, the Referendum Party, and others, FPTP no longer cuts the mustard. Most voters, instead of lining up solidly with one party, find that their views are partially represented by many parties, some more so than others. AV allows voters to express this range of preferences, whereas FPTP comes nowhere near reflecting, or even recording, what voters' views really are.
Myth #9: The voting system is a matter of personal preference - there's nothing objective
On the contrary, there have been many independent studies looking at voting systems, their relative merits and pitfalls, and what would fit best for the UK.
When New Labour were elected in 1997 they established an independent commission to examine the options for voting MPs into the UK Parliament. The Independent Commission on the Voting System published their findings in 1998, having looked at FPTP, AV and proportional representation. Their findings were conclusive, and they recommended AV for electing constituency MPs. (They also recommended that there should be some additional "top-up" MPs that span several constituencies).
A New Scientist article last yearFPTP]".
Some would argue that these next two are not as independent as those above; I'll let you be the judge of that.
The UK's leading progressive think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, published a paper earlier this year whose title says it all: Worst of Both Worlds: Why First Past the Post no longer works.
The Electoral Reform Society favours a fully proportional system, which would do away with the notion of having a single MP covering a single constituency; instead teams of MPs would be elected covering much bigger constituencies, using the method we currently use for electing MEPs. But when looking at AV against FPTP, which is what next week's referendum is a choice between, they are clear: "The Electoral Reform Society regards AV as the best voting system when a single position is being elected."
The "no to AV" campaigners have completely failed to find any similarly independent papers or evidence that supports FPTP over AV. With such strong evidence showing that AV is the better system, there's little wonder that the "no" campaigners have resorted to smear tactics and the peddling of myths in order to help their campaign. But if the public believe those myths and vote "no" next week, it will be a very sad day indeed for Britain and a very sad day for democracy.
We're unlikely to get another chance to change the voting system, and it sorely needs changing. Please vote Yes to the Alternative Vote.
Cameron "incorrect and highly misleading", says Oxford University
Tony Blair. Remember him? He was a pretty good prime minister on the whole, did wonders for the NHS and education, but made a few blunders on the international front. He'll always be remembered for the Iraq War - probably his biggest blunder by quite a long way. Perhaps the reason Iraq stands out so much in our minds when we think of Blair's tenure is that a mistake of that magnitude was in stark contrast to what Blair's government were doing in other areas. It wasn't all good, but it was infinitely better than what the Tories had offered in the previous government under John Major. And when you hear Blair talking about Iraq, he still thinks it was the right thing to do; perhaps that's naive of him, perhaps it's incompetent, but the important thing is that it's genuine. Blair was trying to do what was right, he believed his advisors when they told him that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and he acted on that advice. He did not set out to deliberately mislead people.
Sadly that cannot be said for David Cameron. He hasn't been in office long, and he has already made some pretty stupid mistakes; today, for example, Oxford University responded to his daft assertion that they had only admitted one black student in 2009, saying he had been "incorrect and highly misleading". Apparently the actual number is 26, which is still appallingly low, so Cameron's argument should still hold some weight - but because he got his facts wrong, Oxford University have pretty much dismissed his argument. It's a bit like the light bulb thing all over again.
In that case, though, perhaps Cameron made an honest mistake. It makes him look stupid for a few moments, but it's forgiveable; it doesn't really undermine any trust we happen to have in him. Were he, though, to attempt to deliberately mislead people, that would be a different matter - and sadly, today, he's been doing exactly that.
"It's a system," he said of the Alternative Vote, "so undemocratic that you can vote for a mainstream party just once, whereas someone can vote for a fringe party like the BNP and it's counted three times..."
Wrong.
The circumstances he's alluding to are where a party, in this case the BNP, receive the smallest share of the vote. Under AV in those circumstances, the BNP are wiped out of the competition and those votes are transferred to the second choice candidates. The key word there being transferred. Votes for the BNP would not be counted three times - in fact they would stop counting at all. David Cameron knows this, and in making statements like the one above he is deliberately trying to mislead voters, attempting to scaremonger them into submission.
A true democrat would lay the facts on the table in an honest way, argue his corner without fabricating rubbish like that, and let the electorate decide. A worthy Prime Minister would not deliberately attempt to mislead the electorate in such a despicable way. Today David Cameron showed his true colours: he's anti democracy, and he's not sufficiently trustworthy to be our Prime Minister.
Sadly that cannot be said for David Cameron. He hasn't been in office long, and he has already made some pretty stupid mistakes; today, for example, Oxford University responded to his daft assertion that they had only admitted one black student in 2009, saying he had been "incorrect and highly misleading". Apparently the actual number is 26, which is still appallingly low, so Cameron's argument should still hold some weight - but because he got his facts wrong, Oxford University have pretty much dismissed his argument. It's a bit like the light bulb thing all over again.
In that case, though, perhaps Cameron made an honest mistake. It makes him look stupid for a few moments, but it's forgiveable; it doesn't really undermine any trust we happen to have in him. Were he, though, to attempt to deliberately mislead people, that would be a different matter - and sadly, today, he's been doing exactly that.
"It's a system," he said of the Alternative Vote, "so undemocratic that you can vote for a mainstream party just once, whereas someone can vote for a fringe party like the BNP and it's counted three times..."
Wrong.
The circumstances he's alluding to are where a party, in this case the BNP, receive the smallest share of the vote. Under AV in those circumstances, the BNP are wiped out of the competition and those votes are transferred to the second choice candidates. The key word there being transferred. Votes for the BNP would not be counted three times - in fact they would stop counting at all. David Cameron knows this, and in making statements like the one above he is deliberately trying to mislead voters, attempting to scaremonger them into submission.
A true democrat would lay the facts on the table in an honest way, argue his corner without fabricating rubbish like that, and let the electorate decide. A worthy Prime Minister would not deliberately attempt to mislead the electorate in such a despicable way. Today David Cameron showed his true colours: he's anti democracy, and he's not sufficiently trustworthy to be our Prime Minister.
The cost of democracy
Elections cost money. The more votes that are counted, the more the election costs. But true democrats believe that these costs are a price worth paying for the people to have their say. The 2005 general election cost more than £80 million to organise,1 and last year's election will have cost even more.
The no-to-AV campaign have been rightly ridiculed for their adverts implying that May's referendum is a straight choice between reforming the voting system and a new cardiac facility at your local hospital (as it happens, the Government's current preference is to close Southampton's cardiac facility despite it being second best for quality and survival rates in the country, regardless of the outcome in May - but that's another issue), or a straight choice between reforming the voting system and bulletproof vests for our soldiers. As the New Statesman pointed out back in February, and Charlie Brooker reiterated on last week's 10 o'clock Live, the conclusion of this "you can't have both" approach is also that there's a straight choice between the cardiac facility and the bulletproof vests - or the subjects of the other idiotic no-to-AV adverts.
The point these utterly stupid adverts are trying to make is that the alternative vote system costs more to administer than the first-past-the-post system. Well, yes it does (possibly the only correct assertion that the no-to-AV campaign has made) - in much the same way that elections suddenly cost a bit more about a century ago, when women were allowed vote. The fact that it cost more did not mean it was the wrong thing to do then, and the same applies now. Under AV, every vote counts towards the final result; under FPTP, that does not happen. In a true democracy, every voter's opinion should matter, and it's worth an election costing slightly more to ensure that it does.
1BBC News Election 2010: FAQ
The no-to-AV campaign have been rightly ridiculed for their adverts implying that May's referendum is a straight choice between reforming the voting system and a new cardiac facility at your local hospital (as it happens, the Government's current preference is to close Southampton's cardiac facility despite it being second best for quality and survival rates in the country, regardless of the outcome in May - but that's another issue), or a straight choice between reforming the voting system and bulletproof vests for our soldiers. As the New Statesman pointed out back in February, and Charlie Brooker reiterated on last week's 10 o'clock Live, the conclusion of this "you can't have both" approach is also that there's a straight choice between the cardiac facility and the bulletproof vests - or the subjects of the other idiotic no-to-AV adverts.
The point these utterly stupid adverts are trying to make is that the alternative vote system costs more to administer than the first-past-the-post system. Well, yes it does (possibly the only correct assertion that the no-to-AV campaign has made) - in much the same way that elections suddenly cost a bit more about a century ago, when women were allowed vote. The fact that it cost more did not mean it was the wrong thing to do then, and the same applies now. Under AV, every vote counts towards the final result; under FPTP, that does not happen. In a true democracy, every voter's opinion should matter, and it's worth an election costing slightly more to ensure that it does.
1BBC News Election 2010: FAQ
One person, one vote - which system delivers?
The principle of one person, one vote is a simple one, and one that nobody really disagrees with; nobody's vote should carry more weight than anybody else's - in other words, every vote should count. I'm somewhat surprised that those campaigning for first-past-the-post as opposed to the alternative vote are using this principle to back their views - because FPTP does not deliver it whereas AV does.
In FPTP, the only votes that count are those for the winning candidate, which is very often a minority. It means that the majority of people's votes don't count at all in the final result. Whereas with AV, every vote counts. If your first choice candidate is ruled out, your vote still counts, because it's transferred to your second-choice candidate. Thus the result of an AV election takes account of every person's vote, whereas many FPTP elections result in most of the votes not counting at all.
The FPTP (no to AV) campaigners say that those supporting minority parties get a greater say in AV, that their votes get counted several times over, that AV is unfair. This is tosh; under AV every person's vote counts once, no more and no less. No one person gets more choice than anyone else, nobody's vote counts for more than anyone else's. Under AV, votes for losing candidates get transferred; but a transferable vote is still one, single vote, and doesn't count for any more than anybody else's vote. Failing to transfer that vote would mean it would no longer count - that voter's choice would be ignored completely - and that is undemocratic.
So let's make every vote count, precisely once, no more and no less: vote yes to AV in May.
In FPTP, the only votes that count are those for the winning candidate, which is very often a minority. It means that the majority of people's votes don't count at all in the final result. Whereas with AV, every vote counts. If your first choice candidate is ruled out, your vote still counts, because it's transferred to your second-choice candidate. Thus the result of an AV election takes account of every person's vote, whereas many FPTP elections result in most of the votes not counting at all.
The FPTP (no to AV) campaigners say that those supporting minority parties get a greater say in AV, that their votes get counted several times over, that AV is unfair. This is tosh; under AV every person's vote counts once, no more and no less. No one person gets more choice than anyone else, nobody's vote counts for more than anyone else's. Under AV, votes for losing candidates get transferred; but a transferable vote is still one, single vote, and doesn't count for any more than anybody else's vote. Failing to transfer that vote would mean it would no longer count - that voter's choice would be ignored completely - and that is undemocratic.
So let's make every vote count, precisely once, no more and no less: vote yes to AV in May.
Will the foster carers' charter deliver?
Britain is in dire need of more foster parents. Fostering has been in the news a lot lately, and much of it has been discouraging, but the Government's announcement a couple of weeks ago that there will be a new charter for fostering provided a glimmer of light among all the darkness. Tim Loughton, the minister for children, said: "This charter makes it clear that these foster parents should be able to play the role of any parent looking after his or her own children, and they should have the back up of the local authority to be able to do that."
Loughton mentioned things like haircuts and sleepovers - things that some local authorities make foster parents seek permission for - as "things that we would take for granted with our own children", that foster parents should also be able to do freely. The Department for Education also weighed in according to the BBC report on the matter, saying "the charter was designed to make it clear that a foster child should be treated as part of the family, and their views taken seriously".
Great stuff, especially when you consider that one of the things any parent has to do is to talk frankly with their kids, to answer their questions honestly. It's the role of the parent to let their children find their own way, but not without guidance and advice. Inevitably, children won't always do what the parents want them to do, and the parents don't love them any the less for that. Yet it would be completely wrong for those parents to say "I think what you're doing is fine" if they thought it was morally wrong.
Therefore if the fostering charter is to work, it should reverse the stupid decisions made around Eunice and Owen Johns. The Johns are an ordinary couple with ordinary mainstream views. They applied to be foster parents, willing to take on any children and love them as their own, accepting them as they are, nurturing them, protecting them... in a word, parenting them. The Johns are Christians but that doesn't mean they would be pushing their beliefs onto the foster children - it just means that if someone asked them about their beliefs, they would explain their views.
The mainstream Christian belief that sex belongs only inside a marital relationship does not stop those that hold that belief from loving those that have sex outside of marriage - from accepting them, protecting them, nurturing them, loving them. But the Johns were not allowed to be foster parents simply because they hold that belief. It's not something they would have ever raised with their foster children, unless the foster children asked them for advice or their opinions on sexuality. Whatever the children's beliefs and actions, the Johns would have treated them the same way. No discrimination, no lack of acceptance, no inequality, no undervaluing of diversity. Yet just because they held that view - even without the intention of ever expressing it unless explicitly asked - the Johns' application was rejected and a court disgracefully upheld that decision.
Somewhat bizarrely, the judges said "No one is asserting that Christians - or, for that matter, Jews or Muslims - are not fit and proper persons to foster or adopt. No-one is contending for a blanket ban." Yet Christianity, Judaism and Islam all teach that sex outside of marriage is morally incorrect. If that wasn't the reason for refusing the Johns' application, then what was?
There are lots of Christian parents in this country. Not all of us are good parents, but the vast majority are - and certainly being a Christian does not make you a bad parent. Yet, apparently, it does make you a bad foster parent. If the Government are genuine about making sure foster parents can treat their foster children the way they would treat their own children, they must be allowed to have, and to express, views on sexuality - including that they believe some practices to be morally wrong. Is that really so much to ask?
Loughton mentioned things like haircuts and sleepovers - things that some local authorities make foster parents seek permission for - as "things that we would take for granted with our own children", that foster parents should also be able to do freely. The Department for Education also weighed in according to the BBC report on the matter, saying "the charter was designed to make it clear that a foster child should be treated as part of the family, and their views taken seriously".
Great stuff, especially when you consider that one of the things any parent has to do is to talk frankly with their kids, to answer their questions honestly. It's the role of the parent to let their children find their own way, but not without guidance and advice. Inevitably, children won't always do what the parents want them to do, and the parents don't love them any the less for that. Yet it would be completely wrong for those parents to say "I think what you're doing is fine" if they thought it was morally wrong.
Therefore if the fostering charter is to work, it should reverse the stupid decisions made around Eunice and Owen Johns. The Johns are an ordinary couple with ordinary mainstream views. They applied to be foster parents, willing to take on any children and love them as their own, accepting them as they are, nurturing them, protecting them... in a word, parenting them. The Johns are Christians but that doesn't mean they would be pushing their beliefs onto the foster children - it just means that if someone asked them about their beliefs, they would explain their views.
The mainstream Christian belief that sex belongs only inside a marital relationship does not stop those that hold that belief from loving those that have sex outside of marriage - from accepting them, protecting them, nurturing them, loving them. But the Johns were not allowed to be foster parents simply because they hold that belief. It's not something they would have ever raised with their foster children, unless the foster children asked them for advice or their opinions on sexuality. Whatever the children's beliefs and actions, the Johns would have treated them the same way. No discrimination, no lack of acceptance, no inequality, no undervaluing of diversity. Yet just because they held that view - even without the intention of ever expressing it unless explicitly asked - the Johns' application was rejected and a court disgracefully upheld that decision.
Somewhat bizarrely, the judges said "No one is asserting that Christians - or, for that matter, Jews or Muslims - are not fit and proper persons to foster or adopt. No-one is contending for a blanket ban." Yet Christianity, Judaism and Islam all teach that sex outside of marriage is morally incorrect. If that wasn't the reason for refusing the Johns' application, then what was?
There are lots of Christian parents in this country. Not all of us are good parents, but the vast majority are - and certainly being a Christian does not make you a bad parent. Yet, apparently, it does make you a bad foster parent. If the Government are genuine about making sure foster parents can treat their foster children the way they would treat their own children, they must be allowed to have, and to express, views on sexuality - including that they believe some practices to be morally wrong. Is that really so much to ask?
How many tories does it take to recognise a light bulb?
This morning it was widely reported that the Army was wasting huge amounts of money by buying ordinary 65p light bulbs for £22. This was all based on a story in the rarely accurate tabloid "news"-paper, The Sun, which cited an invoice leaked to them by a soldier working in the stores of an Army base. It was met by a reaction from the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, who described it as an inexcusable waste, saying "This is classic evidence of how Labour wasted taxpayers' money and shows a complete lack of common sense."
The invoice reads as follows:
The invoice reads as follows:
INTERNAL ISSUE VOUCHER
Basic price is 22.51 per DofQ as at 18-JUN-10
Item: 51WR 6240-99-9965601 LAMPFILAMENT
Well I'm no expert but that doesn't sound like your everyday run-of-the-mill light bulb to me, and indeed the Ministry of Defence confirmed that later this morning: "It was a precision-made lamp filament for the Watchman radar. The MoD purchases about five per year."
The Sun article says "The Sun launched a War On Waste campaign last year, calling on readers to report bunglers who throw around public money." Well, in my view it's high time the media launched an internal campaign of their own to stop the "bunglers" posing as journalists spewing out wildly innaccurate stories whose only purpose is attack those who strive to deliver excellent public services and defend our country.
Similarly, we need to stop the "bunglers" who somehow managed to find jobs as government ministers from taking more heed of tabloid newspaper stories than of the experts in their own departments. If Liam Fox had bothered to enquire within the MoD before blurting out his attack on his predecessors, he could have saved himself from demonstrating the idiotic incompetence we witnessed from him today.
Update:
The MoD have since responded again, this time saying (according to the BBC) that the "the thrust of the Sun's story was correct." In other words, there are some dodgy procurement practices in the armed forces that mean sometimes more money is spent on items than it should - but there's no mention of the specifics around the light filament invoice, which is central to the Sun's story and to Liam Fox's comments.
What has almost certainly happened here is that the ministers have realised how silly they looked and ordered the civil servants in the MoD to release a statement admitting to some unspecific, vague guilt around overspending - hence the assertion about "the thrust" - but that fails to address the fact that the example that was held aloft above all others - that of the £22 light filament -relates to a specialist piece of equipment and not a generic light bulb. If this government is to reduce the UK's deficit without doing undue harm to our services, they need to have much better attention to detail than that.
Update:
The MoD have since responded again, this time saying (according to the BBC) that the "the thrust of the Sun's story was correct." In other words, there are some dodgy procurement practices in the armed forces that mean sometimes more money is spent on items than it should - but there's no mention of the specifics around the light filament invoice, which is central to the Sun's story and to Liam Fox's comments.
What has almost certainly happened here is that the ministers have realised how silly they looked and ordered the civil servants in the MoD to release a statement admitting to some unspecific, vague guilt around overspending - hence the assertion about "the thrust" - but that fails to address the fact that the example that was held aloft above all others - that of the £22 light filament -relates to a specialist piece of equipment and not a generic light bulb. If this government is to reduce the UK's deficit without doing undue harm to our services, they need to have much better attention to detail than that.
What Ed Miliband's victory means
Firstly, an apology; when I've been tweeting about the Labour leadership contest, and that pair of political brothers in particular, I've been spelling their surname with two "l"s. That I should waste one of those precious 140 characters allotted by Twitter on a spelling mistake is shameful. But hey ho...
I haven't been tweeting about the contest that much, really - because it hasn't exactly been interesting. Labour aren't likely to be back in power for a few years at least, and there wasn't that much difference in policy between the leading contenders that I could fathom, so the short term impact of the contest seemed pretty negligible. Until, that is, the result was announced.
The lead in all the news stories was the same - "Ed Miliband beat his brother David by a margin of just over 1 per cent" - but that didn't tell the whole story. The Labour Party leadership is decided using the alternative vote (AV) system, whereby voters list their preferences. The least popular candidate is eliminated from the competition, and the second choice votes of those who voted for that candidate are then used in place of their first choice votes, and the loop continues thus until only one candidate remains, who is then declared the winner.
David Miliband was ahead throughout the whole process. If it was a first-past-the-post (FPTP) contest, like the election of MPs, he would have won because he had the most votes in the first count. As each candidate was eliminated, David remained ahead, until the very final redistribution of votes. So what does all this mean?
Let's get one thing straight: Ed won, fair and square, and nobody is denying that. But under the FPTP system, David would have won. The point being of course that next year, there will be a referendum on whether to change the MP election system from FPTP to AV. The Labour leadership contest showed how this can change a result quite dramatically; David Miliband received the primary backing of more MPs and party members, yet Ed won.
I'm a strong advocate of proportional representation (PR), and it's important not to confuse the AV system with fully fledged PR. There are many who will look at this result when they come to think about the referendum and vote against AV on the basis that it isn't fair. However, they would miss the point; if David Miliband had received more second/third/choice votes, he might have won. The AV result basically says that while David had more people saying "if I have to choose one person, I'll chose him", more people said "out of all the candidates, I prefer Ed to David", and it is this latter statement that matters more in AV.
The choice we have to make next year is which of those "majorities" should hold more weight; should the winner be the person with the most "first choices" or the person who the majority prefer over their nearest rivals? My view is that AV is a much fairer, more democratic system than FPTP and I think the Labour party leadership election can be used to demonstrate that. Crucially, if Labour campaign for FPTP next year, they'll be committing an act of gross hypocrisy and essentially stating that Ed Miliband shouldn't be their leader. Let's hope they see sense and do the right thing: back AV in the referendum.
I haven't been tweeting about the contest that much, really - because it hasn't exactly been interesting. Labour aren't likely to be back in power for a few years at least, and there wasn't that much difference in policy between the leading contenders that I could fathom, so the short term impact of the contest seemed pretty negligible. Until, that is, the result was announced.
The lead in all the news stories was the same - "Ed Miliband beat his brother David by a margin of just over 1 per cent" - but that didn't tell the whole story. The Labour Party leadership is decided using the alternative vote (AV) system, whereby voters list their preferences. The least popular candidate is eliminated from the competition, and the second choice votes of those who voted for that candidate are then used in place of their first choice votes, and the loop continues thus until only one candidate remains, who is then declared the winner.
David Miliband was ahead throughout the whole process. If it was a first-past-the-post (FPTP) contest, like the election of MPs, he would have won because he had the most votes in the first count. As each candidate was eliminated, David remained ahead, until the very final redistribution of votes. So what does all this mean?
Let's get one thing straight: Ed won, fair and square, and nobody is denying that. But under the FPTP system, David would have won. The point being of course that next year, there will be a referendum on whether to change the MP election system from FPTP to AV. The Labour leadership contest showed how this can change a result quite dramatically; David Miliband received the primary backing of more MPs and party members, yet Ed won.
I'm a strong advocate of proportional representation (PR), and it's important not to confuse the AV system with fully fledged PR. There are many who will look at this result when they come to think about the referendum and vote against AV on the basis that it isn't fair. However, they would miss the point; if David Miliband had received more second/third/choice votes, he might have won. The AV result basically says that while David had more people saying "if I have to choose one person, I'll chose him", more people said "out of all the candidates, I prefer Ed to David", and it is this latter statement that matters more in AV.
The choice we have to make next year is which of those "majorities" should hold more weight; should the winner be the person with the most "first choices" or the person who the majority prefer over their nearest rivals? My view is that AV is a much fairer, more democratic system than FPTP and I think the Labour party leadership election can be used to demonstrate that. Crucially, if Labour campaign for FPTP next year, they'll be committing an act of gross hypocrisy and essentially stating that Ed Miliband shouldn't be their leader. Let's hope they see sense and do the right thing: back AV in the referendum.
10 things I would do if I were Prime Minister
There seem to be quite a few people drawing up these kind of lists, so I figured I'd join them...
- Ban cats (outside of zoos and wildlife parks)
- Create a parliament/assembly for England, with equivalent powers to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts
- Introduce a quota system to limit how many private motorised vehicles can enter city centres (they have to book in advance)
- Buses. More of them, and cheaper fares. Probably a national franchise system similar to the rail network.
- Er... this is harder than I thought it would be. Ok, proportional representation: it's the right thing to do
- Create more retail jobs by changing the VAT rate by a random amount each week
- Cap the amount of airtime given to soaps on terrestrial TV to 2 hours per channel per week
- Make the first Monday in November a bank holiday in celebration of All Saints' Day and Guy Fawkes Night, and also introduce new bank holidays in any other months that currently don't have any.
- Close down Arsenal Football Club, or at least relegate them to make up for the 1919 fiasco
- Make "causing death by dangerous driving" punishable by the same sentences as murder would be, and clamp down on speeding. Speed cameras on every lamp-post if need be. Hold on, is that two things?
What's on your list? Comment below!
What a week!
This is going to be a very interesting week, on so many levels. In fact the next three days each have something profound to offer in one way or another.
Tomorrow's probably the least important one in terms of the impact it will have, but in its own way it's a massive event: Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City face one another in the Premier League, in their penultimate game of the season. At present Spurs are one point ahead of City and both teams are fighting it out for the all-important fourth place. For the uninitiated, finishing fourth puts a team in the lucrative Champions' League competition next season; the fifth placed team will still have a place in Europe, but in the less prestigious Europa League.
Tottenham have been hanging on to the fourth spot for most of the season, albeit with Man City having a game in hand for much of that time. If Spurs win tomorrow evening, they will have sealed Fourth spot; any other result and things will go down to the final matches of the season on Sunday, when Spurs visit Burnley and Man City go to West Ham. But tomorrow's match takes place in the City of Manchester Stadium, so it won't be an easy match for Spurs. If things do go down to the final game, then in theory it should be easier for Spurs to beat Burnley than for Man City to beat West Ham - but as the cliché goes, nothing's certain in football.
Uncertainty is rife this week! On Thursday we of course have the general election, and it's probably the closest and most exciting one we've had for many years. I've already voted (I have a postal vote) but as I live in a marginal constituency I'll be keeping a close eye on local developments as well as the national picture.
Then there's Friday. It's not confirmed yet, but that could be the day when I get interviewed for... well, for the job I'm doing now, but potentially on the salary of the job I used to have. Things are far from certain and obviously there's a lot I'm not going to say in a public blog (at least, not yet) - but hopefully over the next few weeks things will become clearer. One thing that is certain is that there's no such thing as a secure job in the 21st century!
The Tories' cunning plan: public sector turnover lottery
The conservatives have finally given into pressure and outlined their "plans" for public sector spending cuts - and sure enough, those plans are pretty much non existent. Basically they intend to execute a massive recruitment freeze on the public sector, meaning that anyone who leaves their job isn't replaced, regardless of what that job is.
This means that their colleagues will have to attempt to fill in the gaps; it means that council services will be spread very thinly, resulting in a decrease in the quality of service; and public sector workers would be overworked and end up going off sick, meaning a further cut in quality and more work for the NHS in treating them.
Perhaps most worryingly, there's absolutely no strategy involved. The plan will inevitably result in public services being cut, but instead of taking the hard decisions around which services to cut, the Tories are leaving it all to chance. Essentially those areas with the highest turnover will be those which are cut, and that basically means cuts to the hardest services to deliver. The kind of services that are there to stop things like this from happening.
Students and citizenship
Lord Goldsmith's much-reported recent idea that pupils should take an oath of allegiance to Queen and country seems all very well on the surface, but as will most of these news stories, there's a sinister undertone if you read between the lines. If this is all about encouraging teenagers to be good citizens then there's a serious failure in this quote from Lord Goldsmith:
We seem to have gone from one extreme, where every word that any politician said was spin-doctored to death, to another, where politicians don't think at all before they open their mouths.
Related link:
The citizenship ceremonies, which are just one of the many things I have suggested, are a way of marking that passage of being a student of citizenship to a citizen in practice.What this is saying is that students are not teenagers aren't citizens at all while they're in full-time education, and therefore don't count and aren't expected to display adult behaviour until after they leave school. Calling someone a second-class citizen, or, worse, no citizen at all, is a sure way of arousing rebelliousness and stirring up trouble. Such a careless choice of words can only serve to further alienate Britain's teenagers and consequently result in more anti-social behaviour, not less.
We seem to have gone from one extreme, where every word that any politician said was spin-doctored to death, to another, where politicians don't think at all before they open their mouths.
Related link:
Guns and babies
There have been four shootings at educational establishments in the USA in the last week, with 11 people shot, 9 dead and one critically injured (to date). As long as the crazy gun laws that prevail in the States remain as they are, these incidents will continue to happen. But the right to carry arms is a fundamental part of America's constitution; the country has a history of putting choice before life. Campaigns are underway for this to be changed, and we can only hope that they are successful.
But it's easy for us to sneer from across the pond; we're not doing so well ourselves when it comes to valuing life over choice. 200,000 abortions take place every year in the UK (that's nearly 600 a day) . It is legal for babies to be aborted in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy - yet there is more and more clear evidence that children born this prematurely do stand a good chance of survival, and there are more and more frequent cases of this happening.
This means that these aren't balls of meaningless cells that are being removed and disposed of, they are human beings with a decent chance of survival. They should be treated as such, and that means it's wrong to kill them just because their existence is inconvenient to someone.
Saddam Hussein will always be associated with the horrendous gas attacks on the Iraqi Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war. There he was, leader of a nation, and there existed a community growing in his country that he found inconvenient. So he ordered that it be removed. As the appointed leader of Iraq, that choice was his to make. If it was wrong for him to make a choice that put convenience before life, then surely it's wrong for anybody else to do the same.
If life matters more than choice when it comes to Americans carrying guns, or the decisions that rulers and leaders make, then life also matters more than choice when it comes to unwanted pregnancies. Yet a bill is currently going through the UK parliament that some politicians are expected to use to try and make abortion even easier in the UK, and possibly extend rather than contract the time period in which it's legal to remove and kill unborn children. Unless and until our government starts valuing life more, it would be deeply hypocritical of them to condemn the stupid gun laws in the USA and the ever rising death toll that goes with them.
Related links:
But it's easy for us to sneer from across the pond; we're not doing so well ourselves when it comes to valuing life over choice. 200,000 abortions take place every year in the UK (that's nearly 600 a day) . It is legal for babies to be aborted in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy - yet there is more and more clear evidence that children born this prematurely do stand a good chance of survival, and there are more and more frequent cases of this happening.
This means that these aren't balls of meaningless cells that are being removed and disposed of, they are human beings with a decent chance of survival. They should be treated as such, and that means it's wrong to kill them just because their existence is inconvenient to someone.
Saddam Hussein will always be associated with the horrendous gas attacks on the Iraqi Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war. There he was, leader of a nation, and there existed a community growing in his country that he found inconvenient. So he ordered that it be removed. As the appointed leader of Iraq, that choice was his to make. If it was wrong for him to make a choice that put convenience before life, then surely it's wrong for anybody else to do the same.
If life matters more than choice when it comes to Americans carrying guns, or the decisions that rulers and leaders make, then life also matters more than choice when it comes to unwanted pregnancies. Yet a bill is currently going through the UK parliament that some politicians are expected to use to try and make abortion even easier in the UK, and possibly extend rather than contract the time period in which it's legal to remove and kill unborn children. Unless and until our government starts valuing life more, it would be deeply hypocritical of them to condemn the stupid gun laws in the USA and the ever rising death toll that goes with them.
Related links:
The archbishop and all that
A lot has been said about the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent comments. It seems that everybody was astounded by his comments, and in turn he was astounded by the reaction. And for me, it is the reaction that by and large is more interesting - and more disturbing - than anything that Rowan Williams said.
I found the reaction of Gordon Brown particularly interesting. Since he came to power, the Prime Minister has been trying to draw the country together and avoid division. We saw this with all the talk of "Britishness" before he came to power; we also saw it when he tried to form his first cabinet as "a cabinet of all the talents" - including invitations to members of other political parties. So it came as no surprise that the first headline about the PM's own reaction to Rowan Williams' comments was to describe the Archbishop as "a man of great integrity". All well and good.
But it was in the detail of Gordon Brown's comments that came something fairly worrying: "British laws must be based on British values and that religious law, while respecting other cultures, should be subservient to British criminal and civil law" This, like much of the reaction to Rowan Williams' comments, makes a couple of fundamental mistakes. The first is an assumption that "religious law" is a different kettle of fish to "British" law, when in fact they are on the whole compatible. In fact, it was this very compatibility that Williams was trying to get at in his speech: that by handling relatively trivial issues in Sharia courts, Muslims can take a lot of the burden off of the mainstream legal system, and save us taxpayers a fair whack of money to boot. Moreover, British law is of course largely based on the Christian faith - so the idea that it is somehow in conflict with "religious law" is nonsense.
The second, and perhaps more important, mistake is to leave God out of the equation. God is big. He is the creator and ruler of the universe. His rules outrank any and every man-made legal system there could possibly be. The notion that the law of God "should be subservient to British law" is a notion that belittles God; for the Prime Minister, our chief law maker, to say that is essentially for him to say "I am more important than God". If unity is what Gordon Brown seeks, that is not the way to achieve it. Instead, he risks alienating everyone in Britain who believes in a deity - and that's a huge slice of our population.
So, what about Rowan Williams' comments themselves? Is his the Christian point of view? Well, whilst there's been a lot of negative reaction even within his own denomination, I think that there's certainly something good to take from what he said (or at least, if not what he said then what he meant!). As I understand it, Islam is a very legalistic religion. A Muslim has to pray at certain times each day, facing a certain direction, whereas a Christian can pray whenever he or she wants, facing any direction he or she chooses. The BBC News website explains Sharia law thus:
So in a way, the archbishop is attempting to spread a Christian message into Islamic culture: resolve disputes among yourselves rather than taking them to court. In a highly legalistic culture such as Islam, it is fairly inevitable that the dispute resolution process would also be highly legalistic - hence making Sharia law "almost inevitable in the UK" - the words that Rowan Williams was shot down for saying. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, out-of-court settlements and dispute resolution processes are becoming more and more common. Essentially all Rowan Williams was doing was acknowledging that established fact.
So, like the Archbishop, I can't see what the fuss is about - in a nutshell, Rowan Williams said nothing new or in any way controversial. But in trying to calm this storm in a teacup, Gordon Brown made a claim that has much bigger and more profound implications. Sharia law in the UK is one thing, but the UK Parliament outranking God is something else entirely.
I found the reaction of Gordon Brown particularly interesting. Since he came to power, the Prime Minister has been trying to draw the country together and avoid division. We saw this with all the talk of "Britishness" before he came to power; we also saw it when he tried to form his first cabinet as "a cabinet of all the talents" - including invitations to members of other political parties. So it came as no surprise that the first headline about the PM's own reaction to Rowan Williams' comments was to describe the Archbishop as "a man of great integrity". All well and good.
But it was in the detail of Gordon Brown's comments that came something fairly worrying: "British laws must be based on British values and that religious law, while respecting other cultures, should be subservient to British criminal and civil law" This, like much of the reaction to Rowan Williams' comments, makes a couple of fundamental mistakes. The first is an assumption that "religious law" is a different kettle of fish to "British" law, when in fact they are on the whole compatible. In fact, it was this very compatibility that Williams was trying to get at in his speech: that by handling relatively trivial issues in Sharia courts, Muslims can take a lot of the burden off of the mainstream legal system, and save us taxpayers a fair whack of money to boot. Moreover, British law is of course largely based on the Christian faith - so the idea that it is somehow in conflict with "religious law" is nonsense.
The second, and perhaps more important, mistake is to leave God out of the equation. God is big. He is the creator and ruler of the universe. His rules outrank any and every man-made legal system there could possibly be. The notion that the law of God "should be subservient to British law" is a notion that belittles God; for the Prime Minister, our chief law maker, to say that is essentially for him to say "I am more important than God". If unity is what Gordon Brown seeks, that is not the way to achieve it. Instead, he risks alienating everyone in Britain who believes in a deity - and that's a huge slice of our population.
So, what about Rowan Williams' comments themselves? Is his the Christian point of view? Well, whilst there's been a lot of negative reaction even within his own denomination, I think that there's certainly something good to take from what he said (or at least, if not what he said then what he meant!). As I understand it, Islam is a very legalistic religion. A Muslim has to pray at certain times each day, facing a certain direction, whereas a Christian can pray whenever he or she wants, facing any direction he or she chooses. The BBC News website explains Sharia law thus:
Sharia rulings have been developed to help Muslims understand how they should lead every aspect of their lives according to God's wishes... For example, many young Muslims ask themselves what they should do if colleagues invite them to the pub after work or college.Imagine if every decision we made, even ones as trivial as that in the example above, had to go through a court of law! Yet that is the Muslim culture. It is in stark contrast to the Christian culture, which is very much more based on freedom and making choices for ourselves. In fact, the Bible encourages us to avoid courts of law if at all possible, and resolve any disputes personally, with the oversight of mutually respected leaders or elders if necessary.Many people would of course make up their own mind about the appropriate course of action. But others may turn to a Sharia scholar for advice.
So Sharia covers a lot of very mundane and banal daily issues where observant Muslims want to ensure they act within the legal framework of their faith.
So in a way, the archbishop is attempting to spread a Christian message into Islamic culture: resolve disputes among yourselves rather than taking them to court. In a highly legalistic culture such as Islam, it is fairly inevitable that the dispute resolution process would also be highly legalistic - hence making Sharia law "almost inevitable in the UK" - the words that Rowan Williams was shot down for saying. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, out-of-court settlements and dispute resolution processes are becoming more and more common. Essentially all Rowan Williams was doing was acknowledging that established fact.
So, like the Archbishop, I can't see what the fuss is about - in a nutshell, Rowan Williams said nothing new or in any way controversial. But in trying to calm this storm in a teacup, Gordon Brown made a claim that has much bigger and more profound implications. Sharia law in the UK is one thing, but the UK Parliament outranking God is something else entirely.
Related links
- BBC News: PM extends support to archbishop
- BBC News: Q&A: Sharia law explained
- Archbishop of Canterbury official site
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