I'm Entitled

Mick should have been picking litter outside Mr Mundair's shop

Yes, we know: we can't judge our entire welfare system on the basis of Mick Philpott. But what we can say is that if it hadn't been for our welfare system, he wouldn't have been able to live like that. He wouldn't have been able to get a living from fathering 17 children. There wouldn't have been any benefit in cramming two entire broods into his 3 bed Council semi to boost his income and his case for a bigger house. The incentive simply wouldn't have been there.

We've blogged the issue of children as meal ticket many times (eg following the Shannon Matthews case). And to some degree it is an inevitable consequence of any welfare system that seeks to protect poor children from the fecklessness of their parents: we pick up the tab because we don't want the children to starve. But we don't have to sit back and accept that such parents can just carry on being as feckless as they like.  

Yet according to the welfare administrators in Derby, there was nothing to flag up Philpott and his domestic arrangements as being a concern. In other words, it was deemed perfectly acceptable for him to carry on taking the money and fathering even more kids. All that mattered was that the kids were not obviously being abused.

Why? Why when Philpott was clearly able-bodied, was he allowed to spend his entire life sponging off the rest of us? Because he wasn't some unfortunate casualty of the recession: come rain or shine, boom or bust, he'd always expected us to support him, and our welfare system did absolutely nothing to stop him. Instead of making the dosh conditional on him, say, clearing the rubbish strewn around outside Mr Mundair's Derby shop (and all those other neighbourhood jobs that never get done) he was just given the money. 

This appalling case highlights once again how the culture of entitlement has ramped up our welfare bills. And lest we forget, welfare spending doubled in real terms between 1990 and 2010. Doubled to over £200bn.

In the case of Housing Benefit, that's grown even faster, nearly trebling over the same period. And once again, entitlement has been driving up costs - the entitlement of recipients not just to a roof over their heads, but to remain in the same subsidised accommodation irrespective of how many spare bedrooms they have. And judging from the outcry over the government's attempt to tighten the rules, that sense of entitlement is deeply felt and shared across large sections of the media. 

Yet the government's rule changes are pretty modest, with prospective savings amounting to less than 5% of the total £24bn bill. They will certainly not result in widows and orphans being cast out into the snow.* As for forcing children of the same sex to share bedrooms, I personally shared a bedroom with my two brothers right up until I finally left home in my early twenties - it was no hardship whatsoever. 

Of course, much of the reporting we get on these welfare changes is filtered and spun by the BBC. The R4 Today programme did a great job of stitching up poor old IDS on Monday, getting him to claim he could live on £53 per week. It later turned out that their case study - a market trader who claimed he only gets £53 per week to live on - was being somewhat economical with the actualité, but by then the damage had been done.  And that stunt was only part of the BBC's big campaign against welfare reform, and indeed all Coalition attempts to curb public spending.

Which is hardly surprising, given that the BBC is Britain's biggest tax-funded business. Accountable to nobody except themselves, they are as steeped in entitlement as any Mick Philpott. And they can see that if the rest of us start asking the right questions, it won't be long before their £3.5bn subsidy will be seen as a luxury we can no longer afford. Best to stop such questions being asked in the first place, and hope their guys get back in 2015.

*Denham Senior recalls witnessing the eviction of an elderly widow from her home in the early 1930s. She was carted off to what had once been the workhouse, and her possessions were piled up on the pavement for passers-by to help themselves to. Nobody is suggesting a return to that, or anything even close.

PS How long has the BBC been using our taxes to advertise themselves on YouTube? Personally I find much more to interest me on YT than on the BBC's six (six!) channels put together. Yes, there are ads - ever more ads - but I'd much rather put up with them than the BBC's telly tax... especially when it's being used to advertise on YT. 

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, housing, welfare

World Cup Debacle - Win Win Win

Is this what we pay our taxes for?

Let's agree one point straight away - bringing the 2018 World Cup to England would cost taxpayers a packet.

How much?

Frankly we have no idea. Just like with 2012 Olympics, nobody seems to have worked out anything as mundane as precise costings. All we can glean is:

"The cost of staging the tournament between now and 2018 is being put at just under £1 billion. The Government has already signed guarantees worth £300 million while the 12 host cities have guaranteed funding of £400 million. The bid itself has cost £15.5 million to finance. Manchester is one of the host cities with two of the chosen stadia. A recent report by its city council suggested the cost to local taxpayers would be up to £30 million."

£1bn, huh? And does anyone believe that?

Quite. We can all remember how the projected cost of the Olympics quadrupled - yes, quadrupled - once the bid had been won. All of it to be extracted from us taxpayers.

Yes, the England bid has just been rated as being likely to generate more revenue that many of the competing bids, but what we need to ask is who gets those revenues? Sure, Fifa will take a big slug, tax free, so they'll be well pleased. But how much will we schmuck British taxpayers get? I think we know the answer.

Tyler has no problem with us hosting the World Cup (he will tune out the inevitable national humiliation). But he does have a huge problem with being forced to pay for it.

Which is why he is absolutely delighted with the late intervention of our public service broadcaster. Panorama's allegations of Fifa executive committee members taking bribes has pissed off Fifa, and almost certainly stymied our bid.

Brilliant.

In fact it's win, win, win.

First, we win because we save ourselves a pile of cash (not to mention avoiding having our noses rubbed in a pile of national humiliation right here on our own doorstep).

Second, we win because we remind everyone of the corruption endemic in all of these big international bureaucracies (eg the UN). Putting big western money into the hands of people with third world fiduciary standards is asking for trouble.

And third, we win because everyone will blame the BBC. Our self-styled public service broadcaster has just denied the public the service of the greatest show on earth.

Delicious.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, splurges, world cup

Inferno Continues

It still seems to be alight

BOM correspondents have spotted the following ongoing money pyres:

1. British Council

The good old £0.5bn pa British Council escaped the quango cull (see this blog), and carries on torching our cash as if nothing has happened. David Blackie reports that they have just spent an unknown amount on the “style.uz” fashion week in Tashkent. As David comments:

"If the British Council sponsors a “fashion show” anywhere you might wonder whether in this age of austerity it was an appropriate use of taxpayers money. If the organisation sponsors a fashion show to demonstrate support for such a deeply oppressive regime, you know bloody well that it should do no such thing."

2. Unfunded unprivatised pensions

Nick L highlights last week's court ruling on pension guarantees for the employees of privatised state companies.

As regular BOM readers will know, when companies like BT were privatised back in the 80s, it wasn't done cleanly - HMG issued a Crown Guarantee covering the companies' accrued pension liabilities. In effect, the problem was kicked off into the long grass by ministers and civil servants who have long since retired on their own index-linked pensions. Unfortunately, what with everyone now living to 120, and the dismal performance of the stock market, those guarantees are coming home to roost big time.

The High Court has now ruled in favour of the BT pension fund trustees, saying that taxpayers are on the line for liabilities of up to £23bn. And that opens the door for a slew of other pension funds to make the same claim. Industry insiders reckon Railway Pensions, UK Coal and Trinity House, would all have strong cases. But British Gas and National Grid could also be included.

The final bill could be... what shall we say... £50 - 100bn? All because privatisation was cocked up.



3. BBC

Long-time BOM correspondent Keith M points out that the much-bewailed cut to the BBC's funding may be more apparent than real.

Yes, the BBC has lost its funding for the World Service, but if they look well about them they could recoup that - and quite possibly a great deal more - by opening the World Service to adverts.

He also points out that although the BBC is being made responsible for funding rural broadband and SC4, a large chunk of those costs are already being carried within the existing arrangements. For example, £804m  (c£134m pa) in the last settlement was earmarked for supposed digital switchover costs. And now that most people have switched, that cash is effectively available to fund the BBC's new responsibilities.

Finally, he reminds us that a 6 year freeze in the licence fee is not the same thing as a revenue freeze. The BBC will still benefit from the growth in the number of licence holders.

Roll on privatisation.


Conclusion...

What all three of these pyres highlight is that even after George's cuts, the incineration problem has most certainly not gone away.

But on the positive side, when the BBC keeps asking "what's your Plan B?", it's clear that there's still plenty of scope to cut spending further. And that includes spending on the BBC.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, Bonfires

So What's New?

Didn't we go round these loops before?

After Tyler's disgraceful summer of idling, BOM is finally returning to the air.

So what's new?

Well, there's been much leaking and speculation re the forthcoming public spending review. The public sector unions are threatening a General Strike against job cuts, the police warn that cuts will mean the breakdown of law and order, the Navy and RAF reckon some as yet unidentified foe will roll over us unless we keep their boys' toys nukes and fast jets, and the arts establishment say subsidy cuts will usher in the abyss of a new dark age.

Indeed, according to our friends at the £3.5bn pa tax-funded BBC, we are teetering on the brink of Thatcherite destruction. The Italian hotel telly brought daily BBC World headlines that this or that economic stat was about to turn out much worse than expected (only to report later - much further down the bulletin -that said number had come in freakishly, inexplicably, better than expected).

So just as a sanity check, let's review the Economist's latest summary of consensus world growth projections (click on image to enlarge):

In case you can't read the numbers, for the UK the consensus GDP growth forecast is 1.5% for this year and 1.9% next. Sure, it's not a runaway boom, and sure, it might turn out to be lower than consensus. But a yawning abyss it ain't.

Tyler's specialpleadingometer is registering well into the red zone. The BBC may see the public sector union leaders as champions of civilisation, but those of us who remember the 70s, are thanking God for Thatcher's historic victories over King Arthur and Red Robbo. Today, it's only in cosseted public sector backwaters like the BBC that union barons still hold sway. Union membership across the economy as a whole has halved since the 80s.

The key point here remains just as it was when we left for the hols: public spending has to be cut in order to keep interest rates and taxes down so that the market economy can lift us out of the hole left by Commissar Brown. There really is no sustainable alternative.

But what about unemployment?

Hmm, yes.

The horrible truth is there is something very unfortunate about our economy. Those at the top - the bankers, the lawyers, the consultants etc - can do very well in the big wide world. They have something to sell that commands a nice premium price. But those at the bottom have nothing valuable to sell at all. Their poor skills command no premium, and their poor attitude means the low-skill jobs are all taken by Romanian migrants.

It's a serious problem to which there are really only two possible solutions.

The first is to tax our successful workers to support those left behind. The trouble is that's not very appealing if you're one of the successful workers already shelling out zillions in tax and wondering if you should relocate to Hong Kong.

The alternative is to somehow get the unsuccessful to work. And that means making it attractive for someone to employ them  - ie cutting employment taxes, cutting welfare for those of working age, and abolishing the minimum wage.

You know, I have the strangest feeling we might have covered this ground before.

Despite our prolonged break, it already feels like there's nothing new at all.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, economy

BBC - Don't Starve It, Flog It

There must be some people who'd pay to watch this

At last, a Tory government that's going to grip the BBC. Kultur Kommandant Jeremy Hunt says cutting the Telly Tax is under active consideration.

Hurrah. It has long been obvious that the BBC is a major roadblock to smaller government and serious public sector reform, and however much it squawks, it has to be tackled.

But cutting the licence fee on its own is not such a great idea. All that will do is starve the beast of funds and weaken it. Far better to keep it healthy and drive it to market soonest.

Consider a few sums.

The BBC's total annual revenues are currently running at £4.6bn (2008-09), of which the telly tax comprises £3.5bn, and further government funding (the World Service) comprises £0.3bn. So total tax funding is £3.8bn.

Let's assume the BBC is privatised and the tax funding ends. The question then is how much of that £3.8bn would the BBC be able to recoup from subscriptions and advertising revenue?

In truth, nobody has the faintest idea. But for many, the BBC is a compelling brand, and so we'll assume it can hold on to half the total. In which case, its total revenue would be about £2.7bn pa (ie its existing £0.8bn non-tax revenue plus half its existing tax revenue).

The next question is how much could we raise from flogging a big established media company with revenues of £2.7bn pa?

Assuming the BBC could match BSkyB (and if not why not?), it would deliver a net profit margin approaching 20%. Which in the BBC case would be around £500m pa. And applying the current BSkyB market multiple to those earnings - its 19x ratio of market price to earnings - we can get a rough valuation for the BBC.

And that valuation is getting on for £10bn.

Could the Exchequer use £10bn right now?

You know, I rather think it could.

Don't starve it, flog it!

PS We've contacted BOM's man on the Wharf with the gigantic company valuation spreadsheet to check the numbers. Doubtless he'll say we've misinterpreted the fine print of BSkyB's financials, at which point we'll amend our figures. But meanwhile £10bn it is.

Update BOM's Wharf correspondent has now reported back. He reckons our estimated £10bn price tag is far too optimistic. He points out that the BBC's gold plated pension scheme has generated an unfunded debt of £1.6bn (Sky has no pension debt) which any buyer would lop straight off the price. Moreover Sky's profit margin is actually closer to 10% rather than 20%, so we've overegged the BBC's likely profitability. Plus a few other things. So his bottom line is £4bn.

And just for the record, here's what he says:

"If you somehow dump the pensions on the government, flog off all the real estate, move everyone to Manchester AND match Sky's margins while keeping 25m licence fee payers on board you are talking real money. If somehow you can also start charging for premium content and advertising as well the BBC could be worth over £25bn, but frankly none of these things are going to happen.

The firm has a culture of complacency and entitlement so margins (and pensions) will stay the same. I am reliably informed that many BBC staff don't like the idea of moving up north so they are quitting the BBC payroll, starting media consultancies and charging the BBC for the same work they did before, still based in London. So while assets may get sold costs will go up possibly drowning out the effect of the disposals. Compulsion is the only reason people pay for the BBC. I would expect a 50%+ fall in licence fee payers if the rate stays the same. ITV1-4, C4/E4/M4/F4 and Sky News are all free so why pay? People pay for Sky because it has hundreds and hundreds of channels and premier league football. They will not pay for documentaries about how grim it is up north, etc. The BBC doesn't have any premium content other than Eastenders, some sport, arguably Doctor Who & other kids shows and the external stuff not bid for by Sky, ITV or C4. Advertising would be politically impossible even after privatisation. It would probably be a condition of the sale.

The BBC may be huge but Sky has 40% as many subscribers and juices 3.5x the money out of them before you even get to costs (partly due to phone and broadband). They have a similar amount of invested capital on the balance sheet and NO PENSION DEBT. Frankly I would expect them to be worth much more than the BBC. No wonder Murdoch Sr. is trying to buy out the free float."

Yes, well... we can't really argue with that.

We'd still do it though. And for all those commenters who say they don't want telly with ads, we'd trust the market to develop a subscription based service with no ads.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: asset sales, BBC

Here Is The News

"Here is the news. The Tories are to press ahead with their savage spending cuts, despite being warned by experts that it will result in millions of children being eaten by wolves. Vulnerable old people are expected to be starving in gutters by Christmas, and we are certain to see many more innocent babies impaled on Thatcherite Pickelhauben."

Thus our "public service" broadcaster reports George's prudent and necessary programme of fiscal retrenchment. The programme that is essential if we are to rebuild a sustainable and prosperous economic future.

Last night's Newsnight was a classic, opening with footage of a huge axe poised over a school playground, and a smug looking Emily telling us that the abandonment of Labour's multi-billion Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme shows that Tory promises to safeguard frontline services are all lies.

No matter that the £50bn BSF had already turned into a vastly expensive disaster (see this blog), or that it threatened to leave us with yet another socialist legacy of poorly built, difficult to maintain, education factories (see this blog). No, the message was that millions of children are now being consigned to freezing leaking Nissen huts* with their educational prospects wrecked.

Look, we all understand that the tax-funded BBC is never going to support public spending restraint, but we should surely expect the occasional brief nod in the direction of the facts.

And the fact here is that these so-called savage spending cuts make barely a dent in the massive upward trend of public spending.

As we've blogged before, far from cutting spending, George's budget actually projects a 9% increase by 2015-16 (Total Managed Expenditure increases from £696.8bn this year to £757.7bn in 2015-15).

Of course, if you assume the Simple Shopper is unable to restrain the price it pays for goods and services, then that 9% cash increase may translate into a squeeze on the volume of stuff it's able to buy. But even then, the reduction looks pretty small in relation to the reckless rise under Labour.

The following chart shows public spending in real terms (ie 2010-11 prices adjusted using the GDP deflator) all the way back to 1964-65. We have spliced on George's budget projections out to 2015-16.

As we can see, over the next 5 years George intends to squeeze total public spending by 4%, or about £25bn pa.

Hardly a disaster, and to put it another way, that will take spending all the way back to the level last seen in... wow... 2008-09.

And compared to when Labour came to power in 1997, real spending will still be over 50% higher. Most of Labour's insane spending splurge will remain in place.

Yes, OK, we know that some departments will be squeezed more than others. But without working through all the numbers in detail, I'd be amazed if any department was going to end up with less in real terms than they had when Labour came to power. And as has been pointed out, the world seemed to be working perfectly fine in 1997.

You might want to keep these figures handy for the next BBC axe horror story.

*Footnote Back in the 60s, Tyler's first two years at his most excellent state grammar school were spent being taught in wartime asbestos huts. They weren't quite the classic Nissen hut, but close enough. They were draughty, hot in summer, f-f-freezing in winter, and the bogs were outside. None of which made any difference whatsoever to the quality of the education. As ex-teacher Mrs T is forever saying, it's not the buildings that matter, but what goes on inside them.

PS Talking of Mrs T, she's got it into her head that the BBC has been systematically referring to Cam as David Cameron, rather than the Prime Minister. She reckons they never did that with Bliar or Brown. Can that be right? Having now listened more closely, she certainly seems to be right about Cam's treatment, but the Tyler memory banks have blotted out 1997.

PPS The WW1 propanda posters are lifted from weburbanist - well worth a look.

UPDATE 7.7.10 BOM correspondent EW has emailed with a comment left under this story about one of the new schools already being built under BSF - the replacement for the notoriously awful Pimlico School, itself erected at huge expense by the GLC commissars in the 60s:

"It [the 60s school] was impractical; it was freezing in the winter, boiling in the summer and the heating was operated centrally...yet I'm sad to see it go. I'm a student at the school, and it's being replaced with something absolutely disgusting; one of these new labour/tory style office-type designs without much natural light, a lunch room with doors to outside which are constantly opening and getting stuck in mid-winter, narrow stairs, only one central corridor for each floor, and broken drains which make the 2nd floor stink of rotten eggs. We once entered our science room to see the gas taps all lit, because it was so cold. For the record, it's less than a year old. When finished, it will be much smaller, have fewer classrooms, no designated 6th form area and most certainly no swimming pool. We now never have swimming lessons anymore because all the slots at the leisure centre have been long-since booked up by other schools. Good thinking, Ed Balls."

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, cuts

WTF Do They Think They Are?

By far the best QT ever

We try to stay off the BBC - no, really, we do - because it pushes our blood pressure into the stroke zone. Which is why we also steer well clear of Question Time.

But last night Newsnight led with the same lengthy tabloid report on the murdered prostitutes (sorry, "sex workers") we'd already seen about 20 times elsewhere. So we flicked across to QT. Just in time to see one of the Lord High Dimblebys passing judgement in a serious case of contempt of the BBC.

It seems the new government had had the temerity to refuse to provide a cabinet minister for throwing into the pit. Not unless the BBC replaced the odious and never elected Ali Campbell as the Labour fighter with a proper Labour front bencher.

Puffing himself up to his full height, Bimbleby intoned that that Question Time "expected" to have a government minister dancing attendance, and that it is up to "us on Question Time to decide who should be on the programme not Downing Street".

WTF?

These arrogant cosseted people are employed by a £3.5bn quango that increasing numbers of us simply do not want. Their agenda is unremittingly that of the Guardian and points left. They are a major statist roadblock to the kind of progressive reforms we would like to see.

QT itself - which incidentally normally attracts well under 3m viewers - is a bearpit with a packed audience of young lefties. Campbell is a notorious spinner of untruths who has done more to undermine confidence in our political system than any number of duck islands. WTF would any sane Tory cabinet minister volunteer to enter such an arena?

The Major has long argued that the next Tory government should deal with the £3.5bn pa BBC. Ideally, the whole shooting match should be broken up and privatised. Failing that, it should be hacked back to one TV channel and one or two radio channels, funded out of general taxation rather than a ring-fenced tax of their own.

Meanwhile, our new government should be much more selective in taking up requests for ministerial interviews. They should say yes to Sky and ITV - who are both far more balanced in their approach - and no to the ritualised abuse handed out by the likes of Dame Paxo. Let's see how the BBC likes that.

PS Apologies for no blog yesterday. I actually intended to blog Iain Duncan Smith's much trailed welfare speech. Unfortunately, the accompanying paper contained little that is a new - it's more a restatement of the problem. Instead, we'll take a look at the National Audit Office Report on Labour's Pathways to Work programme introduced in 2003/04 to cut numbers on incapacity benefits. The NAO reckons it's given “poor value for money”. It said that private companies and charities hired to deliver support to get people off incapacity benefits had “universally under-performed”, delivering results no better than those achieved by job centres. It said Pathways “had had a limited impact and, while a serious attempt to tackle an intractable issue, has turned out to provide poor value for money”. Getting ripped of by private sector welfare-to-work providers is a real issue with these schemes, so the full NAO report will be worth a read. We'll report back.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC

Absolutely Free

Free fountains for all

On BBC R4 Today this morning they discussed the imminent move by the Times to charge £1 per day for access to its online edition. You and I know there's no way we'll now start paying for Finkelstein and the rest of the Times output, and the BBC clearly agrees. Which will be great news for the BBC themselves, whose audience/readership should get a big boost. As Evan Davis chirped in his link to the subsequent item: "here's a review of the papers, and it's absolutely free".

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, absolutely free.

A single phrase that precisely captures the BBC's approach to public spending. Public spending is free, so cuts must be a bad thing. More is good, and less is bad.

Yesterday's Newsnight was a classic. It kicked off with their Trotskyite economics editor frowning his way round Westminster, and telling us how the cuts will bring massive job losses (he's clearly cranking up to announce the final crisis of capitalism). That was followed by a lengthy report from a sun-drenched Sheffield, where billions have been spent on public sector jobs and those arty fountains that spurt up unexpectedly from pavements for drunken unemployed teenagers to run through (vid). The message was the same - the cuts will extinguish the sun, destroy this city, and destroy these vulnerable lives.

Not once did anyone mention that fact that all those jobs and pavement fountains are not actually free, but have to be funded by taxpayers. That the cuts are not being made for fun - some evil Thatcherite whim to punish the poor - but simply in order to get the books back into some vague approximation to balance.

No mention of the fact that spending money on things that cannot pay their own way means taxing things that can. And that when you tax those things, you weigh them down and make it more difficult for them to succeed. Or that returning to prosperity depends on stimulating the things that can pay their own way - ie the private sector chasing private profit.

Of course, the tax-funded BBC doesn't have to worry about such tiresome details as paying its own way. They get £3.5bn from us whether or not we like what they produce.

Which means they don't have to charge for use.

But free it ain't.

PS As we've said many times, for those of us who believe in smaller government, the BBC is a major roadblock to progress. Like all the big public sector institutions it is impossible to reform, so breaking it up is the only option. Some had hoped that a Tory victory might have secured early action, but there's not a prayer now. We'll just have to keep plugging away for a brighter tomorrow.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, cuts

Our Scary Shambolic Migration "Debate"

On the campaign trail yesterday, Tyler had the chance to chat with leaders of our sizeable local muslim community. Very interesting.

For one thing, these are people who most definitely contribute to our society. Not only do they run a wide range of local businesses, they also really do believe in giving something back - both in time and money.

What also became clear was that they are as concerned about the immigration issue as the rest of us. They are as appalled as Tyler at Brown's dismissal of the Rochdale granny as a bigot. And they want to see somebody get a grip on the numbers now coming to Britain. Housing's a big local problem, jobs have become a problem, and this is all getting very scary.

One of the underlying problems of course, is that we haven't got a clear agreed view on what's actually going on.

For example, last night on BBC TV News, Prog Con spokesman Mark Easton did a "reality check" on Clegg's now notorious claim that 80% of immigrants come from within the EU (see yesterday's blog). And Easton concluded that Clegg is indeed wrong (see his blog here).

However - and it is A Big However - where Clegg is right is in saying that only a small proportion of total non-EU immigrants say they are coming here to work. In fact, in the most recent year (2008), the International Passenger Survey records only one-in-eight long-term migrants coming to the UK from outside the EU and saying they're coming to work.

Which is why, suggests Easton, Clegg is right in saying the evil Tories' plan to cap the number of non-EU workers coming in won't work.

Hmmm.

What Easton didn't explain is what are all the others coming here for?

Because in terms of overall net migration flows, that very same Survey tells us that migrants from outside the EU constituted 130% of total immigration. Overall net immigration was 129,000, of which no fewer than 168,000 came from outside the EU (the overall figure is only brought down to 129,000 because a net 84,000 Brits upped sticks and left).

The truth is that by far the biggest inward migration flow from outside the EU comes from people who say they are coming here to study.

If we look at the same Survey, we find that just in the last 5 years, over 0.5m people net came here from outside the EU saying they were going to study. Which is 60% of all net inward migration over the period.

And in principle, we should be delighted that people want to study here. Not only does it earn us money, but it also gives us valuable worldwide connections for the future.

The problem comes when these students don't actually leave again afterwards. Or even worse, when they are coming here as part of a thinly disguised people trafficking scam to study for one of those infamous bogus degrees.

So what should we do?

Despite what Easton implies, you have to believe that any capping system worth its salt will have to include students who want to stay on to work after they qualify. They can't just be left to join our labour force willy-nilly.

So a properly designed and enforced capping system must include such students from outside the EU.

The Tories are planning to do that... right?

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, Immigration

Any Answers

We know whose side they're on

Don't know if anyone heard BBC R4 Any Questions this week, but it was a cracker - Hague, Balls, Heffer, and some pantomime eco-communist woman (no, really).

William Hague's appearance naturally allowed the BBC to spend yet more time on the Ashcroft saga*. But let's not dwell on that. As we've said many times, if Cam's got any sense he will ensure the BBC gets a serious pruning post a Tory victory - it's insane for the Tories to tolerate a taxpayer-funded lefty propaganda organ of the BBC's vast size, and we taxpayers need a break.

But the bit that made Tyler scurry off to the datavault was Balls' argument that we shouldn't get so upset about the BA and railway strikes because strikes were much worse under the Tories.

And that reflects a developing Labour theme. On Friday, C4 News told us that comparisons with the 1970s are ludicrous because "this is nothing like the 1970s". So let's look at some facts.

First, here's the UK's history of strikes - ie days lost through strike action:

There are a couple of things to note.

First, compared to the 1920s, even the strikes in the 70s and 80s pale into insignificance. The grand-daddy of all strikes was the 1926 General Strike, when Britain lost 162 million working days. Which makes the 29 million lost in 1979 look like a virtual blip.

Second, almost all the big strikes were down to one particular group. Yup, you guessed it, the heavily unionised working-class-hero miners. They were behind nearly all the spikes in the chart - 1912, 1921, 1926 (with support from other unions), 1972, 1974, and 1984. In fact, the only spike not down to them was 1979 - Labour's Winter of Discontent year. Overall, the miners and their unions inflicted more damage on the British economy than probably even the Third Reich managed.

Of course, as soon as we discovered gas in the North Sea, the miners were living on borrowed time. But it was only after Thatcher had actually faced them down that the single biggest source of strikes was removed from the equation.

And the mine unions were not the only unions Thatcher had to face down. Which is why the average days lost to strikes during her administration ran at 6.7m pa (about 4m pa if you exclude the miners' strike). But even that, note, was way better than the average 12.7m pa during the dire 1970s.

And note too, that under Major, average days lost to strikes fell to 0.6m pa, almost exactly where it has stayed ever since. Until now, that is.

So yes, Balls - a member of the striking Unite Trade Union - is right in saying that that there were many more days lost to strikes in the 80s than there have been under Labour. But the reason is that Thatcher was dealing with Labour's creators and paymasters - the unions that had brought our economy to its knees.

25 years on, we're getting a sharp reminder that Thatcher couldn't finish the job. The public sector remains highly unionised, which will be a major obstacle as we wrestle with our fiscal deficit. And underneath all the spin, Labour remains a creature of the unions - a creature that once again will be supporting the unions all the way as they strike against Cam's attempts to bring the public sector pay bill back under control.

*Footnote - Ashcroft continues to command headlines at the BBC, at the same time as they persist in glossing over Labour's tax-dodging donors. It will be interesting to see what coverage they give to the freshly broken cash for influence scandal involving Labour ex-ministers like Pants-on-fire Byers, CPO Commissar Hewitt, and the dreaded Hoon. We all understand that Westminster is a sleaze pit, and the BBC ought at least to make some vague effort to cover all the sleaze, not just the bits that suit their prejudices.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: 2010 Election, BBC, strikes

Quangonomics

Two for the price of one - that's BBC value

According to the BBC - no, don't laugh - its activities "generate over two pounds of economic value for every pound of the licence fee". So for the trifling sum of £3.5bn pa, we get at least £7.7bn of economic value every single year. It's a miracle of value-adding superefficiency.

WTF?

Well, it works like this. The BBC pays Deloitte - pays them an unknown sum out of our friggin' telly tax - and Deloitte produces a thick report that says the BBC generates at least £7.7bn pa of economic value. And to prove it, here's their picture (click on it to enlarge):

OK, so how on earth have Deloitte come up with such wildly implausible numbers?

We don't know. Despite the BBC claiming to have published Deloitte's report alongside their much discussed strategic review today, we have been unable to find it anywhere.

But judging from the BBC's summary, the argument seems to be that because they employ a lot of highly paid people, and because they buy a lot of programmes from independent production companies, that somehow constitutes value added. They also seem to think that those production companies would disappear if the BBC didn't exist and therefore wouldn't be able to sell their products to anyone else either.

This is known as quangonomics - a line of thinking that can be applied to any quango you care to name. For example, BOM's old friend the Chip Marketing Council - a tax-funded quango costing us £6.5m pa - can claim that it not only creates value by spending £6.5m pa on staff and advertising companies, but it creates even more value by keeping chip shops in business.

But at the risk of insulting your intelligence, let's keep in mind a couple of rather unfortunate facts.

First, taxes destroy at least as much value as the public spending they finance (and there are strong theoretical and empirical reasons for thinking they actually destroy more value).

Second, nobody can possibly know whether the chip shops would disappear without the Chip Marketing Council's support. And if they did disappear, that would be telling us that the quango had been propping up an industry bloated beyond the public's true appetite - its staff and premises would be more valuably employed elsewhere.

No, there may be all kinds of reasons why we should retain the tax-funded BBC, but economic value added is not one of them. We will never discover its real economic value unless we privatise it.

And talking of privatising the BBC (now, be fair - we've kept off this old favourite for months), did everyone see Michael Gove on Newsnight last night?

Grilled by Labour's Kirsty Wark on the Ashcroft affair, he did a brilliant job. Instead of simply soaking up Newsnight's usual anti-Tory punishment, he asked Wark calmly but very firmly why it was she and the rest of the BBC's interviewers didn't give Labour and LibDem politicians the same hard time over their non-dom donors? Wark didn't like it at all, and attempted to end the interview. But Gove carried on and made the point. Other senior Tories should follow his lead.

As we've said before, assuming Cam wins, there really do have to be consequences for the BBC. Over the years we've been writing BOM, it has become increasingly obvious they are a major roadblock to reform. It is ludicrous to spend £3.5bn pa of our taxes on a quango that is dedicated to the promotion and protection of Big Government.

If not full privatisation, it needs shrinking drastically. Today's sacrificial offerings of the Asian Network and 6 Music don't even scratch the surface.

PS Just for a further chuckle, you might want to note how today's BBC report describes its number one priority: "The best journalism in the world. Informing civic and democratic life at home and abroad—through independent, impartial and accurate news, current affairs and information." And the really disturbing thing is that they still believe they're delivering that.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC

Talent

We've just taken a quick look at the National Audit Office's new report on the BBC. They've probed the costs incurred in covering major sports and music events, and they come up with some interesting stats.

How many BBC staff went to the bunfight in Beijing in 2008?

A staggering 491 - even though all the main pictures (including that fake opening ceremony) were supplied by Chinese TV.

Glastonbury - 277

The Proms - 145

But as always, the really interesting bit is what they choose to pay the... er, "talent". And as always, the tax-funded state broadcaster refuses to tell us:

"Following legal advice, the BBC Trust has asked that the National Audit Office not disclose the aggregate figure for talent costs for each event. It believes that in this case such aggregate disclosure, when combined with other information the Trust believes to be either in the public domain or potentially available, could constitute disclosure of talent fees for individuals, which would be in breach of the Data Protection Act."

All the NAO will say is:

"The cost of talent (presenters and commentators) can be a significant element of coverage expenditure, particularly for the events covered by BBC Sport. The cost of talent was either two or three per cent of total coverage costs for music events and between six and 20 per cent for sporting events."

They also tell us that the combined cost of staff and talent at Beijing was £3.6m (plus another £2m on travel and accommodation). And the total coverage cost was £15.6m. So the talent cost was in the range £0.9m to £3.1m.

That's for three weeks work.

And who were "the talent" exactly? Alan Partridge of course, but who else?

Yes I know I've said it before, but WTF do I have to pay for it?

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC

The Joke Is On You

A life of privilege 

In case you've never heard of him, comedian Marcus Brigstocke is yet another privileged public schoolboy* employed by the BBC. His routine comprises slagging off capitalism and the Evil Tories.

Among his other BBC jobs, he has a regular slot on R4's Now Show, a weekly 30 mins of "comedy sketches and satirical comments". And this week, after wittily describing John Redwood as a "glassy-eyed replicant MP",  he spent most of his slot having a go at the TaxPayers' Alliance (you can listen again here - 11 mins 50 secs in - HTP Bill Quango).

We needn't spend time quoting him, but essentially he says the TPA are evil anti-social racist pigs (complete with grunts and trotters).

Which is fine. Absolutely what guilt-ridden rich boy lefty comedians ought to be saying. And doubtless there's a market for it.

But please don't ask me to pay for it. I don't find Brigstocke remotely funny, and I wouldn't dream of paying to see him.

Unfortunately, the tax-funded BBC doesn't give me a choice. It forces me to pay the telly tax, and then uses a chunk of it to employ this dire big government "comedian". Not only that, but it also gives him a national platform to hector and insult the growing number of us who are sick of being ripped off to pay for things we just don't want. Like Brigstocke.

It's a joke all right. But not a very funny one.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again - roll on privatisation.

*Footnote: Brigstocke comes from the leafy glades of Guildford, just down the road from the Major. Born with a large silver object inserted into one or other of his orifices, he was educated at Westbourne House School (fees £12870 pa), King's Bruton (fees £24,711 pa - pic above), and Bristol University (notorious for its high public school count and its close career links to the BBC). And why is that relevant? Because Brigstocke had the privileges of wealth handed to him on a plate, yet now makes his living by decrying those who seek to create wealth for themselves. It sticks in my craw.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, humbugs

Thursday Morning Blood Boil

Mind how you go

Is this government the worst we have ever had? Surely it must be. Yes, OK, they introduced gay marriages, and they stopped us going into the Euro. But apart from that, we can't think of anything they've done that hasn't turned into a disaster. And this morning we're treated to a rash of reminders.

1. Immigration

Labour has lost control of our borders. We all know that. In just 12 years, they have permitted more than 3 million foreign born migrants to enter, 5% of our entire population (eg see this blog). Some of these migrants have undoubtedly made us richer, but most have not (eg see this blog). It has produced dangerous social tensions, boosted now by mass unemployment, and there is absolutely no way of stuffing the genie back into the bottle.

Things are now so desperate, that even the arrogant clowns who rule over us realise there's a crisis. Unfortunately the crisis they see is not the one we're all so worried about. The one they're concerned about is that the immigration issue might lose them the next election.

So they've decided they'll admit to a few mistakes.

Today, Brown himself stood up to "admit ‘mistakes’ on immigration after BNP TV furore". Well, that's what the newspaper headlines said he was going to do before his speech. But when you actually read the speech itself, you don't find any such admission. All you find is a statement about how he now "gets it", and how it isn't his fault anyway because previous governments left him a shambolic immigration system that he is now valiantly fighting to sort out.

And the migrants he actually picks on for his draconian fuzzy new controls are not the low-skill alien culture type migrants everyone worries so much about. Instead, he says "we no longer need to recruit civil engineers, hospital consultants, aircraft engineers and ships officers from abroad - and so these and other jobs are being taken off the list." It's a classic shimmy - these highly skilled workers are not the people we're worried about. Most of us want people like that to be able to come in.

He tells us we can't have a fixed annual limit like Australia's because it would be too inflexible. Too inflexible for whom? We all know that employers want unlimited immigration because it depresses wages. But the rest of us want a clear limit because of all the social and public spending pressures mass immigration brings with it (see previous blogs).

And as for his argument that imposing a limit would "overturn our obligations to our EU neighbours", why not just have a limit applying to non-EU citizens? It's non-EU citizens who have made up more than 80% of the inward migration over the last decade (eg see this blog).

Brown still seems to think we're all stupid.

Gah!


2. Cost of Nanny

On one level, Labour's nanny state is a source of harmless national amusement. But as soon as you realise it's costing us a ton of money, the joke falls kinda flat.

Here's the latest episode from the Sun:

"POLICE chiefs faced ridicule last night over plans to give cops guides on how to ride a bicycle.

The potty pamphlets, running to 93 pages in TWO volumes, tell cops how to balance so they do not fall off.

The official Police Cycle Training Doctrine - the cost of which is estimated at thousands of pounds - gives full instructions on how to stop and get off a bike safely.

Officers will be taught how to brake and avoid obstacles such as kerbs and rocks. They are warned not to tackle suspects while they are still "engaged with the cycle"...

Officers are advised to wear padded shorts for "in-saddle comfort" and reminded to eat enough food and drink "adequate liquids" - because cyclists get hungry and thirsty.

Undercover cops are told they may need to go without a helmet to avoid being rumbled. But the guide warns: "This lack of protection must be noted and a full risk assessment of the required role to be undertaken."

No, no, stop it. I'm starting to get asthmatic.


3. Bonuses for catastrophic failure

We've blogged the issue of bonuses for public sector staff many times (eg see here). And today we hear about the latest bonuses being paid to the buffoons who run the catastrophically awful MoD. Despite all the equipment shortages and all the procurement cock-ups we read so much about, £47m has been paid out so far this year:

It makes you want to spit.

"The bonus figure covers just the first seven months of the financial year. The MoD said yesterday that the bonuses would average less than £1,000, but a senior civil servant could pick up £8,000. Last year, the department had 95 employees who were on a salary of more than £100,000. A private in the Army can be paid as little as £16,681 a year"

As we've said before, bonuses in the public sector are a farce. Unlike the private sector, the public sector is not targeting profit, or any such clearcut objective. There is no bonus pool driven directly by the money available. Indeed, there is no transparent and robust linkage back to any real world objective. Just another pile of box ticking commissariat wibble. The practice should be stopped.

And as for the BBC paying for its execs to stay in glitzy £647 per night Las Vegas hotels, I can't even bear to read the story.


4. Too posh to wash

The government is about to insist that all nurses now have a degree.

Why?

The health minister says:

“By bringing in degree-level registration we can ensure new nurses have the best possible start to meet the challenges of tomorrow. This is the right direction of travel if we are to fulfil our ambition to provide higher quality care for all.”

The minister obviously lives on an entirely different planet to those of us who've visited real NHS hospitals.

The Doc long ago tore out his few remaining wisps of hair over the fact that many essential nursing jobs like washing patients no longer get done by nurses. They are too posh to wash or to ensure patients are eating and drinking properly: upgraded beyond such menial tasks they instead now spend their time studying patient protocols and pathways. A fact not unconnected with the huge upsurge in hospital acquired plagues.

As we've said before, just make sure you keep up your BUPA payments.

And try to forget that state healthcare now costs each and every household nearly £5 grand pa.

I think I need to lie down.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, Immigration, nhs, public sector pay

More Wishful Thinking From The Left

Fab gear, but Jezz not so hot on government debt

The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC R2 is not something Tyler usually tunes in for. But yesterday, several BOM correspondents emailed to say they'd nearly exploded with rage over an item on government debt. Nick N says:

"I was working, and didn't hear it all, but what I did hear was terrifying. The JV show is perhaps the most insulting bilge ever broadcast. It seems to believe that it can make problems go away by simplifying everything to the level of a two month old foetus. Aaaaaarrrrgh!"

Naturally we had a listen (here, just over 1 hour in).

It turned out to be Jezz interviewing BOM's old friend Richard Murphy, the left-wing campaigner for higher taxes (eg see here). Not that you'd know that from Vine's introduction, which positioned Murphy as a tax expert who would explain why we don't need to worry about our massive government debt burden.

Murphy put the left's case very clearly:

1. Our government debts are not nearly as big as some other countries
2. They are manageable, especially when you remember that a substantial chunk comprises the debt of our nationalised banks, which will eventually pay itself down
3. We should not panic - we are not bust
4. Anyway, the Bank of England is riding to the rescue by ensuring we have higher inflation, which will slash the real debt burden
5. Our problem is not too much public spending, but too little tax revenue
6. We can and should increase tax revenue via a substantial increase in the taxation of banks and anyone earning more £100K pa - "middle England will not be hit"

Let's take the points one by one:

1. Debt level - while it may be true that we are only eleventh in the latest ranking of outstanding government debt relative to GDP, our annual borrowing rate is adding to that debt much more quickly than our principal competitors. The OECD forecasts a UK government deficit of 12.8% of GDP this year, and a staggering 14% next. In both years we will be borrowing more than any of the other 28 developed economies the OECD forecasts - higher even than the basket cases of Iceland and Ireland. Here's how we look against the G7:

Moreover, these official debt figures exclude the massive off-balance sheet Enron liabilities we've blogged so often (eg see here). In terms of the future burden on taxpayers, they are just as real as borrowing via gilts. But when a listener phoned in to ask about our £1 trillion plus public sector pension liabilities, Murphy answered as if he hadn't heard the question. Instead, he talked about how government debt interest is A Good Thing because it pays the private sector's pensions.

2. The debt is manageable - yes, it is manageable... but only so long as the markets retain confidence that we will not default via inflation (as we've blogged many times). And only so long as we don't mind coughing up increasing amounts of debt interest (ie paying ever heavier taxes without getting any public services in return). In reality, the markets have us on credit watch for a possible downgrade and subsequent stampede for the exit (eg see this blog).

As for the notion that the debts of our nationalised banks will somehow pay themselves down, we presume Murphy has overlooked the constant stream of write-offs on the Crock's putrid loan book (eg see this blog). In total, the IMF reckons bank write-offs will end up costing UK taxpayers $200bn, and we reckon it will be even higher.

3. We should not panic - we are not bust... as the Captain of the Titanic famously observed.

4. We will be rescued by higher inflation - ah, the true agenda of the left in all its magnificent and brutal simplicity. As we've blogged many times (eg here and here), the left hates private savers, and so for them, inflation is a positive blessing. Murphy, along with much of the Labour Party wants nothing more than a good dose of inflation, not only to erode some of the government's debt mountain, but also to redistribute wealth from the undeserving rich (or at least the widows, orphans, and pensioners who've been foolish enough to keep their savings in the post office, or a fixed pension annuity).

5. Too little tax revenue, not too much spending - the OECD says UK government spending will be 54% of GDP next year, compared to "just" 45% in the pit of the last recession. True, it's still higher in North Korea, but the OECD average for 2010 is put at 45.7%. Government spending is absorbing far too much of our GDP for future prosperity.

6. Increase taxes on banks and rich guys - yes, of course, why not? Well, because either they will devise cunning ways to get round the higher tax rates - as they've generally done in the past - or they will simply pack their bags and leave, taking their tax payments with them. That's why not.

Unfortunately, few of these counterpoints got raised by Vine, and Murphy was given a free ride.

But then, this is the BBC. And the big assumption underlying Murphy's arguments is a basic tenet of BBC philosophy - more government is A Good Thing.

For example, according to Murphy, government debt interest payments are A Good Thing because they go towards paying our private pensions. No mention of the fact that someone has to pay taxes to fund those interest payments, or that government borrowing crowds out borrowing by private companies, and therefore crowds out productive investment.

As far as Murphy and the BBC are concerned, we can't trust the private sector and the free markets to do the right thing. From investment, to banking, to healthcare, to education, government always needs to step in and take control (and see this extraordinary anti-market harange of Steve Forbes by the BBC's Steven Sackur on Hard Talk). It is a constant drip-drip-drip of Big Government propaganda.

What can we do?

As we've blogged many times, it's hopeless trying to reform the BBC. The only solution is to break it up and privatise it.

Unfortunately, there's not much chance Cam will summon up the nerve to do that. But he should at least push ahead with flogging off R1 and R2, which by no stretch of anyone's imagination can be described as public service broadcasting.

And then we'll see if there's a commercial market for 15 minutes of op-ed from Big Government promoters like Mr Murphy.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, debt, tax

Big Brother BBC

Public service broadcasting

It's well worth reading the full text of James Murdoch's Edinburgh speech attacking our Big Brother tax-funded BBC. Because his message - self-serving though it may be - goes far beyond the BBC and our state media commissars. It is a powerful attack on the very foundations of big government:

"The consensus appears to be that creationism - the belief in a managed process with an omniscient authority - is the only way to achieve successful outcomes. There is general agreement that the natural operation of the market is inadequate, and that a better outcome can be achieved through the wisdom and activity of governments and regulators.

This creationist approach is similar to the industrial planning which went out of fashion in other sectors in the 1970s. It failed then. It’s failing now.

...while creationism may provide a comfortable illusion of certainty in the short-term, its harmful effects are real and they are significant...

... The greatest divergence between the rest of the media and broadcasting is the unspoken approach to the customer.

In the regulated world of Public Service Broadcasting the customer does not exist: he or she is a passive creature - a viewer - in need of protection. In other parts of the media world - including pay television and newspapers - the customer is just that: someone whose very freedom to choose makes them important.

And because they have power they are treated with great seriousness and respect, as people who are perfectly capable of making informed judgements about what to buy, read, and go and see."

Murdoch is talking about broadcasting, but he might equally well have been discussing healthcare, education, or many other "public services".

We're right back to the core issue here: whereas most of us think our own interests are best served if we make our own decisions, and many of us understand that approach also leads to the best outcomes overall, Big Government types maintain the commissars always know best.

Consider how the BBC Trust responded to the speech:

"Our starting point is what is in the interests of the public and the BBC agrees with James Murdoch's analysis that we need to trust them. And the public tell us that they, in turn, trust the BBC and valuethe wide range of services we provide...

The BBC's public purposes stress the importance of the well-tested principles of educating and informing, and an impartial contribution to debate in the UK."

Self-serving complacency doesn't really capture it. HTF they equate "education and informing" with dumbed-down commercial tosh like The Tudors is beyond us. And as for "impartial contribution to debate", all we can say is hah!

The whole point about the BBC is that they don't trust the public. The commissars believe that a tax-funded unaccountable BBC is all that stands between civilisation and... well... American barbarism. If, God forbid, the BBC had to compete for subscriptions and ad revenue, the unwashed masses might choose a 24/7 diet of Strictly come Dancing, Jonathan Ross, and... er... the Tudors.

As we've said many times, the telly tax should be abolished and the BBC should be privatised soonest.

Proper competition would deliver what we the punters actually want, not what the commissars say we should have. And if we loosened the rules on "impartiality" at the same time, we could get some proper diversity onto the airwaves. Why, we might even end up with a UK version of the Fox.

PS The death of local newspapers? All the more scope for local blogs. Here's a good one we came across in connection with Tyler Jnr's housemove.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC

The Wrong Man

Very confusing - these rich boys all look the same

No time for a proper blog today on account of helping one of the Junior Tylers make his new home approximately habitable. But as we lifted unsavoury carpets and shuttled rubbish to the dump, we listened to the BBC's adulatory obits for Ted Kennedy. And I suddenly realised I've lived most of my life under a terrible delusion.

You see, I'd always believed Ted Kennedy was that womanising drunk who killed a young female assistant in an obscene crash-and-run accident back in the 70s. The populist chancer who supported the IRA against us, and who shafted his own party's incumbent President in the 1980 election. The guy who shamelessly traded on his family name and connections but who would never have been elected President in a million years.

But it seems I must have had the wrong man.

According to the BBC, Ted Kennedy was one of America's foremost leaders of the last century, whose death is an incalculable loss to western civilisation. A man who virtually single-handedly gave us peace in Ireland. A colossus who would have made a President equally as good as... well, St Obama.

I'm deeply ashamed I could ever have thought otherwise.

PS For an unglossed account of the real Ted Kennedy see Andrew Roberts here.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, humbugs

Tax-Funding On The Shopping Channel

Driving through England's green and pleasant the other day, Tyler once again found himself shouting at the car radio.

The object of his spluttering harangue was an interview with Will Day, the new head of the Sustainable Development Commission. Well, we say "interview" - it was actually more like a paid-for slot on the Shopping Channel, with Mr Day being given a warm and unchallenged opportunity to present his wares (listen again here).

When Tyler returned home he looked up the Commission's website. Founded in 2000, its first head was old Etonian the Hon Sir Jonathon Espie Porritt. He flounced out earlier this year after the government finally faced facts on the urgent need for new nuclear power stations.

His replacement is another member of the Prog Con ruling elite: Day is the son of a diplomat, with a career in international charities and - yes, you guessed it - the BBC.

Tyler also discovered that the Commission is fully funded by government and costs us £4m pa.

And its role?

To lobby government.

Yes, you heard that right. The government gives it £4m pa - of our friggin' money - so that it can get itself lobbied to tighten our eco screws even further.

Or as the Commission puts it:

"Through advocacy, advice and appraisal, we help put sustainable development at the heart of Government policy."

They are tax-funded government lobbyists.

And you know the really shocking thing?

The Sustainable Development Commission is not alone. Every year we taxpayers are shelling out millions so that the government can lobby itself for more stuff that many MANY of us do not want.

Now the TaxPayers' Alliance has added up the damage. And in a paper published this morning, they provide a detailed 54 page analysis of just who gets what.

On a very conservative estimate, the overall total in 2007-08 was £38m, including:

• £4.9m on hiring political consultancies
• £23m on trade associations (Local Government Association, Association of Police Authorities and NHS Confederation)
• £1.8m on health policy campaigns, including £515,000 paid to Alcohol Concern, £191,000 paid to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and £130,000 paid to the Family Planning Association.
• £6.7m on environmental policy campaigns, including our friends at the Sustainable Development Commission, Friends of the Earth, the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences and numerous other groups
• £1.6m on usual suspects Prog Con think tanks – Demos, the New Economics Foundation; the Institute for Public Policy Research and the New Local Government Network

Teeth grinding aside, TPA Research Director Matt Sinclair explains precisely why it is so wrong:

• It distorts decision making in favour of the interests and ideological preoccupations of a narrow political elite
• It slows adjustments in the direction of policy in reaction to new evidence or circumstances
• It increases political apathy among the public
• Taxpayers are forced to fund views they may seriously disagree with.

Spot on.

We need to remember it for the next time one of these tax-funded lobbyists lectures us on the tax-funded £3.5bn pa Prog Con Shopping Channel.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: BBC, cuts, progressive consensus, propaganda, quangos, spin

Barbecue Summer Meets The Funnel Of Doubt

How come nobody mentioned the funnel?

Just for fun, let's see if we can work out the relationship between the following four statements:

1. "The coming summer is 'odds on for a barbecue summer', according to long-range forecasts. Summer temperatures across the UK are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or below average for the three months of summer." (Met Office press notice 30 April 2009)

2. "You will need a brolly on holiday in the UK in August - the Met Office is issuing a revised forecast for more unsettled weather well into the month. It is a far cry from the "barbecue summer" it predicted back in April. The news will raise questions about the Met Office's ability to make reliable seasonal forecasts." (Roger Harrabin, BBC environment analyst, 29 July 2009)

3. "The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus." ("Safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century", BBC Trust Report 2007, justifying the BBC's overtly partial coverage of global warming; and see here).

4. "What of the... corridor of uncertainty? It must be related in some way to the ‘expanding funnel of doubt’ of which we hear so much in our line of work. Perhaps... ‘corridor of uncertainty’ is a generic term, used to describe a ‘funnel of doubt’ whose expansion/contraction properties are less well defined?" (The Actuary, 1 April 2005)

You see, the thing is, if the £180m pa Met Office's three months weather forecast is no better than than the flip of a coin, HTF can they possibly reckon to forecast our climate 50-100 years ahead? And given the rain lashing down on the barbecue, how can anyone possibly believe they are capable of that?

Admittedly, Tyler is no scientist (although I dare say he knows more about number krunching than the BBC's Environment analyst, who has an English degree). But in all the many forecasting exercises in which Tyler has been involved over the years, there is always this thing called the Funnel of Doubt.

The Funnel starts out nice and narrow - anchored to what we understand as today's reality.

But as you extend your forecast further into the future, the funnel expands rapidly. Known unknowns bombard the forecast from all sides, so that by the time you've got out a couple of years - at most - the funnel is so wide you're pretty well back to coin flipping.

A typical example is this chart showing 20 year projections of US government bond yields, ranging from roughly zero right up to 14%:

And that's without even considering the unknown unknowns, which have a nasty habit of cropping up... well... unknowably. You can't even model them.

The bottom line is that once you crank your forecasts out beyond the hand in front of your face, they are pretty well fiction. To be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

So what of that sodden barbecue?

According to Mr Harrabin:

"Some now ask if the Met Office risks its reputation by attempting to popularise its work this way. Certainly, at the time of the forecast there was pressure on the Met Office from tourism chiefs in the UK to be positive about holidays at home. Did Met Office staff feel an obligation to put on a sunny face?"

Actually, Roger, some of us are now asking a lot more than that.

Some of us are now asking why we taxpayers are stumping up £180m pa for a quango that has become the world's biggest producer of eco-doom fiction?

And yet more of us are asking why we are paying another £3.5bn pa quango to report such fiction as reality?

It's time we were treated like grown-ups. We don't believe any "experts" know what's going to happen to our climate a century from now. Still less do we believe they can justify the massive eco-costs they are now imposing on us.

Where there is doubt, let us see that funnel reported openly and clearly.

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