Origin North West

The Coalition government is being very active at an early stage with several announcements some of which haven’t got obvious benefits.

For example handing over control of NHS budgets to GP’s. Are GP’s really in a position to determine an areas health needs and which GP’s have the time, desire or capability to do that.  On the plus side of this change the cost of the NHS is escalating far beyond affordability and its processes appear to be subject to bureaucratic, political and political bureaucratic interference. If  this move changes that then it will be for the good.

Stopping the school building programme has given the impression that some schools will never be updated when surely it would have been better to reschedule the plan. That the current scheme has a massive cost and tailor designing all of these schools must be creating a lot of extra costs are points in favour of a change.

The ‘free’ school plan has never appeared an obviously good idea if it means running several schools in one area and if pupil selection is financial. Although it isn’t clear why parents should be prevented from schooling their children the best way they can.

Reducing police budgets seems a strange policy for a Conservative led government and the statements about reducing speed cameras sounds good until accidents start to increase.  Even if the increase is really due to the end of the recession increasing traffic it will be difficult to control the message. It might have been better to leave things where they are rather than reduce it. 

The latest announcement about Trident being included in the Defence Budget puts further strain on what already is a very shrunk and inadequate level of funding for defence.

Today we visited a couple of buildings from the time Britain had a strong industrial and economic base. In effect we have exported to developing countries the poor conditions we once experienced so we have cheap shirts.  It seems the time is getting closer when our standards will decline as there is competition for resources from newly rising economies. At some point we will need to learn to accept less government benefits and more individual enterprise. If these measures put off that date by improving our performance then they will be worthwhile.

This week the government has announced goodbye to compulsory retirement at 65 as of next year. It’s difficult to imagine why anyone would want to carry on working other than for money reasons. Some people claim to love their jobs and others don’t know what to do when they’ve retired.

The biggest reason against carrying on is that it is keeping younger people either out of a job or blocking a rise to promotion. In many cases older people are likely to have old attitudes, some of which might be good but many are probably not the way of todays world.

The average life expectancy is rising so people are retired longer and pension schemes are struggling to cope. Also as the ‘baby boomer’ generation goes out of the workforce there will be a glut of pensioners. Simultaneously there will be a drop in the workforce unless others are brought in from outside the UK. Yet there is unemployment of over 2million so how can there be a shortage of workers and if they have the wrong skills they must be being given poor guidance on training choices.

Overall removing the compulsory retirement age appears a good thing to enable people enough time to pay for their pensions for a shortened retirement period.

This week saw three announcements from the coalition. One that seemed to be badly handled, one that doesn’t offer obvious benefits and one  that seems understandable and reasonable. 

Building Schools for the Future has laudable ideals even if the schools seem over designed and therefore expensive. In reality this programme was almost certainly going to get some cut backs or delays. However it seems the list of schools that are to be cut or delayed, which presumably was put together by a long standing team, contained errors and seems to have been presented as a cancellation when in reality it is presumably more of a delay or perhaps subject to other change. Such as the change enabling new schools started by new entrants or academies could make this programme redundant. Can’t say it is intuitively fully convincing, although at the moment the coalition is to be supported.

Then there is the change to the NHS which seems to imply that GPs are going to control 80% of the  budget. It will be interesting to see how this works as it’s hard to imagine how my GP will manage this as it’s almost impossible to see him. It would be a surprise if he has such foresight and oversight. Again the coalition is to be supported blindly for now.

Finally it was announced that private sector pensions will be subject to regulation that makes inflation link to the CPI rather than the RPI. This has the effect of reducing the increases and over a long period of time, say for a deferred pension, could be substantial. Yet in principle this is a good move. Pensioners don’t pay mortgages and although council tax is paid it is a fairly known cost. It also takes some of the pressure off pension schemes which are gradually disappearing. So overall it seems a reasonable move and might mean some people are able to retain their final salary schemes.

The government is expected to announce, on Tuesday, a referendum on using the Alternative Voting System.  This is a key part of the Coalition agreement although not as far as the Proportional Representation System the LibDems want.

At the moment there are a number of points that need clarifying and then there are political differences that will continue to the end. The main positions being that basically the LibDems favour this but the bigger parties aren’t keen.  In fact the Conservatives are quite anti.

Then there is the early / late date. The LibDems want it early to get something out of the coalition because some are feeling a bit tender about it. The Conservatives want it late as it keeps the LibDems on-side longer.

The actual date: It is proposed to hold it on the same date as local and Scottish / Welsh elections as it makes it easier for voters. On the other hand it makes it more complicated and could cause confusion. Also not everywhere has an election on that date so some places will only have a referendum vote which might skew turn-out.

Also there is the threshold to be established. The threshold to pass a change in a referendum could be set to a minimum number of voters that would make it most unlikely to pass.

Another change in the Conservative manifesto was to reduce the number of MP’s.  Labour are calling this Gerrymandering or manipulation of boundaries to your own advantage. Conveniently forgetting that for the last 40 years Labour MP’s have had far smaller seats than other parties and are over-represented.

In political terms the Labour Party can sense that if the LibDems don’t win this referendum they are going to be very unhappy. So they have a motive to spoil it regardless of whether their own manifesto said reform of the voting system was a priority.  Reminds me of the EU referendum in the 1970’s when Labour supported joining until the Conservatives actually were the ones who put us in. Then they invented spurious reasons to oppose the government for party political reasons rather than what was best for the country.

At some point maybe we’ll get a crash course in Alternative Voting.  Seems like you have to prioritise your favourite politicians and I’d think that beyond many voters.

Alternative Voting seems like a good scheme. It keeps MP’s linked to seats.  Gives MP’s a mandate to always say they represent more than half their voters.  Not too concerned about how many MP’s there are although having equally sized seats sounds a good idea.

In the referendum it would be better to seperate it from other elections to give everywhere an equal chance. Then that a turn out of say 25% might be expected and a straight majority will win.  No vote, no say.

More British names transferring overseas. Chloride look certain to be taken over by rival Emerson, a US company.  While Tate & Lyle are selling their sugar and syrup business to rival Domino, a US company.

Names are never lost, they can lie dormant and re-appear. The history and pedigree goes. Perhaps that gets diluted anyway as shares are often owned all over the world.

The most ominous thing that is lost is that control moves overseas, investment and closure decisions are made overseas.  The top jobs move overseas. These are worse features than losing the pedigree.