Assange the mad!

If anyone is looking for examples that the lawyers are getting excessively rich in this country then the ongoing Assange saga must surely be a case study for future students? What should have been a simple case of extradition to answer a charge has turned into a complete media and legal circus. I have no views on whether Assange is guilty of the charges that Sweden say he needs to answer, but I find him increasingly objectionable (he was never a saint to start with) and thus it becomes harder to dispassionately defend his rights. For those who put forward the money for his bail, the old saying is relevant here, “A fool and their money are easily parted…” Personally, I just wish he would bugger off to Sweden , get it over with, stop making the lawyers rich and stop using up copious amount of UK taxpayers' money.

I find it incredible that some people are willing to buy his argument of political persecution. It appears obvious that the UK courts (and probably the EU too) do not believe him. Sweden is a country with a proud history in terms of social justice and human rights. The idea that they would knowingly front for the US and through a circuitous route get Assange extradited to the US is laughable and yet people still seem to believe it. Personally I think Assange is safer in Sweden than in the UK. If nothing else, it means the US would have to gain the consent of three governments ( Australia , UK and Sweden ) to extradite him. Of course, he is not safe from Swedish justice and that is probably his biggest fear. His complete unwillingness to clear this issue up on the basis of trumped up conspiracy theories does not imply innocence or rational thinking on his part.

So what is the Ecuadorian Government going to do now? Regardless of rumoured links between Assange and the Ecuadorian president, this is a problem no sane government would welcome. Should Ecuador agree to give Assange asylum, they would not only create a legal and logistical nightmare for themselves, they would also be publicly stating that the UK , Swedish and EU justice systems are sub-standard. This sort of message might go down well in Latin America, but is no route to winning friends on the international stage and showing that the country stands up for those who matter or deserve protection. Assange is rapidly losing friends and he is inviting Ecuador to do the same. If they refuse his asylum claim, they will probably get criticised anyway. I do not envy Ecuador having to deal with this poisoned chalice.

On a final point, I do not think much of Assange. The one good thing he did was invigorate the issue of investigative journalism which was completely failing to get to the truth behind government policies and backing this with evidence. Yet the way Assange went about this through the Wikileaks site was truly reprehensible. He exposed and thus sacrificed his sources (such as Bradley Manning) in his quest for personal glory, he just dumped a lot of classified material for the whole world to see without even filtering it properly and thus risking lives and he didn't even seek to explain the material like a proper investigative journalist is meant to. In short, he is a self centred, egotistical and irresponsible man with a truly unpleasant personality. He could have done so much better, but he has let his vanity and thirst for glory overcome him.

Religion versus state, the gay argument

I will make an early declaration that I waver between atheism and agnosticism depending upon my mood. Despite my mood swings, I am not fanatical on this issue. As much as I might dislike many aspects of religion, I am certainly not in the Richard Dawkins school of thought as I can see a role for religion, even in today’s Britain . Yet with the recent way in which various religious leaders and organisations have tied themselves into knots about gay marriage, it is looking increasingly like they are not sitting comfortably in the role that the UK as whole expects from them.

Organised religion, at its heart, is all about controlling people. The way they think (morals), the way they act (with conscience) and the way they interact with other people (civic society) whether they are of the same faith or not. Like anything else in life, this control can be used for both good and bad purposes. For me, the fundamental purpose for any organised religion should be that it should always be striving, no matter how misguided it may do so, to be attempting to make things better and to advance human beings in some way. For those who like to consider themselves civilised, this means by making people more tolerant to others, more fair in their dealings and conscientious about the needs of others especially the vulnerable. So how does insisting that gay people should not be treated the same as anyone else fit in with this goal?

Europe as a whole, with many countries around the world feeling the same way, believe strongly in the separation of religion and the state. It makes sense as each party can be a brake to the excesses of the other. Yet we are now in a position in the UK where the state is the progressive actor, striving to make people better and more tolerant and religion is the block. This has been the case for a long time. For organised religion to survive in any meaningful way, the UK population has to feel that it adds value to their lives. In the personal sense this may remain the case for some, but in the broader political sense this is not so. Whether it be through gay bashing, covering up child abuse cases or otherwise acting in a very discriminatory way (access to faith schools), there is a definite sense that religion in the UK is on a downwards spiral.

I do dislike organised religion (irrelevant to the issue of my lack of belief in a deity) and yet as someone with a strong interest in political theory, I feel that there is a big gap opening in the UK ’s civic society. There is a desperate need for credible and big organisations to challenge the government and to stand up for what is right, particularly for those incapable of defending themselves. This means fighting against the excesses of the wealthy, the belittling and denigration of the poor by the politicians and for everyone to be treated equally, and yes this includes the gays. When they go down the path of saying a particular group of people should be differently, particularly in a less equal way, then religion is no longer standing up for what is right and thus sliding down a slippery moral slope. What the ancient scriptures say is no defence, worse still making rulings and decisions that make people’s lives worse (the Catholic church’s attitude to use of condoms, particularly in the third world) is not only morally bankrupt, it should also be seen as criminal in the way that ‘incitement to terrorism’ is now criminal. We should all be responsible for what we do and say, it is time religious leaders faced their responsibilities to society at large. It is way past time religion began to properly look forwards, not backwards.

Dealing with the enemy, the media

This is a post I have wanted to write for a while. When I was given training on how to handle the media many years ago, the message was very much that they were usually the enemy and so needed to be handled with caution and suspicion. Sadly, the reason for this is not because the media keep exposing things that government does not want exposed. Civil servants are just as eager as the person in the street for the media to properly expose all that is wrong in Government. No, the reason for treating the media as the enemy is because they are not the fourth estate as they claim to be, with the notable exception of the specialist press and those who still have a very strong investigative journalism element such as the Private Eye. At their worst, the mainstream media are corrupt, dishonest and very political. They now exist to do two things: sell newspapers and promote certain political/social messages or themes. Only by coincidence do these goals align with holding powerful people to account in the public interest and only occasionally can they be judged to be a neutral party, free from political/financial interest and eager to do the right thing. The Leveson enquiry is exposing this reality in a truly landmark way, shattering the myths and showing the ugly underbelly of British democracy. This has been nicely captured in an article in The Guardian by John Harris: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/10/leveson-elite-shames-new-politics

For any civil servant who has had experience of answering media enquiries, it becomes rapidly apparent that something is consistently wrong. Whenever I read a media article to which I have contributed information to, I can always spot a large number of basic and fundamental errors. Many of these errors are distortion of facts, deliberately done to make a political point, and many others are just as a result of poor research and limited knowledge of the subject matter. This happens so often that it can only be concluded that journalism is no longer about quality writing when it comes to the content of their material, the message itself is far more important. One critical result is that the reader ends up not well informed about that issue and merely reacts to any such articles emotionally rather than intellectually. For someone trained to believe that they should never put anything out in the public domain that is not as factually accurate as possible, even including some spin, this is a complete travesty. It also raises the obvious question asked by many civil servants, “If what they write about topics I know about is complete rubbish, why should I believe anything else written in the rest of the newspaper?” I am sorry to say, I consider very few journalists to be truly ‘professional’ at their craft. The newspaper that is easily the worst for all these issues is the Daily Mail, but then everyone already knows this. Despite that, they remain successful.

There is a darker side to this debate too. Think of any major news story in recent years. As an example I will choose the Soham murders in Cambridgeshire. The press descended upon that story like a swarm of locusts. So what did the local police and local council have to do? They had to put people into handling that media scrum. Now I know giving information to the press is important, but when you are in the middle of desperately looking for two missing girls, people in the office handling press enquiries are not people outside helping in the search. This is a familiar pattern for any major news story there is. Government departments are mocked for having so many press officers and yet no one questions why they are needed. The press is a rapacious beast, it does not care who it tramples over or how many people it takes to handle it. This is taxpayer’s money and one day it could be someone’s life. I can only speculate that this may have been the case for Madeleine McCann, there is a reason why the British police ask the press not to run any stories of a kidnapping victim in the early stages. I hasten to add that this is speculation, the truth of what happened has not come out, but I can only say that the press coverage has sickened me as much as the kidnapping itself. This case has only shown that there are few depth to which the mainstream media will not sink and from the bowels of government they are seen as a hindrance to doing one’s job.

On a more routine note, journalists are the biggest users of the Freedom of Information laws. Granted, this is about government being accountable and so a good thing, but the point I want to make here is that a significant amount of taxpayers’ money is devoted to handling these enquiries by journalists who are willing to ‘distort’ the facts and then try to make money off the resulting story. I wish to emphasise the fact that all too often they are using taxpayer funded resources to make the newspaper money rather than holding the government to account. Some people may consider this a good thing, to which all I can say is look at what the Leveson enquiry is exposing, do you want your tax money keeping these people in business? Again another caveat, I am not advocating the abolition of FOI, I only point out that there is not enough intelligent use of these laws to get at the truth rather than to manufacture a story.

In conclusion, I believe the media has too much power with too little responsibility. There is an obvious and critical need for an independent press in a democratic society. The sad reality is that the UK press is not independent, it is nearly wholly owned by a small number of very rich white men. I hope the Levenson enquiry results in significant changes to the fourth estate and how it operates. Apart from all the harm done by the lack of professionalism by journalism as a whole and the blatant political bias of various news organisations, a situation where the government is not able to tell the truth because it will be turned into lies and journalists report the government’s lies as truths is not one that is democratically healthy.

Don’t give Atos

I foresee that Atos Healthcare may well become the next welfare scandal to hit the government following the current furore about corrupt practices at A4E. All the ingredients are here: Atos are being given around £100 million to manage all the Department of Health’s disability claimants; they have a target of reducing claims; and there are worrying signs of lack of accountability. Disability groups and charities are vehemently opposed to Atos, openly criticising their procedures and lack of competent medical judgement and highlighting many cases where Atos has found seriously ill people fit for work. Private Eye and The Guardian have also been extensively reporting on the horror stories coming out from people who have had to deal with Atos and has even gone so far as to say the legal system is now openly complaining due to the sheer volume of appeal cases being generated. Apparently around 40% of Atos cases are successfully overturned upon appeal. Of course, this takes many months and so seriously disabled/ill people are having their welfare cut until these cases are resolved. No doubt this is happening at a further cost to their health. Many MPs are aware of this issue and Parliamentary committees are starting to ask awkward questions.

So with horror stories about Atos’ awful treatment of disabled people in abundance and with a growing evidence of poor performance, why does the Government, through the Department of Health, seem unwilling to tackle this? The unpleasant suspicion has to be voiced that Atos are just implementing government policy – reducing welfare claims and if this means making the system unbearably difficult for some of the most vulnerable in society then so be it. Or in other words, the Government has outsourced the dirty work to a private company, not bound by Freedom of Information laws, motivated by perverse incentives, not answerable to Parliament and, more worrying still, not too concerned about the moral issues surrounding the treatment of the vulnerable in society. This is not Whitehall ’s proudest moment to let Atos get away with this.

I have read a couple of stories that some people have committed suicide due to their treatment by Atos and the Department of Health. Certainly a number have died during the processing of their appeals, possibly accelerated by their bad treatment. I can also imagine that court cases may well be pending if not coming soon and only then will concerted action be taken and even then slowly. What a tragedy this is when this is what it takes to change the flawed implementation of government policy. It also does not say good things about the UK as a society that is willing to condone or to avert its eyes to this shameful state of affairs.

The danger of politically motivated appointments

There is an old Spanish proverb, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” Has Theresa May served up her revenge a bit too hot with the selection of Tom Winsor to become the next Chief Inspector of Constabulary? It is too easy to see this as the Government’s revenge for the Police Federation’s rough treatment of Theresa May, the Home Secretary, back in May.

Reading between the lines of various newspapers’ coverage of the story I can also imagine the comments from the various police forces, some openly expressed:

“They appointed that idiot after he wrote those crap reports?”

And

“Oh great, another bloody poodle there to do the Government’s bidding.”

The argument that it is not a bad thing to sometimes appoint someone who is independent of both the police and government to provide a fresh pair of eyes is a good one. But when working with government departments or agencies there are two vital assets that a top mandarin must have: credibility and the ability to persuade those differing departments or agencies to work together. I fear that Tom Winsor has already lost his credibility with the police before he can even start (whether rightly or wrongly is irrelevant) and so I can only question whether no matter how brilliant he may be (or not I have no knowledge of his work) how he can possibly make this role a success? He has some serious bridge building to do and needs to communicate a vision if he is not to be blocked at every turn by various vested interests. Being confrontational does not work within government, the secret to success for any politician or senior civil servant is to be perceived as neutral and having something valuable on offer. Like reputations, this perception can be easily lost and very hard to get back.

By succumbing to an emotional desire for revenge, I fear the government has just stymied its ability to push forward reforms within the police. As Andrew Lansley, the Secretary of State for Health, is finding out if the rank and file and management do not believe in you or support your reforms then you will have the devil of a job trying to get anything done. Any bets on how long Tom Winsor will last?

Throwing down the pensions gauntlet

I am continually surprised at the inability of the trade unions to be able to successfully influence the government on the issue of reform of public sector pensions. Maybe I should not be so surprised really, there is far too much incompetence and political manoeuvrings within many trade unions rendering them mostly in-effective. Too often they are on the losing argument and mounting a shambolic campaign on various issues, completely failing to gain the support of the wider public.

So what would our Machiavellian Mandarin whisper in the ear of the trade unions on the issue of pensions reform?

“Hit the politicians where it hurts the most and do it loudly.”

To do that, what the trade unions should be saying and getting the mainstream media to quote repeatedly is, “Fine we are willing to accept pensions need reform, but we will only do so if every single MP in Parliament and every single Minister in Government is on the exact same pension scheme as the one you want the public sector to adopt. We are all in this together, you are public servants just as much as we are so let Parliament lead by example.”

Would you believe that MPs are still drawing upon some rather gold plated pensions? Don’t buy the spin doctored line that they are increasing their contributions, they will still come out with far more generous pensions that anyone else in the public sector. What is good enough for the public sector does not appear good enough for them.  The public, sickened by the MPs expenses scandal, are in no mood for excuses and so on this issue politicians are vulnerable. It is a gamble, but throw down the gauntlet, gain some public support for the idea and let’s see how enthusiastic they are about pension reform then.

So why is no one standing up and hammering this point home? It wouldn’t be because those trade union leaders are themselves sitting on rather similar pension arrangements would it? As the mainstream media itself is determined to run down the public sector this could be a hard message to get out there. Oh dear, looks like the public sector is screwed. Get better trade union leaders, they are badly needed!

The corruption paradox

There is one political story that will never die in the UK and that is politicians’ expenses. All countries have to wrestle with corruption of some form or another at the top. It is inevitable because there is no such thing as a perfect political system and so some people will always exploit the loopholes or just break the law because they think they can get away with it. Some countries are better than others at dealing with it, the UK political class, however, is failing miserably. It is a truly appalling state of affairs, worse even than what is being reported in mainstream newspapers and in my opinion is the biggest problem facing UK politics today because quite simply it is crippling any possibility of good government and undermining the key principles of democracy itself.

There are two strands to this problem: personal corruption and corporate corruption and the two are very much linked. I shall discuss the personal corruption problem first and cover the corporate second. Some parts of the problem are relatively easy to solve, other parts are not. What is definitely true is that there is a lack of true political will. If there ever was a time for a puritanical type of Prime Minister who would show the necessary steel and leadership to charge headlong at this problem, now is the time for them to step up!

Personal Corruption – The problem

I will start this section off by outlining a key assumption that needs to be borne in mind when considering things such as the MPs expenses scandal: British MPs, Lords and Ministers are poorly paid. It is a simple statement and it is not meant to excuse what they have done. For anyone seeking to fix the problem of politicians fiddling their expenses then this issue has to be tackled head on. The paradox is of course now that their scandalous expenses have been exposed and due to the current recession, politicians are too scared to actually pay themselves a decent salary.

Now I know many people think that MPs are paid too much and don’t deserve an even more generous salary, the truth as always is more complicated and so a quick history lesson is appropriate. British MPs were historically paid a very low salary because they came from wealthy backgrounds and UK politics at the time was very much dominated by the aristocracy who conducted their political affairs almost as a hobby rather than a profession. We do not live in that sort of world anymore and a lot has changed for the better since then and so how you look at the role of MPs, Lords and Ministers needs to change too. The majority of MPs (not all but indisputably most) work very long hours. Politics is a very life consuming beast, it demands more and more from you and before long it takes over your life especially the higher up the political hierarchy you get. Become a Minister and you effectively are now on call any time of the day, any day of the week except for when you are on holidays. The equivalent business man/woman expected to deal with complex issues and sacrifice their life for the benefits of the business gets paid several hundreds of thousands if not millions. It is also revealing that if you compare UK political pay scales to that of other countries, it is obvious that UK politicians are not paid well. The demographics of Parliament is also very revealing, too many people from wealthy public school backgrounds at one end, too many union leaders or political careerists at the other with a woefully low number of women, ethnic minorities, civil servants, proper business leaders or other professionals being represented. A decent salary is just one but still critical step towards correcting this demographic imbalance and eliminating personal corruption.

Personal Corruption – The solution

Nothing in politics is ever truly simple, but I really do not see this problem as being insurmountable providing the political will is there. I also think that the British public can accept it providing that the solution is presented to them clearly and simply. Here is how I think it should be done. I am not going to cover the Lords in this analysis simply because the issue of Lords reform complicates matters and I would like to cover this in a later post.

Every MP should get a decent basic salary, let us say for the sake of argument that the figure should be between £100,000 and £150,000. Each Minister should get between £150,000 and £200,000. They should be allowed to claim expenses for any ‘reasonable’ travel (this means not everywhere first class!) and overnight stays connected with work. They should also be allowed a certain amount of expenses for hiring staff to run their offices. In addition, Parliament should own or lease a significant number of reasonable but not extravagant properties in London which MPs and Ministers (who don’t live in London ) can rent from Parliament at a subsidised rate. Let us say something like £500 per month for a single bedroom, £800 per month for a two bedroom, £1200 for a three bedroom and so on. All very straightforward, they cannot sub-let these subsidised properties, they cannot buy houses or furniture on expenses and in short, they are treated fairly. For those who would rather own their own property, would rather rent a different one or who already live in London , they should be able to claim an allowance in lieu of paying rent, but that allowance should not exceed how much they would pay in rent. For example, if an MP bought or rented a one bedroom flat, they would get a £500 per month allowance. This is simply to recognise that they are not claiming the Parliament provided rental property, but they have incurred the cost of buying/renting a property for work purposes. As they have chosen to buy/rent their own property, all other costs above that allowance are their problem (mortgage, repairs, furniture etc). Simply put, there is nothing to claim on expenses and the salary is enough to live reasonably well in London.

And now for the big clincher, the big stipulation that MPs will hate the most, but is what I think will make the British public accept this idea. NO SECOND INCOME OR JOB. As a civil servant there are very strict rules on my ability to obtain income from a second job. Those rules exist for a reason and I find it inconceivable that MPs and Ministers should be any different. The exception should be for where a professional needs to do paid work to maintain a professional licence or qualification, for example pilots need to fly so many hours a year and magistrates need to be in court so many days a year in order to keep their respective licence. I might even be generous and say that being paid a smallish sum to act as chair/treasurer to a political party or being paid a small fee for appearing on Question Time would also qualify as an acceptable exception. I do not buy the argument that MPs or Ministers are ‘kept in tune’ with life outside Westminster by having additional jobs. This is a nakedly obvious way in which conflicts of interests arise and how political corruption is legalised. MPs and Ministers are essentially public servants and so need to dedicate themselves to the job in the same way as I do. If a Managing Director of a company wants to go into Parliament, they should stand down from their job for the company for the period in which they are serving the country and be willing to accept this. Note that I am talking about an income for actually conducting work. For those who have shares or significant savings etc, this should not need to be cut off. The principle is that you should not be paid to do something outside of your day job, but there should not be a barrier to utilising existing property or assets in the same way I am allowed to gain incomes from my savings or from renting my own property outside of my civil servant job. By doing this, the rich and wealthy person who enters politics is now on a level playing field (job wise) to a much less wealthy person. Both should have entered Parliament because they want to do good not to enrich themselves and both should be expected to focus fully on that job. If the rich person does not want to sacrifice/postpone their business income then that should be their choice as obviously that is not the right time for them to enter politics. The suggested increase in pay does mean, however, that they can live within that income while doing the job.

Corporate corruption

For anyone who reads Private Eye, this will be a familiar topic. MPs or Ministers sit on committees or run a Government Department while big business places ‘office assistants’ in their offices and pays them directorships during or after their time in Parliament. This has to stop. What also has to stop is the reality that big business and individuals make political donations to influence policy as seen by the recent Peter Cruddas story (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17503116). Anybody involved in politics knows that this is not an isolated incident. All the political parties are desperate for campaign funding and by various means, whether involving money, dinners, favours or even simply privileged access, the corporate world is now more able to influence certain UK policies even more than several million UK voters are able to. Democracy is meant to be about the decision of the many, not the influence of a select few. Can it be a coincidence that the Conservatives are so keen to reform the NHS despite the overwhelming hostility from the UK populace at large while at the same time the party is accepting large donations from private health providers? Can it be right that certain defence companies can walk into Downing Street or the Ministry of Defence and press for pet projects to go ahead or for corruption enquiries to be shut down? Can we really be surprised that Adrian Beecroft (A big Conservative Party donor) who is a venture capitalist is pushing for reforms that in allowing people to be fired on a ‘no fault dismissal basis’ which just so happens to reduce the cost of making people redundant coincidently making it cheaper for venture capitalists to asset strip businesses that they have just bought?

This is not to say politicians should not speak to businesses, particularly when trying to understand the implications of certain policies. But this engagement should be a lot less cosy than it currently is and politicians should always be critical of whatever bright ideas is put in front of them, no matter who suggests it. The fact that business can offer ‘rewards’ to politicians is a significant barrier to any Government making the right decisions for the benefit of the country as a whole. Paying politicians a good salary while forbidding them from holding down second jobs or accepting payments would go a long way towards cracking down on this form of corruption in whatever soft guise it is practiced. And for those politicians who demonstrate that they can make a positive difference or successfully run a Government Department? I don’t think they will lack for job opportunities when they come out. For a business person looking for a new challenge, sacrificing a very high income for five years for the chance to put a big success story on your CV which will probably earn you more pay later on sounds like a reasonable trade-off to me.

The UK used to pride itself on being a relatively honest country as far as political dealings were concerned. I think we lost this claim a long time ago and if you are going to try to encourage other countries, particularly those involved in the Arab spring, to become democratic or for those various parts of the world where corruption is endemic, the UK is not exactly a shining beacon of good practice. There is currently a lot of gloom about recovering from the current economic recession, a big part has to be because no one has faith in politics anymore, probably not even the politicians or big business leaders themselves. A new, more honest, more professional generation is needed. One can only deam…