tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-101291482021-03-16T05:56:55.443+00:00The Devil's KitchenMaking everyone happy is impossible. Pissing them off is a piece of cake. I like cake.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5985125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-11160517602861562032020-10-06T20:55:00.005+01:002020-10-06T20:55:40.934+01:00NHS Fail WailI think that we can all agree that the UK's response to coronavirus has been somewhat lacking. In fact, many people asserted that our death rate was uniquely high, and now that our economy is uniquely devastated (although that is not entirely true), and many have pointed the finger at Boris. But the failings are, in fact, system failures — not to be laid at the feet of one man.<div><br /></div><div>And this country does have a unique system — a system that has failed us again and again, and again. It is called "the NHS".</div><div><br /></div><div>We were all locked down, originally, to protect this glorious and unique healthcare system — to flatten the curve: we were asked to sacrifice our freedoms and our businesses in order to protect a healthcare system that, in normal times, is <i>supposed</i> to save us (it does a shitty job of it, but that's pretty well known). But, actually, the NHS has fucked us comprehensively.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let us examine the charges:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>the initial lockdown was supposed to flatten the curve so that the NHS could cope. And largely it did;</li><li>the ludicrous death toll projections produced by Neil "fucking" Ferguson were produced by Imperial College London's School of Medicine (which might as well be part of the NHS);</li><li>a great part of death toll was caused by pushing infected patients out to care homes so that they could cut vast swathes through the inhabitants — done for the NHS, and by the NHS;</li><li>the agency whose entire <i>raison d'etre</i> was supposedly to plan for pandemics failed and was largely invisible — this was Public Health England (PHE), part of the NHS;</li><li>the organisations whose job it was to procure and stockpile Personal Protective Equipment — PHE, and NHS Trusts — failed to do so;</li><li>widespread testing was hampered by the decision to use only one or two public sector labs — a decision taken and enforced by PHE (part of the NHS);</li><li>at the beginning of the pandemic, PHE (part of the NHS) also tried to prosecute or have otherwise silenced, adverts and products that advocated the wearing of masks;</li><li>the utter failure that was the original Test and Trace App was procured, "built" and screwed up by NHS-X (yep — part of the NHS);</li><li>the continued failure of widespread testing is down to that fuckwit Dido Harding and her bailiwick of NHS Test and Trace — which is, of course, part of the NHS;</li><li>"saving" the NHS has meant that many, many routine tests and treatments are not being performed — another act by the NHS which will inevitably lead to the unnecessary death and suffering of tens of thousands of people;</li><li>all of the above has, of course, led to the absolute devastation of our economy, which will lead to the unnecessary deaths of thousands more people.</li></ol></div><div>So, if you want a healthcare system that doesn't fuck everything up and cause a metric fuck-ton of deaths during a global pandemic, you might not want a healthcare system like the NHS.</div><div><br /></div><div>Which is why, of course, no other country ever has.</div><div><br /></div><div>Clap that, you stupid bastards. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-73785440073455549662020-10-03T00:29:00.001+01:002020-10-03T00:30:04.167+01:00Indescribable Damage<p>Sure, the government could not anticipate what the coronavirus really meant — I think that most people understand that.</p> <p>Although some of us who understood what a coronavirus was might have anticipated it, we didn't anticipate how many lives it might claim — I was one of those, and I admit to some surprise over the death toll.</p> <p>However, we need to understand whether the government's reaction to it was in any way rational. My opinion is that the first reaction — that of so-called “herd immunity” was the right way to deal with this.</p> <p>Coronaviruses are difficult to deal with, and much more difficult to find a vaccine for (I wrote about this previously), and it was likely both that many would have <em>some</em> antibodies and that a vaccine would be close to impossible.</p> <p>Would my prescription have led to fewer deaths from COVID-19? Probably not — but the government locked us down and destroyed vast swathes of the economy, and that will be more damaging.</p> <p>But what is the direct cost? <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-much-does-it-cost-to-save-lives-from-covid" title="Spectator article (£)">[Simon Wood, a professor of computational statistics at the University of Edinburgh., lays out just how much we are spending to save a life under COVID-19]</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>Broadly speaking, Nice approves interventions if the ‘cost per life year saved’ is below £20,000 to £30,000</p> <p>So how do the various measures used to fight Covid-19 compare to the usual Nice threshold? A precise answer is not possible, but a rough figure is. Shutting down entire sections of the economy devastated tax revenue, and the government borrowed money not just to fill the gap but to increase public spending. This has risen by £135 billion this year alone, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, which estimates that the national debt will grow to be £550 billion higher than was predicted at the start of the year. Obviously, this figure ignores effects on the economy not mitigated by government action, so true costs will be higher.</p> <p>But let’s be cautious about the costs of lockdown and its associated measures and let’s be optimistic about what those lockdown measures achieved. The Department of Health and Social Care’s estimate of the life that might have been lost without such Covid-related expenditure is about three million life years. On this basis, the Covid measures cost just over £180,000 per life year.</p></blockquote> <p>The trouble is that the widely assumed statistics shows that the UK has come off worst of all of the Western economies — not only in deaths (whether measured in absolute terms, or per capita) — and politically Boris can only survive is he stops, or minimises, a “second wave”.</p> <p>There are a number of issues with this assumption — with the economic one being, frankly, a lie. As <a href="https://www.timworstall.com/2020/10/jeez-people-get-this-right/">Tim Worstall has repeatedly pointed out</a>, the only reason that the UK is suffering the biggest drop in GDP is because the ONS is the only body that is measuring the economy even vaguely accurately.</p> <p>In simple terms, here is how it works:</p> <ul> <li>because it is difficult to measure the value of education or health (for instance), every pound that the government spends is counted at £1 on GDP;</li> <li>in the private sector, the only thing that is measured is how much <em>value</em> a worker adds to the economy — which is broadly based on the amount of profit that a company makes;</li> <li>schools and hospitals don’t make profits, so;</li> <li>the way in which the government measures GDP is obviously bollocks.</li></ul> <p>But that’s how it works.</p> <p>In a weirdly honest turn, the ONS has decided to measure the reduction in government output during the coronavirus panic. Since no education has been achieved (pretty much) and almost no healthcare has been achieved (pretty much), the ONS has decided to reflect that in GDP.</p> <p><em>No other country, in the world, is measuring GDP this honestly.</em></p> <p>Which must annoy our political masters but does, at least, allow people in this country to understand the absolute fucking devastation that the government has inflicted on this country.</p> <p>We all know that serious healthcare issues are now affecting this country, but the stories that get me are those of business people — wealth creators — who have been unutterably fucked by the government response. People like <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54369809">Hattie Mauleverer highlighted on the BBC website</a>...</p> <blockquote><p>Hattie Mauleverer used to run Top Hat Catering in London, but the business folded after the number of events dropped off a cliff after lockdown.</p> <p>“It's been absolutely devastating," she told the BBC's Today programme. "Eighteen years of my life has just - puff - gone."</p> <p>The local council declined to provide any rates relief for the business as people did not buy food on the the firm's large kitchen premises.</p> <p>“Although it was voluntary liquidation, it wasn't much of a choice," she says. "When you're bringing in zero income it's just unsustainable to pay rent, rates, NI, whatever, anything else. So, I had to make that really difficult choice."</p> <p>“So absolutely everything has had to go - the liquidators took what they wanted, and it's gone," she said.</p></blockquote> <p>Eighteen years of someone’s life wiped out by a colossal over-reaction to a virus that has not even killed as many people as the 2018/19 ‘flu.</p> <p>As <a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/the-risk-of-a-second-lockdown-is-clear/">Chris Snowdon has pointed out at <em>The Critic</em></a>, it is now time to encourage and support voluntary lock-down for those who are still fear of the virus — not to endanger the wider economy.</p> <p>More importantly, it is time to stop destroying the hopes, dreams and hard work of entrepreneurial individuals in our country who simply wanted to make better lives for themselves.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-33019660002435548022020-05-07T19:07:00.002+01:002020-05-11T20:59:35.437+01:00The very model of a modern scientific manYour humble Devil was thoroughly amused by Neil Ferguson's fall from grace, and is very pleased to have <a href="https://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2020/05/neil-lockdown-fucking-ferguson-finished.html">found the time to outline Ferguson's manifest and repeated failings</a>—for posterity, you understand.<br /><br />And it seems that the media scrutiny of Ferguson's sordid personal life has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/uk-scientists-being-drawn-into-very-unpleasant-political-situation">put the wind up some of the government's scientific advisers</a>...<br /><blockquote>One scientific adviser to the government said Ferguson’s resignation had created “an awful lot of concern” and that the mood in the community was “very depressed”. The events revealed how university academics who lent their advice to government were having to cope with an increasingly difficult situation, the adviser added.<br /><br />“He’s an academic researcher. He doesn’t make decisions. He’s not paid for any of this. We are being drawn into a political situation which is very unpleasant,” they said.</blockquote>Oh dear, what a pity—how sad. Hey, science bods—you know you might avoid this kind of media scrutiny? Yes, that's right: don't take political appointee jobs and refuse the fat taxpayer-funded salaries. You don't want to be caught up in politics? Then don't play at politics.<br /><br />Are these people simple, or what?<br /><br />In the meantime, <a href="https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/">a programmer has finally got around to looking at the Imperial College modelling code</a>—and her assessment is not pretty. <i>[Emphasis mine—DK]</i><br /><blockquote>I wrote software for 30 years. I worked at Google between 2006 and 2014, where I was a senior software engineer working on Maps, Gmail and account security. I spent the last five years at a US/UK firm where I designed the company’s database product, amongst other jobs and projects. I was also an independent consultant for a couple of years.</blockquote>So, a reasonably credible source then. I wonder what she found? Let's cite some choice extracts from the assessment, shall we?<br /><blockquote>Clearly, Imperial are too embarrassed by the state of it ever to release it <i>[the original model code]</i> of their own free will, which is unacceptable given that it was paid for by the taxpayer and belongs to them.<br /><br />Due to bugs, the code can produce <b>very different results given identical inputs</b>. They routinely act as if this is unimportant.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Investigation reveals the truth: the code produces <b>critically different results, even for identical starting seeds and parameters</b>.<br /><br />I’ll illustrate with a few bugs. In issue 116 a UK “red team” at Edinburgh University reports that they tried to use a mode that stores data tables in a more efficient format for faster loading, and discovered – to their surprise – that <b>the resulting predictions varied by around 80,000 deaths</b> after 80 days...<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Because their code is so deeply riddled with similar bugs and they struggled so much to fix them that they got into the habit of <b>simply averaging the results of multiple runs to cover it up</b>… and eventually this behaviour became normalised within the team.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Although the academic on those threads isn’t Neil Ferguson, he is well aware that the code is filled with bugs that create random results.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Imperial are trying to have their cake and eat it. Reports of random results are dismissed with responses like “that’s not a problem, just run it a lot of times and take the average”, but at the same time, they’re fixing such bugs when they find them. They know their code can’t withstand scrutiny, so they hid it until professionals had a chance to fix it, but the damage from over a decade of amateur hobby programming is so extensive that even Microsoft were unable to make it run right.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />The Imperial code doesn’t seem to have working regression tests. They tried, but the extent of the random behaviour in their code left them defeated.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Much of the code consists of formulas for which no purpose is given. John Carmack (a legendary video-game programmer) surmised that some of the code might have been automatically translated from FORTRAN some years ago.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />This code appears to be trying to calculate R0 for “places”. Hotels are excluded during this pass, without explanation.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />R0 is both an input to <i>and an output</i> of these models, and is routinely adjusted for different environments and situations. Models that consume their own outputs as inputs is problem well known to the private sector – it can lead to rapid divergence and incorrect prediction.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Despite being aware of the severe problems in their code that they “haven’t had time” to fix, the Imperial team continue to add new features; for instance, <a href="https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/blob/master/src/SetupModel.cpp#L427">the model attempts to simulate the impact of digital contact tracing apps</a>.<br /><br />Adding new features to a codebase with this many quality problems will just compound them and make them worse.</blockquote>Yikes. And the conclusion...?<br /><blockquote>All papers based on this code should be retracted immediately. Imperial’s modelling efforts should be reset with a new team that isn’t under Professor Ferguson, and which has a commitment to replicable results with published code from day one.</blockquote>Well, I think that this fucking debacle goes some way to explaining why Ferguson's models have been such a complete and utter failure from the get-go.<br /><br />And let us remind ourselves that our government were stupid enough to believe this fucking team of charlatans, and that they are busy cratering the economy on the strength of a computer "model" (I use the term advisedly) that produces complete garbage.<br /><blockquote>On a personal level, I’d go further and suggest that all academic epidemiology be defunded. This sort of work is best done by the insurance sector. Insurers employ modellers and data scientists, but also employ managers whose job is to decide whether a model is accurate enough for real world usage and professional software engineers to ensure model software is properly tested, understandable and so on. Academic efforts don’t have these people, and the results speak for themselves.</blockquote>Indeed they do.<br /><br />It's odd though. There's something at the back of my head, something niggling at me—a real sense of familiarity about this situation...<br /><br />Where ales have we encountered a commentary on a computer model that has huge political and economic consequences but which, having been written by a bunch of amateur fuck-wits, provides absolute fucking garbage...?<br /><br />Oh yes—<a href="https://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/08/data-horribilia-harryreadmetxt-file.html">it's Harry again</a>.<br /><br />Do you remember, in November 2009, that there was a leak from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU)? Most of the media spent their time exposing the dirty tricks revealed in the emails between the "scientists" who are the main proponents of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC) theory—including using collusion and blackmail to prevent dissident papers appearing in "reputable" journals.<br /><br />But what was less widely reported was that, along with the emails, the computer "models" (again, advisedly) were released—alongside a very long commentary by an unfortunate programmer who was tasked with making sense of them.<br /><br />The programmer was called Ian Harris, and his HARRY_READ_ME.txt file was, for those of us who like to delve into these things, <a href="https://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/08/data-horribilia-harryreadmetxt-file.html">an absolute treasure trove—revealing the incompetence of these so-called "scientists", and the utter invalidity of their much-vaunted "climate models"</a>.<br /><br />And here we are again: with a government fucking our economy and freedoms, all on the basis of useless, garbage-spouting models.<br /><br />Dear Boris (and every other government): for fuck's sake, stop giving any credence at all to these models. Models are not evidence and they are not science: even the most well-coded model would be nothing more than a theory—and, as we have seen with both COVID-19 and CACC, the people building said programmes are nowhere near being competent.<br /><br />These so-called scientists are not: they are hobbyist coders (and bad ones at that). And where they attempt to sell their models as reliable, these people are frauds—and they should be prosecuted. If not, then a class-action lawsuit might find a large number of backers—especially if a case carries the prospect of personally bankrupting Neil Ferguson. Certainly, I would happily donate.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE:</b> <a href="https://medium.com/@timalmond/coding-stochastic-models-testing-and-bugs-ac85e26cce3d">Tim Almond explains why "it's stochastic" is no excuse at all</a>, and <a href="https://streetwiseprofessor.com/code-violation-other-than-that-how-was-the-play-mrs-lincoln/">the Streetwise Professor is as incensed</a> as your humble Devil...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-37010748389177902832020-05-06T23:36:00.001+01:002020-05-07T14:20:04.945+01:00Vaccine futilityAs some of you may know, your humble Devil studied (in a desultory way) Microbiology at university, and has always had a special interest in human pathogens. So, today I would like to talk about why a "permanent" vaccine for the novel coronavirus is pie in the sky; and cannot, as Boris keeps maintaining, be a pre-condition of removing the lockdown—not, at least, on a permanent basis.<br /><br />The first point to make is that the novel coronavirus (nCV) is a single-stranded RNA virus (more about that in a moment) and we do not have an effective vaccine against any coronavirus.<br /><br />Nor do we have, as some have claimed, a permanent vaccine against 'flu: what happens in that case is that predictions are made about what 'flu variants are likely in that year, and then people are given a jab that aims to cover all of them. Sometimes this works (e.g. UK 'flu deaths in 2018/19 were circa 1,700); sometimes the predictions are wrong, or a new strain emerges, that is sufficiently different that the vaccine is largely ineffective, and deaths soar (e.g. UK 'flu deaths in 2014/15 were in excess of 28,300) <i>[<a href="https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-compare-influenza/">Source for both figures.</a>]</i><br /><br />To start with, let's sketch, at a fairly high level, why this should be.<br /><br /><h3>High mutation rates</h3><br />The first issue to address is why single-stranded RNA viruses mutate so quickly...<br /><ul><li>advanced cells (such as in humans) reproduce using DNA which, as we all know (right?), is a tightly wound, highly-stable, double-stranded helix;</li><li>when the cell reproduces, the DNA helix unwinds and cell machinery moves along the strand to duplicate it;</li><li>the second DNA strand is then used to check and validate that the original one has been duplicated correctly;</li><li>this validation step is why DNA-driven cells mutate incredibly rarely.</li></ul>In a single-stranded RNA virus, not only is RNA less stable than DNA, there is no second strand—and thus no validation mechanism: this leads to far more transcription errors on replication, i.e. a far higher mutation rate.<br /><br />Given that viruses replicate many millions of times, then one can see that mutations will happen pretty frequently. As we can <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52557955">already see in the new coronavirus</a>...<br /><blockquote>Researchers in the US and UK have identified hundreds of mutations to the virus which causes the disease Covid-19.<br /><br />But none has yet established what this will mean for virus spread in the population and for how effective a vaccine might be.</blockquote>So, why would these mutations matter?<br /><br /><h3>Antigens and antibodies</h3><br />Again, very broadly speaking, human cells are not smooth: they are studded with structures that enables resources to be attached to, and absorbed into, them—vitamins, minerals, oxygen, enzymes, etc. Pathogens, including the coronavirus, attach onto one or more of these structures in order to pass into the cell.<br /><br />In order to do this, viruses develop their own structures—in the case of coronaviruses, these are the S-spike structures that give them their name—which act as the "key" to let them into the cell. These "keys" are known as "antigens".<br /><br />When combating pathogens, your body manufactures "antibodies": these bind to the pathogens antigens and they are <i>highly</i> specific. If the shape of the virus antigen changes in any significant way, then the existing antibodies will no longer work—and your body has to start all over again.<br /><br /><h3>How vaccines work</h3><br />A vaccine works by introducing a something that looks exactly like the virus, but does not do the same damage, into the body. The "shell" has the viral antigens, but the dangerous bit—the RNA—is damaged, disabled, removed or otherwise "attenuated". The body then recognises this fake virus as a foreign invader, reads its antigens, and builds antibodies that will attack anything that looks like it—all without you getting ill.<br /><br />(Actually, whether or not you have a likelihood of getting ill or not rather depends on whether the virus uses negative-sense or positive-sense RNA—there is a higher likelihood of illness with a positive-sense RNA virus vaccine, such as nCV (influenza viruses are negative-sense)—but I am not going to get into that just now.)<br /><br />However, if the viral antigens have mutated significantly enough that the existing antibodies do not recognise it, but little enough that the antigen can still grant it access to the cell, the vaccine will no longer work.<br /><br /><h3>Summarising the problem</h3><br />So, with sufficient changes in antigens, the vaccine-generated antibodies will not work, and those infected will suffer the ill-effects of the virus (many of which are actually caused by your body's reaction—particularly dangerous, and often fatal (particularly in COVID-19 patients), is a "cytokine storm").<br /><br />Viruses with a high mutation rate (particularly single-stranded RNA viruses) tend to lead to a vast number of significant changes in antigens—rendering vaccines temporary at best, as with 'flu.<br /><br />Coronavirus is a single-stranded RNA virus—so no vaccine is going to be permanent.<br /><br /><h3>What now</h3><br />As such, this new variant will be with us for a very long time—will we shut down for weeks every time that it comes back around? Well...<br /><br />In my next post, I shall discuss various treatment pathways. But, please, do not think that "a vaccine" is going to be the way out of this mess—and if Boris and co start to make that a condition of lifting lockdown, call them out on it.<br /><br />They are either dangerously ignorant, or lying. So, no change there then.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-11046226982735590712020-05-06T00:14:00.003+01:002020-05-06T15:44:37.652+01:00Neil "lockdown fucking" Ferguson finished on the face of her itNeil Ferguson, the useless Imperial College charlatan whose ridiculous modelling—<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/16764a22-69ca-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75">which predicted 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the UK</a>—led to the lockdown, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52553229">has resigned from the shadowy Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) government advisory committee</a> after <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/">inviting his married lover over for a good seeing-to on a couple of occasions</a>.<br /><blockquote>Prof Neil Ferguson has quit as a government adviser on coronavirus after admitting an "error of judgement".<br /><br />Prof Ferguson, whose advice to the prime minister led to the UK lockdown, said he regretted "undermining" the messages on social distancing.<br /><br />It comes after the Daily Telegraph reported a woman had visited his home twice during lockdown.</blockquote>Aaaaahahahahaha! Hahahahaha...<br /><blockquote>His modelling of the virus's transmission suggested 250,000 people could die without drastic action.</blockquote>No, it didn't: <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/confusion-imperial-college-scientist-says-500k-coronavirus-death-projection-in-uk-remains-unchanged">his modelling estimated that 510,000 people would die without drastic action, and he doubled down on this figure very clearly</a>.<br /><br /><h3>Neil's past successes</h3><br />Okay—enough hilarity. On a serious note, and as usual, it's one rule for Neil and his mates, and another for us. So, I am thoroughly glad that he has resigned from SAGE: the downside here is that this scare-mongering fuckwit is causing huge amounts of damage—as <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/six-questions-that-neil-ferguson-should-be-asked">neatly outlined some time ago by Steerpike in The Spectator</a> (£)...<br /><blockquote>In 2005, Ferguson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke">said</a> that up to 200 million people could be killed from bird flu. He told the Guardian that ‘around 40 million people died in 1918 Spanish flu outbreak… There are six times more people on the planet now so you could scale it up to around 200 million people probably.’ In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.</blockquote>Well, look, epidemiological modelling is quite difficult, and computer models were in their infancy. Neil will learn next time though, right?<br /><br /><blockquote>In 2009, Ferguson and his Imperial team predicted that swine flu had a case fatality rate 0.3 per cent to 1.5 per cent. His most likely <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/66374/swine-early-findings-about-pandemic-potential/">estimate</a> was that the mortality rate was 0.4 per cent. A government <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1e390ac6-7e2c-11ea-8fdb-7ec06edeef84">estimate</a>, based on Ferguson’s advice, said a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ was that the disease would lead to 65,000 UK deaths.<br /><br />In the end swine flu killed 457 people in the UK and had a death rate of just 0.026 per cent in those infected.</blockquote>Anyone can make a mistake though. I mean, despite the similarity of bird flu and swine flu, these were completely different circumstances and a chap can't be asked to get it right every time, eh?<br /><blockquote>In 2001 the Imperial team produced modelling on foot and mouth disease that suggested that animals in neighbouring farms should be culled, even if there was no evidence of infection. This influenced government policy and led to the total culling of more than six million cattle, sheep and pigs – with a cost to the UK economy estimated at £10 billion.<br /><br />It has been claimed by experts such as Michael Thrusfield, professor of veterinary epidemiology at Edinburgh University, that Ferguson’s modelling on foot and mouth was <i>‘severely flawed’</i> and made a <i>‘serious error’</i> by <i>‘ignoring the species composition of farms,’</i> and the fact that the disease spread faster between different species.</blockquote>Pffft. Look, Neil was an epidemiologist not a bloody farmer, for god's sake—how could he be expected to know that there are different species of cattle, or that the infection rates might be different.<br /><br />Besides, it was really difficult for Neil to code that. His research student would have had kittens trying to make that work in his Python script.<br /><br />Neil will get it right next time—just you see if he doesn't.<br /><blockquote>In 2002, Ferguson predicted that between 50 and 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. He also predicted that number could rise to 150,000 if there was a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/jan/09/research.highereducation">sheep epidemic</a> as well. In the UK, there have only been 177 deaths from BSE.</blockquote>Oh. Right. He doesn't.<br /><br />Ah, well, surely—with everything that he has learned, Neil will get it right <i>this</i> time...<br /><blockquote>Ferguson’s disease modelling for Covid-19 has been criticised by experts such as John Ioannidis, professor in disease prevention at Stanford University, who has said that: <i>‘The Imperial College study has been done by a highly competent team of modellers. However, some of the major assumptions and estimates that are built in the calculations seem to be substantially inflated.’</i><br />[...]<br />On 22 March, Ferguson <a href="https://twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1241835454707699713">said</a> that Imperial College London’s model of the Covid-19 disease is based on undocumented, 13-year-old computer code, that was intended to be used for a feared influenza pandemic, rather than a coronavirus.</blockquote>I mean... I guess that 510,000 does seem quite high. But who really knows...?<br /><blockquote>Has the Imperial team’s Covid-19 model been subject to outside scrutiny from other experts, and are the team questioning their own assumptions used?</blockquote>Well that is a good question. As a matter of fact, some weeks after releasing their models, Imperial College London did, indeed, <a href="https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim">Open Source their COVID-19 modelling code on GitHub</a>—which is a decent step towards transparency.<br /><br />The trouble is, what they did not release were the configuration variables—the assumptions that they made when they ran the model. Which means that no one can properly replicate and validate their outcomes. Which seems to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis">par for the course in the scientific community these days</a>.<br /><br />So, what to do?<br /><br /><h3>The Swedish model</h3><br />Well, as we know, Sweden has not been following the same lockdown model as ever other country: they have introduced social distancing measures (along similar lines adopted by the UK government—before Neil came along with his Doomsday predictions) and their outcomes are... well... pretty good. Now, they are a sparsely populated country, for sure, but even in cities such as Stockholm, the death rate is comparatively low and herd immunity is predicted within a couple of weeks.<br /><br />So, the University of Uppsala, in Sweden, came up with a good wheeze: <a href="https://www.aier.org/article/imperial-college-model-applied-to-sweden-yields-preposterous-results/">into Neil Ferguson and team's model, they fed in variables that applied to Sweden—to see if the outcome matched reality</a>. Can you guess what comes next...?<br /><blockquote>The Uppsala team’s presentation appears to closely follow the ICL approach. They presented a projection for an “unmitigated” response (also known as the “do nothing” scenario in the ICL paper), then modeled the predicted effects of a variety of policy interventions. These included staying the course on the government’s alternative approach of remaining open with milder social distancing guidelines, as well as implementing varying degrees of a lockdown.</blockquote>So far, so good.<br /><blockquote>The model stressed its own urgency as well. Sweden would have to adopt a lockdown policy similar to the rest of Europe immediately if it wished to avert catastrophe. As the authors explained, under “conservative” estimates using their model “the current Swedish public-health strategy will result in a peak intensive-care load in May that exceeds pre-pandemic capacity by over 40-fold, with a median mortality of 96,000 (95% CI 52,000 to 183,000)” being realized by the end of June.<br /><br />Their proposed mitigation scenarios, which followed lockdown strategies similar to those recommended in the ICL paper and adopted elsewhere in Europe, were “predicted to reduce mortality by approximately three-fold” while also averting a catastrophic failure of the Swedish healthcare system.</blockquote>So, according to the modelling, Sweden should also have locked down in order to <i>"avert catastrophe"</i>—what could be clearer?<br /><blockquote>The Swedish model laid out its predicted death and hospitalization rates for competing policy scenarios in a series of graphs. According to their projections [...], the current Swedish government’s response – if permitted to continue – would pass 40,000 deaths shortly after May 1, 2020 and continue to rise to almost 100,000 deaths by June.</blockquote>Oh my god—the poor Swedes! Quick, quick, lock down every bloody thing and... Wait, what?<br /><blockquote>So how is the model’s projection performing? Sweden’s government stayed the course with its milder mitigation strategy. As of April 29th, Sweden’s death toll from COVID-19 <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality">stands at 2,462</a>, and its hospitals are nowhere near the projected collapse.</blockquote>Oh. Right.<br /><br />So, Neil and co's model over-projects the terrible consequences, and has an in-built bias towards a particular course of political action? Gosh.<br /><br />How incredibly surprising.<br /><br />(For a special gold star, can we think of any other <a href="https://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/08/data-horribilia-harryreadmetxt-file.html">poorly documented, immensely flawed computer models that behave in a similar way</a>, children...?)<br /><br /><h3>Let's be fair</h3><br />On the other hand, Neil and his cronies did predict that a full-on lockdown might reduce deaths to around 20,000; this is, in the UK, proving to be on the low side (with COVID-19 deaths standing at 29,427, at time of publication)—although there <i>are</i> complications in reporting, which I shall discuss another time.<br /><br />But, was the 510,000 figure ever credible? Well... Your humble Devil did call this crisis wrong, thinking that it would blow over: however, given the profile of the vast majority of deaths, I think that half a million plus deaths remains a gross over-estimation.<br /><br /><h3>A summary of Neil's career</h3><br />I think that it is fair to say that Neil Ferguson's most high profile epidemiological models have been failures—and hugely expensive failures at that.<br /><br />Or, at least, hugely expensive for the taxpayer—no doubt incredibly lucrative for Neil and his buddies at Imperial College London. It is certainly true that, despite his very public fuck-ups, Neil remains employed.<br /><br />And whilst it is amusing to see any arsehole brought down by personal malefactions—especially one so hypocritical and hubristic as this—it is hugely unsatisfying to see Neil resign for opportunistic personal fucking rather than being sacked, in disgrace, for his many eye-wateringly expensive professional fuck-ups.<br /><br />There is, of course, still time.<br /><br /><h3>The BBC on Ferguson</h3><br />The BBC's summary of Neil Ferguson's career (or <i>"Analysis"</i> as it is hilariously entitled) is written by "health and science correspondent", James Gallagher—who, unusually for a BBC science journalist, actually has a science degree (biology).<br /><br />I reproduce it in full, below.<br /><blockquote>Prof Neil Ferguson is one of the world's most influential disease modellers.<br /><br />He is director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis.<br /><br />The centre's mathematical predictions advise governments and the World Health Organization on outbreaks from Ebola in West Africa to the current pandemic.<br />It was that group's work, in early January, that alerted the world to the threat of coronavirus.<br /><br />It showed hundreds if not thousands of people were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51148303">likely to have been infected in Wuhan</a>, at a time when Chinese officials said there were only a few dozen cases.<br /><br />But he shot to public attention as "Professor Lockdown".<br /><br />In mid-March, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51915302">the maths showed the UK needed to change course</a> or a quarter of a million people would die in a "catastrophic epidemic".<br /><br />Those calculations helped transform government policy and all lives.</blockquote>I think that you will agree that this is most certainly not <i>"analysis"</i>—and nor is it in any way impartial.<br /><br />Does anyone else reckon that James Gallagher and Neil Ferguson are good friends...?<br /><br /><h3>DK's final word</h3><br />Ferguson is a proven failure—he certainly does not deserve the encomium delivered by Gallagher.<br /><br />The eventual outcome of this pandemic is unknown; plus, of course, it is difficult to "prove" a counter-factual. Nonetheless, the Swedish experiment seems to suggest that, once again, the UK government has been persuaded into taking hugely expensive and illiberal measures based on wildly pessimistic models supplied by a man who has a history of producing wildly pessimistic models.<br /><br />The decision to believe Ferguson, of course, must lie with the government: however, I believe that said government should release the minutes of all meetings concerning these models, and whether there were dissenting voices—perhaps from those who knew of Ferguson's past fuck-ups. If there were no dissenting voices, then we must ask "why not?"<br /><br />In the meantime, Ferguson sexual peccadilloes may have tarnished his personal probity—but his professional reputation remains inexplicably intact.<br /><br />One can only wonder as to why.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-39001759365829540732020-04-02T18:15:00.000+01:002020-04-02T18:25:45.089+01:00Public Health England has blood on its handsAs your humble Devil has recently opined, <a href="https://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2020/04/wto-burn-it-to-ground.html">the WHO is not fit or purpose</a>—its original mandate of public health having been perverted by single-issue hucksters and authoritarian killjoys.<br /><br />The only reason that the same cannot be said of Public Health England (PHE) is that—unlike the WHO, which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Eradication">did good work once</a>—this organisation has never been anything <i>other</i> than a pointless waste of time and money, stuffed to the gills with more than 5,000 charlatans, bullies, corrupt academics, and fake charity apparatchiks.<br /><br />Formed in 2013, under Dishface Cameron's coalition, PHE has the mission is <i>"to protect and improve the nation’s health and to address inequalities"</i>. The latter part of this mission statement is presumably justified by frauds such as Wilkinson and Pickett, who attempted to show that inequalities cause health problems in their <i>Spirit Level</i> treatise—an entire book full of lies that was comprehensively debunked by <a href="https://iea.org.uk/christopher-snowdon/">Chris Snowdon</a> in his <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spirit-Level-Delusion-Fact-Checking-Everything/dp/0956226515/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=spirit+level+delusion&qid=1585845408&sr=8-1"><i>Spirit Level Delusion</i></a> (disclosure: your humble Devil designed the cover for that edition).<br /><br />As for improving the nation's health, there is little to indicate that the £4 billion that PHE spends each year has done much towards achieving this target.<br /><br />Where the organisation has fallen down extremely badly is... well... just look around. The coronavirus pandemic has shown PHE to have been caught with its pants down—and as the infection has developed, the stupidity of its denizens is beginning to look a lot like malice.<br /><br />It seems superfluous to detail every single fuck-up that has led us to this position, and in which the supposed guardians of the nation's health has failed—so I will concentrate, instead, on the vexed issue of testing.<br /><br />Whether or not testing alone is of use in stopping the virus is something that can be left to the epidemiologists—and most seem to agree that testing for coronavirus is of paramount importance. If nothing else, being able to gather data about the true spread of the virus, how many people might already have had it, and how many people are likely to become extremely ill from COVID-19, is vital in assessing how long this lock-down should go on.<br /><br />Because, as others have pointed out, declines in GDP also kill people—through a variety of well-established mechanisms, such as suicides (especially of business-people who are seeing their life's work wiped out), cessation of treatments for other health conditions (such as chemotherapy) or non-treatment of others, or poverty. And my god, but we are going to see some colossal declines in GDP—and, possibly, millions of businesses bankrupted (rising ever more the longer the lock-down goes on).<br /><br />So, the exerts—both economists and epidemiologists—tend to think that testing is pretty important. So, how has PHE been handling that then...?<br /><br />In a word, "shit".<br /><br />The new <a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/news/testing-times-in-this-coronavirus-crisis"><i>"Testing Times"</i> report from the Adam Smith Institute's Matthew Lesh</a> has established that PHE has right royally fucked it up by refusing to involve other organisations—seemingly through ridiculous intransigence and incredible arrogance.<br /><br />Matt Ridley sums up this farce in The Spectator today:<br /><blockquote>The contrast with the United States is especially striking. America was found badly wanting at the start of the epidemic when the federal Centers for Disease Control insisted on controlling the process of testing people for the virus. It 'sought to monopolise testing, discouraged the private sector developing its own tests and misled state and local authorities about efficacy of its tests', writes Lesh. After heavy criticism, it reversed course, decentralised the system and rapidly expanded testing.<br /><br />Germany and South Korea began farming out the work of testing samples to contractors from the very start. Britain did not. It initially sent all samples to one laboratory, at Colindale, in north west London. Public Health England also 'chose to develop and encourage the use of its own diagnostic tools, rather than seeking the development of a range of private sector tools and providing fast-track approval', Lesh finds. On 12 February, it began to use 12 other laboratories, but still only with its own tests.<br /><br />When the number of people showing symptoms shot up in the second week of March, rather than outsource the testing, the NHS simply gave up testing all but patients in hospital. As if to reinforce the centralisation strategy, the government then announced the construction of a huge new testing facility in Milton Keynes, which may work well eventually but to date has been accumulating testing devices donated by universities some of which are sitting idle. The centralisation urge runs deep in this organisation.<br /><br />By all accounts government ministers were calling for more involvement of the private sector from the start but their orders were being frustrated somewhere inside the bureaucracy of the NHS and Public Health England. The excuse was that the reliability of the tests had to be maintained at a high level, or else false positives and false negatives would cause confusion and danger. So even when other laboratories were eventually allowed to do tests, any 'presumptive positives' had to be sent to Colindale for confirmation right up till 28 March. The United States had suspended a similar policy on 14 March.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Here, private-sector providers were banging on the door of the NHS throughout, offering to do testing.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Yet centralisation is plainly a big part of the problem. Lesh finds that 'The UK’s Covid-19 testing has been dangerously slow, excessively bureaucratic and hostile to outsiders and innovation. There appears to be an innate distrust of outsiders. PHE has actively discouraged use of private sector testing. Even within the system, the process for testing and validation is very centralised.'</blockquote>If, as many seem to, you believe that the lack of testing is costing lives—whether it is in NHS workers who are being sent to the front-line with little or no information, or those poor souls facing the ruin of their businesses, or those cancer sufferers now refused their therapies—then it is very clear that Public Health England has blood on its hands.<br /><br />Despite spending billions of pounds of our money every year, the people at PHE have failed in their primary mission—"to protect and improve the nation’s health". When all this is over—or sooner, if possible—there needs to be a reckoning.<br /><br />I think that it is fair to say that Public Health England has failed, comprehensively and catastrophically, at every point. When it comes to a real public health crisis—as opposed to bullying the population based on entirely baseless and fictional targets—PHE has demonstrated that, despite spending £4 billion of our money every year, it is entirely unfit for purpose.<br /><br />If anything good can come out of this crisis, then it should be a very close examination of the purpose of our state agencies, and their performance against that purpose. PHE has failed on all fronts.<br /><br />PHE's leadership (at least) must be sacked for gross misconduct, with the loss of all pension privileges: those at the very top should be prosecuted for culpable manslaughter. And no one who works for that organisation must ever be allowed to suck on the taxpayer teat ever again—there must be no "sideways" promotions for these useless bastards.<br /><br />PHE should, ideally, be abolished. There is, alas, little hope of that but, if nothing else, its mission must be re-drafted: PHE must be focused on real public health issues—life- and economy-threatening pathogens such as COVID-19, and whatever comes next.<br /><br />And PHE's record of failure this time around should be publicly displayed as a terrible cautionary tale of what happens when bureaucracies forget what their purpose is supposed to be. Or, of course, of how terrible bureaucracies are for getting things done effectively.<br /><br />If there is a silver lining to this disaster, then re-thinking why these unaccountable state QUANGOs are spending so much of our money to so little effect must be a positive corollary.<br /><br />Alternatively, we should burn it to the ground, shoot the staff, and sow salt into the remains.<br /><br />Whichever—I'm easy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-84326645204928615062020-04-02T16:02:00.003+01:002020-04-10T19:00:31.864+01:00WHO: burn it to the groundIn this critical pandemic, one would naturally look to the various public health organisations to understand how to react. Unfortunately, those most pertinent to your humble Devil's whereabouts—the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Public Health England (PHE)—have signally failed to step up to the plate.<br /><br />As the lock-down—and whole-scale destruction of the economy—continues in the UK, some media outlets and think-tanks have been examining just why these organisations' responses have been so lack-lustre. And the reports are shocking—revealing not just, as one would expect from state bureaucracies, a culture of stupidity and uselessness, but very strong suggestions of corruption and mendacity that are <i>still</i> costing lives.<br /><br />In the case of the WHO, it seems that a deference to Chinese sensitivities meant that <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68">Taiwan's warning—delivered at the end of December—that human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus</a> (nCV) was not passed on to other countries.<br /><blockquote>Health officials in Taipei said they alerted the WHO at the end of December about the risk of human-to-human transmission of the new virus but said its concerns were not passed on to other countries.<br /><br />Taiwan is excluded from the WHO because China, which claims it as part of its territory, demands that third countries and international bodies do not treat it in any way that resembles how independent states are treated.</blockquote>Elsewhere, the WHO has been accused of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-health-organization-draws-flak-for-coronavirus-response-11581525207">being too deferential to China in its response to the virus</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/senior-who-adviser-appears-to-dodge-question-on-taiwans-covid-19-response">a senior WHO official hung up when asked about Taiwan's highly successful response to the outbreak</a>.<br /><br />As your humble Devil has been saying for some years, the WHO is not the same organisation that wiped out smallpox—that smallpox remains so famous as the only major disease that humanity has wiped out would be testament enough to that statement. Indeed, wiping out diseases is actually quite hard work, so perhaps we should not be surprised that this organisation has, instead, turned its attention to reducing "non-communicable diseases"—also known as <i>"bullying people about their lifestyles"</i>.<br /><br />That the WHO has been allowed to pervert its mission so entirely that it sees rolling back the cause of liberty as its <i>raison d'être</i> would be bad enough: but its entirely inadequate response to a real public health issue only confirms that this organisation needs to be entirely destroyed. Lest we forget, in January, as the coronavirus was swiftly spreading around the world, the WHO was still Tweeting about the evils of e-cigarettes.<br /><br />The organisation is not fit to do the job for which it was formed: as with all bureaucracies, its only real purpose now is to perpetuate itself. It must be destroyed, its staff sacked and publicly ridiculed (accompanied by photos), and the ruins sowed with salt.<br /><br />And as for Public Health England... Well, your humble Devil will opine about <i>that</i> organisation presently. <br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-79951210265246643402020-03-25T20:23:00.000+00:002020-03-26T14:22:02.429+00:00Steve Baker: still decent, still libertarianWhen <a href="https://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/08/steve-baker-mp-blog-mascot.html" title="Steve Baker: blog mascot">your humble Devil adopted Steve Baker MP as this blog’s mascot in 2010</a>, Steve was somewhat concerned—and asked a number of free market people whether this dubious honour should be politely declined.<br /><br />Apparently the answers mollified him, as he not only did not ask for his title to be removed, but also bought me dinner a couple of times in the House of Commons—when we discussed, amongst other things, matters libertarian (and Libertarian Party).<br /><br />Over the course of the last decade, Steve has repaid your humble Devil’s faith in him many times—especially as concerns Brexit, and in the defence of liberty.<br /><br /><a href="https://order-order.com/2020/03/24/steve-bakers-emotional-dystopian-society-speech/" title="Steve Baker’s emotional defence of liberty">Via Guido</a>, here is Steve, close to tears, as he implores the government to sunset the Coronavirus Act after one year rather than two.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NMygjm7LF08?clip=&clipt=EAAYAA%3D%3D" width="100%" height="480"></iframe><br /><br />The text of his speech is below:<br /><blockquote>I stand first with my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely). We cannot neglect his constituents on the Island. I fear that this issue has gone on for far too long, and I want to say sorry to him that we did not weigh in behind him sooner. This issue has just got to be dealt with, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister knows that.<br /><br />Secondly, I would like to pay tribute to hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah). She has done an absolutely fantastic job in the last 24 hours. It has been a real privilege to work with her to secure what I think is a fantastic result. At a time like this, matters of the hereafter are close to everybody’s thoughts. They sometimes say that there are no atheists in a foxhole. I certainly would not want to stand by and see my constituents cremated against their wishes, and nor, indeed, would I want to see people buried against their wishes. I really want to congratulate her; she has done a fantastic job, and she has done it in a wonderful cross-party spirit, which has done a lot to reinvigorate my faith in this place and in what we can achieve together when we put our constituents first. Well done to her.<br /><br />I will pay particular attention to amendments 1 and 6 and Government new clause 19, which relate to the expiry of these powers. When I got into politics, it was with the purpose of enlarging liberty under parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. When I look at this Pandora’s box of enlargement, discretion and extensions of power, I can only say what a dreadful, dreadful thing it is to have had to sit here in silence and nod it through because it is the right thing to do.<br /><br />My goodness, between this and the Prime Minister’s announcement tonight, what have we ushered in? I am not a good enough historian to put into context the scale of the infringement of our liberties that has been implemented today through the Prime Minister’s announcement and this enormously complicated Bill, which we are enacting with only two hours to think about amendments.<br /><br />I could speak for the time I have available several times over just on the provisions relating to the retention of DNA, which we addressed in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. [Interruption] I see from the expression on the face of the Paymaster General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), that she understands the anguish—she probably knows it better than any of us—that we are all going through in passing this Bill.<br /><br />Let me be the first to say that tonight, through this Bill, we are implementing at least a dystopian society. Some will call it totalitarian, which is not quite fair, but it is at least dystopian. The Bill implements a command society under the imperative of saving hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of jobs, and it is worth doing.<br /><br />By God, I hope the Prime Minister has a clear conscience tonight and sleeps with a good heart, because he deserves to do so. Libertarian though I may be, this is the right thing to do but, my goodness, we ought not to allow this situation to endure one moment longer than is absolutely necessary to save lives and preserve jobs.<br /><br />Although I welcome new clause 19 to give us a six-month review, I urge upon my hon. and right hon. Friends and the Prime Minister the sunsetting of this Act, as it will no doubt become, at one year, because there is time to bring forward further primary legislation. If, come the late autumn, it is clear that this epidemic, this pandemic, continues—God help us if that is true, because I fear for the economy and the currency—there certainly will be time to bring forward further primary legislation and to properly scrutinise provisions to carry forward this enormous range of powers.<br /><br />Every time I dip into the Bill, I find some objectionable power. There is not enough time to scrutinise the Bill, but I can glance at it—I am doing it now—and see objectionable powers. There would be time to have several days of scrutiny on a proper piece of legislation easily in time for March or April 2021.<br /><br />I implore my right hon. Friend, for goodness’ sake, let us not allow this dystopia to endure one moment longer than is strictly necessary.</blockquote>Once this farce is over with, we must all lobby our MPs in order to strike down this terrible legislation—it must not be allowed to stand for even two years.<br /><br />In the meantime, it seems that Steve Baker MP must remain this blog’s mascot for the foreseeable future.<br /><br />Sorry, Steve.<br /><br /><strong>UPDATE:</strong> <a href="http://https://www.stevebaker.info/2020/03/the-coronavirus-bill-and-cremation/">Steve Baker’s comment on this Bill can be found on his blog</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-17413619048905251162020-03-24T21:29:00.001+00:002020-03-24T21:32:10.819+00:00The problem with the NHS is not enough management<p>So, if you read the title of this post alone (and read any media, or talk to any NHS workers), then you are probably going to get annoyed and slag me off—but you are wrong. Let me explain why.</p><h2>Two incentives</h2><p>In any ward team in the NHS, there are two separate structures—there are those who work for the Trust itself (who I shall call “corporate”), and who worry about capacity and payments and bed occupancy; and there are the “clinical” staff (doctors, nurses, etc.).</p><p>In any NHS Trust, these people are working at almost entirely cross-purposes: the clinical staff are only incentivised as to the best treatment for their patients (and thus are inclined to be conservative) and the corporate staff who need to ensure proper throughput of beds, conservation of costs, etc.</p><p>The corporate line of command is largely through Ward Clerks, Matrons, and similar.</p><p>As far as the clinical line of command goes, the Consultant is in charge (followed by Registrars, followed by Senior House Officers, followed by F2s, F1s, etc.). It cannot be emphasised enough that their incentives—financial or otherwise—are not in any way aligned with those of the Trust who pays them.</p><p>The above is mostly true, except where poor care might lead to prosecutions, or similar, where the Trust is expected to bear all of the costs (not always true—but mostly).</p><p>For the reasons outlined above, these two entities are, almost all the time, at loggerheads.</p><h2>Perverse incentives</h2><p>For many nurses (and some doctors), the only way to progress over a career is to go into what is called, in the NHS, “management”. What this means is that previously clinical staff are now supposed to be aligned to “corporate” interests. This is perverse for four main reasons:</p><ol><li>you remove highly skilled clinical staff from what they do best, i.e. treating patients;</li><li>you introduce a “clinical” mindset into “corporate” incentives: this might work, except that you are not screening people for suitability—only career progression;</li><li>you have no guarantee that these people are able to manage a team;</li><li>in any case, as far as management goes, they can be over-ruled by Consultants. So, they have incentive and responsibility—but without power.</li></ol><p>No effective management system can work like this.</p><h2>What about all the managers?</h2><p>So, what about all these managers that we hear about in the NHS—aren’t we paying them all to do stuff?</p><p>Yes, of course we are. The trouble is that they see themselves as outside of the clinical framework—and often they are required to be.</p><ol><li>Strategic Managers—these are the people who worry about how to pay the bills, to lobby the government and NHS-D, NHS-X and more. Their job is to run the “company” and to push it forward. It is not their job to manage wards, or the sick—it is to ensure the viability of the business (and an NHS Trust <em>is</em> a business);</li><li>Comms Managers—these people have a number of roles, but the biggest is in reputation management. They also have a huge roles in attracting and retaining staff (we all know that the NHS is short of qualified clinical staff, right?);</li><li>IG / HR / IT: widely despised amongst clinical staff, these people nevertheless have a job to do. One can argue that they have been too hide-bound, too conservative—but, with each fresh disaster, this is changing.</li></ol><h2>So, what is the solution?</h2><p>It is quite simple: you need managers on the Wards who are <em>actual</em> managers: they are paid to make decisions, and they can triangulate between a “corporate” Ward Clerk and a “clinical” need.</p><p>This means—and I cannot stress this enough—that this manager can <em>over-rule</em> a Consultant when necessary.</p><p>The role of a Consultant is going to have to change: they can no longer be viewed as “gods” who are utterly indispensable. They must be held responsible not just for the care they ostensibly provide, but also to the Trust for which they work.</p><p>Further, these Ward Managers cannot be far-away strategic Trust advisors—they must be on wards, making these decisions, 24/7.</p><h2>Wait—but they aren't medically qualified</h2><p>They might be.</p><p>But I work as a manager in a small software firm: I don’t know the precise <em>coding</em> implications of doing this or that—but I know how to ask the right questions, so that I understand the <em>consequences</em> of this or that. I can look at timescales, stair-casing impacts, architecture and Board strategy, etc.</p><p>In doing so, I am able to weigh up all of the options <em>without specialist knowledge</em> (although a vague knowledge helps in detecting bullshit, obviously). The point being that, given the information from both “clinical” and “corporate” the Ward Manager is able to <em>make a decision</em>—and, yes, be held responsible for that decision—quickly and with a reasonable amount of judgement.</p><p>Those who take their management role seriously in private companies (and there are many who do not) are able to divorce themselves from previous associations: in this case, for instance, were a nurse to be promoted it would be because they were a good manager—not that this was the only career advancement open to them.</p><h2>So, what does this job look like?</h2><p>These people need to be on the ward all day, every day. That means staffing night shifts too.</p><p>These people are directly responsible to the Head of Clinical Management at Board Level.</p><p>These people are diplomatic, firm and (I know this sounds trite) good people managers, and also understand the business drivers of the Trust. There are thousands of people that I have met who could do this job well—although they are eclipsed by the tens of thousands who would (and, in some cases, are) do it badly.</p><h2>How would you test it?</h2><p>I have come to the conclusion, over a number of years working with NHS organisations, that my dream job would be the CEO of a failing NHS Trust. And I would enact this there (as well as a bunch of other reforms).</p><p>Maybe it won’t work—but I think that it will.</p><h2>What are the risks of this model?</h2><p>Consultants are going to have their nose severely put out of joint. The BMA will rage about it—but, given that the BMA is almost entirely responsible for everything that is wrong with the UK Health Service, I would be happy to fight them all the way.</p><p>I would lobby the government to delist the BMA as a union, and provide solid evidence to show that the organisation is <em>entirely</em> opposed to an efficient health service in the UK. This is not hard to prove.</p><p>I would also remove the pointless exams that <em>professions</em> undertake to show that they are “capable”—as with the legal profession, these are trades union exams imposed to keep themselves relevant, and bear no real-world relation to capability or knowledge.</p><h2>Outcomes</h2><p>The anticipated outcomes would be:</p><ol><li>more clinical staff in clinically relevant positions—this means providing a suitable career advancement path outside of management;</li><li>recruitment of managers—misfits and weirdos may apply;</li><li>better outcomes for patients—long hospitals stays are deeply unhealthy, and lead to massive complications;</li><li>a more secure financial position for the Trust—and thus for the NHS in general;</li><li>this means more money to invest in efficiencies such as electronic patient records (EPR)—which will mean an end to sloppy practices and illegible hand-writing.</li></ol><h2>Summary</h2><p>Finally, I cannot explain to you just how poorly the NHS is run. Money is just thrown away, and there is no prioritisation in any meaningful sense. Comms Teams and clinicians have no contact, and both of them hate the IT Team.</p><p>The whole thing is dysfunctional in the extreme: the more one works with the NHS, the less one becomes inclined to see any more money thrown at it.</p><p>This essay is a short stab at addressing <em>just one problem</em>: many more need to be solved.</p><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-60734682758195547922020-01-29T12:31:00.000+00:002020-01-29T13:12:47.475+00:00O mi god brexit kills expats lolSurely <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/income-tax/british-pensioners-portugal-lose-tax-free-status">this is yet another of the evils of Brexit</a>?<br /><blockquote>British expatriates who move to Portugal could lose their tax free status under new plans being brought in by the left-wing government in Lisbon.<br /><br />The ruling Socialist Party introduced an amendment to this year's budget which will levy a 10pc tax on the foreign revenue of British pensioners and other foreigners who move to Portugal.</blockquote>Or perhaps it's just the work of those dastardly left-wingers and Communists who have been elected by the Portuguese...?<br /><blockquote>In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Lisbon introduced a 10-year tax exemption for European nationals on condition they lived in Portugal for six months a year.<br /><br />To enjoy this tax perk, they had to qualify for non-habitual residence (NHR) status, under which a person cannot have lived in Portugal for the previous five tax years. The scheme allowed expats to pay no tax for 10 years on foreign income. For Britons this could be pension income, dividends, rental income and non-Portuguese employment income. <br /><br />The relief was designed to try to bring badly needed foreign investment into the ailing Portuguese economy.</blockquote>Oh, no: it was just a temporary measure to stimulate investment at a particularly stressed economic time.<br /><br />The breathless headline of <b><i>"British pensioners in Portugal to lose tax-free status"</i></b> does, though, illustrate quite nicely how difficult it is for governments to remove goodies handed out to people—even when those goodies were always intended to be temporary...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-89544147981480070842019-11-28T15:09:00.000+00:002019-11-28T15:09:48.409+00:00Moonbat still loonyIt's always delightful to dip into <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/27/planet-vote-labour-greens-climate-crisis-election">George Moonbat's nutty articles</a>...<br /><blockquote>We cannot rely on market forces and corporate goodwill to defend us from catastrophe. We should vote for parties – in this case Green or Labour – that allow us to make collective decisions about our common interests, leading to democratic intervention. No one has the right to choose whether or not to destroy our lives.</blockquote>You are quite right, George—no one does have that right. Including the fucking government.<br /><br />So stop urging people to vote for people that absolutely do believe that they have <i>"the right to choose whether or not to destroy our lives"</i>, you tit.*<br /><br /><small>* Yes, every political party believes that they have this right, it's true. There are no viable classical liberal options in this election, nor any that I have been able to vote in. But Labour and the Watermelons are the very worst of the lot.</small><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-20217695721706116682019-11-16T15:57:00.001+00:002019-11-16T15:57:50.167+00:00Own Jones telling...Via <a href="http://www.timworstall.com/2019/11/13/because-i-am-jezzas-lapdog/">Timmy</a>, I see that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/12/campaigning-labour-britain-corbyn">Owen Jones <i>keeps</i> writing articles</a>...<br /><blockquote>Why I am campaigning for Labour in this seismic election</blockquote>Presumably it's because you're an evil Jew-hating Communist, Owen.<br /><br />Apologies for the tautologies.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-81489560465988102112019-11-11T12:32:00.001+00:002019-11-11T12:32:44.905+00:00HmmmmBlog mascot <a href="https://www.stevebaker.info/2019/11/we-must-stamp-out-the-corruption-of-elections-in-wycombe/">Steve Baker discusses corruption in our voting system</a>...<br /><blockquote>Most law-abiding citizens in the Wycombe constituency would be shocked if they knew the extent of corrupt election practices and voter fraud which happen each time there is an election. <br /><br />I know of people who register to vote at different addresses in the town and then vote in the same election more than once in person and by postal vote.<br /><br />I have heard accounts of candidates visiting electors’ homes and demanding postal votes are completed in front of them and then taken away.<br /><br />I have testimony of one young woman’s unmarked postal vote being taken off her under duress by a relative and handed to a candidate. <br /><br />There are instances of people impersonating others and voting at polling stations in their place.<br /><br />It seems the price of a vote in some parts of Wycombe is £10, a free taxi ride or a free pizza. <b>This simply cannot go on.</b></blockquote>Agreed. Although I cannot resist a slightly flippant comment in respect of this...<br /><blockquote>I appreciate not everyone has a passport or driving licence and I agree with the Government’s proposal these electors should be able to obtain a free document proving their identity.</blockquote>Oh? Like... Some sort of ID Card, perhaps...?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-26870583039433740752019-05-29T21:38:00.001+01:002019-05-30T09:07:17.894+01:00Did Boris Johnson and Vote Leave lie about the £350m per week?<b>Short answer:</b> no.<br /><br /><b>Slightly longer answer:</b> Vote Leave did play fast and loose with the actual definitions—hey! it's marketing. And in a political campaign at that—but still no. The ONS <i>"Total Debit"</i> figures that they were using at the time were perfectly valid.<br /><br />Much longer answer follows below...<br /><br />The generally acknowledged authority on statistics in the UK is the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/">Office for National Statistics (ONS)</a> (the clue, you see, is in the name). Every year, they release a general digest of the UK's trading position, etc., known as the Pink Book. It's quite interesting if you like that sort of thing (which your humble Devil does, from time to time), but the tables of data are usually rather more illuminating—after all, even the ONS is not above a bit of spin (political or otherwise).<br /><br /><a href="https://order-order.com/2019/05/29/embarrassing-anti-boris-pitch-raise-2-million-gullible-remainers/">Some spiv named Marcus J. Ball</a> has decided specifically to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/29/boris-johnson-appear-court-eu-referendum-misconduct-claims">summons Boris Johnson for <i>"misconduct in a public office"</i></a>: the spiv claims that Johnson knowingly lied about the UK paying the EU £350m per week.<br /><blockquote>Boris Johnson has been summoned to court to face accusations of misconduct in public office over claims that he lied by saying Britain gave £350m a week to the European Union.<br /><br />The ruling follows a crowdfunded move to launch a private prosecution of the MP, who is the frontrunner in the Tory leadership contest.<br /><br />Johnson lied and engaged in criminal conduct when he repeatedly claimed during the 2016 EU referendum campaign that the UK handed over the sum to Brussels, Westminster magistrates court was told last week by lawyers for a 29-year-old campaigner who has launched the prosecution bid.</blockquote>Why the spiv has cited Boris rather than the Vote Leave team (or even Dominic Cummings) who actually came up with the slogan, I shall leave to speculation (clue: it's a publicity stunt because Boris is running for Tory leader).<br /><br />Regardless, what we want to know is this: did the Vote Leave team knowingly lie about the UK paying £350m per week to the EU? Or could we prove that they lied? Hmmm.<br /><br />Bear with me here, whilst I look up <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/debit">a definition of "debit"</a>...<br /><blockquote><b>debit</b> <i>(noun)</i>: (a record of) money taken out of a bank account</blockquote>Any normal person would, I think, define "debit" as money leaving a bank account. Because that is what the definition is, yes?<br /><br />Let us now turn to <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/datasets/9geographicalbreakdownofthecurrentaccountthepinkbook2016">the data tables for the ONS Pink Book for 2016</a>, and turn immediately to <i>Table 9.9: UK official transactions with institutions of the EU</i>.<br /><br />This table shows that <i>"Total Debits"</i> (to be clear: their phraseology, not mine) to the EU, in 2015, were <b>£19,593,000,000 = £376m per week</b>.<br /><br />Given our definition of debit, is it reasonable to assume that this money was, in fact, sent to Brussels? Is it reasonable to assume that this money was sent to the EU, and then some given back? Yes, I would say so.<br /><br />The sin of omission, of course, is the credits. The same table shows that <i>"Total credits"</i> were £9,240,000,000, resulting in a negative <i>"Balance"</i> of £10,353,000,000, i.e. that the net payment to the EU is a paltry £199.1m per week (so I, for one, feel much better).<br /><br />In any case, as per standard business accounting, that full amount—the £350m per week—is a liability that needs to be accrued for within that financial year and, even if the money does not actually go into an EU bank account, it cannot be spent by the government until the end of the financial period (when all of the accruals are reconciled).<br /><br />Why? Well, I think that this is illustrated by <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/datasets/9geographicalbreakdownofthecurrentaccountthepinkbook2016">the Pink Book of 2018</a>—which records wildly different figures for 2015. The <i>"Total debits"</i> are much lower, but so are the <i>"Total credits"</i>—giving a net figure that is actually larger than that recorded in the 2016 Pink Book: £10,553,000,000 (only £202.94m per week, net). The point here being that the figures were not finalised even in 2016—we <i>know</i> this because the 2018 balance is different—and so must be accrued for.<br /><br />A pertinent question to ask though, is why the figures are <i>so</i> different between the ONS Pink Book 2016 and ONS Pink Book 2018?<br /><br />Well, you might remember <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/articles/theukcontributiontotheeubudget/2017-10-31">the ONS publishing a clarification about the UK's contribution to the EU</a>, with figures that were wildly different (and lower) than those contained within the Pink Book of 2016. WTF?<br /><br />As it turns out, before the clarification was published in October 2017, <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/fontainebleauabatementcodefkklreclassification">the ONS decided to change the way in which it accounted for the famous rebate</a>—which is in both sets of figures as the <i>"Fontainebleau abatement"</i> line item. Up until 2016, the <i>Fontainebleau abatement</i> appears as a <i>positive credit</i> in the data tables; after <br /><del>the referendum</del> the ONS's sudden revelation in 2017, the <i>Fontainebleau abatement</i> appears as a <i>negative debit</i>.<br /><br />Although the overall balance remains (broadly) the same, the <i>Total Debits</i> for 2015 has now dropped: from £19.593bn (in the 2016 edition) to £14.804bn (in the 2018 edition). And, in fact, according to the ONS statement, a <i>"similar presentational change had also been previously introduced within the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/aug2016">Public Sector Finances</a> published in September 2016"</i>. The timing of which is a lovely coincidence, I think you'll agree.<br /><br />Anyway, in conclusion, what do we think of this court case? Your humble Devil concludes as follows:<br /><br /><ul><li><i>including the rebate</i>, from the ONS's own figures and phrasing, the <i>Total Debits</i> amounted to <b>£19,593,000,000 = £376m per week</b>;</li><li>a normal person would understand a debit as money leaving a bank account—in this case, leaving the UK's bank account to land in the EU's;</li><li>even if this actual transaction did not happen, basic accrual accounting ensures that the full amount of money liable could not be spent by the government: as such, which actual bank account the money was residing in was not important in terms of, say, wanting to further fund the NHS;</li><li>the clarification from the ONS that such immediate bank-to-banks transfers did not happen was not published until October 2017—around 16 months after the referendum;</li><li>the ONS changed the way that it accounted for the rebate—but not until September 2017;</li><li>is it thus reasonable to believe that the <i>Total Debit</i> of £376m per week was <i>"sent to Brussels"</i>?</li><li>I guess we'll find out, but I would say "yes".</li></ul><br />In the view of your humble Devil, however, this court case is a frivolous waste of time and money—and actively dangerous in terms of our democracy.<br /><br />But—hey!—that's Remainers all over: they don't care what systems they fuck up, as long as they get their own way.<br /><br /><b>P.S.</b> In case it comes up (and it will) most payments from the EU to the UK (<i>credits</i>) are irrelevant, really. If someone said to you, <i>"give me £20; I'll give you £10 back—plus you have to skip around, from this day forth, whilst whistling the Chicken Song"</i> you wouldn't do it, would you? Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-63863885953135924332019-03-04T16:20:00.000+00:002019-03-04T16:24:07.902+00:00Reforming politics (1): the state of playWhilst all of politics seems to be devoted to Brexit at the moment, your humble Devil has stated repeatedly (both before and after the vote) that the political and economic landscape of the UK needs massive structural reform.<br /><br />If, as many assert, the vote to leave the European Union was inspired not by the EU itself, but by the many and varied issues facing the country—issues that go way beyond the vaunted “austerity” measures—then, regardless of the outcome of the current (pathetic) negotiations (and regardless of how you voted), it is very much worth looking at what might be done to fix them.<br /><br />The problems come in two interlinked flavours:<br /><br /><ul><li>politically, the UK is hugely centralised—more so in some ways, it has been asserted, than the Soviet Union. This leads to people feeling that their voice is not heard, and to a degradation of democracy;</li><li>economically—outside of London and the South East (and a few scattered cities), the UK economy is moribund at best, and near non-existent at worst.</li></ul><br />Combine a massive population of people who believe that they have very little with a <em>demos</em> that feels it has no power, and history tells us that you will always have an irruption of protest, at best; bloody revolution at worst. (It is why democracy is said to be the <em>"least worst”</em> political option that we have found—because people believe that they have power, even when that power is hugely diluted.)<br /><br />The Leave vote is at the less harmful end of that protest scale—for which we should be grateful. Our tin-eared politicians are, of course, working diligently to prove to population that the UK’s democracy is a sham and that their power is utterly illusory—but let us assume that our lords and masters locate their testicles, and extract us from the EU properly.<br /><br />And then what?<br /><br /><h4>The internal settlement</h4><br />What our trade and foreign policy should be (free trade, obviously) is out of the scope of this post: let us focus, instead, on our internal political settlement.<br /><br />Although I do not necessarily agree with all of the <em>details</em> of <a href="http://harrogateagenda.org.uk/">the Harrogate Agenda</a>, your humble Devil does agree with many of the principles outlined in it—and including Pete North’s assertions that we need to <a href="https://peterjnorth.blogspot.com/2019/02/politics-is-broken-heres-how-to-fix-it.html"> radically decentralise our political structures</a>.<br /><br />But, in the spirit of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence">Chesterton’s Fence</a>, let us look at:<br /><br /><ul><li>how our governance is currently conducted;</li><li>where we want to get to, and;</li><li>why we might have got to where we are.</li></ul><br /><h4>Our current government structure</h4><br />Most cursory students of government will understand our current structures rather similar to this diagram:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F3r7N-JsYPc/XH1PlzkhtMI/AAAAAAAADIQ/s5maIyjEV-Ag1wbHdwuLDHWfxmisoXhnQCLcBGAs/s1600/current-government.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="1536" height="340" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F3r7N-JsYPc/XH1PlzkhtMI/AAAAAAAADIQ/s5maIyjEV-Ag1wbHdwuLDHWfxmisoXhnQCLcBGAs/s640/current-government.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />In the current model:<br /><br /><ul><li>people pay the bulk of their taxes to central government;</li><li>central government is lobbied by think-tanks and quasi-automonous non-governmental organisations (QUANGOs) and Non-governmental organisations (NGOs—<a href="https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-sockpuppet-state-in-action.html">many of whom are, in fact, fake charities or, if you prefer, sock-puppets</a>);</li><li>central government departments administer some of the policies centrally;</li><li>central government actually offloads the vast bulk of the administration of these centrally dictated policies to local authorities;</li><li>most of the time, policies that the government thinks are going to be hugely unpopular are handed off to QUANGOs;</li><li>which, in turn, offload the administration of these policies to local authorities;</li><li>crucially, local authorities have very little policy-making and minuscule tax-raising power;</li><li>and local authorities must then spend their money on enforcers to ensure that cigarettes are suitably hidden behind shutters rather than doing what voters expect them to do, i.e. collect the bins once a week;</li></ul><br />This whole structure is, frankly, crap. Some of the reasons that it doesn’t work:<br /><br /><ul><li>central government makes homogenous policies with little to no consideration of operations (or prices) at a local level; </li><li>with central government often divorced from local pressures, government becomes even crappier than it might be;</li><li>local authorities have almost no power: which means that local people do not engage with local politics. One side-effect of this is that those elected tend to be even more shit than national politicians but, most importantly, people feel disenfranchised from politics entirely;</li><li>central politicians generally like this, as political disengagement means that the electorate are disinterested in examining the myriad ways in which politicians line their own pockets and, frankly, fuck things up through their sheer incompetence;</li><li>civil servants love it, because no one knows or cares just how much they, too, are filling their boots and avoiding scrutiny;</li><li>crucially, with central government making most policy decisions, there is almost no scope for competition—except, of course, between countries (and this is being constrained, as we will see);</li></ul><br />In short, this is a recipe for unbelievably rubbish politics in the short term, and political disaster in the longer term. But, of course, it just gets worse…<br /><br /><h4>Everything is a remix (of sockpuppetry)</h4><br />The corruption of local politics was a central reason for the ever-increasing centralisation of government—especially under the Conservatives in the ‘80s. Further, for Thatcher’s government—fighting wars on multiple fronts e.g. the unions) whilst requiring swift, radical change (to bring the economy back from ruin)—centralising power meant that reforms could be made faster and with less local oversight (but I repeat myself). <br /><br />However, for governments with an internationalist agenda, these reforms also proved fortuitous in other ways.<br /><br />In we take account of structures outside of the UK, the world works rather more like this:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mXGyCrm8X2g/XH1PlwIQoxI/AAAAAAAADIY/0jfWgzOH3CcQF2vB32EdB9W8Os0o136sACEwYBhgL/s1600/world-government.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="874" data-original-width="1536" height="364" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mXGyCrm8X2g/XH1PlwIQoxI/AAAAAAAADIY/0jfWgzOH3CcQF2vB32EdB9W8Os0o136sACEwYBhgL/s640/world-government.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />In this model:<br /><ul><li>supranational organisations—such as the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Health Organisation (WHO), and others—make worldwide policies, which are passed down to national governments or other supra-national organisations (such as the EU);</li><li>these supra-national organisations are paid for by national governments, which often lobby these same supra-national organisations to <em>“force”</em> national governments to do things which their populations do not want. As an example, <a href="https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-are-we-giving-who-so-much-cash.html">the UK is the biggest funder of the WHO (£168m in 2017) and of their Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (3.5m in 2017)</a> <em>and</em> has advocated some of the strictest anti-smoking measures within those fora—the policies of which filtered down into the EU’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Products_Directive"><em>Tobacco Products Directive</em></a> (which, amongst other things, introduced stricter advertising, banned the sale of ten packs and, shortly, menthol cigarettes). The plain packaging was, of course, our own government taking its cue from Australia’s failed experiment. If you don’t remember voting for any of this, you’d be right—you didn’t. And if you asked the government… well… it’s out of their hands, innit;</li><li>at the behest of member states, supra-national organisations aim to <em>“harmonise”</em> as much of life as possible (state-speak for <em>“remove choice from common people”</em>): if you have got the impression that there is essentially no difference between the political parties, this is why. And you wouldn’t be alone—witness the election results favouring <em>“populist parties”</em> (state-speak for <em>“parties representing the concerns of the ignorant, dirty common people”</em>), in the last few years, in USA, Italy, Brazil, etc.;</li><li>so, supra-national organisations hand down (lobbied for) policies to national governments, who pass some legislation (<em>“terribly sorry, old chap: you may not have voted for it, but it’s out of our hands.” [snigger]</em>), and then (usually) pass enforcement down to the local authorities;</li><li>local authorities must then spend their money on enforcers to ensure that cigarettes are suitably hidden behind shutters rather than doing what voters expect them to do, i.e. collect the bins once a week;</li><li>finally, do remember that all of the funding for these supra-national organisations comes, ultimately, from member states’ taxpayers. If you thought that the UK’s central government was unresponsive to people’s <em>local</em> needs, just how responsive do you think the rarified policy-makers of the Geneva-based WHO are, eh?</li></ul><br /><h4>I want to break free</h4><br />In (attempting to) leave the European Union, we are getting rid of one level of supra-national government—and one of the worst. For whilst the policies of the WTO, WHO, etc. depend on countries agreeing to abide by them—and countries can, to an extent, opt out of certain policies—the EU tends to enact those same policies into legal instruments that member states <em>must</em> legally abide by.<br /><br />And one must acknowledge that these supra-national organisations do have their uses: the WTO tries to standardise rules for trade, and push for more free trade by lowering both tariff and non-tariff barriers.<br /><br />But the problem is that, sooner or later, such bodies <em>always</em> become corrupted. The WHO, for instance, has moved from its drive to eliminate real diseases such as smallpox (which it was successful in), to attempting to <em>“eliminate non-communicable diseases by 2030”</em> (state-speak for <em>”anything that might kill you that isn’t a disease”</em> or, in this case, <em>”eliminating death”</em>!): this latter mission means regulating the day-to-day lifestyles of ordinary people which is, and I cannot emphasise this strongly enough, )<em>not the proper business of government</em>.<br /><br /><h4>Central dictatorship</h4><br />These organisations love a centralised government because it makes it far easier for them to implement their increasingly deranged policies—with a centralised modern government there is, as it were, one throat to throttle.<br /><br />And in the UK, central government essentially has <em>all</em> of the power—local people do not really have any representation at all, except for a sham General Election every five years or so. They do not even have the kind of multi-tiered representative structure of states in the USA.<br /><br />This needs to change—and change soon. My next blog post will examine, at high level, what this change should look like and the systemic implications of doing so.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-12862285812224688942019-01-17T22:13:00.000+00:002019-01-17T22:14:07.754+00:00A paucity of vision<a href="https://order-order.com/2019/01/15/geoffrey-coxs-case-defence/">Via Guido</a>, I find <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEvC75XT9l0">this (for some reason) much lauded video of Attorney General Geoffrey Cox making the case for May's subsequently doomed Withdrawal Deal</a>.<br /><br />It is an extraordinary piece. For, around 25 seconds in, the silly sod says this:<br /><blockquote>I believe the opportunity for this House [of Commons] to hold the pen on forty percent of our laws—from environment to agriculture and fishing—should excite us.</blockquote>Really.<br /><br />Uh huh.<br /><br />A whole forty fucking percent?<br /><br />You think that being able to control a whole forty fucking percent of our laws should excite us, you fat fuck?<br /><br />This...? This is your vision of an exciting Brexit?<br /><br />For fuck's sake, no wonder our negotiators have done such a fucking shit job—after all, our Attorney General sounds like he would have got a semi at 5%.<br /><br />Fuck you, you terrible, visionless twat. Fuck you right in your fat face.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-26416972932165232272018-07-25T17:21:00.001+01:002018-07-25T18:00:16.343+01:00Oh yeah? So what has happened for the last ten years, exactly?Over at the ASI, they are posting some of the winning entries of the Young Writers on Liberty. One does not want to put such keen minds off, but there are some slightly odd assertions being made: let us take, as an example, <a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/immigration-is-key-to-solving-the-productivity-crisis">the essay titled <i>Immigration is key to solving the productivity crisis</i></a>.<br /><blockquote>Currently the UK falls significantly behind the levels of productivity in similar countries. Between 1997-2007, average productivity grew by 2.1% each year: only 0.01% behind America. But from 2007-2017, the UK has only experienced an average of 0.2% productivity growth per year, falling behind America, Germany, France and more. The financial crash of 2007 is partly to blame for a decrease in productivity, as experienced by all countries worldwide, however the UK has not recovered as well as other countries and this can be put down to poor policies which do little to boost our productivity.</blockquote>Well, there is very little to disagree with here—our governments have been spectacularly rubbish, for sure.<br /><blockquote>Immigration is a key policy area which will need to be addressed to increase productivity.</blockquote>Oh, rilly? Colour me sceptical...<br /><blockquote>Many overlook the advantages of skilled migrant workers in an economy as it is argued that they “steal jobs” from UK citizens. It is also claimed that migrants are a burden on our economy and welfare system. In reality, migrants do not crowd out employment (the so-called 'lump of labour' fallacy) and many take up lower-skilled jobs that UK citizens do not want to carry out.</blockquote>OK, so we have a definition problem here: skilled migrants, by definition, do not take-up <i>"lower-skilled jobs"</i>—and I don't think that you'll find many people objecting to <i>skilled</i> migrants. But, as <a href="http://www.continentaltelegraph.com/immigration/do-we-need-more-doctors-or-more-patients/">pointed out by Alex Noble at the Continental Telegraph</a>, we need to define our terms and understand what we want.<br /><blockquote>So far so good—we need a supply of skilled migrants for the foreseeable future. Hopefully we can all agree on that.<br /><br />Do we need unskilled migrants?<br /><br />Because when people with no skills come to the UK, we suffer and <i>so do they</i>. They are either forced into crime, fall into modern slavery, or find themselves exploited working on the black market.</blockquote>To return to the ASI article, the conclusion is wrapped up as follows:<br /><blockquote>Therefore it is clear that migrant workers are a vital part of our economy.<br />[...]<br />Policies need to be put in place by our government to allow free movement to continue if our economy is to become more productive. Also we need to allow workers to come into our economy to fill occupational shortages. If we have occupational shortages and no migrants fill the places due to government policies creating a barrier to their entry, we will have failed in boosting productivity and becoming a more diverse, rich society.<br /><br />The bottom line is that a boost in productivity will increase our living standards and immigration is a key factor to helping us along the way. Skilled migrants do contribute to the economy and to a much larger extent than many are willing to accept.</blockquote>Skilled migrants might do—but it is not clear that <i>all</i> migrants do. And I am very far from convinced that becoming a <i>"more diverse"</i> society is necessarily what the British people want: some large proportion of them do not—there are many memes mocking the <i>"cultural enrichment"</i> of this country.<br /><br />But leaving aside the potential damage that <i>"diversity"</i> does to a <i>demos</i>, this argument ignores the progress of the last ten years: a decade during which, apparently, our productivity has fallen off a cliff.<br /><br />Has the last decade seen a notable drop-off in immigration? No, it has not: in fact, <a href="https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statistics-net-migration-statistics/">net migration has pretty consistently increased over the last decade</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TBxcVwrQuAs/W1ifI1cUkjI/AAAAAAAADFk/bNivxRadRD422JwY4hO9VGWzSi2pE2YIgCLcBGAs/s1600/chart.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin:0.4em 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TBxcVwrQuAs/W1ifI1cUkjI/AAAAAAAADFk/bNivxRadRD422JwY4hO9VGWzSi2pE2YIgCLcBGAs/s400/chart.png" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="800" style="width:100%;height:auto;"></a></div><br />So, I am confused: if immigrants are so good for productivity, then why has the last decade seen so little improvement in said productivity?<br /><br />There are a number of possible answers to this question—with the idea that we are counting wrong being one of the more credible. However, let's be clear: productivity is, essentially, a function of output and the hours that go into producing said output. And whilst high-skilled migrants—your computer programmers, etc.—might well boost this measure, a great number of migrants are doing low-skilled, low productivity jobs.<br /><br />Indeed, a number of skilled migrants are doing low productivity jobs—such as nursing. Yes, we need nurses but working in our health service—prone, as it is, to Baumol's Cost Disease—does not increase productivity by any significant amount. In fact, needing to recruit more nurses from abroad is a symptom of the very problem that we are examining—if productivity were increasing in the NHS, we would not need so many nurses.<br /><br />Regardless, I am not convinced—on the evidence of the last decade—that immigration (skilled or unskilled) are the secret sauce to an increase in productivity.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-80420199294632908722018-07-19T08:52:00.002+01:002018-07-19T09:05:10.888+01:00A rubbish fairytaleInspired by this photo, delivered to your humble Devil's Facebook timeline...<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GrJGJbSYTLo/W1BC2E8UHlI/AAAAAAAADFQ/B79i0oeA8IoFCLGTJoosHBZhLw5AfNW6QCLcBGAs/s1600/rubbish-8-billion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GrJGJbSYTLo/W1BC2E8UHlI/AAAAAAAADFQ/B79i0oeA8IoFCLGTJoosHBZhLw5AfNW6QCLcBGAs/s400/rubbish-8-billion.jpg" width="100%" height="auto" data-original-width="960" data-original-height="948" /></a></div><br />And the government of 500 million of those 8 billion people decided that they didn't like all of the rubbish being buried near them. So they imposed a colossal rubbish burial tax onto the waste disposal people, who wept and wailed.<br /><br />"Fear not," said the government of the 500 million. "Just ship it off to some poorer countries with lax standards of disposal, and get them and their children to sort through and to dispose of it."<br /><br />And lo! it came to pass, and everyone was happy.<br /><br />But then the biggest of the poorer countries (which had now become moderately rich) said, "we do not want your rubbish anymore; and we will not take it." So, the rubbish went to countries with even laxer standards of disposal.<br /><br />And, yea, a few years later, the 500 million were terribly surprised that the oceans were full of their rubbish! It was almost as though all the countries with lax standards of disposal had just chucked it all into the sea.<br /><br />What was the government of the 500 million to do? Should they realise that their mining operations created holes more than big enough to take all of their rubbish, and lift the tax on chucking the rubbish into them?<br /><br />But how would they then fund their exotic travel, and high salaries, and gold-plated pensions?—after all, there was barely enough money to pay for those as it was. But then, with the help of some very large environmental organisations, the government of the 500 million realised that they could have their cake and eat it...<br /><br />The government of the 500 million decided that they could keep their tax on chucking rubbish into big holes—but get more money by also putting a tax on the rubbish that wasn't chucked into big holes!<br /><br />And everyone lived happily ever after.<sup>*</sup><br /><br /><small><sup>*</sup> Apart from the poorest amongst the 500 million, who were made poorer—especially the disabled poor people who needed straws to drink through. But then these poor people didn't much like the government of the 500 million, and since the government of the 500 million wasn't elected anyway, the views of these poor people didn't really matter.</small>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-32877764325120848352018-05-05T14:01:00.001+01:002018-05-09T02:47:21.360+01:00The Cuban Health System<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8JDd7aoq95M/Wu2rDxIUQYI/AAAAAAAADD0/h3_dVhjKe6w2SCPOJ3GHsrWM3838LIPNwCLcBGAs/s1600/poster-die-hoelle-190242.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1.6em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8JDd7aoq95M/Wu2rDxIUQYI/AAAAAAAADD0/h3_dVhjKe6w2SCPOJ3GHsrWM3838LIPNwCLcBGAs/s320/poster-die-hoelle-190242.jpg" width="320" height="226" data-original-width="500" data-original-height="353" /></a></div><b>The Cuban Medical system.</b><br /><br />Over at the ASI blog, <a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/are-the-cuban-health-statistics-actually-true">Tim Worstall asks if the Cuban Health statistics are true</a>.<br /><br />I can't comment as to the statistical verisimilitude, but I can provide some perspective on the standard of care—via a junior doctor friend who was sent on elective in Cuba, in the first quarter of this year.<br /><br />People may get treatment, but it is (to be understated) not good: my friend used phrases like <i>"torture"</i>, <i>"gynaecological violence"</i>, and <i>"shocking filth"</i>.<br /><br />Births are often <i>"'induced' by violently finger-banging the mother"</i>; she describes seeing a doctor <i>"up to his elbow in a woman's vagina"</i>; <i>"c-sections performed, and sewn up, without any anaesthetic at all*"</i>; and women <i>"left in agony without even a paracetamol"</i>.<br /><br />There are, really, no drugs at all beyond basic opiates, paracetamol, etc.—and doctors prefer to <i>"wait and see"</i> for days before prescribing even those: the preferred option is to see if the (literally) screaming patient has any family who will bring them painkillers first.<br /><br />Many of the medical procedures and practices that we take for granted in civilised societies are dismissed as <i>"Western propaganda"</i> or <i>"unproven lies"</i>.<br /><br />So, having heard from someone first-hand about the Cuban medical system, I would say that the statistics are highly dubious: and, even if they are true, they hardly paint the whole picture—which would look like something painted by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch">Hieronymus Bosch</a>.<br /><br />Incredibly, I have had arguments with stupid fucking socialists who extol the virtues of Cuba's medical system—useful idiots who uncritically cite WHO statistics whilst having no idea about the reality. These people are either ignorant or lying.<br /><br />Be in no doubt that the Cuban medical system is—like everything else in that poverty-stricken shit-hole—an absolute fucking nightmare. But most enraging of all—as in the rather more recent cautionary tale of Venezuela—it is a nightmare built and maintained by precisely the kind of evil socialist shitbag who refuses to believe that hard socialism always and everywhere leads to poverty and oppression.<br /><br />In other words, the kind of arsehole that supports that monkey Corbyn, and his organ-grinder McDonnell.<br /><br /><b>*EDIT:</b> my junior doctor correspondent would like to add the following corrections and additions...<br /><blockquote>The reason the consultant had his arm inside the woman, as referenced above, was that he was scraping the placenta out.<br /><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarean_section">Caesarean sections</a> <i>are</i> performed with anaesthetic. What I saw was some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episiotomy">episiotomies</a> <i>[essentially, cutting of the perineum to facilitate birth—Ed]</i> without anaesthetic and no pain relief for their subsequent suturing. In this particular case, I had to hold a torch over the woman’s genitals whilst she writhed in pain and begged them to stop...<br /><br />I mentioned paracetamol, not aspirin. I was told that paracetamol would give the patients liver failure. I argued that, at the prescribed dose, it would not: but they still do not use it.<br /><br />The other case I found deeply disturbing was that of a woman, <i>post</i> Caesarean-section, who was lying prone in bed unable to move due to the agony of her surgical wound. She was the <i>“let’s wait a day and see”</i> patient. The doctors said that they would, after a day, <i>“maybe consider tramadol.”</i> She was crying and punching the wall with the pain. She had no TED stockings on and was unlikely to move due to the pain. This increased her risk of post operative blood clots! The medical students told me they were helpless and hated that they couldn’t give her anything. It was therefore up to her family to provide painkillers...<br /><br />Oh, and BTW, you can have as much pain relief if you want. As long as you pay.<br /><br />Finally, to quote a Cuban medical student: <i>“we can do whatever we want. What are they going to do—sue us? It’s free heath care!”</i><br /><br />So much for the socialist model the Cubans say is so fucking great...</blockquote><br />I would point out that my junior doctor friend is very far from being the rabid anti-state healthcare libertarian that I am. But, after two months in Cuba, I think that I detect some slight disillusionment with the wonders of socialised medicine. This is, and particularly from a woman's perspective, the reality of healthcare in this benighted country.<br /><br />Of course, if one is sent to Cuba on an elective shortly before starting a job in the UK (and one of her other options was Uganda), the NHS must seem like the best system in the entire fucking world. A fact that is, I am sure, entirely coincidental...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-81668692588335265612018-04-07T01:22:00.001+01:002018-04-07T01:42:07.117+01:00Why can't the Tories PR?Though they are not a party that your humble Devil whole-heartedly endorses, the various Tory governments since 2010 have not been entirely shit. They have, on the whole, taken actions that support their aims supporting people into work—and that allow more low-paid people to keep more of their own money.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/04/05/remember-grim-days-high-taxes-determined-bring/">Philip Hammond's recent article in the Telegraph spells some of this out very clearl</a>y—especially as regards income tax.<br /><blockquote>Today’s increase in the personal allowance means that everyone will pay less income tax. A basic rate taxpayer will pay £1,075 less income tax than they did in 2010.<br /><br />And the benefits aren’t just for those of working age: from today, pensioners on the full basic state pension will receive an extra £180 a year; the threshold at which young adults start paying back their student loan will increase to £25,000.<br /><br />And we are taking the next step to deliver our commitment that by 2020 parents will be able to pass on a home worth up to £1 million to their children without paying any inheritance tax.<br /></blockquote><br />But part of the problem that the Tories have had—not least in gaining a majority in the Commons—is that they are utterly crap at PR. They simply do not seem to be able to trumpet their achievements, whilst they encourage certain media outlets to focus only on perceived failures.<br /><br />The cause of this is very easily understood once you have read Hammond's full article: three of last four paragraphs (in an article of only 19—that's nearly 16%) are dedicated to bashing Labour.<br /><br />What idiot decided that was a good idea?<br /><br />One assumes that it is someone who has never worked in the private sector. Let me explain why this approach is so stupid...<br /><br />In the private sector, you never bash your competitors by name. Why?<br /><br />Because if you name your competitors you not only acknowledge that you <i>have</i> competitors (rather than being the absolute best), but you also give your potential customers a name to search for—to see if they have a better offer.<br /><br />Yes, you can downplay <i>concepts</i>: I work for a company that makes proprietary software, so we happily point out the downsides of Open Source—but we never cite specific companies who are deploying those solutions.*<br /><br />So, the last four offending paragraphs are as follows:<br /><blockquote>In this way, we will build an economy that works for everyone – but it would all be at risk under Labour.<br /><br />Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, have announced plans that would see debt spiral to more than 100 per cent of GDP, leaving our economy vulnerable to shocks, forcing us to waste billions more on debt interest and handing the next generation an unmanageable burden.<br /><br />Taxes on families and businesses would rise to their highest level in peacetime history – with ordinary working families left to pay the price.<br /><br />Contrast that with the Conservative commitment to building an economy fit for the future based on sustainably rising living standards, low taxes, falling debt and investment in a future we can be proud of.</blockquote><br />The last paragraph is fine, but the preceding ones are terrible. So, in the spirit of Open Source, let me rewrite these sections as I would do it and give it to any Conservatives reading...<br /><blockquote>In this way, we will build an economy that works for everyone—but not every political party takes the same view that we do.<br /><br />It is a sad fact that previous governments’ over-spending means that simply paying the interest on our National Debt costs over £40 billion per year. This is more than the entire Defence budget, and almost as much as it costs to educate every child in the country.<br /><br />We know that this debt has to be paid off. But there are many ways in which we can find the money to do so.<br /><br />As Conservatives, we have chosen to concentrate on our core belief that hard work should be rewarded: that is why we have targeted our tax cuts to benefit the most needy and deserving in our society.<br /><br />Many argue that recent Conservative governments do not care about the poor, but the actions that we have taken at the Treasury simply do not bear this out.<br /><br />The simple fact is that this Conservative government is committed to building an economy fit for the future based on sustainably rising living standards, low taxes, falling debt and investment in the type of society that you have told us you want to see.</blockquote><br />All of the main issues are addressed: the government strategy, the emphasis on work rather than benefits, the achievements of the government in taking less money from the poor, and addressing the democratic issue—brought into sharp focus by Brexit—that it is the voters' issues that matter.<br /><br />At the same time, the phrase <i>"previous governments"</i> allows <i>this</i> government to take issue not only with Labour, but also the Coalition and the Cameron/Osborne government if it wished to do so.<br /><br />And, I believe, that fundamentally the article is more positive—without mentioning the Labour Party once.<br /><br />But, hey—I have no professional degree or qualification in PR: I would be interested in your thoughts...<br /><br /><small>* This is not dirty tricks: if we didn't believe that our own software was better, we wouldn't bother with the expense of a development team.</small>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-60394351944973416562018-03-11T12:51:00.002+00:002018-03-11T13:24:27.787+00:00A certain degree of value<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/10/graduate-sues-anglia-ruskin-university-claiming-ended-mickey/">A student is suing her university</a>, alleging that the course was crap. <i>Quelle surprise</i>!<br /><br />But here is a lovely comment on the situation...<br /><blockquote>Amatey Doku, National Union of Students vice president for higher education, said the fact student complaints are becoming “increasingly common” proves the current system is not working.<br /><br />“With fees now so high, and students accruing such unsustainable levels of debt, it is no wonder that some students feel they have no choice but to demand more from their courses, and to seek recourse if those standards are not met.<br /><br />“This is an obvious consequence of government policy to transform Higher Education into a market, with students pushed into the role of consumers.”</blockquote><br />Students have been <i>"pushed into the role of consumers"</i>, eh? And they have <i>"no choice but to demand more from their courses"</i>?<br /><br />So, what is the implication here?<br /><br />It's pretty clear, I think: students were entirely happy to put up with crappy, <i>"mickey mouse"</i> degrees as long as someone else* was paying for it.<br /><br /><small>* i.e. the taxpayer.</small>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-5479883909499737412018-02-16T22:03:00.001+00:002018-02-16T22:20:29.125+00:00Gunz! Shootz!As usual, after <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-high-school-shooting/index.html">the latest school-based mass murder</a>, there are lots of people screaming about Americans and guns, American love of guns, and general gun fun.<br /><br />However.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/249740/percentage-of-households-in-the-united-states-owning-a-firearm/">Gun ownership per capita in the USA has remained consistent over the last 45 years</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S9JvwgMSguc/WodULNDrWOI/AAAAAAAADCo/U0-YmLA-2oAmMnkzRiJywGaM_PrCC5usQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/usa-gun-ownership-72-17.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S9JvwgMSguc/WodULNDrWOI/AAAAAAAADCo/U0-YmLA-2oAmMnkzRiJywGaM_PrCC5usQCPcBGAYYCw/s400/usa-gun-ownership-72-17.png" width="400" height="255" data-original-width="696" data-original-height="444" /></a></div><br />On the other hand, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/mass-shootings-in-america/">the frequency of mass shootings has significantly increased</a>—especially in the last 10–15 years <i>[information about two thirds of the way down that article: graph reproduced below]</i>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZKeNnNDH_rQ/WodUUxJUDsI/AAAAAAAADCs/I-aJCMr0fbQSC9tzm-0YlHBz4pl_1n-DQCLcBGAs/s1600/mass-shootings-frequncy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZKeNnNDH_rQ/WodUUxJUDsI/AAAAAAAADCs/I-aJCMr0fbQSC9tzm-0YlHBz4pl_1n-DQCLcBGAs/s400/mass-shootings-frequncy.png" width="400" height="220" data-original-width="1037" data-original-height="570" /></a></div><br />Instead of screaming about gun ownership, perhaps we should be asking what has changed to increase the prevalence of people who want to carry out these mass shootings...?*<br /><br />Crazy idea, I know.<br /><br /><small><sup>*</sup> And no, I don't have an answer. I have a few suspicions but, in the meantime, I look forward to opprobrium and the occasional sensible comment.</small><br /><br /><b>UPDATE:</b> <a href="http://blog.squandertwo.net/2015/10/stupid-fucking-gun-toting-yanks.html">Squander Two was saying something similar some time ago</a>. Do go and read the whole thing...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-33814854433446478092018-02-16T19:32:00.000+00:002018-02-16T19:51:36.405+00:00NGOs are learning from the masterAs <a href="https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/2233980/sciaf-charity-dealt-with-two-alleged-child-sex-abuse-cases-oxfam-scandal/">more NGOs</a>—including <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/save-the-children-and-irc-dragged-into-oxfam-abuse-scandal-1.704713">Save the Children</a> (for later) and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5389733/Charity-led-David-Miliband-hushed-sex-abuse-claims.html">the Dave Milipede-fronted International Rescue Committee</a>—are embroiled in sex and corruption scandals <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/12/oxfam-scandal-deepens-allegations-sex-aid-abuse-charity-shops/">in the wake of the Oxfam allegations</a>, it is worth reminding ourselves that these organisations are simply learning from <a href="http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2007/12/pimp-my-united-nations.html">the true masters of pimping and child sex—the United Nations</a>.<br /><blockquote>And the wonderful thing about the UN, you see, if that they are a pan-global organisation so that their staff pimping, blackmailing and fucking kids is not confined to any one area; they get to run their protitution rings on every continent (from May '06).<br />...<br /><br />So, there you go: if you are a paedophile, just go and work for the UN and you too can not only fuck kids but actually get them to bring in a bit of cash too.</blockquote><br />It's simply a case of <i>"everyone else is doing it, so why can't we...?"</i><br /><br />And, thanks to our government's funding, through taxation, of fake charities such as Oxfam, we can go to bed with the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with having paid for child prostitutes.<br /><br />On the bright side, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/oxfam-scandal-charity-to-stop-bidding-for-government-funding_uk_5a872187e4b00bc49f43c667">Oxfam has said that it will stop bidding for government funding (for a bit)</a>.<br /><blockquote>Oxfam has said it will stop bids for Government funding until ministers are satisfied it can meet the “high standards” they expect.<br /><br />The charity received £176m in government support last year.<br /><br />International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said on Friday: “Oxfam has agreed to withdraw from bidding for any new UK Government funding until [the Department for International Development] is satisfied that they can meet the high standards we expect of our partners.”*</blockquote><br />If we defund all of these thieving, child-fucking bastards, the government would probably be able to cut the deficit to zero within months.<br /><br />Stop funding fake charities with our tax money—<b>now</b>!<br /><br /><small><sup>*</sup> No, not <i>sexual</i> partners. Stop sniggering at the back there...</small>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-21644608402963091832018-02-15T19:58:00.000+00:002018-02-16T19:04:46.910+00:00Justice for GrenfellIn order to try to keep up the general hysteria around the Grenfell Tower fire, a pointless group called <a href="https://justice4grenfell.org">Justice4Grenfell</a> has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43073382">pissed away well-meaning members' donations on a great big publicity stunt</a>.<br /><blockquote>Group Justice 4 Grenfell hired three vans with adverts which read: "71 dead. And still no arrests? How come?"</blockquote><br /><i>Au contraire</i>, there have been a number of arrests—and, indeed, convictions. <a href="http://chiswickherald.co.uk/woman-charged-with-fraud-relating-to-grenfell-tower-p7135-95.htm">How about this lady</a>...?<br /><blockquote>A woman who made fraudulent claims for support offered to people affected by the Grenfell fire, has been charged with fraud. <br /><br />Joyce Msokeri, 46 (17.02.71), of Ambleside Gardens, Sutton, will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates, Court, today, Tuesday, 5 September charged with six counts of fraud.<br /><br />Msokeri was arrested on 25 July after making fraudulent claims for support being provided to the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire. She was charged on 4 September.</blockquote><br />Or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/09/fraudster-anh-nhu-nguyen-claimed-family-died-grenfell-tower-jailed">this gentleman</a>...?<br /><blockquote>A serial fraudster has been jailed for 21 months after he pretended his wife and son were killed in the Grenfell Tower fire in a “despicable” attempt to pocket £12,500 set aside for victims of the disaster.</blockquote><br />I grant you that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/02/grenfell-tower-residents-nearby-will-not-have-to-pay-rent-says-council">more arrests should have been made</a>...<br /><blockquote>People who were unlawfully subletting flats in Grenfell Tower will not be prosecuted if they come forward with information about who was in their properties at the time of the deadly fire, the government has said.<br /><br />The guidance has been issued amid fears that the threat of prosecution has prevented tenants coming forward to help identify people who were there on the night of the blaze but may not yet have been reported as missing.</blockquote><br />Still, you can't have everything, eh...?<br /><blockquote>Tottenham MP David Lammy, whose friend, the artist Khadija Saye, died in the fire, has repeatedly questioned the official number of dead as “far, far too low” and said that “failure to provide updates of the true number that died is feeding suspicion of a cover-up”.</blockquote><br />How would David Lammy know? This is a man so stupid that he can't count higher than ten without taking his socks off.<br /><br />Given how much the public enquiry will inevitably cost the taxpayer, perhaps Justice4Grenfell should just shut the hell up and let the vastly overpaid panel get on with the enquiry.<br /><br />Or, if they genuinely give a crap about "justice for Grenfell" use the donated monies to actually help people—rather than concocting pathetic publicity stunts.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10129148.post-1921205878836506822018-01-31T14:07:00.002+00:002018-01-31T14:07:41.182+00:00The art of being wrong: Alison Saunders edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-itRiHL6IQIo/WnHGvBQd2KI/AAAAAAAADCQ/jja8SWJdABMsue7RY0jMiEvzzC3JV4U8QCLcBGAs/s1600/alison-saunders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-itRiHL6IQIo/WnHGvBQd2KI/AAAAAAAADCQ/jja8SWJdABMsue7RY0jMiEvzzC3JV4U8QCLcBGAs/s320/alison-saunders.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="564" data-original-height="423" /></a></div><b>Alison Saunders—Director of Public Prosecutions and unpleasant, incompetent fool.</b><br /><br />After a string of collapsed rape trials caused by the police failing to properly examine the evidence, it is hardly surprising that the DPP and CPS are coming under a bit of pressure.<br /><br />As such, it is only right that the DPP should pop out from under her rock, and reassure the public that the criminal justice system isn't completely fucked. Unfortunately, this is Alison Saunders that we're talking about so <i>[for it is she—Ed]</i>, naturally, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-trials-collapse-no-innocent-people-jail-disclosure-failures-dpp-alison-saunders-police-a8166746.html">she completely screwed it up in a January 18th interview</a>.<br /><blockquote>Britain’s most senior prosecutor has claimed that no innocent people are in prison because of failures to disclose vital evidence, despite admitting there is a “systemic issue”.</blockquote>As the article points out <i>in the very next paragraph</i>, there was at least one innocent person in prison because of these failures.<br /><blockquote>One man had his <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-conviction-overturn-evidence-disclosure-facebook-messages-danny-kay-failure-met-police-a8124241.html">rape conviction overturned last month</a> after serving four years in prison. Judges said Danny Kay would not have been found guilty if previously unseen Facebook conversations were shown to jurors.</blockquote>But let's be generous to Saunders and assume that she meant, since this chap has been released, there are no innocent people in prison because of these failures right at this very moment.<br /><blockquote>Critics dismissed Alison Saunders’ assurance as “impossible” as they follow the collapse of several high-profile rape cases which were undermined by phone messages and pictures uncovered by lawyers.</blockquote>Well, indeed—<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5331961/Engineer-spent-three-months-jail-false-rape-claim.html">as yesterday's Daily Mail highlighted</a>.<br /><blockquote>A teenager suspected of rape spent three months in custody because police did not disclose text messages that proved his innocence, he has claimed.<br /><br />BT engineer Connor Fitzgerald, 19, was arrested last year after a complaint was made against him. <br /><br />But charges were dropped only last week when it emerged that the complainant, who is entitled to lifelong anonymity, had sent texts threatening to destroy him.</blockquote>But what can Alison say in her defence?<br /><blockquote>Samson Makele's legal team said police had downloaded the entire contents of the 28-year-old's phone but failed to fully examine it. <br /><br />Ms Saunders appeared to lay part of the blame on his defence team.<br /><br />"The suspect must have known he took photographs, that could have been raised very early," she said. <br /><br />She added: "How would anyone have known there were photographs there until the defence told us that they were there?”</blockquote>How indeed, Alison. And, of course, this being such an important point, it does seem really very unlikely that the defendant wouldn't have raised this with the arresting police force. So one is led to wonder what the police force did with this information. Well, we know the answer: they did bugger all.<br /><br />The trouble is that Alison has form on this issue, issuing guidelines—and publishing opinion pieces—which are aimed (as far as is practicable in a civilised country) at reversing the burden of proof in rape cases. And we are now seeing the disastrous fruits of her labour—women making false or malicious rape claims with, in the vast majority of cases, absolutely no repercussions.<br /><br />One of the few legitimate roles of the state is to provide a functioning criminal justice system. It is becoming rather obvious that these unsafe rape trials are severely undermining public confidence in said justice system.<br /><br />So, here is your humble Devil's recipe to rectify the problem:<br /><ol><li>in every single case (such as the one below), where the accusation is malicious or obviously false, the accuser must be prosecuted for perjury and, if convicted, given the maximum appropriate sentence (but a minimum of imprisonment);</li><li>the head of the CPS, Alison Saunders, must be summarily sacked (and preferably prosecuted for Misconduct in Public Office);</li><li>every police officer who has failed to disclose evidence should be named, publicly sacked, and prosecuted;</li>the lawyers who failed their clients in not insisting on full evidential disclosure should be severely, and publicly, censured;</li><li>for a limited period, and where perjury has been proven, provide Legal Aid for civil cases of slander, so that the accused can take the accuser to the fucking cleaners;</li><li>the current imbalance in anonymity policy in rape cases must be removed: justice must be done, and be seen to be done.</li></ol>Do this urgently, so that we can restore faith in the criminal justice system.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5