Quote of the Day

"If we want to bring down unemployment in a sustainable way, neither rescuing [car manufacturers] nor funding more road construction will do it. We need to create a big bushel of new companies — fast. … Good-paying jobs don’t come from bailouts. They come from startups. And where do startups come from? They come from smart, creative, inspired risk-takers. How do we get more of those? There are only two ways: Grow more by improving our schools or import more by recruiting talented immigrants. Surely, we need to do both ... so we can develop a much more strategic approach to attracting more of the world’s creative risk-takers"

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman

Thomas Friedman was talking about the US economy, but it applies equally well here.

It's the Economy

I once saw a Chinook fly like the one in the picture. It had done a rolling landing, with its nose in the air, paused, reversed and then taken off backwards and gradually raised its tail until this 20 tonne monster was hanging in the sky, nose down and facing me. I remember clearly this sense of utter disbelief that such a thing was possible.

I feel the same way when I listen to our leading politicians discuss the economy.

We have so much government debt in the UK that the interest bill alone is almost £30 billion pounds a year. This will continue to increase until we stop spending more than the government gets in income.

So we need to do two things: reduce spending and increase income. The only challenge is how to do these without harming the economy further.

On reduced spending, it's time for the Tories to back off their pledge not to cut the NHS. It's the fourth largest organisation (by employees) in the world. There has to be significant inefficiency in there and turning a blind eye to it does no-one any good. The only budget that should be sacrosanct is Defence, and that should last only as long as we have a major commitment in Afghanistan.

It's also time to change the terms on which people get unemployment benefit. Those claiming this benefit should earn it, literally. They could work two days a week for the government, using whatever skills they have. That way, at no incremental cost, the government gets a great deal more done, whether surgery or street sweeping. It would improve the quality of life of everyone in the UK. In times of hardship, this is an obvious win.

Many people in private enterprise go without pay increases in tough years. I know in the 1990s I had no salary increase for three years, as did most of my colleagues. It's time to impose the same stringency on the public sector and, while we are about it, to get rid of unaffordable final salary pensions. They have been unaffordable in the private sector for years and there is no magic which makes them affordable for civil servants.

Raising more tax is a challenge. In the short term you can aggressively tax the highly-paid and profitable companies but if you do, in the long term they will leave. In other words, it's self defeating.

The alternative is not difficult: make it attractive for businesses and high-earning people to stay in the UK and, indeed, attract other businesses here as well. We have the most complicated tax laws in the Western world. That raises the costs of doing business here. We need to do away with 90% of this and make the UK a place where it is easier to do business. Bring tax down and attract business to the UK.

Two weeks ago Matthew Parris wrote that the first thing a new Tory government should do is pass a "Blanket Repeal of Legislation (Failure of New Labour, 1997-2010) Bill". As he explains "The effect of the Act will be to repeal en masse and at a stroke all new legislation brought in since the fall of the Conservative government in 1997. The only exceptions will be those measures which, by affirmative resolution of both Houses, Parliament votes to rescue."

Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!

While we are about it, can we get rid of an enormous amount of duplicated effort countrywide? We do not need each of 389 local councils to create a policy on racial equality. It's the law. Get on with it. The same goes for the many of policies and practices in local government. We really don't need every council to have its own system of voter registration, email, benefits management or a dozen other matters. For heaven's sake, stop wasting time and let's get those bins collected and schools run well.

In short, and I am aware this is a long blog entry, if we want to cut the cost of government we need to stop waste - huge amounts of waste.

I remember clearly standing by and doing nothing other than goggle in disbelief while the Chinook flew at an impossible angle. It was being run by professionals who knew what they were doing. But I won't stand by and gape in disbelief at politicians, who appear astonishingly inept, doing little to fix the economy.

In 1992, Bill Clinton devastatingly used the line "It's the economy, stupid" in his election campaign. It's time UK politicians listened.

Little Miss Perfect

More than 25 years ago, a customer of mine and his wife were expecting their first child. This man was inherently cheerful: the kind of person you look forward to meeting in a business day. When I heard that the Big Day had come and the child been born, I popped into his office with happy congratulations which had left my lips as I entered. It was too late to register the grey and shocked expression which he could not hide. The child had been born healthy, but with Downs Syndrome. I have always been poor with words in such circumstances and all I could say was how sorry I was, and inwardly berate myself for not having checked if all had gone well before bursting in with a happy smile on my face.

It's something all expectant parents must worry about at least a little: what if Baby isn't perfect? For the vast majority, a counting of fingers and toes and a verbal thumbs up from the medical staff is a happy start to parenthood. The shock can therefore hit perhaps even harder when you learn later in life that Something is Wrong.

For Colleen and I, this happened with our second child Anthony. A bouncing baby and sturdy toddler (I nicknamed him Barrel, which given his adult wiry frame is ironic) he was a happy child who developed normally up to and including starting to talk. Then he went backwards and said less and less. Family and friends reassured us of famous people they knew who were late starters, but the worry started to grow. Cutting short a very long story of two years' worth of visits to specialists and speech therapists, at the age of four we were told he was autistic and enrolled him in the Key, the Johannesburg school for autistic children. His vocabulary at that age was less than a dozen words.

And then the miracle occurred. Autism is not curable (as far as today's science knows) and yet within weeks Anthony's vocabulary came on at staggering speed. After a year's intense speech, occupational and music therapy his development had pretty much caught up with other children his age. Within the next year he was ready to attend mainstream school. Please forgive a brief boast that he graduated with an excellent degree from Bristol this summer and, equally important, he has a large group of friends. He clearly couldn't have been autistic, but the important point I'd like to make is that somehow the teaching and support he received in those two years at the Key changed his life unimaginably for the better.

These memories came back yesterday when I received a press release from Parliament. The Science and Technology committee is investigating two pretty fundamental elements of government policy (1) What actually is the policy? (2) On what evidence is the policy based? This may sound simple: actually it's radical, making the assumption that government policy should be based on things that have been shown to work, rather than (perhaps) political expedience.

The first investigation will look at reading difficulties and dyslexia and how these are addressed today by government policy. The committee is looking for evidence as to how well this works. I include the full press release below: if you feel you can contribute, please do so now: the closing date for submissions is 26th October, just nine days away as I write this.

Basing government policy on evidence seems obvious. Please help make it happen so that even when a child isn't born Little Miss Perfect (or Master Perfect) they still have a good chance in life.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Select Committee Announcement

Committee Office, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA
Tel. No. 020 7219 2794 Fax. No. 020 7219 0896 Email: scitechcom@parliament.uk


No. 04 (08-09): 16 October 2009

NEW INQUIRY

EVIDENCE CHECK: LITERACY INTERVENTIONS

In preparation for the establishment of the Science and Technology Committee on 1 October, the former IUSS Committee commissioning work to assess the Government’s use of evidence in policy-making. The Committee wrote to the Government on a number of topics and asked two questions: (1) What is the policy? (2) On what evidence is the policy based? The Government has now replied and having considered the responses the Committee has selected Literacy Interventions for its first Evidence Check.

The first Evidence Check will consist of two sessions on 4th and 9th of November. The Committee invites short submissions by 26 October on the issues that the Committee will be exploring:
— the Government’s policy on literacy interventions for school children with reading difficulties
— the evidence base for the Every Child a Reader and Making Good Progress programmes
— the definition of dyslexia
— the evidence base for diagnosing dyslexia and teaching dyslexic children to read.

Each submission should:
a) be no more than 1,000 words in length
b) be in Word format (no later than 2003) with as little use of colour or logos as possible
c) have numbered paragraphs
d) include a declaration of interests.

A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to scitechcom@parliament.uk and marked “Evidence Check 1”. An additional paper copy should be sent to:
The Clerk
Science and Technology Committee House of Commons
7 Millbank
London SW1P 3JA

It would be helpful, for Data Protection purposes, if individuals submitting written evidence send their contact details separately in a covering letter. You should be aware that there may be circumstances in which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Please supply a postal address so a copy of the Committee’s report can be sent to you upon publication.

A guide for written submissions to Select Committees may be found on the parliamentary website at: www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/witguide.htm

Please also note that:
— Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.
— Memoranda submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.
— Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
— Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.