This page represents only my own views, and not those of any university or other body.
Posted Thursday 23rd May 2013 at 4.35pm
Lies
Michael Gove and IDS are both at it.
0 comments
Posted Tuesday 21st May 2013 at 9.10pm
Mister Bond
In the pub after work today, someone asked me a question about ants on midpoints of a rectangle trying to get to the corners in a constrained way. I said "It's probably possible as long as it's not a square or something like that." He replied, "Something like that, yes, but that's not the right answer." After 30 seconds' more thought I tried "Ah, as long as the length isn't a rational multiple of the width," and he retorted "You're just throwing out guesses now. I want justification!"
"What, you expect me to come up with a proof right now?" I asked, and waited for the inevitable response:
"No, Mister Roberts. I expect you to die."
This is one of my favourite articles in a long time. By Jamie Stokes in the Guardian.
0 comments
Posted Tuesday 21st May 2013 at 11.57am
"Lord" Tebbit
Former Tory chairman Norman Tebbit says gay marriage bill may lead to 'lesbian queen and artificially inseminated heir' (from the Guardian). I can't decide whether he intends that comment to be interpreted as a simple "awesome!" or "wow, this new law really highlights how ridiculous it is that we still have a monarchy".
0 comments
Posted Tuesday 7th May 2013 at 10.00pm
Desire lines
New song from Camera Obscura...
(Not their catchiest single of recent years. A bit of a punchier guitar sound in places. I'm hoping it grows on me.)
It's been a great few days in the sun!
0 comments
Posted Saturday 20th April 2013 at 12.03pm
Spring!
Photo by Andrea Zampatti
0 comments
Posted Monday 15th April 2013 at 8.54pm
Se7en
John Rentoul has written seven answers to his idol Tony Blair's seven questions for the Labour party. I think they're great questions, and largely awful answers. Here's my take.
1 What is driving the rise in housing benefit spending, and if it is the absence of housing, how do we build more?
Rentoul correctly states that the answer to the first question is lack of housing (at least, it's lack of housing in certain cities). He also states that we shouldn't build more houses in the countryside, which I at least partially agree with too. Then he deduces that we need to move people into cheaper housing and get people into work, which are both true, but the problem is that there isn't any cheaper housing and the people in work can't afford rents either. I think what we need is for the government - or city councils - to build or convert relatively small flats and houses and then to rent them out as council housing.
2 How do we improve the skillset of those who are unemployed when the shortage of skills is the clearest barrier to employment?
This is a tough one - make it easier, or better advertise the possibility, for adults to go back to college or into training? Maybe those who left school at 16 could be given funding for 2 years' retraining whenever they choose? I don't really know what happens at the moment, and I certainly don't have the answers to this one.
3 How do we take the health and education reforms of the last Labour government to a new level, given the huge improvement in results they brought about?
A good start would be scrapping many of the coalition's changes; then letting the changes that did work keep on working. One of the best things we can do for many of our schools and hospitals is leave them alone - if you keep changing what people are supposed to be doing, people never get good at what they're supposed to be doing.
4 What is the right balance between universal and means-tested help for pensioners?
Politically, a very tough question, but I think in the longer term everything will have to be means-tested, or contribution-tested, or some combination of the two. Or we have to put the retirement age back quite drastically. We just can't afford all these old people! ;)
5 How do we use technology to cut costs and drive change in our education, health, crime and immigration systems?
This might be somewhere where private firms could actually help. So many of our institutions are so bad with technology, and politicians are probably the worst of the lot. Maybe the best thing they can do is encourage innovation and keep their noses out of the detail. Sort of like the ECB with the England cricket team - the ECB are largely a bunch of old blokes who barely know one end of a phone from the other, let alone how to send an email, but they authorise the England management to hire good techies, and the techies are then left alone to do what they think best.
6 How do we focus on the really hard core of socially excluded families, separating them from those who are just temporarily down on their luck?
A better question might be how we persuade people that the really hard core of socially excluded families don't matter? Note: I'm not saying that they don't matter, I'm saying that we should try to persuade people that they don't matter. There's a difference. These people (if one can really talk in such terms, but let's assume there is a class of hardcore socially excluded families to discuss) are such a small drag on the public finances that we should take them out of the public debate - because the public will always say that these people don't deserve anything. Maybe they're right, but what are we supposed to do? Throw people with 9 kids and no job out onto the streets? Nice one. Look, they're going to cost us a disproportionate amount of money whether it's in benefits or in crime. Let's at least spend that money in a constructive way and try to keep them out of trouble, if only for the kids' sake.
7 What could the developments around DNA do to cut crime?
Very little, I think. It's already being used, isn't it? We can use it more as it becomes cheaper, and maybe that'll cut crime a bit in the long run, but that's just common sense.
0 comments
Posted Wednesday 3rd April 2013 at 7.56pm
Gove and bedrooms
This and this.
The first is about Michael Gove, again. The second is a letter about the bedroom tax. If we need people to move to smaller homes to free up wasted space, why not tax everyone who has a spare room?
0 comments
Posted Wednesday 3rd April 2013 at 9.13am
Nuclear
Nuclear power prevents more deaths than it causes (relative to gas or coal).
Also, it's my first day in my new job today!
0 comments
Posted Tuesday 2nd April 2013 at 11.11pm
It'll wash out in the bath
Iain (and) Duncan Smith has called the petition asking him to live on £53 a week for a year "a stunt", on the grounds that he's been unemployed before.
1) The point is that your changes to the welfare system have made being unemployed worse - so being unemployed before your changes is neither here nor there.
2) It's one thing being unemployed for a while, and it's another thing being unemployed for a long time, or being unemployed after a long period on the minimum wage with no savings and no family to fall back on.
Obviously we shouldn't pick on IDS, or anyone else, for having money; there's nothing wrong with making money, or being born into a family that has money. It's the pretence that you know what it's like that's the problem.
1 comment
Posted Monday 11th March 2013 at 10.36am
Made in Dagenham
I watched Made in Dagenham a few nights ago. It's about a group of women who find themselves thrust into fighting for wage equality. It's good. And it reminded me of something I read in a review of Lincoln recently (I haven't seen Lincoln): that good politicians realise, eventually, what is right, and shift the centre ground to fit around it. Stop monkeying around and worrying that you'll make your market less globally competitive; stop waiting for global agreement. If it's right, make the change, and the world will follow.
Climate change and the pay gap between rich and poor might not be as idealogically loaded as race, gender or sexual equality, but they are still important issues that need addressing. And we can address them - if someone grasps the nettle, they might just change the world.
0 comments
| Older posts | Newer posts |