Tag: politics

Public Order Bill

If you are interested in the UK remaining a democracy then it is essential that you learn about the Public Order Bill, which is currently (early June 2022) at committee stage. Here’s Adam Wagner (Barrister, Doughty Street Chambers) – bold emphasis added:

“In this country, our tradition is that protest is something that is permitted. It is not seen as a social evil; it is seen as a social good. A certain level of disruption is inevitable in any successful protest. That is how you get people’s attention: you disrupt, and you put yourself in front of them. That is not a new thing; it is very old. It goes back to the suffragettes, who I am sure many people giving evidence will mention. Every social movement in history that has a protest element has always used an element of disruption…”

“For the most part, the mechanisms that the Bill puts in place essentially criminalise peaceful protest. That is what the Bill does: it criminalises peaceful protest in a way that has not been done before. It treats peaceful protest like knife crime, drug dealing or terrorism. I do not mean that metaphorically; I mean it directly. Serious crime disruption orders and terrorism disruption orders stop people doing something in future—those are the kinds of methods we have used to disrupt terrorism, knife crime, drug dealing and gang violence. I have been involved in lots of cases involving those kinds of orders. If the Bill is used by police—they will be under pressure to use it in particular instances—the end result will be lots more protesters in the criminal courts, in very long and complicated trials that involve looking at the proportionality of the protest in question, as we saw with the Colston statue case. But it will be 100 times more, because all these offences have a reasonable excuse […]. I think that is one thing you will see. The other thing you will see is a lot more protesters in prison—and a lot more peaceful protesters in prison.”

– Adam Wagner (Barrister, Doughty Street Chambers), evidence provided to the Public Order Bill Committee (9 June 2022)

MPs who left or were removed from the Commons Chamber

Here’s an interesting Excel dataset on MPs who left or were removed from the Commons Chamber, compiled by Sarah Priddy of Commons Library.

Dennis Skinner got kicked out in 2005 for saying, “The only thing growing then were the lines of coke in front of boy George [Osborne]…”

Dawn Butler now added for calling out Boris Johnson’s lies.

MPs who have withdrawn from the Commons Chamber or who have been suspended

How to find money to save the NHS

This morning was the launch of the Resolution Foundation report, Healthy finances? Options for funding an NHS spending increase – a response to the rumoured government “birthday present” for the NHS as it turns 70 on 5 July 2018.

The audience included party advisers (I spotted a Whatsapp group chat for a party’s comms team), people from various think-tanks, academics (including an Emeritus Professor from Imperial who had a lot to say), and a representative from at least one (non-militant, at least in the room) campaigning group.

The line up:

  • Sarah Wollaston MP, Chair of the Health Select Committee and medic who worked as a GP up until 2010. (Given her generally sensible views, I keep having to remind myself that she’s a Tory).
  • Jon Ashworth MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health, who has a long history as a Labour professional, including as Special Adviser in the Treasury for Gordon Brown.
  • Ben Page, Chief Executive of Ipsos MORI and fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
  • Matt Whittaker, Deputy Director at the Resolution Foundation, who previously worked for the House of Commons Library where he provided stats and economics advice.

The event was chaired by Torsten Bell, Director of the Resolution Foundation, former adviser to Ed Miliband (and, incidentally, architect of the Ed Stone).

Interlude: What is the Resolution Foundation?

The launch was set at Resolution HQ in a bright, wide room, with cosy luxurious seats which wouldn’t be out of place in an up-market indie cinema, so I was curious who they are and how it’s all funded.

Resolution Foundation’s website describes it as “a non-partisan and award-winning think-tank that works to improve the living standards of those in Britain on low to middle incomes.” In their most recent annual report, they defined “low to middle” as those in income deciles 2 to 5, whom they say are overlooked in policy debates. Their focus is on working households.

They receive most of their funding via donations from Resolution Trust, founded by Clive Cowdery with a £50m donation, “believed to be one of the largest endowments for public policy research made in the UK”.

Cowdery made his wealth from “sponsoring insurance vehicles” (an FT article says more) and is also founder of financial services investment firm called (again) Resolution.

Resolution Trust backs Prospect Magazine and, intriguingly, WorkerTech, which seems to be about encouraging alternatives to trade unions for the precarious world of Uberified work. (Here are slides from its launch.)

What did they say on health funding?

All agreed that the NHS needs more funding, so the question is how much more funding and where the money is coming from. The issue was framed as a tug-of-war between Treasury and Jeremy Hunt (with Hunt wanting more money, in case not clear – it’s not always obvious), constrained by a complex parliament and a wish to keep voters happy.

Matt Whitaker took us through some headlines from the Resolution report, emphasising that it was a prediction of what the government was likely to announce rather than what it should do. (Though it sounded very much like advice.)

Borrowing was seen as likely necessary, so long as the total was below 2% of the projected GDP in 2020-21 (to meet a Tory fiscal target). But borrowing alone would not suffice, so some sort of tax raise is almost certainly on the cards – the problem is how to keep keep Tory voters and donors on side, whilst getting it through parliament.

One possibility is increasing National Insurance contributions (or NICs, pronounced “nicks”), which Gordon Brown did when he was chancellor. This is a progressive tax for workers; however, increased NICs was seen by the report authors as “unfair from a generational perspective” since older people who rely more on healthcare don’t pay national insurance (this generational perspective might need some analysis). A solution proposed was to extend NICs to include those above state pension age who are still working.

Increasing income tax could be another way to get the money. LibDems and SNP might support this, and Scotland recently introduced a change to its tax bands meaning some pay more and others pay less tax. Labour, the authors argue, would likely oppose increases for anyone earning under £80k and some Tory MPs might oppose too.

Another approach suggested was to adjust thresholds for (i) when income tax is payable and (ii) the higher rate of payment. Threshold changes were Tory manifesto promises, but the authors suggest a fiddle (p. 24):

“An alternative approach would be to lift the Income Tax thresholds to those pledged in the manifesto in 2020-21, but to freeze both them and the NICs thresholds in the final two years of the parliament. This would of course cost money in 2020-21, but by 2022-23 it would raise £3.7 billion relative to the default of uprating in line with inflation every year.”

Another promising source of funding would come from reversing George Osborne’s 2016 pledge to cut corporation tax by 2020. This tax uncut could provide £5.2 billion in 2020-21 and £5.7 billion by 2022-23. Other political parties would likely support the move and the authors argue (p. 27):

“The Chancellor might also feel emboldened to act given the way in which the estimated costings of the move from 19 per cent to 17 per cent have shifted since George Osborne first announced it.”

Remarkably little was said about Brexit. Will it torpedo all the projections and render the suggestions (sorry, predictions?) unimplementable? The exception was Sarah Wollaston, who noted that she never believed the infamous £350m bus claim; she expressed reasonable worries about the effects Brexit would have.

What might more money mean for mental health?

Although the focus was very much top-level – where’s the money? – speakers did say a little about how it should be spent. For instance, Jon Ashworth quoted numbers on additional doctors and nurses required (it’s thousands), citing a report from IFS – also cited by Sarah Wollaston.

Reassuringly, mental healthcare was mentioned a few times as being important and in need of improvement (though note the history of “warm words”). Ben Page cited public support for increased spending, with mental health being second on the list in an April Ipsos MORI survey of priorities, after Accident and Emergency. Jon Ashworth mentioned improving support for addictions, in particular.

Sarah Wollaston cited the Health and Social Care Committee’s report into integrated care, published yesterday, which discusses detailed contractual changes needed to improve how, e.g., mental healthcare integrates with other services, including discussion of accountable care organisations (ACOs). (Perusing this report just now highlights how difficult it is to have public debates on these issues – it’s technical stuff.)

The coming weeks as we approach July 5th would be a good time to campaign for key specifics on how much money mental healthcare should receive and what it should be spent on. If the NHS received £20 billion more in 2022-23, how much should go to mental health and where?

An argument against payment-by-outcomes for mental health

I have just seen a report on Payment by Results (PbR) for the adult Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme and have concerns about the approach. The conclusion of the summary is that “the system appears feasible and the currency appears to be fit for purpose” which seems to suggest that the approach is going ahead.

This IAPT PbR proposal is outcomes based, so that the more improvement shown by service users, as partly determined by patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), the more money service providers would receive. This is a worry as there is evidence that linking measures to targets has a tendency to cause the measures to stop measuring what it is hoped that they measure. For instance targets on ambulance response times have led to statistically unlikely spikes at exactly the target, suggesting times have been changed [1]. A national phonics screen has a statistically unlikely spike just at the cutoff score, suggesting that teachers have rounded marks up where they fell just below [2]. The effect has been around for such a long time that it has a name, Goodhart’s law: “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes” [3]. Faced with funding cuts, how many NHS managers will be forced to “game” performance-based payment systems to ensure their service survives?

PROMs have been criticised by therapists for leading to an “administratively created reality” [5] and being clinically unhelpful, perhaps even damaging. However, evidence is building that feeding back results from PROMs to clinicians is helpful for improving care [4]. It would be very sad indeed if this useful tool were destroyed by payment systems, just as many mental health practitioners — and more importantly, service users — are seeing the benefits. Linking outcomes algorithmically to finances at all seems to be a bad idea in general — it’s especially bad when PROMs are just beginning to be trusted in routine practice.

References

[1] G. Bevan and C. Hood, “What’s measured is what matters: targets and gaming in the English public health care system,” Public Adm., vol. 84, no. 3, pp. 517–538, 2006.

[2] L. Townley and D. Gotts, “Topic Note: 2012 Phonics Screening Check Research report,” 2013.

[3] C. A. E. Goodhart, “Monetary relationships: A view from Threadneedle Street.” 1975.

[4] C. Knaup, M. Koesters, D. Schoefer, T. Becker, and B. Puschner, “Effect of feedback of treatment outcome in specialist mental healthcare: meta-analysis.,” Br. J. Psychiatry, vol. 195, no. 1, pp. 15–22, Jul. 2009.

[5] J. McLeod, “An administratively created reality: Some problems with the use of self-report questionnaire measures of adjustment in counselling/psychotherapy outcome research,” Couns. Psychother. Res., vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 215–226, Dec. 2001.

Hewitt and Harman v. the UK

This is an interesting case from a while back. concerning Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman.

“In 1985, evidence emerged that MI5 (also known as the Security Service) was systematically infringing the applicants’ rights under the [Euro Human Rights] Convention when a former officer of MI5, Ms Cathy Massiter, made certain allegations to this effect on a television program. According to Ms Massiter, the applicants had been classified as subversive and as communist sympathizers, and these grave libels were published within MI5 and were available for publication to other agencies with whom MI5 had a relationship. Their files recorded details of passport applications, data from surveillance by local police, Special Branch and by special agents, and references to them or by them on telephone intercepts picked up under warrants issued in relation to other persons. Such intercepts, in the second applicant’s case, were likely to include confidential conversations which she, as a practising solicitor, had had with certain of her clients. The first applicant’s file included information about her personal relationship with a former member of the Communist Party. Surveillance of both applicants was continued after they had left the National Council for Civil Liberties on the basis that they were both candidates for elected office.

“On 19 May 1986, the applicants lodged an application with the European Commission of Human Rights against the United Kingdom government alleging breaches of their right to privacy (Article 8), their right to freedom of expression (Article 10), their right to freedom of association (Article 11) and their right to an effective remedy (Article 13) in respect of the violations arising from the nature and consequences of the surveillance to which they had been subjected by MI5. The application was declared admissible on 12 May 1988.

“In its Report dated 9 May 1989 the Commission concluded by a majority that given the existence of practices in the United Kingdom permitting secret surveillance and given further the reasonable likelihood that the applicants were the subjects of surveillance the compilation and retention by the Security Service of information concerning the private lives of the applicants constituted an infringement of their right to privacy under Article 8 (1) of the Convention. The Commission further concluded that the domestic law of the United Kingdom contained neither legal rules formulated with sufficient precision nor a framework indicating with the requisite degree of certainty the scope and manner of the exercise of discretion by the Security Service in the carrying out of secret surveillance activities to render interference “in accordance with the law” within Article 8 (2). Finally the Commission concluded that since no information was forthcoming in relation to how the United Kingdom had chosen to provide an effective remedy under its domestic law that the applicants did not have an effective remedy as required by Article 13.”

There’s some interesting detail therein about the workings of the Security Service, e.g.,

“The procedure for opening a file is strictly controlled. It may start as a temporary file, which has a maximum life of three years, when there is uncertainty whether the criteria for opening a permanent file are satisfied. These criteria have their basis in the Service’s functions and require high standards of accuracy. If and when these criteria are satisfied, the permanent file will be opened. The Service then applies a system of colour coding which controls how files are used. Once a file is opened, there is a period coded “green:, during which inquiries may be made about the subject. The length of the green period varies according to the reason why the particular file was made. It may be extended as a result of the receipt of new information. At the end of the green period it changes to “amber”, under which inquiries are prohibited, but any relevant information that the Service receives about the subject may be added to the file. After the designated amber period the file is coded “red”. During this period, inquiries continue to be prohibited and any addition of substantive information is also prohibited. Finally, after a period of red coding, the file is microfilmed. The hard copy is destroyed and the entry for the file in the Service’s central index is transferred from the Live Index to the Research Index. The Research Index is usually consulted only when it is thought that old files may exist which are relevant to current work. In practice the volume of check against the Research Index is small: for instance, it is not consulted in vetting checks.”

What’s left?

I didn’t know much about Nick Cohen before picking up What’s Left? from the Swiss Cottage market book bloke. Here’s what Google told me:

First, Craig Murray:

Let me summarise Nick Cohen’s book for you. ‘If you are against eating Muslim babies, you are a supporter of Islamofascism. If you are perturbed by Guantanamo Bay, you would not have fought in the Spanish Civil War, are probably a fan of Hitler and have no right to call yourself a Liberal. Neo-Conservatism is the New Left.’

There, now you don’t have to read it. Believe me, I have done you a favour.

Or how about  Peter Wilby?

Cohen appears to think this book shows he has put infantile leftism behind him and attained a new maturity. Alas, it shows that he is, and always was, a political innocent.

Johann Hari?

…once Cohen’s blind faith in neoconservatism becomes clear, many of the accusations he makes against the left begin to look like acts of psychological projection rather than serious political arguments.

What’s left?

Here are some examples elaborated in the book which might help you decide whether you want to read it:

  • Companies from West Germany supplied Saddam Hussein with “one of the largest chemical weapons manufacturing industries in the world” (p. 47). East German communists provided Saddam’s forces training.
  • France built a nuclear reactor for Saddam, which was blown up by the Israeli air force before the nuclear fuel arrived.
  • The slow response  of Europe, including the then UK Tory government, to Slobodan Milošević, Butcher of the Balkans — leading to the Srebrenica genocide.
  • Some evidence that Virginia Woolf might have been a “screaming snob” who hated the working class. Here’s an example, to give you a flavour of his argument, of what she said: “What rather appals me… is the terrible conventionality of the workers. That’s why — if you want explanations — I don’t think they will be poets or novelists for another hundred years or so.”
  • A quotation from George Galloway saluting Saddam Hussein: “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory until Jerusalem.”
  • Evidence that the reason for war in Iraq was a lie, Cohen writes: “If Blair had levelled with the British people he would have said that he couldn’t be sure if Saddam was armed, and even if he was there was no imminent danger, but here was a chance to remove a disgusting regime… Instead he spun and talked about chemical weapons…”

I don’t agree with everything in the book, but I am deeply suspicious now of those who think leftish people should avoid it.

A cup of coffee and a tent

“Can’t they be about… sorry… we… er… eh… no no no no… it’s just so obvious I can’t be bothered…

“You don’t have to want to return to a barter system in the stoneage to complain about the way the financial crisis affected large numbers of people in the world, do you? Even if you’re having a cup of coffee and you’ve got a tent!”

— Ian Hislop responding to Louise Mensch on Have I Got News For You, 23/10/2011

Authority

“… all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect, by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and Individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people’s thoughts…”

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism, 1891

Moral appeal

“… politics is politics, and Labour’s rhetoric has to offer something to middle class people, if it is going to be elected. But it doesn’t have to offer to them what suits their own unreflective self-interest without qualification: being human beings, they are open to a degree of moral appeal.”
– G. A.  Cohen (Nov, 1997) “Socialism and Equality of Opportunity”, Red Pepper

… trying to do the right thing …

Republican New York State Senator Roy McDonald changes his mind and decides to support same-sex marriage legislation in New York:

You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing. You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing.

I’m tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I’m trying to do the right thing, and that’s where I’m going with this.

(From the Star Spangled Staggers)