Category Archives: News and Politics

Current affairs, madnesses of government, politics and politicians

Numbers that don’t add up

According to the Guardian newspaper (or more precisely Dr Frances Ryan opining therein)

“In 2018 Britain will be on the cusp of a new era of child poverty. As universal credit, “two-child limit” tax credits and child benefit freezes set in, the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts the next five years will see the number of children living in poverty soar to a staggering 5.2 million (or 37% of all children). That’s the highest percentage since modern records began.

It’s grim enough that a wealthy 21st-century nation has children diagnosed with rickets because they haven’t got enough to eat. But unless something is done this country will lose hard fought for gains: the IFS calculates that, as Conservative cuts set in, all the progress made over the past 20 years will be more than reversed”

However, the Guardian (in another article) states “On average, children are given a {phone} handset at the age of 11 but nearly one in 10 has a phone at less than half this age”, whilst according to the Daily Mail,

“… with 90 per cent of Brits aged 8-14 now owning a mobile phone. Nowadays, over half (52 per cent) of children under the age of 10 also have mobiles, with 10 being the average age that kids get their first phone“

These numbers plainly don’t square, unless a large number of children have an iPhone 7 in one hand and the crust they just foraged from a dustbin in the other.

The issue is almost certainly with on the one hand questionable definitions of poverty and on the other (in the case of phones) with what statisticians call ‘selection bias’. But the responsibility for determining this is left to the reader – the author sees no responsibility to do so in the determination to promote their subjective perspective.

The problem with reporting in most newspapers today is that objectivity, transparency and accuracy has been lost to conveying a message, inevitably spun to suit the biases of the author. Journalism is no longer about facts.

Lyin’ Gove and plastic bags

Loath though Grumpy is to borrow one of Mr Trump’s epithets, he feels that after a broadcast by Michael Gove on the Today Program on 19.04, “lyin'” is the only accurate description of certain of his statements in an interview.

Gove, whose career seems to have taken progressive steps downwards since the Department of Education, is probably bored at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA); the simple fact is that there is very little to do there, since more or less every aspect of its activities is determined in Brussels.

To give some illusion of usefulness, he has now announced a consultation (as opposed to action) on plastic drinking straws and other minor items (hardly world shaking stuff) , but the pinnacle of his political career at DEFRA thus far has concerned plastic shopping bags, in that it was an ‘action’ as opposed to a ‘consultation’ (oh, how managing such trivia must sting…). It is on this topic that this post is concerned.

To the point: Lyin’ Gove repeatedly stated in the interview (available on www.bbc.co.uk) that he had introduced a ban on plastic bags. In fact there is no ban on plastic bags; there is charge per bag in the UK levied by all shops with more than 250 employees, this charge going to the shop. It is inconceivable that the Minister in charge of DEFRA was somehow under the illusion that he had introduced a ban. Hence, it must be concluded that Gove deliberately lied repeatedly on National Radio, presumably with the goal of making himself sound more positive having just been lambasted by the interviewer for merely setting up a consultation (the old ‘long grass’ ploy) on straws.

What is galling is that Gove chose to make these untrue statements betting that they wouldn’t be picked up by either the interviewer or listener. To do that sort of lyin’ requires a certain type of arrogance and disdain for electors. ‘BAD!!!!’, as Trump would tweet.

BBC fake news

In a piece on the BBC web site, Daniele Palumbo & Clara Guibourg, calling themselves ‘Data Journalists’ have undertaken analysis published on this premier news channel of the UK about male and female pay.

However, neither appears to have had any solid grounding in numeracy (both having studied ‘journalism’, ‘humanities’ etc.), which probably accounts for the wording of the article. In spite of the fulsome descriptions of the roles they have undertaken since graduating (per LinkedIn) , neither has managed to hold a job for much more than a year. In fact, Danielle (a male) has managed 25 jobs listed in 7 years, which must be something of a record, and might have the agent at the Job Centre raising his eyebrows should he find himself on the dole.

To the point: the headline in the article is “The vast majority of firms pay men more than women“. This is either deliberately calculated to deceive or very sloppily worded, in spite of Danielle having had an astounding number of jobs as a journalist.

What does it mean? Any rational semantic analysis would conclude that the firms do not pay men and women equally, and this would surely be the interpretation of the casual reader. This is simply and patently nonsense; the law has required equal pay for men and women in equivalent jobs for the last 40 years, and the majority of firms in the land conform with that law.

Lefties (and particularly a group of harpies on the labour benches), Momentum members, feminists and journalists who never progressed beyond kindergarten arithmetic (like the pair in question) all seize this issue to make a point by conflating the Gender Pay Gap with companies somehow having a deliberate policy to short-change the fair sex.

For many reasons, but mostly not of corporate’s own making, the gap is driven by current social structures and norms, in that companies employ more women in lower paying jobs than they do men. It’s nothing to do with “paying men more”

Companies can only do so much. Airlines can employ more women pilots (if they can encourage them to follow the profession), and government (probably the worst offender) can employ more female judges. But in spite of their best efforts, women will have to choose to not have part time jobs, and seek jobs where they might not find the sacrifices needed for greasy salary pole climbing unattractive; then so be it. Ultimately, the Gender Pay Gap will be in the hands of women themselves.

But to the article ? I suspect deliberately worded to be disingenuous, and to send the anti-corporate message so increasing pushed by hacks and politicians. We should expect better of the National broadcaster.

Mumsnet and trans issues

Mumsnet took issue (on 1st April – significant?) with Serco, who provide the Caledonian Sleeper train from Euston to Scotland. Apparently, Serco had said that passengers who were born male but ‘self-identify’ as female could sleep in cabins reserved for women.

Mumsnet members immediately lambasted poor Rupert Soames, CEO of Serco, as they saw it as an open invitation for pervert and rapists to don a dress and share a dual cabin with a woman.

Poor Rupert was caught between a rock and a hard place, and was presumably equivocating between whether to offend the Mumsnet fraternity or transgender rights supporters.

He presumably he came down on the side of the later, as Mrs May, Jeremy Corbyn, parliament and others have all supported removing the requirement for medical evidence of any transition and allowing self-identification by a man that he was in fact a woman. (Yes, the concept baffles grumpy as well, but he hasn’t looked closely into this – TMI)

Theresa May has pledged to press ahead with plans to let people officially change gender without medical checks, as she said “being trans is not an illness and it should not be treated as such”.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and cabinet minister David Lidington have both stated that their parties believe transgender women are women; This included those who self-identify as women.

Women’s Aid has begun the process to allow trans women to work in their refuges based on self-identifying as a woman, rather than requiring a change to their birth certificate.

Finally, Hansard reports the results of a debate on the topic were that “this House notes the UK’s status as a pioneer in legislating for equality for LGBT people; welcomes the Government’s announcement of a new trans equality action plan; and calls on the Government to review its response to the recommendations of the Women and Equalities Committee’s report on Transgender Equality to ensure that the UK leads the world on trans equality rights, in particular by giving unequivocal commitments to changing the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in line with the principles of gender self-declaration and replacing confusing and inadequate language regarding trans people in the Equality Act 2010 by creating a new protected characteristic of gender identity”

I was surprised that Rupe merely didn’t cite these as evidence that Mumsnet members were behind the times, and tell them that they should bring themselves into line with the new mores in society; instead he waffled and got fried.

However, Grumpy’s point is that this is clearly a complex area which arouses strong emotions on both sides, with huge potential to create all manner of unintended consequences. Politicians, however can’t resist jerking their knees (as well as the electorate), pushing populist themes without real thought, and in the case of Corbyn, jumping in so as not to appear regressive and illiberal. Such is the stuff of future problems and presumably cutting the legislation will inevitable mean a few late nights for Civil Servants.

Karen Brady celebrates her dumbness and government spin

The Mail on Sunday allocated column inches (appropriately on 1st April) to Karen Brady, who proclaimed she “cannot be a victim of the BBC gender pay gap – because it’s written into her contract”. She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I get paid the same as Claude Littner, who does exactly the same role as me.’

She revealed in a new TV documentary that she is presenting this week that she has a clause in her contract for pay guaranteeing parity with any man or woman with the same role.

Someone should tell Karen Brady she should have kept her legal fees, because that right has been guaranteed by law for the last 40 years.

Grumpy is rather tiring of writing on the ‘confusion’ (why ??) between the “gender pay gap” and “equal pay”, but it has been skilfully manipulated by the harpies and harridans of both political parties who want to make a feminist, anti-male, point. By conflating equal pay and the gender pay gap, they exploit people like Karen Brady and millions of others who don’t read more than headlines; they can present a facet of the current social structure (as manifest in the gender pay gap) into an example of the domineering unfairness of the ruling male class (equal pay).

It underlines the increasing extent of distortion in the communication of news and policies, made worse by deliberate issue conflation, as in this example, and others in this blog. Ultimately it leads to the usurping of democracy when a political party can no longer win an election through truthful presentation of its policies, but instead is forced to spin, distort, obfuscate and plain lie to gain power.

Pink passport anyone ? weird political logic

A Home Office minister has suggested UK travellers can have any colour passport they wish post-Brexit by simply choosing a cover for it.

Baroness Williams of Trafford confirmed at Lords question time that post-Brexit blue UK passports will be introduced from late 2019. But she told those concerned about losing the old burgundy version simply had to choose a cover that allows “people (t0) have any colour passport that they wish because they just need to buy a passport cover”. Lady Williams said. “I’ve looked at different coloured passports. There are some rather nice yellow ones and there’s one with a picture of SpongeBob SquarePants on it.”

There are 793 members of the UK Upper Chamber compared with 100 in the US equivalent – that’s nearly 40 times as many per head of population . However, if ever there was a proof that size does not mean better performance, this is it. The Lords is bloated, expensive, pompous and senile.

If, as Baroness Williams asserts on behalf of the government, that you can have any coloured passport by simply buying a cover, then by what perverse and twisted logic was it necessary to spend a reported £490m on a new blue version?

For the odd few cranks (probably about the same number who might buy a SongeBob cover?) who identified the colour burgundy as a ‘humiliation’ and the old blue one as representing a ‘national identity’, they could be equally satisfied by getting a blue cover from Tesco for £4.90 instead

Who cares what colour the passport is ? It is this sort of out of touch, gesture driven, trashing of tax payers money that anger citizens. Given we have a government readying the populace to announce a false EU exit because of the insolubility of the Irish problem, it’s simply astounding that this would be anywhere on any priority list of things to do re Brexit.

Simply breath-taking stupidity which insults voters intelligence.

How remoaners distort rationality and truth

Grumpy has never been a fan of The Guardian newspaper, but columnist Polly Toynbee encapsulates everything that is bad about its editorial content. In her column of 12.02.2018, she offer a litany of ills which will befall the country in the event of a ‘hard’ (or even ‘mild’) Brexit, and in doing so displays an astounding level of disingenuous illogicality.

Citing a news piece on which Grumpy has already commented (see ‘Out of work ? Ask a farmer for a job’), she notes “we have learned of fruit and vegetables being left to rot in the fields for lack of foreign EU labour”. Conflating the reason for rotting foodstuffs and EU labour is both illogical and disingenuous.

The carrots are rotting because of insufficient manpower to pick them. There is absolutely nothing intrinsic in the harvesting of carrots (or whatever) which mandates that it can only be done by Bulgarians, or that Romanians are exclusively genetically gifted with the capability to pluck apples. It’s a shortage of manpower with the ability to perform the task, regardless of the origin of same.

Indeed, Toynbee’s analysis (if one can call it such) taken as written, implies that either (a) the Eastern Europeans are indeed generically gifted with such skills, or alternatively (b) that the 1.4 million unemployed Britons are too stupid or lazy to be able to do this. She is deliberately (or ignorantly, take your pick) seeking to establish cause (lack of EU labour) with effect (rotting vegetables) in a manner which lacks any logical credibility.

Instead, Toynbee should be focusing on how it is that of those 1.4 million people getting tax payers funds to sit and watch daytime TV, not even a mere 2.5% of them (to make up the stated 4,000 shortfall of foreign workers) can be persuaded to perform these tasks. The question she should be addressing is the reason for the imbalances in a system which makes it attractive for a Romanian to up sticks and travel from Bucharest for a job, but not for an out of work person from Chatham.

Tony Blair relinquishes sovereignty at the point of a gun

Bishopsgate bomb 1993

Tony Blair warned during the EU referendum that leaving the EU in a manner which would create a physical border in Northern Ireland could disrupt peace on the island, but it appeared that people were willing to “sacrifice peace on the altar of Brexit”.

George Hamilton, the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland has said that any physical border “would becomes a target for violent dissident republicans”. He noted that the threat from “hard line factions still engaged in violence, such as the New IRA”, was severe. He pointed out that last year there were five serious attempts by dissident republicans to kill his officers, including a gun attack in north Belfast that left two policemen wounded.

This is an acknowledgement that twenty years after the ‘peace agreement’ terrorist groups prepared to usurp the state still exist, and moreover, that governments of various political persuasions have been prepared to accept this position for more than two decades. He also noted that many of these groups used the political aims as a “protective cloak” to engage in drug dealing, loan sharking and prostitution i.e. major organised crime.

Blair’s argument for avoiding a border appears to be a response to the threat that unless the democratically elected government of the UK as a whole arranges its affairs in a manner which satisfies a small number of terrorists then the latter will resort to force of arms to murder citizens and destroy infrastructure of the land.

His approach appears to be to capitulate to this threat of murderous violence, rather than suggesting policies which eradicate such threats from armed terrorist groups on our soil. This is in accord with the line taken in the original ‘peace agreement’ process. The Epistle to the Galatians 6,7 comes to mind “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”, with Blair having largely originally cast the grain – no wonder he wishes to obscure the source of this dilemma.