The Few

Last night I was fortunate enough to attend the Battle of Britain ceremony at RAF Odiham.  The ceremony, of course, remembers the RAF pilots who defended this country during the Battle of Britain seventy years ago.

There was a flyby by a Spitfire.  Sadly my eyes are not as young as they were but I thought it looked like a late model Spitfire and every eye followed it as it danced in the  sky.

There were also two flybys by Chinooks, which are awesome up close.  RAF Odiham is the home of the Chinook squadrons in the UK and these Chinooks are closely involved in the war in Afghanistan.  At any one time, a third of the Chinooks are in Afghanistan and about a tenth of the service men and women are there too.  They transport thousands of tons of supplies: they move troops; they rescue them, in many cases seriously wounded from the middle of firefights.

One example of the danger they face is the case of Flight Lieutenant Fortune, who flew into the middle of a firefight to evacuate wounded soldiers.  Taking off he flew directly over a hidden Taliban machine gun nest, was shot and yet continued to fly the Chinook and its wounded passengers to safety and land it.  On a number of occasions Chinooks have been hit.  The design of this amazing aircraft and the skills of the pilots and aircrew keep them flying in extraordinarily challenging conditions.

So last night while we remembered the Few of 1940, I was very conscious of the Few of 2010 who maintain the best traditions of Royal Air Force.

Banking on the Chairman

A few years ago I was unhappy with Lloyds Bank so I wrote their Chairman, Maarten van den Berg, a letter.

Dear Maarten

Surely it's impossible that there should be a run on Lloyds Bank. After all, with 2002 interim results for the Lloyds TSB Group showing a total income increasing by 4% to £4,911 million and operating expenses falling by 1%, this must be a healthy business, right?

And yet, one has to wonder just how these results are achieved. Sometimes it pays to look at the fine detail: the bank in microcosm; the anecdotal evidence; the holistic approach; the 360 degree input.

For example, a friend who has banked at Lloyds for decades mentioned to me recently how unhelpful her local branch in Wokingham has become. I wondered whether this was just one of those things that happens in big organisations until last week when I wanted to deal with my local branch.

Now, I am sure you are a busy man, but I do need your attention to the fine detail here. Eight years ago when my wife and I came to the UK we opened an account at your Basingstoke in the Basingstoke Mall as we were both working in Basingstoke. Some time later we wanted to put share certificates and Ernie bonds into safe deposit. There weren't any safe deposit facilities apparently in our local branch but we were told that if we walked 200 yards up the road to the Winchester Street branch they could help us and we did and they did.

Matters rested there for some time. Life moved on. My wife's job moved her to Hursley (not far from Southampton) and I now work in Bracknell.

We decided to withdraw the documents and share certificates from safety deposit and sell them to pay down our mortgage. I'd guess that the value of these shares and bonds is £40,000, which for someone in your position is doubtless a trifle but means quite a lot to us. So on Saturday 21st September we drove into Basingstoke and called in to the Winchester Street branch of Lloyds TSB to get our documents out of safe deposit.

We were a little surprised to find that the branch office was closed. Basingstoke is not exactly a booming city, but it is a good-sized town and the streets were packed with shoppers. We decided to walk the 200 yards down the road to the Basingstoke Mall branch and found it open. I noticed a counter labelled "Customer Service" and my dearly-beloved wife (not the grumpy one who has the temperament of a bad-tempered Rottweiler with a hangover) explained the situation.

Now you know what comes next, don't you? You're sitting in your executive leather chair reading this letter and thinking "Oh, dear. This is where they tell me that the person behind the counter gave them the verbal equivalent of the one-fingered salute."

You could not be more wrong.

The gentleman we spoke to was polite, pleasant and helpful. He confirmed our observation that the Winchester Branch was closed on Saturdays. We pointed out to him that as we now work many, many miles from Basingstoke, coming in to collect the documents during the week was not practical. He understood at once; he is clearly bright and helpful and trying to offer good service to customers. He said that if we wrote him a letter at the branch in Winchester Street, where he normally works, he would arrange for the documents to be available the following Saturday in the Basingstoke Mall branch. Coming back the following week was not really convenient and, given we have a mortgage that charges interest on a daily balance, was going to cost us some money but on the other hand I could understand that he could not open the branch especially for us. So we agreed to write a letter, which I did that evening, posting it off first class on Monday 23rd September.

Yesterday, Saturday 28th September, armed with our passports as proof of identity, my wife and I toddled into Basingstoke Mall Branch. The lady behind the counter seemed a little pre-occupied with paperwork and I wondered briefly why she should prefer paperwork to dealing with customers. The answer was not long in coming. Eventually she looked up and asked if she could help us and we explained the situation.

It deeply grieves me to tell you that she was immediately, emphatically and unambiguously unhelpful. She started by crossly telling us that the person we'd spoken to the the previous week was wrong and had no right to tell us that we could collect our safe deposit from the Mall Branch. It was "impossible". I suddenly had a flashback to when I was a small child at school and a bossy headmistress ticked me off for making a mistake. There may be times when making someone crawl with embarrassment and feel an idiot are useful talents to have, but I am not convinced that these ideal qualities in someone who works in customer "service". I also don't see how this correlates with Lloyds TSB's Strategic Aim (as stated in Peter Ellwood's [the MD] briefing to analysts) of "customer value creation, customer trust". However, that presentation was done way back in August and it's a full month later so possibly customer trust is no longer strategic.

But I digress. I will spare you the painful details and leave you with my impressions. In my view this young lady was obnoxious and unhelpful. Some might even say rude. When I explained our difficulty in getting to the Winchester Street Branch during the week her response was not supportive but simply to restate that in no circumstances whatsoever would it be possible to collect our documents from the Basingstoke Mall branch. My dearly beloved wife was at my side, but I did fear that the Rottweiler might appear at any moment, so I sent her off to buy a knife.

In retrospect, that may have been a mistake.

However, all I can say in my defence is that we really do need a new, sharp kitchen knife. Oh, and that these do not appear to be for sale in Basingstoke. While my dearly beloved was away, I tried to reason with this customer service employee. I asked that since she said it was impossible for documents to be made available in the Basingstoke Mall branch and my wife and I work many tens of miles away, what did she suggest as a solution? I tried this question a few times in different forms but each time she just pointed out that it was quite impossible for us to collect the documents from the Basingstoke Mall. She must have thought that I was very dim, since she repeated this, with variations, several times. We would have to, she said, go to the Winchester Street branch during the week to collect the documents. My wife and I are both senior professionals in the IT business and our time is typically charged out at high rates. I asked whether Lloyds would be prepared to recompense us for taking off several hours to make this journey and she said it would be up to the manager.

I then asked to see the manager. She said she would check and then came back a few minutes later to say (with what I thought was satisfaction but cannot swear to it) that the manager was busy and would be for at least an hour, as he had a prior appointment. I asked about the manager's manager (since I needed to be in Reading at about the time the manager would be free) and I was told that he did not work on Saturdays. Nor does the manager's manager's manager. I certainly wouldn't want to face customers who had been given the psychological going over by customer service, if my experience with this lady is anything to go by.

I am sure you will be glad to know that she won. En route to her famous victory, she explained that there was no safe way for Lloyds to transfer these valuable pieces of paper from one branch to another. I wondered how Lloyds managed to transfer other valuable pieces of paper (in the form of £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes) thousands of time every day. Is it not done safely?

I walked out of the branch defeated. It did occur to me to stand in the middle of the branch and explain to the other customers the situation, namely 

• several years ago I made a valuable deposit at Lloyds and 
• when I want to withdraw it they find that this is "impossible" 
• Lloyds own representative has stated that your bank does not have the ability to transfer valuables safely over short distances. 

Then I realised that such suggestions might well cause a dramatic loss of confidence and a run on the bank that might be seen as unreasonable. It seemed to me to be far better to check with you (and who better than you?) that Lloyds is indeed a safe place to bank, that Lloyds will looks after my cash and valuables and - just as important - will return them to me when I need them. I am glad that Lloyds is profitable. I do wonder whether it might be worthwhile spending just a tad more on staff training or recruitment. But most of all, I would like to see two things from you.

1. A letter of apology 
2. A workable suggestion on how you will get the papers that I have in safe custody at your branch in Winchester Street returned to me in good time. Time, in this case, really is money. I am sure that you reached your senior position by being competent and so I am sure it is not beyond your competence to get these papers to either myself or my wife by the end of this week. 

As Peter Ellwood [MD] pointed out in his analyst briefing, 2002 was a challenging year because of (among other things) "low consumer confidence in financial markets and services". Here's your chance to start to turn the tide. Good luck!

The letter was posted at the weekend, first class.

Two days later I received a phone call from my Lloyds bank manager. He explained that my letter had been "very effective" and asked when it would be convenient from him to visit us at home and deliver the papers. True to his word, he arrived with them the following evening (and may I say what a pleasant person he was).

Maarten van den Berg is no longer chairman of Lloyds but I have to say how impressed I was with the speed at which Lloyds fixed things up.  Every large organisation gets things wrong from time to time: I wish most other large organisations were as fast in fixing their errors.

4 million reasons to say "Thank you".

There has been a lot of press in recent days about Tony Blair's donation of the proceeds of his memoirs to the Royal British Legion.

On one hand, the amount of money, typically estimated to be in excess of four million pounds, will make a substantial differenceto the Legion, which looks after the welfare of serving and ex-service men and women.

On the other hand, some have criticised it as "blood money" or as a publicity stunt from an already wealthy man.

Blair was a disappointing Prime Minister.  This is perhaps best revealed in Anthony Seldon's two volumes of history about him, Blair and Blair Unbound. 

However, unless you are among the super-rich, £4m is a great deal of money.  Blair didn't have to give it and was under no pressure to do so.  It's a pity that some people and journalists have chosen to sneer at his action rather than consider the benefits it will bring to wounded service men and women.

Bob, the Rocket Scientist

Hat tip: http://twitter.com/27bslash6

Pickpocket Politics

If my memory of history serves me well, it was Charles I who was the last king to claim to be above the law. You may recall he was not entirely successful.

This was brought to mind this morning when, listening to BBC Radio4, I heard that the question of party funding is back on the political agenda. Indeed, according to Sir Hayden Phillips, state funding of political parties is inevitable.

The problem political parties in the UK face is simple: over the past few decades, membership numbers have collapsed but they have carried on spending regardless. The result is that the main parties are all in debt to a greater or lesser extent and have become increasingly dependent on a small number of donors.

Now, if political parties were run as a business or even a club they would do one of the following:

• Make themselves or their products more appealling so that they would get more members or customers
  
• Cut their spending to match their income
  
• Go out of business
  

But if there is just one thing all parties agree on it is that their survival is paramount. So if the public won't voluntarily support them, then they will pass laws to take the money regardless.

This is corrupt. This is pickpocket politics.

The corruption infests all three main parties:

• Labour gets millions from Unions such as UNITE, whose members by default have part of their dues set aside for Labour.
  
• Liberal Democrats received millions from Michael Brown, a convicted fraudster.
  
• Tories have received millions from among others Lord Ashcroft, who used non-dom status to minimise paying taxes in the UK.
  

This must stop.

Funding for parties needs to be legislated in such a way that opportunities for corruption are minimised: a fairly low limit on donations from individuals or organisations; legally mandated accounts which must balance: no state funding.

It's time that political parties learned that, like the kings of old, they are not above the law, nor should they be allowed to change it for their own ends.

Salamander politics

Remember Elbridge Gerry?

Mmm, I thought not. Yet it is he who has the distinction of being the source of the word gerrymander. Almost 200 years ago, as governor of Massachusetts, he arranged for the electoral boundaries of one district to be drawn in a contorted shape that would help his party win election. The shape was so bizarre it was likened to a salamander and the word gerrymander is a combination of "Gerry" and "salamander".

Strangely, the ability of politicians to manipulate electoral boundaries, remains a feature of US politics to this day, and one example of this is shown in the diagram above.

The reason I'm blogging about this is that "gerrymander" has become a favourite term of many Labour MPs in recent days. The word itself sounds evil, and such words are a delight to politicians. But is it accurate to use this word to describe what the coalition government is doing?

I think not. Tories have felt for some while that the electoral system has a built in bias against them because typical Tory constituencies have more people in them than typical Labour ones. The reason is because people are leaving the towns and cities (often Labour strongholds) for the country (typically Tory, at least in England). This means that, with more residents per constituency in the country, a country vote counts for less than a city one. Re-drawing boundaries to make constituencies have roughly the same number of residents is not gerrymandering: it's a simply matter of fairness.

However, since Labour would be the main loser in such an exercise, they are naturally keen to portray re-drawing boundaries in a poor light. This is a pity, because there is a real problem with voting in Labour constituencies and it's this: too few people register to vote in the cities. Why did Labour allow this to continue during its thirteen years in power? And why don't they focus on fixing it now?

Voter registration was a powerful tool in enabling equal rights in the United States in the 20th Century. Instead of fraudulently shouting about gerrymandering, Labour would be wise to learn from the American example and empower their residents to vote.

That would be good for British democracy and a way to bury the political legacy of Elbridge Gerry.

The School Run (or walk, or cycle)

There's been a bit of fuss about young children cycling to school in the last few days. It started when Oliver and Gillian Schonrock, who live in a pleasant part of SE London, decided to let their two children cycle to school.

The children are aged five and eight, and this immediately led to an outcry and reaction to the outcry, not least from Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. If you want to follow the pros and cons of that argument, there are plenty of places online where it's being debated: try here (Telegraph) or here (Positive Parenting) for example.

I'd like to present a slightly different view, which is this: in too many parts of Britain, cycling is positively dangerous, regardless of your age. I blogged on this a few years ago, after a near death experience on my one and only attempt to cycle to and from work. While footpaths, which by default are reserved for pedestrians, are common, cycle paths are rare. Cyclists are expected to share the roads with cars.

However, most roads are far too narrow to accommodate a dedicated cycle lane of adequate width. It may have escaped your notice that cyclists seldom cycle as fast as cars, but I assure you that it is true (except perhaps in Central London) and so you get queues of cars building up behind cyclists on narrow roads, their drivers getting impatient and then accelerating past at any opportunity. The margins for error are slim, the risk to the car perhaps a scratch, the risk to the cyclist perhaps his or her life.

It doesn't have to be like this. Oxford and York, to name just two, offer high quality cycling facilities. The lack of safe cycle routes elsewhere really needs fixing.

It's a constant policy across the major political parties that they want more people to cycle to work (and to school, college and just in general). Local councils often try to make facilities available, with varying degrees of success. See the Facility of the Month link here.

What is needed is a co-ordinated and consistent approach across all levels of government:

• All new developments should have dedicated cycle paths mandated.
  
• Many existing roads are broad enough to accommodate a cycle path of acceptable width, rather than the few inches of crumbling surface at the edge of the road. Councils should actively identify all roads broad enough to support dedicated cycle paths and to paint the roads appropriately.
  
• In other areas, councils should be required to create plans to make facilities available wherever possible to link up cycle paths and enable residents to safely cycle around towns.
  

I don't know at what age it's responsible to allow children to cycle to school. I do know that for cyclists of all ages, we need to do a great deal more to make cycling safer.

Cruel or Kind?

Well, it's the time of year that Total Politics builds its list of the top political blogs of the year.

I am not expecting to win it but, given I didn't even enter last year, any position would be good. So if you'ld like to vote for me, please click below.

Also please note the rules:

1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).
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8. All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2010. Any votes received after that date will not count.

Yes, yes, yes. This is me asking for your vote. I'm a politician. I've done it before.

So whether you do it by email or clicking below, please vote! And fyi, here are some of the more popular blogs and more here and here and here.

Dolphin apologises to witches

Tom Dolphin, a member of the BMA's junior doctors' committee, ... said he had previously described homeopathy as witchcraft, but now wanted to apologise to witches for making that link.

From The Guardian, reporting on the BMA Conference.

(He was more moderate alsewhere in his speech, referring to homeopathy as "pernicious", "nonsense on stilts", "irrationality", "made up science", "insidious" and "something ...[that] does not work".)

Physician, heal thyself

I have an undistinguished B Sc degree. I am a very minor politician and I work in marketing and it is for the last of these that I apologise.

Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the annual lecture of Sense about Science. The key speaker was Dr Fiona Godlee, the editor of the British Medical Journal, who combined being interesting, thoughtful, thought-provoking and witty.

The essence of her presentation involved failures in science, particularly medicine. In many cases the culprit was business. For example, she showed how business-sponsored scientific reviews of medical products were almost always positive, while independent reviews were far more mixed. Is it likely that these sponsored reviews are unbiased? Statistically the answer is no: the probability is so remote that it cannot be taken seriously. Over fiften or twenty minutes she presented her case cogently and with eloquence.

I started to disagree with her when she looked at some ways to address the problem. I must say I did so with trepidation. As I have already said, I have an undistinguished BSc while she has a strong scientific resume. But since my view is based on the philosophy of science (if that is not too grand a term), I'm going to put it forward anyway.

In the Olden Days, when I was at school, there was a fairly simple approach to science. It went roughly as follows:

1. A scientist would think of an idea - the hypothesis.
   
2. She would devise an experiment to test it.
   
3. She would run the experiment and collect the necessary and relevant data.
   
4. If the data supported the idea, it would become a new theory.
   
5. Other scientists could repeat the process and get the same results, so independently validating the theory.
   

Intellectually this works. Practically, in the real world, it sometimes breaks down. For example, developing new drugs is extraordinarily expensive. Pharmaceutical companies invest huge amounts of money in each new drug and their scientists invest years of their lives. The must be a great temptation, even in the most scrupulous scientist, to look for the good effects and play down the bad. Possibly that may be succumbed to unconsciously: perhaps dismissing a strange result as an outlier. The commercial pressures will be there too.

At present, science does too little to eliminate opportunities for these errors or for fraud. I suspect outright fraud is fairly rare, although cases such as

• Disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose stem cell research was found to have been faked
  
• Andrew Wakefield's MMR scare
  
• and in physics, the cold fusion controversy
  

show that they happen often enough to reach the mainstream media.

If I understood her correctly, the core of Dr Godlee's proposals to address these problems was to reduce commercial involvement in science, especially medicine. I think that would be wrong.

Science needs to look more to itself. Some of the finest brains in the past few centuries have been involved in science: why then is the very core of science, the scientific method, so subject to abuse?

I suggest that a fundamental issue is that scientific research is not sufficiently open to a basic commercial technique: audit. If at key stages research was subject to audit, the results would be more credible. This does not mean making the data or area of research prematurely public but it would mean that when it came to submit a paper for publication or to launch a new product there would be confidence that the research had been adequately conducted.

Who could do this auditing? I think that is less important than defining how it is done. For example, in the UK perhaps the Russell Group of universities could define: what independent checks should be made in each key area of science as that research progressed; what records must be verifiably submitted at each stage; what are acceptable ways of discounting results ("the subject died in a car accident") and unacceptable ("this outlier was so different that I suspect a measurement error was made").

This would not replace peer review. It would give reviewers greater confidence in the underlying methods and might well give them access to the underlying data.

It would benefit science. It would also benefit commerce: whether in medical, physical, chemical or any other area of scientific endeavour, the results of audited research would rightly be more trusted.

This, I think comes back to Dr Godlee's fundamental point: unreliable research undermines good science. If we can improve standards in research it will be of benefit not just to the scientific community but also to the public at large. Trustworthy results will lead to better decision-making, whether it means buying a new pill or investing in technology.

And should that day happen, I won't have to apologise for being in marketing.

How Often is Enough?

I believe it costs about £50,000 to run an election in Hart, the small district in NE Hampshire where I live. That's about a pound per registered voter, which I think is not bad.

The way we run elections here is that in three out of four years we elect one third of our district councillors (for a four year term) and in the fourth year we elect county councillors.

So, for example,

• 2009: elected county councillors
  
• 2010: elected 1/3 of district councillors
  
• 2011: elect 1/3 district councillors
  
• 2012: elect 1/3 of district councillors
  

However, there is the option of having all-in elections instead where we would elect district councillors all at once for a four year term, as we do with county councillors. In these straitened times, that would save us two elections every four years, or about £100,000. In a small district like Hart, that's a useful amount of money.

There is a contrary view that having elections more often gives voters a chance to register their approval or disagreement with the council more often. While that is true, it is costly. It also means that councillors spend more time electioneering and less doing the work you voted them in to do.

As you can tell, I don't favour the annual voting system. That's less important than what you think: would you, as a voter, prefer to vote more often at a higher cost, or would you prefer to save money but have fewer opportunities to register your views?

Please do let me know, either directly or via the comments section below.

Update: For what it's worth, based on a quick scan of their websites our neighbouring councils appear to vote as follows:

Basingstoke: Annually (like Hart)
Bracknell: All in every four years
East Hampshire: All in every four years
Surrey Heath: All in every four years
Wokingham: Annually (like Hart)

UNITEd We Fall

Ten days ago, Laura Solon scythed through the bs to the basic truth of the ongoing industrial dispute between British Airways and its cabin crew. Speaking on Have I Got News For You, she said that the biggest fringe benefit the cabin crew have is an airline to work for.

Now, on one hand I can understand the shock and anger you feel when your employer cuts payments or benefits. I've experienced this myself on a number of occasions, such as when my pension changed from being a final salary pension (good) to a defined benefits one (poor). That one change on its own cost me a few hundred thousand pounds. It cost most of my fellow workers much the same. But it had one huge fringe benefit: we still had a company to work for.

Right now, UNITE seems to be spoiling for a fight, not just at BA. It could scarcely choose a worse time: worldwide the combination of recession and fierce international competition mean that when I (or anyone else) is looking for a job, we are competing against not only the other people shortlisted for this vacancy but also anyone else, anywhere in the world, who can do the same work for a competitor.

Can a lower-paid worker in Ireland or India or the Far East do the same job, just as well? Then why should the company employ you?

This is where UNITE's confrontational approach is self-destructive for its members: the most likely result is the jobs will move elsewhere - whether to Emirates, Ryanair or Virgin. It's not clear how this will help BA cabin crew.

It used to be "United we stand". Today it looks more like UNITE's last stand.

Running for Rob

What, I wonder, is the defining characteristic of the British?

Just as the British have generalisations about other nations, I am sure that other nations generalise about the UK. I arrived in this country with my family in 1994, "on my way to America" and we are still here 16 years later. One of the things that has kept us here has been the extraordinary generosity of spirit of British people. This is at its best when you consider the extent to which people voluntarily support others who are less fortunate: visiting the infirm, shopping for the elderly, collecting for charity, running parish councils, tending to graves and thousands of other small ways of making this a better place to live. Perhaps it comes down to Thriving in Adversity.

On Sunday I saw a good example of this. There was a 10km (6.25 miles in old currency) Fun Run in Newbury and of the several hundred runners, about 50 were Running for Rob. So who is Rob? I don't know him (other than knowing he is a teenager with cancer) but I have a friend who does, so I will quote her words here

Rob is simply the loveliest 17 year old lad - through all of what he has gone through, he never complains and just gets on with all of this treatment. He was at the race and we had a lovely hug when I made just over the hour :-) ... because he knew I wasn't a runner and I would never have attempted a 10k without there being a very good reason to.

He is still studying for his 'A' Levels, plans to take them shortly, goes into school whenever possible, plans on studying Politics and plans to do the Edinburgh Festival again this year as he loves acting and directing and is planning on going on holiday to Greece with his pals and, of course, the pop festivals around such as Reading. I truly believe he is an inspiration to both young and old ... I absolutely adore him and feel we can learn so much from someone so young and I just want him to be back to full fitness again.

I feel he found the pomp and ceremony around the run quite embarrassing - his father wanted to do something positive and, as he is a runner, belongs to Newbury Athletic Club who organise the Bayer 10k, he felt having a team do the run would be that positive. That said, we all raised a lot of money for charity and, back at the BBQ in the garden, I sat with Tracey from Teenage Cancer Trust. They provide facilities and an environment for teenagers who have Cancer as the NHS provide only for children or adults ... and teenagers are caught in the middle. They do truly amazing work and we don't realise it. Rob has one more chemo treatment, scheduled for next week - I think it is Cycle 9. Because I look to the positive, I believe the outcome will be a positive and the tumour has, so far, become smaller and with Rob's stoic, mature and brave attitude, I know he will be clear when they do the final tests. He is just the best (and I only get my running kit on for the best :-)

To support Rob fifty people - many of whom hadn't run 10km in their life before - went through a great deal of pain and raised over £12,000 for two charities: Clic Sargent, which cares for young people with cancer and their families and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

(Click on the photo to see all the runners.)

For those who today are still feeling pain, remember you are part of a great tradition: serving the less fortunate in a typical, understated British way.

How to save £160,000,000,000

At present, the Government spends £160,000,000,000 more than it gets from tax. That's about £2,500 for every man, woman and child in the UK.

In economists' language, This Is Not Good.

Earlier this week, the Government announced plans to save £6bn: that's about 1% of the total govenment expenditure. Clearly we need to do more.

Yesterday I suggested how the government might avoid wasting several million pounds in the NHS. Today, in the Telegraph, there is an article by Chris Mullin who was a Labour minister ten years ago. At the time he suggested how to save money by reducing the cost of the wasteful Government Car Service. (Why oh why didn't we have more Labour ministers like this?)

Almost certainly anyone reading this blog will know of some area of waste in government money where savings could be made.

So, if you were the Chancellor, what would you cut?

By all means put your suggestions as comments on this blog. But also write to your local MP. You can find his or her contact details here.

We might well find that we can save that £160,000,000,000 (golly, my hand gets tired typing it) a few pounds at a time.

Good front-line surgery

There's a lot of talk about "cutting front line services" as the government tries to reduce the terrifying deficit.

This assumes that (a) the savings can't be made anywhere else but front line services and (b) all front line services give value.

Most people focus on (a). I'd like to focus on (b) and point out an example of front line services that are wasteful and potentially actually harmful.

In February this year, Parliament's Science and Technology Committee published a report which urged the government to withdraw funding and licensing of homeopathy.

Homeopathy is a front-line service. However, the parliamentary enquiry found that it had no better effect than placebos. Indeed, the British Medical Association has declared that homeopathy is witchcraft. Despite this the NHS funds four homeopthic hospitals and spend many millions on homeopathic treatment.

Here's a front-line service we should be happy to cut.

Trussssst in me ...

I was at a meeting last week. In an open question session the issue of trust was raised. The person answering the question was very clear: "Lack of trust comes from either a failure to communicate or a failure to deliver", he said.

Those words stuck with me. They really get to the crux of the matter. In light of the events of the last few days, can the Tories - or the electorate - trust the LibDems?

On May 7th, Nick Clegg said the Conservatives, as the biggest party, had the right to form a government first. Following that, negotiations were opened between the two parties. Yesterday it appeared that secret negotiations had been going on at the same time between Labour and the LibDems as well.

It's clear that the Conservatives have made significant concessions to the LibDems. It's far from clear what the LibDems have brought to the discussions. It's hard to view their actions as anything other than seeking party political advantage, despite their claims to be putting national interest first.

There may still be a Tory-LibDem pact of some kind. But if there is, it is difficult to imagine how well it will work when there is likely to be constant suspicion that at any time it suits them the LibDems may jump ship.

This is no way to run a country and, judging from LibDem blogs, there are many party members who realise the electorate may not forgive Nick Clegg, even if David Cameron does.

DIY Tips: How to Build a Cabinet

The first time I built a bedroom cupboard it ended up with all the drawers the right way up and the frame and doors upside down. However, today's challenge is a mental one, rather than needing any physical dexterity, so perhaps I may do better (and perhaps not!).

Let's assume for a moment that the Tories and LibDems do form a coalition. Who would you appoint to the various roles? To make it more fun (a) you don't have to fill all the offices and (b) you can have a serious list or a fun or even mischievous list. Here is mine.

Prime Minister: David Cameron
Chancellor: Ken Clarke, because he's done it before and would reassure the City.
Foreign Secretary: William Hague
Home Secretary: Nick Clegg
Olympics: Sir Menzies Campbell
Business, Innovation and Skills: Vince Cable

with the rest being the Tory shadow cabinet. This gives one of the great offices of state to the LibDems, puts a past captain of the Great Britain Olympics team in charge of the Olympics and gives Vince Cable the challenge of making his ideas work.

For the Tories, Ken Clarke would bring immense successful experience to the position, and it's hard to realistically imagine Hague or Cameron in other roles. Not in the above list but worthy of mention is Michael Gove, who would have the opportunity to make his radical and attractive ideas on education work. The more I see and hear of Gove, the more I like him: he could be a real star of the next government.

What of George Osborne? Make him chairman of the Conservative Party. There are persistent stories that "the City doesn't like him" and we really need the next government and the City to work together to rebuild the economy. And who knows? He may be like a vintage wine that matures well.

---

For reference, the last government cabinet posts were

Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service
Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, First Secretary and Lord President of the Council
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor
Secretary of State for the Home Department
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Secretary of State for International Development
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government,
Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families,
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change,
Secretary of State for Health, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland,
Leader of the House of Lords and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,
Minister for the Cabinet Office, and for the Olympics and Paymaster General,
Secretary of State for Scotland,
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions,
Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
Secretary of State for Wales,
Secretary of State for Defence,
Secretary of State for Transport,
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Bite the bullet

If there's one thing the electorate expects of politicians it's that they run the country.

At 11am today, this seems like a challenge. With 30 or so seats still to declare, no party can get a majority. The way the rest are likely to go:

• A coalition of Labour and LibDems would not have a majority
  
• A working arrangement between Tories and Irish Unionists would similarly fail
  

The markets hate this. The FTSE is down 10% since the likelihood of a hung parliament became clear. The pound has slipped on forex markets. The reason is simple: without a strong government, it's likely that the hard choices urgently needed to fix the economy won't be made.

As a Tory, I wish we had a majority. The reality is that we don't. That leaves two choices: either a minority Conservative government or an agreement or coalition government with the LibDems.

For many Conservatives, working with the LibDems is anathema. There are many LibDems who feel the same way about Tories. There is a simple message for these hardcore party members: stick to your position and voters will reject you at the next election. You have to put the interests of the nation first, and the nation needs a strong government now.

It's time to face reality. Things didn't go as well as the LibDems or Tories had hoped.

Deal with it.

Precisely Wrong

As I write, Sky News are reporting various polls with Tory support between 33% and 37% and LibDem support between 23% and 28%. The parties and commentators hang on every percent with elation or despair.

But they are wrong to do so.

These polls are spuriously precise (which we don't really care about), but not necessarily accurate (which we desperately do). If, for example, a pollster says Tory support is 35%, what they mean is something like this:

"I am highly confident that Tory support is 35%, give or take 3%. When I did the sample. And that is if people are telling the truth."

See those bits in bold text. What they mean is that if you take those numbers as being accurate, more fool you. It's a statistical game and you need to remember that. Don't be in raptures when your party goes up a percent or two on in despair when it's down a percent or two: that may well just be "sampling error".

All you can really conclude from today's polls is that the Conservatives are a bit ahead and LibDems and Labour are neck-and-neck.

Probably.

So get back to your campaigning, before the Fat Lady sings.

La Cage Aux Folles

No, you're wrong.

This is not about politics.

I had the pleasure on Saturday evening of going to an intimate theatre in the south of Hampshire and watching perhaps the best amateur production I have ever seen. Actually, there is no "perhaps" about it. It was delightful.

The theatre is a converted small barn on the edge of Fareham: it holds just 80 people. It may astonish you to hear that they don't have a revolving stage, or room for acrobats or tigers. They have to rely on pure talent, and they have it by the bucketload. Their production of "La Cage Aux Folles" was spectacular, despite a host of challenges, which started with having to translate it from the French.

There was one problem: the audience was laughing so much in the second act it was often difficult to hear the words. No matter: the acting was all that mattered.

The play was put on by The Titchfield Festival Theatre and, although its run has ended, they have a full programme of forthcoming events, which I thoroughly recommend.

They even let you take photographs (no flash). Take that, West End.

Three of the Best

As a Tory, I hope the Conservatives win a majority.

As a realist, I accept this might not happen. I think a hung parliament would be bad for the UK, but perhaps it's time to think the unthinkable: what if we get one?

The most likely coalition, I hope, would be Tory/LibDem. So here's a challenge: if that came about, which three policies would you like to see the new government implement? The rules are simple: you must choose one Tory policy, one LibDem and the third can be from either party, or perhaps one of your own. Here are mine.

Education

The Tory policy here looks excellent, as I've written earlier. It's a real incentive for improvement and in a globally competitive world, nothing is more important than a good education.

Tax

I am sorry, but I love the LibDem proposal to raise the threshold at which you pay tax to £10,000. It's almost a Tory policy, it simplifies tax and it's a vote-winner.

Tax again

A policy of my own: eliminate 95% of tax law, and make the UK a better place to do business. Sustained recovery will depend on people wanting to do business in this country, yet our tax code is incredibly complicated.

So that's my three. What would you choose?

For your information you can get the Conservative manifesto here and the LibDem one here.

Please, David Cameron

Is Cameron good enough?

A mutual acquaintance put me on to David Cameron six years ago. I must say he impressed, with fresh views and the intention and ability to bring 21st century ideas into the heart of the Conservative Party. Looking back at his record, he has delivered on a lot of that and made the Tory Party electable again.

And yet, I can't help but feel disappointed.

I've been wondering about this over the past couple of weeks.

Is it because too many of his inner circle are an elite? No, that's an irritant, but he has done so much to open the party to people of merit.

What about his ideas? Many of them are very good. The schools policy, for example, should see the biggest improvement in education for a generation or two. Inheritance tax will help hundreds of thousands if not millions of Britons. And despite what Gordon may say, there is ample room for cutting waste in government without cutting front line services.

No, it's not these or a dozen other reasons.

The problem is that I want a leader to inspire me, and I don't yet see that in Cameron. What I do see is earnestness and sometimes grim determination. What I want to see is less someone who talks about Big Society and more someone who says "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

I know that Cameron can do it. His early speeches sparkled with enthusiasm.

If he wants to lead the country, he needs to find that inspirational touch again.

No thank you, Gordon

From the man who "abolished boom and bust" comes the request to let him "finish the job". No matter which party you support, the reply must be "No, thank you." Here's why.

In 1997, the new Labour government inherited a thriving economy. By many measures, it was the strongest in Western world, with inflation low, debt low and unemployment dropping.

By April 2010, the UK economy was arguably the second worst after Greece's. National debt is higher than any time in living memory, excluding post-WW2. There is a good summary of the debt here, together with several clear charts. Debt is also forecast to increase for the next few years by well over £160 billion each year.

Let's put that in perspective: that's more than we spend on education, police and defence put together. If we shut down all our schools, closed all the police stations and disbanded our army, navy and air force we'd still be running up debt under Labour's economic policies.

So, no thank you Gordon Brown. You're a spendthrift. We don't want you to finish the job because we know in reality you would finish the country.

Thank you, Nick Clegg

It's been 10 days since Nick Clegg upset British politics with a strong performance in the first of the leaders' debates. At this moment, he appears to have lifted the Liberal Democrats from their traditional poor third place in British politics to a close second. In addition, he's changed the nature of the debate: young people, normally the least likely to vote, are chatting eagerly about politics at work, in universities and online. A lot more of the discussion is positive.

Most importantly, from my point of view, Clegg appears to have done what no other politician has managed in recent years: he's finished off Gordon Brown as a political force.

And you can't deny he has sex appeal. I was speaking to a young lady (remember I am over 50, so anyone under 30 is young) the other day and she was singing Clegg's praises. She'd never talked about politics before. I don't recall her exact words but in essence she said that previously she hadn't intended voting but now she was going to vote LibDem. Clegg, she felt, would make a great prime minister: well-spoken, clear ideas, representing real change, fresh, and so on. "What do you think of LibDem policies?" I asked. With a slightly embarrassed smile she admitted she didn't know much about the policies.

Actually, at this stage, that's OK. The important thing is getting young people interested and involved. Over the next ten days they will learn a lot about politics. Some will stay LibDem; others will find that once that first glow of romance dies out then they'll choose another party and I expect they will see a lot to encourage them in the Tory Party: sound finance, green policies and genuine caring about the individual. No party gets everything right but the Tories do more than most.

Democracy is at its best when it's vibrant and ideas and ideals are debated with good-natured passion. There are many young people who will become Young Conservatives who might never have shown any interest without the debates and the change they have brought to British politics.

So, indeed, I would like to thank Nick Clegg today for the change he's made in politics.

Vince Cable - Economic Expert

Andrew Neil (who chairs the BBC's parliamentary programme) interviews Vince Cable.



Thank you, Guido.

Who will you choose?

Thank you, Ian Dale, for creating this.

And for all my friends and acquaintances who are not sure whether they should vote this time ... well have a look!

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.

Can Spring be Far Behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" The answer this year seems to be "Yes!" Yesterday it was -5ºC when I left home and it's not a lot warmer now. So it's with longing that I look back to last spring, when Colleen and I went for a walk from Hook to West Green House in Mattingley. It's about four miles through pleasant fields when suddenly, near our destination, we came across this idyllic country scene. Click here for a larger picture.

Those cows are actually quite large and we made a point of giving them, and especially their calves (out of picture) a wide berth.

Roll on the warmer days of spring!

Photography

It's a while since I posted some photographs and looking through my collection it seemed to me that there are some that by good fortune came out quite well.

The photo above is an example. It was taken at my friend Russ's 60th birthday party. He's a neurologist by profession but has a band as well and they played some marvellous music. I'd been taking photos with my flash all evening and these pics were OK, but the flash failed on this picture and the lights of the stage came out in gorgeous colour.

So this photo was a mistake, but one I'm glad I made.

Footnote: Having blogged this, I see blogger has cut off the right 1/4 of the picture. If you click on the photo you'll see the whole picture and consequently the full range of colours.

Your Mileage WILL Vary

The man in the car waved at me. So did the woman in the next car. They didn't use all their fingers.

I think it was because I was driving on the motorway at 60 mph. The speed limit was 70 as far as other drivers were concerned but they didn't realise I was conducting a Scientific Experiment.

You see a few months ago I bought a Bluemotion Golf. It's wonderful: comfortable, quiet, solid German engineering, good to drive and well-equipped. And its fuel consumption is phenomenal: 60.1 mpg urban, 83.1 extra-urban and 74.3 combined. That's about 900 miles on a tank of diesel.

The problem is that I've been getting just 600 miles from a tank.

So I designed an experiment. I decided that in the Golf I would

• Turn off the air conditioning
  
• Drive half a mile to the local service station
  
• Check that the tyre pressures were optimal
  
• Go to the motorway and drive along at 60 mph to the next junction.
  
• Drive back along the motorway and go home.
  

This should be closer to an "extra urban" cycle than a combined one.

I must say it is a little nerve wracking driving along the motorway at 60. One is constantly checking the rear-view mirror to see whether some speed fiend is burning rubber in his attempt to avoid running up your exhaust pipe, but I managed. The majority of the motorway journey was actually done at 50 mph, because of roadworks, which should have made the journey even more economical.

And then, as a scientific control, I did the same with my wife's Mercedes C220CDI. Here's what we found.

Have a look at what's happening here.

In the Mercedes, my little drive (shown in the purple bar) achieved pretty close to the official Extra-urban (red bar) economy of the car. It was way better than the Combined figure, which is what I'd expect.

But in the Golf, the fuel consumption is far worse than I'd been led to expect from the official figures. Although 80% of the drive was at 50-60mph on the motorway, I achieved barely more than the Urban figure and way less than the Combined one.

What going on here? To find out, my wife phoned our dealer, Martins of Basingstoke, who promised to get a technician to call back. She phoned three times, but we've had no call back from technicians.

This is really a pity, because in every other respect we're very happy with this Golf. But we bought it for fuel efficiency and it's just not living up to its claims and it appears our dealer couldn't care less.

I feel like waving at VW. Not using all my fingers.

Snake oil

The Wild West was notorious for its snake oil salesmen, who rode into town with a wagon of elixirs and used their smooth sales patter to convince the ignorant and gullible that these concoctions, including "snake oil", would fix every malady.

Oh, how we laugh at their naivety!

Yet today, sadly, we see practices that are not much different - and just as many people falling for the con.

Earlier on today I visited Southampton. The reason for the visit was simple - to take part in the 1023 protest. The essence of this is simple: Boots, a huge chain of pharmacies in the UK, sells homeopathic medicine which it knows has no therapeutic (ie medical) benefit. Gullible people buy this in the hope that it may cure them. Indeed, when I bought some, it was in the aisle marked "Medicine".

This is extremely disappointing. Boots is an otherwise respectable and respected chain of pharmacies. As far as I can tell, in their role of dispensing scientifically-proven medicine, they do an excellent job. Yet they persist in also purveying products which are little different from witchcraft. We scorn the late South African minister who claimed you could cure HIV with beetroot, but homeopathic remedies are no different. With no proven benefit, they offer false hope to the ill. The superintendent pharmacist at Boots has admitted "I have no evidence ... they they are efficacious" - in simple English he means he has no evidence that they work.

So, we did a test.

23 of us (by coincidence) took part in the 10:23 campaign this morning outside Boots in Southampton. We all massively "overdosed" on homeopathic medicine, swallowing a bottle of pills, as did hundreds (thousands?) of others all over the world. As I write this, three hours later, I'm feeling fine.

It's deeply disappointing that a company as reputable as Boots should promote such bogus treatments.

Media Flash And now it's been Youtubed

Oh, God

My most wonderful university lecturer, Pat Terry, instilled rigour into his students and I think this has helped me throughout my life. Because he made me think through things, I speak with confidence when I am sure am right, which is not often. I also listen more carefully to others, although Pat can't take all the credit because the current Mrs Haffey has helped there.

So, with a degree in science, what makes me believe in God?

First, let's eliminate one thing that people often say to encourage belief in God.

Blaming misfortune on a lack of piety is a good place to start. "Your pet died because you are a bad person." So did Mother Theresa's pet. Was she bad, too?

I am afraid that I am sceptical about people who claim to know what God wants.

So why the belief in God?

I was driving along listening to BBC Radio4 in the car the other day and I heard a discussion of cavemen paintings and their subtlety. This led me to think about cavemen looking at the stars at night - the same stars we see - and wondering about the Meaning of Life. And these are the same Big Questions that face us today. What is life about? And for the purpose of this blog entry, where did it come from?

One thing we know for sure: you can't create or destroy matter. You can change matter into energy and vice versa, but that's about it. So we have this unbelievably large universe with no explanation about where it came from.

How big is "unbelievably big"?

The universe is about 10²⁸ times as big as you or me. That's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times as big, based on our mass. By one of these astonishing coincidences that pop up from time to time, you and I have almost 10²⁸atoms in us. Whether we want to explore Outer Space or Inner Space, we have the same amount of work to do.

So where did it come from?

A trivial answer is the Big Bang. But who or what made the Big Bang and the vast number of physical laws that emerged from it? Here science can't help. Something started it (or possibly there is an infinity of Big Bangs followed by Big Crunches) but where did it all come from? And how come it all works with just the Four Fundamental Forces of Nature to orchestrate it?

In the absence of a better alternative, I choose to believe that God was responsible. I happen to think that the Bible provides a reasonable description of God, but I haven't read other religious texts. It seems to me to be impossibly unlikely that this glorious universe, with relativity, quantum physics, evolution, double choc chip cookies, colour, classics, compassion and uncountable other wonders could be an accident.

And so, logically I infer that there is a God.

It's a FACT - using legal media is a PITA

You may have heard that it snowed recently here.

As a result of being snowed in, after a while I started to become stir crazy. So I broke out one of my Christmas presents, a DVD, and sat down to watch it, at which stage a red mist of rage descended.

Picture this: I have settled into a comfortable armchair, drink in hand. The DVD is spinning up and I am ready to relax and enjoy watching this movie. Then, out of the blue, some advertisement for an organisation called FACT pops up. I really don't want an advertisement at that point so I push the Fast Forward and Skips buttons but nothing happens. Somehow the unholy alliance between DVD player manufacturers and DVD manufacturers has led to this advertisement being the one mandatory piece of viewing on the entire DVD. I can skip the whole movie if I wish, but I can't skip the FACT advertisement.

So what is this advertisement for FACT? FACT is the self-righteous Federation Against Copyright Theft. Not everyone is a fan. I know I am not. Every time I want to watch my own, legal, DVD these illegitimate children of their parents steal a minute of my time and force me to watch this blasted ad. It's not even a convenient amount of time: too short to make a cup of coffee or take a comfort break. And it's on every legal DVD.

This is utterly bizarre when you think about it. What other industry does its best to annoy its legitimate customers?

I have no illegal DVDs or CDs in my house but if anything is likely to drive me to buy some it would be the promise that there would be no infuriating FACT advertisement on the DVD.

FACT is a right royal PITA.

In his Master's Steps He Trod

We stopped off in the UK 17 years ago on our way to America and we liked it so much we stayed. The people are friendly, the countryside pretty and the weather ... not as bad as we had been led to believe.

Until now.

The third Big Freeze in 12 months, the biggest of the three, set in two days ago. Normally if we have an inch of snow in a year it's a lot. On Tuesday evening we had 9 inches. I think we have two snow ploughs in England so we are snowed in for the duration.

But my wife and I are made of Stern Stuff so at 7 o'clock on Wednesday morning we left home in moon boots to walk to the railway station. For completeness I should emphasise we were also wearing a good deal of other clothes. The snow came up to our calves and I have to say it is at the very least disconcerting walking through snow that deep.

Actually it's bloody difficult.

You don't really know how far to put down each foot and then when you pick it up you have to raise it above the level of the snow to move on to the next step. I realised then why good King Wenleslas's page stepped in his footprints: not so much for the warmth as the fact that it's a lot easier. Colleen and I struggled manfully on (in her case womanfully), taking turns leading, until eventually we gave up, exhausted, at the top of the drive.

That's where I took the photograph of the neighbour's house, cars and rubbish bin. Due to the previous big freeze, our bin-collections are way behind. Indeed, one of our binmen broke his wrist sliding on ice about a week ago. We're clearly going to end up way behind in collections for the rest of the month.

We trudged to the supermarket a few hours later and this was a big mistake. It made my wife feel guilty that she had not made it to the train earlier so the following day we did walk through the compacted snow to the station. Colleen got on the train which broke down 3 miles up the track. There was some kind of electrical fault which meant it not only broke down but had no heating. After a while they managed to get the train going and she arrived at the office an hour late, only to find the office almost completely empty. Not wanting to get delayed on the way home in the dark, she left the office early only to find many trains had been cancelled, so she waited 90 minutes on the cold Waterloo Station platform before one did arise. Travel time, 6 hours: office time, 5.

In the mean time, I had decided to be a good citizen and try digging out our street.

I must have been mad. I don't have a snow shovel, just a garden one so after 30 minutes of effort I had managed to clear about 5 square yards. Mind you, they were perfectly cleared because after I had shovelled off the snow I used the yard broom to sweep away the traces. I did some calculations and reckoned that if my younger son and I spelled each other and did 6 hours a day we would have a small but sufficient channel in the road cleared after 3 days, which given we're not expecting a thaw for a week would be pretty good.

Then some guy came by driving one of these things. "Over here!" called my neighbour.

These are very good at moving snow and in three minutes he had reduced the covering of snow from 9" to about 1/2". He had also obliterated my hard work. Under my breath I thanked and cursed him simultaneously.

The only problem is that the treads of his tyres have crushed the small remaining bits of snow into snice and getting rid of that last 1/2" is ... not easy. I tried brushing vigorously with the yard brush and chipping away with the shovel and got about 4 yards done before I gave up.

My dearly beloved has just put a bowl of hot porridge on the table, so I will retreat to that and contemplate the future.

Bloody, but unbowed

I remember clearly what I did on June 24th, 1995. It was a warm and sunny day in England and I was at a school fete, yet most of the parents at that fete spent two hours crowded into a marquee, watching the final of the Rugby World Cup. Against the odds and with the very public support of Nelson Mandela, South Africa won.

So when I saw that a film, Invictus, had been made describing that World Cup I was intrigued. The raw story was astonishing from many points of view. The South African team was not expected to do well. The newly-elected president was hardly expected to be interested in a game that is almost a religion to his political opponents, the Afrikaners. Both Mandela and the Springboks (as the SA rugby team is called) drew inspiration from a Victorian, yet Victorians treated both black and Afrikaner South Africans dreadfully.

On the other hand, South African films tend to be schmaltzy and I was sceptical that Morgan Freeman (Mandela) or Matt Damon (the South African rugby captain, Francois Pienaar) could do justice to their roles, or even do a reasonable accent. Too often, doing another country's accent ends up in caricature.

However, my curiousity won out and I went.

I am so glad I did. The film did a fine job of telling the story of South Africa's newly-won freedom from apartheid, the tensions and suspicions between white and black in the new South Africa, the abysmal state of SA rugby in the months leading up to the World Cup and a few of the many challenges faced by Mandela.

In its portrayal of the game of rugby this film is in its element, and this is why you should see it at the cinema rather than see it on TV. Unlike in American football, rugby offers no body armour to its players. Tackles by players are brutally hard: injuries not uncommon. The film makers created great feeling for this by a number of clever approaches, including filming the scrum from underneath.

There is a fairytale ending in which a match of two hours, drawn at full-time is won in extra time by a last minute drop kick at goal. This united a new nation in pride and seems the kind of thing that could only happen in fiction. Yet in all its essential elements this story is a true record of what happened. Morgan Freemen is an excellent and credible Mandela: Matt Damon plays Francois Pienaar superbly. My South African wife tells me that his Afrikaans accent is virtually perfect.

There are touching moments: there are harsh moments. There is hope and frustration. Finally, as happened on June 24th, there is incredible victory and exhilaration. It's a great film, and one of my rare recommendations. Go and see it now and get 2010 off to a great start.

Footnote: the Victorian who inspired both Mandela and Pienaar was English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). His poem gives the film its title.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.