Had a visit from the local Lib Dems today (Daphne Gaved, Jim Willis and someone who appeared to be one of their heavies). They were trying to convince me to vote for them. I raised my concerns about the failure to grit in the recent freeze, the cuts to council staff pay and the staff and service cuts planned for the near future. Well, I tried to. They seemed more interested in attacking Labour and Ms Gaved seemed at one point trying to imply that the failure to grit was somehow my fault.
We also got into a discussion about John Hemming MP. Their description of him was very different from my impression from each of the three occasions I've met him and from reading his blog.
14 February 2010
12 February 2010
Saving the economy
Today's FT had an interesting opinion piece from Martin Wolf. The thrust of the piece was how what the UK could do with right now is a hung parliament. That's something I think I could live with so long as it was Labour as the largest minority in coalition with independents and small parties. Mr Wolf seems to favour a Labour/Lib-Dem coalition.
More interesting is his assertion that what is needed to boost the economy is for the private sector to start spending more. Now, how are we going to achieve this, when we have this national deficit to clear (although, as Mr Wolf points out, we're more than servicing our debt by a long chalk so we're not in a bad state by any measure so our credit rating is still very good)? The first and most obvious thing that occurred to me is for the public sector to look at what services it can provide to the private on a fee basis then use the money raised to reduce tax to fund other, socially necessary/desirable, services.
The private sector already receives many services from the pubic sector such as defense of trade, waste disposal, legal protection of contracts, transport network &c. These are not the sort of things that lend them selves to a directly charged, fee based, service for the same reason that those who suggest that individuals should be able to opt out of tax by declining to use publicly provided services, if you're in the country you cannot avoid using the services it provides. The sorts of services that the public sector could provide to the private, directly charging a fee, are exactly the sorts of services that tend to get outsourced. Things like IT datacentre and network provision. If the public sector as a whole got together the economies of scale would be astronomical Additionally the marginal cost of supporting private sector users on top of the existing public sector would be minuscule. Add to this that the public sector already has many people well skilled in dealing with large and complex environments and you have a prime opportunity for a software as a managed service provision.
More interesting is his assertion that what is needed to boost the economy is for the private sector to start spending more. Now, how are we going to achieve this, when we have this national deficit to clear (although, as Mr Wolf points out, we're more than servicing our debt by a long chalk so we're not in a bad state by any measure so our credit rating is still very good)? The first and most obvious thing that occurred to me is for the public sector to look at what services it can provide to the private on a fee basis then use the money raised to reduce tax to fund other, socially necessary/desirable, services.
The private sector already receives many services from the pubic sector such as defense of trade, waste disposal, legal protection of contracts, transport network &c. These are not the sort of things that lend them selves to a directly charged, fee based, service for the same reason that those who suggest that individuals should be able to opt out of tax by declining to use publicly provided services, if you're in the country you cannot avoid using the services it provides. The sorts of services that the public sector could provide to the private, directly charging a fee, are exactly the sorts of services that tend to get outsourced. Things like IT datacentre and network provision. If the public sector as a whole got together the economies of scale would be astronomical Additionally the marginal cost of supporting private sector users on top of the existing public sector would be minuscule. Add to this that the public sector already has many people well skilled in dealing with large and complex environments and you have a prime opportunity for a software as a managed service provision.
7 February 2010
Checklist for accessibility of polling stations
SCOPE have published a checklist for what you need to have a polling station accessible to people with disabilities:
http://www.timetogetequal.org.uk/page.asp?section=173§ionTitle=Polling+station+checklist&dm_i=6J4,3FCG,1M26SE,AP08,1
I think my local polling station (Golden Hillock Road School) fails on pretty much every criteria.
6 February 2010
Cameron to freeze publicsector pay for those on over £18k?
I heard last night that apparently one of the things David Cameron has promised to do if elected is to freeze the pay of all public sector workers on £18k or more a year. This is presumably because it was nurses, doctors, refuse collectors, care assistants, neighbourhood advisors &c who caused the recession we're currently coming out of. Meanwhile the bankers and city traders who provide vital public services and keep the country running finally get the pay rises and bonuses they so richly deserve.
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