Economy – Page 26 – John Vincent

More Maths?

More maths? Like so many headlines. It depends what’s intended. This call is not new by any means. It has been repeatedly recognised by Governments, that STEM subjects are of vital importance to the future. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and maths.

Between the ages of 16 and 18, a lot of young people drop maths or anything that looks like maths. Understanding that fact is far more important than any dictate from a Prime Minister.

Let’s list some reasons why forcing this is not so easy as a headline might suggest.

Teaching: Mandating more maths without backing it up with the teachers able, enthusiastic, and trained in the subject will likely generate a negative impact.

Bandwidth: for the average student there’s a finite amount of work they will eagerly take on during a pivotal time of their lives. Developing their talents, whatever they are, is surely a priority.

Relevance: a key part of providing more practical maths teaching is convincing students of its immense usefulness in later life. Understanding how maths is used is as important as learning it.

Technology: Digitisation advances rapidly. Maths teaching must take on-board. For example, it’s important to be aware of what’s happening more than knowing every nut and bolt of an algorithm.

All the above are challenges that can be met given adequate resources and a plan. What we get from the PM’s speech is muddle. Numeracy and maths are not the same. I’ve known people who can do remarkable mental calculations on the spot but who would run for the hills if faced with a quadratic equation or a bell curve.

Yes, statistics do underpin a number of activities in everyday life. However, even when you understand their workings the capacity to make bad choices is more in the judgment than in the calculation.

STEM education is a package. It’s part of everything we do in a complex society. There aren’t many occupations that are not touched by the need to know something about the underlying working of our devices, means and methods.

In the past those supporting the humanities may have spoken-up objecting to an overemphasis on STEM subjects. Now, what artist, writer, musician, historian, or geographer does not use technology in their everyday lives? I’d say more maths but done right. Make it practical.

POST: Prime Minister sets ambition of maths to 18 in speech – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Crisis in Health

It’s difficult to think of a more inappropriate person to be Secretary of State for Health and Social Care[1]. He has all the bedside manner of Dracula. Prime Minister (PM) Rishi Sunak re-installed him in that vital Government post. So far, he’s achieved nothing but distress and mismanagement[2].

I shouldn’t joke. The seriousness of the situation in the National Health Service (NHS) isn’t a joking matter. Winter is testing the service to breaking point. Both the statistics and the experience of patients are not acceptable by any reasonable measure.

What’s intolerable is the general Ministerial response. Hard-line rhetoric about not budging on negotiations is callous. Dismissing every call for support by rattling-off lists of figures about Government spending is no help at all. Trying to redirect attention away from the things that need fixing. The shabby politics of avoidance is not what’s needed.

As a personal note, I find the situation indicative of broader failures too. My one term as a Surrey Country Councillor, between 1993 and 1997 is more history than anything else. The problem is that it’s not. I remember papers coming to full council meetings with a title that is pertinent and recognisable today. The subject being “bed blocking[3]”.

That’s 30-years ago, our institutions struggled with making the transition between hospital care and social care. It was clear that there was going to be a growing problem. The demographics pointed to a rising aging population. There was no ambiguity about the facts.

Ministers have come and gone. Quite rapidly over the last year. Each with the responsibility for NHS service delivery, performance, and social care policy. Some like incoherent gad flies, some who span like windmills in a storm, some like patrician overseers but none with the managerial skills needed to address the challenge that stares them in the face.

Most local authorities are dealing with cuts to their budgets, financial constraints and the cost of living demands we all confront. In some cases, they are tittering on the brink of bankruptcy[4]. Many local authorities have been forced to reduce their funding of social care at a time of rising demand.

It’s mad that, after all this time, we have still not come up with an integrated health service. Pitching the NHS and local authorities against each other for funding is absolutely ludicrous. It’s costing lives.

Today, we must recover from a crisis. Tomorrow, real change must be implemented to prevent a future crisis. It isn’t as if we don’t know what to do!

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/people/stephen-barclay

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-strikes-barclay-cooper-libdems-b2244466.html

[3] https://fullfact.org/health/bed-blocking-what-it-and-it-paralysing-nhs/

[4] https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/what-it-means-for-kent-residents-if-kcc-goes-bust-277075/

Where’s the common sense?

It’s two whole years since the end of the UK’s Brexit transitional period. That’s since the day when the UK fully withdrew from the European Union (EU). Have we seen any, I mean any, Brexit benefits from the day of the Brexit referendum? The sad truth is – No. We are worse-off. Investments haven’t happened, political turmoil persists and bureaucratic barriers have grown.

Certainly, it’s right to say that British politicians have been busy. They have found lots of targets to blame for this continuing underperformance. You name it; Remainers, young people, environmentalists, protesters, strikers, human rights, overseas aid, COVID, flu, global economic downturn, energy prices, war in Europe, Biden’s administration, China, France, Germany, hot weather, cold weather, the list goes on and on and on. The Brexiter’s blame list is an exceptionally long one. Add to this the fact that Boris Johnson comes in for caustic blame. Often strongest from the people who trumpeted his ascendancy to power in 2019.

Although we should not dwell too much on the past, it’s as well to not let what has happened in this last year be swept under the carpet. Remember 2022, after 44 days, Conservative Liz Truss resigned as British Prime Minister (PM). She was the first choice of the members of the political party most entrenched in Brexit thinking. This extraordinary farce made the country look it was run by like a bunch of incompetent fools, of ill-disciplined fanatics, of preposterous comics.

The blatant dishonesty behind Brexit can not be denied. A recent example was the Government statement on having not attained a promised boost from new trade agreements. A ridiculous political line about not signing deals until they are right for the country is a brazen smoke screen to cover-up a significant lack of achievement[1].

We need some serious common sense injected into our politics. The UK is not going away. The EU is not going away. Both share an immense common interest. Both are faced with similar challenges and threats. Both share the same values.

Brexit has added to costs, adding to inflation, labour shortage and under performance. Most people[2] now accept this analysis and want to see serious change[3]. The more both Conservatives and the Labour Party cling on to the mythology of Brexit, the more damage will be done. Keir Starmer has confirmed that the Labour Party will not seek for Britain to re‑join the EU. What a reckless folly from a would be PM.

POST: referendum – latest news, breaking stories and comment – The Independent

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63808657

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/

[3] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/issue/European_Union

Time & Tech

It was a Financial Times newspaper poster that warned of UK job losses on a mass scale. It captured the pervasive idea that, as in the industrial revolution, huge changes in working conditions and types of jobs were come down the line. Technology would radically reshape employment. Those in comfortable jobs would not be imune from change.

One whole broadsheet page carried a message. Center of a picture was a large, polished metal dustbin. Contrasting and overspilling it were white shirt collars. The background was blank. The stark message was – the silicon revolution will mean an end to white collar jobs. I think the advertisement was placed by the trade union: Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs (ASTMS)[1].

This was the 1970s. A time when speculation about the impact of computers in the workplace was rife. It was before the Personal Computer burst onto the scene. Names like IBM and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) were dominant. I wonder what it would be like if I could step into a time machine and return to that era. To let them know what really happened as technology advanced unrelenting for the next four decades.

In many ways white collar jobs, or office jobs, have not disappeared. If anything, the numbers employed, where a computer is an essential part of the everyday work has increased dramatically. Yes, there’s not so many white collars as digital communications allow people to work at any location. The workplace dress code, if there is one, has left the standard suite and tie behind.

Taking a broad view, the “silicon revolution” has improved life for many. Gone are huge typing pools, mechanical calculators, and Orwellian workplaces. Card file indexes, drawing boards, and toxic chemical copying machines look prehistoric in black and white pictures from the 1970s.

In that conversation with an office worker of that time, what they may be shocked to hear is that the diversity of companies shaping their workplace will narrow down to a small number of vast American names. The expected liberalising impact of technology, that makes information available to everyone, anywhere and at speed will have the perverse effect of narrowing minds.

What do I take from this journey to the past? It’s that the impact of technology is shaped by the choices we make. However, we choose with little idea of the longer-term influence technology has on our lives.

POST: Timeline | The Silicon Engine | Computer History Museum

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Scientific,_Technical_and_Managerial_Staffs

Strikes

Impossible to listen to the burbling of UK Minister Stephen Barclay. After a while the listener sinks into an overwhelming feeling of despondency. His words are strung together as if he was on a brain teasing quiz show run by Victoria Coren Mitchell. Barclay exudes a fear of making sense.

For one, please, please, please will he not keep saying the same thing about rigidly adhering to the results of a pay review body. Results which are widely known to be out-of-date. Afterall, if Ministers have any purpose at all, it goes way beyond rubber stamping the work of others.

Given his previous party-political roles it’s astonishing to see him in a serious government job like Health Secretary. A job where playing party-politics can cost lives. I think we all know that the crisis of the moment is not just about pay. However, to pretend that staffing levels and pay are not so important is beyond the understanding of most normal people.

This suited grey-haired man in his early 50s would be better employed on the London stage. I can see him as Marley’s ghost in a Westminster adaptation of A Christmas Carol[1]. Recounting the day when he had the opportunity to fix the problems of Health and Social Care but looked the other way and played for time.

The many strikes that are hitting Britain are avoidable. British politicians are failing to engage with the problem. What’s disheartening about this situation is that everyone knows there will be a settlement at some time. Recognising that fact, it’s about time the groups involved got together and talked long and hard. That is talking with no subject taken off the table.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has a leadership role. It’s time for him, not to excuse the government at every media opportunity, but to engage, roll up his sleeves and meet the unions. Playing party-politics and courting right-wing public opinion was fine as he did in his Brexit job but now Barclay has a real job with real responsibility. It’s winter. This is tragic.

He needs to step up or ship out.

POST: Making a bad situation worse International nurses considering leaving UK if pay does not improve | Nursing Times

[1] https://youtu.be/ReprQS03ZM4

R.I.P. Terry Hall

Term started in September 1978. My first resting place in Coventry was in Priory Hall[1], overlooking the tarmac and the infamous ring road. We were up on an elevated 4^th floor. That was the part of the building that spanned the road that led to the Cathedral. It was slabs of grey concrete arranged as Lego blocks in the 1960s. As student accommodation it was bashed and battered but cheap and warm. Sitting at the heart of the city compensated for the fumes that wafted up from the bus station. It was a good way to start my undergraduate life in an industrial Midlands city.

Little remained of medieval Coventry, except paintings. The bombing of WWII reshaped everything in the city centre. Post-war rebuilding embraced the modern with architecture we now find brutal. Strangely for me, 26 years later I moved to a German city that suffered the same fate; Cologne.

I’m writing this to remember sitting on the floor in Lanchester Polytechnic Students Union, beer in hand, listening to the bands that stamped their identity on the city and far beyond. Despite the economic depression, or because of it, there was an unending stream of bands trying get noticed. The Union was a venue where there was always an audience to be found.

Amongst them was The Specials. Although, for me the band that sticks in my mind at that venue was the early version of UB40[2]. “One in Ten” captured so much of what was happening outside the doors the Union building. The mood of the song resonates now as much as it ever did.

My engineering sandwich course meant that I came and went from Coventry between 1978 and 1982. I couldn’t have chosen a better time for live music. Yes, the city was suffering a devastating economic downturn. The Government of the time appeared happy to let great British industrial names to go to the wall. Pubs and clubs were buzzing and Two Tone[3] was invented.

So, thank you Terry Hall. His performances captured what The Specials were about. At the time, I had no idea that what was happening in the Student Union Hall would be enduring but that’s the way it turned out. The brilliant music and lyrics sum up so much that they will last for ever.

We lived in a concrete jungle. The song “Ghost Town[4]” by The Specials is beyond iconic. It’s a lament about the passing of good times. It’s about the wreckage left by an uncaring Government. It’s about a lost sense of direction. It’s a song for today too. We see this pent-up frustration coming back. “The people getting angry”. It’s not the scourge of unemployment this time. It’s the trap of low paid employment without hope.

[1] https://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1960/prioryhall.html

[2] https://youtu.be/usYgf8cVfvU

[3] https://www.thespecials.com/gallery

[4] https://youtu.be/RZ2oXzrnti4

Omnishambles

Ten years ago, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Word of the Year was a word that is as usable as ever. It wasn’t brought to the fore by social media. At that time, social media hadn’t bitten such a big chunk out of our attention time. We even had enough time to sit in front of the box on an evening. That said, the box hasn’t faded into the background entirely. The massive screens displayed in electrical stores remain a standard part of a typical living room.

“The Thick of It[1]” ran for four series and captured the insanity of Government spin-doctoring and fanatical incompetence. Unapologetically self-indulgent Ministers and their aides scuttled around reacting to every small vibration coming from the media. This was masterful fiction but it’s closeness to reality is the story of 2022.

In 2012, the media political arena adopted “Omnishambles” as shorthand for chaotic behaviour on a large scale. Although it started life as a way of describing the Labour Party’s muddles and confusions before 2010, it has a universal applicability. Westminster can be a whirlpool of volte-faces, embarrassments and unfathomable twists and turns. 2022 ends with none of this diminished.

So, what have we to look forward to in 2023? This winter of discontent[2] is mostly likely to escalate. The impact of inflation and energy bills are like an erupting volcano. A few minor earthquakes, then an explosive plum and finally the top gets blown off the mountain.

Brexit and the pandemic have left people feeling exhausted. So, to see their standard of living diminish as this Conservative Government shamelessly wobbles on regardless, then this becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

The Prime Minister may try to mine what popularity there is in the public mind, but this is not the time when a new Margaret Thatcher[3] will step forward. This is where simple analogies with the past quickly unravel. In this case the Conservatives own the problems. There’s no denying their responsibility for the last 12-years.

To restore the hope, that things can improve, a new formula is needed. People are not looking for perfection but a convincing vison, some basic honesty, and robust resolve.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Thick_of_It_episodes

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06yc8k4

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/thatcher-and-the-winter-of-discontent-2013-4?r=US&IR=T

Cold Data

It’s cold. The numbers on the energy meter keep clocking up and getting to new highs. Compared with last year my energy bill is going to be horrendous. Add to that inflation on just about everything else and it’s hard work to make it a winter of good cheer. Smart energy meters are useful in that they give real time feedback on household energy use. I’m not sure they have an impact on behaviour, but meters do forewarn of astronomical bills to come. Comparing Christmas past, present and Christmas future gave author Charles Dickens an idea.

Looking at media reports this year’s Christmas looks more Dickensian than ever. That is without the transformation that Mr Scrooge[1] underwent. It’s certain the attitudes of Ministers resemble that of Mr Scrooge. Protect the moneymen in their obsession with money and penalise the ordinary working soul. This story is being played out up and down Britain.

The fact that it’s not seen as strange to be talking of freeing up the City of Lonon from regulation at the same time as restricting and controlling working men and women is a bad indication of these difficult times. The Prime Minister may look like a busy light-hearted mouse, but he has a heart as cold as the winter mists.

As the Government has said it wants to collect data from our smart meters, I wonder what can possibly flow from that intrusion into our privacy. In so far as it might guide national policy and reminds Ministers of the benefits of insulating homes, data collection could be helpful. However, there’s a dangerous precedent set when Governments collect every bit of data homes produce.

There’s a creeping tendance to always ask for more data. Mr Scrooge can then compile a leger on the comings and goings of every citizen. Don’t believe for one moment that GDPR will protect our data. Personal information such as names, addresses and bank details are not stored on a smart energy meter. However, computing capability being as powerful as it is, relating energy data to its point of collection and thus bill payer isn’t so difficult to do.

To me, this recalls the saying about knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing[2].

[1] Ebenezer Scrooge, character in the story A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens

[2] Oscar Wilde’s famous definition — someone who “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”

Tramline

The time for change is now. It’s not much more than a year before a UK General Election. Sadly, we are seeing only reactive thinking from the two largest British political parties. Both bounce off each other like a game of ping pong. There’s a conversation going on across the country about the need for change, but the Conservatives and Labour Party are stuck on a tram line.

“It’s the economy, stupid.[1]” I remember reading James Carville’s book about Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. It’s about the great political motivator of how people feel about the amount of money they have in their pockets. Probably shouldn’t put it like that anymore since we tap every purchase with a card and local bank branches are closing. Cash is no longer king.

As an example of the terrible economic damage that Brexit is doing, we need only look at trade figures between the UK and Germany[2]. There’s been a huge fall in trade between the UK and Germany during the first period of the post-Brexit trading relationship. So far, the impact of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) has been negative.

Knowing the facts, the Conservatives and Labour Party still parrot the nonsense that they know how to make Brexit work. It’s a peculiar dance around an economic corpse. Where both political parties point fingers at each other for ruining the dance.

Except for trade specialists, the British media are being inarticulate about the failings of Brexit. It’s as if there’s a distinct fear of being called out and ostracised. Many of those who should be speaking out are sitting on their hands. Maybe this is the dull precursor to change since we don’t know what the public mood will be in a year’s time.

Brexit does not negate the facts of geographic proximity, globalisation and decades of close economic partnership. Close European links will continue and need to be nurtured. Politicians who have wilfully attempted to destroy the bridges built between the UK and the EU belong to the past.

A Government that continues to endanger more than just back pockets and living standards shouldn’t win another term of office – should they? Will people vote for candidates who plan to improve our dismal economic outlook? Those who will tell the truth about Brexit. Today, neither the Conservatives nor Labour Party are telling the truth.

POST: What can we know about the cost of Brexit so far? | Centre for European Reform (cer.eu)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_economy,_stupid

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/56347096

Air Safety List 2

It may seem obvious that there should be an Air Safety List that bans airlines that do not sufficiently met international standards. It’s a right that exists within the Chicago Convention[1]. The first words of the convention concern sovereignty. Every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over their airspace. From the first days of flight the potential use of aircraft to wage war was recognised. Thus, it could be said that the first article of the Chicago Convention existed even before it was written down and agreed.

However, it’s similarly recognised that the future development of international civil aviation has always depended upon agreements between States. Without over-flight and permission to land in another country there is no international civil aviation.

I do remember some agonising over having an explicit list of banned countries and airlines. In a liberal democracy choice is greatly valued. Here the choice concerns passengers being permitted to board aircraft from another country where there is knowledge of safety deficiencies related to the operation of the aircraft of that country. Should the law make that choice for the air traveller, or should the air traveller be free to make an informed choice?

There lies the crux of the matter. How do ordinary citizens, without aviation safety expertise make judgements concerning complex technical information? Understanding the implications of failing to meet the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs)[2] is not so easy even for aviation experts.

Additionally, there is the issue of third-party risks. It would not be wise to permit foreign aircraft, whose safety is not sufficiently assured, to fly over a nation’s towns and cities.

Regulatory legislation was framed not only to put airlines on the Air Safety List but to take them off the list too. In fact, sometimes this is harder law to frame. In this case the decisions must be made in a fair, transparent, and technically rigorous manner otherwise the politics of such choices could overwhelm the whole process.

There’s been much success in this endeavour. It’s clear that this is a valuable aviation safety measure. It may have driven some contracting States to improve the performance of their airlines.

[1] https://www.icao.int/publications/Pages/doc7300.aspx

[2] https://www.icao.int/safety/CMAForum/Pages/default.aspx