3,000 More Houses in Hook?

The standard way that government imposes a controversial policy is the following.

1. Give it a really boring title.
2. Claim it's just a draft, for consultation.
3. Publish it during the summer holidays, or while MPs are distracted by party conferences or both.
4. Deride those who oppose it as NIMBYs.
5. Stress that the policy is in the national interest.
6. Claim opponents don't understand the proposal or are exaggerating.
7. Tell civil servants to start giving weight to the policy when making decisions, even before it is implemented.
8. Say that those who don't agree with the policy are creating myths.
9. Implement the policy and when people complain say "The papers were all published and you had plenty of time to comment."

All of these ruses have been used by the Government in the draft National Planning Policy Framework.

Let me explain what this policy would mean for Hart, and Hook.

First, the policy takes away most of the protection for green fields that previously existed.

Second, it says that councils must assess every possible need for a house for anyone who might be in the district or who might choose to settle in the district.  (This is called a Strategic Housing Market Assessment)

Third, the council must identify land where these houses might be built.

What change would this make for Hart and Hook?

At present, Hart District Council has draft plans to build 220 houses a year for 20 years: a total of 4,400.  Of these, about 500 might be built in Hook (this is one option, but not definitely decided yet).  Under the NPPF, Hart might need to identify enough land to build over 1,500 houses a year: 30,000 over 20 years.

Where would these houses go?

They can't go in and around Yateley (in the east of the district) because building there is restricted under European law.  So they would need to go in the centre and West:  Hook, Hartley Wintney, Fleet, Odiham, North Warnborough, South Warnborough, Rotherwick, Winchfield.

It's possible that 3,000 or more would be built around Hook, which would double the size of the village.  In fact it wouldn't be a village any more - it would be a town.  The most likely place to build these houses would be in the fields between Hook and Rotherwick.

Now perhaps that you think this is a good idea.  I clearly don't.  

You have the opportunity to tell the government what you think, whether you like the policy or you don't.  Here's how you can do this.

1. Read the draft document.  It's here.
2. Fill in the consultation response form here.
3. Write to your MP.  You can find out who your MP is here.

The government wants your response by no later than October 17th.  So don't be caught out - please write today.

Don't let Sir Humphrey win!

A Cat Cured My Headache

In the words of Dara Ó Briain  "Well, I know a woman and she had a terrible headache, and then she rubbed a cat on her head, do you know, two days later her headache was gone!" (He puts the case more forcefully and with NSFW language here.)


The point is this: there's a good amount of stuff that's marketed to us daily that has no evidence to support it whatsoever.


Now, I really shouldn't mention this because I work in marketing and it breaks the Code of Marketing BS but every so often there are claims made about products and services that just ... aren't ... true.


And we know this.  We see it often enough that everyone can think of a case.  

• These little pills will cure you.  How are they made?  Well we dilute the "active ingredient" 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times in water.  Sure it will work!
• Detox shampoo.  Really?
• Yoghurt that optimises the release of energy from your diet. How?
• Homeopathy that can treat AIDS.
• Curcumin (a component of the spice turmeric) can cure cancer.

Some of these claims are foolish.  Others are dangerous.

Sense About Science is a charity that clearly and simply explains the facts when it comes to science.  They have started a campaign encouraging people to ask for evidence when they come across an unlikely claim.  It's called, unsurprisingly, "Ask for Evidence". 

Here's what you can do:

• Please read the link above: it will take you just a few minutes and may save you money or, even, your health.
• If you come across an unlikely claim, be sceptical.  It takes little time to ask the company for proof and you may help remove a dishonest claim.  If you do this, please let Sense About Science know.
• If you like the work that Sense About Science does, you could donate here.  They run an excellent organisation very efficiently.

If nothing else, you'll get a laugh reading about some ridiculous claims, and that probably does more to cure a headache than rubbing a cat on your head.

Footnote:  In a related area, there's also Ben Goldacre's excellent, humorous and immensely readable book, Bad Science, for those who'd like to delve more deeply into the subject.

Deliver Them from Evil

As a youngster I belonged to a gang. Indeed, at times, I was a gang leader. We’d go out at night and hide in the shadows, ride our bicycles along quiet streets and slip between pools of light.

I’d tell my parents “I’m going out with my gang” in the evening. Sometimes we’d “roof rattle”: throw stones onto the roofs of bungalows to make a noise and flee with mischievous glee the moment an angry householder opened his door to chase us.

After an hour or so we’d go home, have a bath and sleep the sleep of the not-so-innocent but carefree. I don’t remember how old I was, but probably the between nine and thirteen years old. It wasn’t that my parents didn’t care for me. I know they did. They just thought that I was having harmless fun with my friends and generallyI was – roof-rattling was uncommon. Most "gang meetings" involved James Bond type fantasies and building forts.  Indeed, if any adult had caught me misbehaving they would have spanked me and dragged me back home to tell my parents why and everyone knew this.

This memory has come back to me in recent days as I’ve seen the riots on television, the newspapers and the Internet.

My first reaction to the riots was one of rage at the wicked destruction and the apparent unwillingness or inability of the police to do anything.

Having had a few nights to sleep on it, my views have moderated.

First, I think it’s important to separate the wicked from the foolish. Someone setting a fire is wicked. Someone stealing a bottle of water or a bag of rice is foolish (indeed stupid). I hope that if something similar had happened when I was out with my gang we would have gone home and told our parents “There are Bad People out there.” But I can’t be sure that I wouldn’t have been swept up by the moment and with naughty juvenile glee at least gone along to watch.

I like to think of myself as a Law Abiding Citizen but when I see the stories of some previously blameless kids who did get involved I think “There but for the grace of God …"

I suspect this is true of many upright members of our community.

Our esteemed Prime Minister was a member of the Bullingdon Club while at Oxford. This club is notorious for trashing the restaurants it patronises, although I hasten to add that I have no idea if such behaviour occurred while David Cameron was a member. Speaking of another episode in his student life, David Cameron has said he has done things he "should not have done and regretted".

Haven’t we all?

Does this mean I think we should go easy on the rioters?

My answer is that “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

I think there are some principles we should apply.

First off, if we’re dealing with someone aged under 21 who has a previously blameless record and is accused of a relatively minor offence, then I think the sentence should be relatively minor also - but should involve the offender in paying recompense to the community. For example, sentencing someone like this to spend their leisure hours for several months cleaning graffiti or picking litter would help them better serve their community. It would also give them the chance to think over what they have done and why it was a bad idea. There are dozens of such tasks that could be done in the community: weeding the pavements, cutting the verges or fixing potholes.

Next, put the remainder of offenders, except for the most serious ones, into work. What kind of work? For one thing, there is a lot of highway that needs repairing around the country. There are always litter bins that need collecting. There seems to be a constant demand for roads to be dug up for laying or fixing pipes.  According to the National Audit Office, there is a good deal of military accommodation that needs refurbishing: why not get some of the physical work involved done by these offenders?

So include one offender at a time in groups like these, where they will be surrounded by honest people. There is a twofold aim here: to isolate the offenders among hard working people, as well as making them pay for their offence “by the sweat of their brow”.

For the rest – the organisers, the ones who set fires, the ones who were violent – the standard course of justice is the best I can recommend.

But the key proposal above is not for the wicked, but those who might get caught up in wickedness temporarily and who might well be reformed by a punishment that makes them give back to society to make up for what they have taken.

Would that approach bring to heel the riotous evenings of the Bullingdon? I cannot say for sure, but I expect it might. Would it have stopped the little “gangster” me from roof-rattling? Absolutely!

A Reef Too Far ..

I have the pleasure of presenting another guest post by my travelling correspondent ...

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A Reef Too Far

In April I made a fool of myself and nearly drowned in the process.

After a glorious four days in Tonga celebrating the wedding of a distant niece into a  Tongan family, the guests had started to depart and we had another week to enjoy the sun and sand before leaving ourselves.

We had had a wonderful time meeting family members and friends of all colours, ages and cultures. When one of the party offered me the use of his snorkel I was delighted and went down to the beach with my wife for a short swim and then a read under the trees. It was warm, with the sea and the sky a matching blue and the reef a long low white wave about 250 yards out. Perfect. I'll swim out about half way and look at the fish and coral. About a quarter of an hour say.

Head down in the water I drifted out watching the sea floor of undulating broken coral. Disappointingly few fish and the coral looked dead. The swimming was easy (too easy as it turned out) and then the coral suddenly rose up close to me and in front the sea was suddenly swarming with fish including some very big black ones. In my head alarm bells rang, I shouldn't be here I thought. I realized why the swimming had been so easy.... I was being swept out on a rip. Way out.

I turned to swim back but through my mask the coral beneath me was moving in the wrong direction. I was swimming towards the shore but the rip was stronger, pulling me backwards, out to sea! The shore was not getting any closer. In fact it was receding! 

On the beach my wife was getting anxious. I had been so long. She went down to the shore line and looked out to sea but could see nothing.

In the sea, swimming was not working, I was still going backwards, so (humiliation) I started to call for help. But I was a long way out and, as far as I could see, no one took much interest so I concentrated on the swimming. What I realised was that I was actually outside the protection of the reef and in the open sea and very exposed. I briefly debated the best means of defence when attacked by a shark.

To save energy I swam on my back looking at the clear blue sky while periodically calling for help. Had to be careful, at one point I found that I had turned round and was swimming back out to sea again.

I was totally out of my depth rising up and up and then down and down with the waves. I came across some coral just below the surface and hoping for a rest, was momentarily able to stand up. Relief! But then a big wave knocked me down. It did however, push me towards the shore  but then a terrible undertow pulled me further out again. I tried to hang onto the coral with my hands but the current was too strong. I started to breathe salt water coming down the snorkel tube. Not good. Spat out the tube. A reasonable swimmer shouldn't drown, should at least be able to float!

When I looked towards the shore I could see people resting on the golden sand under the palm trees and splashing in the sea and having a good time, but no response to my calls.

My wife, however, had heard me and was summoning assistance and I could see someone in a kayak set out from the shore. Was he coming to me though? Or just going for a joyride perhaps? To me I hoped, things were getting to be a bit of a struggle and help would be very welcome.

Thankfully, he was suddenly close, indicating to get onto the back of the kayak. I scrambled on but there were no handholds and I slipped and tumbled over the top headfirst into the sea on the opposite side. The boat drifted away from me and I went under. I surfaced, grabbed it and pulled myself on the back again. I heard a big crack in my chest as I did so, guessed that I'd cracked or broken a rib. He fell off this time but I was able to sit in the kayak seat and he then tried to get on behind. Whoops! back in the sea again. It was getting harder and harder to get on the damn thing but I eventually got back in the seat again and he was telling me what to do from the water. Then the big waves started to hit us as we crossed the reef and we came off again. Getting there though.

We now had to cross the 250 yards of water to the beach. Even that was hard to do. The sea was rougher than I expected and it's a long way but even as it got shallower the sea floor is rough coral, uneven and impossible to stand up on.

When I did eventually get in it seemed that I'd been in the water for hours although it hadn't been that long in fact. My wife was on the beach with the owner of the resort and I was never more pleased to see her. Her welcome wasn't quite as warm as I had expected, but then again, she had had a worrying time!

I later bought my rescuer a drink and heard that only yesterday sharks were seen where I had been. And the ribs? Yes, still painful, must have cracked them and it's put a stop to any swimming or vigorous exercise for a while. My wife, for some reason, seems quite pleased.

David Burke

Don't Hurry Love

I grew up in Africa where the mail system is somewhat different to the UK.  If I wanted to post a letter from one town to another, I would have expected it to take a week or two.

No, that wasn't a typo: I did say a week or two, even if the distance involved was perhaps 20 miles.  That's how mail worked and what seemed normal to me.  It was therefore a revelation when I came to the UK and found that most mail should be delivered overnight.  And that you could be confident that it would arrive.

However, recently I had to send some important papers to South Africa and so I thought I had better use a courier, both for security and speed.  I will not say which courier, but the clue is in the title.

The pickup was ordered on Tuesday for Wednesday collection. 

The picture above is taken from the web site and shows that in two days the parcel has got as far as Heathrow Airport.  According to Google Maps, this is a journey of under 30 miles.  Google Maps also has a cute feature that estimates how long it would take to walk that distance.  Here's what they say

Yes, that's right: If the courier had walked it would take less than seven hours.

At this rate, I calculate the parcel will be delivered in a bit over a year. 

Consequently I feel a little aggrieved at being charged £45 for "courier delivery".

It takes me back to my childhood, where post was a "hit and miss" matter and I have to say I have noo feelings of nostalgia for this kind of service.

Don't Hurry, Love.

UPDATE

The bloggers code of ethics compels me to add the following update to this fast-moving story (and parcel).

As shown above, the parcel has now arrived in Cape Town.  This journey of about 6,000 miles, was apparently done in 3 hours, or approximately at an average speed of 2,000 mph.  That's 50% faster than Concorde.  I can only think that the courier company, in response to my original blog, purchased an SR-71 Blackbird to peform the delivery.

I am impressed!

Referendum Myths and Irrelevancies

I am annoyed at the pathetic levels to which both campaigns have stooped and - in something of a rush - I've picked out some of the worst arguments from both sides.  Anyone want to add to these?

FPTP is Fairer / AV is Fairer

An argument can be made for both systems on the basis of fairness.  FPTP does select the single most popular candidate.  AV does select the candidate that has the broadest appeal. 

What neither campaign is saying is that a lot of the time, AV and FPTP will select the same candidate:

•  When one candidate gets 50% + 1 vote on the first round
• When the leading candidate on the first round manages to get to 50% + 1 vote after votes have been redistributed in subsequent rounds.

I don’t know and I haven’t done the analysis, but I expect that most MPs elected at the last election under FPTP would have been elected under AV.

AV is complicated

Oh, it so is.  Especially if you struggled to get past junior school.  However, for anyone who manages something as simple as working out what to serve at a dinner party (“Stephen doesn’t like curry and Amy is lactose intolerant so let’s serve chicken and vegetables”) it’s a breeze.

Really.

The No Campaigners are Bullies

Life is hard.  Get over it.

AV is Expensive

First off, the No2AV campaign count the cost of the referendum itself: that's outright misleading.  Second, they make some big assumptions about the costs of AV.

AV probably will be a bit more expensive to run than FPTP.  But in terms of government expenditure, the amount is tiny: a fraction of 1% of the education budget, for example; a miniscule fraction of a fraction of 1% of the overall government budget.

Hardly Anyone Uses AV

A challenging point for two reasons.

Firstly, if we are to look at which is the most popular system of government in the world today, we’d probably come up with repressive dictatorships.

Second, one of the few governments using AV is Australia and their economy is doing very well, thank you.  If that’s what AV delivers, I’ll have it now, please.

Under AV, MPs will have to work harder

Oh yes, this is a lovely one to play to the angry voters after last year’s scandal.  Unfortunately, it’s not true.  There would still be plenty of safe seats (although some of them would change hands).  More importantly, there would still be plenty of hard working MPs.  My own MP has one of the safest seats in the land and yet remains immensely hard-working and never complacent.

…

That’s said, how will I be voting?

I’m not 100% set one way or the other.  However, I am leaning towards AV: it seems to me that  a system designed to get the approval of the broadest number of voters has a lot to recommend it.

Boxing clever

Today I feature a guest post by a friend of mine, David Burke.
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In Praise of Stand-Alone Post Boxes

There is a Western European nation that suffers long, damp, moderately cold winters. To reduce energy use, it builds new houses with double glazing, walls, roofs and floors with high insulation levels and requires high performance gas boilers. Grants are available to upgrade existing houses. In some cases external doors are insulated. 

This same nation, having done all it can to reduce the carbon footprint of the house, then permits a hole of about 50mm by 300mm to be cut in the external door. This hole is usually fitted with a metal draught flap (sometimes a poor performer) which, after occupation, is often held open, sometimes all day thus obviating much of the benefit of all that energy saving construction. 

The Western European nation is, of course us and as you will have guessed I'm talking about the letter box. The letter box as we know it, is a bit of a villain really. Not only does it lose energy when the flap is held open all day with letters, but it requires the postman walk all way from the road to the house to make a delivery, it's often in an awkward position requiring the deliverer to perform minor gymnastics and once found it can have a nasty bite, scraping hands and fingers. And that is without taking account of the dog behind the door!  And, of course it provides a welcome starting point for the burglar. So why do we do this? Is the no other way of dealing with the household delivery of letters and papers?  

Well, I have no answer as to why we do it, except perhaps that we have always done it.  But there is a way to over come the problems presented by our little friend, the letter box. 

In Australia no front door has a hole cut in it. Or in New Zealand. I don't think that they do it in the USA either (to name but a few). Instead, they provide a letter box at the road side. Sometimes lockable, sometimes not.

The benefits include :-

1. Reduced energy loss
2. Reduced price for the door
3. Reduced carbon for postal delivery as times are reduced and they can often be be done by bicycle
4. Improved efficiency for Post Office as productivity will rise.
5. Improved security
6. Improved convenience as deliverers will have easy and simple access to the delivery point.
7. Reduction in the minor injuries that badly placed and awkwardly designed letter boxes cause.

Set against this are two things: the cost of providing an external box, although this will be partly  offset by the savings to the door, and our cultural wish to have our post delivered to our front door.

If you don't want to do a something then you will always be able to show it can't be done, however I think that the benefits to the nation, of providing kerb edge post boxes far outweighs any initial cost. And the culture? Well how long ago was it when the dustman went round to the back of your house to collect your dustbin? And what happens now?

Finally, the photos (from Australia) show post being delivered by a man on a Honda moped, as well as various post box designs one showing the savings for the post man of not having to walk the length of a huge drive to deliver a letter.      

So there are health and safety advantages, there are energy saving benefits, and there are convenience benefits. Even in these straitened times these seem good enough reasons to me to promote a change in the building regulations.  And, of course, the postal service benefits although I'm not sure that you can make a building regulation for that!

D. J Burke FRICS (Rtd) 

50p to set us free

It wasn’t meant to be like this. Just a year ago Mervyn King was expecting inflation to drop back to its 2% target. Instead it’s well north of 5%. Petrol prices are up. The economy is stagnant. While the press and BBC have daily stories about “cuts”, no one talks about the fact that, even with these cuts, government debt continues to pile up and will do so throughout this Parliament.

It’s time to make the one cut needed to kick start the economy. This isn’t the cut of red tape, although that is desperately needed.

It’s time to take 50p off the price of fuel.

Doubtless civil servants at the Treasury will explain this is unaffordable. The opposite is true.

Lower fuel prices will help everyone: the worker paying a lower bus fare, the business on the edge of bankruptcy facing lower costs, the price of practically anything bought on the high street.

By helping the economy, it will lower government payments to the unemployed; it will increase profitability and tax revenues; it will create employment and consequently generate income tax and NI payments; it will help squeezed councils cover the costs of bin collections; it will help rural workers afford travel to their jobs.

It will drive down inflation so that those in poverty are less hard-pressed; those in the middle class will be able to spend more (or pay off debts faster); those looking for bank loans will be better able to justify them.

It will make the UK a better place to do business and make existing UK businesses more competitive overseas.

It’s win-win-win-win-win.

Can the Treasury see it? Write to your MP and tell him to pass on the message:

“Take 50p off fuel and set our economy free”

Enough to set your teeth on edge

I have a new tooth brush and I am not happy.

First of all, it came in packaging that required garden shears to open.  I tried the big kitchen scissors but I knew they would be no blasted good and I was right.  I was ready at that point to throw the damn thing away (toothbrush, not scissors) but my dearly beloved wife said she would do it, as she always does when I get grumpy.  So she got the garden shears and eventually extracted the device from its packaging but even then the severed plastic ended up cutting her finger so there were great gouts of blood spurting everywhere.

Next I actually wanted a toothbrush that takes batteries.  There is a good reason for this.  Some years ago I went to California on business.  I was staying at the Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara.  On arriving in my room, the door had barely shut before I heard this really annoying buzzing.  I couldn't work out where it was coming from.  I turned off the air conditioning and it remained.  I listened by the fridge, but no sound.  With five nights planned, I knew it would drive me crazy so I turned around and went back to reception and demanded another room.

Actually, that's not true.  They had been extremely pleasant at check in, so I went back and politely requested another room and they could not have been more helpful.  Another room was forthcoming and before I left the desk they were on the phone to the maintenance man to investigate room number one.

Blow me down if the second room didn't have the same problem: a really annoying buzzing at just the perfect level to disturb a good night's sleep, or even annoy me when working in the room.  30 seconds later I was on my way back to reception.

Their smiles were a bit more fixed this time and at the back of their eyes you could see the thought forming "Do we have a nutter here?"  However, their politeness never wavered and they got me another room in another part of the hotel.  I could not believe it when I got into this room and yet again there was this low-level buzzing.  It was at this point that I realised it was coming from my suitcase.  Opening the case, I located the source of the sound as my shaving bag and within that my toothbrush was buzzing away.

This isn't the only time this has happened.  Recently I returned from South Africa to find that my electric toothbrush had gone flat on the flight.  Unfortunately, it was packed right beside my deodorant, and the vibration had caused all the deodorant to leak out and I now hold the world record for the sweetest smelling shaving bag (Guinness Book of Records, 2011 Edition, page 278).

So when I went to buy a new toothbrush, I wanted one with batteries that you can take out when you travel.  However, with an ear finely tuned to customers' needs, toothbrush makers appear to have stopped making these.  You have to buy a rechargeable one.  Like Blackadder in the trenches, it then takes 18 hours to charge.

On the plus side, it comes with a manual.

I don't know what these people who design toothbrushes are thinking, but if your toothbrush needs a manual, you've got it wrong.  We all know how a toothbrush works: you apply some toothpaste to the bristles, aim it at your mouth and away you go.

Not any more.  You have this damn manual to read, and just in case you are bored during the 18 hours it takes to charge the stupid toothbrush, they give you the manual in six languages, four and a half of which I don't speak.

And then it came with this spare toothbrush head that looks like it was designed for a jackhammer.  I have no idea what it's meant for: perhaps removing calluses from feet, removing plaster from walls or possibly crowd control in case of riots.  But it's certainly not going anywhere near my teeth.

So listen up Braun.  Listen up Colgate.  Here is what I want, what I really, really want.

• An electric toothbrush
• That can be unpacked without danger of physical injury
• That can use ordinary batteries.
• That doesn't need a damn manual.
• And comes with a toothbrush head that doesn't scare children, or adults for that matter.

Can that really be too difficult?

Save Your Green Fields!

There is a pernicious paragraph of government policy that will unnecessarily lead to houses being built on hundreds of fields across the land.  To explain what it is and why it matters is a little bit tedious, but I ask you to read this carefully because of the danger being faced.

Across the country, local councils are engaged in a massive exercise.  They are building a plan that will ultimately say how many houses will be built and where over the next twenty years.  Very simply, this process decides

• how many houses are needed
• where they will be put

It's the second part of this we need to be aware of.  Houses can be built either on brownfield (ie previously developed sites such as disused factories) or greenfield (previously undeveloped) land.  As part of the process of building the plan, council officers look at what brownfield land is expected to become available.

However, there is a third category of land we might build on.  Indeed, we build on it every year.  These are so-called windfall sites: previously-developed land that was not known about when the plan was drawn up but that becomes available later.  Pretty much every year developers build housing on windfall sites in my district, and this is common elsewhere as well.

So what you would expect is that a local plan for development in any one district or borough would have a table along the following lines

    Number of new houses needed   10,000
    Houses built on brownfield sites   4,000
    Houses built on greenfield sites    5,500
    Houses built on windfall sites         500

As you can see, windfall sites are a small but significant proportion of the total.  The number can be estimated without too much difficulty by using trends over the past few years.  The 500 houses in the above example would cover a good-sized field.

The problem comes in Planning Policy Statement 3, paragraph 59, which reads

"Allowances for windfalls should not be included in the first 10 years of land supply unless
Local Planning Authorities can provide robust evidence of genuine local circumstances
that prevent specific sites being identified. In these circumstances, an allowance should be
included but should be realistic having regard to the Strategic Housing Land Availability
Assessment, historic windfall delivery rates and expected future trends" 
 
In short, councils are effectively forbidden from including an estimate of windfall sites when drawing up the 20 year plan.
 
The result is simple.  Instead of the table above, you'll get
 
Number of new houses needed   10,000
Houses built on brownfield sites   4,000
Houses built on greenfield sites    6,000

Those 500 houses that would have been allocated to windfall sites are now set to be built on greenfield land.  Repeat that process across hundreds of districts and boroughs throughout the country and you will see hundreds of fields being built on unnecessarily.

What do we need to do to avoid this?  The government needs to withdraw paragraph 59 of PPS3, or change it to allow authorities to make a reasonable estimate of what windfall sites may be expected to become available.

This won't happen unless enough MPs feel it's a problem.  So please write to your local MP today.  You can find their contact details here. This is urgent: unless something is done quickly, it will be too late.

You, dear reader, need to take action if this country is to remain a "green and pleasant land".

The future is Not orange, but ...

I would like to take a moment to defend the Liberal Democrats.

No, I am not about to cross the floor.  I am entirely comfortable in the Conservative party.  However …

Every day I listen to Today on Radio4 driving into the office and PM driving home.  On several occasions I have heard interviewers score cheap points off LibDem MPs, asking how they can possibly be trusted as they have broken so many of their manifesto promises since they set up the coalition government with the Tories.

Yes, they have.  Here’s why.

The unspoken assumption behind any election manifesto is that the party issuing it will win the election, but no party did so this time.  For the Liberal Democrats, the choice was either to sit on the outside looking in while the Tories ran a minority government or to form a coalition and get some of their policies implemented, while others would have to be abandoned.

By the way, it was no different for the Conservatives.  The coalition government will be doing things that simply wouldn’t have happened if the Tories had won an overall majority. 

What’s most important is that this makes good sense for the country.  Both parties have put their tribalism to one side, if only for the moment, so they could get on with fixing so much that is broken.  By working together the two parties are getting more done than would otherwise have been achieved.

This is something that their supporters must remember, despite the frustration that the coalition sometimes brings.

More important, it’s something that must be made clear to mischievous radio interviewers.

Just Pushing Your Leg

There are, I believe, people who enjoy pain just as there are people with blonde hair or clever people or athletes or people who are inclined to be fat.  I don’t understand this but I believe it’s true.

I am not one of them.  My motto is “No pain, no pain”.  One of the really annoying things about pain is that once you have it, it tends to hang around for a while like one of those boring friends who don’t understand body language.

The problem is that I am gullible so when my wife and younger son explained that the Big Issue, which helps homeless people, was a really good cause I agreed and that is how I found myself walking 25km/15.5 miles last night.

It was the 19^th Big London Walk, with a few hundred people walking around London to raise money for the homeless.  Oh, how exciting!  We signed up and I recruited two “friends” from work and we nobly enlisted our friends, workmates and merest acquaintances as sponsors.  Somebody in our team wanted to know if she would get a free jacket and I decided I would bring my stupidly big camera.  Why do Nikon make these so big?  I am sure people buy big cameras with big lenses because they feel inadequate.

Then autumn came.   Cold rain.  Oh joy.  Hourly checks on the weather report by anxious team mates led us to believe the rain would drift away as the walk started. And so we met up in the late evening of 1^st October at the Imax theatre near Waterloo station.  Yes, there were free shower-proof jackets, but apart from a few spots of rain we didn’t need them.

Off we went, with the “fast” walkers.  Zip, zip.  Vim and vigour.  Enthusiasm. Past the Oxo tower, Tate Modern and HMS Belfast and over Tower Bridge, which looked gorgeous in the evening light.  Then the first rest stop but we were through it quickly.  It was midnight and we still had 12½ miles to go.

Fortunately we had with us the 3^rd Best Novice Orienteer in the UK.  So after the rest stop we set out briskly past the Royal Courts of Justice.  Some walkers behind us popped up Greys Inn Road but the Third Best Orienteer (Novice Category) in the UK told us they were wrong.

It’s a funny thing with orienteering.  A fold in the map can be very misleading.  Indeed it was.  It took us half a mile out of our way; a critical half mile, although at the time we were blithe and ready to walk fifty miles.  We got back on the right route and stopped off near St Pancras, the second rest stop.

After this stop, some of us decided we weren’t walking fast enough so they picked up the speed.  Some of us were more civilised.  We cruised through Camden, over the lock (what’s a lock doing so far from the Thames?) past a strip joint called the Spearmint Rhino and some ladies with pelmets.  Third stop.  We’d been promised chocolate brownies at one of these stops and were getting hungry.  Some of us set off at high speed on the next leg.  Some of us were more civilised and sauntered, mainly because our legs were starting to develop this pain thingy.  I don’t know if I have mentioned it, but on my list of Top 100 Things I like, pain doesn’t even make it to position 1000. 

We were now somehow going down the “Outer Circle” of Regents Park.  Very Posh.  I would have been in awe but my brain kept getting interrupted by my wimpy hip, which was complaining that it needed an operation and now would be a goodtime for it.  I managed to shut it up by pointing out that the Outer Circle was a closed road and no ambulance could get there.  Then the bloody calves and thighs started whining.

I can tell you that Outer Circle is a very long road.  One big consolation was that at least I wasn’t walking as fast as some members of the team and therefore logically they must be feeling more pain.  Yes!

Well there was just no point in stopping at the next rest point.  My hip, thighs and calves were clearly plotting against me and I just knew they would insist that I sat down and then they would mutiny at the first sign I wanted to leave so I foxed them and walked past the rest near Centre Point.  Down Great Russell Street, down Southampton Row and then a right turn and through a very quiet Covent Garden.  Surprising, really.  I’d been told that Covent Garden was a buzzing centre of London Fun but all we saw was somebody sitting on a step.

The lower body extremities had caught on to my dastardly trick.  They tried going on strike but I caught them in the nick of time.  My two loyal sons, Craig and Anthony, had taken turns carrying the heavy camera.  3am.  How long can this stupid walk take?

Suddenly we found ourselves in a very dodgy area.  Dark, mysterious and threatening people.  I couldn’t care less.  They couldn’t hurt me more than my legs.  Past St Martins in the Fields.  I wondered how far ahead some of my team were.  The impatient ones.  I tried to call them but their mobile was switched off.

Now, the finish line was ½ a mile away.  Unfortunately some clever clogs had decided that instead of going straight there, we should go via the Lambeth Bridge, which is so far south it’s practically in Brighton.

My legs decide to play good cop with me.  “Look”, they say “just over there, a few hundred yards away, is the end.  You really don’t need to walk those extra two miles, do you?  Remember … they have a massage at the end.”  This is very persuasive.  I look left at Westminster Bridge and Big Ben.  I concede.  My legs are right.  I have done my best, but it wasn’t good enough.

Then the miracle occurs.

The others in my team phone up. 

“Where are you?” they ask.

“Big Ben” I croak.  I haven’t yet turned left, but the guilt is surging through my veins.

“Big Ben?” they ask.

“Yes”, I reply.  “Where are you?”

“St Martins in the Fields.  How did you get to Big Ben?”

“We didn’t stop at Centre Point.”

“Oh, thanks very much for going on without us,” they say sarcastically.

Oh, great!  They are behind!  A few hundred yards behind.  Adrenaline pumps through my system.  Excluding the leg bits, which are very annoyed because they know now that there is no prospect, no chance whatsoever that I will cheat.  South we head towards Lambeth Bridge as Big Ben chimes 4am.  Well, the others “head”.  I hobble.

Do you have any idea how steep Lambeth bridge is? 

At the top there is a good view of the London Eye.  I stop to take a photograph.  Later on, I see it is blurred.  I am conscious that the others are doubtless increasing their pace to try and catch us.  

Now there’s just a mile of the South Bank to walk along.  I cannot possibly imagine walking that far.  I have to do this one lamppost at a time and explain to the calves, thighs, hip and back (yes, my back is snivelling now) that we are just walking to that lamppost.  No that one.  And the next one.  And on.  We cross the road by the Westminster Bridge.  Getting close and no sign of the others.

And then suddenly, there they are.  Merrily chatting and walking as though they have just set off.  Oh, how smug they are and they cruise past, just as we get to the London Eye.  They talk some tosh about going for a personal best.  Well, sweetie, so am I.  If I don’t die before the end that will be my personal best.

I think I have slipped into a delirium because suddenly I find myself turning right at Waterloo Bridge and a few hundred yards later it’s the finish line.  A medal.  A medal?  Is that bloody all, scream my legs and back.  No, I reply.  Come with me.  And just over there are three sports scientists from University of Kent who have got up at stupid o’clock so that they can offer massages to the walkers.

 

My body cheers while whispering “Don’t even think of doing this again next year.”

So, I have a suggestion: if you are the kind of person who enjoys pain, have a go at this.  You’ll feel immense pain while raising money for charity. 

Win-win.

Footnote: we take a train back to Hook and arrive just in time to see a glorious sunrise.  This is the point where I am supposed to write that the sunrise made it all worthwhile.  It didn’t.  But it was a pretty sunrise.

Credits:  This walk wouldn’t have happened without our sponsors.  So thank you very much Alicia, Alison, Allan, Andrew, Andy, Anna, Anton, Christina, Claire, David, Doug, Faye, Geoff, Hasit, Iain, In San, Inderpal, Jamie, Joe, John, Lawrie, Leigh, Mariana, Marisa, Mark, Michael, Neil, Pascale, Paula, Robin, Ruth, Sara, Scott, Simon, Suzanne, Verity and Viv.  As I write this, we have raised £987.22.

The Thin Blue Line

As we look to the future and how the UK government spends its money, it may be worth while looking to the past.  How did we spend money then?  Why have things changed?

Fortunately, there is a wonderful web site that makes it possible to do just that.  It's called UK Public Spending and it tracks budgets (and lots of other interesting numbers) over the past 20 to 30 years.  I looked at it the other day when I was wondering about where it made most sense to make cuts.

Here's a chart I made, comparing spending on Defence with spending on Health.  In 1990, for every £100 we spent on Health, we spent about £80 on Defence.  Today, for every £100 we spend on Health, we spend £20 on Defence.  To put it another way, in 1990 Defence represented 11.6% of the Budget and Health 16.6%: today, in the middle of the war in Afghanistan, Defence represents 6.7% of the Budget and Health 35.9%.

Here's a graph that shows it.  Blue is Defence, Green is NHS.  Click on the graph to see it in full size.  The bars show each department's funding as a proportion of the budget: the lines show each department's budget as a proportion of GDP.

So if you were looking for savings, where would you look?

The next Labour Prime Minister

As we move into the last days of the Labour leadership contest, it's worth wondering who will be the next Labour prime minister.

The problem is that, I suspect, it will be none of the above.

I don't think anyone takes the candidacy of Andy Burnham or Diane Abbot seriously.  That leaves the two Milliband brothers and Ed Balls.

Ed Balls was Gordon Brown's closest advisor as he took Britain's economy from being the strongest In Europe to almost the weakest.  If he became the next Labour leader, the Tories would make hay with this.  As for the Milliband brothers, they have lacked political courage.  Where was Ed Milliband (a Blairite) when Tony needed him?  Why did David Milliband not challenge Gordon Brown for leadership of the party?

In short, the Millibands remind me too much of John Major, who was a decent man but an example of the Peter Principle.  Ed Balls was the architect of our current economic disaster and the others won't make it for one reason or another.

So where is the next Labour leader?  How do political parties recover from the kind of electoral collapse that Labour has seen this year?

In the case of the Tories, it took years and a few leaders to come right, but they did eventually regain power.  However, there can be a number of false starts along the way in any such process.  The Republicans in the the USA serve as an example of what can go wrong, being in danger of losing mid-term elections that should be won, as the radical Tea Party pulls them to extremes.

It would be a shame if this happened to Labour.  Democracy does best when there is a vibrant opposition, well led that poses a real intellectual and political threat to the government.  Sadly none of the candidates for Labour leadership look set to lead such a revival.  Ask any Tory which of these candidates he fears and the reply will come "None of them."

Years ago my elder son was running for election at university.  In addition to each of the candidates, the students had the option of voting for none of the above by ticking the RON (Re-Open Nominations) box, which they quite often did.  It's a pity that this option is not open to Labour voters, because if they want another Labour Prime Minister it won't be any of these five.

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.