Economy – Page 9 – John Vincent

Service

The subject of national service, and its reintroduction is part of a memorable Yes, Prime Minister. “He thinks it’s a vote winner[1]” and so, apparently does our current PM.

This sketch is a wonderful example of how someone can be hood-winked into saying “yes” to something regardless of circumstances, or the foolishness of the idea. It’s comedy genius. Sadly, it’s reality in this early stage of campaigning for this UK General Election.

Conservative PM Sunak’s knee-jerk proposal to reinstate national service falls apart like a toilet roll falling in a bath of cold water. Layer by layer the logic crumbles, with any scrutiny.

For one, how come £4 billion can be found at an instant for something previously ignored. Frankly, anything that resembled civic service has been consistently rundown over the last decade[2]. Not to mention the massive rundown in youth services over a couple of decades.

It might be wise to ask if the UK military want such a new system of national service. One that hosts around 30,000 young people a year. The answer so far is – absolutely “no”. At a time when our professional services are stretched, it seems ridiculous to ask them to take on the task of administering and running a scheme that is extremely unlikely to boost their combat readiness and overall effectiveness.

I’m old enough to have been told a long list of anecdotes from those people who had to do national services in the 1960s. I worked with many of them in the 1980s and 90s. The stories are often humorous, eccentric and riddled with tales of timewasting schemes that were invented to keep young men occupied and out of trouble. Well, out of big trouble.

National service doesn’t offer a life of adventure. More like peeling potatoes, picking fruit and driving scruffy delivery vans around. Although such schemes may benefit a very few, for the vast majority would be spinning wheels and filling time. Wating to put time served behind them before getting stuck into a career of their choice. For a few young people, who could already be on the path to a criminal career, giving them weapons training isn’t a good idea.

Mr Sunak is betraying his fickle nature. He’s a desperate politician inclined to grab at something shiny. Magpie like. Retro policies, perhaps picked-up watching classic TV series from the past, are not the way forward for a country keen to make a new start.

We will not see Mr Sunak running a flower stall outside Waterloo Station if he fails to secure re-election. The post of UK PM will be filed quickly. More likely to see him on a sunny beach in California soon. I wonder if he’s packed his suntan lotion.

POST 1: The last thing we need to do now is to take young people out of existing apprenticeship and training schemes. The demand for young engineers and technologists is high. It would be far more constructive to offer sponsorships and subsistence support to applying and existing students rather than vague one-year gimmicks.

POST 2: Even The Daily Mail is commenting on how this proposal was sprung on unsuspecting candidates and Ministers without warning. Maybe the lobbying of parents prepping their offspring for Oxbridge, and alike is echoing loudly. Clearly, no one thought through the real life implications of a mandatory national service scheme for all 18-year olds.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks

[2] https://schoolsweek.co.uk/national-citizen-service-cuts-ties-with-largest-provider/

Two Issues

It’s all to play for, as they say. The UK General Election starting pistol has been fired. Politicians are out of the gate. We are in for six weeks of intense competition for every place where the poll result isn’t a horribly foregone conclusion. Even in some of those places there’s a renewed sense that anything is possible. So, far gone is the public image of the Conservatives that Westminster constituencies, formerly thought to be a wilderness of opposition parties are now possibilities.

What are, yes, I know it’s not new to say so, the elephants in the room? The political parties seem set on what they want to talk about but it’s not a couple of remarkably big issues.

One is Brexit, and its overall impact and the other is Social Care. Two massive pressing issues that politicians are ducking and weaving to avoid. Discussions about the UK’s economy should not happen without discussing Brexit effects. On the other issue, the big truth is that the population of the UK is aging. Yet, we really don’t like talking about it.

One point of agreement is that we need the UK economy to do better. That’s a conditional on generating the funds needed to be able to repair the damage done over the last decade. The overall performance of the UK economy during the Conservative period in power has been undeniably poor. A big part of that poor performance comes from the disruption caused to the UK’s primary marketplace by Brexit. It has been a self-inflicted wound.

On Social Care the Conservatives made a succession of promises. If we look at their record on delivery, there’s nothing to show. Local government has been beaten up over the last decade. Report after report has shown ways forward for social care. Sadly, politicians in power have not been brave enough to push hard enough to implement recommendations that can ease the heavy burden placed on many families.

In my view, our best hope on these two issues is to back the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives have demonstrated their inability to address these issues. Labour has been timid on both. Fearful that the tabloid newspapers will attack them at a critical moment.

There’s an excellent case for rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the European Union. Single Market membership wouldn’t happen overnight but surely, it’s the direction to head in. The free flow of trade, in a marketplace that is so large, and on our country’s, doorstep would boost the UK’s economy overnight.

For the sake of a few billion of public spending. Set in the context that annual government spending of a thousand billion, then priority action could be taken on Social Care. The difference this would make in helping those in extreme difficulty would be enormous.

I dare say MP Micheal Gove, who is standing down at this election, is right. It’s time for a younger generation to take up leadership roles and to sort out the mistakes that have been made over the last decade. Our liberal democracy needs to get back on track.

Turbulence

Turbulence is the result of atmospheric or environmental effects. Afterall, aircraft are craft that fly in the air. This is a hazard that is inherent in flying. Clear air turbulence (CAT) is common. However, extreme examples experienced in commercial aviation are rare. For one, aircraft operators and their crews do their best to avoid known potential atmospheric or environmental upsets, namely bad weather.

En-route turbulence accounts for a substantial number of cabin crew members injuries, and can occur at any time and at any altitude[1]. As far as I know, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) does not hold detailed data on turbulence injuries occurring on foreign registered aircraft. Numbers of injuries to passengers and flight crew on UK registered aircraft resulting from turbulence are recorded. However, it is not always known whether those injured in turbulence encounters were wearing seat belts.

Nevertheless, I can confidently say that the more passengers that are wearing seat belts during turbulence encounters the less the number of injuries. Deaths in these circumstances are rare. As might be expected fatalities are more likely to results from a combination of multiple causes and factors.

This subject is not immune from airline economics and competition. International flight routes can often be highly competitive. Fought over. So, the route taken, and associated fuel costs, can have an impact on the likelihood of a hazardous weather encounter. In fact, choosing to take routes for the benefit of picking-up specific winds is a common practice.

A high percentage of cases of turbulence events come about by flying too close to active storms[2]. Here there is often visual cues, reports, forecasts and feedback from turbulence encountered by other flights. This all helps crews avoid the worst weather encounters.

With very few exceptions, flight turbulence does not result in fatalities, permanent injure, or structurally damage commercial aircraft. However, turbulence is recognised as both an aviation safety and an economic issue, and it has been steadily increasing. Speculation and some research cites climate change as a reason for this increase. Also, there is the international growth in air traffic and development of new long-range routes.

One thing to say is that until recently, with INTERNET connections now in both in the cockpit and cabin, it could be the case that a passenger could access better real-time weather information than a flight crew. Now, SATCOM connections providing up-to-date weather information are more common on modern civil aircraft types.

There is still more that can be done to reduce crew and passenger injuries during turbulence encounters. There will inevitably happen despite any policy to avoid hazardous weather. The greatest threat to life exists to cabin crew. The cabin is their place of work.

There is potential to develop and employ better airborne detection systems to assist crews. That maybe by enhancing existing weather radar systems. It maybe by new means of turbulence detection using LIDAR, and possibly AI/ML. There is research and innovation that could be done to develop algorithms to better predict turbulence hazards.

Avoidance remains the best strategy.

[1] NASDAC Turbulence Study, August 2004

[2] US CAST briefing in 2004.

Star’s Law

It’s one thing to hear a report. It’s another to understand – what does it mean? Planning reform doesn’t often capture the national headlines. In this case, it’s a national celebrity that seems to be running changes in planning laws[1].

I’m more than a bit suspicious when I see the lines explaining legislation that say: “A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.” The word significant is purely subjective.

Like so many Statutory Instruments[2] (SIs) this subject makes for a hard read. SIs are English law that is made, not by parliamentarians debating and voting on it, but by amendments to existing law placed in front of them for a short while.

There’s no doubt that English farmers and landowners, under pressure post-Brexit, are going to be pleased by the planning alleviations offered by this new planning law. Being able to convert existing buildings into new houses, or new businesses, like farm shops, without local authorities intervening to say “no” has been dubbed – cutting red tape.

It needs to be noted that this action is being taken in the run up to a General Election (GE). For me, I see this as a two-edged sword. Sure, the name of UK Minister Michael Gove might be viewed more favourably by English farmers and landowners. That may not be the case by those people who live in the countryside adjacent to new developments.

Planning gets local people very agitated. A risk of a middle-class “civil war” is more likely to come from villagers and residents of small country towns than ever is the case from farmers. Neighbour disputes can be some of the worst disputes. I know of a case where a shotgun was used to make a point and that wasn’t by the farmer concerned. Boundaries being the issue.

Mr Gove has made a political choice. Framing the argument as cuts to “needless bureaucracy” may not be the whole picture, or even an accurate one but it does make Ministers feel good – like a sugar rush.

Converting more former agricultural buildings into dwellings or small businesses does make sense in many situations. Doing it without proper controls opens a pandora’s box of possible conflicts and disputes. Afterall the planning system is supposed to balance the rights and responsibilities of all concerned.

It’s all too easy for those in central government, heavily lobbied, to make local government the evil monster. I could say: a simple matter of power play and political expediency. Especially when the government minister making the decisions has just seen his political party devastated in local government elections.

Building more houses and shops without the need for planning permission might be a bit like that sugar rush, I mentioned. It last for a short while and then, well you know what happens.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/business/jeremy-clarkson-farm-shop-downing-street-b2341181.html

[2] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/579/made

Challenger

It’s another phrase from HHGTTG. “Mostly harmless”. However, there are things that may seem mostly harmless that subsequently turn out to be far from harmless. It’s that law of unintended consequences playing out in real life.

In the UK, we are stuck with the First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system. There is no good in pretending otherwise. Pretending that its perverse effects don’t exist is pure folly. Voting systems inevitably impact the results of elections.

What FPTP means is that the more parties, and their candidates that there are standing in an election, in each constituency, the more the votes cast can be spread. This reality often gives a big advantage to the incumbent. The one who came top of the poll last time votes were cast.

Thinking can go like this. The past winner always wins around here. So, my vote doesn’t count. If a past winner reinforces the impression that nothing has changed, then nothing will change. Because of this feeling of acquiescence, opposition voters may be more inclined to vote for a wide range of fringe candidates. Again, the thinking is that this doesn’t matter because the outcome of an election is a foregone conclusion.

In a lot of places up and down Britain this is how both Conservative and Labour politicians have stayed in power. It’s not because people think they are doing a good job. It’s more because their most immediate opposition struggles to marshal a concentration of votes for an alternative.

The conclusion from these facts is simple. If you are a voter who wants to see change then go for the opposition candidate likely to get the greatest number of votes. This is sometimes called tactical voting. It’s not so much tactical as realistic pragmatism aimed at bringing about real change. Look at the numbers. Unless the individuals concerned are one in a million, those formerly in 3^rd place, or further adrift are there to do their best but not to bring about change. A vote for a mostly harmless candidate, way down the order, just helps to keep the current Member of Parliament in place.

2024 is a year of great potential. If change were ever needed it ‘s now. I’m confident that the British electorate is savvy enough to choose the path to change. This may mean choosing differently. This may mean taking a close look at the local situation.

No doubt a succession of bar charts will highlight who’s up and who’s down. Take a close look at them. Make sure the challenger really is the challenger. If the numbers say so, and you want change – go for it.

Harmonisation

There’s an example in of itself. I’ve used the British English spelling. Perhaps I should have standardised on the American spelling, namely Harmonization. Or does it matter at all given that the definition of the word remains the same, whatever. Oh, I can’t resist the temptation to say; you say Tomato, I say Tomato.

“You say tomato, I say tomato.

You eat potato and I eat potato,

Tomato, tomato, potato, potato,

Let’s call the whole thing off.”

Naturally, in the voice of Fred Astaire[1]. Nice though this is, my subject is not pronunciation.

Aviation is a highly regulated business. It’s been that since its potential for transporting huge numbers of people around the globe was recognised. Safety must be number one. Although, it’s not if you read the first few words of the all-important Chicago convention.

Article 1: Every state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over airspace above its territory.

In the minds of those who signed the convention it was sovereignty that took first place. That didn’t mean abusing the word “sovereignty” as has to often been done. Afterall, the whole basis of the Convention on International Civil Aviation was international cooperation. It still is.

Let’s put that to one side for a moment. One of the challenges of international aviation has been the different rules and regulations in place in each country. There’s a level of harmony in the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). But ICAO is not a regulator and it’s for each country to interpret agreed standards within their domestic law.

Europe, or at least the European Union (EU) is different in this respect. Since there’s European law and an active European regulator then there’s common rules and regulation set for a regional grouping of countries. So far, Europe is the only region to go this far.

When it comes to aircraft airworthiness this has been a topic of a lot of discussion in the last four decades. In the 1990s, that discussion centred around the idea that a single worldwide code was a desirable achievement. That the time the two major entities engaged in the business of aviation rulemaking, and the maintenance of rules were the FAA (US) and the JAA (Europe).

A single worldwide code could greatly facilitate the movement of aviation produces around the globe. That done to ensure that common safety standards were maintained on every occasion. It proved hard to get to this utopian condition. That said, a great deal was achieved in the harmonisation of existing civil aviation codes. Today, we benefit from that work. I’d say we even take it for granted.

In around 2000, after much study, countries concluded that it was fine to seek some form of equivalence between respective rules rather than having to write done one single set of rules. Mutual recognition has flourished in the form of agreements between countries that has smoothed the path for the aviation industries.

That last major study of the pros and cons of harmonisation is now nearly a generation old. A lot has moved on. For one, in Europe the JAA transition to the EASA.

At the same time the manufacturing countries worked closely together to agree on measures to ensure that there was no great divergence in rules and regulations. Now subjects, like Safety Management Systems (SMS) became codified. However, sovereign countries continued to develop and maintain their own aviation rules and regulations.

International working groups often achieve remarkable commonality and convergence on detailed technical topics. Often because the few people who were deeply embedded in a technical subjects all knew each other and shared information relatively freely.

Discussion as to the viability of a single worldwide code has not completely faded into the past. In fact, there’s some good reason to breath life back into this historic debate. Here’s what’s added to the dynamics of the situation:

Ongoing moves from prescriptive rules to more performance-based rules,
Entirely new products in development, like eVTOL aircraft,
Interdependency, interconnection, and integration all increased since 2000,
Security and safety are becoming inseparable,
Digitisation is changing the ways that we ensure that an aircraft is airworthy.

If you have knowledge of, and thoughts on this subject, I’d be happy to hear from you.

[1] https://youtu.be/LOILZ_D3aRg

Electrics & Mechanics

Yesterday, I wrote on LH2. The potential fuel for electric aircraft of any size. Yes, I’m not just talking about smaller commuter class transport aircraft.

Let me take some anecdotal evidence from the transition that is going on in road transport. Repairer turns up to fix an electric car that will not start. It’s a simple matter given that the car has been standing unused for a long time. The battery had discharged. A quick charge from another battery pack and all is well. Meantime in conversation it’s clear that the repairer hates working on electric cars. I could say, no surprise, they were trained on combustion engines and have been forced to make a transition in technology.

What’s evident here is the apprehension of a person who likely has a mechanical bias towards their work and the necessity to take on fixing powerful electrics. Mechanics, those who love working with moving parts, often have a dislike of electrics and electronics. It’s an engineer’s “feeling” expressed to me casually over the last 40-years.

In fact, it can be the reason that a design or maintenance engineer took the career path that they did. There is a dividing line between mechanical engineers and electrical engineers that is embedded in our institutional, educational, and training systems.

So, there’s two practical human issues to grapple with in a transition:

Propensity of one branch of technically capable people to find mechanical work less fearsome and more satisfying than electrics or electronics, and
Streaming that is embedded in our institutional, educational, and training systems. Qualifications and recognition are often not so multi-disciplinary focused.

I’m not for one single moment making a luddite argument that mechanical engineers[1] and electrical engineers[2] are two tribes that must be kept apart. Far from it. What’s more important is to recognise that transitions are hard.

New electric aircraft are going to demand technical people with a multiplicity of both mechanical and electrical knowledge. The way the engineering world has been divided up in the past doesn’t cut it. Some of our most cherished niches will need to be challenged.

Transitions of this nature always take much longer than is originally anticipated. In a way, that should be such a surprise. It’s a generational change for a community that can be conservative with a small “c”.

This is NOT business as usual. For example, handling powerful 1000-volt electric technology is not for everyone. Removing and replacing cryogenic plumbing is, again, not for everyone. The hazards are clear. The skills needed are clear.

Reorienting the aircraft maintenance engineering world is going to need new plans and programmes. Better start by enthusing people about the change rather than just forcing it.

[1] https://www.imeche.org/

[2] https://www.theiet.org/

Choice

Desperate British Prime Minister (PM) comes out with the line that the future will be troubled and fast paced change will outstrip past progress. Ok, so what’s new? Hasn’t that been the path of the world since the invention of the computer? Acceleration of change is now locked into humanities destiny.

The audacity of the man is astonishing. Having been intimately associated with calamitous failures of the past decade he espouses his unique abilities to keep us safe and secure.

Hell, I thought former PM Boris Johnson had a big ego. Monday’s speech goes beyond ridiculous[1]. When he says: “People are abusing our liberal democratic values” what comes to my mind is the right-wing government he leads.

We all know, it’s reported continuously, how dangerous the world has become. Noone in any major political party would dismiss that reality. That is bar the eccentric, downright crazy and maybe the fringes of the Greens party.

Interestingly, as far as I know, PM Rishi Sunak isn’t a climate change denier, but he doesn’t have much to say on this monumental global issue. When he says: “And in this world of greater conflict and danger, 100 million people are now displaced globally.” It should occur to him that competition for resources in a world where the climate is changing is at the root of this movement. By the way, there are 8 billion people in the world[2]. So, let’s get our reality in proportion. True, the 0.1 billion people now displaced globally is a figure likely to grow in the next decade. But they are not the enemy.

I had to laugh when I came to the mention in the speech of “robust plans”. The thing that has been characteristic of this Conservative period of government is the distinct lack of planning.

The country’s whole relationship with its neighbours was changed without any plan (Brexit). The ups and downs of the COVID epidemic were endured without a plan, other than that which was made up day-to-day. Year-on-year cuts in defence spending have only been reversed in the wake of global events not a plan of any kind. Surely the Conservatives can only offer a – make it up as we go along – way of governing? It’s what they’ve always done. Hence, the slow decline that has afflicted the country.

The PM lapses into a lazy “needs must” argument that sprinkled with Brexit bull****. Shakespeare would have approved. One example, in All’s Well That Ends Well:

Countess: Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

Clown: My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

Nothing wrong with being positive about the future. As a country we can do great things. What the PM claims is to have a plan. What he hasn’t got is a plan. And if he did have a plan the likelihood of his own side following that plan is absolutely minimal. He only goes where the devil drives.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-security-13-may-2024

[2] https://www.census.gov/popclock/world

ID

Photo ID is essential, or your ballot will be denied to you in the UK. You can’t vote in elections. That was the case for service veterans, last Thursday. The armed forces veteran card was not deemed acceptable ID[1]. This card was heralded as a great step forward by Conservative Ministers. It seems they had not thought through the implications of the new ID card.

The Electoral Reform Society pointed out that the arbitrary nature of voter ID rules is a problem.

No doubt to get milk the publicity, Boris Johnson, former PM, praised the officials who turned him away from the polling station where he attempted to vote in the South Oxfordshire police commissioner vote[2]. That inspired one or two cartoons. As you would expect featuring clowns. The legacy of Boris Johnson’s chaotic time in the premiership continues to echo.

News is not all negative on the voting front. The 15-year time limit on the eligibility of British people living overseas has been lifted. They will now be permitted to vote in UK elections[3]. Most interestingly, around 3.5 million additional people will have the right to vote in the forthcoming UK General Election. I wonder how those living in the European Union (EU) will vote.

Anyway, if we look at the results from last Thursday, the Conservative attempt at what could be called voter suppression seem to have backfired. Big time. My view is that we should be making it easier for citizens to vote and not harder to vote. As one joker pointed out, in this Parliament, there have been more cases of MP’s misdemeanours than there have been of voter fraud.

I agree that many of the heartfelt arguments of 25-years ago about ID cards are now somewhat moot. The way we use mobile phones has put paid to those arguments. Big Brother is here to stay. It’s astonishing how much personal information we give away freely, not to the Government, but to commercial entities committed to extracting profits from our data.

Formally proving ID is an anarchic process in the UK. There are multiple means, and they are all confusing or mixtures of one another. What is becoming a fixed point is one’s mobile phone number. So many computer systems send a text message that requires acknowledgement to prove who you are who you say you are. The assumption being that the person with the mobile phone is the person who owns the phone, and its number.

Maybe it is time for one unified and recognised official UK ID system.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/02/minister-apologises-veteran-turned-away-refused-voter-id/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/04/boris-johnson-pays-tribute-to-polling-staff-who-refused-to-let-him-vote-without-id

[3] https://www.gov.uk/voting-when-abroad

Culture

Yet again, Boeing is in the news. The events of recent times, I feel are immensely sad. Now, it is reported that the FAA has opened an investigation into a possible manufacturing quality lapse on the Boeing 787 aircraft[1]. Concern is that inspection records may have been falsified.

A company that once had a massive professional engineering reputation has sunk to a place where expectations are low. It’s not so much that the company is having a Gerald Ratner moment. Unfortunately, the constant stream of bad news indicates something deeper.

It’s interesting to note that Frank Shrontz[2] passed away last Friday at the grand age of 92. He was the CEO and Chairman of Boeing, who led the company during development of the Boeing 737NG and Boeing 777 aircraft. In the 1990s, I worked on both large aircraft types.

A commonly held view is that, after his time and the merger with McDonnell Douglas the culture of the organisation changed. There’s a view that business schools graduates took over and the mighty engineering ethos that Boeing was known for then went into decline. Some of this maybe anecdotal. Afterall, the whole world has changed in the last 30-years. However, it’s undoubtably true that a lot of people lament the passing of an engineering culture that aimed to be the best.

A famous quote comes to mind: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Those sharp 5 words get discussed time and time again. Having been involved in a lot of strategic planning in my time it’s not nice to read. How wonderful intent, and well described policies can be diluted or ignored is often an indicator of decline. It’s that cartoon of two cavemen pushing a cart with a square wheel. One says to the other: “I’ve been so busy. Working my socks off”. Ignored, on the ground is an unused round wheel. If an organisation’s culture is aggressively centred on short-term gain, then many of the opportunities to fix stuff gets blown out of the window.

We keep talking about “performance” as if it’s a magic pill. Performance based rules, performance-based oversight, and a long list of performance indicators. That, in of itself is not a bad thing. Let’s face it we all want to get better at something. The problem lies with performance only being tagged to commercial performance. Or where commercial performance trumps every other value an engineering company affirms.

To make it clear that all the above is not just a one company problem, it’s useful to look at what confidential reporting schemes have to say. UK CHIRP is a long standing one. Many recent CHIRP reports cite management as a predominant issue[3]. Leadership skills are an issue.

[1] https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/some-787-production-test-records-were-falsified-boeing-says

[2] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/frank-shrontz-former-ceo-and-chairman-of-boeing-dies-at-92/

[3] https://chirp.co.uk/newsletter/trust-in-management-and-cultures-is-the-key-to-promoting-confidence-in-safety-reporting/